[rohrpost] Pop.com's failure throws net broadcasting into doubt

[Krystian Woznicki <krystian@snafu.de>]

Hi,

hier noch ein weiterer besorgter Artikel angesichts des Pop.com-Flops

Gruss
Krystian


>Net broadcasting goes pop
>By Christopher Grimes
>Published: September 8 2000 18:31GMT | Last Updated: September 9 2000 00:32GMT
>
>The internet's potential to become the next visual entertainment medium 
>captured the imaginations of both Hollywood moguls and their would-be 
>counterparts in the dotcom world.
>The new medium would offer cutting-edge films, hip animation and 
>irreverent broadcasting - all at the expense of the backwards-looking 
>establishment. And it would happen soon.
>Such ideas have proved to be woefully premature, as shown by this week's 
>failure of Pop.com. The ambitious effort, backed by luminaries such as 
>Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard, was formed in October with the aim of 
>producing original, internet-only programming.
>
>Less than a year later, Pop has decided to lay off most of its 80-strong 
>staff, having failed to strike a deal with rival iFilm last week.
>Pop's failure has caused some to question the development of the internet 
>as a vehicle for visual narrative entertainment in the near future. After 
>all, if Mr Spielberg cannot make films on the web work, who can?
>Pop was not the only online entertainment company to abandon efforts to 
>bring narrative video on to the web. Digital Entertainment Network, which 
>brazenly declared the end of the traditional TV business, went bust this 
>spring after spending about $50m.
>Others are still trying, but with difficulty. Pseudo, a New York start-up, 
>laid off workers this year as part of a restructuring. More troubling, it 
>sent a large crew to Philadelphia to offer online coverage of the 
>Republican convention, but scaled back the effort at the Democratic 
>convention after failing to attract enough viewers.
>
>"The real issue with all of these sites is that the internet is not yet a 
>medium for narrative entertainment," says Michael Wolf, a media consultant 
>with Booz Allen & Hamilton in New York. "People are certainly going to 
>watch films and TV shows on the internet, but right now the quality of the 
>viewing experience is not great."
>Pop may have also been crippled because it brought big-budget, Hollywood 
>ideals to a medium still in its home-movie infancy. "The skillset and the 
>budgets that are the norm in Hollywood don't translate to the internet," 
>Mr Wolf says.
>Some young web companies that still believe in the medium's possibility 
>for delivering original film are taking a more scaled-back approach. Many 
>observers are betting that sites such as Icebox.com, Atomfilms and iFilm 
>ultimately will do more to define the medium than the Hollywood establishment.
>
>Icebox launched in June and has seen traffic double every month, thanks to 
>irreverent animated shows such as "Hard Drinkin' Lincoln", a series that 
>imagines the president as a bumbling boozehound.
>Steve Stanford, Icebox's chief executive, says he is dismayed at the 
>market's impatience with the new medium. He says Dreamworks, the 
>mogul-backed company that launched Pop, did not have a hit film in its 
>first year. "Yet somehow people look at the web piece [of the company] and 
>they're inclined to pull the plug."
>Mr Stanford has taken a bare-bones approach to entertainment on the web. 
>Realising that online video is jumpy, all of Icebox's shorts employ an 
>animation technique called Flash that is less taxing on a computer's 
>internet connection. Eventually, he sees using video on Icebox, but only 
>when technology improves.
>In contrast to cash-burning ventures such as Digital Entertainment 
>Network, Icebox plans to "operate in a lean fashion", Mr Stanford says. 
>Still, the company has found the attention of the Showtime network, which 
>is expected to begin broadcasting an Icebox animated series called 
>"Starship Regulars" next year.
>
>Mr Stanford is hoping the slow-and-steady approach will lead to success. 
>"It's all about being able to be around long enough for this business to 
>evolve."


Ausserdem:

Mit Björk im Bitstream
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/musik/3569/1.html

Pop goes Spielberg
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/Digital/Update/2000-09/popcom080900.shtml





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