Watch High School Musical 2 on Verizon mobile phones

Michael Goldstein of Stun Mobile Media and the USA group have been following the phenomenon of Disney High school Musical 2. over 11 million viewers tuned in to watch it.

July 26, 2007

Verizon Catches Disney Channel's "High School Musical 2" Fever with Special Promotions Designed to Highlight FiOS TV On Demand and Verizon Broadband Offerings

Burbank , CA – July 26, 2007 -- This summer, Verizon is teaming with Disney Channel and Disney Connection to create two unique promotions centered on the highly-anticipated Disney Channel Original Movie "High School Musical 2."

Beginning this week in select retail outlets in Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Verizon will offer new customers who activate FiOS TV service between July 16 and Aug. 5, a collectible, limited-edition "High School Musical 2" lunchbox. New and existing FiOS TV subscribers will be able to watch "High School Musical 2" prior to its linear Disney Channel premiere on Disney Channel on Demand. Verizon FiOS TV is one of a limited number of video services across the country that offers Disney Channel On Demand.

VerizonSurround.com – Verizon’s broadband entertainment portal -- and Disney Connection, an online entertainment destination available to Verizon broadband subscribers, are teaming together to bring users the “ Get in to Win Instant Win and Sweepstakes,” which includes a chance to win the ultimate barbeque party complete with a visit from one of the “High School Musical 2” cast members. Additional “High School Musical 2” features available to Verizon FiOS Internet and Verizon High Speed Internet customers through Disney Connection include a brand new game, behind-the-scenes video footage and a complete guide to planning a “High School Musical 2” party.

“We’re giving our customers the best opportunity to experience ’High School Musical 2’ in a variety of ways, including TV and broadband,” said Terry Denson, Verizon vice president – FiOS TV content and programming. “We are pleased that we are one of Disney’s few affiliate partners that offers the full portfolio of Disney assets, including Disney Channel, Disney on Demand and Disney Connection.”

"Partnering with Verizon is a great way for us to give fans of the 'High School Musical' franchise and Disney Channel viewers a little something extra, connecting them more deeply to our brands and the programming they love," said Nathalie Lubensky, senior vice president, affiliate marketing, Disney and ESPN Affiliate Sales and Marketing . "Our kid viewers are looking for experiences both on-air and online, and we are excited to be working with Verizon to bring these special offerings to their customers."

"High School Musical 2," part of the blockbuster Disney Channel Original Movie franchise, premieres Friday, August 17 (8:00 p.m., ET/PT) on Disney Channel U.S., and will be featured Saturday and Sunday, August 18 and 19 in online and on-air programming events hosted by the movie's cast. It will also premiere on Disney Channels around in the world beginning in September.

Visionary director and Emmy Award-winning Kenny Ortega returns to direct and, along with fellow Emmy-winning choreographers Charles Klapow and Bonnie Story, has created ground-breaking production numbers for the sequel. The teleplay was written by Peter Barsocchini, a former rock music journalist, who also wrote "High School Musical."

Reprising their singing and dancing roles are: Zac Efron as star athlete Troy Bolton, Vanessa Hudgens as brainy transfer student Gabriella Montez, Ashley Tisdale as drama club diva Sharpay Evans, Lucas Grabeel as her brother and on-stage partner, Ryan Evans, Corbin Bleu as teammate and best friend Chad Danforth and Monique Coleman as academic decathlete Taylor McKessie. Also returning are Alyson Reed as Ms. Darbus, Chris Warren, Jr. as Zeke, Olesya Rulin as Kelsi, KayCee Stroh as Martha, Ryne Sanborn as Jason and Bart Johnson as Coach Bolton. Mark Taylor (Disney Channel's "Eddie's Million Dollar Cook-Off") joins the cast as the country club manager, Mr. Fulton.

Disney Channel is a 24-hour kid-driven, family inclusive television network that taps into the world of kids and families through original series and movies. Currently available on basic cable in over 90 million U.S. homes and to millions of other viewers on 27 Disney Channels around the world, Disney Channel is part of the Disney-ABC Television Group.

Disney Online ( www.disney.com), a division of the Walt Disney Internet Group, produces the number one kids' entertainment and family community destination on the World Wide Web. Launched in 1996, Disney.com is the online gateway to all of the company's Disney-branded entertainment initiatives, providing comprehensive access to, and information about Disney movies, travel, television, games, mobile, music, shopping and live events. In addition, Disney Online develops and publishes a range of online products and services including Disney's Toontown Online, Playhouse Disney Preschool Time Online, Disney Game Downloads, Disney Game Kingdom, Disney Connection and Hot Shot Business.

