Science fiction movies should help illuminate our path forward - and lay bare the implications of present-day technologies, good and bad. All too often, however, sci-fi movies get the future all wrong. This includes some of our most cherished favorites.

Consider all the flicks featuring flying cars, poorly conceived time travel escapades, sex with aliens or heroes that are either willfully ignorant of present-day technology or savant-like in their ability to manipulate it into doing things it most certainly could never do. How then to select the 10 most worthy of this dubious honor?

Let me defer to popular cyber-punk author William Gibson, who famously stated: "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." This may be the single most misguided statement about the future ever made. Over and over again the future takes its sweet time arriving, but when it does come it changes everything in unanticipated ways.

Therefore, I'm zeroing in on movies that predicted our scary-glorious future would arrive soon fairly soon, but which instead got everything spectacularly confused. As these 10 glorious misses prove, that's easy enough to do.

On to the show:  

1. Blade Runner

Please forgive me. I love Blade Runner. But it's comically wrong, pretty much about everything. Replicants? Androids on the cusp of being indistinguishable from humans? Memory implants? Colonies on Mars? A "city of 106 million people." A one-world culture that appears to be dominated by Japan but looks like Hong Kong. Crappy phones? Oh, and what's the deal with all that rain in California? Wrong, wrong, wrong.

2. Jurassic Park

If you can get past the cheesy acting and pap dialogue, Jurassic Park is good Spielbergian fun. But it's so off target. A rich man spends figures out how to recreate extinct species and the best application he can come up with a dinosaur theme park? Let's get this straight: this will never happen, not in any future.

Yes, I know... there's no Superman, either. Problem is, this film spends an inordinate amount of time trying to justify its science - and gets it wrong.

3. Brazil 

Terrorists. Excessive cosmetic surgery. Police state. Too many damn tubes and wires? The brilliant Brazil got much right - but was wrong on so many core elements. Ours is not a dystopian world where we are all faceless numbers, easily lost by an overarching, all-encompassing bureaucracy. Just the opposite, in fact. Increasingly, the world is an all-out competition for attention amongst billions of people striving to transcend anonymity. Everything about Brazil is backwards-looking. Worse, it completely missed how everything is going digital.

4. Videodrome

After watching Videodrome many times, I'm still not entirely sure what it's about. Here's my best guess: Cable television tells us what to watch, and as we watch we become changed - emotionally and physically. Um, perhaps. But it seems to me that the Internet is putting us more in control of what we watch, not the other way around.

With all our "second screens" - smartphones and tablets - plus YouTube, the Web and social media, there is never a shortage of personalized content. And most of it won't kill you, at least not right away. Ironically, television has become far less important to us than Videodrome would have ever thought possible.

5. Soylent Green

Spoiler alert: Soylent Green is people!

The world is so over-populated, resources so scarce, that what choice does poor Soylent Industries have but to make its foodstuff from humans? Except, that's not what happened. So far, the future has brought relative abundance - which has its own set of problems. 

6. 2001: A Space Odyssey

If you manage to stay awake through 2001 - no small feat in 2013 - you come to realize how wrong it is about everything. Alien contact, stately flights to the moon and a super-intelligence that is a... mainframe.

Sadly, 2001 spawned far too many copycat films with its silly singular view: Humans are not in charge of their past nor their future. The fact that the women are stewardesses and anyone who can do anything is a white male merely reveals just how clueless this film really was. On the plus side, it still looks and sounds awesome.

7. Fahrenheit 451

There is much good to say about Julie Christie and Francois Truffaut. But you cannot say this movie understood the future. In Fahrenheit 451, a firefighter burns books. This is his duty - because the "government" cannot allow books as they may foster an independent-minded populace.

Whenever this movie comes on, I download one of the thousands of free books that are instantly available to me via Kindle.

8. Inception

Infiltrating someone's unconscious mind. Stealing another's dreams. Controlling what others do by getting inside their head, all Bene Gesserit like? Inception may be cool, and it's certainly frustrating. But we are nowhere close to accomplishing what the film suggests. We can't even cure Alzheimer's. 

9. Logan's Run

In Logan's Run, life is perfect. And then you die. At the ripe old age of 30.

It may not be fair to include this film on the list. After all, it's set 250 years from now. Who knows what will happen in that time? However, given the fact that humanity continues to live longer, spends billions of dollars on extending life, and brilliant scientists such as Ray Kurzweil are actively pursuing a sort-of human-technological immortality through the singularity, I am going to go out on a limb and predict that Logan's Run will always be wrong.

10. Frankenstein

We can now keep people alive by putting inside them the organs of a dead person(s) - or an animal. Does that make the recipient a monster? Frankenstein warned what could happen when we attempt to bring the dead to life, or create a life from the dead. Whether or not we figure out how to do that - it isn't going to play out like Frankenstein.

Those are my choices, and I'll stand behind every one. But these 10 misfires are far from the only movies that completely whiffed on predicting the future. What films would you add to the list? Leave your comments below.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 - affectionately known as MST3K to its legion of fans - is a "cult television comedy series" that mocked forgotten science fiction films from 1988-1999. Its heart still beats, as three long-time writers and stars for the show - Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy - continue to serve up hilarious "riffs" on B-movies online at their site RiffTrax. 

Now the trio want to take on Hollywood - with your help - and mock big-budget blockbusters, such as Twilight and The Hunger Games, in front of a live audience. They also want to help everyone create their own riffs on movies and TV shows.

Movie Rights Are Not Cheap

The tagline for RiffTrax is: "We don't make movies, we make fun of them." But Hollywood doesn't want its movies made fun of, so the RiffTrax crew can currently do their thing only for films that are either in the public domain or whose rights come very cheap. (Owners of really bad movies, not surprisingly, let their works go for very little.)

For flicks like Birdemic or Kingdom of the Spiders (William Shatner's finest performance of 1977), RiffTrax customers download a single file (available in numerous formats), typically for $10, and watch on an iPad or laptop, or burn it onto a DVD. But that won't work for popular films, like Thor or The Avengers, or the Patrick Swayze classic, Roadhouse, whose licensing costs are too high.

For blockbusters, the RiffTrax group records its audio commentary in MP3 format. Users download the file, typically for a $4 fee, then play the MP3 on a laptop or iPod, for example, while watching the movie on a television screen. It's certainly not an elegant solution, so the crew is trying raise enough cash to license more high-profile films.

A highly successful Kickstarter campaign seeking to secure the rights to broadcast Twilight - just so it can be made fun of - netted $265,000 against an original goal of $55,000. The hope, according to Bill Corbett, is that by "backing up the money truck" to Hollywood, RiffTrax can secure the rights to the movies that need mocking most.

Once a deal is signed - it's currently in negotiations - the trio plan to riff the film live and stream the performance (also live) to "hundreds" of other theaters. They also hope to offer a copy of the performance as a DVD or download - film and riff embedded together.

The Riffmasters

To get the inside scoop, I spoke with "riffmaster" Michael J. Nelson:

ReadWrite: Describe RiffTrax to the uninitiated.

Mike Nelson: It's like sitting down to watch a movie with your funniest friends. 

ReadWrite: Why are there no puppets like on MST3K? 

Mike Nelson: RiffTrax is a different animal. We don't own the copyright to the MST3K puppets. Plus, it just wouldn't work for synching commentary tracks to the popular movies." 

ReadWrite: Why start the Kickstarter campaign with Twilight?

Mike Nelson: Twilight's been our single most popular [downloadable] riff to date. We want to do a live riff of the film and stream that to hundreds of other theaters.

ReadWrite: What's the process for choosing a movie to riff?

Mike Nelson: It's hard to make fun of a film that's trying to be funny but fails. It has to be either unintentionally bad or taking itself too seriously. When I first watched Birdemic, for example, I assumed the director had to be joking. He wasn't - that makes all the difference. 

ReadWrite: Do fans help you decide which movies to riff on?

Mike Nelson: Definitely. On Twitter and Facebook, or the user forum on our site. We have a backlog so can't always get to their choice right away, but we listen.   

ReadWrite: Tell me about iRiffs.

Mike Nelson: iRiffs is the section on our site where anyone can upload their movie commentaries. We have minimal requirements - as long as the content isn't deeply offensive, you can offer your riff through the site.

ReadWrite: And you split the revenues with the individual?

MN: Correct. I would like to say that anyone who uploads their riff to our site, please use a halfway decent USB microphone. Too many poor mics have killed some otherwise great performances.

ReadWrite: There were several other people involved in writing and performing for Mystery Science Theater. Why only you, Kevin and Bill for RiffTrax?

Mike Nelson: Kevin, Bill and I were the last in-theater performers when MST3K ended. We all lived near one another in Minnesota, and were doing a lot of projects together. We fell into an easy rapport, so when I started RiffTrax in 2006 it was easy to bring those two onboard. Joel [Hodgson - the original host] wanted to get Cinematic Titanic up and running so it never worked out for everyone to be together." [Cinematic Titanic includes several MST3K performers who similarly offer film riff performances of B movies. The group has said that this will be its final year working together.] 

