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E3, VidCon preview, Cannes Lions
and our Berlin Pool Party Pics
June is packed with tech entertainment conferences, and we are just about at all of them covering digital tech entertainment for you! We recap last week's E3 games in LA, Cannes Lions which started today in France, and preview VidCon in Anaheim later this week! Plus our Berlin pool party pics before TOA in Berlin.
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E3 Recap

E3 Recap.  The annual E3 video game conference took over LA last week. Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo, and more game publishers hosted press conferences and big parties this week at and around the convention center in downtown LA. Here's a recap of some of the events - and our own...

Game industry speakers discussed game trends including AR, VR, esports, mobile, social influencers and Fortnite at our ninth annual pre-E3 Games event at CTRL Collective in Downtown LA. Our panel featured speakers from indie games and startups including WITHIN VR, Telltale Games, 562 Interative (Snailiens), with the Sports Academy, a physical sport facility that added esports classes, including games, physical trainers and psychosocial coaches available. Speaker discussed VR, AR, esports, influencers and more. Highlights summarized in our   article. Speakers also shared their top favorite game trends in our Facebook live video. After the panel, two artists performed in our Band Jam. Cody Jay (who works at Blizzard) sang his pop boy band tunes, and space diva Polartropica dazzled with lasers that brought us soaring among planets. See video links in our article.

Fortnite Party Royale. Fortnite, the hottest new game, hosted a huge party during E3 at the Olympic Coliseum that was Epic, appropriately enough. The Fortnite Party Royale took over the outside of the Olympic Coliseum, with DJ stage set up right under the Olympic rings. The Olympic torch flame even set afire, amidst waves of undulating laser lights and spotlights from the stage and Coliseum. Game publisher Epic said it wanted to host a huge party to thank the fans for the game's tremendous success. Epic has said the game has reached 125 million players since its launch in July 2017. The party wrapped around the outside of half the Coliseum, with game kiosks, photo opps, and food. See our Fortnite party article with lots of pics!

Survios Party. Survios VR company  hosted a huge party at its HQ in Culver City on Wed night. When one of your new games is a virtual DJ game, you better believe that's a theme of your party! To promote its new game Electronauts VR, where you become a VR DJ, the party featured an Electronauts truck, with a VR DJ playing the game on top to set the music. Stilt walkers and hula-hoop dancers danced to the DJ beats. Attendees also played Survios' others games including Creed VR, Sprint Vector and its first game Raw Data. Two Bit Circus brought some of its IRL games to add to the fun. See our article.

EA Play fan event in Hollywood, where game fans played new Electronics Arts games including the new Battlefront, Battlefield V, Anthem, FIFA 19, Madden 19, NBA Live 19 and several others to win prize swag  including an Anthem poster, dog tags, and red EA shades (our favorite). See our EA Play article . The games fun continues with our Digital LA party, panel and band jam tonight! Details below!

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VidCon Preview

VidCon Preview: VidCon is coming up Wed-Sat this week,  June 20-23. Here's our preview of what's new and notable this year. This will be the first year all major video/social platforms will be represented: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, musical.ly, LinkedIn, Twitter and more will represent. It's not just YouTube any more. Speakers from YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and more speak on various panels and keynotes throughout the program, as well as top creators. This year, featured Creators will be 50% women and 40% multicultural.  VidCon wants to ensure  representation on-site reflects the diversity of the online video space and its  audience. See our preview article . We will be live tweeting and posting from the show as well.
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Our Berlin Pool Party
Digital LA - Berlin Pool Party. We discussed digital agencies and game influencers in LA and Germany while lounging pool side at our Digital LA - Berlin Pool Party at Haubentaucher pool in Berlin. We watched World Cup games on the big screen set up by the pool. The event is our mixer to connect LA tech and Berlin tech before the TOA tech art festival in Berlin. LA and Berlin are known as sister cities for tech. Berlin brought two dozen startups to LA last year to connect with our entertainment  and creative community. We also organized a Digital LA - Berlin Tech meets LA tech panel two years ago featuring VCs, startups and consulting firms bridging the two communities which like to start new things. See article.
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Cannes Lions 
LA represents at Cannes Lions, the creative advertising conference and awards that started today in Cannes, France. LA companies and startups at Cannes include sponsor-row NBCUniversal, Hulu, Live Nation, Activison Blizzard and more who want brands and advertisers to be familiar with their brands and audiences, and get new clients. Several LA based companies also have yachts for invite-only meetings, lunches and sunset cocktail parties, including Rubicon Project, OpenX, TrueX, and more. See our article on LA companies at Cannes Lions. We hosted our Digital LA - Cafe meetup today as well.

