From my vantage point, it seemed to this point that the weird ways of “the biz” eluded the tech giant – an oddity for a behemoth used to conquering all things. The question on everyone’s mind was: will Google acquire an entertainment company? A studio? Well, they’re obviously not that stupid…we all know the profit models for entertainment are sketchy at best, no matter the product. So it was with great interest that I observed the acquisition of not a company, but an individual – Netflix veteran Robert Kyncl, whose job as VP of Content Partnerships would solder that soft link between the two worlds of tech and entertainment. As the blog AllThingsD noted back in September, Google “needs someone who can talk to Hollywood and big media companies; many of the folks who have done that work for it in the past have moved on, including Jordan Hoffner (IAC), Dave Eun (AOL) and Tim Armstrong (AOL, too)” Well, they were right, in a way…but talking is only half the battle.  Content is the other half, and well, even these industrious folks mentioned in the article haven’t exactly emerged as the kings of content.

On the YouTube blog, Kyncl posted a blurb about the new program (which includes lots of celeb-owned or driven content proferred by Madonna, Jay-Z, Amy Poehler and more) pitching the program as:

channels created by well-known personalities and content producers from the TV, film, music, news, and sports fields, as well as some of the most innovative up-and-coming media companies in the world and some of YouTube’s own existing partners. These channels will have something for everyone, whether you’re a mom, a comedy fan, a sports nut, a music lover or a pop-culture maven.

YouTube thus far has been pretty much “something for everyone”. I gather then, that this is just a higher quality version of what we previously knew to be YT. If, as the Wrap says the program is “expected to generate about 25 hours of new programming a day on YouTube”, I wonder how that will differ from the hundreds of hours of unwatched cable programming I zip by every day on the remote control. I’m not sure how that ultimately challenges the cable TV experience, except that it’s free.

So this may just be an exercise in how much ad revenue so called premium content can command online. But of course I keep wishing that Google– which has the resources to innovate–would actually take on the challenge not only as a means to find the frontier, but also to speak to the growing shifts in our own consumption interests, which I contend here, may not be as passive as Hollywood wishes it would be, and as easy to solve with a pocketful of celebrities.

I have been watching AOL stock since their separation from Time Warner, wondering what would happen to the once “new media” outfit after it divorced from the old media entertainment outfit. Then I read the now infamously leaked “AOL Way” document which detailed the struggling company’s plan for getting more content, cheaper, and more effectively tailored for advertising revenue. I had begun to write a post on this rather interesting approach to content when I was blindsided by the grand and very flashy news reports of a Tim Armstrong-Arianna Huffington $315 million walk down the media aisle.

For some time now, I’ve been struck by the fact that the once bourgeoning creators of content in the first wave of the internet turn out to be the least interesting these days  (Yahoo, AOL) and their forays into video, entertainment, generic news and now various “localized” efforts have largely failed to grow in that exponential way everyone expected the shiny newfangled web businesses to expand once the web democratized access to content. I for one, still get my news and entertainment by browsing a variety of small sites, blogs and highly original independent sources.  Huffington Post became one of these sources during the last presidential election simply because they showed a real ability to capture more effectively than traditional news sources what was happening minute-by-minute during that unprecedented campaign which part-drama, part-politics.

Therein lies the content appeal of Huffpo – it feels juicy and gossipy but it also boasts a genuinely credible collection of political and academic contributors who raise the standard of the brand a little higher than a political People Magazine style blog, which it could easily have been.  My contention now is that now that AOL owns Huffpo, it will likely shed most of its heavier political shroud for the much sexier tabloid style editorial approach–that is, more celebrities, less politics. We all know that Arianna’s “hook” was political – she has said the blog began as a liberal alternative to The Drudge Report and she built her brand on that left-leaning news approach.

