Welcome to Mashable Entertainment

Welcome to the new Mashable Entertainment section, presented by Samsung Mobile. As Mashable‘s CEO Pete Cashmore wrote earlier Tuesday, Mashable continues to grow and expand. Part of that growth means that we have the opportunity to better explore some of the industries that are most influenced by technology, social media and digital culture.

Over the past five years, the entertainment industry has changed. Social and digital media are having a profound impact on how entertainment content is created, consumed and distributed. Services like Netflix, Hulu and Spotify and the ability to access content across devices — mobile phones, settop boxes, tablets and more — have forced establishments to realign and adjust, lest they perish.

For the past decade, the narrative around the music industry has been largely about its struggles to adapt to the digital age. The film and television industries have (thus far) avoided the same fate, but changes in consumer behaviors and the rise of ubiquitous connectivity has changed those fields, too. Even relatively new industries, like video games, are experiencing disruptions as low-cost casual games on mobile devices start to impact traditional console and PC game sales.

With Mashable Entertainment, our goal is to focus on the intersection of technology and entertainment, and their evolving nature. To do that, we’ll be covering the latest happenings and innovations in social TV, connected devices, subscription music services and casual games.

For example, as the Fall TV season kicks off, we’re going to look at the role social media is having on the traditional television landscape. As the season progresses, we’ll be monitoring social TV analytics and trends to see what impact, if any, social media is having on a show’s success or failure. We’ll also be reporting live from the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18.

Ten years ago, the pinnacle of connected entertainment was watching The Sopranos on DVD. There were no MP3 players, no smartphones, and Netflix was a small mail-based rental service trying to compete with the likes of Blockbuster. If someone had presented how the entertainment industry would look 10 years later, and the huge role that technology had in shaping it, I would have laughed. Here’s to the future of entertainment!

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Virgin America Unveils Plans for Next Gen In-Flight Entertainment

Virgin America, the first carrier to offer fleetwide WiFi in May 2009, will continue its commitment to in-flight digital innovation with the next iteration of its Red entertainment platform.

The new Red system, slated for a late 2012 consumer release, includes larger, high-definition touchscreen seatback monitors, full Wi-Fi connectivity and four times more entertainment content. It will also allow passengers to connect their own electronic devices to the system pre-flight, in-flight and post-flight.

“Red is still the most advanced entertainment system in the domestic skies,” says Abby Lunardini, VP of corporate communications for Virgin America. “Other airlines are not making an investment in in-seat entertainment; they’re just doing WiFi. Fleet WiFi will always be a focus for us, but our built-in entertainment system is still important, and we think we can offer the best of both worlds.”

Red usage has increased by 20% each year since 2008. Passengers tend to multitask in-flight, using both the entertainment system and WiFi on their personals devices, Lunardini says.

When the upgraded monitors and the new Red entertainment platform reach consumers in 2012 — the system is currently in development — the most noticeable change, apart from the larger screen size, will be the addition of full WiFi connectivity, providing passengers access to the unfettered web via the seatbacks in front of them. Although still being fleshed out, the new Red, as Lunardini envisions it, will also include applications for easy Facebook, Twitter and other social network access.

“This is a significant investment for us,” Lunardini says of the company’s commitment to reworking Red. “We want to stay ahead of the path … a lot of people fly with us because it. We’re an entertainment-driven brand … and we did not want to stand idle.”

The next iteration of Red is being announced Tuesday at the 2011 Airline Passenger Experience Association Expo in Seattle with Lufthansa Systems, Virgin America’s technology partner. Back-end testing of the system will start on #nerdbird, Virgin America’s Twitter hashtag-inspired Airbus A320.

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