Finally, I asked riffmaster Bill Corbett if the crew had any plans to make it's own deliberately bad movie:

None. I think it would be surprisingly hard to recreate the magic of an unintentionally bad movie. It would wind up too self-conscious. We've seen a lot of attempts to do that, and they never capture the exquisite fun and weirdness of someone trying in earnest to make a serious movie, and just making a mess of it.

Lead image from Mystery Science Theater 3000 Presents Laserblast.

Picture of the RiffTrax team, from left to right: Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy, Michael J. Nelson.

What is a geek, anyway? Someone who loves math and science and computers? Sure, but that's only part of it. As counter-terrorism expert Richard Clark once told Stephen Colbert (around the 3:40 mark): "Geeks get it done." 

That nails it. 

Geeks Get It Done - GGID. Geeks imagine, then build. Geeks envision, then destroy. Geeks remake the old world and create new worlds. Sometimes just for fun, sometimes because the fate of all humanity hangs in the balance.

That's why geeks get inspired by movies that remind them to revel in their obsessiveness - because it ultimately leads to the way you "get it done." 

Which movies do the best job of providing that awesome inspiration? You can't go wrong with these 10 classics: 

1. The Matrix

You are your code.

The Matrix is so good that the hot, leather-clad love interest who snaps necks and knows how to handle a semi-automatic doesn't even make it into the top 5 best things about this movie. 

2. Star Wars

You already know. There's nothing more to add.  

3. Iron Man

Wealthy industrialist, playboy, inventor, badass. It's like if Bill Gates were as cool as he is rich. 

4. Tron

More than 30 years ago, Disney put a hacker inside a computer. Mad props. 

5. Weird Science

Two high school boys "feed" their computer with as much real-world data as they could obtain during the Reagan era. The result: their idea of the perfect woman.

6. Minority Report

The "PreCrime" police force uses "precogs" to stop murderers before they kill. What's that? Why, yes, it is based on a Philip K. Dick story.

7. Akira

Katsuhiro Otomo. Neo-Tokyo. Biker gangs. Psions. Enjoy.

8. Star Trek

This Star Trek reboot took us back to the future - to the early days of James T. Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise. Think of just how awesome it will be if the new Star Wars films are as successful as this Star Trek reboot. 

"I dare you to do better."

9. Galaxy Quest

The obsessive Star Trek-fanboy parody done right. When it comes on television, you can't not watch it. Why? Because it inspires you to never stop believing.

10. The Goonies

For a generation of geeks and would-be geeks, The Goonies inspired their sense of adventure. It's message was clear: never stop being a pirate.

Do you agree with our list? Are there any you think don't belong in the top 10? What geek classics did we leave out? Have at it in the comments.

Lead image courtesy of s_bukley / Shutterstock.

The next Hollywood blockbuster may not be made using a smartphone, but that day is soon coming. This year's Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature, Searching for Sugarman, was shot mostly on traditional, costly 8mm film. The director shot some final scenes, however, with his iPhone and the $2 app 8mm Vintage Camera. Increasingly, high-quality films - shorts, especially - are being made entirely with nothing more than a smartphone.

Today's high-end smartphones pack a virtual film studio in your pocket. The Nokia Lumia 920, for example, includes a 1080p full-HD video camera, zoom light, image stabilization and multiple white balance modes to help ensure that perfect shot.  

Specs aren't enough to convince you?

Blackberry has teamed up with famed Sin City director, Robert Rodriguez, to create a short film using the new Blackberry Z10. Former Cannes film festival winner, Park Chan-wook, used a smartphone to film Paranmanjan - it won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival. 

Not only are smarpthone-shot films making it into film festivals, smartphone-only film festivals are cropping up around the world, such as the Mobil Film Festival in San Diego, the Pocket Film Festival in Paris and the Olleh International Smartphone Film Festival in Korea.

Each of these festivals showcase the device's potential for creating stirring films while enabling those with the talent, no matter where they may be located, to unleash their creative potential.

Personal Filmmaking on a Global Scale

Despite their limitations, smartphones do offer some unique advantages over traditional filmmaking. Smartphone films can be made on a very low budget - which likely encourages risk-taking that traditional filmmaking shuns. Smartphones can film almost anywhere - and they are with us nearly everywhere. The portable nature of the device allows for more intimate moments and increases opportunities for filmmaking with a more personal viewpoint. Smartphones allow those who traditionally are rarely portrayed in films, such as those in impoverished areas around the world, to now be seen. With a smartphone and YouTube, immediate global distribution is possible.

For example, at the third annual Olleh smartphone film festival in Korea, smartphone-made films from around the world were submitted. Last weekend, twenty-five films were screened by the jury for public viewing. All are now available on YouTube. Winners included:

[Note: Some videos below contain foul language]

24 Months Later (Grand Prize and Audience favorite)

Great, even if the whole zombie thing has gotten a bit overplayed.

Tell Me About Yourself (Best Actor award)

Short, funny and probably not safe for sharing with your boss.

Board Maker (Special Youth Award winner)

I confess, I did not get this.

The Opportunity is Everywhere

There is a growing movement - and market - for smartphone films. There are numerous apps to help the budding smartphone filmmaker improve their story outline, streamline the editing process and even maximize time spent shooting in sunlight. There is also a growing market for accessories. These include everything from optional lenses, to an iPhone "dolly" and smartphone "steadicam."

Need funding for your film? Over $128 million has been pledged on Kickstarter for film and video projects. It's quite possible that very soon many if not most crowdfunded films will be shot entirely with a smartphone.

Still hesitant?

The Guardian asked director Matt Carroll for tips. His advice includes methods to improve sound and post-film editing, and guidance on the all-important topic of lighting:

The (smartphone) camera doesn't see subtle light gradations like we do, so it's best to avoid areas of high contrast. For example, if it's a sunny day and you're filming someone under an awning, the chances are they'll come out too dark or the background will be bleached out ('burnt').  

Need more help? 

In France, Pocket Film Festival founder Benoît Labourdette conducts workshops to help smartphone filmmakers. His primary advice is to use your phone’s natural advantage - its size and portability - to get shots that are inaccessible to traditional cameras.

Far removed from Hollywood?

The World Film Collective teaches youth in impoverished areas - from Africa and South America, to inner cities in the UK - to make films using only a smartphone. 

The result?

Smartphones are rapidly becoming the tools people across the planet are using to tell their stories and show them to the world.

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock. 

I know Roger Ebert like most of you. I know him from his many film review shows, from his numerous and well-written movie reviews syndicated in hundreds of newspapers, and his many appearances on late-night talk shows. It was through Twitter, however, where I felt most close to him.

Now that Ebert has died, should I unfollow him? Should you? Is there a protocol for this?

Roger Ebert wrote over 30,000 tweets and had over 800,000 followers. I was one of them. I'm not sure what to do now. I'm also not sure if Twitter knows what to do in this situation.

True, one of its press representatives did respond to my queries with a link that explains how relatives or estate representatives can request deactivation — i.e., deletion — of an account following its owner's death. Twitter will not, however, grant anyone access to the account of someone who's passed away.

Still, what becomes of Ebert's tweets now that he's dead? What of the fact that at least one person, Jim Emerson, editor of Ebert's blog site, has access to the account — and has tweeted on it twice since Ebert's death? (Albeit apparently at Ebert's request.) Should Ebert's wife, or Emerson, or anyone else keep tweeting on Ebert's "verified" account? Wouldn't that be weird? 

A Powerful Voice On Twitter

Ebert's tweets touched on movies, obviously, but also politics, the environment, music, gun control, climate change and much more. He came to Twitter reluctantly before happily embracing the new medium. In a 2010 column for the Chicago Sun-Times, Ebert wrote:

I vowed I would never become a Twit. Now I have Tweeted nearly 10,000 Tweets. I said Twitter represented the end of civilization. It now represents a part of the civilization I live in. I said it was impossible to think of great writing in terms of 140 characters. I have been humbled by a mother of three in New Delhi. I said I feared I would become addicted. I was correct.

He quickly became one of the more popular, respected voices on Twitter. In the same essay, Ebert also provided his thoughts on how to tweet effectively:

My rules for Twittering are few: I tweet in basic English. I avoid abbreviations and ChatSpell. I go for complete sentences. I try to make my links worth a click. I am not above snark, no matter what I may have written in the past. I tweet my interests, including science and politics, as well as the movies. I try to keep links to stuff on my own site down to around 5 or 10%. I try to think twice before posting.

He also shared his views on what Twitter meant to him:

When you think about it, Twitter is something like a casual conversation among friends over dinner: Jokes, gossip, idle chatter, despair, philosophy, snark, outrage, news bulletins, mourning the dead, passing the time, remembering favorite lines, revealing yourself.

Ebert revealed himself in life, on Twitter. Will those tweets soon go away? Given Ebert's popularity on Twitter and his general celebrity, will Twitter see fit to honor him somehow?

I have long been a fan of Ebert's work. I loved Siskel & Ebert, even when he and Gene Siskel were reviewing awful movies. I know Ebert wrote the screenplay for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which I've watched. I know he wrote many books, launched a popular movie festival and had a highly trafficked blogsite. I know he worked with Microsoft on Cinemania, an interactive movie guide on CD-ROMs.

