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The Daily Loper – March 17, 2006

March 17, 2006 by Lopy

Todays links of interest:

  • It’s Madness: Net hit with record traffic
    And they said the new media wouldn’t catch on with the kids. March Madness hits every office in America. With one notable exception.
  • Forgent Uses ‘Trolling’ As Business Model
    The good news is that patents eventually expire. Forgent, of course, is just biding its time; when the cash cow runs dry, they have, uh, business scheduling software waiting in the wings.
  • Proposed French Law Targets iTunes DRM
    The French don’t like proprietary systems — Apple becomes the new Microsoft.
  • Microsoft California Class Action Settlement
    Microsoft stopped accepting claims in California on Jan. 8 2005. Projected date when we can expect our vouchers – maybe the end of 2006. Then again, maybe not. You call this consumer justice?
  • YouTube: Natalie Portman Rap Search
    This morning’s (09:07AM 03-17-2006) search on YouTube for “Natalie Portman Raps” returned 2 results.
  • U.S. Judge Dismisses Google Copyright Case
    It could be suggested that some people just aren’t right. Among other things.
  • Making it easier to get your Phil
    You can now download your philharmonic. Should make jogging that much more fun.
  • Radio group calls for ‘smarter, more effective’ CRTC policy
    Canada is a great country: they’re talking about the issues that the United States should be talking about. Like, oh, the fact that radio isn’t just that thing that comes through the speakers in your car.
  • How much entertainment is too much?
    This is a lovely introduction to Medialoper’s upcoming discussions about new media and the need for savvy curators.
  • Will CBS, WB Go Extra Mile for New Network ?
    And here we have the number issue facing the new CW – the commute. Hey, it’s LA, location really matters. Programming? What programming?
  • Big media and the internet
    Here is the problem: new media requires nimble moves. Old media can’t move quickly. If the old media wants to maintain dominance, it needs to stop worrying and learn to love mistakes.
  • Twelve Newspapers in a State of Nature
    Now that the McLatchy media empire has absorbed the Knight-Ridder empire (do empires absorb or swallow?), the question of what happens to the briliant San Jose Mercury News? And, of course, what happens to the great journalism K-R has been advocating?
  • Korea drops file share cases
    82 people, “mostly teenagers” have either settled, or just had their cases dropped altogether after deleting the files.
  • Amazon poised for film downloads assault
    If they do, will that mean that everybody else planning film downloads might as well just pack up their servers and go home?

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

What The Office Will Do on its Summer Vacation

March 17, 2006 by Jim Connelly

While other TV shows will be taking their summer vacations, much of the cast of The Office will  be participating in a series of webisodes that will be available from NBC.com this summer.  According to an NBCU press release, there will ten eps: a story arc centering on a missing $3000, and the attempt to locate it. 

And in keeping with this season’s emphasis on the secondary and tertiary characters, the webisodes won’t have most of the big names: Steve Carrell, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer and B.J. Novak.  Those people will be getting to take actual full vacations.  Sounds more and more like a real office, doesn’t it?

Conspicious by his presence is Rainn Wilson, which causes us to make a prediction: Dwight done it.  No doubt to finance the purchase of a of a brand-new Prism DuroSport 6000.

  • No Summer Vacation for NBC’s The Office

 

Filed Under: Television Tagged With: NBCU, prism-durosport, Television, The Office, webisodes

The Daily Loper – March 16, 2006

March 16, 2006 by Lopy

Todays links of interest:

  • Companies Fear Spread of March Madness
    I can tell you how one large corporation is dealing with this fear: blocking all sports sites. Not the college basketball parts, but ESPN in toto; CBS Sportsline in toto, etc. Even frackin’ MLB.com!! Which, of course, will drive hardcore fans to other measures.
  • March Madness may be crazier than usual
    Beyond the “free” broadcasts: Live Webcasts, On Demand, iTunes summaries. Tons of it. Everywhere. They’re doing it right, and possibly overloading entire corporations’ networks to boot!! It almost makes us wish we actually cared about college hoops.
  • YouTube: Natalie Portman Rap Search
    This morning’s (08:25AM 03-16-2006) search on YouTube for “Natalie Portman Raps” returned 4 results.
  • Gates Sketches Out Vision for the Future
    Excuse me, I’ve got an email coming through on my wallet. Where the hell did I put that thing?
  • Movie Theaters May Ask to Jam Cell Phones
    Not surprisingly, Kirk has a solution for this very problem. It too will require an Act of Congress.
  • Cable industry slams a la carte study
    In an escalating game of “my study can beat your study up”, today, the cable industry strikes back. The bad news? When the FCC does studies, taxpayers pay.
  • Why The Web Is Hitting A Wall
    Why Business Week is hitting the wall: in its first example, the person clearly *does* use the Internet. Is it his fault that he’s too lazy to point and click on his own?
  • CBS Facing 3.6 Million Fine For Indecency
    The issue? Trying to turn television into “Leave It To Beaver”? The problem? Programming can’t deal with real issues in a world where sex is deemed “indecent.

