Reddit – Antenna http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu Responses to Media and Culture Thu, 30 Mar 2017 23:48:47 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 What Are You Missing? April 14-April 27 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2013/04/28/what-are-you-missing-april-14-april-27/ Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:00:20 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=19753 elysium-posterA few news stories you may have missed these last two weeks…

1) Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium will become the first Sony film mixed both for Dolby Atmos and for Barco’s rival Auro 11.1 format. Meanwhile, the British theater chain Vue said it is currently “testing” Atmos in its select Xtreme auditoriums, while Barco signed a 15-picture deal with DreamWorks Animation. The two companies are hoping that their products will coexist in theaters so as to avoid an all-out format war.

2) DreamWorks also announced a potentially controversial coproduction with its Shanghai based Oriental DreamWorks and the state-owned China Film Group to adapt the popular Tibet Code adventure novels for the big screen. Jeffrey Katzenberg, however, denies any political motivation behind the project. The Indiana Jones-esque films will begin production after King Fu Panda 3.

3) Quentin Tarrantino’s Django Unchained will get another chance at the Chinese box office after officials pulled the film from theaters within minutes of its initial release on April 11th. The film will re-open on May 12 with several sexual and violent images likely removed.

4) In streaming news, Amazon.com announced it will soon release a set-top box to compete with Roku and AppleTV. Netflix is adding the option for a single account to stream up to four videos at once.  The current limit is two simultaneous streams. Netflix also unveiled nine new posters for their upcoming season of Arrested Development.

5) NBC renews five of its dramas for next season, including Revolution and Grimm. Meanwhile once-popular shows like The Office and Fox’s American Idol hit all-time ratings lows this past week.

6) In cable news, CNN is in talks to add Stephanie Cutter and Newt Gingrich to its reboot of the network’s once-popular Crossfire debate show. CNN also topped Fox and MSNBC in the 25-54 demo during the Watertown manhunt on Friday.  However, Fox bested all of cable programming in total viewership during the week of the Boston bombing, edging out USA 2.87M to 2.62M.  CNN placed third with 1.99M and MSNBC placed 19th with only 923k.

7) Reddit general Manager Erik Martin admitted he deeply regrets how some of the Boston marathon discussions on his site “fueled online witch hunts and dangerous speculation which spiraled into very negative consequences for innocent parties.” Some media outlets have been critical of the way the website was handling the ongoing investigation, though others were more defensive of Reddit’s involvement.

8) In twitter news, the AP’s twitter feed was hacked with claims of two explosions at the White House, causing the Dow to see momentary drop of about 130 points. The Onion‘s twitter feed responded in form, and has had more than 1,000 re-tweets since its posting. None of this seemed to deter Former President Clinton from officially joining the social media site, nor from making the announcement on The Colbert Report.

9) Disney’s slated film adaptation of Stephen Sonheim’s Into the Woods is inching toward including Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp as leads. The company’s theme parks in Florida and California will also stay open for 24 hours on Friday, May 24th in order to offer visitors an all-nighter to celebrate the beginning of summer.

10) iTunes celebrates its 10-year anniversary, and though some journalists called the online music store an “instant revolution,” analysts suggest it is now losing significant market share to streaming services like Spotify.

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What Are You Missing? Sept 2-15 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2012/09/16/what-are-you-missing-sept-2-15/ Sun, 16 Sep 2012 13:44:59 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=15395 Ten (or more) media industry news items you might have missed recently:

1. Twitter has Facebook beat on mobile ad dollars, but Mark Zuckerberg plans to change that. Facebook is also developing new strategies for web ads, including sponsored search results. And in an effort to maintain the integrity of perceived value, Facebook is cracking down on fake “likes.”

2. USA Today has completed a web-inspired redesign, but newspapers are still mired in a world where they’re getting only $1 in digital ad revenue for every $25 they lose in print ad revenue. The Village Voice seems in dire shape, and entertainment industry trades are fighting to stay relevant. Maybe they all need to look at Reddit.

3. The most interesting conversations in the wake of Amazon unveiling its new Kindles involve debates about Amazon’s stated strategy to go for slim profit margins on hardware and reap bigger rewards on the digital goods people purchase to use on that hardware, which is counter to the Apple model. Though early reviews of the new Kindles don’t indicate that it’s an iPad killer, some think Google should at least be worried.

4. The new Wii U console will be available in the US on November 18 (though don’t bother checking Amazon for a pre-order), in Europe a few weeks later, and in Japan in early December. Its price has proved to be controversial, though a price cut will likely come later, and we may even be treated to a console price war over the holidays.

5. Even with the profitability of music streaming still in question, Nokia has launched a free streaming music service for smartphones, and Apple has a streaming radio service in the works that would use your iTunes history to select songs. This would pose a challenge Pandora, which saw its stock plunge on the news. Meanwhile, Spotify is making some changes, with a browser-based version coming soon.

6. After 20 months of investigating and over a million warning letters sent, a French anti-piracy agency now has a conviction to point to under its “three strikes and you’re fined” law: $200 is the price to be paid for two pirated Rihanna songs. In the US, a music-sharer has seen her fine reimposed: $220,000 for 24 songs. And Pirate Bay’s co-founder has been arrested; the penalty he faces is a little bigger.

