Bloom In Tech

Ken Jennings made a name as the No. 2-winningest player on Jeopardy,  while Richard Garfield was the creator of Magic the Gathering, one of the most successful card games ever. Now they've teamed up for a new trivia game called Half Truth, designed to be a lot more accessible to an audience far beyond the usual trivia traffickers. I talked with Jennings and Garfield before their game's Kickstarter launch this week to talk about how you make a game for non-trivia players, the history of trivia, why use Kickstarter, and more. Give a listen.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

A flurry of deals and deal-related news this week, led by the Viacom-CBS merger's long-anticipated merger and Verizon's dumping of former social-media giant Tumblr got me thinking about what it all means for the tech-centric entertainment world we're entering. I also have lots to say about a deal that didn't happen, Facebook's acquisition of Houseparty., among other hijinks at the social-media giant. Can ViacomCBS survive even as a combined standalone unit? Is Tumblr really only worth $3 million? And could the fear of antitrust keep Facebook on some sort of straight and narrow path away from jerkdom? Give a listen, then share your thoughts through Anchor.fm's audio comment function, or send me a Tweet and LinkedIn message.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

Ninja (Tyler Blevins) has been the best-known star in the booming business of live-streaming online about games. Until the first week of August, he did that for Amazon-owned Twitch. Then he turned the business of live-streaming upside down when he announced he would jump to Microsoft's Mixer service, which has been in fourth place among game streaming services. The move has lots of implications, and I talk about them on this episode of Bloom in Tech. Give a listen.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

Netflix had a bad couple of weeks, for several reasons. In this episode of Bloom in Tech, I talk about the implications of Netflix's stumbles, and what it means for the looming streaming-video wars. And as all that was going on, I sat down onstage at the OTT_X Conference in Los Angeles to talk with Adam Lewinson, the Chief Content Officer for Tubi, the biggest of the ad-supported video-on-demand services out there. AVOD services  such as Tubi have a very different set of challenges and user expectations than do the subscription services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and CBS All Access. We talk about why, and where Tubi is headed. Give a listen.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey have been running World of Wonder, their Hollywood-based TV production company, for nearly three decades. For the past 10 years, World of Wonder has produced RuPaul's Drag Race, featuring perhaps the best-known drag queen ever. The show's format has now been copied into local versions in several additional countries, just one of the ways Barbato and Bailey have diversified, survived and thrived in an era increasingly hostile to independents. In my conversation onstage with Barbato and Bailey at the recent VidCon in Anaheim, they talk about opening a retail store on Hollywood Boulevard, launching DragCon events in New York and Los Angeles, creating a social-media powerhouse, nurturing outsider creative talents, getting into long-form documentaries, and turning those docs into scripted programming. It is indeed a wondrous world for World of Wonder. Give a listen.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

Joey Graceffa has spent a decade as one of the most influential of online influencers, with more than 1.9 billion views of his YouTube videos by more than 9 million subscribers, along with a big footprint on Instagram and Twitter. I sat down with Joey at VidCon, the big influencer convention that just concluded  in Anaheim, to talk about his long-running YouTube Premium show, Escape the Night, his fixation on escape rooms, and his desire  to turn his trio of dystopian YA novels into a movie,  but without him as director. How refreshing. Give a listen.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

During the recent E3 game conference, I sat down onstage with Zach Wigal, the founder of Gamers Outreach, which provides games and video game equipment for kids stuck in hospitals facing long-term care for serious and life-threatening conditions. It was one of four panels I did as part of the E3 Esports Zone, run by Subnation, and a series of partners and sponsors. We were on the Content Stage and also had our conversations streamed live across the web. Just in case you missed all of that, here's my conversation with Zach about helping kids facing serious illness with the therapeutic escape of video games. They do good work. Maybe you can find a way to support them as well. In the meantime, many thanks to Subnation, E3, and their partners for the opportunity to take part  in this and several other great conversations.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

I've been gone for a little while, undergoing a huge move that's left me without virtually any of the traditional physical media that I've gathered over many years. That's all great. But as I and millions of others go full KonMari, are we giving up some crucial ways to signal to others around us the culture, books, music, film, TV that matter to us? This is a quick episode, just some thinking stimulated by days and days of getting rid of much of my physical belongings, and tipping into a headlong embrace of the digitally based life I already have been in and around years. Give it a listen, and let me know what  you think. You can leave an audio message through Anchor.fm's tools around this podcast. Please rate, review and share the episode if you like what you hear. And if you really like what you hear, you can become a supporter of it through Anchor.fm, throwing a few bucks in the kitty.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

