August 23, 2008
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I spent a couple of days this week in Houston, TX, visiting the team at Wowio and seeing firsthand the vision and talent behind that organization. Jason Leon, who will be overseeing the sales and marketing effort for Wowio, accompanied me for our brief two-day jaunt and we both came away incredibly impressed and wowed! The world-class team of technologists behind Wowio are lead by company founder Will Lidwell, who is at once a philosopher, psychologist, engineer, visionary, designer, artist, professor, and author. Did I mention he used to lead a team of NASA engineers? I don’t think there is anything this guy can’t do! And his Wowio team is made up of a number of those same former NASA engineers and former students. I’m feeling pretty good about our ability to scale this system to accommodate a larger worldwide reader audience and a broad base of publishers. And if that weren’t enough, the Wowio CEO is Dr. David Palumbo, Will’s own professor at University of Houston-Clearlake, a brilliant strategist who talks with his hands as if he’s constantly writing on a whiteboard. A one-time division president at McGraw-Hill and with past stints as a Professor and educator, he played major roles in both start-ups (Humancode) and public companies (Sapient) where he led teams of 1,000s. One of the most apt descriptions I’ve read about him is that he’s “dedicated his career to leading organizations at being the best at the business of learning.”
The thing that struck me the most about these folks is that even with the pedigree and technological prowess they master, THEY LOVE LITERATURE! These guys love the written word and making it available to everyone in such a way that everyone wins: readers, authors, publishers. They also understand that the new medium of digital distribution provides for an expanded offering. This isn’t just e-book distribution as an additional channel to sell the same product - this is about offering products with additional original content to make draw a deeper relationship between the reader and the material. To see an example of this, I’d like to suggest checking out the Wowio version of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. The content had originally been distributed in 1897 in a series of magazine articles in Pearson’s Magazine and Cosmopolitan, if you can believe. The popular version was released in novel form in 1898. Wowio’s version combines illustrations from the Pearson’s Magazine monthly and the novel. In addition, Wowio has added the original radio broadcast of Orson Welles’ famous radio broadcast from 1938 AND a Universal newsreel clip of the aftermath of the hysteria that the radio broadcast caused. Finally, also included in the pdf download of this classic is an interview with both Orson Welles’ and H.G. Wells in their first public meeting about the piece and the hoopla created 40 years after the material was originally published!!
As we move into this new era of digital distribution at Platinum Studios, we sought a partner who loves content as much as we do and who understands that there is a deeper connection that can be made between the creator and the reader when broadening the scope of the elements. DVD distributors have been doing this with movies since the first disks hit the market - the “additional features” section of the DVD is often some of the most compelling content that strengthens the affinity relationship between viewer and filmmaker and/or subject matter. I’ve kept many DVDs for the extra features more than the actual movies. Download “War of the Worlds” and see for yourself - it’s a free gift this week thanks to the folks at EA Sports! We are going to be encouraging our publishing partners to provide additional content to enhance the reading experience as we continue to grow. Hopefully, they will embrace this digital arena more quickly than their brethren in the music industry because at the end of the day, we all want more content to be read and viewed by as many people as we can possibly reach. www.wowio.com. Enjoy. if you like what you see, gift a PDF to a friend or a loved one and share the joy of Wowio today.
-Brian
August 6, 2008
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One of the many recent press pickups on Platinum Studios:
http://www.microcappress.com/blog/reader-submitted-micro-cap-idea-platinum-studios-pdos/404/
An excerpt:
“Working with leading companies in the entertainment and new media sectors, Platinum Studios is emerging as one of the front-runners in the creation of new content across ALL media platforms. The comparison being made most often is to Marvel Entertainment (MVL), which started out as comic book company. In only a couple of decades though, Marvel has become an entertainment company…to say the least. By the way, Marvel’s stock is only worth about nine times what is was a decade ago.
Platinum’s learning curve may not even be that long, since many of the special effects and movie technology advancements have only been made on the last six years or so. Toss in the fact that Platinum has an even larger library than Marvel, and it makes you wonder where it could all go.”
August 2, 2008
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As one of these bizarre creatures, it’s often difficult to obtain perspective on the characteristics of this species, but recently I was given a brief moment of clarity followed by a more astounding follow-up moment. Allow me to share:
Every Wednesday, like most comics fans (Genus: Homo, Species: h. sapiens, Subspecies: h. sapiens fanboy.) I make a pilgrimage to my local comic book store to pay homage to the publishing gods and bring a little joy into my life. My particular alter of worship is a little place called Comics, Inc. in Culver City. The head priest at this particular alter is a man named Steve and his acolytes include a midget, a rastafarian and a man who pretty much personifies cool. Each Wednesday, the midget mans the counter and hurls insults at each person’s purchases, mocking them for wasting their money on the latest X-book or the latest weekly mega-series. Invariably, a crowd congregates around the midget to witness this litany of insults and attempt to add in or rebuff his abuse. This was the case a few weeks ago, when I was finally able to step back from the crowd and observe this bizarre interaction. It wasn’t so much the insults or crowd that turned a light on in my brain (first one in a while, I admit), it was the fact that I was holding in my hands the same books the crowd was ranting about and threatening to burn the moment they had read or, the ultimate retaliation, blog about. Looking down at the books in my hand, on the top was a copy of Trinity #3. Looking at the book in everyone else’s hands, they also had a copy of this book in their hands. It wasn’t that I had enjoyed #1 or #2. Heck, I hadn’t enjoyed 52 weeks of Countdown. I hadn’t even enjoyed 52 weeks of 52. It was then that I realized that the real reason I consumed every weekly book for the last two year, every X-book for the last 20 years and every cross-title summer crossover (yes, even War of the Gods) since Secret Wars and Crisis first appeared on the shelf was that I didn’t want to miss out. I didn’t want to be separated from the pack. I wanted to know what the cool kids were talking about and, invariably, ranting about. It was the same reason I suffered through every episode of Alf when I was in grade school: I didn’t like it, I didn’t laugh at it, but I wanted to be a part of the conversation that would inevitably pop up the next day at recess. Somehow, I’ve left all of that need to be a part of the group behind me in other parts of my life (I’ve never seen an episode of The Wire, I hate Pink Berry, and it took me 3 weeks to see Dark Knight), but it had stayed with me in my comics buying life without me even realizing it was even there.
