by Elad_ganot on April 27, 2009
Last week DMEC held its annual trip to LA, which for me was also a first visit in the city. We had a packed agenda, courtesy of many club members who utilized their networks to assure an awesome trip (and orchestrated by our ultra-capable co-VP careers, Richard).
DAY I - Time Warner, Blizzard, Alumni, Traffic
We started the first day visiting Time Warner in Burbank. We met with people from various departments - from the DVD catalog marketing, to Content Acquisition; from DVD Production to Digital Marketing. One of the key takeaways from this meeting was the immense impact that new content delivery method and the digital channels have on the thinking of everyone in the industry. These forces are highly acknowledged by the industry expert and raise tons of fascinating questions related to the existing business models. Two initiatives that the Time Warner people mentioned that are highly impacted by the digital content revolution are the inclusion of digital copies of movies with the purchase of standard DVDs and the Warner Archive - a new online service that allows users to select rare movies from the WB archive and have them specially burned and delivered to them personally (instead of going into mass production as was done in the past).
Our next station was Blizzard Entertainment. We were extremely excited about this unique opportunity to visit their secretive labs and we weren’t disappointed. Our visit started in a screening room where we watched some of the new trailers for Starcraft 2, followed by a presentation by HR and Marketing managers, moved to a tour in the company’s museum and R&D space (which is probably the coolest working space I’ve ever seen) and ended with an open discussion at one of the cafeterias. 
The most impressive thing about Blizzard is their focus on their brand equity and the clear emphasis on maintaining this high quality perception. Not only that, but it seems that the people in Blizzard really know their target audience and take great care in listening and meeting their expectations.
The day ended with a free-food-and-drinks (yay!) mixer with Haas Alumni at the Bodega Wine Bar. Oh…and there was traffic…it seems as if every road in LA is completely blocked between 5am-11pm. no matter which road you choose, it takes hours to get from one part of the city to another. It was the first time I really understood those parts of The Entourage where Ari needs two hours to get to a meeting at 12pm. I mean, what place on earth has traffic jams at 12pm? At least for us it was a great opportunity to bond with our DMEC car-mates.
Coming up next: NBC Universal, UCLA mixer and a Beverly-Hills brunch!
by Elad_ganot on April 2, 2009
One of the perks for tech-savvy people like me studying here at Berkeley is the proximity to some of the most exciting conferences of the industry. When Amir, our VP Academics, arranged the DMEC club members free pass for the Web 2.0 Expo that happens this week in San Francisco, I immediately took this opportunity and went to hear and see what’s new in the web 2.0 arena. Mr. Elop mentioned that Microsoft is going for a converged approach and will offer free, ad-supported lightweight versions to complement the more rich standalone products. He also mentioned that Microsoft is aiming to become the most interoperable company in the world. My favorite quote: "I love my Kindle, I wish we (MS) had such a device…"
The Keynotes
There were quite a few interesting keynotes opening the conference. They can be divided into 3 main categories:
- Speakers who specifically addressed the developers on site, such as Mark Carges from eBay who pitched developers to use their platform (and specifically PayPal’s) and Michael Abbott from Palm who encouraged the community to start developing applications for Palm’s new WebOS which is running on the new Palm Pre (if this device actually delivers what the demos promise, it is one awesome gadget)
- Speakers who discussed the impact of web 2.0 on art, design and society, such as Amanda Koster from SalaamGarage and John Maeda, president of the Rhod Island School of Design (RISD), who talked about simplicity and about creative leadership.
- Speakers who talked about the future of web 2.0 - first Tim O’Reilly that made a point about the power of less and argued that we should try and apply Moore’s law to problems outside of the tech industry (make things smaller, not bigger). He also talked about Web Squared - the co-impact the web and the real world have on each other. He then interviewed Stephen Elop, head of the Business Division in Microsoft and the guy responsible for products such as Office and SharePoint. They had a very interesting discussion about the impact the cloud will have on traditional software licensing models. Mr. Elop explained that Microsoft is taking a converged approach and will offer free, ad-supported light-weight versions of office to complement the richer stand-alone desktop applications. He also mentioned that Microsoft intends to be the most interoperable company on the planet. My favorite quote, however, was "I love my Kindle…I wish we (MS) had such a device"
The Expo
Many companies presented in the main expo hall, and unfortunately I couldn’t even begin going through all of them. I did stop by at some that raised my personal interest, such as:
ProtoShare - Developed a prototyping tool for rapid creating of UI mock-ups. This intrigued me since I was working on a similar tool in the past and I was really impressed with their product (well, the demo, at least). They basically allow non-developers (let’s say, Product Managers) to create a fully navigational web-application that can be the basis of further discussion and can easily changed as necessary. Once the prototype is ready, it can be handed to the development team who now have a clear picture of the product (rather than communicating via word files, static ppts etc.). Another use case would be for startups in the initial fund raising phase who want to give their potential investor a feel of the final product.
