Electric Shadow

WWE Creates a "New" Network

I'm surprised that World Wrestling Entertainment didn't move sooner in creating a streaming network. For $10 per month, users have access to tons of back catalogue content in addition to each of their monthly "Pay Per View" mega-events:

In addition to new shows, the app will also grant you access to more than 100,000 hours of video-on-demand content, including every previous pay-per-view event from WWE, WCW, and ECW. It will become available on desktops and laptops and through the WWE app for iOS and Android, and the Kindle Fire. Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and 4, and Roku will also be able to access the network. The network will be available in the United States to start, with additional countries coming later this year and early next year.

I find most notable in the above not the official omission of AppleTV (the most bizarrely impenetrable platform for major streaming brands, oddly), but that WWE Network is going global. Since WWE control their worldwide SVOD rights, they have no reason to use middlemen (like cable and satellite providers) to sub-distribute them.

They needed CES so little to make this a big deal to their very dedicated following. I'm surprised they didn't just make a standalone event of their own, or build it into their signature Monday Night RAW show. As a result, this is the biggest announcement to come out of CES in five years, maybe ten.

I think of the BBC and ITV in the UK, whose blockbuster series Doctor Who & Sherlock, as well as Downton Abbey respectively, have fanbases with money to spend who want to avoid time-displaced spoilers. They have respective business interests, like sub-licensing to PBS in the States and BBC's own America variant, but there are still cable providers in the year 2014 who don't offer BBCA in HD, for crying out loud.

UPDATE from Twitter reader Tim Cooke (note the "e"):

Oscar Host Linked to Pirated "Oscar" Movie

Andy Baio writes about the leaking of a Secret Life of Walter Mitty screener from the offices of The Ellen Show:

Oh, Ellen! If the watermark's accurate, this screener belonged to Ellen DeGeneres. But was it actually an Oscar screener? Probably not.

The watermark shows that the screener was created on November 26, 2013. According to Ken Rudolph's Academy screener list, he received the Walter Mitty DVD screener via UPS on December 19.

This is one of the most inopportunely timed and high-profile leaks of a secure screener. That this has gone lightly reported (and treated as anything but a controversy) is telling of either the stature of DeGeneres in the industry, or the lousy reviews of Mitty.

THE GRANDMASTER Blu-ray: US/International Cut Only

A freshly arrived press release confirms that the re-dated US Blu-ray for Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmaster does not include the longer Hong Kong cut. In an age of declining physical media purchasing, I think this is a big mistake (as usual with Asian releases) on the Weinstein Company's part.

...special features include THE GRANDMASTER: From Ip Man to Bruce Lee, A Conversation with Shannon Lee (Daughter of Bruce Lee), THE GRANDMASTER: According to RZA and Behind the Scenes footage.

Those extras don't make me feel like I'm missing anything by having imported the Hong Kong disc. If they send me a copy, I'll cover it here, but I can't convince myself to shell out for this one.

I prefer the longer version by a wide margin, but according to a conversation I had with Wong at San Diego Comic-Con in 2013, the US re-edit was done with his direct involvement, and he likes it. Contrary to the alarmism of others, I like that there are two cuts the director is happy with, since it's the musical equivalent of a remix.

Roku TV by TCL & Hisense = Boxee TV by ViewSonic

Roku making a TV set in partnership with TCL is the new Boxee making a TV set in partnership with ViewSonic...or, not.

I fail to see the "home run" here. OEMs Hisense and TCL don't have any brand recognition or shelf space at US retail, and the profit margins will have to be huge for retailers to give precious floor space to them over Samsung and others. Billions of hours of streamed content through a $40-100 "puck" does not mean that those same consumers are interested in buying a new TV to have their Roku built into the TV. Also odd: they aren't touching live OTA TV with a ten-foot pole, which doesn't jive with the cord-cutting ethos.

However, there won’t be any actual integration with live TV: Roku TVs don’t come with their own programming guide, and Wood told me that there are “no immediate plans” to allow app developers to overlay their apps over live TV.

