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"Flashy iPad Apps" Are NOT the Point - The Potential for new Dimensions IS

Alec Pollak — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:31:38 +0000

In his June 1st column on GigaOm.com, Mathew Ingram asks "Are Flashy iPad Apps What Publishers Really Need?" and proceeds to discuss Wired Magazine's iPad edition runaway sales hit and Adobe's announcement of the Apple-friendly tool set used to create the app, available soon to all. In general I think the post makes some great points about how digital editions of the magazines we know and love are going to have to incorporate more of the interactivity and interconnected depth of information afforded by the web in order to signal a true change. The headline and the lead in really make it sound like these "Flashy iPad Apps" are the be-all-end-all and it is either this newfangled touch enabled version of the flat magazine pages or the web - period. SO not the case - this touch medium is just getting started. There is such a fantastic opportunity for designers and publishers to imagine truly rich multimedia experiences in the hands of their readers like never before. There is a massive opportunity for new forms of communication and expression and I cannot wait to see what envelopes the innovators push... and I hope to jump in and produce and express with the best of them.

SyFy Digital Doesn't Believe in Digital?

Alec Pollak — Wed, 05 May 2010 21:20:53 +0000

In an answer to this tweet...

Q) @FenGar Do you forsee a near-future when web shows like The Guild and Dr. Horrible are the norm while scheduled TV is rare.Wed May 05 19:28:24 via webCraig Engler
Syfy

Syfy's SVP & GM of Digital, Craig Engler replied...

A) No. Successful web series r the exception w/no consistent biz model to support them. TV still works VERY well w/a mature biz model.Wed May 05 19:33:30 via webCraig Engler
Syfy

To which I replied...

@Syfy Many successful web series employ branded content models. Just because they work differently than TV doesn't mean they don't work .Wed May 05 20:07:40 via TweetieAlec Pollak
apollak

More and more brands are realizing the benefits of building their own content instead of simply hitching their business onto someone else's horse. Two of the shows in the Digitas roster prove that point for Kraft - Jen and Barb Mom Life and Paula Deen's Real Women of Philadelphia. It just makes sense to BUILD or DISCOVER the perfect context for your brand and make it work for you in all media. It is a model that makes sense, proves efective and makes for good content that works hard for its money.

Craig replied to me in a Twitter DM, where he basically tried to qualify his position as looking out for critical mass in the industry. I pointed him to the new site we just put up for the Digital Content NewFront 2010 where he will be able to watch the event live on June 9th. (So can you!) When he sees who we've got lined up to discuss the issues and hears about the opportunities that abound, perhaps he'll change his tune.

Liking this Blackbird Pie Twitter embed thing, by the way. Although this bookmarlet really makes it worthwhile.

A Return to Normalcy

Alec Pollak — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 14:04:26 +0000

Alec with first pasta at Aroma Osteria, Wappinger Falls, NYAfter just under nine months of restricting my diet according to the prescriptions of The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) I'm stepping back into the world of polysacharides - grains, sugars, a wider selection of dairy, potatoes and I can stop driving waitresses and waiters all over the city crazy with my special requests. I'll never eat the same way I did in the past. My eyes have been opened to the insane amount of sugar packed into so much of the packaged food offered to us on a regular basis. Avoiding that shouldn't be too hard. I've learned so much about alternative snacks to keep around and rediscovered the beauty of fruits and veggies as a constant source of sustenance that I'm not worried about falling back into the trap of junk snacking. I'll still have to learn to control myself around pizza and chocolate.

Failure to Augment

Alec Pollak — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:10:58 +0000

Subscribe FAILWith the promotional anticipation of a summer blockbuster release and a six-figure budget, Esquire's Augmented Reality issue poised ready to pounce on the minds and hearts of the public at large. Sadly, also like a bloated budget flick, the "technology" showcase completely misses the point.

It started at the mailbox. On the cover of my shiny new AR enabled issue of Esquire, the subscription sticker came slapped right on top of the cover AR marker. Nice.

The sticker came off fairly easily and my wife and I fired up the Esquire AR app after downloading it from the Esquire.com AR page. The various AR enabled bits of the magazine essentially allow you to use the magazine as a controller for what could easily be web based bonus content. Not the point of AR. AR takes the real world and enhances it via a superimposed digital layer of information, multimedia and/or interactivity. Reality PLUS augmentation. Why is this so difficult to understand?

Now, the millions of people wooed by Esquire's marketing machine are all trying out the AR enabled bits of the magazine, trying desperately to look past the pages of the magazine to see the multimedia content wobble around onscreen and change if they twist the physical page right and left. That's not augmenting reality, that's really annoying. The question becomes, has Esquire done more damage to AR than good? Will AR still continue to capture people's imagination but fall short of its true potential? Or will such lame AR implimentations be a step on the AR path, slowly getting the public used to interacting with computers via cameras as input devices for whatever purpose, no matter how banal, redundant or simplistic.

Are attempts such as Esquire's the equivalent of vaudville-like performances passing for film content in that medium's early days? Or even the early web's attempt to replicate the print world or even TV. Only with the 2.0 version did the web really start to find it's own unique uses. Who will introduce the Twitter or Facebook of Augmented Reality? What's that sweet spot of wide appeal that truly brings the power of augmentation to bear?

Esquire has always provided the world with insightful, compelling and relevant content. They've taken a big step, experimenting with this new way of bringing that content to the world. Let's hope it isn't their last.

Imagining New Tomorrows

Alec Pollak — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:59:19 +0000

The 2007 FYI TeamThree years after its reinvention as a web video company, For Your Imagination has continued to evolve and today stands as one of the premiere web-based, branded-entertainment-focused, video shops in New York, specializing in strategic development and syndication of those branded-entertainment videos. As that evolution has taken place, I've decided that in order to better exercise my talents and experience, it is time for me to move on.

RIP Blake Snyder 1957-2009

Alec Pollak — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:25:33 +0000

As a part of my self-syllabused screenwriting education I have been considering attending Blake Snyder's workshop in NYC in mid-August this year. Now that chance lost along with so much potential for education and who knows how many great screenplays guided down a sucessful road. Snyder passed away suddenly yesterday leaving his "Save the Cat!" books and methods as his legacy, a legacy that inspired, shaped and guides screenwriters everywhere, including the writing group I regularly attend.

Like Quicktime VR but for Video

Alec Pollak — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:34:30 +0000

Yellowbird, a start-up in the Netherlands, is taking things to the next dimension. Here's a demo embedded below. I cannot wait to play with some more of this. I'd love to think that this is the future of storytelling but I thought that about Quicktime VR too and that really hasn't happened yet. Anyhoo, check it out.

Hilarious Poetry

Alec Pollak — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:00:00 +0000

From Conan O’Brien's Tonight Show, William Shatner's rendition of Sarah Palin's farewell speech - as beat poem. Priceless.

Ninjas! Cards! iPhones!

Alec Pollak — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:13:28 +0000

OK iPhone game fans, it's time to shell out a whopping ninety-nine cents for hours and hours of card flicking amusement. The brilliant and talented Gregg Delcurla and his cohorts at Pint Sized Mobile have come up with a highly addictive game that involves both ninjas and cards (as the name would suggest.)

Laura's Living in HD

Alec Pollak — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:00:32 +0000

Check out my sister-in-law's new show over at Panasonic's Living in HD website. Go Laura!