Palo Alto Int’l Film Festival Announces Audience Award in Real Time With Kaazing Instant Film Feedback™ (IFF)

New Immersive Technology Allowed Viewers to Participate in Pre-Show Trivia on Screen and to Instantaneously Declare Chasing Ice the Winner of the Kaazing Audience Award

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Kaazing, the pioneer and leader of HTML 5 WebSocket technology, today announced the results of the first time ever demonstration of Instant Film Feedback (IFF), a new live, immersive experience for moviegoers that debuted at the Palo Alto International Film Festival (PAIFF). Using this new technology, viewers were able to access a secure application from any mobile device to vote for their favorite films as soon as they ended. For the first time, audiences and film directors could follow the voting online, in real time, as votes were cast and displayed instantaneously without the need for a traditional paper ballot.

“I’ve been to more than 25 film festivals, and this was by far the best integrated use of technology I’ve seen, from the build-up and preamble in advance of the film to the implementation of the Kaazing Audience Award afterwards.”

The winning movie, Chasing Ice directed by Jeff Orlowski, follows National Geographic's skeptical photographer James Balog as he heads to the Arctic in 2005 on assignment to photograph evidence of Earth's changing climate. Balog begins the journey doubtful, but what he sees and records changes his viewpoint and provides a powerful argument for action.

“Winning the award and watching the results tally up was thrilling,” said Orlowski. “I’ve been to more than 25 film festivals, and this was by far the best integrated use of technology I’ve seen, from the build-up and preamble in advance of the film to the implementation of the Kaazing Audience Award afterwards.”

Over 2000 people registered to play the pre-show trivia challenge, projected to the theater screen, attendees answered more than 10,000 trivia questions, and the PAIFF received over 1,200 individual votes for the Kaazing Audience Award, with 20% of the votes cast from Android devices, 80% from iOS and two-thirds of the iOS voters running iOS6.

Up until now, moviegoer research has been done manually with audience members using paper ballots to cast votes. Manually tallying paper ballots causes long lag times between the collection of the ratings and announcement of the final results. In today's Web centric and instant world, the audience, organizers, and film industry, demand and expect instant results. The INSTANT FILM FEEDBACK™ mobile application by Kaazing, makes this a reality. Based on the intense interest and demand for this technology Kaazing is now making this technology available to film festivals around the world. Interested Film Festival organizers can go to this link to find out more information: http://kaazing.com/iff

Kaazing has unique technology that enables instant Web communications on any browser or mobile device, and is the leading company focused on enabling the Living Web™ – the nearly ubiquitous real-time, interactive, collaborative applications that have become the norm. Kaazing’s secure, real time web communications platform revolutionizes how Web applications are built and used.

"With over 4,000 film festivals worldwide every year, there is a lot of opportunity to implement similar requirements for real time voting in other locations," said John Donnelly III, Executive Vice President of Kaazing. "This is an ideal example of how the Living Web™ can enrich the audience experience and enable real-time feedback for this industry and many other vertical markets as well."

About Kaazing

Kaazing (www.kaazing.com) is the leading company focused on enabling the Living Web™ – the nearly ubiquitous real-time, interactive, collaborative applications that have become the norm. Kaazing’s founding team played a key role in defining the WebSocket standard and the Kaazing platform is the world's only enterprise solution for full-duplex, high-performance Web communication supporting the HTML5 WebSocket standard. Based in Mountain View, CA, Kaazing is privately held, with international channels throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. Some of its customers and partners include Cognizant, Informatica, Intel, TIBCO, USAA, and a variety of financial, ecommerce, transportation and entertainment companies. To learn more about Kaazing, please visit http://www.kaazing.com or blog.kaazing.com, and follow @Kaazing on Twitter.

About the Palo Alto International Film Festival

The Palo Alto Int'l Film Festival (PAIFF) celebrates the convergence of art and media through Film, Interactive, Workshops, Talks, Music, and Awards programs. PAIFF's Film Program breaks through the boundaries of cinema by challenging the traditional movie-going experience in Palo Alto, which boasts the top three VOD and electronic sell through markets in the United States. PAIFF's Talks program redefines the cinematic experience by showcasing the exciting changes in the movie and media industry that are happening today. PAIFF expects that the Festival will fuel conversations and collaboration, as well as celebrate the amazing changes in storytelling that arise from digital technology. A program of Palo Alto Institute, a 501c(3) nonprofit, PAIFF aims to inspire cinematic revolutions.