Nonetheless, I believe I know him best, know him most fully — as a person — from Twitter. Now that he's dead, it seems not merely unseemly to unfollow him. More... unnecessarily sad.

Bury Me With My Tweet On

In 2009, Facebook announced a "memorialize" feature, in large part so that users would not be auto-reminded to "reconnect" with a person on Facebook that had since died.

We understand how difficult it can be for people to be reminded of those who are no longer with them, which is why it's important when someone passes away that their friends or family contact Facebook to request that a profile be memorialized.

(See also: Why Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook?)

To verify the person's death, Facebook requires friends or family to complete a form that contains a link to the person's obituary or other information confirming the death. Twitter doesn't offer anything similar, although as noted above, the service does allow relatives or estate representatives to request that accounts of the deceased be deleted. 

Perhaps it shouldn't. Perhaps the account should remain available, though in a state of suspended digital animation. If Twitter is a conversation, as Ebert himself suggested, even the person's death can't make past conversations disappear.

Though this still does not answer the question, which may be unanswerable, of whether or not I should unfollow someone that is now dead. Particularly when that someone mattered to me, even if solely via digital channels.

Ebert never hid the fact that late in life, salivary cancer stripped him of his vocal chords, his jaw and his voice, and that he had to rely on a computer to speak and write. Here is his TED talk, "Remaking My Voice," from April 2011.

Roger Ebert never replied to any of my tweets to him, nor ever favorited a tweet of mine. Now he never will. There could come a time when I decide to cull through my Twitter followers and delete Ebert's account. I am glad, however, that Twitter was there to bring Ebert closer to me.

I hope Twitter honors him in some appropriate manner. I also hope that Ebert's many 140-character tweets continue to live  forever. 

Image of Roger Ebert and wife courtesy of Shutterstock

These remain the post-glory days of the nerd. From Larry Ellison, island-owning-cutthroat-businessman-billionaire, to Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire-coder-CEO-visionary, the once-lowly nerd — with Silicon Valley serving as his Xanadu — is now creator of much of the world's riches, seer of the world's future, and the person to whom Presidents and hopefuls come for money, anointing and benificent manipulation of Big Data. 

It was not always thus.

Even while Bill Gates was destroying the competition in his fast march to world's richest human being, nerds in high schools around the world were still getting bullied. The rise of the web, PCs, social media and easy money — all easily leveraged by the nerd — have at last taught even the biggest, meanest, stupidest of bullies, that the nerd they pick on today may very well be the one that creates that thing that puts the bully's future self out of work, and possibly eradicates the only industry he's ever known.

To its credit, Hollywood has long promoted the glory and power — and humanness — of the nerd, since at least the dawn of the Reagan Era. Long before nearly anyone, including nerds, actually owned a computer, Hollywood revealed a potential, brainy hero figure.

True, while many movies still offer up the stereotypical nerd, slovenly, socially inept, living in mom's basement, spending his (always his) nights staring into banks of computer monitors, and lacking even the fortitude to be the hero's plucky sidekick, some of the best films of the past 30 years have glorified the nerd.

These are the very best of the bunch.

Revenge of the Nerds

Released nearly 30 years ago, Revenge of the Nerds is the standard by which all nerdy cinema will forevermore be judged against. 

Adams College freshman nerds Gilbert and Lewis are relentlessly taunted by the jocks of Alpha Beta fraternity. When the jocks force the nerds out of their dorm, the nerds must create their own fraternity — and teach the entire school why nerds matter. Booger and Pointdexter nearly steal the show. 

Real Genius

It was "Morning in America" and Hollywood was moving at warp speed to release pro-nerd films. One of the nerdiest ever was Real Genius, the story of a boy and another boy, and mostly only boys, except for the rare girl, who were all so super-smart that they were sent off to a sort of Cal Tech Junior High.

Our anti-hero, Mitch, so smart that even his parents don't know what to do with him, helps save the world, gets the girl and learns that the smarter you are the less you need to care about your appearance. Brain power trumps all. 

WarGames

Phone Phreaking in 1983, the fallacy of the Cold War, computer hacking, computer gaming — probably no mainstream Hollywood film has ever been as audacious as WarGames in its depiction of the power of the nerd. All Matthew Broderick's character wants to do is hack phone systems and play the latest and greatest computer games. Instead, he nearly starts World War III. 

American Splendor

If Matthew Broderick's nerd helped avert World War III in WarGames, then twenty years later, following the PC revolution, the Internet revolution, and the bursting of the Internet stock bubble, American Splendor offered a smaller, more cynical view of the nerd. The film's depiction of the slovenly, obsessive, radically under-employed Harvey Pekar delivered a vision of the nerd as common man.

Only, in this case, one bursting with talent and, if he must admit it, reasonably happy with his meager lot in life. Hoarder Harvey decides to document his life in comic form and it becomes wildly popular — primarily due to its unflinching honesty. The film also offers a brief but inspired depiction of comic artist and uber-nerd, Robert Crumb. 

X-Men

X-Men may be the prototypical Hollywood vision of the nerd. Nerds are, well, born that way. They are endowed with amazing abilities, which makes them stand out from everyone else. X-Men also has, surprisingly, one of the best Nazi prison camp scenes of any film from any genre. Only, it's not about Nazis or the past, but the future — and who will control it.

This being a Hollywood blockbuster, all those born with the special "X gene" are, not surprisingly, equally pretty and badass.  

Lead image taken from the trailer of Revenge of the Nerds

When I talk to marketing executives about the Smart Body, Smart World paradigm — how sensor-laden devices like wearables give us access to new domains of information and what we can do with that information — they always bring up the movie Minority Report.

The 2002 sci-fi crime thriller has become the reference point people imagine when they think about the future of advertising: specifically, the scene in which Jon Anderton (Tom Cruise) walks through the mall and billboards show him ads based on his mental state (stressed out) and context (on a journey).

This depiction of the future makes sense if you take the status quo of advertising in 2002 — delivering messages via screens to acquire new customers and persuade them to try your product — and bolt on new technology like biometric scanning. There are multiple examples of marketers today doing simplified versions of this, using billboards that adapt content based on gender and age.

A Dumb Vision Of The Smart Future

But this is a pretty dumb vision of the “smart” future. Smarter marketing goes far beyond advertising.

The Smart Body, Smart World paradigm requires a different approach to marketing, an approach focused on delivering services and utility rather than just advertising. Sensor devices collect data that’s intimate by nature, in contexts where marketers have never before had access. That intimacy lends itself to trust-based interactions, where trust is earned with utility.

The Nest home thermostat, for example, uses motion sensors and machine-learning algorithms to predict your schedule — but users don’t think it’s creepy because it saves them 20% on their heating and cooling bill. The Jawbone UP knows your daily commute and how well you slept — but its usefulness is quantifiable, helping wearers move, on average, 26% more per day.

Many sensor-laden devices don’t have displays; even the ones that do, like Google Glass, are better suited for “engagement marketing” or “relationship marketing” rather than advertising. For example, Glass might be an appropriate platform for a bank to show a user’s “safe to spend” balance - like financial services company Simple does on its mobile app - while the customer is out shopping. But that approach wouldn’t be well-suited to cross-selling a mortgage.

Sensors Change Everything

The Smart Body, Smart World paradigm accelerates transformations that are already occurring in marketing. In particular, sensor devices require marketers to:

Shift their priorities from acquisition to engagement. Today, marketers spend the majority of their budgets on the early stages of the customer journey, especially reaching new customers through channels like TV advertising and in-store displays. Smart Body, Smart World technologies lend themselves more toward engaging customers you already have, building on trust you’ve already earned. This shift from acquisition to engagement requires marketers to rethink their priorities and redistribute their spending accordingly.

Make better use of all the data they are collecting. Sensor devices produce an enormous amount of data — up to thousands of data points per minute per person. Making use of all this data is a new skill for marketers. Think about the Nike+ FuelBand, for example. In the past, Nike’s marketers would not have known much about their customers — they relied on what data they could get from retailers and whatever market research they commissioned. Now they know what time their customers wake up, whether they had a good day and how fit they are compared with their friends. Acting on this data in a way that benefits the user and the company requires an enormous shift from the way they used data in the past.

Reconfigure privacy practices to deliver contextually relevant services. Current privacy practices are woefully inadequate for the age of smartphones and sensors. Today, marketers routinely collect more data than they need for service delivery. In doing so, they are assuming unnecessary risk (as we see in the near-daily hacking of major enterprises), and they also make it harder to recognize business opportunities obscured by mountains of data. In Forrester’s research, we’ve found that many consumers would actually be willing to share more data if they knew it would be used to deliver genuinely useful services. But they object, with good reason, to sharing data without getting real value in return.

These shifts will transform marketing in a far deeper way than the superficial Minority Report vision. Imagine a future in which marketers influence products, pricing and branding based on deep insights of how people actually use their product. A future in which marketers anticipate customer needs before they’re expressed — while staying on the right side of the line separating useful from creepy.

A future in which marketers actually help customers change their own behavior to the benefit of the customer, not just the marketer. Marketers have this future within their grasp if they can recognize that the mall in Minority Report is not what we should be building.

