‘Online/On-Demand’ Archives
Filmmakers need to help with VOD word-of-mouth
Two conflicting things keep happening: On the one hand, video on demand - whether online or through a cable or other provider - is held up as the next great emerging distribution platform for movies, particularly smaller movies that have had a hard time or outright failed in the quest to secure a theatrical distribution contract. On the other, [...]
Awareness is essential
I continue to maintain the the low initial numbers from the efforts by YouTube to rent full-length feature films are not that discouraging. True, even the addition of Oscar-winning fare didn't exactly set sales charts ablaze, but that's not necessarily a sign that the idea is a failure. It just means that they're not yet doing some things that [...]
Social Viewing
In the wake of the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics both the The New York Times and the Associated Press wrote stories about how social networks - specifically status networks such as Facebook and Twitter - had become virtual sports bars, allowing people to have a conversation around the shared experience of watching a live (or tape-delayed) [...]
PBS documentary to debut on Facebook
PBS appears to be pushing the boundaries of what I call the social viewing trend by premiering a new documentary titled Earth Days on Facebook (New York Times, 3/15/10) in advance of its television broadcast. By doing so, PBS is encouraging viewers to engage with each other and comment on the documentary itself during the April 11th social [...]
When the audience decides what’s popular
If you visit Hulu's Movies section at any given time you can view what features are most popular on the site at that point. As of this writing the list is topped by the two Ghostbusters movies, which recently were added there for a limited time, as well as a couple other big studio releases from over a decade ago. But there are also quite a few [...]
