Digital Media: Austin

I ran across this story in Ad Age.  Apparently a few dads here in Austin have decided to begin an online channel that provides parenting tips targeted at fathers.  The venture was started by 3 Austin teachers and runs 4 episodes per week.  The trio began videocasting last year but have just recently converted the idea into a business model.  According to the story dadlabs.com was tracking at around 150,000 hits for November.   I think its an interesting concept with enough “niche” appeal to grab some targeted ad dollars.

On Networks, coming off another round of venture funding, and SXSW have announced a partnership to create the Greenlight Awards, honoring the best in digital episodic content on the web. Submissions will be taken and reviewed between December and February and the winner will be announced at the SXSW Greenlight Awards event during the conference. To the winner go the spoils of $10,000.

Press Release

That’s the headline, at least, from a press release last week at ad:Tech. Apparently ADRevolutionism has built a better mousetrap, errr ad serving platform that isn’t bound by a set number of behavioral descriptors. They do this through their, Natural Intelligence Marketing Engine^sm (NIME^sm) which allows limitless behavioral descriptors. The full solution is called The Ideal Advertising Marketplace^sm .

It also appears that the technology will be enabled through multiple channels as well, to include email, sms, display, and mobile. The company is based in Austin. Check’em out.

Speaking of Google, the company is opening an office in Austin soon. According to the Austin Business Journal, the company will be leasing a 25,000 square foot space in the Scarbrough building on 6th and Congress. That’s one block from my building. Sweet.

So far they have 3 open jobs listed on their website.

• Engineering Director - Austin
• Enterprise Sr. Partner Business Manager for Dell - Austin
• Enterprise Technical Account Manager - Austin

Today, Google and many other partners plan to unveil new APIs which allow developers to create applications that will work on any participating social networks. The project is called Open Social and all the techsters are talking about it.

Unlike Facebook, which uses its own markup language (FBML), Open Social utilizes HTML and Javascript to provide an open devlopment API that any developer can program for. As Marc Andreeson, founder of Ning explains, “Open Social basically standardizes the concept of a plug-in API in such a way that neither host social networking environments (containers) nor external applications will ever have to invent another plug-in API, or have to choose between multiple competing proprietary plug-in APIs.”

This will provide much needed scale for developers to deploy applications to many different social networks without the hassle and cost of programming for each one. The less manpower and funds dedicated to “porting” apps to different social network APIs will free up more manpower and funds to dedicate towards new and innovative apps.

I would think the cost incentives alone will push all the app developers to adopt Open Social and once “users” begin to understand that apps can move across their social networks, they will more than likely abandon the walled garden type sites.

Update:

Paid Content reported earlier today that Myspace and Bebo are jumping on board as well.

I read this about a week ago but haven’t had a chance to post it. Surprise, surprise, huh.

According to Scarbrough Research, Austin is the “Blogging Capitol of the U.S”. Maybe the city can turn that into a slogan like “The Live Music Capitol of the World” and run with it. I want credit though.

Anyway, Scarbrough put out a report ranking cities with the most bloggers. Followed closely behind Austin were Portland, San Fran, and Seattle. Big surprise there. The report has some interesting demographic info regarding Austin and internet savvy folks.

Interesting stats from the research report:

• Apparently 15% of all Austinites are bloggers
• Thirty-seven percent of Austin adults are between the ages of 18-34
• Austin adults are 17 percent more likely than adults nationally to be a part of a
  household that owns a DVR
• Austin adults are 51 percent more likely to be a part of a household that owns a
  PDA
• Bloggers are more than three times more likely than all Internet users to download Podcasts, and more than twice as likely to download/watch videos online.
• Bloggers are 20 percent more likely than the national average to
  have an annual household income between $50k and $100k per year.

Well I’ve been away for a while now. Grad school tends to take up a lot of time apparently. It was September since I posted something last. Now I’m back and my first post back is a doozy at least for me.

The company I currently work for, Springbox, was acquired by Viewpoint on Friday. The deal is set to close at the end of 2007. Selling price was roughly $5.5 million of mostly cash and some stock.

Viewpoint is a technology company based in New York that provides all sorts of interactive advertising solutions. The company also recently purchased Makos, another small full service ad agency here in Austin.

Here is the official press release.

The Gamasutra coverage page had an interview with Warren Spector regarding Disney’s purchase of his studio and other tidbits. In it he discusses everything from cartoons to new game master systems that react to players responses. Check it out.

So I’ve been pretty busy with work and going back to school and I totally have forgotten to talk about the Austin GDC. It’s been going on since Wednesday and ends today. Gamasutra has a live coverage page dedicated to the conference so check it out.

