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Archives for March 2006

Labels Make Another Dumb-Ass Move

March 10, 2006 by Jim Connelly

According to the New York Times, in a desperate attempt to goose CD sales, major labels are considering stepping back a decade, and experimenting with the concept of not releasing advance single downloads from upcoming albums.

So just as iTunes hits it’s billionth download; and it’s clear that people are embracing downloading as a viable option the major labels decide, welllll, that ain’t good enough.

  [Read more…] about Labels Make Another Dumb-Ass Move

Filed Under: iTunes, Music Tagged With: CDs, Def-Jam, downloads, iTunes

The Daily Loper – March 9, 2006

March 9, 2006 by Lopy

Todays links of interest:

  • Northern Exposure – Seasons combined – same price
    This is exactly the type of pricing bullshit that drives otherwise law-abiding people into the arms of file-sharing: you can now buy the first two seasons of Northern Exposure for one-half the price someone else paid for both last year.
  • YouTube: Natalie Portman Rap Search
    This morning’s (08:45am PST) search on YouTube for “Natalie Portman Raps” returned 4 results.
  • Labels Halt Downloads to Increase CD Sales
    It’s sort of like the ship is sinking, you’re in danger of dying, and all you can do is try to detach the chandelier from the dining room ceiling. Singles reduce whole CD sales, so what to do? Kill the single.
  • Build Your Own PVR, Then Trash It
    Gives new meaning the term “grow your own”.
  • Online Porn Billing Glitch Exposes Buyers’ Info
    We’re just spreading the word. We’re helpful that way.
  • Spitzer Alleges Payola in Lawsuit
    Entercom Communications Corp. allegedly played the payola game. To date, that leaves a tiny station in Oklahoma as the last honest bastion of radio.
  • NBC Universal Hopes To Cash In With iVillage
    Is iVillage a boondoggle or a brilliant move? Do you know anybody who admits to hanging out there? Note: Rare WSJ freebie.
  • Are Papers About to Land or Take Off?
    Knight Ridder’s sale could be decided at any moment. The future of MSM hangs in the balance. Kind of makes you want to buy tickets.
  • Google mulls “infinite storage” idea
    Whoa dude, infinite storage, heh heh! Like storage that never ends! Blow my mind man.
  • The CW Increases National Coverage To More Than 55% Of The Country
    Whoo-hoo! Now more than half of the country can ignore Veronica Mars!

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

HD DVR: Hi Definition Disappointment Part 2

March 9, 2006 by Jim Connelly

Recently, I wrote about how disappointed I was with my first cable company-supplied Hi-Definition DVR.  My main issues were that, compared to the Replay I had been using for several years, the actual functionality and usability were a huge step downwards.  In addition, the cable guy kept going on about how it just too bad that I wasn’t getting something called the “Moxi,” which he said was much better.

And he was right: after being contacted by a guy from the company that made the Moxi,  I did some research, and, yup, it pretty much has all of the features I want.  Fat lot of good that does me.  After all, it’s not like its easy to find a day to unhook everything, wait for another cable guy; rebuild my entire setup, and learn yet another DVR. 

Meanwhile, I’ve discovered even more issues with the Scientific Atlanta box:

  • Nowhere does the cable guide tell you whether an episode of show is a repeat or a first-run episode.  
  • If a show I’m normally recording is being pre-empted by another show, the cable guide still shows that the timeslot is going to be recorded. 
  • For the NBC HD Channels, the sound doesn’t sync up with the picture.  The Olympics were on when I wrote that first post, so I had no cause to record any NBC shows, but since then, it gets very annoying when sound gags on Scrubs don’t match the visuals.  Or this upcoming weekend when Arctic Monkeys play SNL. It’s only NBC HD — nobody else — so I don’t know if the problem is with the cable box, Charter, our local affiliate, or NBC itself.  All I know is that it’s dammed annoying.
  • Finally, despite all of this, our cable bill has risen $20 (twice as much as they told me it would) and — best of all there is a line item on the bill for DVR Moxi Service.  That’s right: it looks like I’m being charged for the thing that I didn’t even get.

So I’m thinking that rather than upgrading to the Moxi, if we’re going to make that much effort, we might as well switch to the satellite company that has the TiVo HD DVR.

Filed Under: Actual Mileage Tagged With: Charter-Communications, DVR, Moxi, Replay, TiVo

Will Origami Introduce The Era Of UMPC?

March 9, 2006 by Kirk Biglione

Microsoft Geeks (yes, they do exist) are salivating over the official release of Origami. As we told you last week it’s not an iPod killer at all. Instead it’s a UMPC.

What’s a UMPC you ask? Seriously, you’ve never heard of UMPC? Ok, we’ll tell you, but just this once, so please take notes. UMPC = Ultra Mobile PC.

