Tom Purves – Product Management, Fintech & AI

It’s popular to criticize Big Media and say stop whining about this into mediation we are falling profits or whatever, if you just made better quality content you would be making more money. Hmm I’ve always secretly wondered if that latter statement was true and so when I was, for some unknown impulse, browsing last weekend’s North American box office numbers, this relationship seemed to jump right out at me and made me laugh. (cry?)

So here you have a scatter plot of the top 12 grossing movies (vertical scale) this weekend versus the RottenTomatoes rating (a measure of critic approval) for each of those same movies (horizontal scale). The pinkish line represents excels best guess at the linear regression for this relationship.

sigh. what does this tell us? possible theories:

1. People don’t actually like good content. In practice, they prefer not to be overly challenged by their entertainment and rather prefer the trashy stuff.

2. Bad content is actually good, or viceversa — a longstanding conspiracy of critics if you will.

or…

3. It’s All About the Distribution Stupid. Consumers will consume industry portion amounts those products which are disproportionately put in front of their noses.

It’s all about the distribution, is I feel a point the new economy Web2.0 hypesters tend to forget about. Sure information technology should be helping to level the playing field, but if so, why are we still lining up in droves to see these terrible movies?

Or say I’m wrong and distribution scale advantages or not, say these are all the movies we really did want to see. What does that say about the wisdom of crowds? Another cherished tenet of the web 2.0 ethos…

Now caveat caveat these are only 12 data points from one weekend and there are all kind of statistical biases at work here so, for the time being, consider these “stat’s” as for entertainment purposes only. Also I realize the movie business is more complicated than this, one would hope that good movies make more money over time etc etc. Still, this should be worth investigating a little further don’t you think?

for the record, here is the data set I used, courtesy of RottenTomatoes.com

This Week Last Week Title Weeks Released Weekend Gross Total Gross Theater  Average  # Of  Theaters   T-Meter  1 new   Silent Hill 1 $20.2M $20.2M $6.9k  2926    25% 2 1   Scary Movie 4 2 $16.8M $67.5M $4.6k  3673    38% 3 new   The Sentinel 1 $14.4M $14.4M $5.1k  2822    31% 4 2   Ice Age: The Meltdown 4 $13.3M $168.3M $3.8k  3540    58% 5 4   The Wild 2 $8.3M $22.2M $2.9k  2854    19% 6 3   The Benchwarmers 3 $7.3M $47.1M $2.3k  3094    13% 7 5   Take the Lead 3 $4.2M $29.5M $1.7k  2413    45% 8 6   Inside Man 5 $3.7M $81.3M $1.9k  2021    89% 9 new   American Dreamz 1 $3.7M $3.7M $2.4k  1500    44% 10 15   Friends With Money 3 $3.2M $5M $3.2k  991    67% 11 8   Thank You For Smoking 6 $2.8M $15.8M $2.7k  1020    86% 12 7   Lucky Number Slevin 3 $2.5M $18.7M $1.4k  1735    50%

Everyday it’s becoming more interesting to be in Toronto. Picking up earlier conversations, and on what to do with Barcamp, Mark Kuznicki and I met for lunch the other day to talk some of our ideas. Who should we run into but Oshoma Momoh who also has been blogging on the subject lately (this city is getting smaller all the time). Here’s why we’re talking.

The toronto “Camper” Community reaching a tipping point. Participant turnout is snowballing and meanwhile there is growing policy interest at several levels of government now to sponsor inovation/interactive media intiatives in the region. This could be too good to pass up.

So, if we should we trade in the delightful if anarchic shape of our current un-organization into something with a little more structure, and -gasp- a budget…

Thoughts from lunch – 8 ideas for the future of barcamp toronto

1. Develop Barcamp as a Talent Well

Enhance camp events (and or just add a section to the wiki) to make it easier to match up tallent. Have an idea but need help to execute? [..]Camp should be the ideal way to build out your project “stack” whether it be back/front/middle end developers, marketers/business minds. I could imagine a wiki combined with an networking event, to help campers “hire” each other for wether it be their side projects, new idea or fulltime enterprise. As I said to Mark “Larry and Sergey” are out there somewhere in this city, we just need to get them to meet.

2. Microfinancing

Use [..]Camp support early stage projects either through grands or “micro”financing. Develop the [..]Camp organization as a funnel or support structure new ventures at a pre-VC, pre-Angel phase – or for the sorts of open bennefitting-many type projects that the traditional investment community might not “get”. (see also idea 4)

3. Deeper workshopping

I really like that democamp presentations are limited to 10 minutes but I do think there could be a role for a more structured, deeper dive format for those interested in greater or ongoing feedback. Albert I remember had a related idea for a smaller “CEOCamp” type spinoff. see also 6, 2.

4. Public goods

Harness the tallents of the campers to give back of meaningful to the world local/global scale. Select an inovation-based social or artistic project(s). Support could come in the form the sponsorship, granting or -and I like this one- for a project with a challenging but clearly definable technical goal an XPrize type purse for the first team to succeed. (see also ideas 2, 5)

5. Redesign SlamCamp

Slamcamp was fun. But really not enormously productive. What about slamcamp that lets us a)build something of value b) lets camper show off the skills they are best at (see also 1, 4)

6. Structure and accountability

It’s hard working alone in the “garage” [x]Camp could be a way to sign up for some voluntary accountability, maybe an informal board of sorts to help you remember the project goals and deadlines you want to set for yourself (see also Microfinancing)

7. Jr Campers

I believe Bryce is the orgin of this idea. Barcamp for highschoolers. Great idea, get them while they’re young and that sort of thing (see also point 1).

8. Status quo

This is another option (or what not to change). Presently the typical [..]Camp event offers inspiration, education and networking in a format format that turns out to be almost hillariously efficient in terms of money, time and organizational effort. The only question is whether the current format can continue to scale.

oh ya, and we need a new name.

(I’m happy so long as it doesn’t have the words ICT or 2.0 in it)

——–
update: Mark has just posted an excellent summary of my summary on his blog

My good friend Fran has recently started a new blog called Global Village. In her words:

The cultural critic, international scholar and eminent futurist Marshall McLuhan once predicted that a form of technology such as the Internet would bring us closer together as society to create a “Global Village.” But he also voiced concern over what we as human beings might lose in the process of adopting new technologies. And as I am finding increasingly in my research the differences still do exist, with conflict perhaps being our keenest and most unfortunate reminder of that.

2006 marks the beginning of a research project I am leading on studying global demographic change – no small feat. I hope to use this blog as a host and as an extension of the discoveries, the conversations and the encounters I have along the way.

As I float through the continents and enlighten myself, here’s hoping I can bring something back to all of you in the global village.

Fran, if anyone, I think of as a global citizen. Somehow living in Montreal and working in London and what is it next week Johannesburg? I think of her more as residing in a multi-continental probability cloud rather than a fixed address. Which inevitably makes it hard to catch her for a pint. At least wherever she is, we can follow her blog. I recommend you subscribe.