Verizon provides FiOS TV and Internet services over the nation’s most advanced fiber-optic network that reaches all the way to customers’ homes. FiOS Internet provides downstream connection speeds as high as up to 30 to50 Mbps (megabits per second), and upstream connection speeds as high as up to 10 Mbps. Verizon FiOS TV offers a broad collection of all-digital programming, more than 20 high-definition channels, 8,600 video-on-demand titles and more.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), headquartered in New York, is a leader in delivering broadband and other wireline and wireless communication innovations to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers. Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, serving 60.7 million customers nationwide. Verizon's Wireline operations include Verizon Business, which delivers innovative and seamless business solutions to customers around the world, and Verizon Telecom, which brings customers the benefits of converged communications, information and entertainment services over the nation's most advanced fiber-optic network. A Dow 30 company, Verizon has a diverse workforce of more than 238,000 and last year generated consolidated operating revenues of more than $88 billion. For more information, visit www.verizon.com.

mobile phone internet radio show. content from your mobile phone

USA GROUP AND STUN MOBILE MEDIA HIGHLY RECOMMEND:

NowLive is a recently launched broadcast service for people to have a live radio talk show from just about anywhere.

On the plus side, you won’t have to download anything in order to get set up with NowLive. You can use your mobile phone, Skype or GoogleTalk to host your own talk show, and broadcast it live over the Internet. Each show can have multiple hosts, and the show’s page as embedded chat for listeners, and a media gallery that supports images, audio and video clips. NowLive is also a community at large, stocked with a photo gallery, a user directory and a host of current and upcoming live shows.

The profile pages, however, seem a bit piecemeal (as do a few other components of the NowLive site), and don’t highlight the important points of the broadcasting aspect of the site. Having a better calendar option, an area for archived shows, RSS capabilities and the ability to bookmark users and content would help improve the overall function and networking capabilities of NowLive.

Similar services include BlogTV and BlogTalkRadio.

Premium content from New Zealand and England is free on YouTube

Michael Goldstein of Stun Mobile Media and the USA Group started this blog to follow the YouTube phenomenon of offering the public premium content for free. It appears that TV networks from around the globe are embracing the ability of a new way to deliver premium content.

Kiwi Network TVNZ Partners With YouTube, Adds Own Branding To Channel

Posted By Robert Andrews - Tue 26 Jun 2007 06:30 AM PST

New Zealand’s TVNZ is the latest television network to sign a partnership deal with YouTube. As with YouTube’s earlier BBC partnerships, TVNZ will add to a branded channel program excerpts that act as a shop window for the broadcaster’s content. This deal was not amongst a range of content partners YouTube referred to when it unveiled nine international sites in Paris last week, and is said to be its first in Australasia. The partnership is non-exclusive and, indeed, even on YouTube, is branded under TVNZ’s on-demand identity, which also makes a range of full shows available for streaming and download at tvnzondemand.co.nz. (Release).

• BBC In Clips Deal With YouTube; Ad Rev Share; UK Blackout On News Clips

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Uploading User Created Content is Two Clicks away for Helio users on YouTube. How will Apple counter?

Michael Goldstein of Stun Mobile Media and the USA Group have been following the race to make apps for cell phone services that simplify uploading user genereated content to sites like YouTube. “The competition is forcing the mobile phone carriers to roll out services that its subscribers only dreamed about”, said Mr. Michael Goldstein of Stun Mobile Media and USA Group. He added, “people had these things they wanted on their wish list.” Apple’s iphone is running behind , and is more costly than Helio. Verizon and t-mobile are going after the music segment, and beginning to go after YouTube users. (Helio uses Sprint mobile service for voice and data) Meanwhile, Apple’s iphone camera is a paltry 2 mega pixel, while manufactures of mobile phones like Samsung have already perfected 10 mega pixel mobile-cam video phones that arrived more than 1 year ago. It’s not the software problems that Apple needs to perfect, but the outdated hardware, that will keep the YouTube mobile-cam video user-created-content, away from a company not even offering video. The deal between AT&T and Apple, is great for the consumer because the other carriers and manufacturers will finally be forced to release technologically advanced mobile phones that were until now, only for the asian market. Faster data speeds and lower prices for data are the next tools to fight for subscribers, after the smoke clears from getting our attention about the hardware and features aspect of this game. It might be all about the hardware if WIFI continues to grow.