Ben Kuchera Joins Polygon

One of the go-to sites for gaming industry editorial and reportage has gained a hell of a new set of fingers. His first post for the site is insightful and as sharp as one expects from Kuchera, looking at the phenomenon of unfinished games succeeding in sales:

This is a controversial one, but you need only look at popular games such as Starbound, Don’t Starve, Planetary Annihilation, DayZ, Nuclear Throne, Rust and Kerbal Space Program to see how many people are taking advantage of the ability to sell a game before it’s "done," and making their community part of the development effort.

Annotating Sherlock

Leslie S. Klinger has been fighting a battle for years to bring the Sherlock Holmes canon entirely into the public domain, where it should have been for some time. Just before the beginning of the new year, a court judgment came down in favor of him and, if you ask me, history. In celebration, I highly recommend the following for the discerning Sherlockian's personal library: Klinger's magnificent annotations of the entire Sherlock catalogue, including the two-book short stories slipcase set and the separate third volume, which includes the novels.

Screen Time #51: Making Out with Stephen Fry

A fun interview that I intentionally held for the end of the year, and only partially because the title was fun.

Ioan Gruffudd is more than just a handsome face. His filmography denotes as much. If you know it very well at all, you know from whence the title of this episode comes. I should add that I love Stephen Fry, and have been working for a few months preparing a regular feature that has to do with him and Hugh Laurie.

This post will be updated soon with WatchList recommendations.

Giant Size #37: Hero Initiative

This post will be updated with ReadingList recommendations soon.

John and I plowed through an enormous list of books in our own special way of looking back at 2013. Before finding a book to spend money on, consider giving instead to the magnificent cause that is the Hero Initiative.

If you don't want to take John and I at our word for how worthy a cause it is, for the love of the multiverse, listen to this episode's interview with Dennis O'Neil. His verve and passion for supporting and providing for creators is beyond inspiring.

Major Payne: Behind the Scenes

I was hoping that before the end of the year, we would get the third and final installment of screenwriter Dean Lorey's great (thus far) series of articles about working on Major Payne. The movie was originally called The Private War of Major Benson, and was developed to star someone like Clint Eastwood. Read the first part, where Lorey meets Damon Wayans, and follow that immediately with the second installment, which digs into his camaraderie with a guy I consider one of the most underrated major comedians of the 1990's.

Screen Time #50: Turbo Time

This is the most personal episode I've done of this show yet, and it might be the most personal I ever do. Recording solo wasn't the hurdle, it was getting through the thing and staying focused for the most part. The episode uses my brother's love of Jingle All the Way starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a bridge to opening up about living with someone else's autism.

jinglealltheway.jpg

Autism can be a part of who someone is, just as much as anything that makes any of us unique. Unfortunately, prejudices against autism are deeper and more openly expressed than those against something as innocuous as left-handedness, or something like race or social class.

Movie and TV portrayals have trained many to treat autistic kids like classic Universal monsters rather than human beings. There's a documentary titled Autism is a World, which I think is one way to look at it. Throughout my life, I've come to think of it as a radically different calibration of sociocultural behavior and perception.

Social constructs like money, and other things that we invented as a species, seem patently ridiculous to an autistic mind. How could money ever run out when it's a thing that's printed like anything else on paper? The idea that there are times when we should and should not talk, run, or do as we please also makes no sense.

When "normal" people say things to that effect, they are hailed as firebrands, revolutionaries, and champions of liberty. Someone diagnosed as autistic is somehow diseased, and a mutant. They're an outsider on a genetic level, and to many "normals", they are no better than a burden on their loved ones, and something to be hidden from public view. I saw people clutch their children as if my brother's autism was contagious, or not do a good job concealing their supposition that my entire family must somehow be "infected".

That bundle of feelings is almost impossible to convey outside James Whale's Frankenstein.

My younger brother had a great deal to do with shaping the way I enjoy, process, and judge entertainment. I'm at once an exacting critic and most likely to forgive flaws in favor of charm and effort.

The interview paired with this episode is with animator/director Tom Cook. In the 70's and 80's, Tom worked on cartoons for Filmation and Hanna Barbera, among others. His work means a lot if you ever held a plastic sword aloft and bellowed "By the Power of Grayskull!!!", tried to reason with a friend how great The Herculoids or Thundarr the Barbarian were, or simply cackled at the bizarre mismatch that was the He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special.

