Apple drops ProApps from corporate definition

[Marcus Moore]

Ok, so everyone’s seemingly moved to a bi-annual update cycle. But that definitely wasn’t the case 3 years ago.

But again, I don’t think Apple was comparing themselves against anyone else.

[Paul Neumann]

Yeah, but nobody knew what it was going to be until they showed. (Excluding the NDA testers) Pretty good information managing there.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Bill Davis] “No, but it HAS led to a general downtrend in the ratings for those TV shows. Eyeballs are eyeballs, and they’re not watching your prime time drama if they’re glued to an iPad game.

Network TV ratings certainly have declined since the days of it just being NBC, ABC and CBS on air. Cable took out a bite. FOX took out a bite. Video games took out a bite. Browsing the Internet took out a bite. There’s more content, of all kinds, being created today than ever before yet the potential audience hasn’t expanded in kind and is more fractured/distracted than ever.

Which in turn begs the question as to how many eyeballs it takes for success in the new model compared to the old.

I think the answer to that is that it’s all relative. A popular prime time drama on network TV will pull down much bigger ratings than a popular prime time drama on cable but both can be considered successful because cable just doesn’t do the same numbers as broadcast. As overall viewership rises and falls then the benchmarks for success will rise and fall too. Numbers that equalled ‘success’ for a YouTube personality in 2010 are probably much lower than that what would be considered successful today because many more people are watching YT today than in 2010. Ultimately successful means sustainable so it boils down to how much does it cost to produce vs how much revenue does it generate.

All forms of media (music, video games, books, movies, etc.,) seem to be suffering a similar fate in that there is a polarization happening where more and more projects are either of the big budget, AAA/Hollywood Blockbuster kind or the low budget indie kind. The ‘middle class’ projects which used to make up the bulk of the projects is shrinking and has been for years.

Narrowcast verses broadcast. And that IS changing.”

Distribution certainly is changing, but that’s much more of a concern for people involved in distributing the content than for the people creating the content. I mean, would the process of writing, shooting and editing Alpha House (Amazon) or House of Cards (Netflix) be significantly different if those shows were on broadcast or cable TV instead of streaming? I highly doubt it.

I’ve worked on web projects, TV projects and “I hope someone will buy this when we’re done” projects and other than a few technical things here and there my process as the editor or AE on the project wasn’t impact by the distribution method of the finished piece.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Scott Witthaus] “There is so much more visual content out there to deal with. Why try to fight for the long-form broadcast and film niche?”

No different than fighting for any of the other niches that collectively make up ‘the industry’. Multiuser workflows exist in a lot of places but the thing that separates them is whether or not they have the budget to properly setup and execute a multiuser workflow (is it ISIS or is it sneaker net?). I’ve seen multiuser setups for everything from from high end TV shows and movies to fitness DVDs to web videos to behind the scenes featurettes to promos/trailers.

I spent 6 years working with 12 other editors in a primarily new media/web content shop with FCP Legend and Xsan and we made it work but it wasn’t pretty. After that I got a gig working on a TV show which was 8(?) editors using Avid MC w/ISIS. Getting back to a proper multiuser workflow was such a breath of fresh air that I also hugged MC and its I-came-from-the-90’s GUI. I’m not holding my breath for Avid to release a budget version of ISIS but I’m hoping that in time the cost of building an Adobe Anywhere rig will drop significantly.

[Oliver Peters] “I personally think the multiuser collaboration is overstated. “

I don’t think it’s an end all/be all feature, but if shared store and multiuser collaboration was more affordable (an Avid ISIS or Adobe Anywhere rig aren’t anywhere close to cheap) I think more people would utilize it but the cost is a big barrier to entry. I never really thought of collaboration as multiple people working in one timeline at the same time (which just sounds chaotic) but multiple people working out of the same project at the same time. It’s just a much more elegant solution than each editor having their own project, trying to keep the projects properly managed/all assets in sync across all projects, and exporting XMLs or ‘one off’ projects to share cuts, media, etc., between users.

There have been rumors (patents, bits of codec, etc.,) that point to multiuser project sharing in FCP X and I hope that comes to fruition.

[Bill Davis]

I honestly can’t believe that so many smart people here are being so rediculously blind and deaf about the iWatch. Treating it as if it’s “watchness” is its essential nature. How much more explicit does Mr. Cook have to be? It’s designed to be a wearable technology hub. It’s going to run something like apps for heavens sake!