Despite the very cozy lovefest vibe about the “merging of visions” that Arianna and Tim were selling in this interview with Kara Swisher last night, I suspect that when The AOL Way merges with the Arianna Way, it will likely re-define the HuffPo brand in a way that makes it more Bravo and less CNN. After all, they both have as their target audience, “wealthy women” – which is code for a certain upper middle class audience that favors networks like Bravo. (While I was pitching a show at Bravo an executive told me their target audience was “women on both coasts, and important cities in-between with a lot of cash to burn. They love The Real Housewives.”) In the Guardian’s cynical analysis of the “soullessly commercial proposition” the deal is seen as lacking editorial vision:

Armstrong is targeting wealthy women. “The Huffington Post is core to our strategy and our 80:80:80 focus,” he told staff in an internal memo yesterday. “80% of domestic spending is done by women, 80% of commerce happens locally and 80% of considered purchases are driven by influencers.” And Huffington Post has stuff women read and is published by – a woman! Congratulations.

While I don’t see editorial focus being at all an issue – it is clear to me – I do wonder whether this isn’t just an ill-conceived act of pure desperation on Armstong’s part which dovetails perfectly with Ariana’s insatiable egotistic drive to become the uber-doyenne of contemporary global media culture (see video below for references to Brazil expansion) – a Rupert Murdoch of new media perhaps. I won’t argue that celebrity, sex and especially divorce (the latest addition to HuffPo) sell really well and it is no secret that Arianna has ambition in entertainment (“Freshmen”, the TV pilot she produced just got the greenlight on ABC) so it makes sense that she will attempt to transform AOL into a real content company that can rival a News Corp, for instance. Meanwhile, in the ashes of this ambition will lie an independent political news source we once relied upon and trusted even when we were annoyed that writers weren’t being compensated fairly.

Honestly, do we really need another Bravo? Perhaps it will yield The Real Women Politicians of Alaska or The Tea Party Housewives? I am disappointed because the voice of a liberal political new media stalwart has been bought, and will be thoroughly compromised. But Arianna the socialite and media personality  is nothing if not flexible about adjusting her principles to suit her ambition. When Giga Om’s Om Malik writes about calling a HuffPo acquisition by MSNBC, I thought ” now that would be smart.” But I doubt MSNBC would have paid that kind of cash or given Arianna the level of editorial control she would have wanted. Tim Armstrong is a salesman, not a creative visionary and he may well have realized this after last quarter’s results and brought in not just a property, but a person he feels can lead the vision of the content side. Great, now we have not just a content farm, but a celebrity content farm.

JULIET: @julietcap16 You need to remember that he didn’t tell you the truth. Do you honestly WANT to be with someone who lies to you?

Ok, that exchange between Juliet and Nurse is probably not the Shakespeare verse you remember from your high school English class. It seems that this Juliet,(@julietcap16 on Twitter) has more in common with lonelygirl15 than she does with the classic 14th century heroine. (As we discover from her Facebook profile, she loves Taylor Swift and Twilight).

But the beauty of Shakespeare is that it never gets old, and the genius of the great author’s classic texts is watching them get reinvented over and over in various eras. So it should come as no surprise that Such Tweet Sorrow, a Twitter performance of Romeo and Juliet is having its moment. A British production performed (or tweeted) by the Royal Shakespeare Company with the help of cross-platform media shop, Mudlark , it is funded by Channel 4′s digital investment fund, 4iP.

A loose interpretation of the original text, this Romeo & Juliet began on April 10th and takes place in the span of five weeks and over 4,000 tweets. Now a few weeks and storylines in, you can follow all the characters tweets on a timeline that lives on the website, read a summary of what has happened so far, and check out the playlist for Juliet’s masked birthday party on Spotify and last.fm. which include, with some irony I imagine, Beyonce’s unforgettable Single Ladies whose lyrics demand a ring on the finger. And no less cheeky, the inclusion of MGMT’s Kids, no doubt a nod to the folly of youth, with its hypnotic refrain “control yourself.”

For Juliet’s party, she invited guests on their Facebook page to RSVP and send photos of their masks. 83 people responded and a handful participated in the mask challenge. It seems Juliet has the most active social media profile, including a Youtube page with 3 videos, where we get a glimpse into the Juliet’s feelings and interests, in the teenage girl bedroom (again another nod to lonelygirl15). The  most viewed of all three videos is the first, with 13,690 views at this writing, is perhaps the one that gives the most insight into Juliet. See below.

