Retired

While you were busy ordering steroids from the web, here’s what we were looking at:

• What I Learned From The Oscars Last Night – For some reason, it seems like The Oscars were weeks ago. Or did they just seem to last that long?
• EMI Is Right, But For The Wrong Reasons – Does adding DRM to music files lessen their value? Put it this way: does putting four spare tires that have a max speed of 50MPH on a car lessen its value?
• Are TV Show Promos Mostly Evil or Pure Evil? – Hell, I try not to even look at the listings in the TiVo guide. Nothing like seeing a listing like “In the aftermath of Baltar’s destruction of the Colonial One, Roslin is forced to bunk with Adama” to totally ruin your day.
• One Giant Leap Forward For Book Publishing: A Look At HarperColllins’ Browse Inside Feature – Kassia deconstructs Harper Collins’ latest marketing device, and wonders why their target audience would actually put it on their sites.
• 207 Of The Greatest Indie Rock Songs Of All Time – As it turns out, 207 wasn’t nearly enough . . .

While you were busy crying over Anna Nicole, shaving your head or going in and out of rehab, this is what we were doing:

• See Ya Later, Studio 60 – Jim’s right. (Oh, how I hate to admit that.) Matthew Perry is awesome. Somebody give that man a show! Wait, somebody give that man a good show.
• Second Life and the Vision Thing – Sherilyn wonders why anybody would want to walk into something like a virtual video store and deal with a surly know-it-all virtual video store employee instead of the way she currently buys stuff online. Though, if it comes to pass, Video Zone is a pretty good name for a virtual video store.
• Medialoper Focus Group: 24-Hour Party People – Kassia’s focus group reveals what Kirk has been saying all along. DRM is bad. Also, some men have curious man crushes on Tom Cruise. Yikes!
• Macrovision’s DRM Snake Oil – And see, Kirk was worried that if the Music Industry abandoned DRM that he wouldn’t have anything to write about. Luckily, there are paranoid and shortsighted people in other industires.
• That’s What I Like: NBC Thursday Nights – So I laugh when people accidentally get hurt. There’s no shame in that. And there are a lot of laughs in NBC’s Thursday night line up.

While you were getting ready to report for Spring Training, here’s what we were looking at:

• Viacom vs. YouTube – Guess Who Lost? – Right now, that would seem to be Viacom.
• I Was An Adult-Aged Arbitron Diarist, Part 1 – Next week, on “I Was An Adult-Aged Arbitron Diarist,” the diaries arrive, and are used!
• Exclusive: The Story of My Night of Passion With Anna Nicole Smith – I mean, why not try to get into the sweepstakes?
• How Would You Deal With A Global Bandwidth Shortage? – We’re still trying to figure this one out, actually.
• That’s What I Like: Remastered Analog Music – Sherilyn learns to trade warmth for clarity. But she really should give Presence a spin. For some of us, that may be the best Zep of all.

While you were busy getting booted from the Shuttle Program or claiming to be Anna Nicole’s baby dady, this is what we were up to:

• Captain Copyright Has Left The Building – And I was so looking forward to the Lopy v. Captain Copyright cage match.
• Robots Roundup: February 6, 2007 – A quick look at what’s happening in the robot world. So far, so good. No rebellions. Of course, by the time we find out about the rebellions, it might be too late.
• Second Life and the Stupid White Man’s Burden, Part Three: Guni’s Condescension – So sex sells in cyberspace. Who’da thunk it?
• Life After DRM: A Scrap Heap Of Dead Music – DRM is on its way out and nobody has a plan on how to deal with all of the downloaded music that currently has it.. Much to no one’s surprise, there probably won’t be a plan and consumers will once again get screwed.
• That’s What I Like: Annotated Editions – Just wait until Tyson gets to the Annotated To Kill A Mockingbird and finds out that the original version of the book had the mockingbird taken out with machine guns.
• Top 10 Other Things The RIAA Wants You To Believe – With all the CDs that line our living room walls, this could be a real problem. If they decide to collect, I’ll never get out of this apartment!

