Medialoper

Chasing the long tail of new media

Archives for December 2006

The Daily Loper – December 18, 2006

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Defending Charlie Sheen?!? Edition

Todays links of interest:

  • CBS Mocks Christ on Charlie Sheen Show; Christians Want Apology
    Er, those were Christmas songs that were being mocked, not the man himself. Also, doesn’t this knee-jerk type of reaction perhaps offend Christians who are sick of being spoken for by politically-minded people who make the rest of them look like humourless jack-asses?
  • This Time, Judith Regan Did It
    The larger lesson to be learned from this is that O.J. Simpson is radioactive: trading a "not guilty" verdict for such brutally toxic karma that it surrounds and eats all who come into contact with him.
  • Dylan threatens action over Sedgwick biopic
    As does Lou Reed. Imagine all of the terrible things over the past 40+ years that have been said, written and put on screen about Lou Reed and Bob Dylan. And this is what gets their dander up? We love them both now and forever, and can separate truth from fiction (for example Bob’s Chronicles? fiction), so the view here is that perhaps the alleged defamation is pretty close to what actually happened.
  • CW goes digital with iTunes
    At the beginning of the year, a network offering their shows on iTunes was a novelty; now it’s expected.

Second Life, Activism, and the Digital Arena

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Winners don't forget real world drugs.

Someone always has to harsh the mellow, don’t they? If it’s not grey goo (ding! ding! ding!), it’s do-gooders like the World Development Movement. Yeah, I’d never heard of them either, probably because they haven’t been adopted by Bono or Sting. Their big move is to place a counter in Second Life which ostensibly keeps track of the (estimated) number of children who’ve died from poverty and other preventable causes since the virtal world went live in 2003.

Unfortunately for the message, the counter is in fairly small type at the bottom of a large, underdesigned billboard which reads DON’T FORGET THE REAL WORLD. A valid if admonishing message, as is the counter, but what exactly are they expecting? That Second Lifers will see the billboard from afar, decide for some reason to come in for a (much) closer look, see the counter, then have an attack of conscience and do something about that world with its children croaking like clockwork?

An argument could be made that if it makes just one user, like Aimee The Scary Blowup Doll, get off their Frito-enhanced duff and do something—”something” probably meaning making a
contribution to the WDM—it was worth the effort. I guess, but even if Second Life shut down tomorrow, social conditions in meatspace would not improve. I’m reminded of the arguments against NASA and space exploration: we should take care of our problems on earth before we go into space! Yeah, well, if NASA was dismantled, the money would not go towards feeding the poor or educating children. When Napster was shut down, I kept an eye on the Billboard charts to see if Metallica albums would shoot to the top of the charts. Never quite happened.

[Read more…] about Second Life, Activism, and the Digital Arena

The Weekly ‘Loper – December 17, 2006

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While you were hoping that being chosen Time Magazine’s Person of the Year came with some kind of cash award or plaque or at least a certificate, here’s what we were looking at:

  • Second Life, Sony, and Suzanne – Our newest writer, Sherilyn, takes a look at the world of virtual concerts at Second Life, and finds them, well, underwhelming.
  • Protect The Artist, Kill The Consumer – Remember the rule: media compaines who invoke “protecting the artist” in order to keep their profit levels high are exactly like politicians who invoke “protecting the children” in order to gain votes.
  • Will Zune Be The Death Of DRM? – See, for the past few months, we’ve been dissing Zune when in reality it’s obviously part of Bill “DRM Causes Too Much Pain For Legitimate Buyers” Gates’ strategy for convincing the majors to experiment with DRM-less music. And y’all thought that it was a mistake that the Zune didn’t support PlaysForSure.
  • Top 10 TV Shows of 2006 – As determined by the Official Medialoper Committee To Create Top 10 Lists Because It’s The End Of The Year And I Do Love The Year-End Lists, which I recently created.
  • How Can I Copy DVDs To My iPod? – You can’t. Not legally, in any event. As usual, when consumers are kept by digital media restrictions from performing actions that would seem to make perfect sense to be able to do, the culprit is the DMCA.
  • Medialoper Joins The 9rules Network – And we’re glad to be a part of it.

Medialoper Joins The 9rules Network

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9rules Network It’s been quite a year for the whole Medialoper team. We launched this site just 11 months ago in an effort to document the changing media and technology landscape. Our timing couldn’t have been better, as 2006 will undoubtedly be remembered as the year convergence became a reality.

As we near the end of our first year online I’m happy to announce that Medialoper has been asked to join the 9rules network.
We’re honored to be a part of such an exceptional community of sites.

If you aren’t familiar with 9rules please take an opportunity to explore the network. Regardless of your interests you’re bound to find some incredible sites you may not have known about.

If this is your first visit to Medialoper, welcome. Take a look around and let us know what you think

The Daily Loper – December 15, 2006

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Mmmmmmm, Media Edition

Todays links of interest:

How Can I Copy DVDs To My iPod?

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Dear Lopy:

I’ve got one of those so-called video iPods. It’s fine that I can download television shows and movies from iTunes, but I’ve already got a huge DVD collection. I don’t really see the need to re-purchase programs that I already own. It seems like I should be able to transfer my DVD’s to my iPod. iTunes is great about copying my CD collection. How come it can’t do the same thing with my DVD collection?

Signed,
Confused By iTunes

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The Daily Loper – December 14, 2006

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Too Soon Edition

Todays links of interest:

Top 10 TV Shows of 2006

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In case you didn’t realize it, we are nearing the end of the year. And you know what that means: Top 10 Lists! Whoo-hoo! We will start off with an easy one: Television.

The rules, such as they are, are pretty simple: each show on the list has to have had at least one season (or part of a season) of new shows on a U.S. Television network.

[Read more…] about Top 10 TV Shows of 2006

The Daily Loper – December 13, 2006

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‘UTTIN’ ON THE ‘IIIIITZ!!!! Edition

Todays links of interest:

7 Things You Can Do While Reddit Is Offline

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Reddit’s Dead. That’s What I Said.

The social news site Reddit has been offline all morning. As a result geeks around the world are itching for a quick fix of links to an odd array of stories that seemingly have little in common.

It’s been suggested that Reddit’s outage might actually improve worker productivity in the tech industry. Personally, I think that sounds like crazy talk. I’m not about to let a Reddit outage suddenly make me more productive.

Here are a few things you can do while Reddit’s offline. Remember, any of these things beats actually going back to work:

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