What Wii and iPhone can teach Hollywood
November 14th, 2008 by Yosi
We say our lifestyle is “digital” because we are surrounded by digital devices that make our day-to-day efficient and convenient. But this lifestyle demands adaptation. The human race is not digital. Unlike the technology we’ve created, we never see things as “black or white” and “zero or one.” Our opinions are never precise, always shades and gradations – because we are analog. I know analog is seen as old-fashioned, related to slow signals, watches with hands and televisions you throw out. But then, people have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. In my opinion, we are entering a new “analog” era, in which technology adapts to people and successful mass market products have an analog feel. In an excellent recent article in Wired, Steven Levy suggests that this is what Nintendo’s Wii and and Apple’s iPhone have in common. They’re hands-on. With Wii, you play games more like you would in real life, swinging the remote as if it’s a golf club. With iPhone, you scroll the page with your fingers, sort of like reading a book. Or look at this “most satisfying” iPhone and Android app reviewed on Techcrunch - that involves a real punch. People like Wii and the iPhone because they’re intuitive. They feel analog.
Consider how we think about movies. Watching movies is a rich, sensual, intellectual, emotional, personal experience. Yet the entertainment industry has encouraged us to adapt to categorizing movies by genre. “This movie is a comedy” is a flat, inflexible type of definition comparable to the digital “zero or one.” When we remember or describe movies, though, we’re more likely to talk about “funny” or “thought-provoking,” “about siblings” or “with a surprise twist.” Not everyone chooses the same description, and these natural metaphors are nuanced – analog like we are.
After so many years of genres, we don’t trust technology to find movies the way we think, so we search with clear-cut keywords. But our experience at Jinni is that when people realize they can, they pretty quickly start looking for “stylized and bloody” or “dangerous heroine” instead of “action.” What do you think – can our entertainment categories go analog?
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November 14th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Interesting comparison between Wii and iPhone. Although we think of it as old-fashioned, in fact “analog” in the way you define it requires a much higher degree of sophistication. Your system of categorizing movies also sounds technologically complex. People do indeed experience movies in very varied and nuanced ways.
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November 14th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I do believe that as we become more technologically sophisticated, our machines will think more like us rather than the other way around. In this case, a movie search engine that fits our more emotional experience of movies is a natural step. I’m curious to try yours out.
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November 20th, 2008 at 12:03 am
It is an interesting comparison, but I actually dont think of it as analog and digital I think its more the interactive and static. Just with the Wii and the iPhone a movement gets inputted into the system to get a response, thereby allowing the user to feel more connected to the device. The vibration feedback is along these same lines. I think of the genome as similar, inputting of emotions along with other basic data of a movie will create more of an interactive experience for users of the site as well as a more accurate recommendation. I think the next step of the industry will try and capture that emotion in real time and tailor the experience as it goes to match the emotions.
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December 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 pm
thanks for the post. i hope to read some more.
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May 26th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Not a very well thought-out piece of work. your comparison between wii and iphone is off, analog means just that - analog. Don’t reinvent words. They’re popular because their interfaces are new and intuitive, what does that have to do with cinema? Second, genres play an important role in cinema, as they help us to understand the setting, plot, characters, and ultimately the substance of the film itself. What do you hope to replace them with, keywords? imdb has a keyword function as do many other film sites, they have for a while. Keyword searches only help to find films with similar details, not similar films, so Simon Birch and Jeepers Creepers 2 would ostensibly result as similar, as they both feature death in a bus.
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