I’ll be speaking more about how marketers make these transformations at Forrester’s Forum for Marketing Leaders on April 18 and 19 in Los Angeles. Join us if you can!

Nvidia has just about pulled off the trick of rendering computer-generated human faces -- in real time -- that won't make viewers squirm. At least so long as they don't grimace. Or try to talk.

The graphics chip maker Nvidia said on Tuesday that it had teamed up with the University of Southern California to develop two sets of simulation technologies designed to improve rendering and simulations in video games, one for oceans (Wave Works) and one for faces (Face Works). 

The faces technology is the big deal here. At certain moments during a demonstration at its GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia's virtual "Ira" transcended the so-called "uncanny valley" and made me think that the virtual head on stage was an actual, living person.

It's been a long time coming.

Graphics Chips: Not Just For Graphics Any More

Years ago, Nvidia, Rendition, 3Dlabs and others helped transform the PC with the introduction of 3D graphics, from which evolved PC gaming, CAD animation, video production and a number of other creative enterprises. Nvidia's chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang has been an evangelist of sorts, helping to push Nvidia into the enterprise space with integrated machines that use its graphics processing units (GPUs), as well as into smartphones and tablets with new versions of its Tegra chips.

"Over the last 20 years, this medium has transformed the PC from a computer for information and productivity to one of creativity, expression and discovery," Huang said in his opening keynote. "The beauty and the power of interactivity this medium allows us to connect with ideas in a way that no other medium can. And the GPU is the engine of this medium."

The original 1992 Alone in the Dark, a PC gaming classic. Source: KentuckyFriedPopcorn.blogspot.com

The fundamental building block of the GPU is the polygon, also known as "triangles" - groundbreaking games like Alone in the Dark created 3D characters out of polygons that players could easily distinquish. Today, however, faster processors have allowed those 3D polygons to become so small that they can't seen by the naked eye. Those 3D surfaces can be colored, textured and even "bump-mapped" to break up the regularity of the image, improving realism.

At the same time, GPUs have become physics engines, modelling everything from how light passes through and reflects off of objects - ray tracing - to applying real "physics" to objects as they fall and bounce. Tracking particles as they move, such as smoke or water, is also part of the equation. That's the kind of computational power that supercomputers tap into - and in February, Nvidia launched its Titan card, using the same GPU technology as the world's fastest supercomputer, ORNL's Titan, uses.

Face Works, Ira And The "Uncanny Valley"

For a time, both Nvidia and its chief rival, ATI Technologies (now part of AMD) used, well, virtual dolls, to demonstrate the realism of their graphics technology and appeal to hormone-fueled gamers. AMD's Ruby is a thing of the past, but Nvidia's fairy-like Dawn appeared in Huang's keynote. The showcase for 2002's GeForce FX line, Dawn was created to embody "cinematic computing" and turned heads with impressive attention to detail, realistic hair and dynamic lighting effects. But Face Works and Ira are the future.

Nvidia's Face Works was developed in conjunction with USC's Institute for Creative Technologies, which helped develop LightStage, a high-speed illumination system designed for human-scale subjects consisting of 6,500 white LED sources. Essentially, Huang said, a person marches into a giant sphere, where the subject is photographed from 253 different directions. Each image is matted onto a black background, and compiled into a 3D object. Face Works allows each object to be modified, or "stretched," to simulate speech and movement.

A shot of a model using ICT's Light Stage technology.

It's not easy. "Simulating an ocean is hard; simulating a face is harder," Huang said.

Humans are trained to instinctively spot things that are a little off, and that reaction, dubbed "the uncanny valley," ironically kicks in the more realistic a simulation gets. Basically, some people get creeped out by CGI that looks a little too realistic, but not quite realistic enough to be fully convincing.

Ira demonstrates the problem. As these images show, Ira looks quite normal - fully human, actually, under certain lighting conditions. What Face Works does is model light as it enters the skin, reflects, and diffuses through the skin's surface. Slight disfigurements - a freckle, skin pores - add to the realism.

But the illusion often breaks when the 3D model moves, as you can see in the keynote video below (the ocean modeling begins at about 9 minutes in, Ira and Dawn appear about 16 minutes in). Essentially, Ira looks eerily realistic when motionless, but when he grimaces (and, above all, talks) we begin to pick up on how his facial expressions aren't quite lifelike.

Still, recent games like L.A. Noire became famous for their realistic depictions of human faces, and "reading" expressions became a gameplay mechanic. Years ago, getting those right at all was an amazing accomplishment. We're now at the point where companies like Nvidia get it right most of the time. "All of the time," it seems, will soon be within our grasp.

Wave Works: Splash!

Nvidia's ocean simulation, meanwhile, uses Wave Works to tap into Titan for what the company called the most realistic ocean simulation ever. Most water simulations paint the ocean as a flat surface, with random ripples distorting it. Objects that "float" on top, like a ship, might not actually move in response to the ocean's undulations.

Nvidia's "Wave Works" models a gale at sea.

Wave Works, however, uses 20,000 "virtual sensors" on a ship model to model water pressure, and to respond to the proximity of the water on the ship. And Water Works even models spray, tracking 100,000 "spray particles" as they move through the air. The Nvidia software can model an entire Beaufort scale of wind speed, dialing up everything from a sunny day to a near-hurricane, Huang said. And as the ship moves, it crashes through the waves, being tossed up and down. This simulation, at least, was completely convincing.

Veronica Mars, the critically acclaimed, little-watched television show from the mid-2000s was dead, buried — and nearly forgotten.

I saved it. With my iPhone.

I downloaded the Kickstarter funding app from the App Store. With a swipe of a finger, and my mobile Amazon Account, I pledged $10 to help the producer finance a  movie based on the show. On Twitter, I told all my followers to do the same. Then, with a quick status update to my Facebook page, I encouraged my family and friends to do likewise — and to tell everyone they knew to follow suit. All told, it took less than five minutes, and now one of the best network TV series of the past ten years will live again, this time on the big screen. 

The new Veronica Mars movie has been greenlighted, its financing secured, the star — the lovely and talented Kristen Bell — is signed. Nothing to do now but type out a script. I should at least garner a “producer” credit. The Motion Picture Academy is welcome to thank me at next year's Oscar ceremony. 

On second thought, maybe the Academy should fear me. For I did not merely save Veronica Mars, I am leading the charge to destroy the entire film industry as we know it. My weapons? The technology I carry around with with me everyday. A smartphone, an app, cloud services, crowdfunding, social media and online payments. 

Explosions In The Film Industry

The total gross film receipts in the U.S. last year were just under $11 billion. The average box-office take of a Hollywood film was a middling $16.5 million. This does not include international box office receipts, DVD sales, streaming or network television. The world consumes massive quantities of entertainment. Yes, we have a choice in what we watch and when and where but almost no choice, no direct say whatsoever, in what actually gets made, or by whom. This has always been the case — until now. 

Despite its near-universal appeal, there may be no industry that’s more insular, more inexplicable to the very public it appeals to than the film industry. Technology is changing all of this, exploding the industry outward and, finally, fully empowering those who buy the tickets. Yes, technology has radically impacted the industry itself — think amazing special effects, 3D, green screens, post-production wizardry. We can now download or stream our favorite films and TV series to watch them anywhere at any time — legally or otherwise. But until now, we were effectively powerless in what got made.

No longer. Veronica Mars will likely be only among the first of many multi-million-dollar Hollywood flicks that are produced solely because of the efforts of individuals scattered around the world, pledging anywhere from $1 and $10,000, and sharing their enthusiasm on social media. The crowd is no longer simply marketed to, but is now driving what gets made from the start. 

Crowdfunding

Wikipedia defines crowdfunding as "the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations." Rob Thomas, the creator of the original Veronica Mars series, spent years attempting to turn his creation into a film. Until he turned to the crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, he failed every time. From The New York Times:

In its three seasons on the air “Veronica Mars” was never even one of television’s Top 100 most-watched series, but in its afterlife it has broken new ground. On Wednesday night fans and supporters of that show about a wisecracking young sleuth (played by Kristen Bell) pledged more than $2 million to produce a “Veronica Mars” movie, less than 12 hours after the fund-raising drive was announced on Kickstarter.

Mr. Thomas told fans they had 30 days to raise $2 million for “our shot” at producing a film, adding, “I believe it’s the only one we’ve got.” And by about 9 p.m. that goal was met, with pledges continuing to come in on Day 2.  

The Web, social media, online payment services — and the always-on connectivity our smartphones provide us — are enabling an entirely new form of financing. These technologies are a;sp enabling anyone to pursue their creative vision or build a better mousetrap by appealing not to a skeptical venture capitalis or a cynical producer, but to regular people who may share a similar passion or interest. The technologies we have in our pockets are simultaneously empowering us to both create our visions and fund those whose visions.

A Funding Platform for Creative Projects

For the Veronica Mars project on Kickstarter, fans could pledge from $10 to more than $10,000, with various goodies offered at each level. For $10, the “backer” receives a PDF of the shooting script on the day of the movie’s release. For $10,000, a speaking role was offered.