Image Comics Direct to Dropbox

With the "wants to be #1" publisher allowing you to buy their DRM-Free comics and insta-dump them into your Dropbox account, I'd love to see the File Transporter folks do the same thing. That's where my primary DRM-free comics library instance lives, and I use it with Chunky Comic Reader for iOS. From my experience, download and upload speeds are way faster with my Transporter as compared to Dropbox.

I'm attending the upcoming Image Expo on January 9th in San Francisco. My chum Merlin and I might just manage a meetup for listeners, fans, and nerds of a feather. Details soon, I hope.

HUGO Free on iTunes in HD

Part of iTunes' 12 Gifts promotion, this is by far the coolest "gift" thus far, and it'll take something pretty spectacular to outdo it. Even if you got a Digital Copy code in the Blu-ray edition of Hugo, it isn't HD, but this free download is, and replaces your old one.

Hugo is one of the few modern 3D movies that I found truly worth seeing that format. I hope that even though it didn't set the box office on fire, it will grow considerably as a children's movie via home video in the decades to come.

Thank You For Calling: Podcast Pilot

Tomorrow at 5pm Central Time (U.S.), I'm recording and broadcasting a pilot for a new show that I'm hoping can be brought to 5by5 in 2014. If you listen tomorrow and your company is interested in sponsoring the show, please get in touch. It could start as soon as next week.

TYFC pilot bad.jpg

What Is It?

Thank You For Calling is a call-in talk show where we discuss both sides of the customer service experience. Whether divided by a retail counter, phone call, or chat window, we look at how we can improve the human experience for everyone involved. From ruining Christmas to above and beyond service, we talk to real people whose stories range from all-out horror to a consumer love that will last a lifetime.

Have you had a customer from hell? Talked to a rep who just didn't care? Have you been called names or been threatened on either side of the conversation? Have you salvaged what seems like a lost cause? Even if you still work in a job under NDA, we respect your privacy, your company's privacy, and especially your customer's privacy. We can anonymize anyone's story, situation, or experience.

I want to hear from you. Leave a voicemail with your name and contact info here: (240) 285-9623. You can also send email to thankyouforcallingshow@gmail.com. Make sure to specify whether (and how) anything needs to remain anonymous.

Names can be changed to protect the innocent, but we're only interested in first-hand stories. Please do not submit stories told to you "by a friend" or someone you know second- or third-hand.

TYFC pilot.jpg

Please Call and Email

We will probably take live calls tomorrow, the number for which will be provided live on the show.

For the sake of the pilot not rolling off the rails, we might stick to pre-submitted stories and callers we have ready. If I have a New Year's wish, I hope that someone with a great deal of experience working specifically in call center escalations will call tomorrow.

I'm also tempted for some people to call and email in some "how would you (I) fix Problem X?" stories. Take real dilemmas you've encountered (customer or rep) like ruined holiday plans (gift delivery, travel, home emergencies) and tell me how they went off the rails. I'll do my best to offer some ideas that could have led to happier endings and inform your future tactics.

wal-mart-black-friday.jpg

The Future

If the show goes forward, I'll be digging into a variety of topics, including my work in various forms of the customer service and PR "fixing" worlds. Two years ago almost to today, I got involved in a customer service disaster of epic proportions that ended up on the front page of Reddit and was extensively referenced in a book. That whole thing will come up tomorrow in some capacity, thanks to Justine Sacco.

Examples of topics the show will address include:

Who and what are people really responding to when they yell at a server/technician/phone rep?

Is the customer always right? Is "right/wrong" even the standard we should be using in customer service?

Burning out: what causes it, and what can employer and employee do to reduce the toll on call center reps, IT techs, and those in all forms of service industries?

Canned language, scripts, flow charts, and the automation of customer service: why are we doing this to ourselves?

How do and should companies (regardless of size) engage their audience and deal with public relations issues?

What separates good customer service form great customer service, and is it possible to try too hard?