A cross-cultural media mash.

…For free, that is. But who is Dr. Horrible? He’s the latest creation of Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and many other TV shows revered by geeks worldwide.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog takes the form of an internet-only TV musical following the confessions of an evil scientist who has fallen in love with a girl he met at the laundromat. Bizarre it is, but that’s the point.

The concept was born whilst Whedon, like many other Hollywood types, was wondering how to pass the time during the writer’s strike. Here’s how he describes the creative process on his blog:

Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first. (source)

To accompany this new concept, Whedon is also experimenting with a new distribution system.

First of all, he’s putting all three episodes online for free. The first two are already up, the final one goes online tomorrow. Then, next Sunday, they’ll be gone.

Which paves the way for steps two and three, which are respectively selling the episodes online (on iTunes, etc.) and releasing a DVD.

The business model is interesting, and with the amount of buzz Whedon’s fans are capable of generating online (remember: geeks worldwide, people) plus the presence of How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris it could turn out to be very profitable. If that happens, many other big names may be tempted to follow in his footsteps. And if not, at least we will have witnessed a cracking piece of online entertainment.

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Dr. Horrible can be viewed here for free until July 20th.

Unless you yourself are currently being held captive by the Columbian revolutionary armed forces, chances are you’ve already heard about the amazing escape of Ms. Betancourt, their most famous hostage.

Ingrid (let’s face it, we all know her well enough now to call her by her first name), had been held deep in the Columbian jungle since 2002, and whilst she was certainly out of sight, here in France she was never out of mind.

The media coverage and public concern surrounding her captivity during those six years was, quite frankly, astounding. One week last November, I wrote a post recalling the frenzy from the date of her kidnapping right up to the delivery of a proof of life that had just occurred.

So it should come as no surprise that now she is free, the bulk of French journalists feel as if they’ve died and gone to heaven. Ever since she emerged from her rescue helicopter, she’s been getting the sort of media coverage usually reserved for presidential elections.

Certainly part of it is due to the “thank you” tour she has been engaging in for the past few days– from her press conference in Bogota to her embrace of Nicolas and Carla Sarkozy on French soil, you couldn’t dream of better photo ops.

But here’s the thing. Now that Betancourt is free, she is no longer a martyr, and remains until further notice a politician. How long will it be before the media realise that she is fair game again for criticism?

Already small cracks are forming in the otherwise unremitting adulation. People who held their tongues whilst Betancourt publicly sang the praises of Nicolas Sarkozy may cease to do so if her future excursions with the hugely unpopular President stray too far from anything strictly ceremonial.

Elsewhere the political grandstanding has been more overt. Socialist deputy Ségolène Royal got the ball rolling by suggesting the Sarkozy had “nothing to do with” the resolution of the hostage crisis, just before being torn apart by her colleagues, including those from within her party.

Meanwhile, some newpapers have taken issue with Ingrid’s planned pilgrimage to Lourdes next weekend. One article (published in a French newspaper called Libération, oh the irony) appears to be poking fun at the fact that she is devoutly Catholic, and her declaration last Sunday that it was Jesus who answered her prayer for freedom. Presumably extended periods of captivity puts one in touch with faith, but many French view public displays of it with suspicion.

What people make of Ingrid from now on will largely depend on her own statements. Clearly her experience has transformed her views somewhat. Before she was kidnapped, she was a staunch opponent of Columbian President Uribe’s, whereas now she is defending his zero tolerance policy against the FARC. No doubt more political comments will emerge from her, regardless of whether she decides to get back in the game herself.

Right now however she seems content to play the heroine, and she’ll probably vanish for a while to spend time with her family and get some R&R. After six years, that’s the least she deserves.

Do you like Family Guy? Then you’ll love Seth McFarlane’s new show, coming soon to a web browser near you. At least, that’s what he’s hoping.

The subject of producing TV exclusively for the internet has become something of a recurring theme here at Roastfrog, and this latest venture is particularly interesting.

On Monday, the New York Times broke the story of a deal inked between McFarlane and Google for the production and distribution of a set of short animated comedy segments called Cavalcade at a cost of several million dollars, the most ever paid for an internet TV venture.

The innovative part involves the distribution plan. Google will syndicate the program using its AdSense advertising system to thousands of Web sites that are predetermined to be gathering spots for Mr. MacFarlane’s target audience, typically young men. Instead of placing a static ad on a Web page, Google will place a “Cavalcade” video clip. The content will also be distributed via YouTube. (source: NYTimes.com)

If Google manages to make a major success of this, then it will have accomplished the feat of being among the first to make serious advertising dollars from Web TV. But the real pie in the sky is setting up a popular distribution model that is independent from producers, just like iTunes did in the music industry. Network TV is terrified about this, and former rivals are already uniting to prevent this from happening– witness Hulu.com as an example.

I suspect that network TV producers, despite their old fashioned ways, may still have the edge for a while to come. For one, they work from a model in which content is supported by advertising. That means understanding what draws in viewers at least as much as what draws in advertisers.

Google, on the other hand, is primarily an advertising network searching for content, hence its purchase of YouTube a few years back. The difference is subtle but crucial– let’s face it, nobody watches a show for the commercials.

