AUTHORS

Disruptomatic
Angela Natividad
Angela Natividad is a freelance copywriter, journalist and strategist based in Paris. She co-founded AdVerveBlog.com, a blog and podcast about ads and design, and writes MarketingProfs' “Get to the Point!: Social Media” newsletters. She likes people and animals, but not as much as books.
Tweet her @luckthelady.
James Martin
James Martin is the community manager of music & TV tradeshows midem & MIPTV/MIPCOM. He edits their respective industry news & trends blogs (blog.midem.com & mipblog.com) and also covers video games and technology for French cultural weekly A Nous Paris
Tweet him at @jamesmart_in
Stuart Dredge
Stuart Dredge is a freelance journalist based in the UK. He writes about digital music for Music Ally, and about apps and mobile for The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The Appside, as well as his own Apps Playground site.
Tweet him @stuartdredge
OK, so Amazon was serious: $40k just thrown at first Studio projects As we reported here, the online retail juggernaut announced a while back that it was going to fund TV-type shows. Now, Amazon Studios has revealed the first four projects it’s giving 10 grand each in development funding. They are “Magic Monkey Billionaire” (above), an animated series which is hoped to deliver Itchy & Scratchy-esque LOLs; “Doomsday” and “The 100 Deaths of Mort Grimley”, the former being a “laugh out loud mockumentary” and the latter a “dark animated comedy” (all quotes from Amazon Studios’ own blog, linked to above: includes links to each projects’ bibles, if you’re interested). Not forgetting the only kids’ pick of the crop, “Buck Plaidsheep” seems to take an animated superhero slant on Sean the Sheep. Sort of. More important than the ten smackeroonies each is the promise for each IP to become a full-blown series, should it test well on Amazon’s VOD network. TV’s future in the making, anyone?

OK, so Amazon was serious: $40k just thrown at first Studio projects

As we reported here, the online retail juggernaut announced a while back that it was going to fund TV-type shows. Now, Amazon Studios has revealed the first four projects it’s giving 10 grand each in development funding. They are “Magic Monkey Billionaire” (above), an animated series which is hoped to deliver Itchy & Scratchy-esque LOLs; “Doomsday” and “The 100 Deaths of Mort Grimley”, the former being a “laugh out loud mockumentary” and the latter a “dark animated comedy” (all quotes from Amazon Studios’ own blog, linked to above: includes links to each projects’ bibles, if you’re interested).

Not forgetting the only kids’ pick of the crop, “Buck Plaidsheep” seems to take an animated superhero slant on Sean the Sheep. Sort of.

More important than the ten smackeroonies each is the promise for each IP to become a full-blown series, should it test well on Amazon’s VOD network. TV’s future in the making, anyone?

TV: Have we reached the Tipping Point? Two UK studies suggest it’s finally happened. “It” being the shift from scheduled to on-demand TV. The first, by YouGov, says 1 in 4 Brits watch more VOD than live TV; that proportion rises to 41% of 18-24 year olds. Drilling down (sorry, I hate that expression) to smart (connected) TV owners, the figures rise to over a third who confess to majoritarily on-demand viewing; and 53% of smart TV-owning 18-24 year olds. Finally, over half of smart TV owners with young kids watch more VOD than scheduled programming. Secondly, A Nielsen report cited by PSFK says 84% of respondents now watch video content at home on their computers, versus 83% on their TVs. In 2010, for comparison, it was 86% for pooters & 90% for TVs. So, brave new world? Not right away, judging by the latest Samsung smart TV with pseudo-Kinect I’ve just tried (photo): the entire experience, from slow, staggered app downloads to motion detection that doesn’t work, is unpleasant to say the least. Roll on the rumoured Apple TV?

TV: Have we reached the Tipping Point?

Two UK studies suggest it’s finally happened. “It” being the shift from scheduled to on-demand TV. The first, by YouGov, says 1 in 4 Brits watch more VOD than live TV; that proportion rises to 41% of 18-24 year olds. Drilling down (sorry, I hate that expression) to smart (connected) TV owners, the figures rise to over a third who confess to majoritarily on-demand viewing; and 53% of smart TV-owning 18-24 year olds. Finally, over half of smart TV owners with young kids watch more VOD than scheduled programming.

Secondly, A Nielsen report cited by PSFK says 84% of respondents now watch video content at home on their computers, versus 83% on their TVs. In 2010, for comparison, it was 86% for pooters & 90% for TVs.

So, brave new world? Not right away, judging by the latest Samsung smart TV with pseudo-Kinect I’ve just tried (photo): the entire experience, from slow, staggered app downloads to motion detection that doesn’t work, is unpleasant to say the least. Roll on the rumoured Apple TV?