In case you’re still confused I’ll spell this out further. As far as Microsoft is concerned an Ultra Mobile computer is 6 by 8 inches with a 2.5 hour battery life. In other words, it’s too big to fit in your pocket, and you can’t go very far before you need to charge your UMPC. I said UMPC, not Pocket PC.

Origamis will be folded by a number of different manufacturers. As with standard PC’s each will presumably offer their own unique configuration and pricing. In general, though, you can expect these new devices to cost in the $600 to $1,000 range.

Oh, it’ll run some variant of WinXP, ensuring that Microsoft enthusiasts everywhere will enjoy the full blue screen experience on buses and in restaurants.

So, where do you want to go today?

  • Q&A Microsoft Reveals Details For Ultra-Mobile Personal Computers
  • UMPC Video is UP!
  • Origami Devices Officially Released

Filed Under: Microsoft Tagged With: Hype, Microsoft, Origami, UMPC

What Really Keeps Studio Executives Awake At Night

March 9, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

I’m going to tell you a little secret: Hollywood is in a state of panic (it’s also in California, but that’s another issue). Those of you who have been paying attention have surely noted that the new media is moving at warp speed. Now you could say, in the studios’ defense, that this rapid turn of events has been, well, rapid, but the Dawn of the New Media has been predicted since Amazon.com sold its first book.

Hollywood has been actively digitizing product for years now. Every studio has been scrubbing and remastering and relicensing music in anticipation of a digital windfall. Maybe it’s that DVD has been so dominant, so profitable for so long, but the studios remain unprepared for the future. Item Number Ten on the Absolute Value analysis of Google’s Analyst Slide Show asks the question that has Hollywood biting its nails:

Do you know exactly how many assets you have? By assets, I mean all the content you’ve ever owned or created. Do you know exactly? Do you have the count? (Remember, I’m a computer scientist. I have to ask these things.)

[Read more…] about What Really Keeps Studio Executives Awake At Night

Filed Under: Google, HD DVD/Blu-Ray, Mediacratic, Movies, Television Tagged With: Blu-Ray, Google, Hollywood, MGM, New Media, Showtime, Sony

The Daily Loper – March 8, 2006

March 8, 2006 by Lopy

Todays links of interest:

  • William Shatner DVD Club
    Unlike the Stephen King Book Club, because instead of DVDs starring Shatner, you receive DVDs that he “recommends.” So more like Oprah for geeks.
  • Stop a cable thief, get $50,000
    At first, Lopy thought “wow, that’s pretty good coin for ratting out my neighbor about his free HBO, I’m in” but it turns out that people are stealing cable equipment and may be selling it to dodgy operators in Central & South America.
  • Another ‘Saturday Night Live’ Video Removed from YouTube
    That didn’t take long. However, a YouTube search on “Natalie Portman Raps” this morning turned up five results . . .
  • Theme of London Book Fair Is What Technology Can Do
    And they say the publishing industry can’t learn and grow.
  • Ad agencies sore over leading TV network
    Apparently advertisers in India aren’t getting the blanket coverage they had paid for. The network is passing the blame to the cable operators. Also: instead of cable channels being grouped in tiers, in India, they are grouped in “bouquets”
  • Video games for the elderly: an answer to dementia or a marketing tool?
    This just in! You don’t have to learn the intricacies of bridge. Pong will save your mind.
  • TiVo Plans to Expand TV Recording to Cell Phones
    Good idea: allowing TiVo users to use their cell phones to schedule recordings on the box at home. Perfect for those “oh crap!” moments.
  • As Newspapers Retreat, Will Local Communities Follow?
    Take a deep breath, it’s gonna be fine. There’s always a chance that your local community will go stronger, or, maybe, we’ll be redefining our notion of community. It’s all going to work out. Trust us.
  • CBS Will Offer March Madness Free Online
    CBS Desk: It is possible that they’ve gotten something right? One is almost afraid to hope.
  • bloggers for movie
    Best. Craigslist. Posting. Ever. per hour for blogging a film? Less than minimum wage? Is that even legal? Wait a second, getting paid anything for blogging? Count me in!

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

Apple Launches Subscription Multi-Pass Video Service

March 8, 2006 by Kirk Biglione

Q. What do Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Ricky Gervais all have in common?

A. Consumers can now buy paid subscriptions to their latest programs through iTunes.

While Steve Jobs has resisted subscription pricing since the inception of iTunes, today’s launch of the Multi-Pass subscription video service is the first sign that Apple may be willing to tinker with it’s highly successful standardized pricing model. For $9.99 consumers can now buy 16 episodes of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. That’s only $3 more than you’ll pay for four episodes of The Ricky Gervais Show.

Strangely, Apple is claiming that Multi-Pass isn’t a subscription service. Apparently the fact that you happen to be paying in advance for a month’s worth of programming doesn’t make it a “subscription”.

Apple’s vice-president of iTunes, Eddy Cue, said MultiPass is not a subscription service, even though customers would pay for it on a monthly basis.

