Medialoper

Chasing the long tail of new media

Archives for December 2006

Whatever Happened To…Rocketboom?

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One of our goals when we started Medialoper was to look at independent efforts to create cool content for the new media audience — and Rocketboom was a prime example of how two people with a a camera, a broadband connection, and a good idea can succeed where so many media giants had failed.

The concept was simple: present interesting news in a cool format. It worked. The daily broadcast reached a huge audience. And then…the bottom fell out. Host Amanda Congdon left the program and the back-and-forth “he said, she said” stories flew across the Internet. It doesn’t really matter if Amanda was pushed or she jumped, not in the long run. After she left, the great Rocketboom experiment continued with a new host.
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The Daily Loper – December 27, 2006

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What Part of Between 1:00-5:00 PM Don’t You Understand, Sears? Edition

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James Brown Finds Bridge, Crosses It

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You are going to read a ton of stuff over the couple of weeks about what kind of titanic presence James Brown was in 20th Century Music. And that stuff is absolutely correct. So I want to discuss another aspect of the man’s career. James Brown was one of the first American artists to understand — and more importantly, harness — the power of the mass media to brand himself in the public mind.

I would argue that while James Brown was a ground-breaking musician — and make no mistake, he was as important as Miles or Marley or Dylan or The Beatles — “James Brown” is an all-time icon: a bigger-than-life figure who will now be bigger-than-death.

In a day where even the humblest indie musician has a website and a MySpace page, the way that James Brown transformed himself into a gigastar for the ages is equally as awesome as “Cold Sweat” or “Sex Machine.”

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Second Life, Snowballing and Solstice

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Vaal goes splodey.

I like the Harry Potter novels. I can forgive most of their flaws and holes, but the presence of Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter takes me right out of the narrative. Yes, of course, I realize those holidays are pagan in origin, and it’d be different if the characters were acknowledging them as such, especially since the strange customs of the non-magical world is a running theme. But, no. It’s Christmas and Easter and Halloween and all the stuff the readers can identify with.

Ay, there’s the rub: enough of Rowling’s world is cribbed from other sources make-believe that keeping in such recognizable holidays helps keep things grounded for the younger kids. Not to mention the older ones. And can you imagine how much more flak the books would get from Fundamentalists if Christmas was replaced with Saturnalia or Natalis Invicti? As it is, probably the worst influence the books have is introducing children to faux Latin.

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The Daily Loper – December 22, 2006

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Happy Christmas My Arse Edition

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The Daily Loper – December 21, 2006

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Slowing It Down For The Holidays Edition

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The Daily Loper – December 20, 2006

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Hot Geeks!! Edition

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The Daily Loper – December 19, 2006

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Nuking the Algae Planet Edition

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Top 10 Albums Of 2006 (plus!)

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Because of my past life as an on and off rockcrit, I still get asked to vote in various music polls. And it seems like I get asked earlier and earlier every single year. It’s difficult to come up with a list when you are still digesting music: for example, the new Tom Waits doesn’t make my list because I haven’t heard it enough times. (And no spoilers!!)

One of the more interesting things to note is that in an era where the album has been eclipsed by the single; the single has actually been eclipsed by the song. One of the trends that has been growing but has reached its tipping point this year with all of the various polls is that they mostly aren’t ranking singles anymore, but rather “songs” or “downloads” or “tracks.” Sure, there are now, and will always be what we used to think of as “singles:” people still have to have something upon which to focus — noone who ventured into any public space or airwaves this year could avoid “Crazy” — but not always. I think that this reflects the post-millenial randomization of how we immerse ourselves in music.

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