Sony's latest iTunes Extras is another step after Apple's start

PaidContent profile Sony's latest release, a Will Ferrell movie, The Other Guys, which will have some interesting new features available in their iTunes version.

iTunes Extras are as I've noted before at least a start from Apple in acknowledging the issues facing film in the digital era. They re-introduce the idea of DVD extras, available only when you purchase the movie via iTunes. To date, they've been a predictable set of additional video clips and slideshows along with text. So far, not really a new deal, all very familiar. It's limited, in fact, by the unavailability of directors commentary in the current format.

In the Sony offering you can search for any word in the script and the movie will jump to that spot in the dialogue. Which is pretty neat. Other options including sharing a clip on your social networks and having direct links to the songs on iTunes.

A step forward after Apple's start perhaps. Good to see studios stretch a bit and interesting that Sony was the one to do so first. Perhaps it stems from their experience in the music industry, a few years ahead of the film industry in dealing with the digital revolution.

The PaidContent article talks about one-upping DVD, but the reality is this is about one-upping piracy. The key differentiator in the future for legitimate paid for content is to offer more than the pirates, to make purchasing the digital film compelling. The article makes some good points about how the Extras format pushes consumers to buy rather than rent. I think there needs to be some preview of additional material and functionality in the movies iTunes page for that to be a compelling factor.

The overall issue, of course, is the limitation that the film be viewed in iTunes at all, and the relative clunkiness of the Extras .ite format, a bundle of HTML, CSS and Javascript. There's only so far it can go here. The main creative act in the Sony offering, the 'wouldn't it be neat if..' is the script integration. We need a lot more of that, deeper too, looking to interaction with story itself.

All our future viewing devices, large or small, will be precisely that, devices, computers in various forms. The future here surely lies in some format, as yet undetermined, whereby content is not simply presented, much as a player might do, but also available through creative programming to be interacted with. The future of film lies as an application running on a device.

There's a lot of experience in the gaming industry, there's a lot of talent in the film sector. Apple have fundamentally changed people's relationship with applications with iOS, essentially shifting the public's perception of them as a new content form.

All in place. But not here yet. My gumption is that it'll start in two ends of the spectrum.

First, a major film will plan a digital release as an application, iOS, but also Windows and Mac and perhaps Android, offering only rentals via Netflix, iTunes etc. It'll be big, it'll be expensive. It'll be along the lines of a game, or at least employ a lot of gaming style interaction, and it'll probably be a lads, sci-fi, film. At some point the money on that will make sense, including the marketing requirements they'll face. They'll target the gaming market as a core and build upon it. They'll make this approach the story and get a lot of media attention.

Second front could even be first off the bat, small teams will form where filmmakers will fold programmers into their team at story stage and will fashion the shoot around the requirements of the planned application. They will release on iOS and perhaps Android alongside their Festival release, they'll embrace mobile as part of their strategy. The film will be made by respected indie filmmakers and will get a lot of attention as a result.

This all builds upon the revolution in production and distribution and marketing the film industry has been dragged through over the past years. The filmmaker's role has expanded from maker through to distributor and marketer and curator as Ted Hope has expounded upon at length. Transmedia, storycubes all of these exploratory approaches will end up forming ways of exploring the question of "how to make a compelling interactive rich narrative which isn't a game?" I'm hoping, that here, on this end of the spectrum, we'll see some diversity in approach and theme.

This year, perhaps, we will see the first one. If not, by the end of 2012, for certain. There, that's my new year's prediction, time for a resolution or two, methinks...

Facebook Contacts linger longer than you might think

Okay… Like most people at some point, I asked Facebook to check to see if any of my contacts were on Facebook. It did its thing, I selected some and moved on, never really thinking much more about it. What I didn’t realise is that Facebook keeps all that data.

All of it. Not just the friends you add. They keep the contacts you didn’t add too, that includes work, business, confidential numbers and emails etc. If you go and look at your Facebook Phonebook (no, I didn’t realise I had one either) you’ll see the full list. And you’ll quickly see not just your Facebook contacts but everyone who you had in your contact database when you checked for contacts. Be it your Apple Addressbook or your Outlook contacts or Yahoo or whatever.

Your Facebook Phonebook is available by Clicking on Account then choosing Edit Friends and selecting Phonebook from the sidebar. Up it pops.



Now here you see the first listing of my contacts. None of them are Facebook friends, actually only one of them is on Facebook. That doesn’t stop Facebook keeping their telephone numbers and email address however.

Friends who are in your address book but not on Facebook (or use a different email address for Facebook) will appear with ‘Invite to join Facebook’ down the bottom. Their telephone numbers are listed and presumably their email addresses are stored too. Friends who are on Facebook have an ‘Add to Friends’ link.

Spot the small ‘Learn more’ in the top line above? Clicking on it brings up the following dialog box.




There’s no actual instruction how to disable the feature on your mobile device but my bet is most people uploaded a contact file at some point. Clicking on the ‘this page’ link again at the end brings up this dialog box.




This is a by now standard Facebook wording designed to discourage you from protecting your privacy. Their standard approach is to discourage through planting some uncertainty every time you protect your data.

Clicking ‘Remove’ brings up this.



The troubling thing is most of you who know me probably have my numbers and addresses in yours….even if you’re not my friend on Facebook. I have over 3,000 contacts in my Mac Addressbook, and only a few hundred contacts on Facebook. But Facebook has held on to those telephone numbers and email addresses years after I checked when I first joined.
There’s very little hope of them all being deleted, most people won’t be bothered to do it.

The answer lies in Facebook’s hands, but the simple courtesy of not storing data after a contact list check seems to be beyond them.

Position

We had a Mother's Day picnic here on top of Knocknarea. This was actually taken on top of Queen Maeve's cairn on top of the mountain. And it's not one of us, a tourist. It's a tradition to bring up rocks from the bottom and carry them to the top.

Pinnacle

A quick snatched shot while I was in traffic in central Sligo end of day. I liked the bird at the end of the buIlding… and then the plane obligingly flew into view.

Markree chandelier

I like using the camera apps on the iPhone which come preset for particular styles. My two favourites are Polarize which does this sort of Polaroid look and Format 126 which recreates the Instamatic look from the mid-Seventies.

If I'm going to take a snap, it may as well have the fetishistic sheen of the crap cameras of my youth.

Make Way for Tomorrow

The bleak and moving "Make Way for Tomorrow", 1937, by Leo McCarey. When he ended up getting the Oscar for "The Awful Truth" he told them they gave it for 'the wrong movie'. New, and by all accounts beautifully restored, release on DVD by Criterion is now available on Amazon. Can't wait.

Lough Gill Rainbow