Based on the mainstream media’s response and coverage of the project, it appears to have made some sort of impact and certainly marks a notable moment in the expansion of theater performance into social media space. While I’m fascinated by the collaborative work this project is doing across theater, literature and social media, I have to say that this attempt falls into the caveman days of of interactive fiction. I have some quibbles with the actual design of the site (including the annoying inability to move through the timeline with ease), but most importantly  I’d have to critique the experience/story designers for not integrating the performance more into the social media space.

While Twitter in and of itself is an engagement platform, the lack of context (outside of clever pop culture references and lingo) seem to kill the “play”. I guess my expectations included a high level of interactivity and audience involvement. Put simply, why would I, as an audience member on Twitter, engage this drama outside of the novelty of seeing Shakespeare on Twitter? There’s no story hook for me, no compelling invitation to participate in the (vastly underdeveloped) world of the Capulets and the Montagues, and no reason for me to stick around…since I already know the ending. If the contemporary-ness is aimed at the teenage girls who know the dance routine to Single Ladies, then it certainly fails to engage them; if it is aimed (very slightly older!) ladies like myself, it seems perhaps over simplified and too full of silly teenage drama.

I know this is just the beginning and that experimentation will be going on for a while, so I hesitate to be overly critical. However, looking at this case really drove home for me the need for completely thought-through narratives and inventive engagement strategies, even dare I say, when you are working with the master of narrative himself, Shakespeare.

You can follow the characters: @romeo_mo, @julietcap16, @Tybalt_Cap, @Jess_nurse,@LaurenceFriar and @Mercuteio

As suspicious as I naturally am of these Hollywood suits and their flawed business models and bad personal style, I’ve still kept one eye on Disney for as a possible game-changer. When High School Musical and Hannah Montana came out of what seemed like nowhere, blew up to become a couple of the most recognizable brands in kids/tween entertainment, who didn’t wonder how the hell that happened? I remember seeing images of tween girl throngs at a Miley Cyrus concert and being stupefied that such a phenomenon could grow out of an original Disney TV character and Disney Radio star.

Granted, we’ve always known that children’s entertainment is the monster of the box office, the DVD and of franchise merchandising because, as we’ve come to understand, children’s tastes are often quite bizarre, obsessive and well, lucrative. This has always been Disney’s “vein of gold”. And when Iger acquired Pixar, he took that idea to an even broader level by acquiring a wholly independent, well-run animation house that again, was in the business of original characters, stories and thus, more franchises. So, despite their public differences, Pixar and Disney have managed to create some of the most memorable, adult-friendly animation in recent history.

Fast forward five years, and Iger again makes a move for Marvel, whose trove hadn’t been completely pillaged and remains filled with lesser known action heros but come with built in fan bases, the possibility of both animated and live-action fantasy content with serious transmedia potential. These moves seemed practical, if expensive, and Iger pulled Disney out of the quaint Mickey-Mouse world into the Pirates’ of the Carribean era. Then as if that wasn’t enough to show Disney’s shareholders that he meant (profitable) business, he goes and fired a whole layer of senior executives (read: old-school) that had been running the company for years and replaces them with a variety of new people, some of whom have little experience in the business of film and TV.

And just as the articles were circulating about his madness, Iger goes and pulls the Alice in Wonderland move: telling theatrical exhibitors in the US and UK that he would shorten the window between the theatrical release of the upcoming film and the DVD release–a move which terrified theater-owners and diminished the grand status 0f the theatrical window. This of course led to some strong words from the UK distributors, threat of boycott and all such manner of protest. Oh, then there was his refusal to make a sequel of the $315 million grossing Sandra Bullock movie, The Proposal which many including LA Times blogger Patrick Goldstein viewed as bizarre, since Hollywood is after all, the sure-bet-sequel town.

