With almost as much bad press as Gitmo, our Olympic-Torch-behind-bars, has become a lightening rod for activists, tourists and even the Mayor, who all want to free the flame.

In one of the world’s freest countries, our torch sits behind a chain-link fence. Worse, it rises up from what looks like a construction site, with cement blocks and boards. This is like the proverbial bride who wears curlers at the wedding to look good for the reception. What are we waiting for, Vancouver?

The Dope on the Cauldron

“I have been to Turin and Beijing and never seen anything like this before,” said one tourist to me in passing. “To think I paid to come here and see this,” he added, referring to the Olympic Torch — or “Olympic Toke” as others refer to our spectacular haystack of reefers. As one Facebook post succinctly posted today: “The Olympics are dope, but the fence is lame.”

In an op-ed piece in today’s Vancouver Sun, Microsoft’s corporate VP notes that we’ve reached a social media tipping point for the Games: “Future Olympic Games will see us interacting with our devices simply by gesturing.”

I’d say, if left to our own devices, we’ll happily gesture to authorities right now, overturning bad decisions — such as the imprisonment of the Torch.

At last, bowing from the pressure from mass media, social media and passers-by, VANOC has just cut a peep hole along the length of the fence and opened a viewing platform for visitors and photo ops. I look forward to retaking and reposting earlier photos of my son taken at the Torch-site, which unfortunately evoked escape from Alcatraz.

Comedy Central star Stephen Colbert took his fandom to a new level becoming the primary sponsor of the US Speedskating team for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. He’s taking donations for athletes and – in yet another form of bank bailout – replacing the team’s original sponsor, the now bankrupt Dutch Bank DSB.

“We must ensure that it is America’s 38-inch thighs on that medal platform,” said Colbert in the official news release. Colbert’s Facebook page includes wacky Olympic sports coverage, video outtakes and a “Skate Expectations Facebook App.”

Inside Facebook is reporting that NBC’s official Olympics page has almost 18,000 fans and includes a widget to watch the games from Facebook. NBC also developed an application, Vancouver Olympics, that currently has more than 60,000 fans and is essentially a video box for NBC content from which users may see Olympics video, photos and news.

To empower fans and get people’s attention, the Associated Press has also set up Twitter and Facebook accounts for the Winter Games. Video and other material from the AP’s Winter Games site can be embedded into other Web sites, including fan’s own Facebook pages.

The AP’s Facebook page is an extension of its online Winter Olympics content venture that will collect online ad revenue from more than 900 news outlets. AP’s content includes schedules, results, photos, videos, news and the ability to share all of it with widgets on other Pages, according to Inside Facebook.

About 120 AP reporters, photographers, editors and videographers will be here in Vancouver to cover the Winter Olympics. Only NBC, which owns the television rights to the Olympics, will have a larger news staff at the event, reports the AP. The news cooperative, now also a fan-friendly cooperative, has covered every Olympics since they were revived in 1896.

As for the IOC Facebook page – in an era of fly-by night corporations, up-start start ups and multi-billion dollar market caps for nascent companies – it’s also great to see some social networking by an organization with a Facebook profile “founded in 1894.”

FanTrust was also just chosen among the top digital businesses that “amazes & inspires“ for 2010 Olympics & fans. In this spirit, we wanted to feature what we know best: the fans.

So, how are active Olympic fans flying their digital freak flags this month? Today we’ll focus on Twitter.

Created by avid sports fans, Twitter-Athletes links to pro-athlete’s and Olympian’s tweets. The creators said the site, which started out “as a weekend (or two) project, [has] taken on a life of its own,” gaining momentum as a result of plugs from ESPN and other sports news outlets. This fan site features the top 10 most popular athletes on Twitter, Shaquille O’Neil has 2.8 Million followers, as well as new additions such as Canadian Olympic snowboarder Mercedes Nicoll, with links to their Twitter pages so that you can follow them too.

Are you a fan of two-time, US Olympic bobsledder Steve Mesler, who as of today has just touched down in Vancouver for his Olympic bid? If so, you can let him know by joining his 27K Twitter followers. Are you a fan of two-timing Tiger Woods? If so, you’ll have to go elsewhere as this site may be the one place he isn’t getting any action.

For more Olympians on Twitter, go straight to http://www.twitter-athletes.com/index.cfm?CatID=243&People=1. If Twitter had sound effects, you could hear the crowd go wild.

“These are going to be the Twitter Olympics,” Director of Media Services for the US Olympic Committee Bob Condron is recently reported to have said.

But fans following favorite athletes on Twitter had a shock last week when skier Lindsey Vonn and speedskater Nick Pearson tweeted that they and other Olympians were banned from posting certain types of content for their fans, including feared one athlete, all photography.

