Redux Partners with Videology to Bring Free, Premium Content to GoogleTV Viewers

By David McIntosh- CEO Redux and Brandon Shainfeld – Business Development Videology 

Advertising.  For decades, it’s fueled the television business model that allows you to enjoy some of your favorite programming cost-free.  Now that premium content—along with a much greater choice of programming options—is delivered to your television in new ways, via apps and other means, the business model must evolve. 

As you know, many applications now available on connected televisions such as GoogleTV charge a fee—for instance, Netflix and Rhapsody. That’s fine, and that business model works for many service providers and viewers alike.  But other entertainment providers, including Redux, choose to deliver content to you free of charge—much like the way you view most content online, or on traditional television.  Of course, for this to be viable long term this approach  depends on advertiser support.   Recently, Redux partnered with the digital advertising solutions provider Videology to bring the first organic advertising solution to a GoogleTV app.

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Redux Gets Kooky, Opens Platform for Artists to Sell Directly to Users

We’re excited to announce that Redux has partnered with Humble Bundle to let you pay what you want for a high-quality film you can watch anywhere - on the TV, tablet, or web.

Kooky, the most adorable and artistically transcendental film you’ve never heard of, is now out in the US! We’re helping the producers make it available to you, directly from them. Just visit watchkooky.com,  decide what you want to pay, and you can stream the film right here on your computer, tablet, phone or Connected TV.

At Redux, we’re focused on delivering you the best TV-like video discovery experience that’s programmed by people that share your taste: curators, influencers, celebrities, and friends. We’re growing quickly (especially on Connected TV where we’re one of the top downloaded apps on Google TV) because we offer a high-quality TV experience that’s delivered to our users directly by the brands, tastemakers and friends they share interests with.

While we help users discover video from a broad range of online video sources, we’ve found that users love watching longer-form & higher production value content in a lean-back TV experience; on the web watching short-clips for a quick entertainment snack is OK; but when it’s TV-time viewers want an entertainment meal. We’ve also heard from our users that they love direct relationships with content curators & creators - in fact they’re willing to pay more when they can buy directly from the artists they care about.

This launch is the marriage of those two demands - users want high-quality content in a TV experience, and they love buying content directly from artists.

We’re planning on working with many other special artists like this in the future - enabling artists to make more money by selling directly to their fans, thereby giving you direct access to beautiful TV-quality video and film through a delightful streaming and discovery experience.

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If you’re an artist or professional content creator interested in selling content directly to your fans across the web, tablets and Connected TVs, check out Redux for Artists and submit your email address or drop us a line.

The Marriage of Creators and Curators

 

Awesome visual notes from the panel.

Content curation and creation are moving so rapidly that we’re trying to define the terms to describe what we’re doing as we’re doing it. Two panels at SXSW Interactive really spoke to this. The first was Kirby Ferguson and Austin Kleon’s panel “Everything is a Remix, So Steal Like an Artist.” With the birth of YouTube and ease of online sharing, copyright lawsuits have attempted to put the power back in the hands of big media. Kirby Ferguson took a huge step against this through his video series. It has helped to shed light on the remix culture that has always existed in creation. Although many in the audience admired Ferguson’s leaps forward, there was still a tangible hesitancy in the crowd to join the movement. The big question being, would they be hurting their careers and future if they did. The scare tactics used by these corporate lawsuits seemed to have made an impact. 

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South by Southwest is Really the Music Capital of the World

Photo by: Jan Janner

When I first briefly glanced at the lineup for Austin’s South by Southwest Music Festival my immediate thought was, “Shit, I only know about five bands from this list. Does this make me a poser? Pitchfork is totally going to reject me from their party now.” But upon closer inspection, I realized that there were loads and loads of artists and bands that I feature on Music:Backstage who were coming to Austin, that little live music oasis in the middle of the big red sea of conservative Texas. And for a week, all the weirdos of the world flooded sixth street to experience the mayhem. At the end of my stay at the “live music capital of the world,” I was looking a bit like a cracked out Amy Winehouse- sleep deprived, malnourished, and bloated with beer. But as my taxi neared the airport to go back to reality, I couldn’t help but grin with BBQ-stained teeth as I thought, “Damn, that was a hell of a ride.”

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SXSW Style X Review

Photo by Gabriel Sanchez.