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

If You’re Focusing on Cell Phones, You’re Not Paying Attention

March 16, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

One of our mandates here at Medialoper is to bring light into the minds of those who can’t see. We are proud of our commitment to public service. Today, we turn to the theater owners, who clearly need our assistance.

As you may know, attendance in movie theaters is dropping. There are a multitude of reasons: lousy movies, incredible hassle, paying to park, paying far too much for lousy movies, paying too much for food and beverages, and, okay, rude people in the theater.

So it’s important to focus on the latter — in order to help boost attendance, the theater owners are thinking of asking Congress to change the law to allow for cell phone jamming (presumably, they’ll create an exception for medical personnel and law enforcement). Now, don’t get me wrong — I’m all for stopping the insane use of phones in every public space (except the pink ones). But when you review the list of reasons people are skipping out on the theater-going experience, two bigger, better, more powerful common themes emerge.

I won’t insult anyone’s intelligence by repeating them. Okay, yes I will. Cost and quality. Quality and cost. You want to bring back the paying customers? Give them a reason to leave the house.

  • Movie Theaters May Ask to Jam Cell Phones

Filed Under: Movies

The Darknet Panel: Meet The Consumer

March 15, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

I admit it – when I heard that the MPAA was sending someone to SXSW to sit on the “The Future of Darknets: Can Hollywood See The Light?”, my first thought was, “That’s gonna be fun.” You know, fun in the way that root canals happening to someone else are fun. Fun, fun, fun.

And it was. I have a sick sense of humor that way. As Kevin Smokler said the next day, “There’s a street fight a-brewin'”.

Let me set the scene: the panel was hosted by J.D. Lasica, author of Darknet: Hollywood’s War Against The Digital Generation. Panelists included Kori Bernards of the MPAA, Mark Ishikawa from BayTSP, Ian Clarke, creator of Freenet, Heather Champs from Flickr (who was mad as hell about the DMCA, a perfect mood for the panel), and Dave Toole of Outthink. Oh, and a room packed with tech geeks, media consumers, and filmmakers. These groups were not mutually exclusive.

[Read more…] about The Darknet Panel: Meet The Consumer

Filed Under: Mediacratic Tagged With: Anti-Piracy, Darknets, DMCA, JD-Lasica, Jon-Else, MPA, MPAA, Sing-Faster, SXSW, SXSWi

The Daily Loper – March 15, 2006

March 15, 2006 by Lopy

Todays links of interest:

  • TV Networks Gear Up For Telling ‘Upfront’ Talks
    Upfront buying speaks to confidence. The networks think this will be their year. Everyone else notes that money is being spread far and wide — think new media, not old.
  • Sony Delays Playstation 3 By Six Months
    It’s official. Sony is giving XBox 360 an even bigger head start.
  • You are killing us!
    Are too many fan favorites on TV shows getting offed? Or have all-of the high-profile deaths on “24” in the past couple of weeks just made it seem that way? The L.A. Times investigates, and in the process spoils this weeks eps of “24” and the “Sopranos.
  • ‘Sopranos’ Muscles Into iPod Territory
    The other best show on TV may also be available for download soon. For now, however, you’ll just have to be satisfied with clips, interviews and recaps.
  • YouTube: Natalie Portman Rap Search
    This morning’s (08:08AM 03-15-2006) search on YouTube for “Natalie Portman Raps” returned 4 results.
  • Museum of bad album covers
    Just in case your digital music collection has you missing album art.
  • Sony, Others Won’t Degrade HD Content on Analog Outputs
    Some actual consumer-friendly news coming out of the Blu-Ray and HD DVD camps? Huzzah!

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

AOL Launches In2TV

March 15, 2006 by Jim Connelly

AOL launched their In2TV service today, featuring an eclectic mix of 30 Warner Bros. TV shows from the past half-century. Some good, some bad, some on DVD, some not — and all available for high-quality streaming in their entirety with “minimal commercial interruption.” 1 to 2 minutes, for now. Though if it’s successful, that will no doubt sneak up a bit: the whole point, of course, is another revenue stream.

We haven’t yet had a chance for a test-drive of the service through the Medialoper Review Labs — the pilot ep of Welcome Back Kotter, prior to Travolta becoming a superstar, will be just the ticket — but here are a couple of random initial impressions:

  • The home page is clean and well-organized: less clutter than iTunes, and easier to find stuff than Google video or YouTube.
  • Don’t come here looking for full seasons. Looks like they’ve launched with about 10 eps of each show.
  • They’ve also launched with features and interactive games.
  • There is more than one way to find an individual show: they’ve categorized them, have a search feature, broken out clips; and have a “show all feature” that actually lists more than a few at a time.
  • One of the best ideas: “Pilot Theatre,” which is exactly what you would think.

