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."  

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