Medialoper

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The Weekly ‘Loper – March 12, 2006

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While you were shooting steroids meant for Barry Bonds into Slobodan Milosevic, here is what we were concentrating on:

The Daily Loper – March 11, 2006

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Todays links of interest:

RIAA: Stop Taping Songs Off of the Radio!

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When I was a kid, I used to place a handheld Panasonic cassette tape recorder (with a condensor mic!) next to a transistor radio to tape songs off of KYNO-AM. Not yet having the the money to go out and buy every single song I liked; these recordings were key to how I connected deeply to pop music, on which I’ve since spent a huge amount of my disposable (and not so disposable) income.
Little did I know, that in the eyes of the RIAA, my 10-year-old self was a thief, and they were itching for a way to keep me from stealing their songs. And now, with the advent of digital radio, they may have found a way.

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SXSW Day 1: Convergence and Transformation: A Whole New Creative World

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The experts agree — say the words “Digital Convergence” and people’s eyes glaze over. Clearly, the Medialoper elevator pitch needs some retooling.

David Pescovitz, of Boing Boing, lead the panel off by noting that he doesn’t really know what digital convergence is. On further reflection he’s pretty sure there is no such thing as convergence, but only divergence. When technologies converge they tend to produce sub-standard products – like the all-in-one uber-pda’s that don’t do any one thing particularly well.

Happily, David-Michel Davies jumped in to make the point we’ve been harping on for a while now — there’s a difference between digital convergence and convergent media.

From our perspective digital convergence is about technology, while convergent media is about content. Davies noted the danger is that media companies seem to be fighting to make the internet more like traditional media, instead of adapting traditional media to be more like the internet.

Some more random notes in no particular order (since that’s what semi-live blogging is all about):

  • Old media = no participation. New media = everyone participating and collaborating.
  • Convergence will ultimately come down to user experience – the ability of users to easily collaborate, interact, and remix.
  • Napkins can be used for good or evil.

Quote of the day (so far):

They used to say, “on the internet no one knows you’re a dog”. Today, everyone is branding themselves as a special breed of dog.

Yes, these notes are somewhat incomplete, but I’m recovering from my first celebrity sighting of the day – DA Pennebaker.

The Daily Loper – March 10, 2006

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Todays links of interest:

Light In The Lopers

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Members of Team Loper have just arrived in Austin, TX for SXSX Interactive. As a result, posting on Medialoper may be someone sporadic over the next week. On the other hand, we may just get the urge to live-blog every session. You just never know.

If you happen to see someone wearing a Medialoper t-shirt, you can be sure it’s one of us. Feel free to introduce yourself and please don’t hesitate to buy us a drink.

Labels Make Another Dumb-Ass Move

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According to the New York Times, in a desperate attempt to goose CD sales, major labels are considering stepping back a decade, and experimenting with the concept of not releasing advance single downloads from upcoming albums.

So just as iTunes hits it’s billionth download; and it’s clear that people are embracing downloading as a viable option the major labels decide, welllll, that ain’t good enough.

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The Daily Loper – March 9, 2006

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Todays links of interest:

HD DVR: Hi Definition Disappointment Part 2

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Recently, I wrote about how disappointed I was with my first cable company-supplied Hi-Definition DVR.  My main issues were that, compared to the Replay I had been using for several years, the actual functionality and usability were a huge step downwards.  In addition, the cable guy kept going on about how it just too bad that I wasn’t getting something called the “Moxi,” which he said was much better.

And he was right: after being contacted by a guy from the company that made the Moxi,  I did some research, and, yup, it pretty much has all of the features I want.  Fat lot of good that does me.  After all, it’s not like its easy to find a day to unhook everything, wait for another cable guy; rebuild my entire setup, and learn yet another DVR. 

Meanwhile, I’ve discovered even more issues with the Scientific Atlanta box:

  • Nowhere does the cable guide tell you whether an episode of show is a repeat or a first-run episode.  
  • If a show I’m normally recording is being pre-empted by another show, the cable guide still shows that the timeslot is going to be recorded. 
  • For the NBC HD Channels, the sound doesn’t sync up with the picture.  The Olympics were on when I wrote that first post, so I had no cause to record any NBC shows, but since then, it gets very annoying when sound gags on Scrubs don’t match the visuals.  Or this upcoming weekend when Arctic Monkeys play SNL. It’s only NBC HD — nobody else — so I don’t know if the problem is with the cable box, Charter, our local affiliate, or NBC itself.  All I know is that it’s dammed annoying.
  • Finally, despite all of this, our cable bill has risen $20 (twice as much as they told me it would) and — best of all there is a line item on the bill for DVR Moxi Service.  That’s right: it looks like I’m being charged for the thing that I didn’t even get.

So I’m thinking that rather than upgrading to the Moxi, if we’re going to make that much effort, we might as well switch to the satellite company that has the TiVo HD DVR.

Will Origami Introduce The Era Of UMPC?

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Microsoft Geeks (yes, they do exist) are salivating over the official release of Origami. As we told you last week it’s not an iPod killer at all. Instead it’s a UMPC.

What’s a UMPC you ask? Seriously, you’ve never heard of UMPC? Ok, we’ll tell you, but just this once, so please take notes. UMPC = Ultra Mobile PC.

In case you’re still confused I’ll spell this out further. As far as Microsoft is concerned an Ultra Mobile computer is 6 by 8 inches with a 2.5 hour battery life. In other words, it’s too big to fit in your pocket, and you can’t go very far before you need to charge your UMPC. I said UMPC, not Pocket PC.

Origamis will be folded by a number of different manufacturers. As with standard PC’s each will presumably offer their own unique configuration and pricing. In general, though, you can expect these new devices to cost in the $600 to $1,000 range.

Oh, it’ll run some variant of WinXP, ensuring that Microsoft enthusiasts everywhere will enjoy the full blue screen experience on buses and in restaurants.

So, where do you want to go today?