Please, please don’t be like the iPad idiots who came out and opined that it was dumb because tablet computers has been lame up until then. Thats what Apple LOVES. Reinventing what others can’t seem to see. Then they transform the landscape of computing. I knew the iPad was going to change everything when my wife used mine for 5 minutes and demanded one for herself. She uses it every day for consuming digital content on the fly. I’ll bet large dollars that the iWatch is going to do precisely the same thing.

I GUARANTEE the first time she sees one of her peers answer a call or check an email or text alert on an iWatch without having to waste time digging around inside her purse for her iPhone, she’ll start politicking for an iWatch as well.

Wearable technology isn’t about timekeeping. It’s about easing personal information management via something placed on your person that is insanely easy to access instantly. Time is just a tiny, tiny part of that.

Mark my words.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Bill Davis]

Fu*k, then that means they ARE closing down the retail operations since there’s no language about the retail stores in the new press release Corporate definition statement?

I’m so confused.

IIRC they also didn’t mention iCloud and it’s been a while since they dropped listing markets like education, engineering and the like. But somehow they keep serving those.

This all makes my head hurt.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Franz Bieberkopf]

[Bill Davis] “… it HAS led to a general downtrend in the ratings for those TV shows.”

[Andrew Kimery] “Network TV ratings certainly have declined since the days of it just being NBC, ABC and CBS on air. Cable took out a bite.”

Bill, Andrew,

Last I read broadcast viewership was still on the rise – at least that is the premise driving decisions at youtube. You have new info?

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/24024#24055

Franz.

[Tim Wilson]

[Aindreas Gallagher] ” he also created the most naff moment in rock history and singularly destroyed U2 as a musical force. to the point where apple is now laying out instructions to remove unwanted U2 albums for customers.”

My wife and I chose to honeymoon in Ireland in 1985 meaningfully related to our love of U2, and we’ve taken no pleasure from the tedium of their 21st century releases…but indeed, their naff-ness has been well underway. This was prompted by an overwhelmingly underwhelming reaction to their first 2 singles this year, which failed to chart at all in most of the world. They could barely even give one of them away, as the offer of a free download wasn’t enough to motivate people to go get it.

So they asked Tim Cook for advice for how to sell U2 albums to people who no longer care about new U2 albums (ie, apparently damn near all of us), and Tim said, let’s just stick it in their iTunes without asking. Anyone who left their iPhone sync in the default state of automatically downloading new purchases would have it magically appear.

Bad, bad idea.

In addition to the picture above — one of my favorite recent additions to the internet, a tumblr called WhoisU2 has been archiving tweets around the theme of “Who are these people and how are they spamming my phone?” Hilarious, but do note, considerable NSFW language.

The unfortunate bit is that I think it’s their first good album in 17 years. It’s really good….but its deployment is indicative of Apple’s out-of-tune opulence. They paid U2 a reported $100 million for the privilege of infuriating more people than had ever heard of the band before.

Still, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple do something similar again. For example, if they’d first done this with a Beyonce album, I suspect the world might have thanked them….but with this much cash on hand, no need to spend any of it wisely….

[Tim Wilson]

[Oliver Peters] “Yet they still managed to botch the launch of FCP X from the standpoint of marketing.”

That’s the one thing they got right: easily the most successfully marketed software launch in company history.

Now, we can have another discussion about the product management aspect vis a vis FCP 7…but not the marketing. Marketing creates demand, and the teeming (relatively small) throng couldn’t possibly have been more greatly amassed to download that thing. Read through the quite literally second-by-second reports in the Creative COW archive, as people were waiting in line. Did you get it yet? I can’t download it yet. Have you gotten it yet?????? We were getting 10 posts a minute for all of that day, occasionally higher.

Once people received the download, we also got a bit of traffic if I recall correctly….

Marketing task, though: 100% completed, with the greatest conceivable success.

[Oliver Peters]

[Tim Wilson] “Now, we can have another discussion about the product management aspect vis a vis FCP 7…but not the marketing. Marketing creates demand, and the teeming (relatively small) throng couldn’t possibly have been more greatly amassed to download that thing.”

OK. I would agree. My perspective was from the product side.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com