» Interesting Stuff
(aka SmartEntertainment in Europe)

» Film Ancillary Revenues Optimisation Engine (FAROE)

Interesting Stuff
(aka SmartEntertainment in Europe)

Interesting Stuff is a service that harnesses digital technologies to create a sustainable model to deliver quality entertainment and cultural content to the widest audience both in venues, on the move and in the home.

In 2011, the service is being piloted in Cornwall and the UK’s South West, the Czech Republic, Italy and Scandinavian/Nordic territories. We anticipate a further UK and international roll out. It focuses initially on reaching audiences in rural areas, and urban areas where there is a concentration of creative and cultural activity.

The Interesting Stuff platform enables the delivery of experiences combining creative content and related tools and services in social spaces, cultural venues, at home and on the move. Film, animation, archive, arts and cultural content are integrated with editorial content and contextually linked to consumers’ interests. It uses the power of social networks to replace traditional high-cost, advertising-led marketing and use of advanced personal data analytics to understand and respond to user needs and preferences and thereby optimise revenues.

Content can be enjoyed in village halls, sports clubs, arts and cultural venues, libraries, cafés and bars as well as cinemas. Users can download content to view in the home or on the move and associated cultural products are recommended to buy including music and books. Interesting Stuff is also a platform for local content creators and the ability to connect digitally to arts and cultural organisations and the work of artists across a range of artforms.

The pilot for the service is refining new ways of contextualising and programming longform film alongside audiovisual and editorial cultural content and proving technical feasibility over superfast and normal broadband to venues and homes with standard IT equipment. It is demonstrating how social media and content marketing approaches can be applied to film releases. Finally, it is developing a commercial and legal framework to establish a new model of revenue sharing across multiple income streams for rights holders and artists, distributors and other intermediaries from a range of physical venues and digital platforms.

The initiative has been developed by Golant Media Ventures with TwoFour Group, Guardian News & Media, Ivan Sanna and user experience design partners Ribot.

The pilot service is supported by the EU MEDIA Programme, the UK’s Creative Industries iNet, and the consortium’s own research and development resources. The Creative Industries iNet is a part of Solutions for Business, funded by ERDF and led by South West Screen. Other partners include BAFTA and BT.

With the support of the MEDIA Programme of the European Union.

Patrick Towell – Project Director and Business Affairs
Mandy Berry - Director, Content and Strategic Partnerships UK
Ivan Sanna – Director Acquisitions and Partnerships, Europe

top

Film Ancillary Revenues Optimisation Engine (FAROE)

Film Ancillary Revenues Optimisation Engine (FAROE) is a collaborative applied research project involving the Guardian’s digital agency and optimisation teams, the business innovation agency Golant Media Ventures, semantic personalisation and matching platform Idio and music metadata specialists Decibel. The project is a YouView partner through Golant.

The purpose of the prototype produced through this project will be to show that if film producers and/or distributors create rich metadata for films, then it is possible to create additional revenues for these rights holders (and others in the film value chain) by dynamically optimising the value created by audiences buying – or paying for with their attention and personal data – related content and experiences.

The project will develop a framework for linking together metadata describing users’ tastes, filmed media, editorial content and music and implement this framework in a software engine. To demonstrate the value and power of the engine, user interfaces will be created for the YouView and Android platforms, with a view to future exploitation on Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), mobile and web.

Customised solutions based on the engine will be sold by the project partners to brand and media content owners and distributors worldwide, as well instances of the engine populated with market-specific data (e.g. UK film and music products) being licensed to consumer-facing services on revenue share and pay-per-use models and made available via web services APIs.

Funding

The project was recently announced by the UK’s Technology Strategy Board as being one of the projects funded through the Metadata: Increasing the value of digital content competition, subject to the successful completion of their compliance and financial review processes.

top