Image c. Apple Computers

Apple is typically very good about locking down names for new products and I was wondering if FaceTime would have known about this on the day the Gen 4 iPhone was announced, this week clearly they were in the mix for a payout of their name and branding, either before or after the fact.  Of course, Cornellians, those affiliated with Cornell University (my wife did her undergrad studies there) will have something to say about the co-opting of their over thirty year old mantra and song, Facetime as sung by the Cornell Glee Club.

Facetime at Cornell meant that people where so caught up with academics that they needed special time to meet and greet people away from the pressures of study.

On first blush the new iPhone 4 has some compelling features which prompted me to contemplate for a few seconds about the option of switching from Verizon to AT&T - that moment past quickly as I envisioned a really interesting phone on a terrible network, pass.

The crash of AT&T order management system with pre-orders yet further evidence that the carrier is incapable to managing demand.

That said what really caught my eye was Apple's new take on a very old technology, namely video calling.  In their ad "People have been dreaming about video calling for decades". presumably since they want people to believe the technology never existed on mobile phones let alone POTS lines.

Continue reading "Apple FaceTime, Never Seen Before?" »

By Lynda Bauer

"You probably don't want to view this before eating"
Ken Director of External Communications, Pfizer

With one sensational clip Ray Kerins demonstrated just how far, the pharmaceutical industry has moved into social media. Whether you agree with the company message, there's no denying the power of video to set a new tone and make an impact. Add to that the ease of pass along and a new pace to public health education is set. Only a year ago, Ken was fighting the company's internal employee block to Facebook, today Pfizer's fan page is in the top 1% of fan page views.

Largely communications professionals serving the healthcare industry, attendees to the BDI event at NYU Graduate Center last week soaked up case studies from industry leaders deploying new social tools. Following the on-stage presentations, they participated in two of more than 25 roundtable topics including Getting Physicians to Connect and Engage Online with VeoMed Editor-in-Chief Marc Straus and Strategic Community Management and Moderation of Online Social Venues Moderated by: Jenna Woodul, Chief Community Officer, LiveWorld. Throughout the table conversations one could repeatedly hear frustrations common to implementing change ie. "They wouldn't even agree to a 24 hour news cycle turn around." Despite the escalating adopters, social still has its resisters in this sector burdened with heavy regulations and liability issues.

Credentials appear to be the universal solvent to resistance. Impressive achievements have been made by professionals with multiple layers of industry depth combining experience in creative web design, community building, international relief experience, technology, business, medical publishing and law. Louise Clemens, VP Business Development is a case in point. Louise currently focuses on providing online community solutions to Health and Life Science institutions.

Continue reading "Social Media & Healthcare " »

On May 18th-19th IBM will be hosting a 24hour CEO Study Webcast and Open House in the Analytics Virtual Center to mark the launch of the Global CEO Study 2010

Host Albert Morales and guests Peter Korsten, Saul Berman, Dave Lubowe and other IBM leaders will join from around the world. We are inviting the public to a day-long webcast viewing in the Analytics Virtual Center, - we'd like to make the environment a space where people can stop by, meet, watch the CEO study webcast, and discuss the issues it raises.

Post questions, reactions to Twitter: #smarterleaders, via Tunmblr http://smarterleaders.tumblr.com/ask or in the Livestream chat

Disclosure: In addition to managing editor of ipTVe, I am also member of the IBM team producing this event

Against a backdrop where a Facebook inspired student walkout of schools over State cutbacks with some adminstrators talk of student repercussions its curious that a New Jersey principal Anthony Orsini at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood N.J. sent parents an e-mail to parents to get all students off social networks and keep careful track of their text messages.

The question is should kids be using social media tools when they are suppose to be learning in the classroom or is the technology an easy target by a misguided school principal? Putting aside the genie long since out of the bottle with respect to texting and use of social media sites like Facebook and MySpace, there is a greater opportunity for teachers to embrace these tools and integrate them into their lesson plans as opposed to hysteria about the ills of social media and the destruction of our youth...

Medicine is a high technology field with state of the art diagnostic equipment, yet it generally lacks the use of technology that could foster better communication, better reporting of patient records and generally better communication between healthcare providers and users. The upcoming Social Communications & Healthcare forum will seek to offer Healthcare professionals a bridge of understanding on the use of social media and its tools. ipTVe, will tweet from the event and also cover for a post event article.

The 2nd annual Social Communications & Healthcare - Case Studies and Roundtables conference will demonstrate the best examples of how leading healthcare brands are accomplishing business objectives with social media and social networking. We will address the FDA's position/role and what can be expected from future guidance. We will also explore how leading pharmaceuticals, medical technology companies, and hospital groups are integrating their social projects into their existing marketing, communications, education and service platforms.

The conference uses a proven half-day event format from 8:30 AM until 1:00 PM at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York in midtown Manhattan, New York City. The agenda will consist of several case study presentations in the general auditorium with 350+ attendees. The presentations will be followed by two moderated interactive roundtable discussion group sessions with 8-12 attendees each on very specific topics. We will also host a networking breakfast and networking breaks between sessions.

