A few months ago my buddy got married. As favors, he gave away t-shirts with his image in the Obamaesque Shepard Fairey design. Awesome.

Last week I bought an Obama T-shirt. It cost way too much. I wore it to a Superbowl party yesterday and three people said they were going to buy one (get yours here).

Today I read that the “Obama Brand Stimulates Big Sales” and that, according to the New York Times, Obama merchandise did over $200 million in sales. In the one month of November!

All this got me thinking about how to use this global celebrity to lift up the economy. (more…)

Two of my favorite ingredients were mixed together nicely last week as Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig, champion of the movement to develop sensible digital copyright practices, sat down at Charlie Rose’s table to discuss his new book, Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. (more…)

All of the apocalyptic headlines screaming at me that the world is falling apart remind me of the hype of Y2K. But while that stunt ended up being little more than an innocuous exercise in hysterical fear mongering, this crisis de jour isn’t just exponentially more historic, it will prove to be a catalyst that increases the value of premium content. (more…)

Take an hour out of your life and watch this important video. It’s an excellent overview of the evolution of new media’s impact on human interaction. It highlights the role that YouTube is playing in the development of Fan Fiction (a somewhat inaccurate yet my current preferred euphemism for User Generated Content). If you’re short on time, skip to the conclusion at 45:15 and listen to Lawrence Lessig’s take on the cultural inflection point that we have communally reached due to the connectivity and access provided to us through digital distribution.

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Today, Safran Digital went public with the details of our partnership with Xbox. In particular, we’ve announced the directors for our slate of original web video pilots, which launch this fall to coincide with Xbox’s user-interface redesign.

The directors involved include James Wan (Saw, Death Sentence), David Slade (30 Days of Night, Hard Candy), James Gunn (Slither), Lucky McKee (May), Andrew Douglas (The Amityville Horror) and Marcus Nispel (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th).

I’m extremely proud of the filmmakers and their camps, the deal we’ve put together and what I believe it represents for the future of digital content economics. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article about proposed regulation of TV product placement disclosure that would have significant relevance for the growing web video business of advertiser sponsored, viral video campaigns.

The gist of the article is that the FCC is looking into requiring TV shows to include notices similar to what political candidates must say before or after campaign ads.

“You shouldn’t need a magnifying glass to know who’s pitching you,” said FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. “A crawl at the end of the show shrunk down so small the human eye can’t read it isn’t really in the spirit of the law.” Current rules require disclosure but allow it at the end of the show. (more…)

Tonight I’m going to hear Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine, speak about his upcoming book, “Free.” In a previous post I presented my position on the culture of free, the gift economy and how I think it’s driving the quality of content and applications towards amateur hour. It will be interesting to hear Chris address web economics and I hope to engage him in a discussion about what this means for the future of web-based entertainment content.

I’m specifically interested in Google and how they’ve enabled the culture of free online. From my perspective, Google is bad for business. Let me qualify that, bad for business-as-usual (added). By offering everything you need on the web for free, Google has effectively put web-based business opportunities on life support. (more…)

My recent post “Economic Constipation and Digital Malnutrition” was an attempt to critically analyze Mark Cuban’s provocative May 4th post entitled “The Ala Carting of Video on the Net - Will it lead to disaster?”.

Incidentally, it was my most trafficked day and much to my surprise, I received a comment from one of my favorite bloggers, Hank Williams, who writes the influential whydoeseverythingsuck.com?”

Mark’s post has sparked a debate that has spilled over from the circle of web video bloggers into a broader conversation. Next week I’m in New York for the Advertising 2.0 event and plan to bring Mark’s position, and my rebuttal, to the panel on which I’m speaking. (more…)

Wrong. Very wrong. Unless you like train wrecks. The disconnect between the actors’ guild and the studio positions on new media is one of the major issues gumming up the current (non)negotiations. The AMPTP / SAG talks aren’t getting the kind of press outside of LA that the widely covered writer’s guild strike received, but the concern amongst the theatrical and TV creative communities is widespread. Casting is dead on life-support, actors are at home (not David Lawrence), studio projects are on hold and an agent friend of mine said he is telling actors that “their job is to call their SAG reps and demand that the union give up their losing fight and close a deal.” (more…)

Nothing as far as I can tell.

But if you figure something out please let me know. Just thought I’d send some pics out from day one of the Int’l Auto Show here in Lisbon. It was set-up in the morning and press only in the afternoon. Pretty light crowd, but I had a good view. Take a look. If you make it to the end of the slideshow you’ll see a few shots of the Megaphone screen. (more…)