L'équipe du Sommet de la découvrabilité / The Discoverability Summit Team, Author at The Discoverability Summit

When Anna Kendrick introduced Tori Kelly and James Bay’s performance at the Grammys on Monday, she pointed out that the two musicians share something in common: They started online.

But the duo weren’t the only ones at the Grammys who came from the digital space. This year, the Recording Academy ramped up efforts to include social media influencers, reflecting an overall shift in the music industry’s attitude toward digital-first artists.

For the first time ever, the Academy turned to a number of Internet influencers to produce content across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vine and Snapchat in the three days leading up to the show. They mixed among the A-list stars — including Adele, Taylor Swift and Sam Smith — walking the red carpet, posting for pictures and selfie-ing with fans.

Complete article at www.mashable.com

A panel discussing discoverability of content at a CRTC event Thursday stressed the importance of recommendations and curation as strategies to help viewers find content in an environment with more options than ever.

“Algorithms are necessary but not enough,” said Jean-François Gagnon, president of LVL Studio Inc., which makes apps, games and various platforms to increase viewer engagement. “The role of curators is becoming more and more apparent.”

He said the recommendations of an individual a viewer knows can increase viewership of content 50 per cent above the numbers algorithms alone draw.

The French-language event, organized in partnership with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), was the second of two organized by the CRTC as part of the lead-up to its Discoverability Summit, scheduled for May 10-11 in Toronto. It followed an earlier event in Vancouver.

Full article at wirereport.ca

There’s an overwhelming amount of entertainment to keep up with these days – whether in the form of books, movies, music or TV shows. And there’s probably a lot of shows we’re missing out on, simply because we haven’t discovered them. To make life a little easier, we’ve put together a list of 5 sites designed to make it easier to discover new TV shows, based on the TV series you already like to watch.

Whether based on user-generated ratings or complex algorithms, these 5 sites are able to make solid recommendations on what you’d like to watch based on just one TV show and nothing more. In some cases, the sites will recommend more than just new TV shows, suggesting books, movies and more. In other cases, they will allow you to narrow down your results based on specific attributes any given show may possess.

Article complet au makeuseof.com

Growing on-demand platform fuels new series

Some of fall’s top new TV shows this fall are gaining similar traction on demand, with cable systems increasingly offering ways to catch up.

But low-rated newcomers including Fox’s horror comedy Scream Queens and FX’s violent period drama The Bastard Executioner are also among the top draws on demand, according to new data from Comcast, the country’s largest system, which claims 42% of cable subscribers and more than half the video-on-demand (VOD) usage.

NBC’s Blindspot, the top new show this fall, is also tops on demand, with 3.2 million views for any of the first four episodes in Comcast homes, which would translate to 6 million nationally. It’s followed by ABC’s Quantico (3.1 million); Queens (2.8 million); CBS’s Limitless (1.7 million); and Bastard (1.4 million).

But there are big differences in how the viewing pie for these shows is split. Among adults ages 18 to 49 who watched Blindspot within three days, 45% saw it live, 20% watched it on DVRs and 35% used Comcast’s VOD to catch up. Compare that with Bastard: Just 26% watched it live and 30% used DVR playback, while nearly half — a big 45% of adult viewing — came from on-demand activity. (Still, that wasn’t enough to keep the show from getting cancelled this week after its first season ended.)

Article complet au usatoday.com

If you’re relying strictly on cable TV to watch episodes of your favorite shows, you’re missing out. There are all sorts of ways to discover what shows are new and to learn more about your favorites. Take a look at these three ways to enhance your TV watching experience and find your new favorite show.

Subscribe to a Video Streaming Service

Lots of television shows are flocking to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO Now, and other video streaming services to reach more viewers. That means you can watch your favorite shows any time you want even if you don’t have cable. All you have to do is pay a low, monthly subscription rate. Plus, some TV shows are exclusive to video streaming services, which means you can only watch them if you subscribe. For instance, you can only see “Game of Thrones” on HBO and “Orange Is the New Black” on Netflix.

Video streaming services are great because you don’t have to remember what time your TV show is airing and you never have to worry about setting up a recording if you’re not going to be home. That means you’ll never miss a show again and you can go back to watch anything that you want for a second, or even a third time. With video streaming services, you can also discover a new favorite show, and then binge watch it over a few days or take your time without ever missing an episode.

Full article at socialbarrel.com

It seems as though every time my husband and I sit in front of the television to watch something, we end up spending more time scrolling through the vast abundance of shows and movies rather than actually watching any of them. In this new world where there are seemingly endless options for not only content, but different services to discover new content, it is almost overwhelming to decide what to give your attention to. Whether you are a traditional cable or satellite subscriber, a Netflix, Shomi, or Crave user, or a hard-copy purchaser, the decision of which programming to invest your time and money into can be a surprisingly big one.

In an attempt to narrow down my options, I can browse the ‘New Releases’ selections on Shomi, or explore the programming options a Netflix algorithm has calculated would be best suited to my tastes; however, what is problematic about these options is that it is difficult for a computer to tell me what I want to watch when I can’t even figure it out for myself.