Of course, Veronica Mars is a project with a built-in core of fans. Not all crowdsourced projects have that kind of juice to get to their funding goals.

But here's how it might work: A budding young filmmaker uses her smartphone to record a two-minute ‘pitch’ that she uploads to YouTube. Enough people react positively that she makes a Kickstarter project — seeking, for example, $1 million to make her movie and another $1 million to help market it. Not easy, but it might just work — even for people who would otherwise have no shot at raising that kind of money.. 

Crowdfunding, cloud services and mobile devices are remaking filmmaking and film financing. But let's not stop at funding Veronica Mars. The audience still doesn't have an financial stake in the creative endeavors we support. What if Veronica Mars turns out to be a blockbuster? Shouldn't I get a piece of those profits? After all, I was an early financial backer. 

It's not like I'm asking to be onstage at the Oscars with Rob Thomas. Although....

Images from Veronica Mars Kickstarter project video.

A beautiful young systems analyst pulls back from her keyboard and stretches, yawns. It's late. Sliding into her coat, she taps out a text to her boyfriend: "Be there in 20." As she leaves the office, silence falls, except for the hum of florescent lights above. 

A squeak. A garbage can appears, pushed by an older, balding man, his eyes suspiciously alert. Setting down his mop, the man sits at the system analyst's desk and pulls a USB key out of the pocket of his stained overalls. The silent PC hums to life as the USB key is inserted. Files scroll down the screen, and a faint smile flickers across his lips. Otlichno, he murmurs. Excellent.

Hollywood-Style Hacking

Microsoft admitted Tuesday that the risk of this Hollywood-style hacking scenario is very real - and can be eliminated only via its latest Windows patch. 

Yes, it almost sounds like something out of The Net, the 1995 film starring Sandra Bullock that featured a plot device relying on a backdoor passed around on floppy disks (USB drives were first shipped five years later). 

As Microsoft noted in a blog post attached to its Patch Tuesday updates, one should assume that if an attacker has physical access to your computer (through theft, losing a laptop or otherwise), then a knowledgeable attacker will likely be able to crack it through any one of a variety of means. What the kernel-mode driver exploit that Microsoft patched on Tuesday - one of three "critical" vulnerabilities and seven total patches - enabled was casual physical access, of the sort that could be quickly done by a janitor or coworker. 

"While this isn’t the first issue to leverage physical access and USB devices, it is different in that it doesn’t require a machine to be logged on," the Microsoft Security Response Team (MSRC) wrote. "It also provides kernel-level code execution where previous attacks only allowed code execution at the logged-on level. Because of this, someone with casual physical access, such as a custodian sweeping your office at night or a security guard making his rounds, could simply plug in a USB device to perform any action as an administrator."

The other two critical patches include Internet Explorer and Silverlight. Others, marked "Important," involved vulnerabilities in Visio, OneNote and SharePoint.

Windows Store Patches, ASAP

Microsoft also detailed how it would update apps sold via the Windows Store, its source for online apps - exclusively, in the case of Windows RT. Instead of delivering them on a monthly basis on Patch Tuesday, the patches and updates will be delivered as needed. 

"This applies to Microsoft apps that are installed using the Windows Store and to apps like Mail, which are preinstalled with Windows 8 but updated using the Windows Store," Mike Reavey, senor director within the MSRC, wrote. "Providing security updates to these apps more frequently will allow us to add new functionality, fix issues and improve security. This will also help developers to avoid introducing new issues during the update process."

This more-active approach to security patches makes sense - except perhaps for aspiring screenwriters, who will have to come up with another preposterous representation of technology hacks. 

Of course, if you don't apply Microsoft's new patches, comrade, then it's do svidaniya for you.

Images from the trailer for The Net, on YouTube.

As the annual Consumer Electronics Show grows away from its humble roots as, you know, a consumer electronics show, its focus increasingly turns to things altogether unrelated to technology - like celebrities!

Last year I recall spending three hours chasing down Justin Bieber with my telephoto lens - he made a brief, grumpy appearance promoting some entirely forgettable robotics company that I have since entirely forgotten. This year, the celeb safari is back on.  Here's who is showing up to CES this year and why you should - or shouldn't - care.

Get your bingo cards ready. No really... why not make a bingo card? Fill one up, find me and I'll buy you a shot. (Just don't blame me for knowing more about smartphones than pop culture - this is who I think these people are, anyway.)   

Felicia Day

This year's "CES Celebrity Ambassador," you might know Felicia day from the World of Warcraft spoof web series The Guild, or just from being generally cool and having preternaturally perfect skin. She tends to appear at every geek-adjacent event known to man, and we imagine that she'll spend most of the week in a cocktail lounge in an ivory tower somewhere in the South Hall. She's the CES celeb bingo equivalent of a doubleword score.

Maroon 5

Qualcomm Incoporated Preshow Keynote / 6:30-7:30pm, Monday, January 7, The Venetian, Palazzo Ballroom

This is a band, I think. I'm honesty not totally sure. It sounds like a racecar. Or a craft beer.

will.i.am

The Next Generation of Innovators Keynote / 11am-12pm, Tuesday, January 8, LVH Theater

This dude is from The Black Eyed Peas and has the cojones to downstyle his name like an Apple product. He's A+ in my book.

Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson

SMS Audio (LVCC, South Hall 1, #20206) / 3pm, Wednesday, January 9

Isn't this guy blatantly sexist and homophobic? Surprise! He's at CES 2013 representing SMS Audio, a brand that I will now ardently choose to not give a shit about. 

Travis Barker

Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. (LVCC, North Hall Booth #1101) / 12-1pm and 1:30-2:30pm, Tuesday, January 8

The Blink 182 dude? Really? Don't make me make the "what's my age again" joke.

Dana Cohen

Haier America (LVCC, Central Hall, #10939)

I have zero idea who this woman is, but apparently she was dubbed the “Scallop Queen” on season 10 of Hell’s Kitchen, which is the best title I've ever heard of. All hail the bivalve queen!

I Fight Dragons

Bém Wireless / 7pm, Wednesday, January 9, Luxor, Flight Lounge

This is probably an indie band. Okay, yeah, I looked it up and it is definitely an indie band. I hated them at first based on their name alone, but apparently they are into the chiptune retro video game sound thing, so now I'm totally into it.

Lil Twist

Nikura (LVCC, South Hall 4, #37134) / 1pm, Thursday, January 10

A young rapper of sorts, I imagine. And apparently Justin Bieber's BFF.

LL Cool J

CNET (LVCC, South Hall 3, CNET Booth) / 4:30pm, Tuesday, January 8

This guy is kind of actually famous! All these years and he never changed his name to something more pretentious or with fewer vowels - props to you, Mr. J.

Rohan Marley

House of Marley (LVCC, Central Hall, #10544) / 11am-3pm, Tuesday, January 8 - Thursday, January 9

Bob Marley's son is here every year with his crazy bamboo headphones and a big smile on his face. He's a super nice guy and he'll take a picture with you and you can almost pretend you met the "real" Marley instead of Lauryn Hill's ex boyfriend.

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi

Zeikos/iHip (LVCC, South Hall 1, #21142) / 1-3pm, Wednesday, January 9

Yep, Snooki.

Tim Tebow

SOUL Electronics (Venetian Tower, #31-234) / 9am, Thursday, January 10

Isn't this that sanctimonious football player guy who never actually gets to play? We geeks come to these events to get away from you people. Whatever.

Chris “Ludacris” Bridges

SOUL Electronics / 10pm, Thursday, January 10, TAO Nightclub

Rapper turned actor Ludacris seems like a nice dude. I count this as a real celeb.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Digital Health Summitt (LVCC, North Hall, Room N250) / 9-10:15am, Wednesday, January 9

CNN's overexposed rockstar doctor guy. If he had accepted the job as Surgeon General, that would be one thing.

Dr. Oz

Digital Health Summitt (LVCC, North Hall, Room N250) / 10-10:50am, Thursday, January 10

Maybe Dr. Oz can tell you what that weird growth is on your foot. If not, try Sanjay Gupta.

Carrot Top

Gibson Guitar Corp. (LVCC, CES Central Plaza, CP-30)

We all know that the obnoxious comedian Carrot Top is just hanging out here in Vegas anyway. I don't know what he brings to Gibson's brand, but now that CES celebs are like trading cards, you might as well collect 'em all.

Danny DeVito

Panasonic (LVCC, Central Hall, Booth #9406) / 2:30pm, Wednesday, January 9

Okay, Danny DeVito is actually kind of awesome. If he's anything like his character on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, I'd like to commit a misdemeanor or drink stale beer with him. 

Ryan Vogelsong

JVC Americas Corp. (LVCC, North Hall, Booth #1810) / 11am and 2pm, Wednesday, January 9

A pitcher for the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants. Who let all these athletes in here?!

Brian Singer

Private Event, Parnassus Group / 5:30-7:30pm, Thursday, January 10, Cili's at Bali Hai

Singer directed the first two X-Men movies, which were awesome. But I'm still mad that he bailed on the trilogy to make a Superman movie. If you see him, ask him about that.

Want to track down even more weirdo celebs? Check out the full list.