Facebook Beach takes over a pier and beach again at the Cannes Lions festival, which is literally made for Instagrammable photo opps. Facebook Beach includes a beach with a swing set, perfect for a boomerang Instagram story. The pier features dozens of couches and chairs for meetings with plenty of free drinks. Panels on the main stage feature Facebook and other senior marketing executives discussing their action steps for diversity for women and people of color. An Instagram art exhibit tells the history of stories, from cave art to Instagram stories. Plus art projects, Facebook Messenger kiosks, free food, juice bar, and coffee make this a must-do if you're at Cannes Lions. See our article.



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LA TECH NEWS

Marvel Studios producer Kevin Feige discussed diversity and hinted at things to come in the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the Produced By conference held June 9-10 at the Paramount Studios lot. He spoke on a headliner panel about his journey to Hollywood, from fan of Marvel comics in New Jersey, to USC Film School, to now helming the Marvel Cinematic Universe, celebrating its 10th year. Kevin has accomplished a milestone like no other: In the past 10 years, he has produced 19 Marvel movies, each #1 at the box office opening wknd, for a total worldwide box office of more than $16B. His 20th movie Antman and the Wasp releases in July. In the discussion and following Q&A, Kevin discussed Marvel's recent successful films as well as diversity, inclusion, and gave several clues to what happens next in the MCU after the devastating events of Avengers: Infinity War. See our article. 
Streamy Awards submissions opened this week. Submit your digital content by July 16 at http://streamy.org/submissions

Amazon and Universal send T-Rex to Grove. Amazon and Universal Pictures teamed up to send a huge Amazon box to the Grove recently, its largest delivery ever! Jurassic Park stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard attended an opening ceremony to open the box, revealing a huge T-Rex statue. You can take pics with the T-Rex in the middle of the Grove through this weekend. You can also see merchandise at the Jurassic kiosk, with shirts, toys, and even a ptero-drone. But you can't buy and get the items there. Instead, scan a QR code on your phone to buy it and ship it via Amazon of course. See our article with pics of the T-Rex barreling down the Grove main street. 


Unicorn Me Undies are top sellers at the new Me Undies store, which recently opened at Westfield Century City. Unicorn undies for men and women are available just in time for Pride Month in June, and LA Pride this wknd June 9-11. Unicorn undies of course, can be worn year round. LA-based Me Undies is an online retailer that started in Culver City several years ago. Me Undies decided to open the store to increase its marketing presence at the high foot traffic and newly remodeled Westfield Century City.  Me Undies executives have spoke on our Digital LA Fashion Tech panels before. Watch Me Undies models walk our first Digital LA - Startup Fashion Show runway. 
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JOBS

Get or post a job on our job board  http://digitalla.net/jobs
-  LA Tourism and Convention Board is looking for a Senior Digital Producer!
 
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OUR RECENT EVENTS

Where are the Blockchain Developers? Blockchain is predicted to change multiple industries, but where are the developers to program the change? At our panel, our expert speakers discussed how to find, recruit, pay, manage, and become blockchain developers. Highlights: Blockchain is relatively new, so like the early days of HTML, you have to find developers who are teaching themselves related languages and platforms, including Solidity, Vyper, Go, etc. You can find blockchain developers online, at university programs, training courses, meetups, conferences, and other events. See highlights in our  article.  Speakers included Zak Cole, Whiteblock, CTO;  Gregorio Rojas, Sabio, Co-Founder, CTO;  Stephanie Mountain, Bixly, Business Development, and  Josh Smith, API Miner, CEO. Thanks to sponsor Sabio, which builds MVP products and recently added blockchain  courses  to its developer bootcamp classes. See our article.


5 AR Predictions. Our AR experts discussed lasted trends in AR at our "AR: What's Next?" panel at Phase Two in Culver City. Highlights: AR includes two types. First is consumer / entertainment AR with games like Pokemon Go that can be easily played on your phone. Jurassic World will release an AR game with its movie this summer. Second, industrial / enterprise AR uses headsets for business uses, from designing a car in AR, to making repairs on equipment. In LA, Mira Labs has low cost headsets that you can insert a phone into. DAQRI offers more expensive VR headsets. Other speakers included Rene of ARwall, which makes AR without need of a mobile device, and AR for pre-viz for filmmakers to block a scene. AfterNow does mixed reality AR. See  5 AR Predictions in our article recap, and our   video where expert discuss future trends in AR.  
 
