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Digital Hollywood 2009: Hey you, Get off my Cloud

LOS ANGELES (RPRN) 10/30/09 — By Paul M. Allen

Yes, it is one of many “anthem” songs from the Rolling Stones, but in this case the subject is “Cloud Computing” and it was one of several hot topics at this year’s Digital Hollywood event held at the Loews Beach Hotel and Spa in Santa Monica , California .

As someone who attends just about every seminar, expo, demo, summit, convention, meeting or any other opportunity (excuse) to scope out the latest in Media and Technology, I would have to give the 2009 DH a big thumbs up. Even if there were no “earth shattering” developments or announcements this year, the Digital Hollywood is still “The” place to be seen and see a large cross section of business savvy leaders and super geeks. In attendance were top executives from major film and television studios, terrestrial and cell phone companies, Internet giants, financial wizards, organizations with 3 or more letters to their acronym, educational institutions, computer hardware and software manufacturers, cell phone and device manufacturers, expensive law firms, advertising and marketing agencies and a host of smaller companies with admirable products, small marketing budgets and a whole lot of chutzpa.

Perhaps the most talked about subject at DH was content distribution over a variety of platforms such as theatrical, television, Internet, recordable media, mobile, and PDA’s and the economics behind them. Certainly, understanding digital content creation, programming, archiving and the ability to repurpose content are some of the key concerns we all have. We heard lawyers talking about how we should protect ourselves with DRM (Digital Rights Management) software, producers talking about DAM (Digital Asset Management) and content providers talking about new services such as On Demand and the ubiquitous Applications such as iPhone and now Google that seem to make life just a bit more fun and interesting. The bottom line is still (and will always be), how do we make money from all of this.

As I experienced coming from a company originally designed to be the “next big thing” in premium cable/satellite, that turned into an Internet original content provider, which after years of spending large sums of money on infrastructure, marketing, talent and personnel along with top ten ratings on YouTube, is now acting more as a production company for other networks, evidently, despite accumulating some 300 million hits on YouTube, there is no guarantee that anyone will click on the link to your site, at least without spending a fortune promoting that site.

As we went from room to room to listen to speakers hand picked by the folks at DH we heard about where our information and entertainment has been and where it might be in the very near future. Discussions on subjects like 3D for television, Internet, home theater and Mobile (with and without glasses) captured the imagination of seasoned professionals. High Definition, alternative advertising opportunities, social networks, You Tube, My Space, LinkedIn, and Twitter have all made a significant impact on our industry and how we stay connected or more importantly, how we can make money. This shift in the economic paradigm, consumer interest, management methodology, and virtualization of advertising and marketing is now termed “Disruption and Transformation” and affects us all.

With our future locked into a Digital world and new technology arriving on what seems an hourly schedule, adaptation is imperative to survival. Content is (for the most part) captured, edited and stored as a series of 1’s and 0’s and investment into production now must take into consideration how we work with these bits. It was only a few short years ago that once we finished the edit and the master copy for broadcast was ready to go out, it was a phone call to the messenger or to FedEx for delivery to station or network. Today, we are all connected through fiber, gigabit Ethernet through DSL or other broadband connections, or satellite uplink for our final delivery.

If you missed the opportunity to “Plug In” at this year’s Digital Hollywood, you can continue your digital journey at the 2010 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) being held once again at the Las Vegas Convention Center January 6-9. This is a show you need to attend!

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