AllThingsD » animation

Tom Hanks Brings "Electric City" to Yahoo

Peter Kafka — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:26:12 +0000

More new blood for Yahoo, this time in the form of a Hollywood star: Tom Hanks and his Playtone productions are creating an animated series for the Web giant. Hanks will also star in “Electric City,” which Yahoo is describing as an “action-packed sci-fi adventure series,” which will run for a total of 90 minutes — across 20 three- to five-minute episodes — and will kick off this spring. Yahoo says the show will feature all sorts of cross-platform interactive bells and whistles.

Now What? The Post-Jobs Era in Tech.

Kara Swisher — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:17:29 +0000

As Steve Jobs famously said to rival Bill Gates of Microsoft in a joint interview with Walt Mossberg and me in 2007, “You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.” And perhaps what is most amazing about Jobs was his longevity.

Not in life, of course, which was cut tragically short at 56 years, with his last years focused a lot on the cancer that would ultimately defeat him.

Actually, by longevity, I mean how the iconic entrepreneur continued, until the very end, to have an enormous impact over all of technology and especially in Silicon Valley.

It is easy to see that Jobs has been the single consistent tech tastemaker and true-north icon — even in the frantically changing, what’s-new-is-best atmosphere that too often prevails in the industry.

The list of tech and media arenas he changed via innovative thinking and, more importantly, action, is long — from graphics to design to touchscreens to smartphones to tablets to animation to ease of use to apps to quality to, well, you get the idea.

The hits seemed nonstop: The Macintosh. The iPod. And iTunes. The MacBook. The iPhone. The iPad.

And it is no stretch to say that even the brightest lights in tech and media always watched what he did and were influenced by him, reacted to him, changed because he changed.

In many ways, it was because Jobs never seemed to waver.

Let’s be clear, this is not an easy thing to do, to keep sailing on your own course, often against the prevailing winds, and not be swayed.

Perhaps that is the thing that Jobs most exemplified — a stubborn unwillingness to adjust who he was, maintaining an integrity of purpose and vision when others could not.

It is certainly what has made him — and by extension, Apple — so special. Of course, it is not that he was not difficult, capricious and cutting at times. But even that he owned.

So who and what does tech look to now for that kind of inspiration?

Certainly, at this moment, there is no one leader to fill Jobs’s outsized shoes.

The founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin? Quirky, curious, arrogant, but so, so prosaic.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg? Still forming, so awkward and not yet the leader he might become.

Jeff Bezos of Amazon? Certainly creative and bold, but utterly lacking in the moxie and style of Steve.

I could go on and not get to anyone even slightly close — there’s no one with the kind of charisma that makes it impossible to look away.

It’s called inspiration, a quality so lacking in all parts of this world, making it hard to imagine any replacement for Jobs.

And, in a way, why should we try to find one?

As Jobs himself said in his memorable “Stay hungry. Stay foolish” speech at Stanford University, right after he recovered from his first bout with cancer:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “no” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important thing I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

No reason at all. So, as we all wish Jobs could have done, let’s live on.

And so will Steve Jobs. As AllThingsD Web guru Adam Tow said about the innovative Siri voice control feature in the latest iPhone 4 — introduced earlier this week without Jobs being there to present — perhaps Siri stands for: Steve is right inside.

Yes, indeed. Because his DNA lives in all of Apple. And, of course, in Silicon Valley and in tech, forever and always.

But we move on, too, so here is a video I did yesterday with WSJ.com on what impact Jobs’s death may have on Apple and whether the company will remain an innovator and market leader:

[ See post to watch video ]

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Essay: Jobs's Departure as CEO of Apple Is the End of an Extraordinary Era

Walt Mossberg — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 01:18:37 +0000

Steve Jobs’s resignation as chief executive officer of Apple is the end of an extraordinary era, not just for Apple, but for the global technology industry in general. Jobs is a historic business figure whose impact was deeply felt far beyond the company’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, and who was widely emulated at other companies.

And now, for the first time since 1997, he won’t be the company’s chief executive.

To be very clear, Jobs, while seriously ill, is very much alive. Extremely well-informed sources at Apple say he intends to remain involved in developing major future products and strategy and intends to be an active chairman of the board, even while new CEO Tim Cook runs the company day to day.

So, this is not an obituary. But his health is reported to be up and down, and even an active chairman isn’t the same as a CEO.

CEOs resign every day, so why is this departure so meaningful?

Most people are lucky if they can change the world in one important way, but Jobs, in multiple stages of his business career, changed global technology, media and lifestyles in multiple ways on multiple occasions.

He did it because he was willing to take big risks on new ideas, and not be satisfied with small innovations fed by market research. He also insisted on high quality and had the guts to leave out features others found essential and to kill technologies, like the floppy drive and the removable battery, he decided were no longer needed. And he has been a brilliant marketer, personally passionate about his products.

In his first act at Apple, the company he co-founded in 1976, he helped envision and catalyze the personal computer revolution. The Apple II computer he developed with Steve Wozniak wasn’t the only mass-market PC released in 1977, but it was the one that had the most enduring impact.

In 1984, he again upended computing by leading the development of the Macintosh, the first commercially successful computer to use a mouse and graphical user interface. It cemented the template for how every computer works today, even though Apple was handily bested in the PC sales wars by archrival Microsoft.

After being forced out of Apple in 1985, it’s well known that Jobs ran an unsuccessful computer firm called NeXT. But he also did a couple of game-changing things during that exile. First, NeXT developed an operating system that later morphed into the excellent Macintosh operating system, called OS X, and also the operating system that drives Apple’s mobile devices, called iOS.

In addition, he purchased Pixar, a small computer animation firm which he was able, over years, to turn into one of the world’s most successful movie studios and later sell to Disney for billions. It changed animation forever.

In his most recent act, he returned in 1997 to take over as CEO of Apple as part of that company’s purchase of NeXT. What he found was a diminished company which was reputedly only months from bankruptcy and saddled with mediocre products.

Fourteen years later, the company is a highly profitable behemoth, the most financially valuable and influential technology company in the world, whose every product is eagerly anticipated, snapped up quickly by consumers, and aped by competitors, even though they are often priced higher than rival devices.

While CEO of the revived Apple, he introduced the dominant digital music player, the iPod, and created the most successful digital media service, iTunes. He introduced the first super-smartphone, the iPhone, and the only truly successful tablet computer, the iPad, which is in the process of replacing the laptop, at least in part. And he built the world’s largest app store.

One almost forgets that he built a phenomenally successful chain of retail stores, too.

Apple’s devices and software services have dramatically changed the mobile phone industry, the music industry, the film and TV industries, the publishing industry and others.

Meanwhile, even while declaring that we are in the “post-PC era,” Jobs resuscitated his early baby, the Mac. While it may never become the world’s biggest selling computer, it is lusted after worldwide, and its sales have outgrown those of the overall PC industry for five years running. Plus, with models like the sleek, solid-state MacBook Air, he’s actually merging the tablet and the PC.