While you were prepping for your Super Bowl (not “Big Game”) Party, here’s what we were checking out:

• Second Life and the Stupid White Man’s Burden, Part Two: Grief’s Interjection – In which we deconstruct the Web 2.0 phenomenon of griefing as it relates to Second Life and giggle at the phrase “armies of marching willies.”
• The Web’s Next Get Rich Scheme – YouTube is going to start sharing some of that ad money wealth with the content creators. It probably won’t make anybody rich, but it’s still pretty cool.
• In Which A Marketing Campaign Stops A City – As great as this story is turning out to be, it isn’t making any of us rushing to TiVo Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
• My Life in the Slow Lane – In the latest edition of our “That’s What I Like” series, Tim Gaskill explains how he survives his mind-numbing commute.
• Harry Potter and the Gynormous Spoiler – Like I said, just don’t kill Hermione.
• How To Copyright An Atomic Bomb – One of the funniest things about watching this story is whether or not the TV channels reporting on it blur out the extended middle finger of the little Mooninite guy. Also, “Mooninite.” I wonder if it’s related to “Solaronite.” If so, then perhaps the city of Boston didn’t overreact.

While you were looking outside and realizing that the winter hadn’t gone anywhere, but had just been stuck in traffic, here’s what we were looking at:

• The High-Definition Problem – Is essentially the 21st Century version of the same problem that happened with certain stars when the talking pictures were invented: some actors don’t translate, er, very well to the newer version of the medium that made them a star. Now playing across the nation: the horror of your local newscast in HD.
• Second Life and the Stupid White Man’s Burden, Part One: Anshe’s Ascension – Remember those jokes about selling you the Brooklyn Bridge? Or Swampland in Florida? At least those people didn’t have to worry about server crashes . . .
• Will Labels Join Party A Decade Late? – Just this once, we’re gonna be optimistic and say “yes.” (And don’t worry, the optimism will pass.)
• Washington Tries Its Best To Kill Internet Radio – Sigh. Those of us from California are embarassed to have a senior Senator who has been hating on the internets as long as DiFi has.
• Major League Baseball Hates Me – If I go over to Kirk or Tim’s place to watch games because they have DirectTV and I don’t, aren’t I, in effect, stealing that content from Major League Baseball? After all, they are in essence sharing those games with me.
• My Life As An RSS Junkie – Y’all will be glad to know that we had an intervention for Kirk this weekend, sending him off to the same rehab that is going to cure Isaiah W’s homophobia; Mel G’s anti-semitism and Michael R’s racism. Because that’s, you know, what rehab is for. Just ask Kirk’s new best friend: Lindsay L.

While you were busy announcing your bid to become the next POTUS, here’s what we were looking at:

• An iPhony Controversy – I mean it’s not like someone came out with an actual phone that duplicated all of the iPhone functionality and the UI.
• Second Life and the Fourth Estate, Part Two: A Stupid Kind of Benevolence – “Second Life: Now You Can Stare At The Sun!” In the name of love, of course.
• 24 Season Premiere DVD Release Cool, But Not That Cool – And we were wondering why Magic Mountain didn’t get sold as part of the Six Flags deal. PARC obviously had some kind of advance knowledge . . .
• Fr*ck Da FCC – If we have learned anything from this whole flap, it’s this: Kirk is a “mental retarded” person.
• Asleep On Patrol: Old Media Misses The Real Enemy – It’s like that old Wired cover story about Newt Gingrich: “Friend and Foe.”
• P-Diddy and Burger King: Brand-Destruction in the World of YouTube – Our latest ‘Loper, Bill O’Connor, deconstructs Diddy and Burger King’s not-so-brilliant YouTube-based ad campaign.
• That’s What I Like: Knitting – Kassia reveals that she ocassionally steps away from her computer. We understand and support her in her decision.

