Tag: studios

From teen wizards to Harry Styles romances: How Wattpad created a user-generated media empire

Posted onAuthoradmin

In the world of Wattpad, no genre is too niche. The user-generated publishing platform, founded in 2006 and boasting 90 million monthly readers, has spent the past few years turning its most online popular stories into both print books and movies and TV shows. In 2021, the multimedia powerhouse was acquired by the Korean tech giant Naver for $600 million—a price buoyed by Wattpad’s ability to analyze content down to which lines of a story readers like best (and absolutely must appear in a movie adaptation). “We have what is possibly the largest library of fiction that’s ever been created,” says Aron Levitz, General Manager of Wattpad Studios, the film and TV arm. “Our audience data allows us to really explore that.” The company’s insights have catapulted dozens of untraditional stories to box office and bestseller success.  Click to expand [Data Visualization: Chelsea Schiff] Wattpad estimates it has 90 projects currently in development (see above), with more titles being surfaced every day by users and algorithms. Some prime examples of the company’s success: Anna Todd’s After series began as Harry Styles fanfiction, selling millions of books. The first After feature film, released in 2019, made $70 million, and a third ( After We Collided ) will come out later this year. Young adult novel I’m A Gay Wizard was one of Wattpad Books’ first print releases in 2019, and is currently being developed into a TV series by the Wattpad Development Fund, which identifies and elevates underrepresented stories for film and TV. The company also has a massive presence in Asia: Indonesian romance novel Turn On garnered more than 17 million reads on Wattpad, and debuted as an eight part TV series in January. With 10 million views so far, it’s the most successful Wattpad project of 2021. Read More …

From teen wizards to Harry Styles romances: How Wattpad created a user-generated media empire

Posted onAuthoradmin

In the world of Wattpad, no genre is too niche. The user-generated publishing platform, founded in 2006 and boasting 90 million monthly readers, has spent the past few years turning its most online popular stories into both print books and movies and TV shows. In 2021, the multimedia powerhouse was acquired by the Korean tech giant Naver for $600 million—a price buoyed by Wattpad’s ability to analyze content down to which lines of a story readers like best (and absolutely must appear in a movie adaptation). “We have what is possibly the largest library of fiction that’s ever been created,” says Aron Levitz, General Manager of Wattpad Studios, the film and TV arm. “Our audience data allows us to really explore that.” The company’s insights have catapulted dozens of untraditional stories to box office and bestseller success.  Click to expand [Data Visualization: Chelsea Schiff] Wattpad estimates it has 90 projects currently in development (see above), with more titles being surfaced every day by users and algorithms. Some prime examples of the company’s success: Anna Todd’s After series began as Harry Styles fanfiction, selling millions of books. The first After feature film, released in 2019, made $70 million, and a third ( After We Collided ) will come out later this year. Young adult novel I’m A Gay Wizard was one of Wattpad Books’ first print releases in 2019, and is currently being developed into a TV series by the Wattpad Development Fund, which identifies and elevates underrepresented stories for film and TV. The company also has a massive presence in Asia: Indonesian romance novel Turn On garnered more than 17 million reads on Wattpad, and debuted as an eight part TV series in January. With 10 million views so far, it’s the most successful Wattpad project of 2021. Read More …

Don’t get too excited about Apple Music’s ‘spatial’ and ‘lossless’ music

Posted onAuthoradmin

I’ve often gushed about my admiration for Apple’s commitment to music. The company employs a lot of musicians or ex-musicians, and even more music lovers. It’s not trivial: It says something about the company’s culture and the way it approaches creativity and collaboration. Apple has obviously made many important music-related announcements in its time, but this week’s announcement about Apple Music offering “lossless” and “spatial” audio probably won’t end up rocking the world. Spatial audio Apple has been working with Dolby to begin making some of the Apple Music catalog available in Dolby’s proprietary Atmos format. Those recordings are meant to sound something like the experience of watching a movie with surround-sound technology, where sounds might come from behind you, above you, or anywhere else within a spherical audio surface around you. And sounds can move around in that space, so a guitar solo might seem to slowly circle above your head (which is cool, because guitar solos are boring). Apple says it’s going to start off with a few thousand Atmos songs in June, including some from Ariana Grande, Kacey Musgraves, and others, and then add more tracks over time. When the spatial support launches next month, Apple devices will be set to play available songs by default, rather than the regular binaural mix. I’ve no doubt the Atmos mixes themselves will be true to the spatial concept. Read More …

HBO Max is Discovery’s ’90 Day Fiancé.’ Does this marriage make sense?

Posted onAuthoradmin

The announcement of the megamerger between Discovery Communications and WarnerMedia on Monday underscored several things: that AT&T, which spent $85 billion just three years ago to acquire TimeWarner in an attempt to seamlessly marry entertainment and mobile communications had arrived at the conclusion that that effort was anything but seamless, and was now spinning off its entertainment assets. (Offloading some of AT&T’s $160 billion debt was also a motivating factor.) Consolidation in Hollywood is the way forward. (Unless regulators block tie-ups like this.) And the future, more than ever before, is all about streaming Read More …

The best 11 ambient noise and music apps to help you stay focused

Posted onAuthoradmin

While research tends to go back and forth on the advantages of noise versus silence for creativity and productivity, I always find myself more relaxed and focused at work after turning on a light amount of ambient sound, usually with some combination of rain, fan noise, and white noise. That habit has turned me into somewhat of an ambient sound connoisseur. Too many ambient noise apps come with cheap sound effects, annoying commercial breaks, or exorbitant subscription fees Read More …