Now, rumors are rife that Apple is working on re-inventing another common device: the TV. The secretive company won’t say a word about that, but nobody should be surprised if it happens, just based on Jobs’s track record.

And that’s why the day Steve Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple isn’t like the day a typical CEO resigns.

Here is a video of me taken recently, talking about Jobs’s career:

[ See post to watch video ]

Film Titans Rush to Get Animated

Michelle Kung and Jessica E. Vascellaro — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:00:45 +0000

DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.’s chief executive Jeffrey Katzenberg played down a decision by Paramount Pictures to launch a rival animation division — a move by its partner that adds to other new challenges for the animation powerhouse.

In an interview Thursday, Mr. Katzenberg said that since Paramount is expected to move into the “lower end of the animation business,” its new unit “isn’t going to impact DreamWorks at all.”

Mr. Katzenberg’s comments follow Paramount’s announcement Wednesday that it will open its own animation division, pitting it against Walt Disney Co.’s Pixar Animation Studios and DreamWorks Animation.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Viral Video: LulzSec Gets Taiwanesed

Kara Swisher — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 07:25:16 +0000

When its computers get hacked, this time Next Media Animation might regret going too far — it always goes too far, by the way — in this CGI news animation of the tech-raiding gang, LulzSec.

I believe it might be its best ever — and, by that, I mean its most bizarre. In fact, that makes it a perfect fit for LulzSec, which seems bent on random disruption of the Internet just because it can.

Enjoy:

Seven Questions for Doug Hauger, Head of Microsoft's Azure Cloud Platform

Arik Hesseldahl — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:00:36 +0000

I had always been a little confused about Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud computing platform. Amazon Web Services I get. But had you asked me to tell you how it and Windows Azure are different, I would have been a little hard pressed to tell you.

I can tell you that Windows Azure is going to make the telematics systems in the next generation of Toyota cars smarter. And I also know that this unit of Microsoft has been in a state of management flux recently. Amitabh Srivastava, the Microsoft Distinguished Fellow, who in 2006 took over a project then known only as Red Dog that went on to become Azure, left the company in February.

It’s no secret that, like so many other companies, Microsoft has some big plans for cloud services. It recently disclosed that it plans to spend more than $8 billion in research and development funds on its cloud strategy.

On a recent visit to the Microsoft campus in Redmond, I got a chance to sit down with Doug Hauger, Microsoft’s general manager of Windows Azure. And my first question was really really basic.

NewEnterprise: Doug, there’s so much happening in the cloud computing space these days, and most of the time when people think of cloud services they think of Amazon Web Services. And if they mention Windows Azure, they think, well, that’s Microsoft’s answer to Amazon. But you describe Azure as more of a platform-as-a-service. Can you walk me through the differences?

Hauger: Windows Azure started about five years ago. At that point it started because the company, as with all service providers, was facing some challenges on providing large, scalable, manageable services, not just to consumers, but to businesses that could dynamically scale, and that we could innovate on quickly, and bring out new features. Originally it was meant to be a platform we would use internally for services that we would then deliver out to customers. We quickly realized that we should sell it to partners and customers, and allow them to build on it as a platform.

There are fundamental differences between infrastructure as a service and what we did as platform as a service. It’s different in key ways from, say, what Amazon does with EC2 and S3 or VMWare being implemented in a data center. Our starting point for the design was to see the data center as a unit. That means the networking structure, the load-balancers, the power management, and so on–rather than in infrastructure as a service, you start from an individual server and move up.

If you allocate a service into Windows Azure and say you want it available 100 percent of the time, we will allocate it across multiple upgrade domains and physical power domains in such a way so that if any individual rack goes down or if we’re upgrading the operating system, there’s no interruption in service. That’s just a fundamentally different starting point, with an individual server and moving up. And the way that we do that is we have built out an abstraction layer of APIs that let you write to a set of services, storage services, computer services, networking services, et cetera. As a developer you can write to the service, and give us your application, and it just gets provisioned through what we call a fabric controller, that controls the data center, and also across multiple data centers. That was a design point. That’s how we allow people to write services that can scale and won’t fail and will be available all the time.

The conversation about infrastructure as a service typically starts at cost savings. You go see a customer and they say they want to cut their IT budget and outsource their IT, and so they start there. Platform as a service you start at the cost savings, but very quickly you see 10, 20 or 30 percent cost savings. But the conversation quickly turns to the innovation life cycle that they can get out of the platform. It’s much faster than you can at infrastructure as a service.

The big point that everyone gets about the cloud is that they can use it to save money, but then they quickly start asking what more can they do with the cloud. Are you seeing the same thing?

Yes, exactly. In the enterprise, they’re starting to turn the crank on innovation. I talk to customers who are turning things around in six weeks or a month whereas before they would six months or a year. I actually just talked to a customer the other day, and they said their developers were spending 40 to 50 percent of their time managing services and they couldn’t use that time writing software which was their job. When they moved to a platform as a service, they didn’t have to worry about that anymore. We’re seeing this happening in the enterprise where people are doing this for internal development and on services they’re building for their customers.

One example, Daimler just did their new version of the smart car. They wanted a service so you can check the status of your car when its charging from your smart phone, locate it, et cetera. They turned it around in a couple of weeks on Azure and launched it at the same time as the car launched.

We’re also seeing small players compete at the enterprise level. There’s a small company called Margin Pro and they do mortgage analysis and risk assessment on mortgages. Basically it’s a couple of economists and developers. They wrote the software on Windows Azure, and now they have 70 banks around the world, tens of millions of dollars in revenue, and they are competing with some of the biggest financial services companies in the world because of this back-end infrastructure data center they can use to deliver their results to their customers.

But do you have customers who run standard apps on it too?

Many standard applications have some level of customization, and so we’re seeing a lot of hybrid applications, where customers are extending them into Azure. We have a case with Coca-Cola Enterprises which has a back-end order-processing app that they’ve extended into Azure. And what they wanted to do was get more reach and more agility for the front-end. So they built a secure connection between their data center and Windows Azure and then extended the application out to their partners and customers, essentially people like Domino’s Pizza who order Coca Cola products. We’re seeing a lot of these cases of existing applications being extended like that.

We’re also seeing companies using the high performance computing workload. One example is a company called Greenbutton, which has done a high performance scheduling and billing system on Azure. Another is Pixar, which has an application called RenderMan, which does rendering. Most large animation houses have their own clusters they do this rendering on. Pixar wanted to open up a market for smaller animation houses, little Pixars if you will. They’re working with Greenbutton to embed their technology into RenderMan. They can farm their rendering out to Azure and be billed on a usage basis. That’s a case where you have a large company and a smaller one working together and leveraging the power of the cloud to open up a whole new marketplace where they can be competitive. We call it the democratization of IT.