According to the IOC there are some restrictions on content: Olympians cannot have any pictures of the Olympic five rings anywhere on their website, Twitter or Facebook accounts, nor can they post photos of themselves wearing brand names of sponsors who are not official sponsors of the Olympics. The IOC reports that these guidelines are more lenient than for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Vonn and Pearson have since updated their tweets to reflect this new reality.

Meanwhile, in what is turning out to be a five-ring circus, the international media in Vancouver is facing their own sticker shock and awe over the hefty Internet access fees levied by Olympic organizers for reporters and photographers. Citizen journalists and hardcore fans can still cover the events using free wireless in a cafe while wearing Nike shoes.

Generating real world dollars from virtual goods, advertising and sponsorship, social games represent a powerful business model. And with the cost for building a good social game as low as $100K, the margins can be astronomical and the barriers to entry non-existent.

From mature entertainment companies to rank start-ups, from VC’s to analysts, everyone is watching this space – or ignoring it at her peril.

FanTrust’s latest business whitepaper gives you a high-level look at entertainment’s massive growth market and fandom’s new frontier, including:

• Market opportunities
• Monetization tactics
• Fan favorites

Read or download “Socialize Me — FanTrust’s Fast Facts To Help You Tap Today’s Billion Dollar Social Games Sector.”

Even better, digital media fundamentals appear stronger than ever. A recent study reports that people would rather keep Internet, video and voice services in their budgets than any other type of expense, including personal care products, gym memberships and apparel. Bad news for hygiene, but great news for digital media, which environmentally at least, and porn aside, is a pretty clean industry.

In an era of user-generated content and web-only content, what remains unique about BellFunded content is its embedded connection to broadcast and all that television embodies: outstanding productions, unrivalled promotions and unbeatable reach. Couple all of this with TV’s mature business model, high-tech’s entrepreneurial spirit and wrap it all up in the glamour-bubble of entertainment, and there could be no better formula for success. Of course digital media is still in its infancy – with perhaps a century of success ahead before we’d even be considered for a multi-billion dollar bail-out – so, we’re entitled to tweak our formula along the way.

Canada may actually be the true calm in the storm. With our stable equity market and our sound economic policies, we recently ranked as the number one place to build a business, leading as the top country for entrepreneurs and the top ranked for entrepreneurial access to capital. (Unfortunately, the study was helmed by deposed junk bond king Michael Milken.)

Not only is there more money here for entrepreneurs, there is more money for digital media specifically. The Bell Fund’s contribution as Canada’s largest private fund for interactive broadcasting remains unrivalled anywhere in the world. Cable and satellite distributors continue to thrive, subscribers are up and profits are growing, which is good for the convergence kitty. Add to this the new $100M Vanedge Capital fund earmarked for video games and digital entertainment, and there is no doubt that the formidable talent and acumen in our sector will keep us at the top of the heap for years to come.

As consumers of all this digital entrepreneurship, we have also benefited from on-demand-everything and online-all-the-time. Blame it on YouTube, but by 2012 our insatiable appetite for bandwidth might even outstrip corporate greed, our demand exceeding cyberspace’s supply as the Internet unleashes random brownouts and our lifeline is reduced to what the Sunday Times of London calls “an unreliable toy.” So, not only do we have the challenge of defining a credible business model, we are faced with spearheading a conservation agenda, like a developing nation that must contend with the inconvenient truth. Ideally, next-gen digital producers will tackle these two issues in tandem and take us all to the next level.

Over the years we’ve seen digital properties get creatively lush, increasingly rich and fun to play. And we’ve seen the big awards like the Digital Emmy swoop in to acknowledge that new media has finally arrived. New storefronts like iTunes and the rise of virtual goods have opened new gateways to revenues. CNN seems as eager to Tweet as to broadcast, and no doubt monetize the results. New media syndication and licensing now results in real dollars.

After a classic relationship involving playground flirtations (NYT/Amazon), awkward prom dates (BBC/Microsoft), early arranged marriages (AOL/Time Warner) and legal separations (YouTube/Viacom), media and technology seem intent on working things out. And like any couple starting over while still arguing about money they’ll be seeking help.

There is no better bridge across this divide than content producers and rights-holders, each of whom are poised to capitalize on multiple revenue channels and propel new media models forward. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.

Excerpted from “The Last Word” by Catherine Warren, published in How to Make Money with Multi-platform Digital Media, Bell Fund, 2009, also available in French.

Read the Bell Fund press release on the bliki launch

Through linking and social networking features, Twitter offers excellent viral marketing and content sharing – in February 2009, Web measurement firm Hitwise reported that Twitter sent nearly 20% of traffic to entertainment sites.

Read or download “Boost Your Brand with Twitter – FanTrust’s Top Tips”

Until then, here are FanTrust’s picks and pans for screens large and small. The rationale not so much to answer: “can we cross-purpose our content?” (yes we can) or “does anyone really want to watch long shows on small screens?” (yes they do). But rather to respond to the question: “can we create ideal content for a specific viewing experience?”

