I thought it was an exciting announcement as I have written a lot about how to make social networking profitable by turning communities into economies.

Julie describes how Ning’s 1.6 million social networks can now start making money by selling virtual gifts. The net revenue(after Paypal fees) from the gifts is split between Ning and the social network.

Ning’s virtual currency called credits, converts into US funds at a rate of approximately 1 credit to $.02. To help get users started with virtual gifting, Ning will give 100 complimentary credits to all users. All Ning virtual gifts will be priced at 75 credits each, so Ning hopes that each user will get to send one virtual gift as a way to try out the feature.

I hope Ning finds more ways to extend how social networks can use the currency to pay users to take surveys or other actions that will help the networks make some real money.

Here’s the interview with Julie:

Imagine if you and your friends could star in a music video, famous movie clip, or commercial as realistically as if you were around for the shoot. Jonathan describes the company and the potential that its technology has to transform advertising and the audience relationship with movies, television and videogames.

In the interview, Jonathan describes his early start as a wunderkind discovered by SoCal VCs (0:00), his insight into the coming importance of personalization as he discovered the technology behind Big Stage (2:45), and how he helped move the technology to become consumer internet capable and fundable (7:05).

He talks about the current business, his monetization model through brands and content partners based on the technology’s dramatic impact on advertising effectiveness (11:35), and what the big media networks are seeing in terms of monetization and CPM rates (16:12). He also describes privacy considerations (17:40) and the other cool non-advertising stuff, like videogaming and short internet adventures, that Big Stage will be making possible (19:05).

Jonathan Strietzel is co-founder and chief creative officer of Big Stage. He brings 10 years of experience as an entrepreneur in the entertainment and technology industries, including founding Stritz Studios, a boutique special effects studio. He has also invented multiple systems for delivering digital advertising and currently holds a U.S. patent for his work in particle-based advertising. In addition, Jonathan has worked with numerous TV studios and Fortune 500 companies, including developing the highly publicized online clue delivery system for NBC’s “Treasure Hunters.” Jonathan graduated from Chapman University with a Bachelor of Science degree.

[tags]Digital Hollywood, Big Stage, Jonathan Strietzel, Virtual Reality, Avatar, 3D[/tags]

Imagine if anyone could have a personal conversation with Iron Man, the Michelin Man, or their great-great-great-great grandfather. Peter describes his new company and technology that is about to make these ‘holodeck’ scenarios a reality – at least the conversation part.

In the interview, Peter shares how he founded Virsona after being inspired by his desire to continue conversing with a recently deceased friend (1:21), and why the internet will accelerate the development of artificial intelligence based on his meeting with David Levy, a foremost AI expert (4:10).

He describes how we’ll be able to interact with Virsona’s technology shortly (6:00), including re-creating our own personalities (11:05). Here are some screen shots of the site:

Perhaps most importantly, Peter describes how Virsona’s platform can be leveraged by Hollywood, brands, and others to deepen relationships with consumers and audience (11:55). He even gets into some of the complexity and norms that may evolve with virtual personalities, especially the need to keep some information and aspects of our personalities more private, as well as the future capabilities we might see from virsonas (19:05).

Peter Hodge is CEO of Virsona Inc. Peter has worked with and for some of the biggest names in the Technology, Telecoms and Media industries over the last 20 years both in the US as well as globally. He brings significant experience to Virsona with over 20 years in technology including development, sales and management experience. Peter holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Greenwich, London and lives in Boca Raton, FL.

[tags]Digital Hollywood, Peter Hodge, Virsona, Interactive Media, Artificial Intelligence[/tags]

At the spring Digital Hollywood, I interviewed Chris Tolles, CEO of Topix, to discuss the social news site.

Chris describes how Topix takes news feeds from a vast array of news sites and uses sophisticated algorithms to process the news into locations and categories. The result is the Topix news feed. Want to find local news just put in your zip code and you get a filter which presents news relating to your area.

