On December 1st The Entertainment Apps Conference will be held at the Sofitel hotel in Los Angeles.
The conference will bring together executives in the interactive and distribution departments of movie and distribution, as well as third party developers with apps platform providers, developers, technology providers and consumer electronic device makers.
The focus will be on efforts to develop new business models and strategies for monetizing long-form media content through self-contained apps. This be addressed through multiple daily sessions like ‘Movie Apps and Social Networks’ and ‘ The New TV Viewing Party’.
The trouble for long-form media at present is that there are few distribution channels for audiences to access the media and even less with solid profit returns. In my opinion, this one day event is the start of a new way of thinking for the industry when it comes to distribution.
The USA is fortunate enough to have Hulu, Netflix and Vudu to distribute long-form media to audience. Netflix this week announced that it would expand and start in the UK. But in Australia we haven’t got this luxury. We do have the odd online distributor like Bigpond movies and iTunes Store but, let’s be honest accessing long-form media usually ends up being pirated. Obviously this is not a good revenue source for anyone in the industry and with the explosion of mobile devices (and apps) – why not start entertainment apps for long-form media?
Elle Olivier
