It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It's my partner. | | | | Does the name 'Kevin Flynn' mean anything to you? What's exciting about OTT video isn't the way it's delivered, but how it will change content itself. "Tron" (1982).
(Disney) | | | | | | “It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It's my partner.”
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| | rantnrave:// Last week was a big one for the media business. The streaming wars are heating up and it was DISNEY’s week with their investor day and the unveiling of some details around their new DISNEY+ service. The street applauded and fans are excited. Even skeptic RICH GREENFIELD noted: "Disney is doing “'the right thing.'" There’s also a lot of talk of whether these legacy media companies know what it takes to compete in this space. From investment to user growth to product. FRED WILSON had a great post about the latter. In “Functionality Vs Content,” he points to some great research from the smarties at MOFFETTNATHANSON. It shows 8 top reasons why people have a NETFLIX subscription. The audience loves the content. Obviously. But that’s not the main reason. It’s the product. The functionality. And in world where the legacy media companies believe content is king, there could be some dangerous strategic missteps in not taking product seriously. The audience wants control. USV’s ANDY WEISSMAN covered the importance last year in his post, “Control.” MATTHEW BALL wrote about product extensively in REDEF ORIGINAL, “Netflix Is a Product & Technology Company (Netflix Misunderstandings, Pt. 2).” NETFLIX's product expertise is at the heart of everything it does, including why and how it makes its original content. This culture is easily overlooked and doing so can be fatal. Netflix is as much a tech and product company as FACEBOOK, GOOGLE or AMAZON. To this point, we think what's exciting about the future of OTT video isn't just the way it's delivered, but how the product and technology can change the content itself. Innovation to date has primarily focused on content delivery: on-demand viewing, ad-free experiences, binge releases, recommendations, auto-play, etc. But the next era is about what happens “After Autoplay: 'Interactive, Personalized & Immersive' Entertainment”… The best television shows are like a really good layer cake. Every bite. Every layer. There’s flavor everywhere. Cake. Icing. Some tasty morsel for you to savor. The best layer cake on TV right now? It’s got to be BILLIONS. It’s a show about power, greed, trust, competition, loyalty, ego, friendship, family, and loneliness. And with that a set of great characters who all get their own arcs at some point. It’s easy to eat. They seem to have 2-3 finales a season. It moves fast. You eat it up. It’s got some camp. It’s got soul. And lots and lots of layers. Yes, I watch for the stories. But I also watch for music supervision. BRIAN KOPPELMAN, DAVID LEVIEN, and team pick every song. And their taste in music is stellar. I SHAZAM the show and then add those tracks to SPOTIFY. I watch for all the who’s who cameos of famous NEW YORKers (When do I get a cameo?). I watch for the locales, especially the restaurants. Last SUNDAY, they opened up at UNA PIZZA NAPOLETANA on ORCHARD STREET. The pie looked so good I went there with LIZ last night. Chef ANTHONY MALGIERI is an artist. I watch for the pop culture references from sports, tv music, and movies. It’s all this flavor that makes "Billions" a great layer cake. Do yourself a favor if you haven’t already, get a slice on SUNDAYS at 9 pm on SHOWTIME… Happy Birthday to TAMIE PETERS THOMAS, JOSH KOPELMAN, JESSI HEMPEL, JENNIFER LAPTOOK LATOURETTE, and VY PHAM. | | | - Jason Hirschhorn, curator |
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| What's exciting about OTT video isn't the way it's delivered, but how it will change content itself. | | |
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| In an unmissable talk, journalist Carole Cadwalladr digs into one of the most perplexing events in recent times: the UK's super-close 2016 vote to leave the European Union. | | |
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| The streets of Davos, Switzerland, were iced over on the night of January 25, 2018, which added a slight element of danger to the prospect of trekking to the Hotel Seehof for George Soros' annual banquet. | | |
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| Adventures in Consumer Technology |
| The special internet standard and its arbitration system. | | |
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| Intuition is a big word for Frank Ocean. It’s been a guiding star in his uncharted course to success. His trust in it has led to various awards, beloved albums, even a surprise magazine filled with two years of globetrotting adventures. | | |
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| If you live in the West and parts of Asia and Africa, you take the Google Maps app everywhere you go, stuffed in a pocket or clutched in a hand. And its Whether Google Maps becomes the next super app may depend on whether users really want a do-it-everything app, and the mood of regulators. | | |
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| The workout giant is changing at-home exercise - and spawning a flurry of copycats | | |
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| The deal turned Fox into a powerhouse. | | |
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| Globe-trotting landlords can avoid vacancy taxes by renting. It’s the latest twist for a housing market down 8.5% from its peak. | | |
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| Private Facebook groups have been a respite from online toxicity, even as the social media giant continues to suck at combating misinformation and abuse. | | |
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| And the young, brilliant professor who made them before he died. | | |
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| A 1962 Justice Department memo offers a rare glimpse of the legal rationale for covert warfare. | | |
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| There’s no algorithm for creativity yet, Sapan says on the latest Recode Media. | | |
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| Directors Guild Of America |
| James Cameron and Jon Favreau, who have made it their business to push the cinematic medium beyond what was previously possible, exchange views on cutting-edge technology, their roles as directors and achieving the balance between emotion and spectacle. | | |
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| Growing up in suburban New Jersey, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige was obsessive about watching movies. "I used to keep a journal, and I'd write down every movie that I saw and where I saw it and how many times I saw it," says Feige. "I'd record what the sound system was like. | | |
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| How the K-pop craze took over. | | |
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| Facebook’s leaders seriously discussed selling access to user data - and privacy was an afterthought. | | |
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| Ma Chao has won awards for his full body tattoos depicting swashbuckling outlaws and heroes from ancient Chinese literature, mythical creatures like dragons and phoenixes and auspicious symbols such as koi fish. | | |
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| The Fisher-Price sleeper has been connected to at least 32 infant deaths, according to Consumer Reports. | | |
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| Always-streaming reporters, a searchable past, and new internal tools and external products: 5G will have a big impact on news, just as previous-generation networks did. | | |
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| Tales of deception from all sides of a con: scam victims, scam baiters, and the scammers themselves. | | |
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| No longer simply the country music capital of the world, the city is expanding rapidly -- but its unique culture is feeling the strain. | | |
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| © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group |
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