The winners for the 15th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards are decided on by members of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. (Just like the Oscars are voted on by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.)

The ceremony covers mostly hardcore genres across console and PC, including action games, massive multiplayer games, adventure games and more. It also has categories for casual, mobile and social. (Update: See a list of some winners at the end of this post.)

The event is taking place in Las Vegas at the Red Rock Resort, a swank location way off the Strip, where industry leaders gather annually as part of the games conference called DICE.

DICE, which stands for Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain, is a three-day summit featuring a number of talks by bigwigs from game studios like Bethesda Softworks, which published The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham City, which were both wildly successful over Christmas.

Because the show is far off the Strip and only has a few hundred attendees, it allows people to speak intimately about recent trends and key issues facing the industry. They even get to pat each other on the back; this morning, one grown man got on stage and bowed in front of some of the original game developers who worked at Atari back in the 80s.

The event tonight will be hosted by actor and stand-up comedian Jay Mohr, a former cast member on “Saturday Night Live” and self-described games enthusiast, who is known for roasting some of the industry celebrities being recognized.

The ceremony kicks off at 7:30 pm PT. To follow along, GameSpot will air a live Webcast of the IAAs here.

Update: Here are the winners from some of the major categories:

• Game of the Year: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bethesda Softworks
• Action Game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Activision
• Online Game Play: Star Wars: The Old Republic, Electronic Arts
• Mobile Game: Infinity Blade II, Epic Games
• Sports Game: FIFA 12, Electronic Arts
• Social Networking: The Sims Social, Electronic Arts
• Casual Game: Fruit Ninja Kinect, Halfbrick Studios

Here’s a very cute video trailer, titled “Off the Grid,” for the upcoming Academy Awards, the annual movie award show that will feature the return of host Billy Crystal.

It features cameos from a few well-known celebrities. Enjoy:

The advertisers are using the service to target consumers who are interested in real-time information about events, such as the Academy Awards show, or those who follow the moves of particular organizations or people.

Twitter’s best-known ad format, called Promoted Tweets, looks like a regular tweet. The ads appear in some users’ individual accounts, tailored to what Twitter knows about their personal interests, and when users type specific keywords into the heavily-used search box on Twitter.com.

Alex Beauchamp, a social business manager for Citrix Online, owner of conference-call service GoToMeeting, used a promoted tweet to take advantage of a sudden opportunity.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Apparently something funny, or interesting, or at least worth talking about on Twitter. And since there didn’t seem to be much of that during what I saw of last night’s show, I’d like to see it on YouTube this morning.

And I’m out of luck.

Which isn’t surprising. Just like it’s done for the past several years, Google’s video giant has been scrubbing the site clean of clips from last night’s show.

There’s an official Oscars YouTube channel, but it only has stuff from past shows and previews for Sunday’s broadcast (same goes for the official Oscar site). Maybe there’s a clip of Newman’s acceptance speech buried somewhere on the site, but I can’t find it. Even after I create a filter for newly uploaded clips, all I get are weird non-results and frustrating spam.

Again, not a surprise: Both Disney, which pays a lot for the right to broadcast the show on ABC, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which actually produces the thing, want me to regret not watching the show in real-time.

Big live events are the most valuable things on TV these days, so the people who put them on are trying their best to give real-time viewers carrots — Backstage Oscarscams! Twitter and Facebook feeds! Etc! —  give half-watchers like me the stick.

This is very much a replay of the Grammy awards from earlier this month. And that show had its biggest audience in years, so I don’t see anything changing in the short-term.

Which is a mistake. Because not everyone’s going to watch all of every big live event on TV. And some of us — probably a pretty big number — would like to catch up the next day.

But the half-life for this stuff is very, very short, and its gets shorter all the time. I can’t imagine caring very much about Randy Newman, or anything else on last night’s show, by this afternoon.

See you next year, or not.

The movie won prizes for best film editing, best original score and best adapted screenplay. But its honorees spent their speeches complimenting each other rather than playing homage to their inspiration in Palo Alto. And no Winklevii appeared in person, despite how good the litigious twins might have looked in tuxes.

“The Social Network” had also been nominated for best actor (Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg), best cinematography, best director (David Fincher) and best sound mixing.

“The King’s Speech” was the big winner of the night, taking four Academy Awards, including best picture.

The movie was nominated for best picture, while Jesse Eisenberg was nominated for best actor for his portrayal of Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, David Fincher for best director and Aaron Sorkin for adapted screenplay.

