Archive for news articles

Babelgum Brings Film Festivals to College Students

{ August 9, 2007 @ 1:18 am } · { news articles }
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By Paige MacGregor

Babelgum, launched in June 2007, is a P2P IPTV company that offers on demand near-TV resolution video programming via a downloadable client (similar to music sharing programs like Napster and Kazaa). At first glance Babelgum may appear to be just one more of many new on demand online video platforms, but its claim to fame lies in its programming, which offers users exclusive access to independent and short films from festivals around the world otherwise available only to those individuals lucky enough to attend these events. In addition to hundreds of hours of premium content created exclusively for Babelgum by independent production and distribution companies like Off the Fence, Babelgum’s current programming partners include the Giffoni Film Festival, the first film festival to present its material exclusively online while it is being simultaneously screened at the festival; GONG, a new cutting-edge Japanese animation network available in Europe and North America; and the Rushes Soho Shorts Festival, an annual festival of short films and music videos held in London.

 

With its indie and film festival content, Babelgum has the potential to become a powerful tool for college and university students around the world studying subjects like film studies, communications, media and film production. The program, currently offered in a beta testing format free of charge and open for download to a certain number of users per day, will give these students and their instructors access to the most cutting edge aspects of the film and video industry from any location at any time. Babelgum’s content is organized into themed channels, including those centered around news, music, sports, documentary, and animation, among others (for a complete list visit www.babelgum.com). The platform’s channels are designed to “learn” user preferences over time in order to provide a more individualized online experience meant to emulate and eventually replace in-home television viewing.

 

Similarly to its main competitor, Joost, founded and amply funded by the creators of Skype and Kazaa, Babelgum was founded in part by Telecom mogul Silvio Scaglia, who has already poured $17.8 million of his own personal fortune into the company. Over the next few years Scaglia, joined by recently appointed CEO and former Vodafone Global Director of Networks and Service Platforms Valerio Zingarelli, plans to spend another $130 million of his own money working to get the company up and running. Babelgum currently offers content aimed at English-speaking audiences, but according to Scaglia the company plans content expansion into other languages, the first of which will be Chinese and Spanish.

Joost Brings P2P Streaming Web TV

{ August 9, 2007 @ 1:15 am } · { news articles }
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BY PAIGE MACGREGOR

Joost (pronounced ‘Juiced’) is a video web distribution system that uses P2P networking to stream television shows from networks like MTV (parent company Viacom, who snubbed Apple’s offer to carry MTV programming in the iTunes Movie Store, recently agreed to work with Joost), National Geographic and Comedy Central, as well as other forms of video, over the Internet and straight to your PC. Joost, the third major brainchild of Skype and Kazaa creators Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, is still in the beta-testing phase, impressive progress considering its mid-2006 conception as “The Venice Project,” functioning as an invitation-only, ad-supported television and video streaming service.

 

Due to the program’s apparent popularity, a form that allows interested individuals to request an invitation to the beta-testing platform appeared on the Joost Web site (www.Joost.com) on July 23. Only two days later, the number of Joost registered users jumped from 800,000-plus to well past the one-million-users mark.

 

Once launched (no official launch date has been announced, but the company is aiming for later this year), Joost will offer users an alternative to Apple’s near-monopolistic online video distribution network, comprised primarily of iTunes and video iPods. Unlike the iTunes Movie Store, Joost provides users with a completely different—and free—viewing experience, delivering content in a layout similar to TiVo. This full-screen, live streaming video service allows users near total control over the content at hand. In addition to high quality streaming television and video, Joost also offers users instant messaging, channel chat and search options designed to allow users to share their online television viewing experience with others.

 

At present, the company, based in London and headed by former Cisco executive Mike Volpi, plans to support itself via internet ads appearing in brief spots between programming and as small brand graphics embedded in the stream. Joost has also secured $45 million in additional initial funding from partner companies like Index ventures, the CBS Corporation and Viacom. As Joost’s popularity grows and an increasing number of consumers spend time watching television in front of the computer, rather than in the living room, more companies are expected to partner with Joost in order to exploit its relatively untapped advertising potential. This is good news for users, as it means that the service will probably remain free of charge even after Joost’s official release.

 

While some have pointed to Joost as the harbinger of death for online video sharing Web sites like YouTube, the concepts of these sites are fundamentally different. While Joost’s main competitors are the Apple iTunes Movie Store and other online television streaming programs, all of which offer products designed as portable, convenient substitutes for traditional television viewing, YouTube focuses on user-uploaded material, catering to anyone with video recording equipment and some free time.

 

Joost promises a growing list of content providers (in addition to those already named, the service has also secured partnership with VH1, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. and the HD men’s channel, Mojo), as well as exclusive television shows (the entire season of VH1’s new show I Hate My 30s, which premiered on VH1 July 26, was available on Joost as of July 16). The company has also promised, in a move that follows in the footsteps of the popular social networking Web site Facebook.com, that in the near future users will be able to write their own add-ons, customizing their Joost experience beyond which television and videos they want to watch and when.

Eli Roth is a Good Director… and a Whiny Little Bitch

{ August 9, 2007 @ 1:00 am } · { movies, news articles }
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by Paige MacGregor

eli_roth.jpgAfter the recent box office “disaster” formally known as Hostel: Part II, director Eli Roth discussed the film’s “failure”–oh god, a film that only grossed $8,203,391 on 2,350 screens across the country its opening weekend! What is the entertainment world coming to?!?–in several interviews and online forums (including his myspace.com blog), alluding to its influence over his recently altered production schedule.

For those of us who are somewhat marginal fans of Roth’s—based on his frequent association with kick-ass actor/director Quentin Tarantino (most recent role: “The Rapist” in the Planet Terror segment of Grindhouse… and yes, he’s actually credited that way, go check IMDb), perhaps?—this information has provided us with valuable insight into Roth’s directorial persona; namely that he’s a whiny little bitch.

According to an article published by FirstShowing.net, Roth has recently changed his widely publicized plan to finish production on his adaptation of Stephen King’s Cell, electing instead to “take the rest of the year to write [his] other projects.”

Don’t be fooled, though. This isn’t some genius decision made by a phenomenal director in an effort to produce higher quality material… no, it’s a rash decision made by a guy (good director though he may be) who is upset about his most recent release and is trying to save face.

Too late, Eli.

But Roth doesn’t want us to know that he blames himself for the recent Hostel: Part II flop. No… the failure of the R-rated Hostel: Part II to beat out some of the most anticipated sequels in movie history (read: Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End, Spider-Man 3, The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) is the fault of piracy, growing disillusionment of audiences with the horror genre, and little green monkeys that come from outer space…

According to Roth, “The R-rated horror film is in serious jeopardy. Studios feel the public doesn’t want them anymore, and so they are only putting PG-13 films into production. The only way to counter this perception is to get out there and support R-rated horror.”

Surprisingly, Roth hasn’t (yet) blamed James Wan, Darren Lynn Bousman, Leigh Whannell or any of the other writers and directors involved in the $222-million-dollar-grossing Saw trilogy for his disappointment over Hostel: Part II’s performance at the box office. According to an article published in the L.A. Times, Roth “reworked the script of Hostel: Part II and a scene of a girl getting her stomach-piercing jewelry ripped out when the filmmakers of the upcoming Saw IV cheerfully bragged that they had already covered that creative ground.” Roth was quoted in the article as saying that it was “a shame” that he was forced to change the scene… well, why don’t you cry about it a little bit, Eli, you whiny bitch?

Personally, what we really can’t figure out is why a director like Roth, who obviously exercises a very high opinion of himself (if you don’t believe us, read this quote: “What I’m saying is, this is your last chance to see one of my films for a while. If you haven’t seen it, go now, because after next weekend the film will be gone from theaters.”), is so intent on measuring his success in box office dollars? Granted, a lot of other people in the Hollywood motion picture industry measure success that way, but the times are changing as more and more people are coming to the realization that the general American populace is by and large a very stupid entity (did anyone else notice that all of the films winning awards this season were limited releases and independent flicks? Yeah, my point exactly…).

Here’s a tip, Eli: if you want to be popular and score some big revenues at the box office, make a movie from that fake Grindhouse trailer for Thanksgiving—the scene with the killer humping the turkey will be a big hit, I’m sure.