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Golden Globes Remind You Of Golden Opportunity
The other day, a group of friends and I were discussing whether The Jetsons Future means that the quality of productions must inevitably decline. My position – not the most popular one in the room at first – was an optimistic one. I argued that, while there’s certainly a lot of crap (much of it profitable crap) to be found these days, a lot of high-quality product that never would have seen the light of day just a few years ago is now rather prominent.
Consider Sunday night’s Golden Globes winners as you ponder the fact that, as has been the case for some years now, awards season is a time to realize how much has changed.
2015 Begins With A Ginormous Media Mashup
I felt the need to include a mashup word – ginormous – in the headline because there’s already a media convergence theme song for 2015: It’s A Mashup World After All. (Dear Lord – I’ve just planted that song in your head for the day, haven’t I? I’m so sorry.)
If you think there’s no consistent theme to the big developments of the new year’s first business week, look closer. And with that, let’s meet our developments!
A Brief Excursion Into Lawyer Stuff: You Don't Understand Fair Use & That's A Problem
I try extremely hard to avoid going lawyer on you, but when I put on my attorney hat, there’s one subject that creatives almost universally misunderstand: fair use. Because (1) it’s a copyright concept, and (2) copyright law is at the heart of what we do as creatives, that’s a big problem. I’ve had innumerable people – clients and non-clients alike – tell me that they assume that something they’re doing is okay because of the “30-Second Rule” or the “10% Rule”. Just one thing: those “rules” don’t exist. They’re urban myths.
If you’re a content creator and you read no further, please take away one important thing about fair use: You don’t know enough about it to decide whether something you want to do constitutes a fair use!!! It’s an extremely complicated and fact-sensitive subject. If you’re thinking about any unlicensed use of a copyrighted work – whether it’s a song (or song lyric), a picture, a movie clip, whatever – do the smart thing and talk to an attorney who understands the subject about the specific thing you want to use and how you want to use it.
A Performer Goes From Making McBurgers To Making Millions: What's Your Game Plan?
One day you’re 19 years old and flipping burgers at Mickey D’s. Three years later, you’re doing seven figures a year playing Call Of Duty online while rolling up a 1.5 million member YouTube fan base in the process. Nadeshot, as Matt Haag is known to his fans, is living the Jetsons Future dream. I know plenty of folks who’d be thrilled to have an endorsement deal with Red Bull. He’s got one. Nadeshot hasn’t become a star just because he’s great at playing video games. He’s a personality. He brings his fans behind his curtain.
What are you doing to be part of a community and make the most out of the content you’re most passionate about? What are you doing to bring fans behind your curtain? Your audience awaits.
Straight From The YouTube's Mouth: Keys To Winning Content
Because the nice people at YouTube have access to over one billion human beings who consume content – voraciously – on their website, they have access to far more information about how content is being used (and not used) than any other operator on the planet. No one knows more about what makes people stick around and consume content.
Don’t you wish you could get some advice from YouTube on how to make your fans spend more time with the content you work so hard to make? If only YouTube was willing to share a few thoughts with us.
You see where this is going don’t you?
What Media Should Be Terrified Of This Halloween
There isn’t a single form of entertainment or media that hasn’t been experiencing spooky times for over a decade. At this point, there’s exactly one thing that should terrify every single member of the entertainment and media communities more than anything else. Hit the link to find out exactly what should frighten you more than a picnic with Freddy Kreuger and Norman Bates.
Look! Here's Where You Can Shoot Great Video For Free!
You know how you can know a bunch of stuff, but you miss a really obvious thing until, one day – bam! – the epiphany hits you in the face? I just got smacked upside the head by an epiphany that should speak to every content creator that doesn’t fit the description of “major studio”. Do us both a favor and follow me down the following yellow brick road.
I’ve yammered away at you about the different ways content creators can make money in a media convergence world. Whether you’re working in audiovisual (TV and film), audio-only (radio and music), or print, in The Jetsons Future, where consumers are viewing content on a massive variety of screens, all roads eventually lead to short-form video. Facebook is now showing one billion – yes, with a b – videos per day. YouTube quadrupled that number…two years ago. You don’t need to be Jack Warner to realize that the vast majority of those videos are (1) short-form and (2) monetizable.
All that sounds great, if you’re comfortable working with video. If you’re not, well, help is on the way.
HBO, CBS Signal The Next, Disruptive Wave Of Content Distribution Is Breaking
Irony alert: in the first month of the new television season, I feel compelled to rerun an episode of this blog. 24 days ago, I ranted about how cable & satellite TV were helping consign themselves to a grim future. After all, if you’re a major content distributor, if you can cut out the middleman – not just cable & satellite, but also the broadcast outlets that you don’t own and operate – and if, in doing so, you can keep the money that the middlemen earn from distributing your content to end-users (known colloquially as viewers), why wouldn’t you do that?
In the last two days, we’ve seen the first lines cast into that ocean. HBO went first yesterday, announcing their 2015 launch of a standalone SVOD service. Today, CBS announced it’s going a similar route with a fascinating twist: its model will combine SVOD and live streaming. Not only will subscribers get access to 50 years worth of classic television series – and aren’t you curious to see what content they’ve licensed besides their own? – but they’ll also be able to stream any of the CBS television O&O’s.
Greetings From Entertainment’s Grass Roots
In these parts, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future of entertainment and media. It’s a future where media is converging, the old ways of doing things are collapsing, and the people who consume our content are becoming accustomed to getting multiple types of content – audiovisual, audio-only, and written word – in one place. When you find yourself looking for talent who understand the broad sweep of content creation, audience engagement, and advertiser engagement, don’t forget to take a long hard look into the one entertainment medium where people are engaged in all three of those pursuits every single day.
It’s a medium where a lot of people who’ve had their boots on the ground floor of entertainment all their lives – can be found. The name of that place? Radio.
If You're Not Failing, You're Not Trying: Entertainment Failure → Entertainment Success
The same basic issue is affecting television and radio, film and print. We’re living in the era of media convergence. We’re living in an era when all media is converging into one entity. Further, delivery systems are converging – instead of printed magazines, movies delivered to exhibitors in Goldberg cans for display on “the big screen”, TV and radio delivered by transmitters, we’re heading to an era where all media will be delivered by one channel: broadband internet.
You’ve got to love the words of then-Coke Chairman and CEO E. Neville Isdell at the company’s 2006 annual shareholder meeting, telling the audience, “You will see some failures. As we take more risks, this is something we must accept as part of the regeneration process.” No part of the entertainment and media industries has escaped the regeneration process. As part of that, we should expect to see some failures. Actually, we should expect to see lots of failures.
Just remember an important business principle: failure breeds success.
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