Today’s links of interest:
Is there anything on TV more infuriating than the political ad? If you agree with the candidate or issue, then you really don’t need to see it, and if you disagree, then you end up tallying all of the distortions of your reality that you see in the spot.
Each time an election draws near, I often wish that the fast-forward could go a little bit faster, or that I didn’t watch things like the World Series in real time, as I get pounded over and over with shoddily-produced, unhumorous ads that all look and sound alike.
However, as is often the case, what pisses off the consumers is seen as good news for the executives, so it is that Cable ad executives are looking forward to the plethora of spots that will plague the rest of us.
While you were busy emptying your savings account to buy another tank of gas, here are some of things that we were discussing:
Today’s links of interest:
It’s no secret that Google is virtually printing money with its contextual advertising business. If you’ve read The Search you know that Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were originally adamantly opposed to selling advertising alongside Google’s search results. It was only after Google developed a way to deliver advertising that was relevant to the context of a user’s search that Brin and Page embraced advertising as a business model.
With this in mind it’s kind of strange to notice that Google is currently running ads promoting the Da Vinci code on literally every results page, regardless of what is being searched for. Take a look at the bottom of the page, right below links to the ‘next results’.
Today’s links of interest:
Way back in the early eighties, a revolution happened. Giddy with the power of new technology, motion picture studios rushed to release their back catalogs on the new-fangled videocassettes (and some on laser discs, but that’s a story for another day). They knew full well that this was a foolhardy decision, but with dollar signs in their eyes, how could they resist this new revenue stream?
Why foolhardy? Because the existing agreements with talent, from a participations and residuals perspective, didn’t cover this new distribution channel. With residuals, somehow the studios won and were allowed to continue to calculate payments as a percentage of a 20% royalty calculation. As I noted earlier this week, the guilds aren’t likely to take this forever.
At the risk of sounding like an old timer I’m going to tell you some Internet trivia that you might find hard to believe: iTunes was not the first online music service to sell downloadable songs for 99 cents. Back in 1998 a site called Good Noise started selling a small catalog of songs for just under a dollar. The iPod hadn’t even been born yet. In fact, Apple had just barely launched the iMac product line. It was a different world back then.
Good Noise eventually became eMusic and dropped the per song pricing in favor of a subscription model. While the structure of eMusic’s subscription pricing has changed over the years, it is still arguably the best digital music service around.
I’ve been a paying eMusic subscriber for many years, and here’s why:
We’ve made a lot of fun of the HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray format wars, and rightly so. After all, it’s very entertaining to point out the parallels to VHS vs. Beta, and — more ominiously — SACD vs. HDCD (everybody say “huh?”); the troubles getting product to consumers and the possibility of no backwards compatibility with older HD TVs.
Obviously, watching high-definition films in the privacy of your own home is such a perfect 21st century idea I guess it’s no wonder that more than one consortium of evil multinational technology and entertainment companies had it at roughly the same time.
Today’s links of interest:
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If you're lucky, you learn something every single godsdammed day of your life. In this case, I learned that the extra level of hilarity to that classic skit was that parrots weren't supposed to be indigenous to Norway. Bet that it had lovely plumage.
Expect a marked increase in product placement.
Unless, of course, you choose to control your data by not joining any of these sites. But, by now, you should know that the first rule of privacy on the web is that there is no privacy on the web. It's kind of like walking out of your house every morning.
Because sometimes you need inexpensive, build-it-yourself furniture in your virtual world.
And kids (plus more than a few adults) rejoice.
While there was much love for Billie Piper's Rose around the 'loper household that distributes the Dr. Who DVDs to the rest of the other households, we also kinda love Freema Agyeman's Martha Jones, who even made Torchwood kick up a notch. Also? Sigh.
Net neutrality now! What more proof do you need than the beginning of this official statement: "Cox allows the use of file-sharing and peer-to-peer services..." That word "allows" speaks volumes.
Still need to get around to reading this.
All we can ask (get it?) is that they don't somehow ruin the ease of dictionary.com, a site we use on what seems like at least a daily basis.
As a happily married heterosexual 'loper, I say "Whoo hoo!" and assure the world that the sanctity of my marriage is not affected in any way by this ruling.
We quote from the lead: “Give the customers what they want” was the message at Digital Book 2008, the annual conference sponsored by the International Digital Publishing Forum, held yesterday at the McGraw-Hill auditorium in Manhattan.
This week, CBS is all about the crazy new media deals.
Interesting, especially in light of other studies that suggest the numbers of legal downloads are rising. Of course, it doesn't help when some labels continue to make the process hard and cumbersome.
Wait, it gets better. They're called "crazy rasberry ants". The only known cure seems to be upgrading to Windows Vista -- they won't go near it.
Thank god that there is nothing else wrong with the country that a United States Senator can call for a massive investigation because the Patriots may have done his football teams wrong. Amazingly enough, he's not up for re-election, because this is just that shameless.
Awwwww, how cute! Cootchie-coo, Baby Supernova, cootchie-coo! Ma and Pa Supernova must be so proud of you, following in their footsteps at such a young age.
As rumored, but now there's actual film footage. It's nice to see Woody Allen using his powers for good instead of evil.
IO 9 posted a trailer for noted hack David E. Kelley's remake of "Life on Mars." Oh no. Oh gods no.
Wow, where to start? Good programming, not gaming the TiVo by starting and ending at quirky times, shorter hiatus periods, and so much more.
Obviously it didn't succeed.
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