Time Warner has officially entered the YouTube content industry by investing $36 million into Maker Studios, a prominent network on the video-sharing site that gets roughly 2 billion views a month. (So much for the rumors of Yahoo snapping up the network!) The Time Warner Investments group deal is for $1 million more than Google invested in Machinima - typically seen as the leading YouTube network - and marks the first time a major outside media conglomerate has made a big investment in the YouTube space. 

Rachel Lam, the head of Time Warner Investments group (which led the investment which included big names like Robert Downey Jr and Elizabeth Murdoch), will also join the board of directors at Maker Studios. Lam’s presence should be welcomed, as the YouTube network has been embroiled in a scandal with the space’s biggest celebrity, Ray William Johnson, over predatory contract disputes. (The network also failed to transition Johnson’s AdSense account following his departure from the network for two months - which I estimated at the time resulted in at least a $112,000 revenue loss for Johnson.)

Why Time Warner Did The Deal

"In just a few short years, Maker has established itself as the go-to network on YouTube for top creative talent, and the combination of outstanding creative with formidable audience reach has translated into Maker's phenomenal growth as a company," Lam wrote in a statement sent to multiple publications. (Apparently, despite the recent departure of top talent, the statement was not meant to be ironic.) "Our investment in Maker gives us insight into next generation video content and the ever-evolving online video landscape, as well as access to new producers of content for Time Warner's existing television, film and cable network operations."

Maker Studios was found in 2009 and acts as a production studio, distribution network and ad sales team for YouTube-based talent.  PandoDaily reported Maker Studios has garnered $78.5 million in total equity funding (not counting Google’s Original Channels investment), while TechCrunch and All Things D put Maker Studio’s total raised at $44 million. Maker Studios did not respond to ReadWrite's requests to clarify this funding amount, but the consensus is the company is valued at $200 million. Viewership for the network has been steadily increasing, with the network even surpassing Machinima in terms of views in October. 

The Time Warner Investments funding comes at a good time for Maker Studios, and not just because it helps the network move on from accusations of unprofessional behavior during the Ray William Johnson scandal: The network has just completed a 40,000-square-foot production space in Culver City that includes sound stages, production offices, prop and wardrobe areas, editing bays and recording booths.

"We're extremely excited and grateful to have the support of Time Warner and our other investment partners who are some of the most respected names in media and entertainment, and are thrilled that we will be able to provide even more resources and opportunities to our valued network partners," wrote Danny Zappin, Maker's co-founder and CEO, in a statement sent to multiple publications.

Traditional Media Finally Getting It  

Eugene Lee, the co-founder of the YouTube analytics service for media companies and brands called ChannelMeter, told ReadWrite that Time Warner's investment "validates" the YouTube space and shows traditional media is finally " recognizing that viewers are moving online and that online audience is growing." 

Lee predicted the infusion to Maker Studios is just the beginning of outside investment in YouTube content. Lee also said that the cash infusion is likely to "light a fire" under YouTube networks like Machinima, Fullscreen and Alloy Digital to "get their A-game on" and "be smarter with their money."  Machinima seems to already be doing that, having just laid off 10% of its staff this month, which the video-game and entertainment network called "a reorganization to address its global growth." 

Most film studios operate under the assumption that the more buzz and positive sentiment a movie has on Twitter, the better the movie will perform at the box office. It ain't necessarily so...

Instead, it's quality over quantity. Or maybe, influencers over volume. That is the basic formula for determining what works when it comes to whether or not the number of tweets equals movie ticket sales. 

As studios fork over big money for their end-of-year Oscar runs and social media campaigns, new research by the social advertising company 140 Proof is threatening to poke a gaping hole in those marketing plans. 

140 Proof looked at 25 major Hollywood films released in 2012, compiling data on each movie’s social media activity (mentions and hashtags) two weeks before, and two weeks after the release. It found that the number of overall Twitter mentions is a poor predictor of box office sales (unlike tweet volume and Television ratings). What did correlate to box office success was the number of tweets from influential tastemakers - those films had greater potential for positive revenue. In other words, just creating more overall tweets can be ineffective in getting people into theatres, unless those tweets come from people whose voices have weight. 

Based on these findings, 140 Proof has partnered with Sony Pictures, Universal, AMC and HBO to analyze and forecast anticipated ticket sales and reach targeted audiences through social ads.  

Not All Movie Lovers Are Created Equal

Jon Elvekrog, the chief executive of 140 Proof, says what's really going on here is movie marketers employing the same tactics on Twitter that they've been using for online advertising: Aiming for reach instead of engaging with key influencers. His model turns that around. "For studios that are looking at social, it comes down to making sure your efforts reach tastemakers, whether that’s through influencer programs or using targeted social ads."

"Driving ticket sales is direct advertising," Elvekrog said. "While movies typically aim for mass market appeal, the findings in our data showed that if you get specific influencers to talk about the movie, that conversation has more bearing on ticket sales than a massive volume of conversation from the broader market."

Suranga Chandratillake, the founder and chief strategy officer at video search engine blinkx, thinks this model works - based on his own analysis of how blinkx monitors social channels. 

"You can look at all tweets to know if your marketing is working, and you can look at influencer tweets to know if your product is working," he said. "

Movie Marketing Is Different

So is this model specifically suited to work for films, and just on Twitter, or is there a larger message here? 

Elvekrog says the tactics used for deciphering film may not be as effective for traditional marketing, but it's a field he admits his data hasn't focused on. Instead, he thinks the model would be perfect for predicting sales of retail items. And he thinks predicting the success of television content would fall into the same category as films (although data from Nielsen suggests that television success is more volume based, perhaps because most of it is free). A more likely use of his model is a direct link between reaching influencers to drive consumer sales, rather than increasing overall visibility. 

Managing The Hype Cycle

Kelly Lux, a social media strategist at Syracuse University's iSchool agrees that model can work for retail. But she warns that an important determining factor for success is a less controllable variable, consumer sentiment, which can make or break sales. 

"This is transferable on a smaller scale to any kind of product launch that you can create hype around," Lux said. "Sentiment is what's important, and that can be much more difficult to parse out... Once the product lands in consumer hands it's much more difficult for the brand to direct the sentiment the way they want."

Chandratillake also supported this reasoning and the predictive potential of influential tweets.

"Whether you can apply this method to other industries, I think the answer is absolutely yes," he said. "Adoption, i.e. actual purchases or actions, a bit like the box office numbers, correlate best to tweet volume by influencers, while buzz, i.e. people being aware of the product or campaign, correlate quite well to tweet mentions in general. "

Tuesday morning, Deathwatch-favorite Netflix announced a new partnership with Disney. While the financial terms have yet to be disclosed, this looks like a huge step in the right direction for the embattled video service.

Under the terms of the agreement, Netflix will become the online distribution platform for Disney's straight-to-video releases in 2013. In 2016, it will carry pay-per-view versions of Disney's new, theatricallyreleased films. Effective immediately, Netflix will also have access to a back catalog of classic Disney films for its current subscriber base.

What It Means For Disney 

By cutting a deal, Disney gains a pay-per-view foothold (and likely some perks to be named later) in the biggest online video distributor without giving up anything but Dumbo and Pocahontas. Its classic freebies will serve as a powerful lead-in for up-sells, and it will retain the power to charge a fee it considers fair for premium content. The deal also draws considerable leverage from cable operators that may have been less willing to negotiate a favorable revenue split.

What It Means For Netflix 

The Disney deal is a major lifeline for Netflix. First, it brings reliable, popular content into the system right now, repairing some of the actual and perceived damage caused when Disney/Starz pulled out. It also shows Wall Street and other content providers that Netflix will be around for the long haul. If the mother of all content licensing providers is willing to do a deal, other suppliers are more likely to want in as well. It remains to be seen how far Disney has locked out competitors, but Netflix will draw new interest that it really needed.

According to Ross Rubin, Principal Analyst at Reticle Research, the deal is a very good thing. "This is, as Red Hastings has observed regarding Amazon's investments, a gold rush, with many online video providers such as Google, Hulu, Amazon and Netflix looking for original and exclusive content, and Disney has an unparalleled brand in home video. Kids' movies are a great fit for Netflix as some of its heaviest users are parents who use it as broadband babysitting."

The agreement also formalizes what everyone knew was coming: Netflix is evolving beyond the buffet model. Premium content will remove the pressure from the baseline offering and allow all sorts of new opportunities that provide legitimate value.

For example, millions of Netflix users catch up on back seasons of still-running TV shows, only to find themselves stuck in the limbo between the Netflix catalog and the current season. That's a well-qualified sales opportunity sitting on the table. Now Netflix and content publishers can monetize that opportunity while consumers willing to spend a bit extra on a premium subscription or an a la carte purchase can stay up to date on their favorite shows. 

This deal puts pressure on other video distributors to follow suit. Hulu, with its close ties to NBC, Fox and yes, Disney, will probably launch a counterattack soon. 

Let's be clear. This is a win for Netflix, but Disney is in charge. Netflix's content model was getting pinched, and it needed an out. Content is still king, but the deal helps Netflix last long enough to maybe tip the scales a bit more toward distributors.

