Medialoper

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Red Hot Concert Tickets

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Apple Computer — last seen in an UK court of law trying to prove that it really isn’t in the music business, and therefore violating a 1991 agreement with Apple Records — is now getting deeper into the music business.

It works like this: if you pre-order a download of the new Red Hot Chili Peppers double album, Stadium Arcadium, from iTunes, you get a code that will allow you to purchase tix from Ticketmaster four days before they go on sale to the general public. This type of concert ticket pre-order isn’t so different from what a lot of artists do on their fan sites, sometimes not so smoothly..

A couple of things strike me about this:

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The Daily Loper – April 4, 2006

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Today’s links of interest:

Old School Rules For Very Serious Magazines

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Funny conversation at lunch today. Kirk asked me if any of the major media — as in the monolithic entities, not the individual parts — got it. By it, of course, he meant new media. Or as we like to call it, digital entertainment technology.

It didn’t take me long to analyze the various mediums and come back with a solid answer. “No,” I said. “None of them get it.”

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NBC Moves Into The On Demand World

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Following CBS’ lead, NBC is working out a deal with Comcast to make nearly a dozen of their of their shows available on demand.

NBC’s deal is more comprehensive than the CBS one because it features a wider variety of shows, and includes non-primetime shows like Passions and Late Night, as well as shows from NBCU’s cable properties, most notably Battlestar Galactica. Interestingly enough, customers would be charged US$0.99 for the prime-time shows, but the non-prime and cable shows would be free.

The perception, of course, is that the prime-time shows are worth more than the non prime-time shows, which is weird: it would seem that culty shows like Monk and Passions are worth way more to their cults, no matter where they are originally broadcast.

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Why People Steal Movies

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Last week, Jim wrote a concise analysis of “why people download shared music”. I’m going to continue that theme — possibly ranting a bit more than Jim. Today’s hot news is that the studios are (gasp! sigh! swoon!) going to allow consumers* to download movies on the same day the DVD is released.

Needless to say, this isn’t the giant step forward for mankind that you’d imagine. And not just because “same day” can mean “same day” or within 45 days. Your choice. As the Los Angeles Times notes:

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TeeVeePedia

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As ever, there were dozens upon dozens of April Fools sites up this year. Many of them involved new looks for established sites, or new products or services. While we would never mess with our audience this way, we sampled several others — no way to get them all, of course — but one I really enjoyed is the TeeVeePedia, done by the people at TeeVee.org.

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Satellite Radio: The Game Is In The Bottom Of The First

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Two of the MediaBistro Fishbowls recently provided similar, but different, coverage of the satellite wars. In one corner, we have CBS eyeing (ha!) the purchase of XM*. In the other corner, we have the apparent trouncing of XM by Sirius.

Of course it’s too early to declare a winner, and given the fact that it’s a big planet, we don’t really need a winner (though at least one ‘loper has predicted a merging of the two satellite providers, at which point, you really will need a “Super-High Intensity Toggle Controller”).

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The Prism DuroSport 6000 – Worst Digital Audio Player Ever!

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When we built the Medialoper Review Labs, we had great hopes that our first major product review would be something special, like a sneak peak of a 6th generation iPod or maybe a preview of an Origami UMPC.

Neither Apple nor Microsoft responded to any of the emails we’ve sent requesting review units. Instead, the subject of our first review is the latest digital audio player from the little known DuroSport Electronics Company. You’ve probably never heard of DuroSport – we certainly hadn’t. The company contacted us earlier this year to offer us an exclusive review of their newest mp3 player.

At first, we weren’t interested in reviewing a generic media player from an unknown company—that was before the company’s persistent marketing rep dropped hints that the player in question would be licensed to a well-known Internet company as the audio player associated with a new online music service to be launched later this year. The only thing we know is that the “well-known” company’s name “begins with an A and ends with .com”. Whether this is a legitimate claim or a desperate attempt to obtain media coverage for yet another mp3 player, we were intrigued enough to evaluate the new Prism DuroSport 6000.

Regardless of whether or not the new Prism DuroSport is part of a new online music store launch, we’re certain DuroSport will be a household name in no time – but not necessarily for the right reasons.

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