Now, we all have childhood holdovers. There’s nothing wrong with it and it’s natural. I still watch Barry Gordy’s the Last Dragon, Weird Science and Blazing Saddles on a monthly basis and enjoy all three the same as I did when I first saw them. The problem comes in when we allow it to shape our industry and continue to cast our “votes” (i.e. $$) for things that we simply don’t enjoy, just to be a part of the conversation. I’m sure if you Google the word “bad”, one of the top ten results will be a blog or podcast or review screaming to the heavens how bad Marvel and DC books are and how the state of the industry today strangles independent publishers and makes it impossible to eek out a meager existence in this business. (And I’m not saying I agree with that, there are some really good Marvel and DC books) But the truth of the matter is that each of those blogs or podcasts or reviews paid money to be able to read that book and rail against it. The fanboy subspecies is unique in that it will pay money to be able to complain about something week after week. Restaurant officianados don’t go back to the same restaurant every week in order to complain about it in their column again and again. Car people don’t buy crappy cars over and over so that they have something to talk to their friends about. But every month, the Top 10 comics are invariably from the Big 2 (with a very few exceptions). Does this mean that the ten BEST comics put out every month are from Marvel and DC? I think the average fanboy will tell you absolutely not and insert 2 or 3 of their favorites at the top of that list, maybe even a full ten.
Going back to my epiphany, I looked around at the crowd of my brethren and was glad that a herd of lemmings didn’t rush through on their way to the Santa Monica pier at that instant. I did end up putting back Trinity #3 and that series won’t be receiving a dime from me this year. I grabbed a copy of Walking Dead (which I usually buy in trade) and ended up trying out Invincible and PVP for the first time instead. I actually enjoyed them both immensely and felt much better about it at the end of the day, knowing that my dollars were speaking for quality and not a desire to be in the loop. I encourage my fanboy brethren to do the same.
The follow-up moment I mentioned earlier occurred shortly after Comicon, while reading people online complaining about how much Comicon was not about comics any more and how terrible it was. And yet, somehow, it was sold out for four days and there were quite a few jedis and Marvel Girls walking around that I’m sure weren’t movie execs horning in on “our event”. <sigh> Your dollar is your vote, my people. Let it speak for you more than your blog does. It’ll go a lot further in the long run.
Gonna go watch a little Bruce Leroy right now.
Cheers, Dan.
July 29, 2008
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As we edge closer to the relaunch of the Wowio website this Thursday, we are getting more and more excited about it. We have had some great response from publishers in both the comic book and traditional book segments and we are looking to add some new categories that will really enhance the offering for readers. The new revenue model should make it very attractive for publishers to add a supplemental revenue stream from a truly global distribution outlet. Some of the restrictions on downloads were self-imposed and others were restricted by pre-established agreements that some publishers had with their distributors. We think we’ve solved that problem with the new ad-supported preview section.
In addition to offering multiple opportunities for distributing content, we are also looking to bring some brand building into the equation here as well. We think our audience will want to see extensions of their favorite brands and so we are envisioning an extended e-commerce storefront where our publishers can offer other wares and products to expand their reach to their readers and fans. Of course, this is all part of the next iteration of Wowio…first, we relaunch Thursday with new features, more publishers, additional categories, and an expanded global audience. We are excited about this new world of possibilities for Platinum, the Wowio team and our publishing partners.
Explore the new Wowio experience starting at 10:00 am PDT, this Thursday, July 31, 2008 at www.wowio.com.
July 18, 2008
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A few days ago, my girls and I had a great time at the Space Chimps Premier and party on the Fox lot. Our friend who produced the film, John H Williams, invited us. John’s the CEO of Vanguard Animation who also produced the terrific Shrek franchise and other films. John and I became friends while judging the Comic Book Challenge. John loved Top 50 finalist Kevin MacDougall’s Illegal Aliens pitch, and his company and ours are producing together the property as a comic book and potential film.
On the Fox lot, my kids also had fun walking down New York Street and seeing all the false fronts while I tagged along eating dark chocolate dipped frozen bananas. They were dairy free, so I had three! Hmm. That rhymes.
Back at the party, John had quite a goodie bag for all us kids including a seemingly cute little push Space Chimp. These cute little dolls are actually Slingshot Space Chimps which we found out as my and kids and I were slingshot-ing each other. In fact, we found the dolls to be quite the little screamers, too, when we dropped one in the quiet lobby of grandma’s condo building.
-SMR