Top image courtesy of Katherine Welles / Shutterstock. Bottom image courtesy of Shutterstock.

“Hey, if it takes $4 billion to keep Lucas away from any future Star Wars films, that is money well spent.”

— rawryree

From the story: A New Hope? Disney Buys Lucasfilm For $4 Billion

The Walt Disney Company has reportedly bought Lucasfilm, the production company that brought us Star Wars and Indiana Jones, for $4.05 billion in cash and stock. The companies simultaneously announced that Star Wars Episode 7 will be released in 2015.

Kathleen Kennedy, co-chairman of Lucasfilm, will become president, reporting to Alan Horn, chairman of Walt Disney Studios. She will also become the brand manager for Star Wars, which has new episodes going into production. And under the new management, there’s reason to believe that these might actually be good.

A new hope. twitter.com/CNBC/status/26…

— John Siracusa (@siracusa) October 30, 2012

The deal also includes Lucasfilm's multimedia and gaming divisions. As the owner of Pixar, Disney already exerts a powerful influence over the intersection between tech and entertainment, and it further blurs the line by bringing in Lucasfilm.

This acquisition follows Disney’s acquisitions of Pixar and Marvel, both of which have thrived under the banner of the iconic entertainment empire. Disney and Lucasfilm have worked together in the past on Star Wars and Indiana Jones-themed attractions at Walt Disney theme parks around the world.

“It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers,” said George Lucas, director of the timeless series and founder of Lucasfilm. “I’m confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come.”

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Sometimes I fear for the future of entrepreneurship in America. A stock market crash is a breath away from draining the cash hoards of popular venture capitalists, the Securities Exchange Commission could easily change its rules to cripple the startup ecosystem and we are one serious privacy breach away from Congress enacting Draconian laws that could cripple a world they know nothing about. But judging by the online chatter, the biggest danger to startups in the United States is reality television.

I, of course, am kidding. Reality television will not be the death of startups in the U.S.

But in early November, cable channel Bravo will debut a new reality program titled “Silicon Valley” that will chronicle the lives and struggles of startup entrepreneurs in San Francisco. Bravo's trailer for the show hit the Web earlier this week and response from the entrepreneurial community and blogs has been predictable. 

The reaction went along three main lines:

1. This is basically just a disaster waiting to happen.
2. These people are crazy.
3. They don’t represent the true Silicon Valley.

...in the world according to @bravotv there are no Asians or Indians in Silicon Valley. Not even a few token ones. Where did they all go?

— Christine Lu (@christinelu) October 9, 2012

Why A Reality TV Show About Silicon Valley Will Obviously Be So Much Worse Than Blogs About It

— NextTechBlog (@NextTechBlog) October 8, 2012

The first two points are hard to argue with. As for the third, well, yes they do and no they do not. 

Reality TV Isn't

The first thing to remember when thinking about “Silicon Valley” is that it is over-produced reality television.

I am acquainted with some of the people featured in the show and have been to the mansion in San Francisco where they live and much of the program is shot. I also know people who have appeared on other Bravo reality shows, like Top Chef.

You know those spontaneous moments or dramatic shots that seem so off the cuff that they must real? Well, many of those scenes are shot half a dozen times before the producers are satisfied that they're spontaneous enough.

One such moment in "Silicon Valley" comes when one of the characters is riding a motorcycle with her boyfriend crossing the bridges in San Francisco. They went over the bridge once and then the producers had them do it a couple more times to get the shots right. So, take “reality” for what it is worth in the lexicon of Bravo programming. 

It's A Caricature

“Silicon Valley” will be a purposely designed caricature of startup life. We will see lots of over-sized personalities, drama for the sake of drama, borderline alcoholism and an endless stream of bad buzzwords and catchphrases. The show will be the quintessential guide to the Silicon Valley Echo Chamber, where things that nobody cares about outside of San Francisco become huge crises of conscience within that insulated environment. 

Yet, like any caricature or stereotype, there will be elements of truth to be found within “Silicon Valley.” Yes, startup founders really are full of their own self-importance. They can be arrogant, pretentious and pushy. They work long hours and are often razor-focused on their own mission, to the exclusion of the larger world around them.

They are also real people with emotions, moments of strength, moments of weakness and distinct visions for the future of the world. They often live in a semi-state of poverty, waiting for that first funding round to be able to eat, pay themselves and hire a team (this particular aspect of startup life is not something we will likely see in the show considering its posh setting). 

Entrepreneurial Truths

I have met startup founders and employees in San Francisco, Boston, New York City and Washington, D.C., among other locations. Each city's community has its own distinct sense of self but, by and large, they all share many of  of the characteristics listed above. The difference in Silicon Valley is that, because of the sheer volume of startups and the surplus of cash in the region, these characteristics are often magnified. 

That magnification is what the show “Silicon Valley” will likely try to capture, in all the splendor and bullshit that comes with reality television. The entrepreneurs of San Francisco and elsewhere might be wary of how Bravo will portray their world, but they cannot deny that, regardless of the tawdry presentation, "Silicon Valley" will also reveal some elements of truth.

Kitchen and skyline images by Dan Rowinski. Other images and video from Bravo.

After backing out of plans to compete with Netflix, Blockbuster is all but done. That's not great news for the streaming-video space, and Netflix is in a rough spot. But Blockbuster's latest stumble toward oblivion isn't necessarily the final nail in NetFlix' coffin.

On October 4, Dish Network scrapped its plans to revamp the Blockbuster brand and launch a subscription-based streaming-only product to compete directly with Netflix. Dish ran the numbers, evaluated its options, and (correctly) assumed it didn't have the assets to make a Netflix competitor work.

That leaves Blockbuster on the ropes again, with just 900 of its former 3,300 retail stores and no clear digital strategy. But don't assume that the math will work the same way for Netflix.

The Bad News For Netflix

Dish's decision confirms what I've been saying for some time: the flat-rate streaming market isn't a very profitable place. As I noted in Netflix Deathwatch over the summer: expensive bandwidth, second-rate content and strained relationships with content providers are par for the course for the entire industry.

Paul Sweeting, Principal at Concurrent Media Strategies, told E-Commerce Times that "…studios have long been leery of subscription-based streaming of movies because it produces the lowest per-view/per-capita return for the rights holder of any business model, and it cannibalizes higher margin businesses like pay-per-view rentals and even purchases." In the same article, another analyst predicted that flat-rate streaming may have only another five or six years of life.

The market is obviously sick, and it needs to change.

The Good News For Netflix

Troubled or not, Netflix still owns the streaming video market, and that brings advantages Dish and Blockbuster couldn't match. Most importantly, Netflix has existing content relationships that, while strained, put it in a better position than a startup.

In an October 8 analyst note, Morgan Stanley's Scott Devitt estimated that Amazon, which already has relationships with most studios, would need to spend an additional $1 billion to $1.2 billion in licensing rights to launch a similar service.

If that price is too steep for Amazon, it's probably beyond most competitors. Barriers to entry don't validate the streaming-video business model, but they do buy time for Netflix to try to sort out its problems.

In the long term, Netflix has an infrastructure advantage, since it owns its own Content Distribution Network (CDN), and its massive user base should help it secure content from overseas and underexposed independent sources.

It's also developing original content with headliners like Kevin Spacey to hedge against expiring contracts and differentiate from competitors. Netflix's margins per customer may not be fantastic, but with all those users, it has cash to invest in programming.

Eventually, though, Netflix needs to balance cheap back-catalog offerings with enough premium and custom content to create a profitable offering "good enough" to justify its prices. It also needs to keep an eye on Hulu, HBO and other content providers looking to ramp up their streaming businesses.

Put it all together, and I wouldn't want to be in Netflix' shoes. Blockbuster's implosion is a reminder of how tough things have gotten in Netflix' core business, but at least Netflix still controls its own destiny.

Blockbuster and Kevin Spacey images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Anywhere in the world, the fastest way to make anything popular is to ban it. Certainly Iran, which actually is an Internet infrastructure provider and which has by far the largest Internet using population in the Middle East, undoubtably knows that. So when Iran is handed a gold mine like The Innocence of Muslims, what should it do? 

The pitiful YouTube trailer for a possibly fake film entitled The Innocence of Muslims, whose very actors are embarrassed to have been hoodwinked into participating, may have become the most popular — or at least, the most popularly viewed — bad movie not to have been lampooned by Rifftrax.  Iran is one of the video's most vocal critics, which was probably as intended.

It isn’t immediately obvious to most Americans, for whom Iran is typically portrayed as a backward country, but actually Iran is an Internet power player. Not headquarters to an Internet giant, but an actual Internet giant in itself. A 2010 estimate by China-based communications analyst Globserver states that, of Iran’s total population of nearly 77 million people, 33.2 million - about 43.2% of the population - were registered Internet users. Only 9.8 million Saudis are Internet users. More than half (52.5%) of all the Middle East’s Internet users, and 15.6% of the entire Middle East population, were customers of Iranian services in 2010.

