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Archives for March 2006

The Return of the Mix Tape

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Whether you like it or not, you’re going to be hearing a lot about social networking this year. For a supposedly lonely place, the Web has a lot of ways to bring humans together. With very little effort, you can find a like-minded soul. . .or at least someone who shares your feelings and took the time to create a playlist to reflect them.

As noted in the Washington Post, song-sharing (not to be confused with file sharing) is poised to change the music industry:

IMixes — as well as playlists on other services such as Rhapsody, Musicstrands and Soundflavor — are the online cousins of amateur cassette-tape and CD mixes created over the years by countless music collectors as soundtracks for parties and road trips. Many of the playlists focus on a theme — and many of those on a personal one, whether the subject is a lost love, a class reunion, a nasty breakup, duty in Iraq or a new romance.

Consumers don’t trust radio programmers. Not enough variety, not enough information. Station playlists are too limited and decisions about what gets played and what doesn’t get played is subjected to a pseudo-science that seems almost random (for a great example of this, check out Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink for a story about an artist named Kenna).

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Blogs to Books: Still Not Busted

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For those who thought the blogger-to-book phenomenon had passed, we bring you this from Publisher’s Lunch:

“Gawker Media’s The Gawker Guide to Conquering Media, a humorous, inside look that pulls back the curtains on the horror stories, unspoken rules and power players in big media, to Peter Borland at Atria, in a pre-empt, by Daniel Greenberg of Levine Greenberg Literary Agency.”

As soon as the ‘loper team can hire a ghostwriter, we will be shopping “The Medialoper Guide to Ruling the World”.

The Daily Loper – March 2, 2006

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Todays links of interest:

“I heard that we’ve sold over a million downloads”

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That, my friends, is a million downloads of a television show — the U.S. version of The Office, which in its second season, has come into its own, both critically and commercially.

It’s always great when quality and popularity intersect, especially when they intersect in a show that nobody really gave a chance to succeed. So how did the U.S. version of The Office get to be so great? In a long interview with Television Without Pity’s co-founder Wing Chun, writer and actor B.J. Novak (he plays Ryan, the temp) holds forth on such topics as:

  • Living in the shadow of the Ricky Gervais version
  • All of those downloads.
  • Improvisation on the set.
  • Michael’s man-crush on Ryan.
  • Why their move to Thursday nights makes sense.

Nothing, alas, on the Prism Durosport. Nevertheless, from my standpoint, it’s beginning to look like The Office is going to end up being the greatest cover version of a stone-cold classic since Husker Du’s “Eight Miles High.”

Yahoo Decides Against Original Content

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It’s so hard to keep up — one week it’s all original content, all the time. The next it’s, well, why do the work when someone else will do it for you? Yahoo has decided to focus its energy on acquired content — either from established media outlets or users.

Yes, users. They’re going to provide the fuel that makes a corporate giant look good to stockholders. It’s one thing for a nervy start-up like YouTube to look to do-it-yourselfers; it’s another to expect something for nothing (not that we believe for one second that Yahoo! will forego appropriate compensation).

Of course, making yourself look like competition for the major studios isn’t great either. Even if it’s exactly what the studios need.

And poor Lloyd Braun, not only does he look wishy-washy (tune in next week for the portal’s change of heart), but he’s apparently not playing nice with Terry Semel. Braun may or may not be the dude making these announcements in the near future.

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Origami “Debuts” – Exclusive Video On Google

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The blogosphere is buzzing today about Microsoft’s delayed announcement of the “mysterious” Origami product. The Origami Project website has been updated with a March 9 launch date. Apparently today was never intended to be a launch date — or was it?

A lengthy video of the product has turned up on Google. I’m assuming that today’s date was intended to be the official “leak date” of this new product video. How clever of Microsoft to use Google to promote their latest product.

Based on a PC World report, it’s now not clear whether or not the product will be released anytime soon. Apparently Microsoft is new at this viral marketing thing and isn’t quite clear on the part where it’s also important to manage expectations.

A few observations after watching the video:

  • As anticipated the product is a portable tablet-like device that does just about everything.
  • It’s clear from the action scenarios that Bluetooth and WiFi will play a big part in all of Origami’s magic.
  • This is clearly not an iPod killer.
  • Man this thing is big. They call that a portable?

This, apparently, concludes Microsoft’s first attempts at product secrecy and viral marketing

Watch the video:

Pre-Blogging the Microsoft Origami Announcement

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What’s better than live blogging Microsoft’s unveiling of the mysterious Origami project? Pre-blogging the Origami announcement, of course.

Earlier this week I tried live-blogging the live blogging of the Apple product announcements. To be honest, it was all just a bit too meta — even for me. Instead, I’ll take this opportunity to do one last round-up the various rumors surrounding Origami:

Regardless of what Origami turns out to be, it’s unlikely to make a serious dent in the lead Apple has taken in the digital convergence race. Unless Microsoft announces a new online media store and partnerships with several major film studios, they’ve got a lot of catching up to do. A single device is only the first step if Microsoft hopes to compete. It’s a new millennium and Microsoft is now the underdog. The sad thing is I usually root for the underdog.

The Daily Loper — March 1, 2006

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Todays links of interest:

YouTube: Rattle and Hum

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Lots of recent sabre-rattling directed at YouTube, who have come out of nowhere to be the one of the most-trafficked video web sites. In the past couple of weeks, they’ve been hit with a pair of high-profile “get that thing off of your site” letters from uptight copyright holders, making people wonder if they can avoid being tagged the “Video Napster.”

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Does TV Want to be Free?

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The L.A Times has an article today pointing out that TV execs are having a devil of a time convincing people that when they download a television show from, say, BitTorrent, that they are stealing that show.  In a weird way, it’s a problem that the TV industry created itself: for over a half-century, we’ve been told that, unlike a song, or a film, or a book, or a videogame — that show you are watching is free. 

You the consumer aren’t paying for it, but rather the advertiser(s) who sponsoring that show, hoping to get you to purchase their product(s).  My guess is that this is a model that is rapidly becoming outdated, and we are lurching toward a totally new era, where how we consume TV will be more like how we consume other media products. 

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