With the onset of the recession the DIY movement flourished. Walking around the Style X event at SXSW on Friday it was clear that DIY had made its way into fashion. Of course not every booth embodied that quality, but it was definitely the majority. Even Refinery 29, a fashion site not designer, was repping the DIY. They had a table where attendees could use scraps to create cute bracelets and headbands.

Another aspect that contributed to the more grassroots feel was that you could speak to the designers as you perused their products. It was almost like going to the local farmer’s market.You can ask where they source their materials from, what the inspiration was, and all those other random facts you don’t get from the tag. Unfortunately that same friendly vibe I got from the rest of SXSW was lost on me at Style X. Perhaps it was because I was one of the first there and people weren’t quite ready, but the booths felt really uninviting. Or maybe the vastness of the convention center didn’t allow that energy to bounce off the walls the same way it did during Interactive. Regardless of the reason I hope that Style X finds a way to be a bit more approachable to more general fans of style next year, who don’t necessarily have a background in the industry. 

Kira Weinberg

SXSW: A First Timer’s Takeaways

Attending SXSW was like visiting a best friend or lover for a week. I looked forward to it for months but by the end I’d overloaded on their love. All I could focus on was their faults and what I was missing back home (in this case by the end of the week I was craving the Bay Area’s cold weather and empty streets). The moment I got to the Austin airport to head home though, the depression hit. I realized what an amazing experience I was leaving and wanted to hail the next taxi back towards 6th Street. I didn’t get the infamous SxSars, but after I left I was instantly craving that chaos and positive energy. As a first timer I was stressing a bit too much about how to make the most of my time. I should have just let SXSW take me along for the ride. I’m already excited to put my experience to good use next year and get even more out of it. For now all I can do is reminisce on my favorites from the festival and live off the positive energy and inspiration I took back with me. 

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SXSW: Film and Music

I studied cinema in college, but I became disillusioned with the Hollywood industry. An industry that tends to promote celebritydom over innovative, ground-breaking filmmaking. I soon discovered that my real passion lied with music. Hell, I couldn’t play a note to save my life, but if I couldn’t be a rock star at least I could live vicariously in that world by writing about them.

So you can imagine my excitement when I saw the line-up for Austin’s South By Southwest film Festival because it featured a “24 Beats Per Second” category that combined my two greatest passions- film and music. And just for a a few hours, we too, were apart of that exclusive musician’s club as undiscovered stories of rock fame and misfortune came alive on screen. The type of music docs featured at SXSW would not appeal to your typical mass audience viewer who looks for big explosions and fast MTV style editing. But they were the type of films that made you think- even if it did make you a little uncomfortable afterwards.

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South By Southwest- Why All The Hate?

Long haired tattooed guys with skinny jeans, media moguls drunk not on power but beer, and local hooligans vomiting in the bathroom are just a snippet of my experiences at SXSW - Austin’s annual convergence of tech/start-ups, underground film, and indie music. As a first-timer to the 26-year-old festival, I was a “newbie,” a “novice,” and a “freshman” who never experienced anything quite so wild in the United States. It was like a hipster Mardi Gras, where massive crowds paraded in the streets at all hours of the day and night, party buses rolled by wolf-masked violin players, and impromptu mosh pits in the street prevented you from seeing your favorite bands - it was glorious.

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SXSW: Music & Tech

I live in a technology obsessed city, San Francisco, where iPhones determine your entrance into the “cool club,” and everybody’s a part of that hot new start-up, hoping to strike it big as the next Facebook. Imagine me, a music fanatic non-smart phone owner, thrust into the tech-driven world of Austin’s South by Southwest Interactive Festival. When my plane landed in Texas, thoughts were racing through my mind, “Will I be accepted by these emerging leaders of technology or will they reject me, San Francisco style, for deactivating my Twitter account? Should I trade in my leather jacket for some glasses?”

But, the worlds of music and tech are not so far away from each other. At SXSW this year, The marriage of music and tech were hot topics. Technology has transformed the music industry (for better and for worse), and it’s only a natural progression that those two worlds collide.

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SXSW Shorts Keeping Austin Weird

The feature-length films at SXSW receive the most coverage during and after the film festival. My heart, however, lies in the short film category. There’s power in such a short piece of content, sticking in our minds for days after we view it, impacting us longer than most 90-minute films we watch. Take “I Am Your Grandma” for example. The filmmaker’s brilliantly weird and playful message for the future was a gem that would pop into my mind days later - and it was only a minute long.

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