Newport Beach Cocktails: Attendees in blockchain development, AR, real estates and investors attended our casual cocktails at Red O restaurant, cuz it's our favorite color, on Thursday night.  The Newport Beach cocktails is our annual Newport Beach event following a film screening at the Newport Beach Film Festival that presents technology in a positive light. This year's pre-mixer film was Social Animals, a film that shows how Instagram impacts three teenagers' lives, with both ups and downs.  We enjoyed Mexican appetizers at upscale Red O, to tie into the Newport Beach Film Festival's Latino night theme and our pre-Cinco de Mayo mixer. See our article recap. See our article  http://digitalla.net/nbff18
 
Our Digital Directors panel recap: Emerging filmmakers and commercial directors shared insights on how they have navigated their way to directorial success in a digital media landscape. Highlights: There are multiple paths using digital and traditional tools to success. When creating online video, ensure the first 3 seconds are interesting, because that's about the attention span when thumbscrolling on a phone. Get used to more projects, but often lower budgets when you start your filmmaking career. The panel was moderated by Wiredrive Co-Founder Bill Sewell and speakers included directors Carrie Stett (Washington Square Films), Gandja Monteiro (Gloria Content), Jonathan Hyde (Mutt) and directing duo Mccoy | Meyer (Rodeo Show Productions). See  article.  


Inclusion Summit  included inspiring speakers from Hulu, YouTube, Google, Disney ABC TV, Universal Pictures, Sony, Grey's Anatomy, OWN, Nickelodeon shows, and more on Saturday at CTRL Collective in Playa Vista.  The summit featured panels, mentoring roundtables, and keynote all focusing on how to increase diversity and inclusion from your  content  to startups and  companies . Digital LA co-hosted the event, spearheaded by Yale in Hollywood in partnership with the Television Academy Interactive Media Peer Group and the Producers Guild of America.  Thanks to speakers, organizers, sponsors, volunteers  and community partners including Harvardwood, Women in Media, CAPE, NALIP and more.  Article with  highlights. 
 
Digital LA - Crypto Cannabis . Happy 4/20! Crypto cannabis is a high growth market in its early seed stages, said experts at our Crypto Cannabis panel last night on 4/20 eve. The legalization of cannabis in California plus the rise of blockchain technology have resulted in an increase in crypto cannabis interest. Avoid the cannabis coins; a lot of them are marketing without product, said Timothy Lewis of DNA Fund. Growth areas include branding and distribution, said Ford Smith, advisor at Cannabis Blockchain. See more HIGHlights in our  article and Facebook live  video. 


panel featured influencers with niche
passionate audiences and influencer platforms sharing how to work with brands at WeWork Pacific Design Center. Influencers said it was key to be authentic, and treat followers as part of a community, not fans. Micro influencer platforms Hearbeat, Tinysponsor, and Buttrfly described how their influencers with 500 to 500,000 followers can provide more engagement than big influencers with millions of followers. Highlights in our  article and Facebook live  video. 
 
Digital LA @ KROQ Coachella House.
Our Digital LA influencer crew attended the invite-only KROQ House and other events this past weekend.  
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Digital Drinks during NAB Vegas
 
We enjoyed digital drinks shaken not stirred at our cocktails at the James Bond themed bar Bond at the Cosmopolitan during NAB. Check our pics and article.
 

Digital LA - Robots and AI panel. Speakers from NASA JPL and robot AI startups discussed robots and artificial intelligence applications at our panel celebrating National Robots Week at CTRL Collective in Pasadena last week. National Robots Week is a week-long celebration with events to increase awareness and understanding of robots, with events nationwide. Space exploration robots can use AI for machine vision and learning to analyzing interplanetary weather patterns to avoid storms or predict where to plant crops, said NASA JPL robots engineer Kalind Carpenter. Semio creates robot AI apps for robot developers to add human like interactions and behaviors to their robots, like human face integration, gesture and mobility recognition and generation, said Ross Mead, CEO of Semio. See our  Robots and AI  article recap. 
 
Digital LA - Silicon Beach meets Silicon Vikings. We had an arctic blast at our first Digital LA event in Iceland: Silicon Beach meets Silicon Vikings at the Loft rooftop with stunning views of downtown Reykjavik. Attendees included startups in music tech, back-end services, social travel, and more. Attendees were interested in the LA tech scene, investors, and more. For example, the co-founders of the music tech startup Unna, a platform that helps artists handle licensing, distribution and payments, fly to Los Angeles frequently to meet with music industry experts here. Icelandic startups could also benefit from LA marketing and influencer expertise. LA startups can benefit from Iceland as a gateway to Europe. See our  article on topics discussed at our event.

