One of the ancillary selling points of Blu-Ray was the idea of BD-Live, a server based service that would connect Blu-Ray disk owners to online experiences and content updates via an internet connected player. Sounds cool enough for movie geeks, but we have yet to see it in application. Cue weird X-Files theme music… Ok. Looks like [...]
Monday, September 8, 2008
Walt Disney Co. and Universal Pictures will partner to expedite the arrival of digital projection equipment to exhibitors - so says the Wall Street Journal. It’s LONG been understood that this would drastically cut distribution costs and give theater owners much more flexibility. But progress toward achieving it has been slow amid bickering over how to pay [...]
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Jenna Wortham of Wired.com notes some interesting observations regarding the plentiful selection of leaked network pilots that aren’t set to air for another month. We’re not talking about the first episode of According to Jim. We’re talking high profile, high budget shows including Fox’s Fringe and HBO’sTrue Blood. The most interesting part to all of this isn’t the leaking. [...]
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Well well well, look who’s the new stud in town. Not content with one streaming partner, Netflix today announced the fruits of its LG partnership. This fall is shaping up to be a big one for Netflix customers as they will soon be able to stream over 12,000 SD movies through a new LG Blu-Ray player. Looks [...]
Mon, Dec 22, 2008
If you’re a frequenter of this site, you know we love Pandora Internets Radio. It’s the best.
We are happy to further spread the news that Pandora has reached 20 million registered users.
Out of that 20 million, apparently 8 million are still frequenters. What’s up with you lazy 12 million?! You too busy on IMEEM listening to shitty Britney Spears records? Pandora doesn’t need the likes of you. Pandora is for people that like music not Britney Spears.
Mon, Dec 22, 2008
We just read a new article today, you’ll never guess what it said.
It said that, in fact, the YouTube video game channel was very important for marketing video games. Apparently, people making video games have discovered that they can go to YouTube, make videos about their video games and reach a large audience with these, largely for free. And that, you’ll never believe this, that these viewers, after having watched the videos, will sometimes want to purchase the game that the video was about.
Really?
We hadn’t heard that one.
Perhaps we at Big Small Time are just way too plugged into the new media ethernet port of the internets, but sort of struck us as common sense. Much the same way we would react had we turned on the television and seen the news anchor tell us if we stop breathing we would die… and that this story is breaking news.
We suppose that for some of you, this type of information is in fact quite new. So, there you go, consider it reported.
Joking aside, viral marketing is really our favorite form of marketing. It’s selling you something without pandering for the most part, it’s a crazy video, it’s a funny video, it’s something other than, look at this product you need to own… it just has a product associated with it. We like this one:
Thu, Dec 18, 2008
News has hit the internets that New York governor, David Patterson, you know, the blind one that can’t take a joke, has proposed legislation for New York that will tax all downloadable content.
This includes games, movies, ebooks, music, photographs, text files, you name it. If it can be downloaded, New York wants money for it.
Luckily for you New York City readers, your mayor Bloomberg opposes this legislation so the chances of it passing are fairly slim.
Our guess: Patterson’s just pissed because, outside of music, he pretty much can’t enjoy downloadable content. And if he can’t enjoy it, no one can.
Wed, Dec 17, 2008
Look at this picture and imagine the possibilities:
That’s a windows mobile device running Pandora Internets Radio. The best internets radio on the internets. We don’t have much to say other than hooray for windows mobile devices and hooray for Pandora.
Thu, Dec 11, 2008
Number one. Know that what you are about to see is awesome. And that this dad is awesome.
Number two. Go here now.
Number three. Wish that your dad had been this cool.
We are very happy that the internet gives people like this a chance to share their work with the rest of the world. Seriously. What the fuck gallery would put up shit like this? Not fuking one. Because galleries are for snooty assholes. The internet is for stuff people actually like.
Thu, Dec 11, 2008
You read correctly.
For those of you who have been asleep, in a third world country, or worse, DEAD for the twelve years or so, a little Cambridge Massachusetts company called Harmonix has been putting out what could only be described as the best music games ever for video game consoles the world over.
They put out such games as FreQuency and Amplitude, and had achieved a mild level of success. But their shit didn’t really blow up until Guitar Hero. The rather ubiquitous rock and roll rhythm game that has taken the world by storm in recent years.
Well, Guitar Hero was bought up by video game mega-publisher Activision and it has since started to suck ass. Meanwhile, Harmonix, with a little help from MTV games, has been making Rock Band. The ridiculously successfuly follow up which features pretty much every instrument you’d want in your rock band outside of keyboards.