Black Rock East

The government of Iran owns its Internet. In 2007, the country spun off its state-owned telephone service, creating a competitive market for a new breed of mobile phone carrier there, including MTN, MCI (no relation) and Zoha Kish. But for these companies to offer mobile data services with their mobile phones (which they could choose not to do... but what would be the point?) they must pay the government (through its wholly owned Internet subsidiary, TIC) a monthly percentage. In 2010, the minimum monthly payment was sealed at around $1 million.

Or, according to 2010 exchange rates, $10.2 billion rials per month. Today, however, for Iran to reap the same value from its mobile data plan resellers, it would have to charge $12.2 billion. You see, one of the unpleasant side effects of developing nuclear technology while threatening to wipe a neighboring country off the map is that the rest of the world sells off your currency. This has resulted in a dramatic devaluation of the Iranian rial. Indeed, the rial hit a historic low today. With U.S. and European sanctions against Iran’s oil exports and banking transactions having the desired effect, Iran has to make a living somehow.

And here, you have a video that’s gone viral. Hey, if ReadWriteWeb can make a killing from viral videos, why can’t Iran? And if you want to make a bad video really viral, why not follow in the footsteps of Russia, the Phillipines, Lebanon and Germany and ban access to the video - or at least publicly debate the merits of doing so?

Because you know what happens when you threaten to ban a video: Pro-free speech groups launch a public screening of the thing. Widescreen, HD, streaming Wireless-N video, probably with popcorn.

Do Not Watch This Video

It’s not like Iran’s 33.2 million netizens are all incapable of finding the allegedly blasphemous video by other means, as this Bing search using Iran as the country code clearly demonstrates.  (An independent Iranian businessperson said as much to France24 just today.) Videos housed on YouTube may still be visible in Iran through Bing, even without a visit the YouTube URL. And even if they’re not, clearly YouTube is no longer the only source.

With oil no longer viable as the country’s only lifeblood, Iran has to take advantage of what opportunities fall into its lap. Think about it, this pitiful little video could be a bandwidth bonanza! Over the weekend, Iran took the bait, banning access to both YouTube and parent Google from clients using its state-owned Internet infrastructure.

And to start the viral marketing push with a bang, what could be better than for Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to embark on a world tour? In New York this week, before the United Nations, Ahmadinejad suggested to a conference of scholars and students that the nations of the world should band together in harmony to ban all content that offends religions.

Now, even more people want to see the practically unwatchable video that has caused all the hubbub.

Smaller Bang, Bigger Boom

Maybe it’s too late for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to become the next Steve Jobs, but he seems to already be adopting Apple’s basic lesson of owning the infrastructure, limiting access to the product and making the product more desirable than peace itself. Even as the country rails against the video, the rials (or more preferably, dollars) roll in from active participants in Iran's state-owned social media platform on its state-owned infrastructure.

Hey, maybe Ahmadinejad and filmmaker “Sam Bacile” could work out a little deal. "You provide the blasphemy and the white guys wearing bedsheets," the president could say, "and I’ll provide the audience." Mel Brooks couldn’t have worked out a better plot.

The future of Microsoft’s Xbox appears to be moving briskly toward interactive TV, based on a high-profile hire of CBS Entertainment’s former television chief and the launch of two interactive TV “programs” that tap into Microsoft’s Kinect peripheral.

This week, Microsoft hired Nancy Tellem, the former CBS exec, to run a dedicated Xbox content studio. As Microsoft’s new Entertainment & Digital Media president. Tellem will work under Don A. Mattrick, the president of the company’s Interactive Entertainment Business. That’s the unit that developed the Xbox, the Kinect and the Mediaroom software that quietly powers a number of the world’s set-top boxes.

This means the woman who greenlit hits like "CSI," "Survivor," "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "The King of Queens" - and helped create "Friends" and "ER" - is now developing content for Microsoft. Wow.

Tellem’s new studio will design “interactive and linear content for Xbox and other devices,” according to Microsoft. “In addition to running the production studio, she will help spearhead the company’s efforts to turn Xbox into a destination where consumers can enjoy all their entertainment in one place.”

Microsoft Wants To Lure New Content

According to analyst Richard Doherty, who tracks the intersection of technology and content for the Envisioneering Group, Tellem will be responsible for luring new content to the Microsoft Xbox platform, competing with Google’s YouTube and Netflix in what he characterized as a bidding war. She also will be tasked with working with content providers to help develop content like the two new Kinect programs, “Kinect Sesame Street TV” and “Kinect Nat Geo TV”, that launched Tuesday.

The Xbox remains the most socially connected entertainment platform, Doherty said, despite the Sony PlayStation’s best efforts. And that is going to appeal to Hollywood’s content mavens.

“J.J. Abrams was constrained by what ABC could do with ‘Lost,‘” Doherty said. “There wasn’t Twitter when it started - the show would still flash ‘Go to lost.abc.com’ when the show aired. When I talked to Abrams years ago at a Digital Hollywood [conference] with his production team that was with him, they were planning for social media that wasn’t there yet.”

“[Tellem] probably is the most important influx of new DNA, entertainment DNA, into a tech company, since Terry Semel at Yahoo,” Doherty said, referring to the former co-chief executive of Warner Bros. who was ousted in 2007 after netting more than $500 million in stock and other compensation.

Coincidentally or not, Microsoft on Tuesday also announced the release of two interactive pieces of content that bring a new dimension to the concept of “program”: Kinect Sesame Street TV and Kinect Nat Geo TV. Both pieces of interactive software ask the children watching them to participate, such as clapping their hands or jumping up and down.

Xbox: Stumbling Toward Interactive TV

The Xbox, of course, began life as a game console, adding downloadable movies to the Xbox 360 way back in 2006 with the Xbox Live Marketplace. Netflix added streaming movies to the platform in the summer of 2008. Microsoft’s Kinect ushered in a new level of interactivity in 2010, but only to games specifically designed for the motion-sensing peripheral. Kinect’s voice commands could also be used to seek out TV shows and movies as a voice-operated remote control. In December 2011, Microsoft added the ability to retrieve programming from Verizon FiOS and Comcast’s Xfinity services via the Xbox interface.

Microsoft first tried its hand at TV-inspired interactivity in 2009 with “1 vs. 100 Live” and “1 vs. 100 Extended Play,” two related shows that let Xbox players compete - live - in a virtual version of the TV game show 1 vs. 100. Over two seasons, U.S. and U.K. players could participate in hosted live events that ran between 30 minutes and two hours. The show was entirely free, with revenue generated from advertisements, just like “real” TV.

“Gaming is usually a premeditated experience where you know what you want to play ahead of time,“ said Manuel Bronstein, director of 1 vs 100, told The Los Angeles Times in 2009. "We wanted to create an impulsive experience that players might discover in the same way they flip on the TV and browse the channels.”

According to reports, however, the show suffered from lack of revenues because Microsoft shuffled it around too much internally, not devoting enough resources to sales and marketing.

Kinect Sesame Street: A Glimpse Of The Future?

Leticia Barr, the founder of the Tech Savvy Mama blog, and one of the testers for “Kinect Sesame Street TV” and “Kinect Nat Geo TV”, said that her kids couldn’t really tell whether the games were a TV show or not.

“They were talking about that was kind of a show, but there were times when we could go in and play, with the favorite characters, and they were talking about how this was a hybrid of a show and a game at the same time,” Barr said. “It wasn’t one or the other. It was this very fluid combination of both.”

(Both “Kinect Sesame Street TV” and “Kinect Nat Geo TV” are available in disc form and as a download through via Xbox Live, according to the Associated Press. For $30, users can purchase a package that includes eight 30-minute episodes on two discs. Users can also purchase single episodes for $5.)

Making Cents Of It All

In Dec. 2011, Microsoft refreshed its Xbox Live software, adding new movie and television content the more than 65 entertainment apps already available - including Netflix, Hulu Plus, HBO GO, MLB.TV, ESPN, YouTube and VEVO. Global video consumption on Xbox Live has increased 140% during the past year, Microsoft said, with more consumers watching video than using the Xbox to play games.

“Whether you are voting for your favorite contestant on a TV show or playing a game, entertainment is becoming more personalized and social, driven by the Internet and new tools to interact with content,” said Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Studios, and Tellem’s boss, in a statement. “We are embarking on a new chapter with the creation of a studio dedicated to making original interactive and linear content…”

Tellem’s role appears to be designed to make sense of this combination of original programming, interactive television and interactivity. Don’t be surprised to see Tellem orchestrate deals that include Xbox SmartGlass the second-screen, tablet-based control app that Microsoft revealed in June. And having spent time as Les Moonves’ right-hand woman, Tellem has the clout in Hollywood to equal Robert Kyncl, the global head of content at Google/YouTube.

According to Doherty, Microsoft’s combination of pre-recorded content, interactivity and an online Internet connection offers a combination no rival can match.

“There are producers that the networks are not appreciating enough, and have tremendous ideas for social media - when everybody gets excited - oh my gosh, ‘30 Rock’ is going to be filmed live!’” he said. “We’re talking episode-and-a-half sort of scenarios, multiple-ending sort of things. The talent in L.A. and London and Mumbai, they’ve got the ideas that Microsoft is better positioned to deliver on than anyone else, with Apple as a last resort.”

Lead image courtesy of Shutterstock. Other images courtesy of Microsoft.