Week's Best Posts in Transmedia, Film, Tech, Biz & More

A few months back I began curating my favorite tweets, posts, and links at the end of each week in a feature I call "Nick's Great Information Friday" -- NGIF as a kind of lame play on the TGIF abbreviation we all know and love. Problem is: it's too hard to predict how busy my Friday's may be, as was the case this week. So in the future, watch for my weekly roundup sometime between Friday and Sunday. Or simply subscribe to my newsletter and get the posts in your email in-box. 

It was a very busy news week, what with CES, the Oscar race, and the usual slice of tech squabbles. I focus upon links that offer context and understanding, though occasionally you'll find some flat-out news that I think shouldn't be missed. Enjoy!

DIGITAL BUSINESS 

• I started the week in Orlando with a speech to a group of local television broadcasters, blending some futuristic projections about the way we will be viewing TV along with practical suggestions to counter "disruption." Here are the slides with notes, should you be interested. 
• It was CES Week, and there was LOTS of "news" about various gizmos and trends -- yes, LOTS. I was interested to see the continued evolution of the studio's movie locker project UltraViolet, including a deal with Samsung that could be significant, and this one on the Panasonic deal. And this one about the deal with Akamai.
• Marshall Kirkpatrick outlines the implications of the recent deal between Facebook and Politico that will track mentions of candidates from the social website.
• "Network" is a beautiful piece of motion graphic film that illustrates some disturbing stats about how carriers amass and resell our vast data trails without permission. I tackled the topic in a recent post entitled "The Virtual Self."  

• The controversial anti-piracy bills wending their way thru Congress made the news this week outside the tech bubble, attracting comments from the President and Rupert Murdock. Looks like some of the harshest restrictions on the Internet are being dropped.
• Cult of Mac writer Mike Elgan contextualizes Apple's forthcoming entry into the textbook market as a preemptive strike against Amazon, with an emphasis on digital native properties that bypass traditional publishers.
• Lots of buzz in the twitterverse over Susan Cain's NY Times' piece "The Rise of the New Groupthink," which disses collaboration and brainstorming. Kind of special pleading for introverts as people with special needs, not surprisingly, her next book.  
• Google sparked some fiery rhetoric in response to inclusion of social results in its primary search results, largely because of the prominence of its own Google+ posts. Here's WIRED's Steven Levy's analysis.

TRANSMEDIA (INCLUDING FILM)

• Alternate Reality Network site ARGN.com posted the last of its year in review summaries that included some useful tidbits if you are tracking transmedia and related story formats.
• Speaking of transmedia, Steve Peters posted a useful, if slightly ironic infographic entitled "is it Really Transmedia Storytelling?" -- the questions alone are worth a look. 
• Here's a great roundup of some interesting transmedia work for kids.
• Here's a real nice curation of "Interent Native Film," including interactive, personalized, and enhanced films.
• VC Fred Wilson muses that "scarcity is a shitty business model" in analyzing recent moves by the Hollywood studios. 
• GigaOm introduces ARG creator Jan Libby whose "Snow Town" is now morphing into an interactive app, if her Kickstarter campaign succeeds. 
• Filmmaker James Lawler posted a nice look at how the "super artist" of tomorrow might manifest on the Internet. 
• Variety's Andrew Wallenstein interviewed YouTube programming czar during CES and came up with some news

ARTS and SCIENCES

• Sparrow Hall engagingly presents an argument about where the interests of artists really lies in the age of digital distribution. 
• The Atlantic posted news of a free ebook download from the Neiman Center designed to help authors publish in the era of the e-book.  
• Legendary investor Vinod Khosla continues his Tech Crunch guest posts with a truly thought provoking column: "Will We Need Teachers or Algorithms?" 
• Jason Gots writes about neuroscientist Michale Gazzaniga who posits a physical predisposition for storytelling in the human cortex.