Netflix’s New Feature lets Subscribers watch Video and Chat simultaneously

Video streaming service, Netflix is all set to woo its Canadian subscribers with a feature where users can group chat with fellow subscribers while watching online videos on its platform. This takes binge-watching to a whole new level.While the new addition is a more than a welcome move from Netflix, it would be interesting to see how its OTT counterparts such as Prime Video & Hulu respond to the move.

Spotlight

AEG

Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, AEG is the world’s leading sports and live entertainment company. With offices on five continents, AEG operates in the following business segments: AEG Facilities, which with its affiliates owns, manages or consults with more than 120 preeminent venues around the world including The O2 Arena, the Sprint Center and the Mercedes-Benz Arenas.

OTHER ARTICLES
Technologies, Virtualization

Stride Is Mirror’s Edge VR In Everything But Name

Article | July 27, 2022

Ever since the Oculus Rift was first introduced, people have wanted a Mirror’s Edge VR game. Years later, Stride looks to deliver where EA hasn’t. The first footage for Stride, which debuted over the weekend, promises essentially a VR doppelganger of DICE’s beloved series. Players hop between rooftops using parkour, avoiding enemy gunfire and taking opponents down as they go. But while the game sounds similar to Mirror’s Edge, it looks practically identical; bleached-white buildings are peppered with vibrantly-highlighted objects you can use for progression.

Read More
Technologies, Business

This time Amazon really does have Bond in its sights

Article | August 3, 2022

MGM, which holds the largest film and TV library in Hollywood, is finally in play – and likely to be acquired by tech major and video streaming behemoth Amazon. With a rumoured price tag of $9 billion, the deal, while substantial, is merely equivalent to 8.3% of Amazon’s Q1 2021 earnings of $108.5 billion. Indeed, the 44% year-on-year (YoY) increase for its Q1 results alone would pay for the deal more than four times over. When it comes to investment capital to deploy, the tech majors led by Amazon and Apple are in a financial class of their own. This is the kind of deal that helps to explain why AT&T was so keen cut its losses and incur a $66 billion loss on its Warner Media assets by merging the former Time Warner media major with Discovery for $43 billion in cash and receiving 71% in equity in the new combined entity in return. It also follows on from Amazon’s 15.4x increase in what it is willing to pay to secure exclusive NFL Thursday Night Football coverage for its US Amazon Prime customers.

Read More
Technologies, Virtualization

How to Watch Netflix in Virtual Reality

Article | August 2, 2022

Playing virtual reality video games is a blast—but it also takes work. If you simply want to kick back, relax, and experience some mind-bending visuals without thinking too much, why not try watching Netflix in VR? It's ridiculously easy to do, even if you don't have state-of-the-art equipment. There are three primary methods, depending on what kind of device you're working with: fire up the Netflix VR app on Android, set up mirroring with your iPhone, or simply download the Netflix app from your preferred Oculus device. Here's What You'll Need VR headset: No matter your budget, there's a virtual reality option for you. On the pricey end, there are sophisticated VR headsets like the Oculus Quest 2, which starts at $299, and the HTC Vive Pro Eye, which retails for $799. We've included a few other options in the gallery below, too. If you're looking for something less expensive, there's the $99 Google Daydream View system (discontinued, but you can still find them here and there), the Samsung Gear VR headset (which the manufacturer has also discontinued in the U.S., but you can find it on Amazon for $128), and the $25 Google Cardboard viewer (although you may want to purchase an additional head strap for it).

Read More
Virtualization, Media and Broadcasting

B2B Movie Placements: What to Expect?

Article | July 13, 2022

As films evolved into the popular medium that they are today, brands followed suit. They took advantage of a large network of new ways to market, from print media to radio to television. Product placement, a part of branded entertainment marketing, became more common from the 1980s. Today, every moviegoer is familiar – sometimes painfully – with paid product placements. And every marketer has heard commentary on both good and bad B2C product placements. But what about B2B movie placements? Ever heard of those? If you are a B2B enterprise looking to try it out, here are some major differences between B2C and B2B movie placements: Impress the producers Create an enticing pitch for the producers, which can influence them enough to bring them to the creative department. Sell your brand or product to them (indirectly) to help them understand how it will improve the realism of their scene or set. Make them realize how your product or service can help them. Placement isn’t always ‘placement’ Prospective B2B buyers aren’t going to squint their eyes to find your product while watching a movie. However, they might actually remember your brand if you host pre-opening events around the world for them and their families to watch a popular movie. If they enjoy the movie and establish an emotional connection with it, they will definitely think of you while making any kind of purchase decision. Things might not work out No matter how hard you try to show your brand in a good light in a certain scene or situation, sometimes things happen that you can't control or ignore. In such cases, you might have to get all the branding out instead of settling for negative publicity, which could be a viable option for a B2C brand. B2B Movie Placement: A Success Story FLIR, a client of Hollywood Branded, is the leading provider of thermal military camera equipment. It co-starred in one of Warner Brothers' biggest hits of 2018, Rampage. FLIR connected with the right member of the production team and ensured that the brand was pictured in a positive light. FLIR shared its technology with the filmmakers and got advertised to its business customers, mostly film-loving decision-makers, through the movie and the way it was shot. The film earned $427M at the worldwide box office.

Read More

Spotlight

AEG

Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, AEG is the world’s leading sports and live entertainment company. With offices on five continents, AEG operates in the following business segments: AEG Facilities, which with its affiliates owns, manages or consults with more than 120 preeminent venues around the world including The O2 Arena, the Sprint Center and the Mercedes-Benz Arenas.