At the recent E3 video game conference, I sat down with Victor Pool and Ruben den Boer, the Dutch duo behind the electronic dance music act Vicetone. They grew up in small Dutch towns, spent time in Amsterdam, New York and Los Angeles, but even as they started creating more EDM hits, they yearned for a  quieter place to live. The answer: two years ago, they moved to Nashville, found a house and set up a production studio. And it seems to be working out.  When we talked, their single “Something Strange”  was doing something strange.: Six months after its November release, the single  finally hit No. 1 on Sirius-XM’s BPM channel, while their latest single,  ‘Waiting,” had just been released.  They were about to fly to Tokyo to start a six-country, three-week tour across Asia.  The duo are big gamers, and took in all the new video games on display at E3. But they were at E3 because they were performing at the opening-night party sponsored by Subnation, which

Long-time pals Danny DeVito and Michael Douglas sat down together at the recent Produced By conference on the Warner Bros. studio lot to talk about, well, a lot.  They met when Douglas was still in college in Santa Barbara, and have worked together as actors, producers, directors and friends for half a century since. In this conversation, they talked about making the Oscar-winning One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Taxi, Streets of San Francisco, The Kominsky Method, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Romancing the Stone and so much else. Along the way, they have some great advice for producers and would-be producers of film and TV, and some thoughts on the challenges and opportunities of the streaming-video era, and what Quibi means. It's funny, fond, occasionally Falstaff-ian and a downright entertaining conversation. Give a listen.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

Mindy Kaling made a splash as an actress in The Office and The Mindy Project and just released Late Night, an Amazon Studios feature that she wrote, directed, produced and stars in. Nancy Meyers started as the writer of such films as Private Benjamin and Irreconcilable Differences, then became a director and producer, known for iconic rom-coms such as Something's Got to Give and It's  Complicated. The two sat down together at the recent Produced By conference to talk about being multi-hyphenate female creators in Hollywood, with all the challenges, experiences and opportunities that have unfolded since.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

This weekend's Produced By conference, hosted by the Producers Guild of America, was a good chance to sit down with Gail Berman and Lucy Fisher, the presidents of the organization, to talk about creating TV shows, films and streaming programming in a Hollywood that's been turned upside down by technological change. Berman, who headed both Fox TV's entertainment division and Paramount Pictures, and FIsher, former vice  chairman of Sony's Columbia Pictures Group, are among the most prominent producers out there, each working on projects for traditional outlets, new streamers, even a movie based on podcasts. And the conference they're presiding over will touch on many of these changes and much else. You can also read my Forbes piece about the interview.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

The announcements were coming fast and furious at Monday's opening session of Apple's World Wide Developers Conference, but the stuff that caught my attention was perhaps a little more subtle: Apple is trying to get us old-school computer-wielding types to move away from the increasingly problematic World Wide Web, with its trackers and data violations, to an app-based universe that looks a lot more like its iOS mobile universe. Give a listen, then take advantage of Anchor's audio comment button to let me know what you think, and what you thought was most interesting from Monday's presentations. There was lots to chew on, especially that smoking hot Mac Pro, which ought to have Hollywood's video editors, visual-effects specialists, VR creators and others really excited. But trust me, for everyone else, an app-y place can be a happy place. Give a listen.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

Plenty of people have heard about crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, which make it easy for fans to back f creative and technology projects, among others. And more recently, we’ve seen companies tap the SEC’s newer Regulation A process to sell shares of stock to, particularly, fans of smaller ventures that aren't yet on the major stock exchanges.  CrowdStreet uses some of the familiar crowdfunding tools and approaches, but targets a much higher level of backers, namely so-called  "accredited investors" who might want a piece of one of the biggest asset classes out there, commercial real estate. I sat down with CrowdStreet CEO Tore C. Steen to talk about how the six-year-old company is using an online process and crowdfunding to streamline and open up investing in commercial real estate. The segue from KickStarter to CrowdStreet isn’t an obvious one, but the opportunities are just as big, the beneficiaries just as unexpected. Give it a listen.  --- Support this podcast: htt