At what point is the customers’ thinking right now? Are they still at that point where they want to see how much money they can save by moving things that are on-premise to the cloud or are they past that by now?

I would say there’s three buckets of customers. I’ve been in this role for three years and the conversations have evolved in some interesting ways. Three years ago I was telling people they should be adopters and get on board with this platform early. They all said to come back and talk to them in five years. Then about two years ago, the majority of customers were in the first bucket, interested in wanting to save money but they weren’t interested in doing any new innovation. And then there were a few willing to innovate a bit by extending their applications into the cloud. Today I would say many, but not the majority yet, but a lot of them say they get the cloud, they get the cost savings, and now they want to drive the innovation life cycle faster. And there is a growing percentage who are willing to do something completely different and compete in a new way and build a brand new business. It’s been exciting to see that.

What’s been really exciting has been seeing mid-sized companies realizing they can use the cloud to give them an advantage to innovate faster and compete against really big companies. So that is sort of the landscape. Interestingly, I’ve been seeing a lot more adoption among the financial services companies than I had anticipated.

Aren’t they the ones who are supposed to be the most conservative when it comes to IT? I mean, they’re aggressive on performance, but obsessed with security and so skeptical of using the cloud because they don’t want to let their data leave their hands.

Exactly. But think about financial services. They’ve been in cloud computing forever, but it’s just been running on their own proprietary clouds. And so they are very good about understanding their application portfolio, and what can run in a public cloud, what has to stay in a private cloud, and how they can span those clouds. You can basically say you want to do risk assessment on portfolios, you anonymize the data, and you run it on the public cloud, you do all the analytics, you bring it back on-premise and then you deliver it to your customer. Having that kind of mentality in that industry allows them to move very quickly.

Also, manufacturing is moving and adopting the cloud faster than I would have guessed. And interestingly enough, government–not so much federal, because there’s so many certification requirements–but state and local governments are embracing the cloud because of the economic situation, and these are not just governments within the U.S. In Australia and Western Europe, we’re seeing governments adopting and building out applications so they can get services out to their citizens.

So what’s keeping you up at night? What makes you worry?

There’s a few things I think about. While we drive customers to a very fast innovation life cycle, we need to stay ahead of that innovation life cycle ourselves. We’ve done a pretty good job with that. One example, when we first released in beta a few years ago, we had .NET but we didn’t have PHP or Java. We got feedback immediately, almost on the first day, that customers wanted those and right away. And so we turned it around and added those within three months. Our ability to turn the crank pretty quickly is there. And that is something that in the software industry and specifically Microsoft, we have to make sure we make this turn toward service delivery, where we have to innovate quickly so you can deliver services. I think we’re doing a good job, but it’s something top of mind for me.

What are they asking for now? Is there something new the customers want that they don’t have?

They’re asking for continued investment in Java. We have it now, but making it a truly first class citizen, which is what we’re focused on delivering. We also need to keep our ear to the ground around things like application frameworks, extending the modeling capabilities in Visual Studio and things like that. It’s just a matter of thinking about the developer. We need to understand what they want, that’s what we’re here for.

A Virtual Tour of the Town of Dirt, from the Animated Film "Rango"

Arik Hesseldahl — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 22:30:51 +0000

How does a filmmaker plan a shot in a town that doesn’t exist? That’s the sort of challenge that the director Gore Verbinski had with the animated film “Rango.” Fortunately, “Rango” is the first animated feature produced by Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and Magic, so there are a lot a technical tools that a director can call upon.

As part of my recent visit to ILM, where first I interviewed CIO Kevin Clark and then toured the ILM data center, I got a look behind the scenes of “Rango,” the tale of a pet chameleon who is unexpectedly stranded in the desert and then finds his way to a tiny Wild West-like town called Dirt.

Dirt doesn’t exist. There’s no movie set to visit to plan shots as you might do with a set for a live-action movie. So the folks at ILM created a virtual version of the town–and the interiors of all its buildings–to help Verbinski and his team map out how they wanted to shoot each scene.

The mock-up of the town of Dirt was created inside an empty studio at ILM, with numerous cameras pointing into the center from the walls and ceilings, and as you’ll see in the video below, a director can “see” it using a digital tablet that presents a scene as it would appear if you were a character walking around in it. ILM’s Colin Benoit, who was layout supervisor on “Rango,” and Michael Sanders, digital supervisor on the film, were my tour guides. The video ends with a clip of the movie, where you see how the technology comes into use. Enjoy.

[ See post to watch video ]

Animation Nation

Ellen Gamerman — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:00:42 +0000

Last fall, television actor Richard Ruccolo sat down to make an animated movie about life in Hollywood. Twenty minutes later, a frustrated actor and a clueless talent agent, played by two cuddly-looking stuffed animals, strolled across his computer screen.

Within two days, people were watching Mr. Ruccolo’s cartoon at talent agencies, management firms and TV studios around Los Angeles. A viewing of the short briefly brought work to a halt in the writers’ room at ABC’s “Desperate Housewives.” Mr. Ruccolo said he was introduced at a party to Chuck Lorre, the executive producer of the CBS comedy “Two and a Half Men,” as “the guy who made the agent video.” In an email, Mr. Lorre said he thought the video was “pretty inside and very funny.” Mr. Ruccolo looks at such videos as “electronic business cards.”

On the heels of Twitter, blogs and YouTube videos, do-it-yourself animation has emerged as the latest form of self-expression online.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Viral Video: "Tangled"

Kara Swisher — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 07:43:40 +0000

If you want to see some more impressive leaps in animation, here’s a trailer from the upcoming Disney (DIS) movie, “Tangled.”

It’s a revisiting of the let-down-your-hair Rapunzel fairy tale, coming out at the end of November.

And while there is innovation all over the tech scene, it’s most clear what’s happened in this genre is really impressive.

Enjoy:

Okay, Okay. Maybe the iPad Is Magical, After All….

Peter Kafka — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:05:32 +0000

You’re not going to use Apple’s (AAPL) tablet to create trippy stop-motion animation videos. But, as this clip from London ad agency Dentsu shows us, you could. If you wanted to.

NextMedia Isn't Stopping With JetBlue and Snooki Videos

Miguel Gonzalez Jr. — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 07:00:32 +0000

NextMedia Animation’s computerized reenactment of jetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater’s notorious last day on the job has been a hit, but it’s no accident that the studio has broadened the scope of its computer-animated dramatizations of news events beyond the Hong Kong and Taiwan region that it calls home.

The animation studio is a unit of Next Media Ltd., the company founded by billionaire Jimmy Lai, an outspoken critic of Beijing — and the founder of the Giordano retail clothing chain — who has used his media holdings to counter what he calls a pro-China trend in the region’s press. Next Media is now Hong Kong’s largest listed Chinese-language print media company and the publisher of the Apple Daily newspaper and Next Magazine in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Mark Simon, commercial director at NextMedia, says the animated videos have been enormously popular, averaging four million views per day in Hong Kong alone, and sparking imitations among its competitors, though not in the way one might think.