All in all, a nice auspicious start for IN2TV: one can only hope that they add more shows, and more episodes for each show.

  • AOL Television: In2TV

Filed Under: Services, Television Tagged With: AOL, google-video, In2TV, iTunes, streaming-video, Television, YouTube

HD DVD: Stumbling out of the Gate

March 14, 2006 by Jim Connelly

Warner Home Video, the only studio which had a firm release date for any HD DVD titles — March 28 — has now told retailers that the date isn’t so firm after all. Worse yet, they really aren’t sure when they’re gonna release those titles.

“To be honest, the outlook is tenuous — we’re still coming out with an initial slate, but we may be a week or two later; we just don’t know,” division president Ron Sanders said.

Translation: don’t look for any HD-DVD movies before Easter, or maybe even Memorial Day. Fourth of July? Meanwhile, the big mass market retailers are reportedly canceling pre-orders and changing ad campaigns to compensate for the lack of product. And no other studios had even announced actual release dates. Even without the format wars, this would be a less than auspicious beginning.
Meanwhile, Toshiba, the only manufacturer to even make the players right now (though LG just announced their dual player), is going to be all dressed up with nowhere to go.

And nowhere seems to be where the format is headed right now.

  • A blurry picture for HD-DVD as launch nears
  • HD DVD likely be a sluggish start with no movies for the launch
  • LG to deliver dual-format HD DVD/Blu-ray

Filed Under: HD DVD/Blu-Ray Tagged With: Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, LG, Toshiba, Warner-Home-Video

The Daily Loper – March 14, 2006

March 14, 2006 by Lopy

Todays links of interest:

  • Google News Credibility Foiled By 15-Year Old
    New media fooled by fake press release. That’s something the old media would NEVER fall for.
  • Portable music hearing risk needs more study: NIH
    At least two members of the ‘loper team have been volunteered to be part of the study.
  • Apple Offering Full Length Movie on iTunes
    Well, a made-for-Disney channel movie, but it’s a start
  • Razr Makes Limited Reappearance in Stores
    Even the pink ones.
  • US judge in Google case grills Justice Department
    Already with the follow-up – in other news, the government doesn’t need Google’s data, but the data would help. So why is this in court?
  • Judge to Order Google to Give Up Some Data
    And yet, we the people, can’t figure out this is going to help the government prove anything.
  • YouTube: Natalie Portman Rap Search
    This morning’s (08:21AM 03-14-2006) on YouTube for “Natalie Portman Raps” returned 4 results.
  • Arbitron to Launch ‘People Meter’ Without Partner
    In the year 2006, radio starts thinking, “Hmm, maybe we should figure out who’s listening to us.” The ‘loper team is standing by with the answer radio doesn’t want to hear.
  • User Spending on Web Content Soared in ’05
    Further proving that people will pay if it’s something they want.
  • SXSW 2006 Interactive Panels Podcasts
    Miss the conference? Or maybe you just missed an early morning session after a late night out. No problem, you can listen to the SXSW panels during your morning jog
  • Google Goes to Mars
    Now that they’ve conquered The Earth, this is the obvious next step in what future historians will call “The Google Galactic Empire.”
  • Was it the Bloody Mary?
    Isaac Hayes has decided to leave “South Park.” Apparently he’s just realized that Matt and Trey like to offend people.
  • The Combined AT&T and BellSouth Will Control 22% of Consumer Telecom Spending and 34% of Business Telecom Spending; Merger Announcement Further Consolidates Telecom Marketplace
    In 2084, they’re gonna have to break ’em up all over again!!

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

Fast, Cheap, and Redefining News: Rocketboom

March 14, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

When we started Medialoper, one comment I heard really resonated, but probably not in the way the speaker intended. In a discussion about creating content for Internet-distribution only, a well-meaning but ill-informed pundit opined that regular, quality content required major infrastructure behind it. There was no way (no way!) that people working out their living rooms could produce programming on a regular basis.

Mr. Pundit, meet Rocketboom.

Rocketboom is a daily video log (vlog, if you will). Think of it as a hipper, cooler, smarter nightly news. With correspondents around the world and regular production schedule, Rocketboom pulls in over 250,000 daily viewers — people who catch the current show and people who access the programs extensive archives. The daily program is largely created by two people: director/producer Andrew Baron and co-writer/host Amanda Congdon. Others work on the show in various capacities. And, as revealed during their SXSWi session “Democratization of the Moving Image”, almost no expense has been made to produce this show.

[Read more…] about Fast, Cheap, and Redefining News: Rocketboom

Filed Under: Actual Mileage Tagged With: Amanda-Congdon, Andrew-Baron, Rocketboom, SXSWi, vlog

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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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