We probably won’t be seeing the famously underdressed Zuckerberg in a tux anytime soon. Given the film was unauthorized and took liberties with all-too-recent history, it’s highly unlikely he would attend the awards show. But Zuckerberg has had more of a sense of humor about the movie than might be expected–he rented out a local theater so he and his staff could watch the film on opening day, and has said in interviews that the creators did get his hoodies and T-shirts right, if nothing else.

“The Social Network” was also picked as a finalist for the Academy Award in cinematography, film editing, original score and sound mixing.

But it wasn’t the most-lauded film of the morning. “The King’s Speech” had 12 Oscar nominations and “True Grit” had 10.

“The Social Network” has already won Golden Globes for best picture (drama), best director, best screenplay and best original score, as well as a pile of film critics’ awards.

“The Social Network” racked up awards in earlier film competitions, but the Oscars of course are the big show. The Academy Awards ceremony is Feb. 27.

For those who want to watch along at home, the nominations Web cast starts at 5:30 am PT on Tuesday, with the contenders in the 10 big categories announced at 5:38.

“The Bachelor” host Chris Harrison, Entertainment Weekly’s Dave Karger, AMPAS boss Tom Sherak and 2010 Best Supporting Actress winner Mo’Nique have been commissioned to wake up early and make reading a list of names slightly more entertaining.

Tuesday’s live show is being put on by Livestream, ABC and the Academy. If you want to catch the big show later this month, you’ll have to tune into actual broadcast TV, though the Oscar Web site will have some red carpet and behind-the-scenes stuff.

“The Social Network” won best picture (drama), best director, screenplay and original score at this year’s Golden Globes, adding to a pile of film critics awards.

If you’re in the mood tomorrow to live stream something more serious (not that honoring a fictionalized version of Mark Zuckerberg’s college indiscretions is light fare), President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address is Tuesday evening. Starting at 6 pm PT, Obama’s speech will play live on the White House Web site alongside charts, graphs and other content coordinated with the subject matter.

Embedded below is a placeholder that should include the Oscar nomination livestream when it starts. See you then!

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Update: The nominations are out, and “The Social Network” received eight, including best picture.

Wouldn’t it be cool if Mark Zuckerberg donned a hoodie-tuxedo and ran up and grabbed any statuette actor Jesse Eisenberg won over the next few months, as the Hollywood awards season gears up?

Eisenberg, of course, played the Facebook co-founder and CEO in the movie “The Social Network,” which just grabbed a clutch of Golden Globe Awards nominations today.

Next stop, the Oscars, where the controversial retelling of the founding of Facebook will likely also garner a spate of nominations when they are announced in early February.

And many in Hollywood think the “The Social Network” will win big at the Academy Awards, even though it was not a blockbuster, due to the rave reviews and its fancy pedigree.

Along with Eisenberg’s Best Actor nod for the Golden Globe Awards–which take place in mid-January and is often a harbinger for the Oscars–writer Aaron Sorkin got a nomination for Best Screenplay, David Fincher nabbed one for Best Director, and Andrew Garfield and Armie Hammer each scored for Best Supporting Actor.

The film itself, in a key category, got a nomination for Best Motion Picture in the drama category.

Maybe a sequel is in order?

It’s just a post on the popular entertainment blog “Deadline Hollywood.”

But it’s a clear indication the makers of the movie about the origins of Facebook are gunning for maximum attention and Oscar buzz with only a few weeks to go before its debut.

In fact, awards columnist Pete Hammond was pretty much channeling the marketing plan of Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin for “The Social Network,” which has its premiere in New York on September 24 and its wide rollout on October 1.

Rudin–the volcano of a producer about whom I would like to see a biopic like the one he is sticking it to Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg with–has apparently been personally inviting every online chatterbox (not me!) and their mother to screenings of the film from the Sony (SNE) movie unit, Columbia Pictures, in recent weeks.

Writes Hammond:

It’s a smart strategy but even without a personal invitation from one of the film’s producers this is already the current must-see movie on every Oscar watchers list. As an example of that, one blogger actually got on a plane from Toronto to New York just to see Social Network, then headed immediately back to Toronto. His subsequent review was a rave declaring it the one to beat for Best Picture (a little premature on that I think). That’s just one example of the praise now starting to hit the Internet from Hitfix to Slashfilm to Chud and all cyber points inbetween.