As usual it looks like one of the major topics is funding for game development. Online Alchemy’s Craig Fryar spoke about alternative funding for online game development. The usual suspects were discussed. However, one source that I think very few online developers have even thought about tapping are interactive marketing firms and agencies that have a pipeline into large corporate marketing budgets.

Now of course these developers wouldn’t get as much creative control of a game but they never will as long as someone else is doing the funding. Utilizing the marketing agencies could provide a steady stream of revenue that could allow a smaller studio to survive and eventually generate enough cash to fund its own game.

Currently I haven’t seen many indy game developers try and tap into what I think is a gold mine. More and more large corporations are shifting ad spend to online. I’ve read recent reports, which of course I can’t track down now, that online ad spend will overtake all other media in roughly 2012 or so. Surely there is a piece of that pie that can be exploited by game developers.

Well I assume Joel has gotten busy so I am posting what he forwarded me.

eSession.com, founded by CEO Gina Fant-Saez and 5-time GRAMMY award-winning producer Kevin Killen, is an Internet-enabled, software-based system that allows musicians anywhere in the world to seamlessly collaborate with world-class musicians, producers, mixers and engineers regardless of geography, time zone or computer operating system. By creating an Internet portal that puts session talent and artists in the same virtual arena, handles negotiations between the artist and session talent, and combines robust back-end technology with an intuitive graphic interface necessary for online collaboration, eSession.com ultimately views the progress made in the advancement of computer technology, Internet capability, and digital media as a way to expand the musical creative process.

eSession.com’s motto is “One world. One studio.” As such, the company’s vision is to bring together a music community that will enable musical collaboration on a global scale. By creating an online community for artists that are using digital technology to record their musical projects, eSession is creating a common area for these artists to seek each other out, collaborate with one another, and to break down the traditional and logistical barriers that have previously stood in the way of musical collaboration. eSession.com has now made it possible (and rather easy) for a bass player in Montana to collaborate on a funk track with a drummer from Singapore, and guitarist from Finland.

Another of eSession’s goals is to combine technology and world-class talent (called eTalent) to give artists a chance to work with music industry talent in a way they have not had access to before. For the eTalent members, made up of a star-studded roster of over 500 (and growing) of the world’s best session talent members including bassist Tony Levin (John Lennon), drummer Jack Irons (Pearl Jam), and guitarist Earl Slick (David Bowie), it is an opportunity to increase revenues by providing them with a worldwide client base of artists looking to collaborate with musical icons and impeccably solid professionals. eSession artists can also utilize the names of these session players as a marketing tool to boost visibility, fan base recognition, and/or sales.

Here is a brief break down of the eSession process:

- Artist creates a profile

o Creates a username and password

o Defines the parameters of the profile (name, discography, setup, photo, etc.)

o When the artist’s profile is complete, the artist is now considered an eMember

- eMember creates a New Project

o Define the project (the type of project, style of music, etc.)

o A “Song Page” (the main graphic interface for the collaboration) is then created for the project

o This is where WAV files will be stored, uploaded, and downloaded from within their appropriate labeled bins.

- eMember creates a song within the project

o Defines the parameters of the song (tempo, time signature, key, feel, lyrics, charts, etc.)

o Uploads a demo mp3 of the song

o Uploads click track and scratch tracks to the appropriate bins for future upload by collaborating “Song Team”

- eMember selects Song Team based on the needs of the song

o Can select from the world-class eTalent roster, OR search through the eMember database to collaborate with an existing eMember,

o Can also invite anyone to create a profile, become an eMember, and collaborate with them via eSession

§ eTalent roster is made up of world-class Musicians, Engineers, Producers, & Mixers who all have at least 15 major label credits to their name

- Send each eTalent member of the Song Team a “Work Request”

o This allows the eTalent member the opportunity to objectively listen to the songs and decide whether or not to collaborate on them

- Once eTalent agrees to collaborate on the song, the negotiation process begins on the song’s “Negotiation Page”

o This is where the artist and their collaborators negotiate on every aspect of the collaboration from number of takes, to style, to the ever important price

o Once everything is agreed upon in the negotiation stage, collaboration can continue

- Once a price is set for the session, the artist pays 50% up front and collaboration begins

o eTalent downloads the scratch files and click track to his hard drive

o They then import the tracks into their digital audio workstations

o The eTalent is then able to collaborate on the song in the way agreed upon during negotiation

- Once the collaboration is over and the new files are uploaded onto the Project’s song page, a notice is sent to the artist

o The files are locked until the artist pays the remaining balance to his collaborator

o Once payment is made, the files are unlocked and the artist can access the newly created files