While you doubling down on something that you should have never started in the first place, here’s what we were looking at:

• Second Life and the Fourth Estate – Reuters has a Second Life bureau, cool, but why does their reporter need to make his last name Reuters?
• 2007: The Year Web Video Comes To The TV – Lotsa people are going to try and bridge the gap this year, let’s just hope that someone does it well. Sadly enough, it looks like Apple TV is just a glorified iPod that happens to have HDMI & Progressive outputs. I would love to be wrong about this.
• Why I want an iPhone – Just ahead of Steve Jobs’ unveiling of the iPhone, Tyson is nearly giddy with anticipation.
• Why The HD-DVD / Blu-Ray Wars Are Not Over – Just saying that a war is over doesn’t make it so. And in the tech world, that is especially true if the porn industry is choosing your competitor.
• Whatever Happened To Medialoper? – On our first anniversary, Kassia takes a look at how we started, and looks ahead to where we are going. One thing to add to the origin myth: the day after we had the meeting, we had a final list of names from which to choose.
• iPhone: Welcome To The Backlash – That didn’t take long, as the backlash on the iPhone came with almost Zune-like swiftness and intensity. Of course, with all apologies to Steven Levy, the iPod itself is hardly perfect — the question for the masses will be whether they think that its better than what else is out there. And if they wanna spend at least a K to buy it.
• That’s What I Like: Medialoper – One thing I forgot to mention: I also like the feedback that comes from and dialog that gets started by our readers.
• iRobot; You Left Your Socks In The Couch Again – Hmmph. I think that this whole post ignores the fact that I’ve gotten much better: I used to leave my socks on the kitchen table. Progress!!

While you were attempting to blackmail Oprah (and who hasn’t?), this is what we were doing:

• Whatever Happened To The Nike + iPod? – The two greatest marketing departments of our time prove Jim wrong. Not that it’s that difficult.
• What Ever Happened To Google Book Search – It’s alive and well, despite the publishing industry’s protests.
• Why I Hate (Most) Consumer Products – In his Medialoper debut, Tyson explains the one thing that Zune got right and what most everyone else is doing wrong. Personally, I’m waiting for something to be named Lopy. Whatever it is, I’ll buy it.
• Whatever Happened To The Ricky Gervais Show? – It looks like the Karl Pilkington full employment act is over.
• That’s What I Like: Espensodes – From Buffy to Battlestar, Jane Espenson is one of the best and funniest television writers around.
• 2007 Year In Review: How DRM Died – Kirk pulls a Hiro on us and travels ahead in time a full year to give us this report.

While you were wondering if they moved Saddam’s execution up in order to prove that old trope that celebrity deaths only come in threes, here’s what we were looking at for the past couple of weeks:

• Second Life, Activism, and the Digital Arena – Just because it’s virtual doesn’t mean that it isn’t real. Or real enough, as the case may be.
• Top 10 Albums Of 2006 (plus!) – A listing of my favorite albums, CDs, records, directories — whatever you wanna call it — of the past year. Highly subjective. Of course.
• Second Life, Snowballing and Solstice – It’s winter in Second Life, with snowball fights and everything.
• James Brown Finds Bridge, Crosses It – Not only did James Brown practically invent modern music, he may also have invented the way that modern musicians market themselves.
• Whatever Happened To…Rocketboom? – In the first of a series of stories that give the latest on topics that we covered during our first year online, Kassia looks at Rocketboom, post Amanda Congdon.
• Whatever Happened To Lonelygirl15? – What I really wonder is how the copy of Wired with Jessica Rose on the cover “mysteriously” made it to Kirk’s coffee table. Did Santa leave it? Was it transported from the Enterprise? Was it forgotten by the Borrowers? Was it magically dropped on the table by faries? Perhaps it was bunnies!
• Whatever Happened To The Zune? – For some reason, after months and months of coverage of the Zune, this set some people off, causing accusations of unfairness and irrationality. Pointing out the fact that Microsoft chose to make Zune incompatible with Microsoft’s previous DRM (and we cheer Bill Gates for seeing the light on DRM) is anti-Zune? Obviously these people haven’t squirted nearly as much as they had hoped to.
• Whatever Happened To Spiral Frog? – It’s in double-secret Beta!!
• Whatever Happened To The Prism DuroSport? – As it turns out, putting out the Worst Digital Media Player ever was just the beginning of their woes.
• Whatever Happened To The Origami? – The cheap joke is that it seems to have folded in on itself. However, since it’s actually not so much a product as it is a spec for a product third parties can manufacture, it really got overshadowed by Zune and Vista.