Add Amazon to the list of online video providers that could soon release some new original programming. The company is looking to hire creative executives to develop and produce original comedies and kids shows for online and traditional distribution.

According to a couple of job postings on the Amazon jobs site, the online retailer is hiring creative execs to develop programming through its Amazon Studios initiative. The jobs specifically are for the “People’s Production Company,” which is the name of the production studio producing original content, located in Sherman Oaks, Calif. Successful applicants would report to Amazon’s VP of Series Development and would be expected to:

• Assess pilot proposals
• Work with writers and artists to develop series ideas
• Staff, cast and produce pilots in a cost-efficient way
• Supervise series production when series are greenlit

While Netflix, Hulu and YouTube have already introduced their own original programming, the Amazon Studios project preceded all of those other initiatives. However, while Netflix, YouTube and others are sourcing their programming from professional production companies, Amazon took a different approach with its studio plans — it’s crowd-sourcing scripts and projects from a community of artists and optioning them for free.

Amazon Studios apparently paid 0,000 to script writers and .1 million for test movies in 2011, but programming has yet to make it to distribution. But the fact that Amazon is hiring creative execs to shepherd projects through the development process means that we could see some original shows popping up soon.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Q4 Wrap-up: SOPA and the future of digital content
• Connected Consumer 2012: A year of consolidation and integration
• Connected Consumer Q3: Netflix fumbles; Kindle Fire shines

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM

The integration Prime offers across Amazon’s product lines is simply too important to the company’s whole business.

Wired Top Stories

Amazon has aggressively grown its Prime Instant Videos service over the past year, more than tripling the amount of content available to subscribers since launch. And as Amazon continues to add more content to Prime Instant Video, there have been speculations that it could introduce a service not tied to its Amazon Prime offering. But that’s probably not in the cards — at least not in the near term — according to the company’s top video content acquisition exec.

Today, access to its streaming video service comes bundled with Amazon Prime. But some rumors have emerged lately, suggesting that Amazon could unbundle the service and offer it as a standalone competitor to Netflix or Hulu Plus. That includes a mention from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who wrote in a letter to shareholders that he expects Amazon to introduce the service and price it below Netflix’s own offering.

But Brad Beale, Head of Digital Video Content Acquisition at Amazon, said in an interview Wednesday that the company is unlikely to break out the video subscription offering anytime soon. “The bundle of benefits that come with Amazon Prime make perfect sense to offer to customers,” Beale said. “The way that Prime Instant Video is offered today — we’re going to continue that approach at least into the near future.”

Even before adding the video component, Beale said that Prime was an incredible value. The offering provides free, two-day shipping to customers who pay an annual subscription. We’ve believed for a while that adding video could entice some customers to sign up for Amazon Prime who might otherwise not have — and once they’ve paid the annual subscription fee, they’re likely to take advantage of the free shipping. In that sense, video could be seen as a loss leader for driving more physical retail sales.

There’s also the fact that having a free subscription service could help boost transactional sales through Amazon’s VOD and electronic sell-through offering. While Prime Instant Video has 15,000 titles for free viewing, it doesn’t have many of the latest new release films or in-season TV episodes. For newer content, Amazon offers more than 100,000 titles for rental or purchase. So an Amazon user who got hooked on older seasons of Downton Abbey or Sons of Anarchy on the free service might convert to being a paid user to watch the current seasons of those shows.

As Amazon adds content, it’s also looking to boost awareness of what’s available on the service. That includes placement of a letter from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the site’s homepage, letting the millions of users who stop by every day know what new content is available from Amazon Prime. That kind of promotion is driving awareness and usage, Beale told me. As more customers learn what’s available, and as Amazon continues to improve the offering with even more content, he expects customer adoption to grow even more.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Connected Consumer Q3: Netflix fumbles; Kindle Fire shines
• What Amazon’s new Kindle line means for Apple, Netflix and online media
• Q4 Wrap-up: SOPA and the future of digital content

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM

Within an 11-day period last fall, Engadget published reviews of two different Samsung Galaxy tablets. At the time, we felt the company was turning into a caricature of itself, with slates in every conceivable size, including 10.1, 8.9 and 7 inches. Mostly, though, if we sounded exasperated with Sammy’s “see what sticks” strategy, it was because the outfit unveiled not one, but two 7-inchers over the course of a month. One of these, the 7.0 Plus, went on sale in the US back in November, with mid-range specs and a mid-range price to match its in-between size. But that tablet always felt like a consolation prize next to our second contender, the Galaxy Tab 7.7, which brings a brushed metal back, 10-hour battery and Super AMOLED Plus, 1280 x 800 display. Even on paper, it always seemed promising. Special.

Maddeningly, though, those of us here in the states still can’t buy one through the likes of Best Buy and Amazon, and though Verizon Wireless plans to sell an LTE-enabled version, we know scant few details about when it will arrive, how much it will cost or whether there will be an off-contract option. Luckily for us, our friends over at Negri Electronics hooked us up with an international model, one with 16GB of internal storage and WiFi, HSPA+ and EDGE / GPRS radios — a doozy of a tablet that would cost you 8.50 if you were to import it to the US. (You can buy it domestically if you live in select markets like the UK.) So is the product novel enough to warrant that novelty price? Find the answer to that question and more after the break.