The really interesting part about Topix is the conversation about the news. The site only provides the title and an abstract of the article along with a link to the original story. The title and abstract kick off the conversation. The more provocative the topic, the more conversations buzzes.

This use of news topics as social objects allows you to find other people who are interested in the things that you’re interested in and other local people who are really into talking about the news.

For those of us working in the social media business, Topix also provides some interesting lessons how generate a conversation. The key is to lower the cost of participation as much as possible. Topix starts with a very simple subject and abstract. They then make is super simple to start talking. Right below the topic is a comment box. No registration required, just put in a name, your comment, and a 4 character code and then you can leave your comment.

The result is a powerful social object that makes the conversation the focus of attention.

[tags]Topix, Chris Tolles, Social News, Digital Hollywood[/tags]

In this podcast, Chris provides some great perspective on the organizational and personnel challenges these companies face in the transition to new business models. He describes the role that social marketing and super fans played in helping properties like Syriana and An Inconvenient Truth break out and build audiences. This podcast interview provides a behind the scenes view into where things are now and some of the major changes to come.

Chris is founder and president of Orbit Media Group, where he consults with media and internet companies creating partnerships, programming and relationships between and to the benefit of media, entertainment and online brands. His current clients range from Facebook.com, one of the fastest-growing internet companies on earth, for which he helped to create and produce “Facebook Diaries,” the first-ever hybrid user-generated video/reality TV show to be distributed on Facebook.com, Ziddio.com, Comcast VOD and linear television and the IFC Channel, to HBO to Comcast, the largest cable and broadband company in the US to HBO to Glam.com, the number one site for women to film icons, to Born4Sports, a social network, marketplace and ecommerce platform for sports and sports lifestyle with presence in Europe, Asia and soon, the US.

Prior to launching his own consulting company, Chris co-founded Participant Productions in 2004 with Jeff Skoll, eBay’s first President. Participant’s vision is to create entertainment that inspires audiences to make social change. In this capacity, Chris developed and executed on the business plan, was intimately involved in finding and hiring initial executive personnel and managed the company overall. Participant’s first slate of movies — Syriana, starring George Clooney and Matt Damon; North Country, starring Charlize Theron; Good Night and Good Luck, starring David Strathairn and George Clooney, and the documentary Murderball – were nominated for an unprecedented 11 Academy Awards. Chris is also proud to have identified and helped to develop former Vice President Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth which won the Oscar for Best Documentary and Gore’s work participated in his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition to the above-mentioned films, Chris developed and Executive Produced Participant’s first feature: American Gun starring Marcia Gay-Harden, Forrest Whittaker, Donald Sutherland, Linda Cardelini and Tony Goldwyn.

[tags]Chris Adams, Super Fans, social marketing, social media, Digital Hollywood[/tags]

Chris also told me about SimpleRom, an exciting new service for integrating DVD and web experiences. The services intent is to create a shift in the way that DVD producers migrate fans from existing content to new features, content and related fan fair on the Web. When a user puts a CD or DVD with SimpleRom in a Windows computer, the disc’s main feature (usually a video or music track) will begin playing in the user’s default media player software. Behind the media player, the user’s default Web Browser will display the Web page or url of designated by the DVD producer. SimpleRom is available on a pay-as-you go or subscription basis. The pay as you go plan costs $69 per disc image, monthly subscriptions run $99 per month.

Metabeam is also launching an interesting new service called ChatterFlix that allows users to chat while watching a synchronized playback of DVDs. ChatterFlix is definitely worth watching to see how it develops.


[tags]Metabeam, DVD, DVD menu, Digital Hollywood, Chris Brown, SiimpleRom[/tags]

About Outside Voice:

Chey’s show delves into the hot-button social and political issues of the week, Outside Voice delivers a fresh perspective, and a chance for anyone to participate in the discussion. You can chat with public figures, analysts, and entertainers as Chey conducts a virtual town hall meeting that is smart, timely, and interactive. Add your voice every Wednesday, 7pm- 8pm PST.

