Hollywood Disrupted

This is a GREAT summary on GigaOm of an LATimes OpEd on the shifting cultural influence between Hollywood and UGC (User Generated Content). The whole article (and the OpEd, I imagine) is a rich illustration of the disruptive potential of New-Media so go read it for yourself, but if not, here are some takeaways:

“All of this has been hastened by the fact that there is now an instrument to take advantage of the social stratifications. To the extent that the Internet is a niche machine, dividing its users into tiny, self-defined categories, it is providing a challenge to the movies that not even television did, because the Internet addresses a change in consciousness while television simply addressed a change in delivery of content. Television never questioned the very nature of conventional entertainment. The Internet, on the other hand, not only creates niche communities — of young people, beer aficionados, news junkies, Britney Spears fanatics {GREENS, cb.]— that seem to obviate the need for the larger community, it plays to another powerful force in modern America and one that also undermines the movies: [digital self-expression]. It is certainly no secret that so much of modern media is dedicated to empowering audiences that no longer want to be passive. Already, video games generate more income than movies by centralizing the user and turning him into the protagonist. Popular websites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, in which the user is effectively made into a star and in which content is democratized, get far more hits than movies get audiences. ...

"At the end of the day, what we’re talking about is the emergence of a new medium with its own art form. And whether Hollywood will remain at the epicenter of future cultural production is the big question. For the first time, Hollywood should be concerned like never before simply by virtue of the fact that, this time, the means of production are now in the hands of the audience itself. What this implies, at the very least, is that the studios will have to increasingly democratize their business model."

GigaOM � Hollywood Disrupted

The Case for Netflix / Mail Order [& Downloads]

Triple Pundit: AskPablo: Is Netflix saving the world?: "The lesson in all of this is that mail order is more efficient than driving your personal vehicle (unless it's a bike).... A study performed for the record label EMI by the Digital Europe Project compared the relative ecological impact of purchasing a CD at a store (which requires driving there), ordering it on-line (from Amazon for example), or downloading the music (iTunes) and came to a similar conclusion as this Netflix case. An even more efficient option is on-demand movies on cable, or movie downloading (which will gain popularity as bandwidth increases)."

New Hot Properties: YouTube Celebrities - New York Times

a good up to date entry level article (with "in-the-know" tidbits) about the state of the economics of the vlogosphere. the "user generated" content (UGC) competition begins.

New Hot Properties: YouTube Celebrities - New York Times

the criteria is no longer between "pro" and UGC, but for dynamic, 3-8 min content that entertains and is prolific. is ZeFrank UGC? is rocketboom PRO? no, and yes, but what makes them popular is the quality of the entertainment, not the size of the studio.

but if a studio were to do it all, well then they would certainly rise to the top of lic.syndication revenue.

How to Get Wall Street to Hug a Tree

ECOnomics, a look at placing value on the environment and uses of it for the presnt and future as a way to perhaps push choices towards conservation by showing the economic insentive of avoiding future disasters!

Virtual loses its virtues

interesting story on second life becoming a corporate environment as it reaches 2 million users...some are pissed off, some are jumping to new virtual worlds and some are just building a world with freaks and corporate biggies..kind of like the bay area these days

Whole Foods to acquire rival Wild Oats for $565 million

WOW! why didnt someone tell me before this was announced

If We Have FREE TV on the Web, Why Should We Pay Cable?

interesting article about p2p vid on web vs cable....looks like we are in the right business...i am looking forward to incorporating a p2p solution/option ofr eq.tv as well

What web 2.0 could teach Warner Music

What web 2.0 could teach Warner Music Eric Bronfman | Web 2.0 Explorer | ZDNet.com

great article on drm and the open source movement. looking forward to having our site be at the forefront of this. lets all stay on top of it!

$25 million prize for greenhouse gas removal: New Scientist Environment

Full Story Here:
"A prize of $25 million for anyone who can come up with a system for removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere was launched on Friday. It is the biggest prize in history, claims its sponsor, Richard Branson.

The head of Virgin Group said at the launch in London, UK, that the prize was not for removing emissions from power plants before they reach the atmosphere and storing them deep underground – an existing technology known as carbon capture and sequestration.

Instead, the brief is to devise a system to remove a 'significant amount' of greenhouse gases – equivalent to 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide or more – every year from the atmosphere for at least a decade. It was inspired by the �20,000 prize for developing a way of measuring longitude won by 18th century clockmaker John Harrison, and recounted in the book Longitude. The $10 million X-Prize for private human spaceflight, won in 2004, was also an inspiration."

Reel Pop: IAC's Diller: Professional content will trump user-generated fare

I think the lesson (below) is that, while the Big Media outlets have a point regarding professional content, nuggets of quality information will be found in UGC that is concerned not with polish but with substance.

EQ.Media offers both: Professional Original Content and High Quality, EQ.TV moderated, User Generated Content.

From: Reel Pop: IAC's Diller: Professional content will trump user-generated fare

IAC CEO Barry Diller say during his keynote that professional content will continue to drive media revenues in the future, not amateur fare uploaded to video-sharing sites.

"The professional talent pool is finite," Diller said during his keynote conversation, adding that the content those writers and actors produce is of greater appeal to and worth more money.

"Professional made content is where this will develop, not the long tail," he said. "It will be the short tail that appeals to a wide audience."

Diller's stance is shared among many network and studio executives, who have often touted their ability to tell and shape quality stories as a definitive measure of their worth, while expressing a cautious interest in user-generated content....

Panelists in a subsequent session on user-generated media argued Diller's stance, with most generally agreeing that choosing what type of video to watch is not a zero-sum game for the audience.

Greg Kostello, CEO of video-sharing site vMix, said that every viewer likes the polish of professional shows, but that we often choose actual content over polish. Drew Buckley, general manager of Yahoo! Studios, argued that editorial packaging is often overlooked in a sea of UGC.

Welcome to the EQMedia Blog.

This blog is intended to share information and thoughts relating to the confluence of New-Media and Sustainability.

There is a Google Reader feed in the sidebar for shared items that we find to be of interest. In addition, articles will share our thoughts on developments in the analog/digital; local/global move toward an ecologically elegant, socially just, sustainable society.