ICO Summit: Legal, Marketing and PR. 
 
Get your legal right for your ICO, and develop a marketing and PR plan, said former SEC attorneys, MSK law firm partners, and growth and marketing experts at our Digital LA - ICO Summit at CTRL Collective Playa Vista. Experts discussed ICO best practices for legal and marketing and PR on two panels. When marketing your ICO, determine your story (not just BUY NOW) and then create a strategic comprehensive marketing plan online via your web site, social media, crypto influencers, and offline via your road show, conferences an other events, speakers said.
Online: focus on your Twitter, and Telegram first, then also use Reddit, YouTube, Steam, Facebook groups, and a Medium story. See more in our  ICO Summit article. 
 
Digital LA - Esports: Building Community Speakers discussed how to build communities of gaming fans both online and offline. Our panel was held at the new Chinese Theatre MX4D motion theater, where our panel attendees experienced motion, strobe light effects, and even bubbles, all special effects which you can experience via watching a movie or esports tournament. Yes, our first panel with BUBBLES! Speakers sat at 6 of 12 stations where esports players compete. Speakers included: the CEO of the TCL Chinese Theatres and Hollywood Esports, the MediaMation creator of MX4D motion theater, and the Sports Academy, a sports training center with basketball and volleyball courts, that recently added esports classes. Speakers said they used a combination of social media, Reddit, Twitch, and Discord to reach out to and engage fans online, and create events like Mobile Gaming Mondays at the Chinese Theatre for people to meet up in real life. See our  article. 

Digital LA - Robots panel. At our last night's first Robots panel in LA, speakers from NASA JPL and Silicon Beach startups described their robots that explore space, underwater, and can teach kids to code at CTRL Collective Playa Vista.
Speakers described their robots, use and consumer and business applications on our panel, moderated by robot enthusiast Gray Bright.
Watch the speakers demo their robots and describe what they are excited about in robots in the future, in our Facebook live  video during the panel.
Kalind Carpenter, a NASA JPL robotics engineer, described several different robots built to explore Mars and other interplanetary missions. The DROP scorpion-looking robot can climb rough surfaces. Nader CEO of Ozobot described his small robots that help kids learn to code. Rusty of Blue Robotics created his underwater camera robots so underwater photographers could film at a fraction of the cost. Joel Ifill founded DASH Systems which drops drone-remote control assisted packages out of planes to disaster relief areas. Sabri of Orchanic creates robots with machine vision. See our article:  http://digitalla.net/robots 
 

Blockchain investors and entertainment expert discussed blockchain applications for video, music, games and more at our first Digital LA - Blockchain Summit: Entertainment at CTRL Collective in Playa Vista.
The event included four sessions: an investor panel, a blockchain for entertainment panel,  blockchain startup pitch, and a presentation on Humanization of Blockchain by Kai of Sony Pictures.
In the Blockchain Startup pitch, both judges and audience picked winners based on four pitches. Fan Controlled Football League, a fan-controlled sports league using blockchain, won the Judges #1 choice AND the Audience #1 choice. FCFL wins automatic entry to pitch at Silicon Beach Fest. RightsLedger won the Judges #2 choice.
Speakers from Brock Pierce's DNA Fund and Mike Jones' Science Blockchain discussed how they evaluate blockchain startups.
DNA Fund looks for six major things, said Clifford and Emily Bush of DNA Fund.
- Team: has your team built or exited previous companies?
- Tech: do you have the technology, developers, or product? Working demo or experience?
- Token: is it unique with specific purpose?
- Governance Decentralized?
- Business Model / Competition: what's your business model? Who are your competitors and how are you better?
- Lighthouse: Do you have competitive advantage that sets you above others with similar idea?
- Functional product (seventh thing): Do you have a working product? Is it already in the market and being used by clients or customers?
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Cryptocurrency experts discussed what you need to know about Ethereum, DASH, EOS, Ripple and new models of ICO at our Digital LA - Cryptocurrency Beyond Bitcoin symposium on Tuesday at CTRL Collective Playa Vista.  DASH is for payments and it's very fast, faster than credit cards, said Amanda B Johnson, DASH official spokesperson. To accept payments in DASH any merchant or person can open up a GoCoin account and create an invoice to accept payments in DASH, said Steve Beauregard of Bloq and formerly at GoCoin. "ICOs should be building off network effect - collect money from value add investors who know what you're building and can help you grow," said Andrew Lew, founder of ICO Newsroom, a biweekly newsletter covering ICOs. Article with more panel highlights at http://digitalla.net/cryptobeyond
Missed this panel? Attend our just-added Crypto Q&A to ask questions next Tuesday!
 
