Top Pick
HBO must get bigger and broader, says its new overseer
It's not TV. It's HBO.
Or, it was HBO. Now it's TV. New owner John Stankey gave an all-hands to HBO staff that was honest, transparent, confusing, and worrying. There's too much to get into in the scope of this text, but it suffices to say that the brand of HBO as we know it is over. HBO 2.0 is going to be AT&T's flagship network, the banner under which it builds its Netflix competitor.
Netflix wasn't actually mentioned in this all-hands, but the subtext was clear. Despite HBO posting $6bn in profit over the past 3 years, and doubling its subscriber count from 2m to 5m over the past 2 years, Stankey says it's not enough. AT&T bought HBO to scale it up, and the shadow monster looming overhead is Netflix—not to mention Amazon and Disney.
We can only hope, as it relentlessly chases daily minutes watched and quantity of time spent, that this new HBO doesn't forget or lose the level of quality that it has worked so hard to build over the decades.
Features
How Warframe increased its annual keynote audience by 25x
Warframe, a massively popular free-to-play game developed by Digital Extremes, has quietly grown to become one of the most popular and highly rated games on the market. This is no accident. Digital Extremes deeply listens to and interacts with their fans in a way that anyone could learn from.
Last week they held their annual fan convention, streaming the keynote live on Twitch. The twist was a promise of reward: a free in-game item to viewers who watched the stream for more than 30 minutes.
The result? 25x increase in viewership compared to last year's keynote–2335% to be precise. They peaked at a not-too-shabby 414,000 concurrent viewers.
Interactive Media
Snapchat is working on a feature that can find products you snap on Amazon
This week an unreleased feature was spotted in the code of Snapchat’s Android app by an app researcher who tipped off TechCrunch. It would identify objects, songs, and barcodes from users’ cameras by sending the data to Amazon, Shazam, and other companies.
To use the feature the user would take a photo of an object, which will pull up sellers of the products and reviews. The feature will allow the user to copy the Amazon link, share, and send to friends. As it is only a potenital feature, and is not live yet it could be a great feature for Snapchat and Amazon.
Storytelling
An exclusive look at Boiler Room’s new series of short films, Science of Sound
How much do you know about sound? If you answered, "not enough", check out this series of short films called Science of Sound. The video here is equal parts informative, entertaining, and retro. The trifecta of content worth consuming.
YouTube debuts plan to promote and fund 'authoritative' news
Youtube and sister company Google aims to take a more proactive role in news validation on the platform.
For many reasons, Youtube and other similar video sharing platforms have been identified as potential sources of the recent and excessive misinformation online.
In an effort to address the problem of misinformation online, Youtube will be making changes to the platform and algorithms which present and promote content to its users. In the coming weeks, YouTube will start to display an information panel above videos about developing stories, which will include a link to an article that Google News deems to be most relevant and authoritative on the subject.
Esports
The future of Fortnite may look a lot like Playground mode
Epic Games plan to retire Fortnite’s Playground, a special game mode that offered a more creative experience to game users. Playground mode had a huge impact to new and old game players alike - it allowed new players to learn the game but spurring viral social media conversation among long time Fortnite players. It ain't all bad news though, the retirement of the mode will coincide with the launch of the game’s next season.
'Overwatch' skin raised more than $10 millon for breast cancer research
In May, Overwatch added its first paid skin for the much loved healer Mercy at $15. Some may think this is a lot of money for a skin, however, all proceeds went to a good cause, the breast Cancer Research Foundation. (BCRF).
It has now been revealed that the drive raised $12.7 million. This was the largest donation from a corporate partner in a single year in BCRF's 25-year history. At Rerun we think this is a great idea, and one we hope to see in more of in the future.
BBC's animated World Cup film
This weekend either France or Croatia will be bringing home the World Cup Trophy. The BBC decided to create this beautiful animated trailer using real embroideries that highlight important retrospective moments following this year’s competition.
We’ll be cheering along with our Axonista team members from France and Croatia.
That's all from the Rerun team at Axonista. Have a fantastic week and we look forward to sharing more news on the future of TV and interactive video next week.