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BBC Worldwide joins with Microsoft for VoD service

Valerie | 31 Jul 2009, 06:00

(Guardian)

Microsoft has moved into the online television market by signing a deal with BBC Worldwide and All3Media to offer, free, up to 60 popular shows in their entirety via its new MSN Video Player service, the Times reports.

Internet TV streaming is becoming increasingly popular, particularly in the UK, where the BBC iPlayer catch-up service regularly deals with over 40 million programme requests per month.

Looking to fill the void left by the defunct Project Kangaroo and stealing a march on rivals such as Hulu which is due to launch its VoD service in the UK later this year, Microsoft’s move is the latest in the escalating battle over how people watch television over the internet.  Last month, broadcast company Arqiva joined the market by confirming its acquisition of Project Kangaroo.

However, unlike the advertising free iPlayer, which is funded by the TV licence, the MSN Video Player will be a commercial project. Half-hour programmes will be preceded by short commercials, while programmes of one hour or longer will be interrupted by a commercial break. The service will only be available to viewers in the UK.

Some experts believe the system could do for TV what free music service Spotify has done for online music, and attract millions of users.

Tom Dunmore of Stuff magazine said:

“If Microsoft do it right, this could be the Spotify moment for TV. However, the key is the content, and you’ve got to compete with the iPlayer, which is a hard thing to do.

“Microsoft also needs to make sure they can attract enough advertisers, or the entire project will fail. But there is no doubt people are now used to watching TV on their computer, and that this is going to be a huge market.”

Orange, Universal and Channel 4 launch music service

Valerie | 30 Jul 2009, 14:17

(Pocket-Lint.com)

Orange has announced it is teaming up with Universal Music and Channel 4 to offer a music streaming service which it hopes will help combat piracy.

Dubbed ‘Monkey’ and targeted at the youth market, the new service will give pre-pay customers unlimited access to tracks from Universal Music’s extensive catalogue and let them play them on pay-as-you-go mobile phones for the first time.

According to the group beyond the venture, the service fills a gap in the market, where young people want access to music but don’t want to pay for it.

Orange UK’s head of Pay As You Go, Pippa Dunn, said anyone could join the new tariff but it was designed to lure 16 to 24-year-olds away from illegal online file-sharing:

“We wanted to find a legal way for them to get free music but ensure that the artists get paid for their work.”

Mark Little, principal analyst at research firm Ovum, thinks the move is a budget version of the deal Spotify is hoping to sign with Apple and Google:

“Spotify is still waiting to sign with Apple’s and Google’s high-end smart phones that targets a slightly older, wealthier consumer. Orange is looking to pop free music into the pockets of the most cash-strapped youth market with the objective of growing pay-as-you-go.“

Spotify weighs up business model with new iPhone app

Valerie | 29 Jul 2009, 10:00

As the Times reports, Spotify is, at the moment, “probably the hottest web start-up to come out of Europe since, well, forever”, with its all-you-can-eat free music service and two million users in the UK alone. 

It is all the more interesting then that the company has submitted its mobile application to Apple’s App Store meaning that an iPhone version could be launched within days. A compelling streaming music service on Apple’s device could cannibalise iTunes Store downloads and effectively render the business of buying individual songs obsolete. So, the Times asks, is Spotify a real threat or more like YouTube — a popular service in desperate search for a business model?

Speaking to PaidContent, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek confirmed the submission:

“We’ve a great relationship with Apple, think the iPhone is awesome and absolutely expect them to approve the app in the next few weeks. Apple has already approved several other music services such as Last.fm, Deezer and Pandora.”

Ernest Doku, from mobile phone comparison site Omio believes it could be a significant move for Spotify if the application is approved:

“The problem Spotify has faced so far is how to turn free users into premium subscribers.

“By providing music on the go, this would finally give Spotify subscribers an incentive to splash out for the service.”

The app will only be available to Spotify’s premium users – those who pay a £9.99 a month subscription fee to be able to listen to songs advert-free.

The Guardian notes that Apple might be more open to approving Spotify’s application because it is in talks with music companies and could be bringing out its own streaming music service.  With advertising supported businesses coming under pressure during the recession, providing such value-added services could help Spotify to survive and add more paying customers.