This of course begged the question: Is Iger a fool or a maniac? To which I reply: Neither.

The most cynical view of this strategy would be the one taken by critics like Culture Vulture’s Claude Brodesser-Akner, who sees this direction as an aggressive move towards merchandising driven entertainment. But I’m not sure that analysis in entirely correct. While I could never argue that Disney’s responsibility to it’s shareholders to be increasingly more profitable isn’t a driving force in these radical changes, I see the strategy as a real response to the way social media, branding and convergent media are changing consumer/viewer behavior.

Sure, Pirates of the Carribean can have a theme-park ride whereas Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds are pure passive entertainment–but is Iger’s decision to stick with properties that have cross-media opportunities really THAT crazy sounding to anyone who hasn’t been asleep through the advent of social media, interactive entertainment and yes, Miley Cyrus? All this hand-wringing really shows a lack of understanding that Iger’s sharp assessment about the future of entertainment includes the stark reality that for any property to be profitable in age of bit torrent and audience involvement, there have to be multiple streams of revenue that take engagement into serious consideration.

So, no, he is NOT mad. And perhaps somewhere in the wings his largest individual shareholder, Steve Jobs is whispering in Iger’s ear to check out the looking glass of the future.

I think the answer is yes. And I did some research to challenge my own assumptions.

Of course, now with the heavily rumored and anticipated i-something (maybe iTablet or iSlate) device from the happy people at Apple, it seems the transformation of reading is perhaps closer than we might have imagined. As is often the case, technology will drive the charge and likely change user behavior and only then will creative ideas for the product follow suit. Looking beyond the cool gadgetry of the new Apple toy, let’s just consider it another gateway into the world that Amazon’s Kindle has already established with e-reading. We can be sure of one thing though: it will likely be a user-friendly, very portable device that makes the crossover between text and image very appealing.

So there we are, sucked into the magical interface, switching between a Youtube video,  the latest issue of Vogue magazine and pages of Anna Karenina, making leaps of imagination and information that may have been a little more difficult when those materials were tactile. And I describe a scenario in a sequence that has actually happened for me. I have the Kindle for iPhone app, and I confess, I am currently reading Anna Karenina on that tiny, tiny screen on the subway and sometimes, I switch tasks and watch a randomly unconnected  video, then quickly flip through a fashion magazine all in the time it takes to get from Soho to Grand Central Station. So, essentially I contradict myself.

So I’m a media zombie, a self-proclaimed future filmmaker. But a book purist, right? Yes and no. I wonder how I would feel if there was an option to watch a dramatization of Tolstoy’s novel within my app. Would I do it? I’m not sure. But I think most people would if it made an old Russian novel accessible. And for that reason, companies like Vook and Fourth Story Media are emerging in the hybrid book space with titles ranging from how-to’s to teen novels and popular adult fiction. I downloaded and sampled the Sherlock Holmes double Vook and gave it a whirl. Frankly, launching a documentary about opium use during late 19th century London was really distracting to me when I wanted to follow the characters. But I found that I liked the interface when not actually engaged in the narrative. My conclusion is not that the Vook concept itself is flawed, it’s just that turning a classically structured narrative into a multimedia experience is a complex creative challenge. And I can’t say this particular title succeeded.

However, if a title was written by the author with the intention of creating a multimedia narrative in which the text and video where simultaneously conceived, the same way we do when writing screenplays intended for filming, then I think it would be an entirely different proposition. And I actually look forward to the birth of a new form with as much creative and intellectual rigor as good literature has traditionally had. As Bob Stein, whose Institute for the Future of Books says in an LA Times piece, “We’re going to see an explosion of experimentation before we see a dominant new format. We’re at the very beginning stages” of figuring out what narrative might look like in the future– “…the very, very beginning.”