Hong Kong’s “unique” media environment means the company’s strategy “isn’t echoed by others, as no one helps a competitor, especially one unpopular with government,” he said. “But in Hong Kong, every single TV station is now undertaking some form of animation. No secret, a response to us.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Viral Video: "Rango"

Kara Swisher — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:01:07 +0000

Digital animation is truly becoming almost real to life, as you will see from this visually stunning trailer for the upcoming animated movie “Rango.”

It’s about a lizard in the desert, played by Johnny Depp, but it looks so alive it nearly pops off the screen.

Enjoy:

Full D8 Interview Video: DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg

Kara Swisher — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:09:27 +0000

As promised, All Things Digital is posting the full videos from our eighth D: All Things Digital conference, held earlier this month.

Here’s the interview with DreamWorks Animation SKG (DWA) CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, the well-known Hollywood player whose company is at the forefront of digital animation.

In the session with Walt Mossberg, Katzenberg discussed the future of the entertainment industry, from its move into 3-D to how Hollywood has to change.

Here’s the full video of the session at D8:

[ See post to watch video ]

Want to see it bigger? Click here.

Note: We’ll be posting full D8 videos on Mondays and Thursdays. Next up: Steve Case.

BoomTown's 1998 Rob Glaser Profile: A Web Pioneer Does a Delicate Dance With Microsoft

Kara Swisher — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:48:04 +0000

BoomTown did an interview last night with outgoing RealNetworks (RNWK) CEO Rob Glaser after the announcement yesterday of his departure from the company he founded and led for 16 years.

That will be posted later today, but here is a profile of Glaser I wrote after spending time with him in Seattle, when I was covering the Internet for The Wall Street Journal.

It’s from Feb. 12, 1998–yes, that means Rob and I are genuine Web antiques–and focuses on Glaser’s decidedly complicated relationship with his former employer, Microsoft (MSFT).

As you will see, it comes from a much different era of the Internet, when Microsoft was much scarier, RealNetworks represented innovation and the medium was still in its infancy. My favorite line is a description of Glaser as “radiating so much intensity that his face resembles a clenched fist.”

Here it is:

Rob Glaser learned the software business as one of Bill Gates’s most aggressive proteges at Microsoft Corp. So he knows all too well the anguishing strategic decision that most software entrepreneurs inevitably confront: Go head-to-head against Mr. Gates and risk annihilation. Or cooperate with him–and risk annihilation.

Now an Internet entrepreneur himself, Mr. Glaser thinks he has another strategy: A delicate dance with Microsoft that combines a little bit of competition and a little bit of cooperation.

His newly public company, RealNetworks Inc., popularized the use of realtime audio and video on the Internet’s World Wide Web. It already has more than 18 million registered users of its free “streaming” software for receiving multimedia over the Net. It also has a rapidly growing business selling server software for transmitting audio and video to Website operators.

But it stands squarely in the path of the strategy that has drawn Microsoft into trouble with antitrust regulators: Emulating innovative products, integrating them into its operating systems and then giving them away free. RealNetworks’ daunting task is to prove it can do a better job of outmaneuvering Microsoft than Netscape Communications Inc., the browser pioneer whose market share and profitability have been devastated by Microsoft’s integration strategy.

Mr. Glaser insists he and the software giant can coexist. “I learned an amazing amount from Bill,” he says, speaking in staccato bursts and radiating so much intensity that his face resembles a clenched fist. “We knew we could either compete head-on like Netscape or do something a lot more interesting.”

His strategy is known internally as “coopetition.” Out of mistrust, Netscape two years ago rejected an unsolicited offer from Microsoft to become a partner and investor. But Mr. Glaser approached his former colleagues last summer seeking just such an alliance. In July, he sold a nonvoting 10% stake to Microsoft for $30 million, and licensed RealNetworks’ technology to the software giant for another $30 million. Microsoft also agreed to bundle RealNetworks’ software with Internet Explorer.

In making the deal, Mr. Glaser helped himself to Microsoft’s cash and prestige and calculated that Microsoft wouldn’t consider streaming technology to be as strategic to its future as the browser.

“What we were trying to do in the partnership is to set it up so that our success would not disadvantage their core business,” Mr. Glaser says. “Microsoft is a very paranoid company and so we have tried to create an environment where while they might be covetous of some of our success, analytically they would not fear it.”

The deal gave Mr. Gates the opportunity, if he so desired, to clone RealNetworks’ products during the period when they were licensed to Microsoft. “There’s no question they could use our own technology to become extremely vigorous competitors and try to put us out of business,” says James Breyer, a director and member of Accel Partners, a venture-capital firm that helped finance RealNetworks.

So Mr. Glaser needs to stay ahead of Microsoft by rapidly improving his software, accumulating enough customers to become the standard for sending audio and video over the Internet and diversifying into related businesses.

Last month, for example, he announced an agreement with one of Microsoft’s archrivals, Sun Microsystems Inc., to finetune his software to perform better on Sun’s popular Internet servers than on Windows-based servers.

“They are neither friend nor foe, but Microsoft is most certainly the environment we live in,” says Mr. Glaser, now 36 years old. “It’s how we work within that environment that will make all the difference.”

Mr. Glaser’s own personality seems suited to the relationship’s contradictions. He has been a committed liberal since his days at Yale University, where he wrote a column called “What’s Left” for the student newspaper. He initially named his company Progressive Networks to reflect his politics. And he donated 700,000 RealNetworks shares to causes related to freedom of speech and environmental issues after the public offering, and promises to contribute 5% of the company’s future profits as well.

But he became a notoriously hardcharging and sometimes arrogant manager after he joined Microsoft in 1983, at the age of 21. Some colleagues dubbed him a “screamer.” When deadlines approached for projects, several former colleagues at Microsoft say he became increasingly revved-up, downing one Diet Coke after another and erupting at even tiny mistakes. “My intensity sometimes manifested itself in less positive ways,” Mr. Glaser concedes.

“Like Microsoft, Rob was smart, young, perhaps a little hard to take, and convinced he was absolutely right about a lot of stuff,” recalls Mike Slade, a friend of Mr. Glaser’s at Microsoft who now runs an Internet publishing company, Starwave Corp. “But that was what was rewarded at the company and everything was going too fast there for a lot of management training.”

The pace did take its toll. Even though Mr. Glaser rose to become vice president of multimedia systems and one of Mr. Gates’s favorites, his last years at Microsoft were rocky. Some at the company point to an internal power struggle with Microsoft’s head of technology, Nathan Myhrvold. “They both wanted to be Bill’s boy genius and visionary for the company,” says a colleague. “Obviously, Nathan won.”