A little premature perhaps, but it seems to have worked with Hammond:

I saw it at the first opportunity on Monday and would have to say fairly objectively that The Social Network is Sony’s best shot at Best Picture in years, a lock for Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards. And most importantly, Oscar nominations in every major category including Director for David Fincher, Writing for Aaron Sorkin, lead actor for Jesse Eisenberg (playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg), Supporting Actor for both Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score, editing and so on. It also looks like it will be a major box office hit, hitting a nerve with the young demographic that are on the front lines of moviegoers…

Despite its high-tech bones, what Fincher and Sorkin have managed to do is tell a time-honored very human story, a social document for a generation that has as much relevance now as movies like On The Waterfront, Network, All The President’s Men, and The Graduate did in their time.

Expect more of the same from those who get sucked up into the marketing machine for “The Social Network” in the next weeks, even though it appears it will be devastating to the real-life version of its main subject, Mark Zuckerberg.

And really, really unfair, according to MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka, by taking one aspect of his personality–awkward arrogance or perhaps arrogant awkwardness–and twisting it into a much deeper malevolence.

I have no doubt in my mind that Zuckerberg pulled an epic geek sandbagging on the clueless Winklevoss twins by promising to work on their goofy concept for a social networking site at Harvard University, then not doing so and working on his own ideas instead.

And, for sure, he had a painfully typical start-up falling-out with his own early partners.

But let’s get real here–they all got paid off plenty for being present at the creation of something they themselves never could have created.

Does anyone honestly believe the Winklevii were capable of making Facebook, or any reasonable facsimile, any more than Zuckerberg was capable of rowing in the Olympics?

While hitting some right notes about Zuckerberg’s mannerisms–conversations with him can be very perplexing–the Mark of “The Social Network” is largely fictional.

Certainly, he has some glaring faults (and so do I!).

But they are no worse that other tech leaders’, from Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT) to Steve Jobs of Apple (AAPL) to Silicon Valley’s own twins, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google (GOOG).

Interestingly, the night before what turned out to be a very difficult onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June, at a dinner just south of Los Angeles, Zuckerberg fretted to me about the film.

“It’s what a lot of people will think I am like, because it’s a movie and that has impact on their perceptions,” he said with a lot of concern in his voice.

I pooh-poohed his complaints and told him not to worry about it too much.

“It’s just a movie,” I said. “No one believes what they see at the movies anymore.”

But as this film chugs along–gaining Oscar velocity right onto the stage of the Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard on February 27, 2011–I can now see Zuckerberg might have been right all along.

Squint and you can see the Apple (AAPL) co-founder and CEO in the middle of shot, standing to the right of the woman in a white dress (click to enlarge).

Thanks to CNET’s intrepid Caroline McCarthy for spotting the shot. I asked Sutton to expand on the caption and he obliged, via email:

“I was a part of the Kodak red carpet guest blogger access. Steve looked surprised when I was yelling his name. I was the only one yelling from my section of the bleachers. Others were like, ‘Who’s he and why am I yelling,’ because he’s not in a movie.”

Jobs, of course, does have a good reason to be at the Oscars: Pixar, the company he sold to Disney (DIS) in 2006, is in the running for multiple Academy Awards. Note that he does not seem to be carrying a sack of iPads to hand out.

And here’s a more intimate shot of Jobs at the event, via Jon M. Chu (who is the director of something called “The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers,” which has an Oscar performance planned for the evening).

On the off chance that the Jobs sightings and photos are part of a baroque prank/publicity stunt, I’ve asked Apple PR to confirm his attendance at tonight’s awards.

Oh. And here’s first iPad commercial, which ran during the broadcast (via Engadget):

“Search and advertising, we are a small share….It’s all about Google. They have share, we don’t have share.” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that back in February, and according to the latest metrics from comScore (SCOR), it’s as true today as it was then. Google (GOOG) grew its share of the search market once again in April, and once again, Microsoft (MSFT) did not. The search sovereign’s share rose to 64.2 percent in April from 63.7 percent in March and 61.6 percent from a year ago, according to new data from comScore. Its April query volume grew 45.5 percent, the fastest growth rate since October 2007. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s market share for the month topped out at 8.2 percent, down from 8.3 percent in March and 9.1 percent a year ago.

They have share, we don’t have share. Truer words. How much longer will Ballmer have to utter them? We may find out today when he debuts Microsoft’s newest search offering from the D7 stage.

