Keynote - Burnie Burns Rooster Teeth aka Red vs. Blue

Austin-based machinima group Rooster Teeth gave an entertaining presentation regarding their Red vs. Blue project. Machinima is a combination of computers and cinema, in Red vs. Blue's case it is using Halo and its characters to develop films, cartoons, satire. The writing is hysterical and the characters are funny. By using the Halo platform, they get a good deal of flexibility in a platform that is already very popular.

In founder Burnie Burns' introduction, he stated that he had made all sorts of predictions on a panel during SXSW last year, none of which came true. Then, this year, he was bumped up to Keynote. I guess that's how it goes here at the Interactive Festival.

Burns started with a history of the phone company's role in the network, then moved to the debate over whether content or access providers should be footing the expense of developing the networks, particularly in this multimedia environment. He made a point of singling out Google as a company that is often called out as taking a free ride, also iTunes. Priority access was discussed, with the ramifications and considerations, who gets it for how much, how it is prioritized... making more predictions, access providers will figure out ways to charge for both upload and download.

He also predicted the effect on tv and film to be lower viewership, fewer people watching tv, less going to the theaters, but a better question is what are tv and film going to do about it?

Network strategies: network for anything, quantity (put lots out there and see what sticks), channel changing, fill the pipe. Online Networks (iTunes, YouTube, Xbox 360 Marketplace) are different, how? not that much, looks like what we had before, podcasting is like cable.

R v B is an independent company. They want to stay that way, protect their ability to deliver content. Burns encouraged others in the audience to talk about the way they create and deliver content.

He said that sometimes iTunes or other podcast technologies circumvent people's visiting the Web sites, the place where he wants his audience to go.

...on a personal note, saw The Strokes (Julian, Albert, Fabrizio) at lunch. They were eating BBQ on the patio of the restaurant I was dining at... more celebrity sightings are likely this week.