I happened across a piece of commentary from the blog Meaningful Distraction, which sums up concerns already emerging from various corners of the blogosphere:

The installments have been described as “animated versions of the one-frame cartoons you might see in The New Yorker, only edgier,” which sounds questionable at best […] McFarlane is a genius, as displayed by Family Guy, but with the clip playing in an ad box and the subtle advertising within it, hasn’t it already failed with it’s target of young men who are highly aware and averse to having products shoved down their Gen-X throats? (link)

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding, so tune into your nearest Google syndicator this September to make up your own mind!

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Thanks to the Edutainment & Convergence Today blog for bringing this story to my attention.

If you’ve come back here wondering why there hasn’t been any new content recently, you can mainly put it down to the author’s own laziness. Fear not though, the blog is not dead, it has mainly been dormant during the time it has taken me to sort out a few professional details in my life. I’ll be writing some new posts in the coming days and hopefully updates will be back to normal by July. As always, thanks for reading!

You may have heard about NASA’s successful landing of some newfangled robot on Mars yesterday. But did you see it?

You could have, had you been watching NASA TV streaming the event over the internet. One blogger states:

I know that space travel has become a little ho-hum (what can compete against American Idol?), but I still can’t help marveling at the thought that we are getting live TV shows from a spacecraft that is nearing Mars, thousands of miles up in space. Incredible. (link)

My thoughts exactly. Go check out NASA TV out here.

And for those of you who missed the awe-inspiring event that was the Phoenix landing, here’s some underwhelming grainy and pixellated coverage from CNN:

Thanks to Links.com for the story.

Just in case you didn’t know, American Idol, the biggest show on US television, closed its seventh season last week. Don’t ask me who won, I didn’t watch it.

I did however come across an article about it in a newspaper someone kindly left behind on a train, so here are four facts about American Idol for the person who otherwise couldn’t care less. There should really be five, but I couldn’t find that many things that are interesting about it.

1. American Idol should be called British Idol.
   Both its creator (Simon Fuller) and its best judge (Simon Cowell) are from the UK and have since become among the most powerful people in American TV. Both co-executive producers and its director are also British.
2. American Idol is worth a shit load of money.
   The magazine Advertising Age claims the franchise is worth $2.5 billion. The show rakes in money from SMS and telephone voting, music sales, a live tour, branded merchandise and of course advertising. In one of the most un-subtle product placement initiatives in history, all the judges drink from Coke glasses continuously.
3. The judges don’t really judge, apparently.
   This season Paula Abdul gave a verdict on one song that hadn’t even been performed on air yet, proving not only that her “opinion” is scripted, but also that she isn’t even paying attention to the singing. Oops.
4. 97.5 million people voted for this year’s winner– that’s more than the amount of people who voted for President Bush in 2004.
   …Proving that that American Idol fans are smarter than they seem?

Source: The Times

A few weeks ago, Amnesty International and the social networking site Blog Catalog announced an initiative designed to promote human rights issues across the blogosphere. Today, May 15, is the day it all kicks off and hopefully thousands will be blogging about what the topic means to them.

Since Roastfrog.net is all about international media, I figured it logical to write about the right to free speech, most notably where journalists and bloggers are concerned. So let me talk to you about Reporters Without Borders, and why their work is getting more important than ever.

Reporters Without Borders is an international organisation which defends press freedom around the world, partly through activism and partly through collecting the type of information designed to embarrass people and governments.

Every year they publish disheartening statistics about free speech violations– you can see those for 2007 on the left. 2008 is looking even worse, with the number of imprisonments having reached last year’s levels only five months into the year.

These days, the big villain is China. Reporters Without Borders is at the forefront of the campaign to denounce human rights violations ahead of this year’s Olympics. Remember those torch incidents in Paris? Many of them were orchestrated by the organisation.

It is clear that as future master of the world, what happens in China is everybody’s business, but the Reporters Without Borders’ campaigning is not restricted to what makes the headlines. Here are some of the other issues they are going after:

• Exposing the slaughter of journalists in Iraq
• Naming and shaming predators of press freedom
• Promoting free expression online
• Dispensing free safety equipment and legal advice to journalists in war zones

When living in an open, democratic society talking about freedom of speech and press freedom seems mainly like an excuse to invoke the Universal Declaration of Human Rights without thinking that its violations may affect you.

So here’s a secret: no matter where you are, they do affect you, sometimes closer to home than you may think.

According to an annual ranking compiled from reported incidents of violence or intimidation against journalists and bloggers, Iceland is the country with the greatest degree of press freedom. Meanwhile G8 member nations, which should really be setting an example, are surprisingly badly ranked:

• Canada: 18th
• Germany: 20th
• United Kingdom: 24th
• France: 31st
• Italy: 35th
• Japan: 37th
• United States: 48th
• Russia: 144th

What this means is that according to this list, if you live in any of these countries then your press is less free than those of former communist nations such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic or Hungary.

