Hollywood2020

VIRGIN MOBILE'S NOT SO SWEET SUGARMAMA DEAL!

VIRGIN MOBILE'S NOT SO SWEET DEAL! 

Watch ads and get free mobile minutes ...if you've been reading my blog or my articles in trade pubs or consumer magazines online and off you know that I love FREE! BUT in this case it may not be such a sweet deal that Virgin is offering with a new program they are calling SugarMama. Here's a link to what BUSINESS WEEK had to say about the plan: A Sweet Deal for Virgin Mobile?

BUT it's not so simple, here are the hurdles I see from this project gaining users and speeding up adoption of video on mobile for Virgin (a pre-paid MVNO).

1) You have to watch the commercials on your PC (what percentage of pre-paid customers are going to run off to their PC to watch commercials is a big questions)...some of these folks may not even own PCs and may use their pals or the local library -- remember Prepaid users tend to be either cheap or broke according to my personal experience with folks who use pre-paid.

2) You don't just watch the commercials and then get freebie minutes -- you have to answer a quiz after the commerial? Lots of work for only 75 minutes (max) of free airtime.

3) Or you have to text message answers to the quiz. As my bro would say -- who's paying for the text messaging on this gig -- in otherwords, prepaid users like my brother who are on a budget hesitate to even start text messaging because it is an expensive addiction.

HERE's what I had to say when imediaconnection asked me for a comment on this new service: Check out their story at: Virgin Mobile: Watch Ads, Earn Minutes imediaconnection.com:

PARTIAL QUOTE FROM JOYCE SCHWARZ, JCOM about :Sugar Mama's deal for free airtime in return for watching ads looks sweet at first. but my concern is that when users realize they can only earn a max of 75 minutes per month, it may turn sour. Average use on cell phones is about 700 minutes per month -- 'working' to get 75 minutes of that free may just not be sweet enough," says Joyce Schwarz, iMedia contributor. "This is a case where a little bit of marketing may not go a long way. Recently announced competitor Xero is promising to go whole hog in the fall giving away phones for free and dangling the carrot of free service for watching TV-type ads. There's no doubt that advertising offers great revenue opportunity for mobile carriers, but my call is that it's much more valuable when it fully subsidizes services such as watch ads and you get free games or free texting. Even free cartons of Pepsi might be a better incentive."

Adjab.com -- always ROFL: .....Over at Adjab.com they have this great quote from Virgin exec Howard Handler, who describes SugarMama as "someone who shows up and gives you some extra gratification and gets you over the hump."

NINTENDO BRINGS OUT TOUCH BRAND-- HOLLYWOOD2020 Blog Scooped Story back on May 20

Nintendo Launches New 'Touch Generations' Brand for Nontraditional ...

Here's the info from Nintendo's press release on the new roll-out of casual games -- dated May 30, 2006 BUT Hollywood2020 had a story about this earlier this month-- we know how to reach out and touch someone!!! NINTENDO REACHES OUT TO "TOUCH" YOU WITH NEW WEBSITE & GAMES 

Starting in June, Nintendo will begin branding its more casual Nintendo DS(TM) titles under the new TouchGenerations label. The Touch Generations brand will include titles thatanyone can pick up and play, even with little or no experience with videogames.

It represents one of the many ways that Nintendo is making it easy
for new demographics of people to be introduced to video games. Three new
games, including a second brain-training game, will be added to the Touch
Generations category in June.
  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060530/LATU022LOGO )
    "We remain committed to turning video games into an inclusive mass
medium that everyone can enjoy," says George Harrison, Nintendo of
America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications.
"Touch Generations will help novices and newcomers identify the fun and
uniquely engaging experiences that are available only on Nintendo DS."

WHAT ARE YOU DOING WHEN YOU ARE ON MYSPACE?

WHAT ARE YOU DOING WHEN YOU ARE BLOGGING ON MYSPACE? great question that Myspace asks each time you begin to blog...."Tell us what you're reading, viewing or listening to"...BUT the amazing thing is that the multiple choices offered are the following:

Click on thumbnail to see what I'm talking about - no opportunity or category to say you're watching TV while on Myspace????????

*Playing (music)

*Reading (books) -- I guess they mean in general-- it's hard to read and post at the same time?

*Watching (DVD/Video) -- yep no TV?? no Television mentioned

*Playing (video games)

VIDEO GAMES LIVE TAKES GAME MUSIC TO THE PEOPLE!

How do you get kids, Tweens and Teens interested in classical music --  ask Video Games Live http://www.videogameslive.com which is doing a terrific job of bringing music to the people through live orchestra concerts around the country that feature music from of all things -- VIDEO GAMES!

WHAT KIND OF GAMES AND WHAT KIND OF MUSIC -- look at this amazing list:

Games like Mario™, Zelda®, Halo®, Metal Gear Solid®, Warcraft®, Myst®, Final Fantasy®, Castlevania®, Kingdom Hearts, Medal of Honor™, Sonic™, Tron, God of War™, Tomb Raider®, Advent Rising, Headhunter, Beyond Good & Evil™, Splinter Cell®, Ghost Recon™, Rainbow Six®, EverQuest® II and a special retro Classic Arcade Medley featuring over 20+ games from Pong® to Donkey Kong® including such classics as Dragon's Lair, Tetris, Frogger, Gauntlet, Space Invaders & Outrun!