On an iTouch there is nothing more compelling than a close-up of a human face. The tone and texture of the skin seems real and the eyes appear to connect with our own. The screen’s lush colors and soaring resolution bring the device to life in our hands. Couple that with a direct gaze and an intimate conversational delivery and you have tiny screen magic. As an example, take Aubrey’s Make-up Tips.  Downloaded from the Poptiq mobile app onto your smartphone, they are strangely addictive. By comparison, the same Aubrey videos on Youtube seem lost, floating in a sea of background pink and streaming choppily from frame to frame. Anecdotally, you can even mesmerize a 6 year old boy with Aubrey’s show on the iTouch, getting him to shriek for “more make-up tips” – although why you’d do this is another matter.

On the other hand, Hot for Words would be outré for my hand held (and obviously for my little boy) but rocks on Youtube, pulling in 10.5M channel views and counting. Content this in-your-face needs a little distance. So viewing this combination of titillating-accented philology, bustiers, and body bling is best done at arms length, making the laptop screen perfect for the experience.

Moving up the food chain, from Web to TV, Barely Political’s Obama Girl would be an excellent crossover candidate. First launched on Youtube in 2007 when Obama himself was polling 11 percent, the skits have achieved 75M views on computers around the world. Featuring the alluring Amber Lee Ettinger, snappy music and sardonic wit, it makes sense that this type of sketch comedy jumped to living room screens on a Saturday Night Live sketch.  (Check out FanTrust’s live interview with Obama Girl!)

For major motion pictures, nothing beats sweeping landscapes and epic themes. That’s why it’s always sad when movies like Kung Fu Panda inevitably get downsized to DVD and Blu-ray. Animation this good begs for the silver screen and goes down best with a tub of popcorn in a crowded theater. Physicists have a great term for it: “action at a distance,” which is just what I love from a breathtaking cinematic experience.

Long or short, there are some things I’d watch on any size screen. I’ve been rapt over The Tudors on television, laptop and iPod. And I’ve loved HBO’s John Adams on all of my home multiplatforms. Great content is still great content. And large or small, we’ll be hitting that forever.

To do this, we are focused on helping organizations achieve their multiplatform goals with FanTrust’s “five Rs”:

o       Raising capital (financing ventures and winning grants)
o       Relationships (strategic partners and business development)
o       Reach (community building and distribution)
o       Recognition (using mass media and new media for PR and awareness)
o       Revenues (need I say more?)

For more on the panel, read the Vancouver Sun’s Cyber characters born online

As part of the 4th annual Women in Film Festival, the New Media Forum (sponsored by BCFilm) is a full day of panels, applications, interactive exhibits, and networking. A blend of technology, social media, and interactivity from Getting Your Feet Wired to Emerging Technologies and Trends, WIFF’s New Media day will inspire and engage those who want to tell stories in a more interactive space.

• The online media sector raised $3.5 billion USD in venture capital in 2008, a 22% increase over the $2.9 billion in capital raised in 2007.
• The “enabling” sector saw the largest increase in capital raised, up 124% with $892 million in 2008.
• The mobile sector also saw big gains in investment capital, with $341 million – a whopping 488% increase over the $58 million raised by the mobile sector in 2007.
• The top five sectors in terms of transaction volume (not reported deal value) for equity raises in 2008 were:
  • Video & Online Games – 59 capital raise transactions;
  • Social Networking – 57 capital raise transactions;
  • Web Applications/Enabling/IT – 47 capital raise transactions;
  • Mobile – 35 capital raise transactions; and
  • Blogging/User Generated – 27 capital raise transactions.

Read the report, available as a PDF download.

Even with the current economy, we have a wealth of experience to draw from and a lot to be optimistic about.

• While retail experienced a modest Christmas, Facebook made about $35M from virtual gifts alone in 2008.
• Business models that are free to customers — and both traditional and new media are good examples — now account for the majority of revenues for 60 of the world’s 100 largest companies.
• And global digital revenues, with their annual double-digit growth, are still projected to hit $153B by 2011.
• By 2020, 80 percent of all media consumption will be digital; today it is already more than 50 percent.
• The Guitar Hero World Tour led to the creation of 25,000 user-generated songs in the first ten days of release, representing a new subscription model to monetize fans — and a whole new level of fandom!
• New media supported new levels of fundraising and community outreach for non-profits: Wikipedia just reached its $6M goal from donations; and the United Way of Canada recently launched a YouTube awareness program with FanTrust.
• There will soon be as many avatars in the world as people in Canada…leaving Canadians to wonder if we’ll be replaced by Club Penguin in the G8?

So, as 2009 rolls out, and as I celebrate my 25th year in digital media, I believe that our industry’s collective depth and experience will stand the test of time and continue to take innovation to new heights. If desperate times call for desperate measures, no doubt troubled times can be the mothers of invention.