I’ve been on a little hiatus- but what is interesting about the current state of digital distribution is that for all the constant barrage of “news” and “innovation”- for indies, things remain pretty much as they have been: confusing. I hope in ‘09 there will be a little more clarity.
Recent news:
Netflix and Film Independent have joined up to create a $150,000 contest to support the creation of a feature film, which will have “distribution” through Netflix Watch Instantly (rather an increase from their standard WI license- see below for why the value of that may be changing).
Not unexpectedly, the numbers for home media in ‘08 were not so great.
Spout, the movie website, has partnered with an online market called MeDeploy to help filmmakers offer download services, and put a marketing page on the site to supplement the effort.
A somewhat subdued CES, the tech playground/showcase took place in Las Vegas last week; among the announcements in the digital distribution field were various streaming televisions and Blu-Ray decks, many of which had Netflix as a partner. Another partner of Netflix, Roku, announced Amazon VOD would now play on their box, but strangely you can not purchase the box at Amazon.
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Tom added these pithy words on Jan 12 09 at 7:11 pm2009 was already perceived to be a weeding out year for online video companies and a clarifying year for related technologies (but it’ll take longer than a year for the latter to get really settled). With the economic downfall, the weeding out process has been accelerated so we’re going to see the companies that have a long term vision or cash stockpile survive by weathering the storm as opposed to garnering chunks of market share. Surviving the storm will be an accomplishment in itself. Technology clarity will be hindered by the economic turmoil so it’ll be two years at least before we know how consumers will want to or can consume video. Bottom line, hunker down but expect some more confusion for the near future. That said, gotta keep moving forward. so filmmakers should still leverage the online opportunities and the companies should provide more services for filmmakers.
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