Mr. Glaser dismisses tales of infighting, blaming his departure on a diminishing feeling of “joy” in his work. “I began to think that Bill had the best job of all,” he says. In 1993, at the age of 31, he resigned, with about $15 million of stock in his pocket.

His retirement didn’t last long. Soon after, he saw a version of the Mosaic browser, the first graphical interface software for navigating the Web. He had an epiphany, he says, realizing that the Internet could eventually become a major purveyor of audio and video.

Mr. Glaser sank about $1 million of his own money into a start-up that would first produce software for compressing and transmitting sound. With additional funding from friends, such as Lotus founder Mitch Kapor, RealAudio 1.0 quickly made its debut in April 1995.

RealAudio was greeted with more than a little disdain from the Internet elite because it was a tinny and unsatisfying experience for most users. But it gave the Internet a voice, and Mr. Glaser kept plugging away, improving fidelity and striking deals with more content providers to use it on their Web sites. The hook: Free player software for consumers.

He is attempting to repeat the process with RealVideo. It currently provides small, jerky moving pictures but will, he believes, someday transform the Internet as data transmission speeds increase. In a recent demo of the player, Mr. Glaser selected a music video by the languid singer Jewel, he joked, “because she doesn’t move around too much.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft has been developing its own Media Player and NetShow streaming software, partly with technology acquired by purchasing VXtreme, a RealNetworks competitor.

The Microsoft products are now free. But the company may decide to charge for the latest version of NetShow coming out this year, which would be good for RealNetworks. Meanwhile, Microsoft will continue to bundle RealNetworks’ player software with the Microsoft browser, also good for RealNetworks. And the day after RealNetworks’ Sun deal, Microsoft announced an agreement to make its own Media Player compatible with RealNetworks’ server software, yet another positive development for RealNetworks.

“The user only wants it to work,” says Rich Tong, a Microsoft marketing vice president. “So it is good business to work with RealNetworks to set standards for compatibility and expand the market for all of us.”

Skeptics assert that RealNetworks has forged only a temporary truce with Microsoft. Like Netscape, it must continually confront the challenge of trying to make money on technology that Microsoft gives away. RealNetworks charges $29.95 for an enhanced version of the player it gives away free, and $695 and up for its most powerful server software.

Some large companies are snapping the products up. Mercedes Benz, Eastman Kodak and Lockheed Martin are buying RealNetworks’ latest software, RealSystem 5.0, to bring their internal networks to life. Boeing Co., for example, uses RealNetworks’ software to communicate with employees world-wide and conduct training sessions. A variety of media concerns such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the Public Broadcasting System, AOL, Fox News’s 24-hour newsfeed and Paramount Pictures use it as well.

Mr. Glaser recently cut a deal with Macromedia Inc., the largest provider of animation-editing software, to transmit animated material over the Internet. RealNetworks is also operating multimedia Web sites for other companies, and has a joint venture with MCI Communications Corp. to create a broadcast network on the Web.

All these initiatives are running up big bills. Earlier this month, RealNetworks reported that revenue more than doubled for 1997, to $32.7 million from $14 million the year before. But heavy research and development spending tripled losses to $11.2 million, or 40 cents a share, from $3.8 million, or 14 cents a share. The company’s high costs, plus the looming threat of Microsoft, have depressed the stock, which hovers at around $16 a share, only slightly above the $12.50 a share it opened at when it went public in November.

But Mr. Glaser exudes confidence. His intense personality seems calmer these days. Once divorced, he now has a steady girlfriend and is traveling more frequently, including a summer trip to New Zealand, Australia and French Polynesia, where he made the decision to take RealNetworks public. His 13.5 million shares are worth $218.5 million. And he thinks he has Microsoft figured out. “People in Silicon Valley see things unnecessarily in black and white: You either hate Microsoft or you are a vassal of them. I am saying there is a third way.”

Almost Famous: Sprout's Matthew McNeely

Drake Martinet — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:17:16 +0000

A feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.

This week: A virtual visit with, some questions for and a few pertinent stats about Matthew McNeely and Sprout, the build-it-yourself Flash tool that lets anyone create customized Web site widgets.

Who: Matthew McNeely

What: VP of Engineering, Sprout.

Why: Sprout is a Web-based, WYSIWYG Flash editor that allows individuals and businesses to build customized content that can be embedded on their own sites. Sprout’s creations (known as “sprouts”) are also frequently incorporated into social media campaigns.

Where: Sproutinc.com (corporate bio); San Francisco, although Matthew says the team is “truly distributed,” as he lives in New Hampshire (analog); Facebook Fan Page (Yes, you can write on its wall); @Sprout (Twitter).

Who else: Slide; SlideRocket. But, “not too many that focus on branding the way we do.”

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job: I grew up in Indiana, and, in the summers, I would de-tassel corn.

Has a Geek Crush on: I’m gonna get letters from all my Apple (AAPL) friends for saying this: Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT).

Gadget of the Moment: I finally got an iPhone, but I got it for $50, refurb.

Tech Wish: I wish I could build a sprout for my iPhone, but that means it would need to run Flash.

Fails at: I’m not a very good communicator, and every once in a while I catch myself closing up and not communicating with the [Sprout] team the way I need to.

Bio in 140 Characters

Shares a hometown w/James Dean. Picked corn until he got his first computer. Was a software engineer/consultant before moving to Sprout.

The Five Questions

What does Sprout bring to the table that others don’t?

At the most basic level, it’s about the speed. Before Sprout, you really needed to understand Flash and the sort of movie metaphor that it puts out in order to use it. Now, it’s much faster. If you know PowerPoint, you can use our product.

We also have a big push in the social networking space. That’s unique to us. If you are looking to put out a really rich media campaign on a social network, there’s no better service. You can also change things on the fly. Someone in the ad department can say, “Hey, this ad isn’t working.” And you can change it in five minutes, and it’s back up.

Who isn’t using Sprout, but should?

I can think of two examples. One would be, say, a yoga instructor who was also tech savvy. She could build up a quick shell of a Web presence with Sprout and sell it to other yogis who just want to give classes, but still have a nice, clean, updated Web site.

The second thing would be a porn sprout. That’s one industry that could really benefit from our technology, but just hasn’t yet. I mean, imagine, video clips and little libraries. We’ve seen some slightly suggestive things come across the bow, but no one has really gone all the way yet. I really hope you print that.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: A Sprout spokesman wanted to make sure readers knew that McNeely was kidding here, of course. Sprout's terms of service forbid such a use of its technology.]

Is there a formula for an attention-grabbing Sprout widget?

It’s different in every industry. Overall, a little animation and really good-looking graphics help. But, when it comes to engagement, we do have some idea.

