Hollywood Wonders, How Soon Is Too Soon for V.O.D.? - NYTimes.com

So here's the next level of challenge for the indie film maker, to VOD or not to VOD,that is the question. For Indies the screening window may be VOD and not the theater.

Dr.Media

Hollywood Wonders, How Soon Is Too Soon for V.O.D.? - NYTimes.com

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December 19, 2010

A Hollywood Brawl: How Soon Is Too Soon for Video on Demand?

By BROOKS BARNES

LOS ANGELES — Perhaps the biggest fight on Hollywood’s horizon involves where and when consumers can watch movies.

Studios want to offer new movies on video-on-demand systems in living rooms about 45 days after the movies arrive in theaters. The response from multiplex theater chains, which currently have an exclusive window of about 120 days to show new films and are concerned about protecting ticket sales: Over our dead bodies.

Meanwhile at the opposite end of the motion picture business — specialty film — experiments with the timing of video-on-demand have been occurring for some time. A smattering of new films, most recently the drama “All Good Things,” are even daring to go to V.O.D. before they open in theaters. Can the lessons learned by the art house sector teach the big boys anything for the coming showdown?

Specialty film, by definition, is a sharply different business from mainstream cinema — the best evidence being the amount of money gambled on individual releases. For that reason and others, the National Association of Theater Owners, for one, does not believe that the art house market’s on-demand experiments offer any parallels to the discussion under way in the industry’s top tier

So Much for Reinventing Ourselves Online

Hi Gang, so heres the end of reinventing oneself on line, and being reduced to only one persona, right!

People are going to stop concealing themselves, making up stories, lying, and being deceitful.

Do you really believe that?Do you really think that technology will solve this problem?

I have got some land in Florida for you!

Dr. Media

So Much for Reinventing Ourselves Online

By JENNA WORTHAM

“GREETINGS, Your Highness,” the message began. “I had the pleasure of dining in your kingdom last night.”

Before writing an article about a dating Web site, I’d signed up for it in order to vet its service. Once I was done writing about it, I left my profile up. (Newly single, I figured it couldn’t hurt to see what kind of excitement might turn up.)

Then, a slightly creepy note sailed into my in-box.

“Funny how two discrete online identities can so easily intersect by happenstance,” it read.

My digital admirer said he’d recognized me from a different site, Foursquare, the mobile social network that lets users broadcast their whereabouts to friends. It awards virtual mayorships to the most frequent patrons of bars and restaurants; I’d claimed the crown at a sushi restaurant. When my admirer checked into the joint with Foursquare, a notification declaring my status as mayor popped up, along with my photo and name.

Being contacted by a stranger didn’t alarm me; that’s part of the beauty of sites like Twitter and Facebook, which can help shape new relationships around common interests and friends. But the unexpected addition of romance threw me for a loop. I wasn’t sure how to proceed. Should I meet the man for a drink? I polled my friends.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/business/19ping.html?scp=1&sq=online%20identity&