What Are You Missing? August 15-28
1. Blockbuster will finally declare bankruptcy
in September, with the TKO credited to Netflix. DVD sales are also struggling to get off the mat, leading studios to throw their backing behind the upstart video-on-demand.
2. Daniel Engber tackles the “Is the 3-D boom over?” question, and Daniel Frankel tackles the “Is the expensive movie ticket boom over?” question; Patrick Goldstein questions Hollywood’s business model, and David Poland questions Patrick Goldstein; Alex Wilhelm questions why Hollywood is going after advertisers on pirate websites, and Chris Thilk says there’s no question Hollywood should go with location check-in services.
3. indieWIRE profiles indie distributors, Cinematical highlights a theatrical opportunity for filmmakers who haven’t found a distributor yet, Anne Thompson wishes Edgar Wright had gone with an indie distributor rather than Universal for Scott Pilgrim, and Anthony Kaufman wonders what the future of mid-level indie film distribution will hold. Last-minute bonus link: Bill Plympton discusses self-distribution.
4. Paul McGuinness and Robin Millar offer ideas for how to save the music industry, Jac Holzman believes the internet can’t be the enemy, and Tim Anderson says the loss of music retail outlets has been a big blow. But nothing better illustrates the challenge of figuring out how to monetize music today than a wicked diagram of the flow of rights and royalties in the industry.
5. Entertainment Weekly is embracing digital initiatives, while USA Today is stumbling toward them, and many news apps are falling short. Paul Carr considers the possibility there could be ads in our e-books, and Newsweek infographically compares books and e-books.
6. The 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System is 25 years old this year. Jeremy Signor looks back on those wonderful early days of Duck Hunt and Mario, and Tim Latshaw remembers how exciting gaming was as a kid when you could barely afford it. Kids today will be able to look back 25 years from now on the early days of App TV and digital distribution, playing games online, and playing games for college credit.
7. Facebook was in the news a lot this fortnight, for engineers leaving, a new location service, trumping advertisers, possible censorship, trying to trademark ‘face’, and, oh yeah, that movie. And if you love infographics and Facebook, you’ll be thrilled by this.
8. There’s a new Gawker and a new Digg, plus David (of post-dental fame) has a new gig. We’re still waiting on the new Chatroulette (and Erick Schonfeld worked overtime on the puns to get at what went wrong with the old one), and while the web may be dead, so is everything else.
9. The controversial Park 51 community center project in lower Manhattan has a Twitter account; Joe Pompeo introduces us to the man behind the tweets. If you’d like to track real-time Twitter discussions of such controversies, or search them back for months, you’ve now got Google Realtime to help you out. Twitter can also act as a support group, a social payment system, and a cat rescuer.
10. Some good News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: One Million More Households, Levitan & Hulu, Emmy Uncertainty, Online TV News, TV For Rent, Indecency Status, Sorry Cable, TV Alternatives Everywhere, British Media Habits, Apple & Google Compete.