Live Blog

• After another song from Jill Sobule and some introductory remarks, Walt welcomes Steve Ballmer to the stage. He’s drinking a massive iced-coffee, as if he really needs the caffeine …
• Walt kicks things off with a question about the souring economy. Ballmer’s opinion of it is apparently more sober than most. Ballmer says this is a “different recession. A recession implies that you sort of go down and go up. In this case, I think this is money that’s just got to come out of the economy….We’re really resetting the economy. Maybe we should think of today as normal and yesterday as the bluebird.” So how long will this continue, asks Walt. Ballmer says to think things will return to the good old days quickly is naive….“Is this a 50-year phenomenon? I don’t think so. But it’s not going to be over in three months, either.”
• So how does this affect your business? Ballmer says Microsoft (MSFT) is doing a lot of soul-searching and flattening out its business and cost base. “We’re shaking up the future product investment stream.” That said, he notes that the company continues to invest aggressively in R&D. “We’re investing in areas where there’s room for improvement.” Interesting euphemism.
• Referring to poll data, Walt notes Microsoft’s paltry share of the search market. “There’s a lot of distance between you and Google,” he says. “Is search the most important thing to you as CEO or are you more concerned with Windows, etc.?” “Our foremost concern is great people,” says Ballmer. “I spend more of my time on talent than trying to be ‘the search guy.’” He refers to Microsoft’s “seven big things.” What are they? “I’ve got seven children, I love,” says Ballmer, referring to Microsoft’s various businesses. “Look, we’re obviously where we are in search and we want to do better….We’re hoping to be one of the companies that moves the industry forward….The PC business continues to be big, we’re going through an economic reset, but there’s still vibrance there.”

• Ha. Walt convinces Ballmer to refer to Google (GOOG) as Google, rather than “the market leader” as he has in years past. “Goo… Google,” he says.
• Walt refers to another slide about search–how consumers choose search. He notes that most choose search out of habit and because of the brand. Given that, how can Microsoft compete? We’re about to find out apparently. But first a video…
• It’s a “Star Trek” parody– “Search: the final frontier. To boldly go where someone had gone before.” “A bold search for a new name.” Video runs over Microsoft’s chronic renaming of its search engine.
• And there it is: the new name is “Bing.”

• Referring to Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs, Ballmer jokes that the name might have been Boom–“We should have named it ‘BOOM!’”
• Why Bing? Obviously we needed a better name, says Ballmer. “We needed a name that says this is all about search.” Ballmer doesn’t seem to really know. “I’m not the creative guy, here…short mattered…people like to ‘verb up’…works globally, doesn’t have negative connotations.” Walt: So everyone is going to walk out of here and say “Bing me”? Clearly that’s Ballmer’s hope. “This is a very important step…it’s not a substitute for innovation, but we need to build brand equity in addition to technology equity.”
• Was securing the trademark problematic? Ballmer says there were a few challenges. Bing Crosby, apparently, was not an issue. In any case, Ballmer seems to enjoy saying the word of his new search service. Maybe Microsoft should consider a new name for Zune. “Zing”?
• Ballmer brings out Yusuf Mehdi to demo Bing. It’s going live on June 3. From a UI perspective, it’s a box and a button format with screensaver-esque background. Demoing basic Web searches. Best Match denotes an official or definitive site–the site we know to be authoritative. Instant Answer–answers to obvious questions delivered along with search returns; a search for Oscars immediately returns a result for who won an Academy Award. A search for UPS (UPS) automatically returns a customer service number at the top of the page. Walt asks to search on “Microsoft.” Much laughter, but the search return does feature a customer service number.
• Bing also returns real-time flight data. Handy. Mehdi notes that Bing includes the technology Microsoft acquired when it purchased Powerset. Using it to “understand” pages, mine data. Walt notes that returns from Encarta, Microsoft’s now-defunct encyclopedia, appear along with material from Wikipedia. “Encarta? What’s that?” he jokes. Ballmer chuckles: “Encarta is an encyclopedia…that is not getting much ongoing investment.”