This week, I moderated a panel on work and mental health for Soul Pancake's "Four Conversations About One Thing," a series of discussions tied to  Mental Health Awareness Month. My panelists included actor Romany Malco (A Million Little Things, Weeds), Internet and radio star Shira Lazar, Quibi head of people operations Denise Jackson and Dr. Habib Sadeghi. This podcast, I talk about dealing with burnout, a huge issue for online influencers especially, and a discussion that comes just as the World Health Organization has officially added work-related "burn-out" to its handbook of recognized illnesses and conditions. Separately, I speak with Dr. Sadeghi about some of his prescriptions for building a more balanced and centered life amid all the challenges we face out there in this fractured digital age. If you're in tech or entertainment, or really any high-pressure business, there's lots here worth checking out. Give it a listen.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/suppor

This week, I spent a day at the semi-annual Digital Hollywood conference, in part reconnecting with friends and business associates. After moderating a truly great panel of thoughtful people in  influencer marketing (you can watch the panel here; scroll to about the 1-hour mark in the day-long video to get to my panel), I also got a chance to watch a panel featuring the Italian astrophysicist and musician Dr. Fiorella Terenzi, then I sat down separately with her to talk about "Let's Get Astrophysical,"  the class she teaches at Florida International University and at California State University - Channel Islands.  The class combines traditional astronomy with creative expressions such as music, art, fashion and dance, along with some wisdom on being entrepreneurial, and even some Internet etiquette. As part of the class, the students create what Terenzi calls a space opera, "Tommy" for the spheres. Terenzi has been crossing between hard sciences and the humanities for decades, dating back to a

I caught up with Brian Solis, the long-time "digital anthropologist" and speaker on influencer marketing, at this week's Open Influence Summit in Los Angeles (where I also moderated a panel featuring Open Influence CEO Eric Dahan, Casting Influence CEO Tanya Bershadsky and Ensemble Digital Studios Founder Larry Shapiro). The summit was focused on influencer marketing, and that dominated Solis'  keynote conversation with Dahan. But he also talked with me about his new book, Life Scale: How to Live a More Creative, Productive, and Happy Life. It's the result of Solis' own journey over the past year or so, dealing with a loss of focus, productivity and ease, thanks to his frenetic relationship with digital technology that he's been studying since the mid-1990s. The conference was good, my panel better and my conversation with Solis most interesting of all. Give it a listen.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support

Actor and activist Edward James Olmos has created a string of iconic roles over the past 45 years, including in 'Battlestar Galactica,' 'Zoot Suit,' 'Bladerunner,' 'Miami Vice,' and 'Stand and Deliver.' My partner Andrea Vaucher and I caught up with Olmos last month at the Panama International Film Festival, at festival headquarters in the Central Hotel in the Casco Viejo, the oldest area of 500-year-old Panama City, Panama.  Olmos at the festival for a 30th anniversary screening of 'Stand and Deliver,' the biopic about East Los Angeles high school math teacher Jaime Escalante. His portrayal of Escalante brought Olmos his first Academy Award nomination, though, as Olmos tells it, cobbling together the funds to get "Stand" made was one of the more unusual film finance stories ever. Olmos also introduced the festival's closing-night film, 'The Sentence,' a documentary about controversial drug-conspiracy laws in the United States.  He also talked about why 'Battlestar Galactica' remains important,

In the category of good riddance, Instagram is experimenting with getting rid of one of its least useful metrics, the Like. I talk with Beca Alexander, President of long-time influencer-management and brand consultant Socialyte to understand more about what it means. But as far as I'm concerned, losing the like gives us a chance to move beyond the high school era of social media. In this episode, I also promise to link you to a great Medium piece on the downside of all those millions of dollars that investors put into online-media companies, and how it suckered them into giving away expensive content for free. The story can be found here, I recommend it for those who care about why hot online outlets such as Buzzfeed and Vice keep having to lay off people even amid all their perceived, well, buzz. You can read my Tubefilter column on Instagram and likes here. Perhaps less surprisingly, I recommend that too. But give this podcast a listen. My conversation with Beca covers a lot of the changes in what matters t

The  movie 'Alien' turned 40 last week, and to celebrate, Fox partnered with the creator platform Tongal to find six young filmmakers to create short video projects around the iconic film franchise. The results have been popping up the last few weeks, and on May 3, arrive on AlienUniverse.com and social media (under the handle @AlienAnthology) for further viewing. I talked with Tongal founder and CEO James DeJulio about how his decade-old Santa Monica-based company surfaced hundreds of proposals for the six Alien films through a community of 170,000 creators. In all, he said,  more than 1,000 of those creators had a part in creating one or another of the shorts. Tongal and platforms like it are  one way brands and agencies are tapping into new creators and creative ideas at a time when the demand for content and options for marketing and distribution is ever-accelerating.   --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/davidlbloom/support