Mad Men: Old-to-New-Media Recursive
Posted on October 4, 2011
During each of the past four years AMC’s Mad Men won the outstanding drama series Emmy, which the TV industry’s version of “Best Picture” Oscar.
Mad Men is set in the 1960s at a fictional Manhattan advertising agency. Viewers appear to be attracted by the cultural representations as well as the drama per se. Era-specific news and events are plotted into episodes. Realism is aided by using era-specific media records to exhibit such events. One example is the unexpected murder of Lee Harvey Oswald on live monochrome television. Another is a movie clip from Bye Bye Birdie featuring a youthful Ann Margret at her voluptuous best. Popular books, novels, and rock-music from the 1960s are often included.
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For those old enough to remember the sixties such media integration creates a feeling of déjà-vu. It draws us into the show with a powerful gravitational-like attraction to which our consciously unaware. For such viewers Mad Men becomes a recursive experience — like looking at images reflected in two parallel mirrors.
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Netflix - Only Yesterday
Posted on September 20, 2011
Just last month Columbia Business School professor, Jonathan Knee wrote in Atlantic Magazine.
“Netflix…engenders fierce (customer) loyalty…even beating-out reigning champion Apple, among 528 other brands…Most observers expect the company to have over 30 million subscribers by the end of the year. Netflix is the rare aggregator…which (excels) in customer service and (product perfection) by harnessing customer feedback.”
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Since Knee’s month-old accolades, Netflix management announced (1) a 50% reduction in projected third quarter subscriber growth, (2) an apology for prompting a million customers to abandon the service in response to price changes, and (3) a formal division of company’s services into (a) streamed video and (b) postal delivered DVDs. Read more…
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Mad Men’s YouTube Chain Reaction
Posted on June 16, 2011
Special note. – Links to excerpts from copyrighted motion pictures provided below are all from legitimate sources. Since they get less traffic than YouTube, there’s normally a slight delay before the video plays, but once started it normally proceeds without buffering.
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A couple of years ago an episode of AMC’s hit TV show Mad Men included an excerpt of a youthful Ann Margret in a sexy performance of the title song from 1963’s Bye, Bye Birdie. The enticing clip prompted a number of posts to YouTube where the most popular one remaining has been viewed half a million times.
Apparently, nostalgia triggered a chain reaction resulting in YouTube uploads of other popular songs including Birdie’s swoon-inducing Honestly Sincere and the gossipy Telephone Hour. Eventually the entire movie got uploaded. It must be watched in a series of ten minute segments, but the interruptions are less annoying than regular TV commercials. I was able to view the samples and as well as the complete motion picture on my TV-set owing to a YouTube-compatible TiVo.
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The experience initiated a personal reaction-train as I began to recollect other Ann Margret movies from the era. At the top of the list was The Cincinnati Kid staring the iconic and nostalgia-amplifying Steve McQueen. At first I could only find YouTube clips, but finally located the whole movie in a series of eight 14-minute segments. Read more…
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Why YouTube Beat Viacom
Posted on August 1, 2010
Our guest today is Jim Burger who is a copyright attorney with Dow, Lhones in Washington, D.C.
Three-and-a-half years ago Viacom asked YouTube to “take-down” 100,000 unauthorized postings of Viacom-copyrighted content. YouTube complied completely within a day. A month later Viacom filed a complaint in the Southern District Court of New York seeking statutory damages against Google (YouTube’s parent) for copyright infringement. Copyright statutes specify that damage awards can be as much as $150,000 per violation thereby representing a potential Google vulnerability of $15 billion. Viacom owns Paramount Pictures, Comedy Central, MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, BET, and similar media properties.
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The court selected by Viacom is traditionally sympathetic to copyright holders. But in June it ruled decisively in favor of YouTube. Read more…
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Future of Cultural Programming
Posted on June 7, 2010
Phil Leigh
Last year Michael Kaiser of the J.F.K. Performing Arts Center lamented that Arts Programming was vanishing from TV. Since most PBS stations lack the money for quality recording of local performances, he concludes that PBS should reorganize. Instead of relying upon local affiliate productions, he prefers that the parent organization “determine the best in American arts and fund its broadcast across the nation”. Presumably that means PBS must reduce its financial contributions to affiliates, or get Congress give more than the $400 million it presently donates annually – 90% of which passes thorough to local stations.
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Like many leaders of slowly changing businesses, Kaiser fails to recognize how fast the Internet already shifted the ground under his feet. While focusing on PBS and taxpayer subsidies, he neglects to notice that a critical mass of top-quality cultural programming already populates the Net. One example is YouTube which provides three advantages over conventional television. First, it’s free. Second, viewers may watch at anytime instead of designated broadcast times. Third, it’s searchable. Read more…
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Apple, Occam’s Razor, and Adobe Flash
Posted on April 15, 2010
Phil Leigh
In the 14th century William of Ockham originated a logic principle later known as Occam’s Razor. Boiled down, it concludes that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is usually the valid one. For example, although Ptolemy’s geocentric model predicted planetary locations with reasonable accuracy, it was much more complex than the valid Copernican heliocentric model. By implication the Razor endorsed the Copernican model and even anticipated it by 100 years. Similarly the principle implies that Oswald acted alone, President Harding died of natural causes, and that Special Order 191 was lost through carelessness and not espionage.
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Adobe’s Flash format accounts for about 80% of Web video, including YouTube. The only reason we can watch YouTube on our iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads is because the videos play through a special application. But when we visit websites containing Flash videos and advertisements with such devices, we simply can’t see them unless the hosting websites created special applications enabling them to play. That’s the principal reason a year ago that Inside Digital Media started using the YouTube player to exhibit the videos we record and post at our website. The situation is further complicated by the fact that video podcasts must be in yet another format favored by Apple, because podcasts are downloaded while Flash typically is streamed. Read more…
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Television Obsolescence
Posted on March 29, 2010
Phil Leigh
Television industry incumbents often assert that Internet Video is an impractical alternative for conventional television for two reasons. First, they argue that Internet video distribution is presently a money losing business and is likely to remain so for many years. Second, they claim gigantic investments in network infrastructure are required before the Web can reliably deliver video to television-sized screens.
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While such statements are not without basis, they are invalid for two reasons. First, they are exaggerated beyond the point of relevance. Second, they ignore the offsetting advantages of Internet distribution. Read more…
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Television of the Future
Posted on November 28, 2009
If you want to learn what the future of television will look like, this video podcast is for you.
Despite recent publicity about favorable consumer response to services providing only limited Internet Videos at our TVs, ultimately nearly everyone will demand unlimited Internet access on televisions. Services like Amazon-Video-on-Demand, iTunes, and Netflix Watch Instantly via devices such as TiVo, Blu-Ray Players, and Xboxes are merely going to whet consumer appetites for unrestricted Internet access on TVs. Read more…
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