A couple of days ago, one US-based blogger called Tacy e-mailed me asking about what angle I would be taking my May 15 blog post. She shared with me the following:

Encouraging folks to begin blogging or support May 15 Bloggers Unite. Noted you were thinking about freedom of the press and wondered why. I’m asking as a blog I started in response to Freedom of Information Act requirements not be applied in our small southwest Virginia town. This leads to potential abuses related to future planning, current budget and tax assessments, and citizen involvement. What’d I get? Last week I was served with a $10.5M lawsuit. Certainly frivolous and certainly related to my engaging in local politics.

Way to go for the First Amendment. Her story proves that it doesn’t matter how small the issue is, attempts at censorship exist and can happen to you. You can read her Bloggers Unite post here.

The best way to deal with it? Keep talking. Keep blogging, keep reading, and check out occasionally the actions of organisations like Reporters Without Borders. Keep an eye on the Olympics this year. Oh, and if you’ve participated in the Bloggers Unite initiative, drop your link as a comment below!

Remember the times before Facebook? When those old high-school friends remained unreachable, when all your embarrassing photos were relegated to a dusty album under your bed, and when you only had to lie about your love life to yourself?

Ah, those innocent days seem so long ago.

Here’s a video from BBC Three’s new show The Wall which demonstrates how far we’ve come.

If you liked this, try checking out www.idiotsofants.com for more about the comedy team behind this clip. Cheers to BivingsReport for the link.

Reviewed in the New York Times, a new book entitled “Rupert Murdoch’s China Adventures” reveals lessons in media learned the hard way by one of the most successful men in the game.

Back in 1993 the billionaire owner of News Corporation arrived in China with dollar signs in his eyes. He had just bought a majority stake in Star TV with hopes of doing for Chinese satellite TV what he had done in the UK thanks to Sky.

But, to quote an overused cliché, the best laid plans often go awry. As the New York Times explains,

Much of the book concerns the consequences of a speech to advertisers that Mr. Murdoch gave in London in 1993, riffing that “advances in the technology of telecommunications have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.”

As one might expect, these are not the cleverest words to say when you’re trying to do business with one.

The Chinese authorities perhaps had it in for Murdoch from the beginning, simply because they didn’t want a foreigner having any sort of control over the national airwaves. And so they banned the use of satellite dishes in private homes.

Having invested a fortune in a business model that was essentially dead upon arrival, Murdoch embarked upon a decade of sucking up to Chinese authorities. Efforts included dropping the free-speech BBC from Star TV’s offerings, ensuring worldwide distribution of China’s communist channel CCTV9 and even obliging his head of Chinese operations (Bruce Dover, the author of the book) to eat the “sphincter of male suckling pig.” But still the ban was not reversed.

The Times points out an interesting side effect of all this, which was perhaps the intention of the Chinese authorities all along:

Beijing, despite various personnel changes […] held to a strategy: using the News Corporation to help the centrally controlled media learn modern techniques. […] A Chinese version of “American Idol,” not owned by Mr. Murdoch, had 400 million viewers. The conquest he so craved was achieved, but on the Communist regime’s terms.

And that, my friends, will fuel conversation at media business lunches for years to come. Now, who’s up for some more pig sphincter?

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You can read the full New York Times book review right here.
You can also buy the book on Amazon.com.

The Olympics and the Euro 2008 are just around the corner, and chances are you’ll be at work when the action begins. It’ll be quite tempting to take a sneeky peek at the events during your coffee breaks, but that’s impossible without a TV at the office, right?

Back during the 2006 World Cup I lamented the fact that in this age of internet video, viewing live sports online remained practically impossible. The post I wrote about it at the time summed up the main reasons why.

But now things may now be changing thanks to Zattoo, a free piece of software which streams live video to your PC in surprisingly good quality. Chances are you haven’t heard of it yet, but it’s likely to get a lot of attention in the months to come.

What makes it different to applications such as Joost is the fact that it carries many of the same terrestrial channels you get on your TV. Which means that if it carries the channel that’s showing the Olympics in your country, bingo– live sports at the office! You can checkup the lineups here, please note that right now it’s available only in some European countries*.

Now for the bad news. Although it’s great software, the jury is still out as to whether Zattoo is completely legal, which could compromise its future. Zattoo UK Manager Alexandra Iles claims there’s nothing to worry about, and says that they are well within their rights to simulcast live TV feeds online:

If you have video on demand you have to go to the rights owner directly for each piece of programme you transmit. For simulcasting you can’t do that because you take the signal and you don’t amend it. We work on the same legal rules as cable retransmission. We just take the signal as is, unaltered, and the laws do give special provisions for that. (source: DigitalSpy)

None of this changes the fact that the networks remain terrified about the use of their content on the internet, and now that many of them are now trying to set up their own legal services it is unlikely they will take kindly to Zattoo’s competition (and its advertising).

Whether or not they choose to make an issue of it will largely depend on whether Zatoo becomes successful and how well its execs negotiate with them once the finger-pointing begins.

The Summer of 2008 will undoubtedly be good for Zattoo, so let’s at least hope that it lasts until the Olympics are over. Oh, and that the IT department doesn’t ban it.

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* Currently available in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.