STREAMING WILL EAT — THEN TRANSFORM — THE MOVIES
It’s been a devastating year for movie theaters, as many were forced to shut their doors amid the pandemic. But things have been particularly good for the streaming business, which became just about the only game in town for viewers this year. Warner Bros. shook the industry in
December when it announced it would release all of its 2021 films on streaming service HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously. When the COVID-19 crisis subsides, can movie houses find their way back to consumers’ hearts and wallets?
Yes, but it’s going to require a few adjustments. But the big question is ‘What can a theater offer that you can’t get in your living room? People can argue that Comedies are funnier, thrillers are more suspenseful, and horror movies are scarier in a crowd. Someone will need to provide the capital for theaters to make it through the pandemic. They could give customers the chance to see new releases first in theaters.
THE REMOTE CLASSROOM WILL GET A MUCH-NEEDED UPGRADE
One of 2020’s biggest frustrations involved the upheavals associated with abruptly halting education in favor of moving everything to remote learning. But it has been an uphill struggle to master video tools built for adults in business settings. Class attendance dwindled. Even students who did show up often felt disconnected. There must be a better way to conduct online classes for children especially. Now they is a new ed-tech startup, Engageli, which is building an interactive teaching system that’s designed to meet schools’ unique needs. The idea is to make it easier for students to “sit” together at tables of two to eight learners, while an instructor’s lesson unfolds. Students can confer with tablemates without being heard by the larger group. Meanwhile, the instructor can explain things to all the tables at once, while still being able to visit specific tables to make sure everything is on track. Educators prefer this model to the rigid constraints of other vendors’ breakout rooms, which were built to suit just corporate needs. Leading business-video players such as Zoom, Cisco’s WebEx, and Microsoft Teams are likely to move quickly to address the needs of the education market in 2021.