Well, for the last year or so, Harmonix has been cranking out weekly updates of Downloadable songs for players to purchase off the internet and play like mad. We know. We own a bunch of them. Their current total is 345 individual songs with more on the way. At last count in March of this year, Harmonix’s song download total had reached the lofty heights of around 6 million downloads. That’s pretty good.
But new numbers have just hit the news wire. 28 million.
28. Freakin. Million.
This level of downloading could really be prompted by one artist… Yngwie Malmsteen. And there are no less than 3 Yngwie’s Rising Force songs for your classical shred metal enjoyment. It could be Jimmy Buffett too we suppose… But there’s no way to be sure.
So kudos to you, Harmonix. Your ability to sell downloadable content reigns supreme.
OH! You can also get them to send you action figures of the band you create. No shit. It’s fucking awesome.
Thu, Dec 11, 2008
Along with many other things, most of which are much less virtuous, the internet can actually be a source of inspiration, education and fun. Take the video below from State Journal Register cartoonist Chris Britt.
Chris Britt - Cartoonist from Justin Fowler on Vimeo.
It’s good, right? It’s a nice little bit of inspiration and it’s cool to watch people draw.
Yeah, it’s just sort of a web find, but whatever.
Thu, Dec 11, 2008
Fresh off of it’s FCC clowning, Comcast has emerged from its room with red, tear soaked eyes and a pouty face. It swears it had its bag packed and had figured out how to run away to New York, but instead it thought better of it and really searched itself. And here’s what it came up with.
WE LOVE P2P! Well actually P4P - a new experimental file sharing system based on the same structures that Comcast tried to chase off their networks with flaming torches and pitchforks.
The rest of this story is obvious. P(whatever)P is actually a good thing. It will INCREASE speeds and DECREASE traffic - basically the only thing ISP’s should be trying to do. A great example is Vudu, who utilizes a P2P system in their own proprietary way to enhance the user experience.
This is just another lesson in old minds having to creak and crack themselves open to realize that not all technology has to be used for pure evil.
Today Vudu announced a “Sumer Special” including $0.99 renewals for expired rented movies. Not sure what they mean by “special” since summer is certainly reaching its last days.
But the real issue here is the fact that they have to get creative to work within the medieval torture device that is the studios’ short-sighted requirements for their content’s distribution.
30 days to watch? 24 hours to finish? No matter how many lawyers bark at us, it still makes no sense. We get that there is liability in renting movies digitally. But if we can keep our Netflix rentals basically until we or DVD dies and watch as many times as we want in the meantime, why can’t we have similar capabilities on our Apple TV and Vudu? Clearly it’s WAY harder to do anything nefarious with these devices than oh say, upload our rented DVD of Norbit to BitTorrent.
So what gives?
Mr. (insert studio chairman name here) TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!
So to speak.
We have to go now, we have twenty more minutes to finish half of Lawrence of Arabia.
Are you sitting down? Ok, we don’t know how to tell you this - so we’re just going to tell you. The FCC is being contradictory. We know we know, it’s shocking. But it’s the truth.
In a landmark moment in talking out of both sides of its mouth, the FCC thankfully condemned Comcast’s attempts to slow (i.e. completely block) subscribers’ access to services like BitTorrent…sort of.
According to Comcast, just 6 percent of subscribers use about 78 percent of the company’s bandwidth while participating in (mostly illegal) file sharing. Easing the bottleneck in the network would speed up all customers’ connections. But the implications here clearly do not justify the end goal.
And the FCC agrees, kiiiinda. The dissent was strong in the 3-2 vote, with every voting member submitting their own confounding written opinion. The center of this issue is not a question of piracy, but rather net-neutrality. The idea that a company should not and can not police how its customers use the internet. This is a freedom of speech issue for both sides - plain and simple.
But guess who doesn’t give two feces about freedom of speech?
Yup, Hollywood.
Variety reports, The MPAA’s response to the vote was measured. MPAA chairman Dan Glickman said in a statement that the org would have to analyze the FCC’s order to determine its “practical impact on the ability to protect content online.” Glickman emphasized that the MPAA believes “allowing ISPs to address capacity and piracy abuses is the best way of providing consumers with a dynamic, content-rich broadband experience.”
Gee, Mr. Glickman - those are awfully nice BS waiters you got there.
But seriously folks, as pissed as we are that we can’t download our LEGALLY purchased iTunes movies as fast as possible because some over red-bulled jackass is burning up the tubes downloading torrent porn and pirated copies of The Dark Knight in Chinese…we must take a deep breath and remember - freedom should be total and private companies can not be permitted to pick and choose what we get to do and say, especially if we are paying for it.
Luckily the FCC barely made the right choice here, but we’re certainly not off of this most slippery of slopes just yet.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
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