As CNET points out, with or without Apple’s approval of the Spotify mobile app, there are still some reassuring signs that the Spotify desktop client will hit the US before the year is out, a new unchartered market for Spotify, which could see another shake up in the online music landscape.

C&binet forum to showcase international creative talent

Valerie | 29 Jul 2009, 07:56

In recognition of the vital importance of creative entrepreneurs to the development of a sustainable and competitive creative economy, the British Council is collaborating with c&binet to celebrate the crème of international creative talent at the forthcoming c&binet forum in October.

Four international Young Creative Entrepreneurs will be selected from the British Council’s YCE Programme to attend the forum and showcase their creative talents. The YCE programme celebrates the skills required by young creative entrepreneurs (aged 25-35), develops new training opportunities, offers new tools for career development, and stimulates opportunities for collaboration and product/project development. Those nominated will have the opportunity to showcase their ideas, network with leading creative business figures and investors and be part of an event that will discuss issues and challenges that will shape the future of the creative economy.

‘Developing Talent’ is a key theme for the c&binet forum, which will look at how we can create opportunity for the next generation of creative entrepreneurs to ensure that the creative industries attract and develop the best talent.

£45 zombie film to receive cinema release

Valerie | 28 Jul 2009, 07:05

A horror film made for just £45 on a camcorder is to be released in cinemas after impressing a distributor, the BBC reports. 

The flick, entitled Colin, was recorded on a camcorder and shot in Wales and London over 18 months by amateur filmmaker Marc Price by persuading actors and make-up artists to take part for free.

C&binet recently reported on the opportunities opening up for amateur film making driven by new technology but the challenge has been getting around the absence of a large, well oiled publicity machine which often dictates whether a film gets seen or not.

The film, which charts the progress of Colin, a man who is bitten by a zombie, dies and is resurrected as one of the flesh-eating un-dead caused a stir when it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and its cinema release is sure to garner further publicity.

Billed as the first ever Zombie movie told entirely from the perspective of one of the undead, praise for Colin has spread across the web, with Zombie Friends calling it “as original, compelling and thought provoking as [George] Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ whilst horror magazine SCARS said it would “revolutionize zombie cinema.”

Mr Price who hopes that it will encourage other budding filmmakers to follow their dreams:

“I hope that this will encourage others to go out with their video cameras and make films.

“It just goes to show you don’t need thousands and thousands of pounds.“

Is on-demand gaming the future?

Valerie | 27 Jul 2009, 07:13

First we had Onlive, the subscription-based games streaming service which was unveiled to much fanfare earlier this year.  Then Gaikai followed suit with a service that enables users to play games that run on a remote server regardless of hardware platform. This week, another contender staked its claim in the race to take cloud computing to the gaming mainstream with the launch of yet another new games on-demand service.

Based on similar technology to Onlive and Gaikai, start-up firm Playcast Media announced a pilot program with Israeli cable network Hot to stream games directly to users’ television sets, promising “PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 quality games on demand” and asserting that it avoids lags and latency - bold claims according to media commentators.

Video games on demand, or gaming over a server connection instead of installing a game on your machine, has become a hot topic for the games industry, not only because it threatens to cut retailers out, but also because it lets gamers play any game on any kind of computer.

Gaikai founder David Perry believes that “freeing games from the narrow pipelines of consoles and high-end PCs that they are currently available through” will be the business model of the future and at the recent Developer conference, he went as far as predicting the death of physical media. “It won’t be long before 100 per cent of games are all online,” he said.

Despite analyst optimism that there is a bright future ahead for the on-demand model, this vision is perhaps just that – an indication of what is to come.

For the next few years at least, the console manufacturers will continue their dominance, with the Nintendo Wii expected to edge ahead of the Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 in global sales of consoles by 2015.

The chief executive of social media gaming firm Playfish, Kristian Segerstrale sees the decline of the console happening much sooner. Commenting on EA’s recent entry into the social gaming market he said:

“The challenge is, no matter how social you try to make a console not everybody has one…”

“They (EA) clearly believe, much as we believe, that games are becoming services and that retail distribution for games will decline quite rapidly from here onwards.”

Segerstrale predicts that incompatible, prohibitively expensive games consoles could fail to compete with the more accessible and connected experiences online services can deliver.