AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

I launched this “Media and Technology” blog last year as a more efficient way of sharing information about the subjects that AFI staff and other interested parties should know about in the expanding world of online media, social networking, nonprofit management, and related topics. The AFI “Media and Technology” blog is more a record of [...]

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Wall Street Journal - Portals Column by Lee Gomes
Had PowerPoint been around 150 years ago, Thoreau might have warned us to beware not only of enterprises that require new clothes, but also of those that require new paradigms.
A book from 2006, “The Long Tail,” was one of those that appear periodically and demand that we [...]

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LA Times “Web Scout” blog
Enter a cineplex this summer and you’re basically wandering into a giant circus. Each tent pole — the biz term for a colossally expensive movie — is sure to include at least one outlandish, or even freakish, main character. Step right up. On your left, watch an old man — incredibly! [...]

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Current.org
ITVS and Independent Lens announced that Kylee Darcy, a 19-year-old attending UC Berkeley, is the grand prize winner of their first annual Filmocracy mashup contest. She wins $1000 for her short film King Corn Takes Over the World, which incorporates clips of the Independent Lens film King Corn. Her film will also play in various [...]

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Lost Remote
NBC will offer up a ton of live video during the Olympics: 2,200 hours. “We think it will generate a tremendous amount of engagement. We think it will generate more television viewership,” said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics. But there is one limitation: events that will be televised on NBC will not appear [...]

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Red Herring
Facebook on Monday announced a new friend: Marc Andreessen, who has joined the company’s board.
“Marc is an industry leader, and we’re fortunate to have him join our board,” Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.
The Ning chairman and co-founder was added to tap his experience with social sites and in growing [...]

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Silicon Alley Insider
Since Hulu launched three months ago, it has become a consumer success, joining Nielsen’s top-10 video sites, and serving more video in May than ABC.com.
What does that mean in terms of gross ad sales for the NBC U - News Corp. JV? Not much. And net revenue? Even less.
We estimate Hulu will sell [...]

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Google
We’ve received numerous requests to improve our indexing of Adobe Flash files. Today, Ron Adler and Janis Stipins—software engineers on our indexing team—will provide us with more in-depth information about our recent announcement that we’ve greatly improved our ability to index Flash.
Q: Which Flash files can Google better index now?
We’ve improved our ability to index [...]

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paidContent.org
Starz, the cable TV network owned by Liberty Media (NSDQ: LINTA), has quietly reorg-ed its management operations, reports THR. Starz Entertainment, which oversees the brand’s linear and VOD channels, and Starz Media, the umbrella group for such third-party programming providers as Anchor Bay Entertainment and Film Roman, will be consolidated under Bill Myers, president and [...]

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BusinessWeek
Moving past the Yahoo saga, the software giant is buying semantic search engine Powerset as a way of closing the gap with Google
Still smarting from a failed attempt to buy Yahoo! (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT) is trying another tactic to gain on Google (GOOG) in Web search.
Microsoft is buying Powerset, developer of what it hopes is [...]

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