Since the 1890s, 35 millimeter? film has been used by every movie studio in Hollywood, and everywhere else, to produce films. In the 2010s, expect that to change. One major motion picture company is leading the way.
Paramount Pictures is the first major movie production house to stop using the old film entirely and to start going all digital. Will Farrell’s ‘Anchorman 2’ was the last to go film and Leonardo DiCaprio’s ‘Wolf of Wall Street‘ is the first to be produced, released and distributed only digitally. Digital distribution is so much cheaper : it only cost $100 to put a digital copy on a disc. Digital technology is also easier to hook up to bigger 3D screens, also becoming popular today. Other major studios are following suit. Disney and 20th Century Fox said they would stop sending 35mm film in the next year or two. It’s just as well: it’s reported 92% of all movie theaters in the US are digital.
I think it’s best and a sign of the times. The only thing that surprises me is that total crossover took this long. This trend started over a decade ago, but some top cats in the industry were resistant due to potential low revenue. The only thing that’s going to lead to low revenue is bad movies. There’s not a technological fix to that, is there?
In 2001, the first iPod was sold. In 2003, Apple first opened the iTunes store. Ever since, it’s been the premier way of getting music. Is that changing?
It turns out 2013 was the first year that digital music sold less than the year before. Digital albums fell only 0.1%, but digital tracks fell 5.7%. In fact, albums sales in general declined in 2013. The only music avenue that saw an increase was the old vinyl record. The top selling songs were Robin Thicke’s?”Blurred Lines” and Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop”. There’s an elephant in the wall executives need to address whether they want to or not: the growing popularity of streaming. ?These subscription services slowly but surely ate up digital music services.
At the risk of giving my?away my age here, I?have a suggestion for all in the music?industry: Start making better music! You know what sorry?shape the music game is in when?Time magazine picks Miley Cyrus as one of the?top 10 Persons of theYear. It seems like every other song is the boom boom of techno/house or some?gangster rapper bragging about his?money, jewelry, women, cars and?guns, or some pop tart?glorifying the party lifestyle. Those things are okay, but not every song all the time!?How about some creativity?and originality? Or how about songs that mean something, like artist used to do back in the 1960s and ’70s?
How do you think the music industry should address the digital music decline?
Are you a Snapchat user? You may or may not want to sit down to this one.
It’s been reported hackers broke into 4.6 million Snapchat accounts, getting ?usernames and phone numbers. But all things aren’t what they seem, well, not this time. It’s also reported hackers exploited the database to raise awareness of Snapchat’s security weaknesses. Despite this little awareness lesson, the concern is these numbers and usernames could get into the wrong hands. In December 2013 (wow it feels strange to say that) an Australian security watchdog reported that two exploits in Snapchat’s data could give hackers easy access to consumer info. Info like aliases and phone numbers could be collected through Apple and Android devices.
First off, it’s good to be updated on such things. It can be scary to talk about, but isn’t it better to be in the know than to find out about hacking the hard way? I can even have respect for those who were trying to raise awareness of Snapchat’s problems. I just hope that’s all they were doing. And it this was a drill, it needs to be done to make crystal sure nobody’s accounts gets compromised or put at risk. Do you think this alleged hacking was an awareness test or were the motives more sinister?
Have a safe, prosperous and blessed New Year, everybody!!
He’s the CEO of ?one the greatest online shopping ?companies of all time. He now owns the Washington Posts. He wants to use drones to deliver packages. He attended the exclusive, infamous Bilderberg conference. Is Jeff Bezos having the best 2013 ever?
According to his Amazon, 2013 was their best holiday shopping season ever. The website made over 38 million sales on Cyber Monday alone. It’s program Amazon Prime, which can be obtained for $79 a year, reached 20 million members.In fact, Amazon Prime was so popular they had to turn applicants away just to ensure quality of existing members. Free shipping was one of the factors. In one week in December 2013, Amazon Prime gained one million plus members.
I just hope for Bezos’ sake that free shipping paid off. I hope everybody got their gifts on time in one setting. There’s been a lot of talk of people’s gifts not getting shipped properly. But the way his and Amazon’s year is going, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon got 100% delivery. Of course, the year of Bezos didn’t come without controversy. The drones delivery ended in disaster, but of course he’s going to keep at it. And what was Bezos doing at a Bilderberg conference; I heard a lot of suspect things about Bilberbergs. What else has this guru done this year?
Well, 2013 hasn’t been boring in tech news. Here are some major news stories this year has brought us:
10. Tech Based Movie Flops: Movies like Jobs and The Intern were worth more hype than box office results. And the post-movie fallout from Jobs didn’t help matters much.
9. Target Hacked: This holiday shopping season, 40+ million debit/credit cards were compromised. Sadly, this was only the 2nd biggest retail hack in history.
8. Jeff Bezos Drones: If the former Amazon CEO has his way, your packages will be delivered with the same technology the military uses against our enemies.
7. Blackberry Collapses: Since January, sales have declined 68%. Today, stocks are lucky to trade at seven dollars a share.
6. Play Station Four vs. Xbox One: The hype started with Xbox One’s press conference in May. Both were released to the public in November. Both cleaned house, but it looks like Play Station is having a slight lead.
5. Samsung Galaxy S4: This challenged the iPhone with authority, especially with it’s super cool voice and camera features.
4. Instagram Goes Videos: As if taking pictures of every little thing wasn’t enough, now you can add 15 second videos thanks to their new smartphone app.
3. Social Media Entertainment: With Netflix shows winning Emmys and You Tube shows increasing in popularity, 2013 was the beginning of a shift from network TV to social media entertainment.
2. Bitcoin Booms: In January, this online currency was worth around $13.50. By November, it was worth around $1,000. There was even talk of people being paid in Bitcoin.
1. NSA Surveillance: In June, we learned through former NSA contractor? Edward Snowden that the US Government was listening to our smartphones and reading all we do on the computer, from emails to social media. This opened up a Pandora’s Box that’s still opened and will likely remain opened for years to come.
You want music? Just download it. It’s been the most popular way of getting music since the early 2000s. Now, that might be changing.
In 2013, digital purchases fell. Digital songs fell 4.4%, according to Nielsen Sound Scan. Digital albums fell 2.1%. When this year began, people were buying as many as 25 million digital songs a week. By November, they weren’t even buying 20 million a week. Digital albums did a little better. They started the year steady, buy now, albums are losing steam. That’s where the two percent decline comes in. The number one digital selling song this year has been Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”. But that is 200,000 sales behind 2012’s best digital seller, Gotye’s “Somebody I Used to Know”.
We could blame consumer trends. We could blame technological trends. I know some will. But I think we should put the downfall where it lies: the musicians themselves, especially the most popular ones of today. How about they start making better music? People criticize my generation, late 1980s and 1990s,? for producing music that was dark, vulgar and offensive, but at least they were creative! Now all I hear is the same cookie cutter songs, the same cookie cutter beats, cookie cutter melodies, cookie cutter lyrics, cookie cutter messages. People are eventually going to get tired of that. What do you think could be done to bring digital sales back up?