7. Film (as a format) is dying, with Fuji as the latest abandoner, and studios are trying to adapt, with Warner Bros. especially devoting considerable attention to developing digital media options. Warners hopes that its Flixster and UltraViolet combo will encourage people to buy movies rather than rent, and Fox has similar motivation behind its plans to release digital versions of films before disc versions. A new digital storefront could help UltraViolet, while Amazon Prime Instant Video has gotten a boost from a film deal with Epix.

8. The Telluride Film Festival  marked the start of Oscar bait season, and Ben Affleck’s Argo and the documentary The Gatekeepers left with the most buzz. Meanwhile, the frenzied Toronto International Film Festival saw very active sales, with Lionsgate being an especially aggressive buyer, while Sony Pictures Classics, The Gatekeepers’ distributor, was busy showing off its wares, and documentaries grabbed a lot of attention.

9. The acquisition of AMC theaters by Chinese mogul Dalian Wanda is officially complete, and Wanda is now eyeing other US entertainment purchases. Back in China, the film industry is booming, but tensions with Hollywood are increasing due to import restrictions. China at least wants some Hollywood imports, though, especially those films they’ve got product placements in.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: CBS Threatens Dish, Hurry-Up Problems, NBC is NBCU’s Priority, CBS Adjusts Schedule, Over-the-Top Increases, Netflix Good & Bad, Breaking Bad Story Sync, Colbert & Religion, No New Apple TV Products, Gilligan Interviews, Fall Schedule.

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What Are You Missing? Aug 29-Sep 11 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2010/09/12/what-are-you-missing-aug-29-sep-11/ http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2010/09/12/what-are-you-missing-aug-29-sep-11/#comments Sun, 12 Sep 2010 16:46:31 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=5983 Ten (or more) media industry stories you might have missed recently:

1. This time around, the video game anniversary of note is the Playstation, which has turned 15, and Joystiq celebrates with gifts of not just one but two infographics. This also makes it a good time to ask if classic video games still hold up. We’ll see if Madden on Facebook will hold up. I’m 100% certain The Room Tribute Flash game will; how could it not?

2. The music industry continues to struggle with sales, and while on iTunes music is still central, apps downloads may soon surpass song downloads (though The Oatmeal has a great cartoon about how we really feel when buying apps), and music labels aren’t cooperating with Ping but are cooperating with Google. Maybe Iron Maiden has the solution to the music industry’s problems.

3. Paste Magazine was among the print casualties this fortnight, and Arthur Sulzberger announced the New York Times would be one someday. Right now, newspapers are struggling to maintain their advertising share, and Gawker is beating all newspapers but the New York Times in online hits share, while Vogue is working to make both its print and online sources more advertiser friendly, and Playboy has become more blind-reader friendly.

4. It’s Hollywood summer summary time: summer was slow, attendance was down, ticket price gouging was up, there were summer trends and summer winners and losers, but Kick-Ass wasn’t the loser many first thought.

5. In indie cinema, it’s been a good year for documentaries and a good summer for women in art house seats and behind cameras, but it’s been a tough summer for specialty crossover hits and a tough everything for Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote project. What it’ll be for I’m Still Here is being hotly debated.

6. Redbox hit its one billionth DVD rental, and now it’s looking to a new horizon: streaming. Google wants to compete in that realm too, one that has helped to make Netflix’s CEO a very rich man. Blockbuster actually has an advantage over the others in being able to offering certain rentals earlier, but it might not have the money to market that fact to consumers. iTunes and video-on-demand consumers can see Freakonomics earlier than even theatergoers can, and David Ehrlich believess such a model can actually help theaters in the end.

7. Twitter now touts 145 million registered users worldwide, but still has yet to truly go mainstream. It’s increasingly a key news platform, however (the Ford Explorer verdict story is especially striking), as well as a music industry factor, and for its alchemy with Werner Herzog and Kanye West (or so we presume) alone, we have to be grateful it exists.

8. Jaron Lanier doesn’t like social media forms; Pepsi loves them. Jim Louderback doesn’t like viral videos; Arcade Fire loves them. Nicholas Carr doesn’t like hyperlinks; Scott Rosenberg loves them.

9. The new Digg got criticized by old users and pwned by Reddit users, part of a larger trajectory of decline for Digg, which has responded to its latest problems by firing an engineer and asking users to chill out, while Reddit has responded by preparing for expansion. No matter who claims supremacy, it’s tougher than you might think to measure online traffic. YouTube Instant certainly got a lot of traffic, so much that YouTube’s CEO offered its undergrad student creator a job. Maybe he could help YouTube finally turn a profit.

10. Some good News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: Bordwell Says Don’t Bother, Univision Wins 18-49, Please Don’t Call It a Recap, State of Network News, Ramadan TV, Too Much TV?, Smaller Channel Squeeze, Comcast Charity, Done Deal, Apple & Amazon News, TV the New Cinema?, Emmy Coverage.



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