Related News

A Netflix for video games? Why a longtime dream is closer than ever to coming true

washingtonpost | January 28, 2019

When Cory Burdette awoke recently to learn that Winter Storm Gia had caused a two-hour school delay in Reston, Va., he seized the chance to do a little family bonding. Plopping down in front of the TV, Burdette and his 5-year-old daughter spent the morning together playing Minecraft, the Lego-like adventure game where players construct buildings out of virtual blocks.“We play all our games together on the Xbox,” he said. “In Minecraft, we both get to build a house together, find monsters and explore.”The first time he fired up the game, Burdette had to wait for Minecraft to download and install on his Xbox before launching it. But by the time his daughter is old enough to play more-adult games, that wait could be a thing of the past.Major companies including Microsoft and Verizon are exploring how to replace game downloads with Internet-based game services, hoping to do for video gaming what Netflix and Spotify have done with TV and music. Instead of being run directly from a device, high-quality games of the future could be streamed from a data center, with most of the computations and image rendering performed by powerful servers many miles away before being piped online to players' phones, PCs and consoles.

Read More

Netflix adds Instagram Stories support for directly sharing shows

slashgear | January 22, 2019

Netflix is just about everywhere, thanks in no small part to its vast and largely successful original content library, and as of today, it can now be found in yet another place: Instagram Stories. The new integration makes it possible for Netflix users to directly share their favorite content with followers, but not everyone has access to it.Before Facebook made it possible to directly share content from third-party apps, Instagram users had to take a screenshot from a different app and then share that image in their Instagram Story. The workaround is common, but cumbersome, potentially resulting in lower quality images and requiring more time overall to complete the process.Instagram Stories got support for directly sharing from third-party websites last year, and now Netflix is taking advantage of the feature. Users can open Netflix’s in-app sharing option — which has been around for a while and includes messaging platforms like WhatsApp — to find the new Stories option.

Read More

Fortnite is so big even Netflix is feeling the heat

slashgear | January 18, 2019

When it comes to competition in the entertainment industry, you might be tempted to think that companies only consider similar services to be competitors. For instance, Netflix and Hulu obviously compete with one another, but what about Netflix and Fortnite? As it turns out, Netflix considers Fortnite a major competitor, and it often loses out to the popular game when it comes to winning screen time.On the heels of its freshly-announced price hike, Netflix has delivered a letter to investors in which it covers the state of the company. One section is that letter, titled “Competiton,” is particularly telling, as Netflix reveals that Fortnite is an even bigger competitor than one of its oldest rivals.“We earn consumer screen time, both mobile and television, away from a very broad set of competitors,” Netflix said. “We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO.” The call out to Fortnite might seem a little weird at first, but the game attracts tens of millions of players a month, and time spent playing Fortnite means that time isn’t spent watching things on Netflix.

Read More

A Netflix for video games? Why a longtime dream is closer than ever to coming true

washingtonpost | January 28, 2019

When Cory Burdette awoke recently to learn that Winter Storm Gia had caused a two-hour school delay in Reston, Va., he seized the chance to do a little family bonding. Plopping down in front of the TV, Burdette and his 5-year-old daughter spent the morning together playing Minecraft, the Lego-like adventure game where players construct buildings out of virtual blocks.“We play all our games together on the Xbox,” he said. “In Minecraft, we both get to build a house together, find monsters and explore.”The first time he fired up the game, Burdette had to wait for Minecraft to download and install on his Xbox before launching it. But by the time his daughter is old enough to play more-adult games, that wait could be a thing of the past.Major companies including Microsoft and Verizon are exploring how to replace game downloads with Internet-based game services, hoping to do for video gaming what Netflix and Spotify have done with TV and music. Instead of being run directly from a device, high-quality games of the future could be streamed from a data center, with most of the computations and image rendering performed by powerful servers many miles away before being piped online to players' phones, PCs and consoles.

Read More

Netflix adds Instagram Stories support for directly sharing shows

slashgear | January 22, 2019

Netflix is just about everywhere, thanks in no small part to its vast and largely successful original content library, and as of today, it can now be found in yet another place: Instagram Stories. The new integration makes it possible for Netflix users to directly share their favorite content with followers, but not everyone has access to it.Before Facebook made it possible to directly share content from third-party apps, Instagram users had to take a screenshot from a different app and then share that image in their Instagram Story. The workaround is common, but cumbersome, potentially resulting in lower quality images and requiring more time overall to complete the process.Instagram Stories got support for directly sharing from third-party websites last year, and now Netflix is taking advantage of the feature. Users can open Netflix’s in-app sharing option — which has been around for a while and includes messaging platforms like WhatsApp — to find the new Stories option.

Read More

Fortnite is so big even Netflix is feeling the heat

slashgear | January 18, 2019

When it comes to competition in the entertainment industry, you might be tempted to think that companies only consider similar services to be competitors. For instance, Netflix and Hulu obviously compete with one another, but what about Netflix and Fortnite? As it turns out, Netflix considers Fortnite a major competitor, and it often loses out to the popular game when it comes to winning screen time.On the heels of its freshly-announced price hike, Netflix has delivered a letter to investors in which it covers the state of the company. One section is that letter, titled “Competiton,” is particularly telling, as Netflix reveals that Fortnite is an even bigger competitor than one of its oldest rivals.“We earn consumer screen time, both mobile and television, away from a very broad set of competitors,” Netflix said. “We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO.” The call out to Fortnite might seem a little weird at first, but the game attracts tens of millions of players a month, and time spent playing Fortnite means that time isn’t spent watching things on Netflix.

Read More

Events