It has to be contextually relevant [in the social media space], your friends should be fans of this Facebook page [for it to become popular], stuff like that. I mean, with good design, you can get someone like this guy from Des Moines who has basically cornered the market on real estate widgets.

Who should buy Sprout?

You mean besides Google? Seriously, though, we do work with Google (GOOG) quite a bit, and I’d love to see us become the small- to medium-size business ad-building tool for them.

Most real geeks have memories where they saw something new and said to themselves, “Dang, I love living in the future.” What’s yours?

My brother and I got this old North Star computer at this garage sale or something, and I programmed through the night to get this thing to predict, you know, randomize lottery numbers. I never won anything, of course, but I was just so enamored by it.

That kinda got me hooked into the notion that you can work on something and lose yourself in it.

The In Living Color Interview

[ See post to watch video ]

Meet the New AOL Logo: "Aol." (Plus the Press Release)

Peter Kafka — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:51:12 +0000

The new AOL will differ than the old one in several ways: New boss, smaller headcount, different owners.

So, of course, it also gets a new logo. This one will look awfully familiar, since it is the same trio of well-known letters, and if you’re not paying attention you won’t notice a thing.

But look closely:

See? Yup: Two lower-case letters and a period.

The idea is that the type will remain consistent, but will be “revealed” when it sits on top of different images. The old AOL swoosh triangle goes away, although its sort-of iconic “running man” will stick around in some form, the company said.

Here’s a canned quote from CEO Tim Armstrong about what this means:

“Our new identity is uniquely dynamic. Our business is focused on creating world-class experiences for consumers and AOL is centered on creative and talented people–employees, partners, and advertisers. We have a clear strategy that we are passionate about and we plan on standing behind the AOL brand as we take the company into the next decade.”

Branding outfit Wolff Olins gets credit (and money) for figuring this one out. But let’s see what investors think of the work when the company spins off from Time Warner (TWX) next month.

Here is the full press release:

AOL PREVIEWS NEW BRAND IDENTITY FOR ITS FUTURE AS AN INDEPENDENT CONTENT-DRIVEN COMPANY

New Aol. Brand Expresses Commitment to Stimulating Content, Openness and Inclusion

NEW YORK–November 22, 2009–AOL today previewed its new brand identity for its future as an independent company committed to creating the world’s most simple and stimulating content and online experiences.

The new AOL brand identity is a simple, confident logotype, revealed by ever changing images. It’s one consistent logo with countless ways to reveal. The new brand identity will be fully unveiled on December 10, when AOL common stock begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

“Our new identity is uniquely dynamic. Our business is focused on creating world-class experiences for consumers and AOL is centered on creative and talented people–employees, partners, and advertisers. We have a clear strategy that we are passionate about and we plan on standing behind the AOL brand as we take the company into the next decade,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AOL.

AOL partnered with Wolff Olins, a global brand and innovation consultancy, to develop a brand identity that speaks to the company’s future. The identity itself is a platform for expression and creativity reflecting the content, products and services which AOL offers. Some of the world’s best creative artists, including Universal Everything, GHAVA and Dylan Griffin created art and animations for the brand.

“Historically brand identity has been monolithic and controlling, little more than stamping a company name on a product. AOL is a 21st century media company, with an ambitious vision for the future and new focus on creativity and expression, this required the new brand identity to be open and generous, to invite conversation and collaboration, and to feel credible, but also aspirational. We’re delighted to have worked so closely with the AOL leadership team to create something bold and exciting that sets AOL apart,” said Karl Heiselman, CEO of Wolff Olins.

Here Comes Tech-Heavy "Avatar" (and the Inevitable Smurf Spoof)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:00:47 +0000

Hollywood director James Cameron is well known for his heavy use of special effects and techtastic techniques in his movies, which include “Titanic,” “Aliens” and the first–and best–two “Terminator” blockbusters.

In a few weeks, Cameron is hoping to hit geek gold again with a 3-D sci-fi juggernaut called “Avatar.”

Set to come out in mid-December, it is full of all kinds of fancy and innovative CGI animation.

And the use of blue-colored avatars–essentially digitally animated likenesses of the real-life actors–is a big plot point in the movie, which is about a soldier caught in a war between a greedy mining company and a heroic indigenous tribe on a planet called Pandora.

Here’s one of the trailers for “Avatar”:

And, of course, here is a video of a hysterical recent spoof of the movie done by “South Park”–with a little “Dances With Wolves” tossed in, because it is the same exact plot–called “Dances With Smurfs”:

Apple's iTunes Pitch: TV for $30 a Month

Peter Kafka — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:34:30 +0000

Would you pay $30 a month to watch TV via iTunes?

That’s the pitch Apple has been making to TV networks in recent weeks. The company is trying to round up support for a monthly subscription service that would deliver TV programs via its multimedia software, multiple sources tell me.

Apple (AAPL) isn’t tying the proposed service to a specific piece of hardware, like its underwhelming Apple TV box or its long-rumored tablet/slate device. Instead, the company is presenting the offer as an extension of its iTunes software and store, which already has 100 million customers.

A so-called “over the top” service could theoretically rival the ones most consumers already buy from cable TV operators–if Apple is able to get enough buy-in from broadcast and cable TV programmers.

That’s a big if: Apple has told industry executives it wants to launch the service early next year, but I have yet to hear of a single programmer that has made a firm commitment to the company, which has tasked iTunes boss Eddy Cue with promoting the idea.

Industry executives believe that if anyone jumps first, it will be Disney (DIS), since CEO Bob Iger has shown a willingness to experiment with Apple and iTunes in the past: In 2005, Disney was the first player to sell its programming on iTunes, via a-la-carte downloads. And Apple CEO Steve Jobs is Disney’s largest single shareholder, a result of Disney’s 2006 acquisition of Jobs’s Pixar animation studio. Apple didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Network executives I’ve talked to are intrigued by the idea–they are eager to find new revenue streams–but are also wary, for several reasons.

Cable networks, for instance, don’t want to threaten existing relationships and subscription fees from cable providers like Comcast (CMCSA). And programmers are also worried about the effect a subscription service would have on advertising revenue: Even if the service didn’t distribute TV programs until after their initial air date, that could cut into ratings, which now measure viewership over the course of several days.

But the move to deliver TV and movies over the Web is already well under way. Netflix (NFLX), for instance, already bundles free streaming movie and television along with its disc-by-mail subscription service. iTunes and Amazon (AMZN) rent movies on a one-off basis, and Google’s (GOOG) YouTube is trying out the same thing. Meanwhile, Hulu, the joint venture between GE’s (GE) NBC, News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, and ABC, is figuring out how to launch a paid service that may include rentals, paid downloads or subscriptions.

So Apple’s proposed subscription service, which the company has floated in the past, is no longer a huge stretch. Says one executive briefed on the company’s plans: “I think they might get it right this time.”