g.ho.st - A fully functional online desktop environment, based on Adobe Flash that offers a desktop that goes with you everywhere. While the company has been around for sometime, they greatly improved performance, added lots of applications that are now available on their environment and increased the storage offered (5GB for files + 3GB for mails, and extra storage for every friend you bring to the service). It seems to me that Microsoft Live Mesh will pose a big threat on these guys, however, the company also bears a social vision as its R&D is done by joint teams of Israeli and Palestinian developers and is a living proof of the potential that technology has to bridge over differences and conflicts.
ooVoo - An interesting video chat application that allows up to 6 different people to conduct video calls online. Although it seems like nothing new initially, after talking to the people in the booth it seems as if they have quite a few ideas regarding monetization (such as SMBs) and they also provide an extensive API for developers to build online video-heavy applications.
Meanwhile, in the real world (just outside the expo)…
by jeff_gordon on March 28, 2009
I know it’s still in prototype, but has anyone else tried The New York Times‘ new Article Skimmer? Now this is how we should be reading the news!
by jeff_gordon on March 27, 2009
There’s no question about it, those of us in DMEC are social media fanatics. We blog, we tweet, we post videos to YouTube, we collaborate on wikis, we share every bit of minutiae about our lives on Facebook and other social networking sites.
So why has this blog not been updated for so long?
Frankly, as much as we love social media, it’s hard to keep up! We’re inundated these days with so many outlets to express ourselves, and it seems as if every club, class, organization, employer, or other group of people with even the slightest connection wants to go online in a social way. (How many blogs have you been invited into?)
And that’s a good thing. The more we connect, share, and collaborate as a society — a global society — the more we understand each other and the more progress we can make together. We just need to find time for it!
Or, as The New York Times reports, we can just find someone else with the time to do it for us:
Britney Spears recently advertised for someone to help, among other things, create content for Twitter and Facebook. Kanye West recently told New York magazine that he has hired two people to update his blog. “It’s just like how a designer would work,” he said.
It is not only celebrities who are forced to look to a team to produce real-time commentary on daily activities; politicians like Ron Paul have assigned staff members to create Twitter posts and Facebook personas. Candidate Barack Obama, as well as President Obama, has a social-networking team to keep his Twitter feed tweeting.
The famous, of course, have turned to ghostwriters for autobiographies and other acts of self-aggrandizement. But the idea of having someone else write continual updates of one’s daily life seems slightly absurd.
Ah, outsourcing one’s online social life — now why didn’t I think of that?!
by harvey_villarica on March 16, 2009
We are pleased to announce we have confirmed the date of the next >play conference - October 17, 2009. We are working hard to secure sponsors, keynotes, panelists and exhibitors in order to bring >play to the next level in 2009. Be sure to save the date!
by Mohsin Afzal on March 8, 2009
Hello and welcome to the DMEC blog,
My name is Mohsin and I am part of the DMEC ‘09 leadership team. We have set out this year to continue the awesome initiatives our predecessors took in establishing and advancing DMEC. Our mission is to evolve DMEC into the definitive resource for members when it comes to the digital media and entertainment industry. The executive committee, under the very able leadership of Co-presidents Monica and Max, are super excited to be part of this evolution. Check out the DMEC’09 officers here.
Let the blogging begin ! Go Bears !
by gary_duong on October 18, 2008
Lots of exciting things have happened behind the scenes and our conference is shaping up quite nicely. We’re happy to announce our keynote speakers this year!
What are you doing? Biz Stone helped you and your friends answer that question by co-founding Twitter Inc. He also helped make Xanga, Blogger, Odeo and Obvious. An expert in social media, he has published 2 books about social media, Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content (New Riders, 2002) and Who Let The Blogs Out? (St. Martins, 2004). Join us in the morning to see what he has to say about today’s media environment.
In the afternoon, Shane Kim, Corporate Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, Microsoft Interactive Entertainment will give us a different perspective on his assessment of the media environment. Previously, as the corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, Kim led the delivery of many of the industry’s biggest Xbox 360 and Windows games franchises, including “Halo” and “Age of Empires.” Even though Kim went to undergrad at Stanford, we will still welcome him to the Berkeley community with open arms.
by Alexandra Levich on October 17, 2008
Hi there,
I am Alex and I am one of the organizers for Social Communications Panel at Play.
Our panel is all about how do people connect online, how did they connect in the past and how are they going to connect in the future. If you think about it, the first online people interaction was over email, then chat and IM came in and that was it, up until a few years ago. Today we have social networking as the main way to connect with people. Going on Facebook you see that posting on the Wall for everyone to see is what users increasingly do. So we went from private emails to public walls - pretty interesting change, I would say 
What’s the future going to look like? What will happen to email and IM? Let’s see what our panelists have to say about that!