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SILICON BEACH FEST 2017 Recap
Silicon Beach Fest Best of 2017 edition celebrated top Silicon Beach investors, startups, Hollywood executives and more with a week of panels, workshops and mixers focusing on Bitcoin, blockchain, VCs, accelerators, influencers and more at CTRL Collective locations from Pasadena to Playa Vista. See  article. 
 
Tag yourself in the pics posted in our SBF17 album:  http://tinyurl.com/sbf17 
 
 
 
The Video Content panel featured speakers including the CEO of Jukin Media, Fullscreen, Studio71, Twitch, Machinima and other leading content companies, moderated by David Bloom. See summary in David Bloom's Tubefilter  article.
 
Brock Pierce, Chair of the National Bitcoin Foundation, gave an inspiring keynote. He described his founding role in Bitcoin and blockchain startups and local LA incubator. He also encouraged startup founders to aspire to a higher purpose, mission, and making a difference.
DASH Systems won the Silicon Beach Fest - Startup Showcase 2017 title. DASH uses drones to fly packages from cargo planes the last air mile to people's front yards and doorsteps. DASH is an alum of the Make in LA hardware accelerator based in Chatsworth. DASH also won $500 in AmbassadHer credit. AmbassadHer helps marketers create campaigns via its network of millennial brand evangelists who get rewarded to post on Instagram and other social platforms. AmbassadHer evangelists helped promote #SBF17.
Blue Fever won the judges second place, and Audience Choice first place titles. Blue Fever is a "Netflix for women" which distributes video content for millennial women via both its web site and short snckable text messages.
Several panels features investors, accelerator heads and more giving advice to startup founders and entrepreneurs.
THANK YOU!
Thanks speakers for sharing your experience, insights, and giving informative and inspiring talks. Thanks panel organizers for putting together an array of diverse speakers and topics including blockchain, investing, content, Influencers, AR/VR and more. Thanks moderators for ensuring lively conversations where everyone is heard.
Thanks to gold sponsor TeleSign, whose co-founder Stacy Stubblefield (photo right) spoke on our Women Founders panel on Womens Day Thursday. Stacy discussed how she helped grow TeleSign from an idea to a company with more than 300 worldwide employees. TeleSign helps companies with their security, and is the leader in two-factor authentification. TeleSign was recently acquired by BICS. TeleSign also presented the closing party. The Closing Party featured demos by VRScout, and performances by Polartropica and Elijah, arranged by Planet LA.
 
Thanks Greenberg Glusker, our lanyard sponsor. Greenberg Glusker also featured speaker Jesse Saivar, who spoke on the Video Content and Monetization panel with executives from Jukin Media, Twitch, Machinima, and more.
Thanks to panel sponsors: HIRED presented the Hiring Secrets for Startups panel. ProVisors presented the How to Hire a Local Professional panel.
Thanks to CTRL Collective for hosting at your three gorgeous LA locations in Playa Vista, Downtown LA and Pasadena, with your amazing friendly and logistics-wizards events team.
Thanks Kluge for your amazing branding and graphics for our SBF banners, posters, website and SBF VR experience.
Thanks Etech Solution which is our name badge - registration angel, with a super efficient registration system and on-the-spot name badge printing for walk-ups, eliminating registration bottlenecks and lines.
 
Thanks to our volunteers for your energy and can do enthusiasm helping attendees.
Thanks inkind sponsors for sharing your tasty treats and beverages with us, including High Brew Coffee, KIND snacks, Burt's Bees, SnackNation, Country Archer, and more. 
And thanks to attendees for great questions and helping each other out. We hope you continue follow up with awesome people you met over the next few weeks, to help your projects, businesses, and our tech community grow!
See you at Silicon Beach Fest 2018!

HODL = Hold On For Dear Life! Buy and hold Bitcoin rather than daytrade said speakers at our Digital LA - Bitcoin Blockchain panel. Speakers included Steve Beauregard of Bloq, Michael Terpin of BitAngels, and ICO marketing and PR consultant, Mark Jeffrey of Guardian Circle, on his ICO road show; and Jason Robert of HelloSugoi, which uses blockchain for tickets and events. See article and video. We discussed how to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, how blockchain is poised to disrupt multiple industries beyond currency, and how to launch and market an ICO without getting into trouble. See articleand video. 
 
 
 
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