App Watch: Censored in Canada

Yukari Iwatani Kane — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:15:24 +0000

When Jon Myers and partner Chuck Hootman created their first iPhone app, “Cornhole All-Stars,” their aim was to come up with a fun, casual game that would give them a foothold for their new game start-up JUFTi. The last thing they expected was to run into censorship troubles, which they did–in Canada.

Cornhole, also known as Bags or Baggo, is a popular game in some circles where players toss a bag–-traditionally filled with corn kernels–-into a round hole on a slanted board about 30 feet away. Myers’s iPhone app is a virtual version of the game, featuring cute animated characters in various settings.

Though the app was published on Apple’s (AAPL) App Store worldwide on August 1, the Canadian App Store would only list it as “C******e All-Stars.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Silverlight Is Still Racing Flash

Nick Wingfield — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:05:51 +0000

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has closed the technological gap with Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE) in a battle over software for adding video and animation to Web sites. But Microsoft’s efforts to win customers in the market are moving much slower.

Over the past two years, Microsoft has poured resources into its technology for online video and animation–dubbed Silverlight–and has boosted its ability to deliver high-definition video with the technology. Silverlight is positioned as a rival to Adobe’s technology, which is known as Flash.

While Microsoft has nabbed some marquee Web customers for Silverlight, including the National Football League, most popular video sites like YouTube and Hulu continue to use Flash. That’s because the Adobe software is much more broadly installed on computers than Microsoft’s technology.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Finally: Disney, Hulu Deal Announced

John Paczkowski — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:40:22 +0000

Took ’em long enough.

Just as MediaMemo predicted, Walt Disney Co. has finally taken a stake in Hulu, the video-streaming site operated by General Electric’s (GE) NBC Universal, News Corp. (NWS) and Providence Equity Partners. Under the terms of the deal announced today, Disney will sign on as a joint partner in the venture and bring full-length episodes of long-absent programs like “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy” to Hulu. Financial terms and the structure of the deal weren’t disclosed, but sources say Disney’s stake in the venture will be ~~close to 30~~ 27 percent.

“From our landmark iTunes deal to our pioneering decision to stream ad supported shows on our ABC.com player, Disney has sought to meet the constantly evolving viewing habits of our consumers, and today’s Hulu announcement is the next important step in that ongoing journey,” Disney CEO Bob Iger bloviated. “Disney and Hulu share a focus on delivering the highest-quality entertainment experience and we look forward to working with Hulu to build value for our consumers, our brands and our shareholders.”

A few points worth noting here before the full press release below. This is mostly a broadcast deal. Aside from a smattering of Disney Channel shows, it includes very little cable programming. There is, for example, nothing from ESPN. Presumably, that’s because Disney doesn’t want to upset the folks who actually pay to watch that stuff.

Disney’s decision to join Hulu shows the company is confident that the site’s audience is distinct enough from audiences served by cable, ABC.com and its other sites that there’s no real risk of cannibalizing them. And that runs contrary to what many networks assume about online.

Disappointingly, there’s no mention in the release of classic animation, whether shorts or features.

As MediaMemo has noted, this is a big deal for Hulu, which has now allied with three of the four big broadcast networks.

CBS (CBS) is now the sole holdout among big program providers. When asked about its position, a spokesman replied with this statement: “CBS has long employed open, non-exclusive content partnerships that allow fans across the internet to engage with our programming in such a way that we control our distribution, sales and profit. We continue to discuss similar arrangements with additional partners as we grow our online audience based on the strength of our content, and the passion of the communities it creates. The Company also believes that controlling our own rights for that content–in all media–preserves its value in a multi-platform business system.”

Disney (DIS) to Join NBC Universal, News Corporation and Providence Equity Partners as an Equity Owner of Hulu

LOS ANGELES–Hulu and The Walt Disney Company today announced that Disney, through a subsidiary of ABC Enterprises Inc., has agreed to join NBC Universal, News Corporation and Providence Equity Partners as a joint venture partner and equity owner of Hulu, a leading online aggregator of video content. Upon closing, the agreement will enhance Hulu’s programming line-up through the expanded online distribution of Disney’s most popular current and library primetime series and library feature films. In particular, full-length episodes of hit current and library programs like Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Private Practice, Ugly Betty, Scrubs, Greek, Hope and Faith, Less Than Perfect, Wizards of Waverly Place, Phineas and Ferb, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, General Hospital, The View and The Secret Life of the American Teenager will soon be streamed on Hulu on an ad-supported basis.

“From our landmark iTunes deal to our pioneering decision to stream ad supported shows on our ABC.com player, Disney has sought to meet the constantly evolving viewing habits of our consumers, and today’s Hulu announcement is the next important step in that ongoing journey,” said Robert A. Iger, president and CEO, The Walt Disney Company. “Disney and Hulu share a focus on delivering the highest-quality entertainment experience and we look forward to working with Hulu to build value for our consumers, our brands and our shareholders.”

“We’re honored to welcome the Disney team in our mission to help people find and enjoy the world’s premium content, when, where and how they want it,” said Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu. “With the addition of shows like Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and many more to Hulu, we continue to aspire to deliver a service that users, advertisers and content owners unabashedly love.”

Following the closing, content available to Hulu users will include:

Full-length episodes of ABC primetime programs like Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Samantha Who?, Scrubs, Private Practice and popular late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live

Full-length episodes of hit ABC Family series like The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Greek

Popular series from ABC Daytime and SOAPnet like General Hospital and The View

Classic series from ABC’s library like Hope and Faith, Less Than Perfect, Commander in Chief, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Dancing with the Stars

Select hit programs from Disney Channel like Wizards of Waverly Place and Phineas and Ferb which can be easily accessed from a new DISNEY location in the Channel section of Hulu.com

Popular library titles from The Walt Disney Studios

Short-form content including webisodes, sneak peeks and episode recaps from ABC Entertainment, ABC Family and SOAPnet

“Hulu, quite simply, now has the best premium content on the web,” said Peter Chernin, president and COO, News Corporation. “With three major networks and over 150 leading content providers providing content, combined with the best video user interface anywhere on the web, Hulu offers consumers the finest premium online video experience available today.”

“Hulu has shown that if you make quality content available on the web and combine it with an unbeatable user experience, viewers will come, and so will advertisers,” said Jeff Zucker, president and CEO, NBC Universal. “The addition of some of the best content Disney/ABC has to offer will only enhance Hulu’s standing as a top site for high quality video entertainment.”

Jonathan M. Nelson, CEO of Providence, said “Hulu is creating significant value for users, advertisers and content owners. This balance, together with aggregated professional content and an expanding base of over 200 brand advertisers, is establishing Hulu as a compelling online video monetization platform. Hulu is a bright spot in the new media landscape.”