• Demoing media searches now. Video searches pull up a nice screen of thumbnails that play in the search pane when clicked. On to weather. Bing gives a full five-day forecast, as opposed to what Google offers–a single day, I think. Search for a city returns, weather, events, sports games, video mentions of the area.
• On to shopping. A search for a Canon (CAJ) camera returns a hybrid search shopping page. Price comparisons, user reviews. Also, Cashback, which rewards people for purchases made through the site. Here’s a nice feature: Farecast. Flight search–issues a query across airlines by price, hops, etc. Also tracks flight pricing trends. Tells you if your fare is likely to go up.
• Bing seems to be designed specifically to keep people on its search pages as opposed to sending them off to other sites. Is that what Microsoft is trying to do? Won’t this annoy content owners? Ballmer says no and adds that content deals are possible. “We’re not trying to get in the way of copyright holders,” he says. “If value should be redivided somehow between content providers, advertisers and search engines, let’s have that conversation….We’re not trying to profit off of anyone else’s work.”
• Recalling Ask’s big redesign and it’s subsequent rise and fall, Walt asks if the same thing might happen to Bing. “No,” says Ballmer. Bing is too tremendous a stride. It differentiates itself from Google. It might not appeal to everyone, but if it appeals to 20 percent of them, that’s a success. Ask wasn’t able to do that.
• Ballmer: “Search has not been a dynamic category in terms of innovation.”
• Not at Microsoft, anyway …

• Walt circles back and notes that Ask spent an enormous amount of money on a rebranding campaign that ultimately failed despite some good buzz. How much money is Microsoft dedicating to the Bing branding campaign? “Lots,” says Ballmer. “When I approved the budget, I gulped, and a gulp in a $60 billion company, well, that’s a big gulp.”
• Walt asks Ballmer about the overhaul of Windows and how important it is in an era when we’re moving to cloud-based services and from PCs to netbooks and mobile devices. Ballmer seems puzzled by the question. Smartphones are PCs. Netbooks are PCS. “The Web is designed for the PC….Most of these mobile apps are substituting for the fact that the original app wasn’t designed for the PC,” he says.
• Walt refers to some survey data again. Notes that many consumers say they don’t plan to purchase a netbook in the near future. How do you interpret that? Ballmer: “I just think netbook is a funny brand….What is a netbook? Is it defined by its operating system, its memory, its screen size? They’re really just PCs. I bet if you asked people if they planned to buy a portable computer you’d get a much better response….It’s a little hard to know what the heck the difference is between the netbook and the PC.”
• Walt: Windows 7 is on track? Ballmer: “I’m not sure what ‘track’ it is, but whatever it is, it’s on it.”
• On to the Q&A. First question: How is Microsoft going to convince users to learn the new Windows 7 and Office UI? Ballmer says change is difficult. Notes that he hates whenever The Wall Street Journal changes its format. He says Microsoft’s internal testing has determined that the changes the company has made to the OS and Office suite are good ones that will be embraced. That said, there will always be some difficulties.
• Questioner asks about natural-language search, wondering how Bing would deal with a search for a Hilton hotel in Paris, when there’s the possibility that it might return a list of results for Paris Hilton. He asks for a demo, but Ballmer declines. He can try it for himself on June 3.
• Question about Microsoft’s efforts in the medical arena. Ballmer: “Health’s a tough business. People who make IT decisions in the medical industry don’t make them quickly.” That said, Microsoft is “full speed ahead” in the area.
• How is Microsoft differentiating sponsored searches in Bing? Cashback is obviously differentiated, Ballmer says. Paid side is tougher though.
• Final question from Walt: Does Bing mean that your interest in Yahoo (YHOO) is waning? Ballmer jokingly recites the standard bullet points. “I think there’s a lot that can make sense in terms of a search partnership, not an acquisition,” he says in a monotone. “Whether such a thing will happen I don’t know.” Walt presses him further about a meeting between Ballmer and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz. Ballmer jokes that the meeting was actually a note that Bartz left for him in the Green Room. According to Ballmer, it read: “The makeup couldn’t fix me if it tried.”
• Quick update: we managed to get our hands on the actual note: It was left next to the makeup in the Green Room and reads:

Steve,

Forget it

Won’t help

Ha

Carol

A note about our coverage: This liveblog is not an official transcript of the conversation that occurred onstage. Rather, it is a compilation of quotes, paraphrased statements and ad-lib observations written and posted to the Web as quickly as we were able. It was not intended as a transcript and should not be interpreted as one.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090528/d7-interview-steve-ballmer/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20090223/oscars-youtube-no-show/ http://allthingsd.com/20090223/oscars-youtube-no-show/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:30:13 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=4492 Looking for highlights of last night’s Oscars on YouTube? Good luck.

