Visual MediaCoolHunting

Stella Im Hultberg (Illustrator)
Posted in Visual, Art, Illustration on January 29th, 2007. By Ona Vinyamata.

Stella is a painter and drawer living in New York City. We are specially inspired by how her illustrations blend with their backgrounds on her 2006 works.

A look ahead at Google Video and YouTube
Posted in Television, News on January 28th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.

Since Google bought YouTube a few months ago it hasn’t been clear how the two companies would work together. This last thursday Google announced, (Digg), how Google Video and YouTube would continue to play to their respective strengths while keeping both companies independent from each other. Google video will transition to become a search engine for video all over the net, no matter where it’s hosted, and YouTube will keep on hosting and experimenting with people generated video under their own brand name.

Just a few minutes after the announcement blogs where covering this information thinking of ways how it could or could not change video online. From all this blog entries we highlight Splash Cast Media’s “18 cool things Google could do with YouTube” (Digg), for it’s many great and sometimes not so obvious ideas.

Gaming Consoles getting into TV
Posted in IPTV, News on January 28th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.

The so called 2nd generation of video game consoles were designed to become your DVD players: Playstation 2 and the Xbox could both play comercial DVD’s and could be bought with an optional remote control.

3rd generation video game consoles, at least the Wii and the Xbox 360, have been designed, we believe, to become your PVR, and your cable or satellite Set-top Box. Take for example the Wii’s flash compatible web browser (that will let you watch contents from YouTube or Google Video) or their recent partnership with AP to offer a 24 hours News channel. The other great example is Microsoft’s XBox 360 IPTV offer, to become a reality this year, and recently explained by Microsoft execs at Gamedrift. (Digg)

As long as net neutrality prevails and bottlenecks are avoided, IPTV might very well be the future of TV distribution and democratization.

The year of the Citizen Reporter
Posted in Citizen Journalism, News on January 28th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.

Offering solutions to become a Citizen Reporter, or as YouTube would put it, to “Broadcast Yourself”…

Everyone is doing it: the BBC, Sky News, CNN, Reuters….the list doesn’t end.

This last week was Vodafone’s turn. The company plans to offer a new mobile video service that will let their Vodafone Live! subscribers upload and watch contents from each other.

Looking at it from a news point of view (entertainment wise, YouTube is already king), current solutions are not good enough. Where you might have an excellent distribution platform (such as with Yahoo/Reuters), you might as well forget about your attribution or compensation rights. Minimum compensation solutions, such as Vodafone’s are limited to their Live! platform subscribers. Scoop it! news agencies solutions might pay you and attribute your work to you, plus they might be able to distribute your contents pretty well, but they only work with absolutely great shots, leaving most daily coverage to the trash bin…

Much like 2006 was the year of Internet Video, maybe 2007 becomes the year a current or a new Citizen Reporter platform fixes it’s weaknesses and becomes a reference to aspiring Citizen Reporters and video bloggers…and ultimately the next “YouTube success story”.

A 360 Strategy for TV
Posted in Television, News on January 28th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.

About 2 months ago we highlighted a Wired article about how the music industry is successfully adapting to the challenges and opportunities the Internet is bringing to their industry. We thought some of the solutions they’ve found could be applied to other forms of media and to other industries such as TV.

In this regard NBC has some ideas. They recently issued a Press Release with their take on how to work with Internet trends, instead than against them. They are calling their strategy TV 360 and it involves including original, interactive content available on alternative platforms. The TV show gives clues (for example a webpage adress) and through active investigation the audience can find out more about the characters. All this is sponsored in part by Nissan and will be applied to the hit returning series “Heroes”.

If done right, the Internet may enhance TV’s lure, not dim it.

Related: ABC’s Lost did something like this just last year with “The Lost Experience” and ideas such as their faux product placement of Apollo Candy Bars.