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory review. As an equity partner, Disney will have three seats on the Hulu Board that will be held by Mr. Iger; Anne Sweeney, co-chair, Disney Media Networks and president, Disney/ABC Television Group; and Kevin Mayer, executive vice president, Corporate Strategy, Business Development & Technology. All other current directors from News Corp, NBC Universal and Providence will remain on the Hulu board.

Macworld ’09: iWork '09, iWork.com

John Paczkowski — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:54:11 +0000

Number two on Phil Schiller’s list of three announcements: iWork ’09. The next iteration of Keynote, Apple’s presentation application, offers some new object transition features: object zoom, a swing transition (Schiller demos it with a Bush-to-Obama slide that gets a laugh from the audience). There are also some new text transitions and chart animations. Finally, Apple’s offering a Keynote Remote application. It’s an iPhone app, of course. Cost: 99 cents.

Pages, Apple’s word processing application, is also getting a bit of an update. Pages ’09 offers a full-screen view for the easily distracted writer, dynamic outlining, mail merge with Numbers–Apple’s spreadsheet program–and 40 new templates. Not the most exciting stuff, here, but decent additions nonetheless.

In Numbers, Apple (AAPL) has added some new categorization features–Table Categories, and, answering user requests, some 250 new formulas and functions. New charts, trend lines and other advance reporting options as well.

iWork is also migrating from the desktop to the cloud–in a sense. Via iWork.com, users can easily upload documents and share them with collaborators. Docs are viewable online. They can be downloaded. And collaborators can comment on them online. iWork.com is cross-platform (Mac and PC) and cross-browser. The online suite looks very much like the Mac-based suite.

iWork will run you $79, $49 if you purchase a new Mac. “This is the beginning of a new service,” Schiller noted, adding that it’s a beta and launches today, solo and as part of a $169 box set that includes iLife and Leopard.

MacWorld 2009 Keynote Photos

View photos at SmugMug

A Card Concierge, in Case You Forget

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 00:01:00 +0000

Electronic greetings, or e-cards, have come a long way since their debut as one-dimensional postcards and now can include animation, slideshows and personal narration.

These digital creations save forgetful friends who don’t think far enough in advance to buy and send snail-mail cards. However, even the hippest e-cards, such as customizable cartoons from political parody site JibJab.com, are no match for paper cards with thoughtfully penned sentiments.

Jack Cards offers to send you unique cards in time for you to personalize and mail them.

Rather than fight the ever-popular, old-school cards, the digital world is trying to improve the way people buy and send those cards. This week I tested a Web site called www.jackcards.com, which sends email reminders a month before important dates and offers to ship paper cards one, two, or four weeks before an event. The cards can arrive pre-stamped and pre-addressed, so you need only add your own hand-written message before dropping them in the mail.

Jack Cards LLC of Boston based its business after the notion that an imaginary correspondence butler named “Jack” could take care of you, making you look like the friend/spouse/relative/boss of the year. Its cards range from $1.50 to $6 each, plus the cost of a stamp if you opt to get the card pre-stamped; U.S. shipping is free throughout December.

My primary skepticism about Jack Cards was its content: Did it offer enough variety to justify buying cards without seeing them? Would its cards be funny enough to send my uncle into a fit of laughter? And would they be like the tear-jerkers best friends see in stores and buy for one another for no reason?

Jack Cards prides itself on unique offerings that can’t be found in the local drugstore, and I found that its cards fit the bill for many occasions. It’s worth noting the cards looked even better in person, created by about 40 designers who left me both scratching my head over some of their humor and cooing over their beautiful designs. But the functionality of the site needs to improve, especially in the way it helps users search through cards; too often, results were hit and miss. And it doesn’t incorporate enough rich Web 2.0 features, which could improve navigation on the site and be a real boon for looking at cards (imagine an inset animation of a card opening and revealing its message inside).

Predictably, Hallmark Cards Inc. isn’t sitting idly by as a start-up tries to steals its thunder. Its Web site, Hallmark.com, sells paper cards in addition to e-cards and it, too, can remind you of coming events. Its way of personalizing cards is to send them directly to recipients with a message typed inside — a method that isn’t as personal. Like Jack Cards, Hallmark offers to mail cards to buyers to send out but doesn’t pre-stamp or pre-address anything.

Hallmark also differs from Jack Cards in the shipping department. A $2.99 birthday card from Hallmark.com cost $2.95 to be shipped to me — and wouldn’t arrive at my door for five business days. The free shipping offer from Jack Cards will end in January, but the company normally charges 99 cents for two- to three-day shipping; this flat fee applies to a package filled with any number of cards.

Without signing in, anyone can browse through the more than 1,000 cards on JackCards.com. Those interested in joining the site can do so for free after entering a name, password, email and birthday. Members are asked to enter a list of the “Fast Five” — people with whom they most often correspond, such as parents, siblings, best friends or close colleagues.

Each of the Fast Five is set up with a name, address and list of events that correspond to the person; I listed my parents with their anniversary, Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, birthdays and Christmas. I was a little stunned to find an event titled “Will You Marry Me?” but I suppose Jack Cards thought of everything.

The site could stand to be better organized. The page filled with data on each of my Fast Five seemed jumbled, and jumping from one contact to another wasn’t as easy as it should be. Hyperlinks beside the events I entered for these people directed me to a general browsing page for cards instead of to a page specifically related to an event. These extra steps gave the page a clumsy feel.

Drop-down search toolbars let you choose the occasion, style of card (Humor, Just For Kids, Romantic etc.), recipient and designer. Each card’s front and inside messages, size and paper color are identified as you move your cursor over them.

I was stunned by some of the Mother-specific birthday cards. None of the cards said “Happy Birthday, Mom,” which was a problem because without that, the cards all seemed ambiguous. A card in this search said, “You are going to cherish this birthday card years from now. Cuz who knows if I’ll remember your birthday again. Happy Birthday.” I can’t think of anyone who would give such a card to a mother. The company continues to improve its searching to be more accurate.

But Jack Cards did introduce me to some clever and original material that I never would’ve seen in my CVS. Beautifully colorful cards made by Masha D’yans caught my eye immediately and looked more like watercolor paintings than cards.

I bought a good variety of about 25 cards and had them sent to me, some stamped and pre-labeled with my return address and the recipient’s address typed in attractive script, others without any stamp or label. Square cards cost more to mail (58 cents compared with 41 cents), but Jack Cards will give you the appropriate stamp. The weight and quality of the cards, along with their artistic attributes, made them feel more special than something that has been picked up from a shelf and opened by a hundred passersby. Many cards were individually packaged in plastic wrappers to stay clean en route.

If Jack Cards can continue to work on its site’s navigation and search functions, I think its system would be welcomed by many people looking for good-quality, well-designed cards that catch the eye. It saves users the hassle of last-minute trips to the card store, and still lets greeting cards keep their personal touch, which is what makes them such a permanent fixture in our lives.

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

AllThingsD » animation

Tom Hanks Brings "Electric City" to Yahoo

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