[tags]Chey Bell, NowLive, podcasting, podcast promotion, social media, super fans, Digital Hollywood[/tags]

About NowLive in their own words

NowLive is a social broadcasting network that lets anyone create a live, interactive talk shows, take callers, share media, syndicate podcasts, and more. NowLive empowers you to connect any time with peers, fans, friends, and new and interesting people. Communicate and promote the things that matter to you most! Who uses NowLive? Celebrities! Join Adrianne Curry, Christopher Knight, Bobbi Billard, Christine Dolce (ForBiddeN), Somaya Reece, and more! Bloggers (sport, political, travel, fashion, music…) – take your blog to the next level and host a weekly call in show at your blog site. MySpacers: create an interactive party line with all your friends. As one of our members said, “It’s like MySpace on Crack”. Bands: Start an international live concert from your garage. YahooGroups: add live teleconferencing to the group. Fantasy Sport: Have the commissioner of your league host a weekly get together so teams can negotiate real time trades and brag about last weeks standings. Businesses: invite your customers to an online Q&A session; Friends & Family! – this is a great way for your friends or family to share great conversation and experiences from different locations, all within a rich-media environment.

[tags]Digital Hollywood, NowLive, social broadcasting, social media, online video, Kevin Bromber, Chey Bell[/tags]

Cachelogic has developed what it calls VelociX, a media delivery platform that combines P2P technology with a global network of content caches built using the vendor’s P2P Management Solution. Content is cached on these servers and that means large media files — such as movies, TV programs, and games — can be downloaded over a broadband connection in minutes instead of hours.

The real benefits, however, start to kick in when the end users’ computers start contributing to the content distribution as well. It increases the capacity dramatically and cuts the costs at the same time.

A number of other companies have tried to provide similar services using a client only approach. CacheLogic’s base network acts like a super P2P network that is available even if local peers are not. That increases availability on the network and helps speed up the last segment download which can be a problem on P2P services based only on distributed clients.

If you need to move large files, CacheLogic is worth checking out.

[tags]CacheLogic, P2P, Digital Hollywood, CDN, content distribution[/tags]

A KickApps-enabled website provides your visitors with a complete rich media community experience. Users are invited to upload media and create their very own “personal space” directly at your site. Site visitors are provided with easy to use media management tools to manage their personal space. Similarly, your site administrator is provided an array of easy-to-use media management and administrative tools to ensure that only appropriate content makes it on to your website.

KickApps has a rich feature set focused on social networking, community building and managing user generated content.

Sites that use KickApps have lots of features to choose from including uploading videos, audio and photos, user customizable profiles, guest books, blogs, feeds and a variety of widgets. They also go beyond technology and offer help via white papers such as their current whitepaper called Nine Steps to a Successful Online Community which you can download for free.

You can use KickApps for free if you allow KickApps to take part of the advertising. If you want to keep all the advertising for yourself, then you can use their paid version which is based upon a CPM model.

This is definitely worth checking out if you want to add social networking features to your site.

[tags]KickApps, Social Networking Application, Social Networking, Digital Hollywood[/tags]

The system provides the tools to deploy a custom social broadcast network, including

• Self publishing
• Video upload, download, rating, comments
• Blog, video blog, moblog
• DAVE points system
• A modular player can be customized with your brand and embedded in user’s MySpace, blog or web page
• User contests

Rex also told me about an exciting new project that DAVE Networks has launched called Next.TV. NEXT.TV, a competitor to the much hyped Joost, is a new Internet TV service that delivers over 50 channels of high quality TV content. NEXT.TV’s content is sponsored by advertisers so that you can get premium TV content for free.

NEXT.TV will be available initially in October 2007 on HP consumer notebooks. A version will also be available to the general public shortly thereafter for download of which you can sign up to be part of the Private Beta Program by signing up at www.next.tv.

[tags]DAVE Networks, Rex Wong, Next.TV, IPTV, online video, video, Digital Hollywood[/tags]