For me, programming is not only a way to keep myself entertained on a Wednesday night, but it is also a social activity. For the most part, programming is a universal system that most Canadians engage in in one form or another. The mumbles of “Have you seen the newest episode of The Walking Dead?” or “Did you see the trailer for that new Will Ferrell movie?” can be heard in the halls of the office, in your local coffee shop, at school, or at any social gathering. Quality programming allows us not only to connect with what is happening on the screen, but also with each other. We can learn a lot about each other based on the programs we choose to watch and through our discussions of what we thought and how we felt about what we saw. This is why I consider word-of-mouth recommendations to be my method of choice for discovering new content – discoverability still requires a certain level of familiarity and intimacy. So whether it be through a recommendation from a friend or colleague, a holiday gift from a relative, or the ‘star-rating’ system on Netflix, I think it is important to keep the ‘human’ element of discoverability alive. After all, the programs we are browsing through were created by artists in hopes of connecting with their audience at a human level, and if they are lucky, they can succeed in creating content that allows their audience to connect with each other as well.

So, has anybody seen any good shows? 😉

The use of data analytics to build a global audience steered much of the discussion around content discoverability at an event hosted by the CRTC in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).

The panel of experts at Tuesday’s event in Vancouver, held as part of the lead-up to the CRTC’s Discoverability Summit, said industry should look at discoverability from a global perspective rather than focusing only on Canada.

“Companies should start reaching out to audiences globally. Don’t just think about driving people into your own flagship store that’s located at the end of the street at a dead end. Think about the mainstream audience,” Ling Lin, head of Google Inc.’s YouTube content partnerships in Canada, said during the discussion.

Article complet au wirereport.ca

I’ve been gorging on a lot of UK crime dramas lately, though crime shows have rarely been my preferred series of choice (there’s a The Wire exception to every rule though). Luther might have been the first I devoured, but it’s been followed by The Fall, Happy Valley, Scott & Bailey, and Broadchurch. I tried others and found they weren’t to my taste: Inspector Morse and Midsommer Murders are two I remember. Some UK not-crime dramas slipped into my heart, too: Call The Midwife, The Bletchley Circle.

US series have the advantage of all the marketing money in the world and being widely covered in Canadian media, and Sherlock Holmes and Downton Abbey have become mainstream North American water cooler shows, but how did I discover all these UK series? Netflix. One after another, Netflix told me I’d probably like them, and Netflix is often right.

One of the interesting aspects of last week’s TalkTV announcements was the CRTC’s intention to host a “Discoverability Summit” this fall to “bring together innovators and thought-leaders from the public and private sectors to explore how technology can be used to help viewers find programs made by Canadians.”

Article complet au tv-eh.com

La musique adoucit les moeurs, et a pas mal d’autres propriétés sympathiques, comme de concourir à l’ambiance d’un film ou de te motiver quand tu fais la cuisine. Seulement voilà : quand on est du genre addict aux bonnes ondes, on en aussi a vite fait le tour… La radio, tu connais, les clips à la télé aussi, YouTube, Deezer, Spotify et consorts, tu les as tous écumés comme la vague sur la plage.

Alors où, mais où trouver de nouvelles pistes musicales ? Surtout quand on n’a ni le temps ni l’envie de lire des magazines spécialisés ? Sur le Web, pardi. Suis le guide, voici quelques sites dont tu me diras des nouvelles, si tes oreilles ne sont pas trop occupées à ronronner de contentement !

Écouter les webradios

La radio, c’est pratique, mais ça a tout de même quelques défauts. D’abord, raison commerciale oblige, on y entend toujours la même playlist d’une vingtaine de titres sur un espace-temps de 24 heures. Certes, plus c’est long, plus c’est bon, mais il faut aussi savoir varier les plaisirs (oui, je te parle toujours de musique, rassure-toi).

Full article at madmoizelle.com

Discovery has been and continues to be a regular buzzword at publishing conferences. Sadly, we saw no breakthroughs in 2013. Instead we saw the acquisition of Goodreads by Amazon and the very sad demise of Small Demons.

The reality is that there is no discovery “pain” for readers. Most readers have e-readers or tablets full of ebooks not yet read (and many ebooks bought in a knock-down sale might never be read) or a pile of unread books of the trusted printed variety sitting next to their bed. Many of us have both—I certainly do.

There is always plenty to read, and while we love those moments where we discover that magical new read that we hadn’t been looking for, we are amply entertained by what we find or stumble upon or are recommended by friends.

On the other hand, discoverability is becoming a bigger problem for authors and publishers. More books than ever are being published. Last year it was somewhere between half a million and a million new titles that were published in the United States alone. Self-publishing—mostly in the form of ebooks without a corresponding print edition (digital first)—has greatly added to that abundance.

Ebooks have added to this overwhelming choice in another way, too. Books don’t go “out of print” any longer. They now remain available as ebooks basically forever. Thus the total catalog of books available to readers for purchase or download has swelled dramatically and may now be around the ten or twenty million mark (exact numbers are surprisingly difficult to come by).