We just finished getting 99% of our panel in place so I am kind of excited to anounce them here.
We got a great line up with people representing almost every way of online communication out there.
We got Konstantin Guericke, CEO of Jaxtr, to bring in the VOIP perspective, Bhaskar Roy, co-founder of Qik, to bring in the video perspective, John Poisson, CEO of Tiny Pictures (Radar), to bring in the photos perspective (yes, this startup is all about people connecting through photos), Chris Szeto, PM at Meebo, to bring in the IM perspective and we got Andrew Trader, EVP of Business Development at Zynga, to bring in the social gaming perspective. And to answer the question you all must be thinking about - yes, we are hoping to have Facebook too!
And our star moderator, Noah Kagan, is going to spice up our panel. He got his experience working in established companies such as Microsoft and Intel, hot startups such Facebook and Mint, and is now building online “awesomeness” at kickflip.com. You can check him out at http://okdork.com
So that’s it, we are looking forward to our panel and hoping all of you out there will join us and give our panelists some tough questions to answer!
Alex.
by Leon Wu on
We’ve been working on putting together panels for >play since April. I’m excited to announce that we have a great lineup of moderators and panelists across seven different panel topics, check out http://www.playconference.org/panels.html for more details. Some questions that we hope to explore:
Creativity has been a great driver of the Internet but how has the Internet changed how creatives create, distribute and monetize their art?
The brand conversation is moving steadily online but what are the perspectives on the front line, agencies and brand marketers?
New options to watch TV are springing up all around us but what does the consumer want?
What are the disruptive technologies that are hitting the telecom industry?
Games are getting harder and harder to categorize as the gaming industry evolves, what seperates the trends from the fads?
Social media is an integral part of our lives but what does it mean to be always connected?
Athlete blogs, streaming video, fantasy sports, fan communities - Has digital media made the sports fan more engaged?
Buy your tickets for >play and join in the discussion!
by gary_duong on July 28, 2008
Hello blog readers! Let me introduce myself. I’m Gary, one of the co-chairs of this year’s >Play Digital Media Conference. Planning for the 2008 conference is in full swing and we have lots of exciting things in the works.
The conference will take place on November 15, 2008. Our theme is Disruption: Changes in Today’s Media Economy. I’m excited to have a team of motivated, enthusiastic and passionate people who care about sports, entertainment, gadgets, innovations and everything under the sun as it relates to digital media and technology.
In addition to organizing the conference, I got my hands full with my summer internship at Nike. As a marketing intern for the Digital Content & Media department, I get the chance to carry out a promotional campaign, perform industry research, and funny enough, help organize another conference! But that’s not all. Every marketing intern participates in a marketing case competition where we are put into teams that will present recommendations on a challenge that Nike is facing. Our group is currently working hard to conduct consumer research. There’s a lot of hard work ahead, but I’m having fun doing it. Plus, you can’t help but take pleasure in all the green scenery Oregon has to offer. As a SoCal native, this is unfamiliar to me so I am soaking up every moment.
So that’s my little tidbit. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements!
We started the first day visiting Time Warner in Burbank. We met with people from various departments - from the DVD catalog marketing, to Content Acquisition; from DVD Production to Digital Marketing. One of the key takeaways from this meeting was the immense impact that new content delivery method and the digital channels have on the thinking of everyone in the industry. These forces are highly acknowledged by the industry expert and raise tons of fascinating questions related to the existing business models. Two initiatives that the Time Warner people mentioned that are highly impacted by the digital content revolution are the inclusion of digital copies of movies with the purchase of standard DVDs and the Warner Archive - a new online service that allows users to select rare movies from the WB archive and have them specially burned and delivered to them personally (instead of going into mass production as was done in the past).
Our next station was Blizzard Entertainment. We were extremely excited about this unique opportunity to visit their secretive labs and we weren’t disappointed. Our visit started in a screening room where we watched some of the new trailers for Starcraft 2, followed by a presentation by HR and Marketing managers, moved to a tour in the company’s museum and R&D space (which is probably the coolest working space I’ve ever seen) and ended with an open discussion at one of the cafeterias. 
The most impressive thing about Blizzard is their focus on their brand equity and the clear emphasis on maintaining this high quality perception. Not only that, but it seems that the people in Blizzard really know their target audience and take great care in listening and meeting their expectations. 
The day ended with a free-food-and-drinks (yay!) mixer with Haas Alumni at the Bodega Wine Bar. Oh…and there was traffic…it seems as if every road in LA is completely blocked between 5am-11pm. no matter which road you choose, it takes hours to get from one part of the city to another. It was the first time I really understood those parts of The Entourage where Ari needs two hours to get to a meeting at 12pm. I mean, what place on earth has traffic jams at 12pm? At least for us it was a great opportunity to bond with our DMEC car-mates.
ProtoShare