“This is something that you can always own as a download,” he said. That makes it different from other online music subscription services like Napster or Real Networks’ Rhapsody, where consumers lose their music if they unsubscribe.

Right, but I also won’t lose my back issues of the LA Times if I unsubscribe, and that’s still called a subscription.

Semantics aside, the new Multi-Pass service does seem to solve a potentially major problem that could plague iTunes as it expands the scope of it’s entertainment content. Standardized pricing just isn’t suited to certain types of programming. While consumers have shown a willingness to shell out $1.99 per episode of The Office, it seems less likely that they would be willing to pay the same for an episode of The Daily Show or The Colbert report, both of which run new episodes four days a week. As iTunes expands to include daily programming they need a different pricing model. The multi-pass seems to be the answer.

  • Apple iTunes in monthly deal with ComedyCentral

Filed Under: Apple, iTunes, Television Tagged With: Apple, Colbert-Report, Comedy-Central, Daily-Show, iTunes, Multi-Pass, ricky-gervais

Origami Photos

March 8, 2006 by Jim Connelly

A PC World blog has published photos of a pair of Origami devices — including the Samsung Q1 — on display at the CeBIT electronics show in Germany. It’s really hard to tell much from the photographs, which look like they were taken surreptitiously with a cellphone, and kinda have same perspective as pictures from Mars: is that rock 3ft tall or 300ft tall.

In any event, an accompanying article explains the following:

  • It’s a handheld, measuring 6″x8″
  • They are calling it an “ultramobile device”
  • It runs a “special” edition of XP
  • It will support WLAN; bluetooth & 802.11
  • It will have an XP independent multimedia player
  • It will have camera, GPS & gaming functionality

What the article didn’t explain, and I guess is up to Microsoft’s marketing department, is exactly why I might need one. However, that didn’t stop Microsoft’s stock from going up after the announcement.

  • Check Out Our Exclusive Origami Photos
  • CeBIT: Samsung Shows First Origami Device
  • Microsoft shares make gains

Filed Under: Microsoft Tagged With: Microsoft, Origami, PDA, samsung, Tablet-Computing

The Daily Loper – March 7, 2006

March 7, 2006 by Lopy

Todays links of interest:

  • MGM, Weinstein Set to Roar Again
    MGM, down to a skeleton staff and without a studio, decides it’s time to get back into the movie-making business.
  • Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign
    Not sure if this is about new media or old tricks, so note to all bloggers out there: reprinting press releases verbatim, without attribution is selling out to The Man.
  • Shadows reveals truth behind Barry Bonds’ steroid use
    The chickens come home to roost. It is a simple as this: if you are going to break the rules, it is not best to spend your entire life pissing the media off, and thereby giving them a vested interest in nailing you for breaking the rules.
  • Natalie Portman, Rap Star
    That Natalie Portman Rap — which isn’t quite as good as "Lazy Sunday," but still pretty goldurned funny — has of course turned up on YouTube, as well as NBC’s official site. Check it out if you missed it this weekend.
  • How much cheaper is the iPod going to get?
    This article could be the roadmap to the Apple iNvisa player

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

A History of the Ricky Gervais Show

March 7, 2006 by Jim Connelly

As these things go, I’m a relative latecomer to the podcasts of The Ricky Gervais Show: I only got ’round to listening to them a couple of weeks ago. Better still, I came into it totally cold, not knowing what to expect, and I was instantly hooked on the mad ramblings of Karl Pilkington.  So much so, that as a matter of fact, I have no issues with paying for the podcasts of the second season.

It totally passes my Blackjack test:  do I anticipate getting more pleasure out of this than playing a single hand of Blackjack?  And in this case, the answer is a resounding “yes.” To be fair, Ricky was on Letterman last week, and explained that they are charging for this season to recoup the hosting and bandwidth costs for all of the downloads.

However, for those of you who don’t want to pay for your monkeynews, or you want to see to find out what the buzz is all about  prior to  paying — it looks like the Podcast Series  1 archive will also cost $5 to grab in one fell swoop — I’ve discovered a secret online stash of dozens of episodes of The Ricky Gervais Show.

[Read more…] about A History of the Ricky Gervais Show

Filed Under: Podcasts, Radio Tagged With: durosport, iTunes, karl-pilkington, monkeynews, Podcasts, ricky-gervais

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Previously on Medialoper

  • Certain Songs #2629: Talking Heads – “What A Day That Was (Los Angeles 12-1983)”
  • Certain Songs #2628: Talking Heads – “Slippery People (Los Angeles 12-1983)”
  • Certain Songs #2627: Talking Heads – “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)”
  • Certain Songs #2626: Talking Heads – “Burning Down The House”
  • Certain Songs #2625: Talking Heads – “Crosseyed and Painless (Cherry Hill 11-08-1980)”

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