The two-click YouTube upload and a dedicated, exclusive YouTube app for Helio will happen soon.

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Premium content is free on YouTube. Are the studios coming after your kids?

Kids have grown up stealing music, and now they're uploading premium content they don't have permission to use. So now what's going to happen? Are the studio's going to come after your kids and arrest them, or are they going to find ways to use this as a promotion tool.

If You Can't Beat 'Em…

Content owners need to rethink how they deal with online video sites



One of the biggest problems that content owners face today is that kids have grown up stealing music. The music industry fought this fight too long and as a result has lost this generation, which now expects to receive its video content in a similar way. Today's kids don't distinguish between web video and television—to them it's just content. Perhaps the lesson that traditional media companies should take from this example is to find ways to join consumers, not beat them.





What irks the studios is that disruptive companies like YouTube have built strong businesses based on users uploading premium content they don't have permission to use. It's not so much the fact that the content is on the platform. It's more that YouTube is not rewarding the studios as content owners with the advertising dollars it has been able to monetize from their content.







Alan Bell, Paramount Studios' executive vp and first chief technology officer, doesn't dispute that "YouTube is an efficient sharing platform," but he adds, "It's just not being used properly. Logically, it seems that a good idea is to have companies like YouTube simply develop software that serves the needs of the entertainment industry."

That would seem like an easy enough task, but before this happens, the parties need to resolve who owns the content copyright. Who is going to exploit the copyright? Who sells the advertising? And what assets go to what platform at what time?

"You write YouTube a letter and the content gets removed within eight hours," explains Bell. "But the site is so vast that the next day it's up on the platform again, posted by another user. One solution is to write software based on keywords that recognizes what content is up there. If it can recognize it, then it can be monetized.

"The technology of rights management today is not yet perfect," Bell continues. "So what we need to do in the meantime is to distinguish between 'fair use,' 'popular use' and 'reasonable use.' Identify what people want to do with those rights, and then package and market those rights accordingly."

This all makes sense, but I can't help but wonder if the studios are overthinking this a little. They are obsessed with their intellectual properties, and justifiably so. But we're not just dealing with IP piracy, we're dealing with a social lifestyle phenomenon.

"Everyone wants to consume their media the way they want to consume it. You can't control that," acknowledges Stefanie Henning, senior vp, global marketing and new media for Fox Television Studios. "But we do want an environment where consumers can get to our content in the best format possible on a platform that we're able to monetize."

Instead of waiting for YouTube to come up with a viable solution or worse yet, fighting the way consumers have grown accustomed to doing things, perhaps the studios should embrace it.

I'm not saying that the studios stop monitoring content posted on YouTube. Rather, I'm suggesting that content owners like the studios give consumers the same tools they've grown to expect from sites like YouTube.

"Users want to be passionate about what their interests are. The habit of sharing them has become a cultural phenomenon," says Richard Rosenblatt, founder and former chairman of MySpace. "Online Communities like YouTube, MySpace and me.TV are all about embracing self-expression."

Whether studios like it or not, users are going to find ways to rip off clips from favorite television shows like NBC's The Office. So let's give it to them. The TV studios already have the eyeballs and the advertising inventory. They also have branded content that keeps users coming back. Logically, they should be able to sell advertising, no matter where the audience is. The studios need make video clips available on their Web sites—not just what they want people to see, which they are already doing, but what people want to see.

Equally important, they need to provide the video-embed codes so users can share the content on any community pages they want. If users go to the studio's host site only once to get the codes to share on their community pages, it doesn't matter. Because with the right technology, the studio's host site can stream advertising to those feeds as part of the user experience.

Once users discover that some of the coolest clips from their favorite TV shows are posted online via the studio's site immediately after a show airs, the amount of unauthorized uploading of video content on sites like YouTube should diminish.

Better yet, the networks will have engaged thousands of users legitimately to virally market their content all over the Internet—just as they're already doing thanks to sites like YouTube.

To take it one step further, it wouldn't surprise me if the studios find ways to sign users up and reward "power users" for influencing the communities they reach—just like marketing practices in the early days of the Internet.


Stolen from a recent article by Michael Goldstein:
Michael Goldstein is COO and chief creative for Los Angeles-based Stun Mobile Media, specializing in the acquisition, creation and distribution of mobile content. He can be reached at mg@stunmobile.com.


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Find out more about the Author of this blog and see the original article at Mediaweek mediaweek.com