That’s because ABC, which broadcast last night’s show, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which produces the event, don’t want clips of last night’s show on the world’s biggest video site. Instead, they’d prefer that you watch highlights on ABC’s Oscar.com site.

I understand the thinking. After all, Disney’s (DIS) ABC supposedly commands crazily high ad rates for Oscar.com. I’m told that last year, ABC could charge advertisers more than $70 for every thousand eyeballs that visited the site–at least double what other big media sites can command on the Web.

Still, you’d think that ABC, the Academy and Google’s (GOOG) video site could figure out a way to get visitors at least a taste of what happened last night via YouTube, and then eventually direct those eyeballs to the official site.

But if you look for “Oscar” on YouTube this morning, you’ll get a series of official ABC/Oscar-endorsed highlights from last year’s show at the top of the search results. And if you look deeper than that, you’ll find grainy, shaky footage from YouTube uploaders who recorded clips of last night’s show on camcorders.

That’s a Fail, as the Web folks like to say. YouTube users don’t get what they want, and ABC and the Academy don’t give them a compelling reason to come to the official site.

Then again, maybe YouTube users don’t really care about the Oscars that much–unless it gives them a chance to see one of their favorites stars walking or talking.  Video tracking service TubeMogul says that unofficial Oscar clips have generated  470,000 views on YouTube since last night–and that unofficial clips of “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson’s appearance on the show generated another 300,000 views.

Don’t know who Robert Pattinson is? I’m in the same boat. But he’s what the kids are into these days.

And here’s my favorite highlight from last night’s show, which I can’t find on either YouTube or Oscar.com: Seth Rogen and James Franco reprising their roles from last summer’s “Pineapple Express”; thanks to FirstShowing.net for this one.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090223/oscars-youtube-no-show/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090222/the-oscars-the-partys-moved-elsewhere/ http://allthingsd.com/20090222/the-oscars-the-partys-moved-elsewhere/#comments Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:18:58 +0000 Oliver J. Chiang http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=13347

This year, the Oscars ceremony will remain decidedly low tech: There won’t be any live online streams where you can watch the 81st Academy Awards.

Because it’s easier to monetize eyeballs directed at television screens rather than computer monitors, your choices are limited to broadcasters ABC in the U.S. and Sky in the U.K.–and a big, fat nada for those who receive neither.

But seriously, who watches the three-hour-plus televised Oscars anymore anyway? Not many, apparently: Last year’s ratings were the lowest in history. This year, besides seeing if a probably singing-and-dancing Wolverine Hugh Jackman can entertain where so many before have failed, learning if your Best Picture prediction hit the mark, or even hoping to catch Christian Bale “Bale out” (a term meaning to unleash an F-bomb-laden tirade–it’s even defined in the urban dictionary now) some poor unsuspecting red carpet usher, there’s not a lot of buzz around the event.

No, like any other big entertainment or sporting event, the awards ceremony itself is but a small part of the experience. The real fun goes on around the Oscars, in Web site predictors, mobile apps and other interactive technology.

Tracking the Winners

Sites like Awards Daily put up Oscar predictions, including a table gathering the guesses of a group of its writers and readers (caution: It might cause glazing-over of the eyes).

But Awards Daily also has tracked the other awards the Oscar nominees have won in the past year, including the Golden Globes and BAFTA. This will provide some helpful research for when you go to fill in your Oscar ballot at the New York Times, where you can compete with others and have your card scored in real time. And Yahoo, conducting a poll, shows the movies favored to grab the little golden man by percentage of user votes.

Meanwhile, “Colbert Report” host Stephen Colbert gave his own predictions earlier last week using what he calls DaColbert Code (as in the DaVinci Code). His ability to “see patterns” consists of using a word/name association game. For instance, starting from last year’s Best Actress Marion Cotillard, he arrives at a Kate Winslet prediction through a series of phrases, including “rice pilaf,” “Clockwork Orange” and “Malcolm X.” Hey, everybody’s got a system, so nobody said it had to be a good one.

And for the truly devoted, or those who are just more interested in the fashion than the films, People.com has put up a Predict-a-Gown photo quiz. Will Cameron Diaz wear the White Valentino or the Black Oscar de la Renta? You see, these are the critical questions we need to be asking, and only the good folks at People were brave enough to ask them.