CHECK OUT THIS NEW TRAILER FOR THE VIDEO GAMES LIVE EVENT:

WANT TO SEE A TRAILER -- peek at these links:

HI-RES:  http://www.videogameslive.com/trailer/vglsanjose2006.wmv

LO-RES:  http://www.videogameslive.com/trailer/vglsanjose2006.mov

You may have caught the premiere of this event at the Hollywood Bowl last year -- if not or if so - you'll probably want to check out the redux this fall! See the list of dates on the link below. Hollywood2020 missed it at the GDC (Game Developer's Show in San Jose) but I sure hope we're in town this fall!. Congrats to VGL for all of their great work...what a wonderful way to make music real to people of all ages!

NEXT CONCERT IN PHILLY: next show is Saturday, June 3rd at the Merriam Theatre in Philadelphia during Wizard World.  It will be the very first video game concert in Philadelphia. Check out the other tour dates at: http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=dates 

SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITY BANDS CAN NOW PLAY VIDEO GAME SOUNDTRACK MUSIC!

VGL writes to us that they made a non-profit deal with Alfred Publishing where they gave them all of their orchestrations and arrangements so that over 60,000+ schools and universities across North America will be able to play their favorite music for Drum Corps, Marching Band or School Orchestra. The profit is passed on to the composer, publishers & developers  http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?story=36 KEWL STUFF~

INDY 500 USES SPLIT SCREEN ADS FIRST TIME : WATCH WHOLE RACE!

INDY 500 television viewers were able to watch the whole race for the first time courtesy of a new technology/graphic design called split-screen which showed the race on the left hand of the screen and commercials on the right hand of the screen. Amazing stuff! Congrats to ABC/ESPN for this innovation.

See sample of the ABC/ESPN side-by-side 'split-screen" graphics that allows Indy 500 TV viewers watch the whole race this year. Picture on left, ads on right. (note the JPEG does not depict the actual Indy 500 because I could not find a JPEG of that quickly.)

LA DAILY NEWS CONFIRMS "first INDY 500 to use the side-by-side 'split screen' --this year's ABC Indy coverage will be the first to use "side-by-side" split-screen commercial breaks, which means no live action will be missed because of ads" Cached .

Last 20 miles of race -- underwriter-- Capital One

-- no commercial interruption!

Thanks to Capital One for underwriting the last 20 laps

-- as they say last year it was "Danicamania'

this year it was 'Mariomania"

Fabulous race. Great innovation!

HOLLYWOOD GIZMOS & GADGETS -- KEWL STUFF FROM THE FUTURE

HOLLYWOOD GIZMOS & GADGETS -- KEWL STUFF FROM THE FUTURE....from slashdot.org we find out about Techeblog.com's picks for the 10 Strangest Gadgets from the Future....at Hollywood2020.blogs.com, we focus in on the kewl stuff we think Hollywood2020 bloggers and emerging entertainment & media leaders would love to have on their desk or in their media rooms! We've gone to the trouble to track down if these are real or reel as we call them -- just ideas or concepts that you may never see!

EYEMOVE PC -- concept only.

Yep, we checked it out -- this is a concept only. Gates loves these PCs of the future- Indiatimes Infotech -- great article we found on Indiatimes.com that shows this concept design and a score of others including one called Janet (Clemens Lango of Ratingen, Germany won $25,000 for thas design) in a contest coordinated by Microsoft, Dell, HP and in conjunction wit the Industrial Designers Society of America. (see link above for more info)

SMART SILK - - among the other winners in the Next Generation OS PC Design Contest Designer Rebecca Bartells feels that her  'Smart Stik' can be used instead of text books.

Check out the other goodies at the IndiaTimes link above and you'll see some fabulous thought-provoking designs that will prompt us to see the future in advance. Great reference for those naysayers that say that portable devices will never replace the TV 'Set" or the Desktop or the laptop!

DVD SCREEN THE SIZE OF A COMPACT (the size of a woman's make-up compact -- do chicks still use these? ) this is a fun device: The Origami DVD Player -- a portable DVD player concept that could be manufactured with a new e-paper (a full-color flexible display technology) being developed by Mag-Ink in Israel. More on this at www.inventables.com where we got the info about Mag-Ink.

XMEN 3 THE LAST STAND

XMEN "THE LAST STAND" ....want to see the opening 7 minutes of the film -- click here....only in the Web2.0 world can you actually peek at movies in advance -- even before they are out (okay, I mean LEGALLY). Watch the First 7 Minutes of Xmen 3 The Last Stand.

POST CREDITS CODA:If you go to the film -- be sure to stay in your seats for post-credits scene that leads to lots of speculating online! X-Men: Last Stand Post-Credits Scene? (see what scads of DIGG.com readers guess is the real scene or should I say the REEL scene.