Attendees following the backchannel conversations during the conference, may have noticed a thread on authorship vs. crowdsourcing (not always in polarity), which led to the subject of auteurship and whether that idea has a place within the wide open world of Transmedia. It struck me that the Purefold case study, led by AG8 was in itself an interesting connundrum for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the irony that the canon on which the project is at least conceptually based (Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner) is a work of legendary auteurship, AND that AG8′s assigned task was to create an interactive multiplatform campaign for their brand which would drive business TO their production company which represents…what else…auteurs.

The panel was called “Case Study: Transmedia Design and Conceptualization – The Making of Purefold.” AG8 are the architects of the campaign, their client is RSA and their collaborators include The Alchemists, also at the panel. For people unfamiliar with the way companies like RSA work, let me digress into their business for a second. They are essentially production companies which also act as exclusive reps of commercial and music video directors – the directors’ marketability is based on their reputation as visual auteurs. When ad agencies have a commercial to produce, they take bids and creative proposals from a host of RSA-like companies and often make their decisions based on the creative compatibility of the campaign to the director and/or the strength of their creative approach to the advertisers concept.

For many years, companies like RSA rode the tide of an endless flow of million-dollar commercials and flourished by incubating the best visual creatives in the business. With the changing landscape of TV and the ad business pulling back from the traditional :30 ad and drastically slashed budgets in the last couple of years, these companies began struggling, and a number have since folded. RSA’s Scott family – Ridley,the most famous and his brother Tony, their brood of budding young Scott auteurs and other well-known film and television directors have managed to (barely) stay relevant because they have a lot of well-established brand names in their stable. But these companies are facing an unprecedented crisis, and they are desperately trying to find a way to keep their directors employed in an era of diversified advertising strategies and the proliferation of social media.

I go into this level of detail on the business because I find it deeply fascinating that the key tool – crowdsourcing – of an brand campaign – Purefold – aiming to keep RSA relevant is at complete odds with the very fiber of RSA’s business – singularity of artistic/aesthetic vision. This certainly signals the willingness of RSA to step into the new world of branding and storytelling BUT, what sort of bedfellows will the “crowd” and the RSA auteurs eventually make under their in their Creative Commons alliance? It is of course too early to tell as the project is still in process and their presentation was primarily focused on genesis and process and not yet on the creative results.

When David Bausola and Tom Himpe, principals at AG8, presented their method of crowdsourcing they used the word “harvesting”, a description which also appears on their website. The method: by seeding Friendfeed conversations with concepts/ideas that RSA auteurs have invented, they conduct what is essentially a real-time study of what people are saying about this subjects, all riffing (if I understood this correctly) on the core theme of “empathy”. Needless to say the world “harvesting” caused an instant flurry of reactions on the Twitter backchannel during the conference as attendees bristled at the semantic implication of the word. Defenders of the method responded saying that because they created the project under Creative Commons which allows sharing and remixing, the method does not in fact imply exploitation as some felt it did.

I chimed in on this Twitter chatter myself, as I think this unease between the “crowd” and the auteurs or their agents, in this case the Purefold team is something which has not yet been fully considered. In our zeal as storytellers to jump on the crowdsourcing wagon, many issues of authorship remain unanswered. Is curation the new auteurship? How is crowdsourcing in Purefold different from me browsing a news site or reading a magazine and tapping into the Zeitgeist in a way that informs my artistic work? On one hand, I understand that only through experiments like Purefold do these issues fully play out in a way that allows new paths to be forged and on the other, I worry about a world of participation in which the rules are either too obscure for the players to be aware, or in which the auteur is forced to crowdsource simply because it creates the appearance of some sort of creative democracy.

There’s no denying that feisty chef Anthony Bourdain is a compelling character to watch. Which is why he has his own show on the Travel Channel in the first place. So I was fascinated to discover (via @laughingsquid) this trailer for his new show, Anthony Bourdain’s Alternate Universe which is as you can see, animated! It looks like a fictional foray into his crazy, spice-flared, slightly inebriated brain. I love the idea for a couple of reasons: first, it’s a clever way to expand the Bourdain brand and second, it’s one of those life-meets-fiction experiments that blurs the line between real and the imagined. Looking forward to the fun of Mr Bourdain’s brain!