film studio Lionsgate and Tribeca Enterprises, the media company behind the Tribeca Film Festival, announced today they are teaming up on a new, subscription-based video-streaming platform. The service will be known as Tribeca Short List and is slated to launch sometime during the first half of 2015. You can expect a "prestigious selection" of movie content from Lionsgate, which will be curated by Tribeca with help from "leading voices in contemporary culture.
The Walgreens mobile app lets customers scan their mobile devices at the register to earn points and redeem awards without the need to carry a physical card.
The app allows us to integrate Balance Rewards with other great mobile features, including in-store aisle maps so you can find the school supply or Band-Aid you need, and photo print services so you can send your pictures direct from a mobile device to our store for copies.
LoyalBlocks, customers sign up through the app with their favorite stores that participate with the program. When they visit the store, the app communicates with the merchant's tablet, which automatically checks the customer in and sends them token rewards and deals.
"Austin, Texas-based rental car service Silvercar will offer streamlined operations, a seamless smartphone user interface, and only one type of vehicle: silver 2013 Audi A4s. Customers can book reservations through a smartphone app, which will also let them manage personalized vehicle settings and preferences. They will be able to choose and unlock their rental car by scanning it with their phone."
"While at least Life-magazine-killer TV has served as a platform for the creation of some great artworks (HBO's "The Wire," created by newspaperman-turned-TV-auteur David Simon, comes to mind) and inspired the creation of new art forms (see the upcoming Smithsonian retrospective of the work of "father of video art" Nam June Paik), it's hard to imagine what of lasting value hot web-native media brands like Gawker and BuzzFeed are contributing to visual culture and art history.
Which brings me to an email I got last Wednesday from Gawker promoting its "top story" of Dec. 5., titled "The 13 Most Powerful Images of Naked Celebrities of 2012," which quickly racked up more than a million page views. It was a sequel to a Gawker post from the previous day titled "The 19 Most Powerful Images of 2012," which was mostly a shameless, edited-down rip-off of a BuzzFeed post titled "The 45 Most Powerful Images Of 2012," consisting of intense wire-service photojournalism from Reuters, the AP, Getty and others, which derive most of their support from old-school print-centric publications around the world. Gawker's excuse for its act of, uh, curation: "Who has time to scroll through 45 pictures?""
"Publishers seem to have no end to their appetite for apps. This year through October, 9,125 publication-related apps were released for the iPad, twice the number released in the year-ago period, according to McPheters & Co.'s iMonitor app-tracking service. Hearst led publishers with the most number of apps (89), followed by Time Warner, Condé Nast, Future Media and Bonnier Corp. But as publishers expand to more and more platforms, they're pulling back on the number of costly and time-consuming enhancements, as are advertisers. That's unfortunate, since not only readers are more likely to read enhanced ads, they mean more money in publishers' coffers."
"News agency Reuters reports that Staples in the U.S. agreed to install Amazon Lockers. Similar to BufferBox, Amazon's service sends customers an email with a pickup code they enter on a touchscreen to open the self-serve locker containing the package. Shoppers have three days from delivery to pick up the package."
"Facebook might have found a way to get people to use a long-neglected feature: check-ins, where you announce to your friends where you are.
It is testing a new service that offers local businesses free Wi-Fi through a router. To get online, customers must either check in using Facebook or get a passcode."