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 review (international edition)

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 review (international edition) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Negri Electronics  | Email this | Comments
Engadget

convert MOV to WMV

E book readers have stormed the market because the launch of the popular wildly Amazon Kindle. Initially the Kindle was bought out and Amazon was not in a position to keep up with the demand for the brand new gadget. Since the debut of the Kindle there are quite a few new e-book readers on the market. And more ebook readers are nearly to return out. The popularity of these devices is only increasing. What may the world of e-book readers seem like in the near future? Here are some predictions about e book readers for the near future.

We will see widespread and commonplace formats.

One factor which may happen with these readers is a typical format. This might be a common format to work on all ebook readers. This shall be vital because authors and publishers will want to have a format where they can promote to all of the hundreds of thousands of ebook reader homeowners versus just a small subset of the market for just one reader. Corporations like Amazon may be unwilling to undertake this at first. In spite of everything, if they will management the format, they have far more management over pricing. However we expect it is certain to occur especially if Amazon can sell to tens of millions of non-Kindle readers.

Varied book firms will type unique contracts with publishing companies.

One other actuality is an unique contract. A write might just publish for one system and one system only. If the author is popular enough and the incentive is high enough, this might happen. Again, this offers a level of management of business choices and pricing. When Apple created a whole music library with iTunes after which controlled distribution of the music, they instantly had the higher hand. Publishers don’t need the same thing to occur to books. They need to control distribution.

There shall be digital media with printed books.

As these new reader units develop into more widespread, many printed ebook purchases may also give you access to the downloadable e book reader model of the e book as well. This would nonetheless give printed books dominance while giving those that have e-book readers cause to exit and shop for real books. DVDs at the moment are doing this model the place you get the physical product, the DVD, in addition to the digital copy. We think that the nice old paper guide just isn’t going to disappear anytime too soon. But, like with so many nice shifts, we do think that increasingly more paper books might want to share the market with digital books.

Digital textbooks will enter the market.

It is solely a matter of time that expensive textbooks begin changing into ebooks. Faculties will want these readers for their first 12 months college students to have the ability to place textbook and homework material on them. These may turn into a part of many classrooms. Like with many know-how advances, the younger generations will embrace the change first.

We expect that ebooks are here to stay. They will not take over completely any time soon, but they will play an increasingly vital function within the distribution of information.

About The Creator

Matthew has been writing articles online for practically 2 years now. Not solely does this author specialise in Computers and Technology, you may also try his latest web site on the best way to convert MOV to WMV with MOV to WMV converter which also helps people find the best MOV to WMV converter on the market.

Sumo Logic emerged from the shadows Tuesday with million in Series B funding from Sutter Hill Ventures, Greylock Partners and Shlomo Kramer bringing its total to .5 million since its founding in April, 2010. Greylock and Kramer also participated in the Series A round.

The company, founded by Arcsight veterans Kumar Saurabh and Christian Beedgen, aims to bring log monitoring and analytics to cloud computing environments via a software-as-a-service model. In that arena, Sumo Logic is bound to face off against Splunk, which filed for a 5 million IPO two weeks ago, as well as Loggly, a company that spun out of Splunk (see disclosure.)

Computer logs —  and other machine data — are an important component of the big data phenomenon. This machine data, if collected, analyzed and searched — provides important insights into how systems and applications are working (or not) and can pinpoint bottlenecks, server errors, and other glitches before they get out of hand.

“As infrastructure gets more complex, there are not only more systems and more heterogeneous systems but not everything sits in the customer data center anymore,” said Beedgen, who is also Sumo Logic’s chief architect and director of engineering. That means on-premises logging systems — which he contended are expensive to maintain and upgrade — are on their way out.

“The idea of sitting in a data center with a nice perimeter around it and just listening to what’s happening there isn’t going to cut it anymore,” Beedgen said in an interview Monday. The trick is to see out into a customer’s computing infrastructure regardless of where it is running. Once those logs can be viewed and monitored, forensics can be applied to pinpoint and trace security threats or other problems.

The service has been in use by select customers including Roblox and Ooyala, for a few months. Roblox, the online gaming company, integrates Sumo’s service into the Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) it uses to run its business. These “instrumented” AMIs give Roblox visibility into its Amazon infrastructure, Beedgen said.

The ability for companies to have a window into their compute infrastructure, wherever that is, will only get more important as more workloads move out of the customer’s own data centers and into the cloud. For more on this big data phenomenon, be sure to check out GigaOM’s Structure: Data Conference in New York City March 21 and 22.

Disclosure: Loggly is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

Photo courtesy of  Flickr user 401K

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Infrastructure Q4: Big data gets bigger and SaaS startups shine
• Dissecting the data: 5 issues for our digital future
• What Amazon’s new Kindle line means for Apple, Netflix and online media

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM