July 26, 2008

Family Guy Creator Leads TV's Migration To Internet

Seth MacFarlane, creator of TV's Family Guy, will create an animation show for Google that will bring in ad revenue by distribution across the Internet. Called Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, the MacFarlane-Google deal portends a new model for entertainment that cuts out Hollywood and the TV networks.

In a move that should send "cold chills down the necks of broadcast network executives," Google will unveil this fall an Internet-only animation show from Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane.

The new program, to be released in September, is called Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, and it will appear exclusively on the Internet. But it won't be exclusive to Google. Rather, the search giant will exploit its AdSense advertising network to distribute MacFarlane's work across thousands of Web sites that attract the kinds of audiences likely to be interested in the show -- in a word, young audiences.

"The Internet is on track to become the dominant way video will eventually be distributed, and with it will come the ability for content Relevant Products/Services creators like Mr. MacFarlane to take his shows directly to the customer and reap the benefits directly, without sharing any of his profits with traditional broadcasters," said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies, in an e-mail.

Cutting Hollywood Out

Unlike previous Internet efforts to enter the entertainment business -- notably former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel's many agreements with Hollywood studios -- Google's deal cuts out the movie studios and television networks that have to date controlled top-quality content.

By going directly to a creative leader with an established reputation and a built-in audience comfortable with computers, Google is defining a future of entertainment that doesn't include the age-old "suits," producers and moneymen. Entertainment Hollywood-style could be replaced by Silicon Valley project managers.

The New York Times reports that the MacFarlane program will run as 50 two-minute episodes (possibly the optimum viewing time for the Internet), supported by a range of advertising formats, including "preroll" ads that run before the program, banner ads and text messages. MacFarlane describes the episodes as "animated versions of the one-frame cartoons you might see in The New Yorker, only edgier."

Revenue 'Formidable'

MacFarlane will get a cut of the advertising revenue, as well as the ability to animate online commercials for substantial fees. The show is unique in Internet circles because it will be produced with a million-dollar budget -- not the typical six-figure budgets for Internet programming. That's possible because of the involvement of Media Rights Capital, a production company with the ability to invest $400 million a year in content production.

"We believe the revenue could be formidable," Karl Austen, a lawyer who worked on the deal, told the Times. "What is exciting is that this is a way to monetize the Internet immediately. Instead of creating a Web site and hoping Seth's fans find it, we are going to push the content to where people are already at."

Another benefit for MacFarlane: Internet programming is not governed by the Federal Communications Commission, which has strictly penalized broadcasters in recent years. MacFarlane told the Times that the public wants more raunchy humor and television networks are being stymied by the "taste police."

"I just felt I could be a lot more honest on the Internet," he said.

Given that younger users are increasingly online, that the Net is free from FCC oversight, and that Google's model charges advertisers only when their messages are viewed, "PCs and digital set-top boxes will become the front end for delivering interactive media of all types to the living room," Bajarin said. "Companies like Google are bound to become the major networks of this new century."

By Richard Koman [Via Newsfactor.com]

July 25, 2008

Meet Monkey

Jamie Hewlett’s new BBC promo for the Olympics.

WAR ZONE!

Batmobile-Transformers Robot Concept

Someone's got a lot of time on their hands to go this in depth.

July 23, 2008

STARFIGHTER! a nice little online Flash game:

Radio Head - Nude

Original:


Remix:


Picture of the Day

Voice Recording Session

Ever seen a depressed dog?


[Via Techman's blog]

Find Out Much More About Batman Than You Should Ever Know

Can't be bothered to read our Top 10 Batman Books but still fancy pretending to be a Batman expert? Want to know the secret behind Batman RIP? Wonder what the difference is between the original murder of Bruce Wayne's parents and the current version? What is the origin of the Joker? All you need to answer all of those questions and far too many more is Bob Greenberger's new Essential Batman Encyclopedia.

Released to give the fact-obsessed yet comic-phobic fans of The Dark Knight their batfacts fix, Greenberger's newly updated and rewritten collection of Batman trivia is both exhaustive and exhausting, tracing multiple fictional histories of almost everyone who's ever had any contact with Bruce Wayne whatsoever (It even explains the origins of "Zur-Eh-Arrh," the phrase at the center of the current Batman RIP storyline, but be warned; it's probably not what you expect) alongside a wealth of art from various Batman comics of the last 69 years. It's very much a book to dip in and out of rather than sit down and read, although you'll find yourself getting sucked in to the differences between Earth-1, Earth-2, Post-Crisis and New Earth versions of history (Earth-2's Batman was probably the luckiest, apart from that whole death thing). Greenberger - a former editor for not only DC Comics, but Marvel and the Weekly World News - manages to condense everything into a format that's not only easy to understand, but easy to read, as well; no mean feat when explaining just how Jason Todd managed to be blown up and murdered until Superboy Prime punched the walls of reality.

If the book has a flaw, it's that it's almost too much information; Greenberger has talked about the difficulties of creating entries for minor characters from the 50s, and you can understand why; while every character may be someone's favorite, that doesn't mean that all of them have to be bulking up an already impressive project like this one.

That aside, it's a strange book to recommend; curiously addictive, yet at the same time, utterly unnecessary, it's the kind of book that you should tell people not to get you for your birthday, but secretly covet at the same time. How else, after all, can you easily find out the entire history of Ted Grant?

The Essential Batman Encyclopedia [Random House] [via io9.com]

More Diable 3 Concept Art







Tim Flattery's Transformers Concept Art










Cool Internet TV

Revision3's entire library, including all full-length shows, are now available on a new YouTube Channel.

Raging Fred