Date: Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Time: 8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Location: The Graduate Center / CUNY; 365 Fifth Avenue; New York, NY 10016

Website: Social Communications & Healthcare
For more information, including registration, please click here to visit the event website. Use promo code IPTVE for a discounted rate of $155.

Beyond the noise, real-time blogging from Apple stores and videos of people opening the box of their new iPad, (seriously, the NY Times posted such a video) there are some important questions about the direction the iPad is taking developers and in effect consumers. Will the platform spur new innovation? Innovation for developers of video programming, Transmedia Storytelling and other applications (not just Apps), or will it be a one-way consumption only device, a device where Apple sets all the ground rules for both users as well as developers?

The term economic moat coined by Warren Buffet refers to one companies competitive advantage over another, in this regard Apple is employing all its resources fair and not so fair to keep invading armies (Google, Microsoft and their hardware partners) out. Some of the areas that define an economic moat consist of;

Branding
This is where the iPad (and to a much larger extent Apple) has been very effective, drawing on the companies excellent communication skills in video and print advertising to create a desire or perceived need for the device even if its daily use may be undefined by some of the people purchasing the product. Apple has created strong brands with great UI's and form-factors, the Mac Book Pro is as beautiful as it is functional and strong.

Low cost
With a starting price of $500, the iPad can not be thought of as an impulse purchase or even low cost by consumer purchasing criteria - but pre-order and first day sales would contradict that notion, is it brand loyalty, being the first on your subway car to have one, great marketing, offering a true transformative product, all of the above or some combination? The question is, will people once they've spend a couple of months with the device continue to think they got a bargain and will Apple need to become more competitive as similar devices enter the market, will consumers feel they overpaid?

Continue reading "Will the iPad Foster Passive Viewers and Control Innovation?" »

With visions of iPads dancing in their heads, media companies such as CBS.com are moving to make their video portals iPad friendly by testing and then rolling out HTML5, this as the aforementioned slate does not support Flash. If you believe their methodology, Flash has close to 100% market reach.

On the other hand, the iPhone has less then 1% OS penetration as reported by NetMarketShare

As Michael Cervieri of Scribe Media stated so accurately

If you subscribe to the estimates of Wall Street analysts, in a Barron's article the prediction spread is between 1 and 6 mil units sold in 2010, seriously? And the notion that $500 (love it when people list a price as $499), plus $30/month for unlimited data, it is not an impulse buy and one that will require significant carrier subsidies, That said, it will sell and sell well though 6million units for a consumption only device?

Vidar Brekke, Emerging Media Strategist at DefinedLogic and I attended the NYC Cross Media Conference in New York City, this past week. The conference, held at the Scolastic companies offices in New York City was organized to bridge the gap between different media sectors, share information and provide a forum for people to meet and network. Among notable presenters and topics covered, Vidar and I had the opportunity to talk with and interview Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment. Jeff, who is not only a compelling person to talk with about technology but also a sought after expert on the emerging field of transmedia storytelling.

Transmedia storytelling is the art and process of telling a story in pieces or segments across multible technology platforms. On the consumer side, it is a way to extend a companies brand and engauge the audience over time and across platforms. Additionally, it may be an opportunity for Indie filmmakers and other smaller media creatives who thus far have had a hard time gaining traction with their work on-line. As Jeff said, "The Internet is not Television" This is an important point I think many people, from Indies to major media outlets do not get or practice specific to how they develop their project for what is a two-way communication medium and not just a platform, or pipe for delivering content.

By Levi Shapiro

Israeli-born director Oren Moverman

Hollywood is throwing itself a party this evening. Unfortunately, in the business of specialty film there is little to celebrate - 2009 was a year of record losses. A glut of more than 420 specialty films were dumped on the market last year but less than 10 percent were profitable. Production costs for films with stars attached averaged $8 million (before marketing) but earned only $1.7 million.

In this environment, specialty units at Warner, Paramount and Disney have been shuttered or severely curtailed. This has opened the door for newer, more nimble entrants, like Beastie Boy (aka Nathaniel Hornblower, aka MCA) Adam Yauch. His two year old indie distributor Oscilloscope Labs acquires films on the festival circuit while maintaining low overhead. The process generated two Academy Award nominations for The Messenger from first-time, Israeli-born director Oren Moverman. The commercial and critical success of The Messenger suggests a path to profitability for other film-makers:

* low overhead

* story integrity

* built-in audiences

* artistic risks

The indie-film model of this decade is based on Miramax of the nineties. Harvey Weinstein's formula included nurturing talented young film-makers (Quentin Tarantino, Gus van Sant, etc), picking stories with built-in audiences and aggressive promotion to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. This yielded mega-hits like Pulp Fiction and Chicago ($213 million and $306 million) plus Oscar sweeps such as The English Patient (nine) and Shakespeare in Love (seven).

Adam Yauch, Beastie Boy and aspiring movie mogul

In the new indie-film economics, writer/director Oren Moverman incorporates a different formula for The Messenger. The film is about two members of the Contact Notification Office in the US Army. Their job is to inform the next of kin about the death of a loved one.

Continue reading "The Only Successful Model for Indie Film " »