Mobile and Web 2.0

iPhone’s App Store has some popular Oscar apps like the “Awards: Oscars Edition” and “Hollywood Trivia: The Oscar Quiz,” which provide all sorts of fun interactive functionality in ballots, games and history. See a list of the top apps at VentureBeat.

Meanwhile, if you want to tap into the Bollywood fanbase, especially inspired by the many nominations for “Slumdog Millionaire” this year, go to Saavn.com, which is hosting a Bollywood-Facebook widget. The widget tracks the Facebook status updates of users talking about the Oscars.

And of course, what Web 2.0 party would be complete without Twitter? Use either #Oscars or #aa09 when searching for relevant updates. You can also subscribe to @watchwithcomics, a group of comedians who will be live-Twittering the event. One recent update there was “10 People Who Would Be Better Hosts than Hugh Jackman,” which included “Wolverine” and “Mini-Chris Brown and Mini-Rihanna.” Wow, these guys aren’t joking around.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090222/the-oscars-the-partys-moved-elsewhere/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090222/the-oscars-the-partys-moved-elsewhere-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20090222/the-oscars-the-partys-moved-elsewhere-2/#comments Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:18:58 +0000 Oliver J. Chiang http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=13347

This year, the Oscars ceremony will remain decidedly low tech: There won’t be any live online streams where you can watch the 81st Academy Awards.

Because it’s easier to monetize eyeballs directed at television screens rather than computer monitors, your choices are limited to broadcasters ABC in the U.S. and Sky in the U.K.–and a big, fat nada for those who receive neither.

But seriously, who watches the three-hour-plus televised Oscars anymore anyway? Not many, apparently: Last year’s ratings were the lowest in history. This year, besides seeing if a probably singing-and-dancing Wolverine Hugh Jackman can entertain where so many before have failed, learning if your Best Picture prediction hit the mark, or even hoping to catch Christian Bale “Bale out” (a term meaning to unleash an F-bomb-laden tirade–it’s even defined in the urban dictionary now) some poor unsuspecting red carpet usher, there’s not a lot of buzz around the event.

No, like any other big entertainment or sporting event, the awards ceremony itself is but a small part of the experience. The real fun goes on around the Oscars, in Web site predictors, mobile apps and other interactive technology.

Tracking the Winners

Sites like Awards Daily put up Oscar predictions, including a table gathering the guesses of a group of its writers and readers (caution: It might cause glazing-over of the eyes).

But Awards Daily also has tracked the other awards the Oscar nominees have won in the past year, including the Golden Globes and BAFTA. This will provide some helpful research for when you go to fill in your Oscar ballot at the New York Times, where you can compete with others and have your card scored in real time. And Yahoo, conducting a poll, shows the movies favored to grab the little golden man by percentage of user votes.

Meanwhile, “Colbert Report” host Stephen Colbert gave his own predictions earlier last week using what he calls DaColbert Code (as in the DaVinci Code). His ability to “see patterns” consists of using a word/name association game. For instance, starting from last year’s Best Actress Marion Cotillard, he arrives at a Kate Winslet prediction through a series of phrases, including “rice pilaf,” “Clockwork Orange” and “Malcolm X.” Hey, everybody’s got a system, so nobody said it had to be a good one.

And for the truly devoted, or those who are just more interested in the fashion than the films, People.com has put up a Predict-a-Gown photo quiz. Will Cameron Diaz wear the White Valentino or the Black Oscar de la Renta? You see, these are the critical questions we need to be asking, and only the good folks at People were brave enough to ask them.

Mobile and Web 2.0

iPhone’s App Store has some popular Oscar apps like the “Awards: Oscars Edition” and “Hollywood Trivia: The Oscar Quiz,” which provide all sorts of fun interactive functionality in ballots, games and history. See a list of the top apps at VentureBeat.

Meanwhile, if you want to tap into the Bollywood fanbase, especially inspired by the many nominations for “Slumdog Millionaire” this year, go to Saavn.com, which is hosting a Bollywood-Facebook widget. The widget tracks the Facebook status updates of users talking about the Oscars.

And of course, what Web 2.0 party would be complete without Twitter? Use either #Oscars or #aa09 when searching for relevant updates. You can also subscribe to @watchwithcomics, a group of comedians who will be live-Twittering the event. One recent update there was “10 People Who Would Be Better Hosts than Hugh Jackman,” which included “Wolverine” and “Mini-Chris Brown and Mini-Rihanna.” Wow, these guys aren’t joking around.

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