NEW ANTI-AGING SPECIAL EFFECTS SOFTWARE IN THE LAST STAND! Cached -the software makes the actors look 20 years younger by putting patches on their faces and doing FX magic.

XMEN/GOOGLE MASHUP

Welcome to X-Planet : X-Men - The Last Stand 

X-planet - A worldwide community of X-Men and Brotherhood supporters is awaiting you. www.xplanet.net/ - 8k - May 26, 2006 - Cached - (beware this took over my screen and I could not get out!)

AMERICAN IDOL CHATTER:MIRRORS CULTURE

AMERICAN IDOL CHATTER....as I've written before AMERICAN IDOL not only mirrors popular culture but it seems to direct it to the next era of 'participation TV', 'user-generated' content and transactional television. The show's fans and foes tell us more about America today than most sociologists or anthropoligists can. 

DOES RUMSFELD WATCH AMERICAN IDOL:Great transcript of Larry King interview with Donald Rumsfeld posted online and linked here: Television Interview with Secretary Rumsfeld on CNN's "Larry King ...Here's an excerpt of the ending of the program: "From the Pentagon, this is Larry King with the secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. It's always a great pleasure to be with him.Tomorrow night, the new "American Idol" will be on "Larry King Live." Do you watch it? SEC. RUMSFELD: (Laughs) Heck, no!MR. KING: You don't? (Laughs.) That's funny. Don Rumsfeld rushes home to see who won "American Idol." SEC. RUMSFELD: (Laughs.)"

MORE VOTES FOR AMERICAN IDOL THAN FOR US PRESIDENT? 

Idol vote bests elections *courtesy of advanced-television.com"

More than 60m votes were cast in the final of American Idol, almost 10m more than the highest-ever vote for a president in a US election. Taylor Hicks emerged the winner on a night that saw 63m votes cast the biggest single voting night in the five-season history of the show. In 1984, 54.5m voters backed Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential election - the most votes ever obtained by a president. Over 600m votes were cast across this fifth season of American Idol. "It is astonishing to think that this year more people voted for American Idol than have voted for any President of America," said Simon Fuller, creator of American Idol.

HOLLYWOOD2020 TRACKS DOWN PIX OF THE REAL MERMAID CHAIR AND MORE INFO ON THE REEL "THE MERMAID CHAIR"

THE MERMAID CHAIR by author Sue Monk KiddCached is a best selling book that will soon be made into a LIFETIME TV movieCached starring Kim Bassinger. Kim Basinger to Star in The Mermaid Chair (from Monk Kidd's website).

PEEK INSIDE SUE MONK KIDD's JOURNAL ONLINE:

Here's the link to Monk Kidd's journal page that talks about the inspiration for the THE MERMAID CHAIR book

(see link :http://www.suemonkkidd.com/journal.asp?i=2&j=M) Monk Kidd explains: "While talking with a friend about her trip to Cornwall, England, she casually mentioned that she’d seen a “mermaid chair” in a small church. She described it as a chair with a mermaid carved on its side which had been in the church for centuries though the reason seemed to be a mystery."

Pix of the real Mermaid Chair in Cornwall, England, from google images.

www.carolynlee.co.uk

www.john.burnett.btinternet.co.uk and another link is

www.eng-villages.co.uk and www.walkingthewall.com

TWO WINGED MERMAIDS.....

Later in that journal entry, Monk Kidd explains: " I went around for a while after that with the image of a mermaid chair vividly planted in my mind: not like the actual chair in the Cornish church, rather a chair whose arms were formed by the carved bodies of two winged mermaids"

Mermaid Trivia: Blogger Joyce Schwarz is a Mermaid collectible fan. She has numerous Mermaid dolls and Mermaid sculptures displayed on her end table in her living room which faces the Marina in Marina Del Rey, CA. A favorite doll is the Bette Midler Mermaid replica based on her character Delores Delago 'the beached Mermaid' who zooms on stage in a motorized wheel chair. Schwarz first became fascinated by Mermaids when she wrote an interview with two of the 'live Mermaids in Florida at:  Weeki Wachee Spring The only city of live Mermaids!

HASBRO CANCELS PUSSYCAT DOLLS

HASBRO CANCELS THE PUSSYCAT DOLLS DOLLS: Have the heirs of Barbie hit limit for risqué dolls? Fascinating CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR STORY on the 'heris fo Barbie'. Here's an excerpt:

No stripper dolls for today's tweens! It's really important to know that corporations can be stopped; it really underscores the importance of people working together to stop commercial exploitation of children," says Susan Linn, the cofounder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which spear-headed a letter-writing effort with the national nonprofit Dads & Daughters. "[The Pussycat Dolls] was a ratcheting up of the kind of precocious irresponsible sexuality that is being marketed to little girls."

AOL LIVE POLL AGREES WITH HASBRO DECISION TO CANCEL 14 INCH DOLLS:

click on thumbnail

to see what AOL readers say about whether Hasbro should have nixed the dolls!

WANT TO SEE MORE OF THE DOLLS?

Get ready for virtual night clubs Go to PCDmusiclounge.com and see what Doppelganger and the PCD's have ready for your weekend of virtual fun!