• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, January 6, 2017

The Kanvas mobile platform will give away its new software development toolkit, describing it as a “toolkit for the masses.”

AOL, which acquired Kanvas in 2015, made the announcement at CES, which for the purposes of this story we’ll call the trade show for the masses.

And now the masses will be able add weird colors and doo-dads the SDK provides; it's a banquet of other graphics, filters and GIFs.
Emerging picture messaging services will be able to offer the same doctoring tools. This is good news, I suppose, but just yesterday I was looking at some beautiful photos of Glacier National Park and the site felt obliged to point out those were real images, not doctored. Ayyyy! So, while messing with images is all big fun, there’s a huge downside for curmudgeons like me.

According to a description from Kanvas, in its own language, the SDK package gives developers access to:

     Integrated Camera: Full screen camera that enables users to capture gifs, photos and stop-motion videos with both the front- and rear-facing cameras.

     Face Tracking: A modularized advanced software solution capable of altering and/or enhancing a person’s appearance in live video with 3D masks, makeup, special effects and more.

     Editing Tools: Powerful multimedia editor featuring vector overlays, stickers, fonts and drawing on photos, gifs and videos. Import from integrated camera or camera roll.

     Live Streaming Capabilities: A live stream module merges the video stream with real-time editing, special effects and chat.

So why would Kanvas just give away such a neat tool? Because with enough apps offered it to its users, Kanvas can step back in and start selling special  filters to advertisers. Presumably those would be ad sweeteners for AOL advertisers as another place to stick their logos. That’s nothing to sneeze at, I guess; Kanvas says the SDK suite is product of 50,000 hours of software engineering.  

Though it’s just being announced today, Kanvas says more than a dozen developers have signed on to get it, including Phhhoto,Video Star, Showzee & ROLR.  In June,,Verizon began using the the Kanvas SDK camera for its Messages app and it’s been well received, which is a good thing because while AOL says it owns Kanvas, AOL is owned by Verizon. Making phone apps fun is a big part of the biz.

WHEN CONTENT STAYED PUT. I love this piece of research CBS has put together. According to its number crunch, the big CBS hit “Big Bang Theory” gets the same sized audience “Everybody Loves Raymond” did back when. It just takes “Big Bang Theory” 35 days to do it.

In 2000-01, Variety reports, an episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond” attracted 20.81 million viewers, as tabulated by Nielsen.
In the 2016-17 season, “Big Bang Theory,” the “Raymond” hit-sized equivalent, grabbed 22.23 million viewers, once you ran the meter for 35 days and added in viewership from  live television, DVR, VOD and streaming places.

Taking the entire prime time schedule over 35 days, CBS attracted 12.61 million viewers, on average, in 2016-17. In 2000-01, that was what CBS got in one evening of regular old day-and-date viewing. (To give you a little taste of the 2000-01 CBS schedule, other heavy hitters were such fossils as “Diagnosis Murder,” “Touched by an Angel” and yes, “CSI.” Back then, CBS was to TV networks what that Oldsmobile was to your grandfather. The bee’s knees.)

The data massage shows how the mighty have fallen, and given the the number of viewing places that have emerged since then, how the mighty have maintained. Variety has a full chart of the show comparisons. It's fun to look at .