Today’s Moment of Zen: Stewart-Colbert on Hulu. A great day for democracy - now you don’t need cable or even a TV to catch up on the latest news. Last night’s episode was pretty great, I love the way he just tear’s into the ridiculous of TV news.
Archive for the 'web' Category
Wired: Apple Reinvents Film Biz With iTunes Movie Rentals. This headline struck me as something Apple’s PR department would write, rather than journalist. What’s being reinvented? There are already movie rental services like Amazon Unbox and MovieLink out there. Grant you this is the first to work with Apple’s software and hardware, but that’s hardly reinventing anything. Overall, I felt Macworld was lame this year.
Australia announces mandatory internet filters to protect children. “Labor [Party] makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road,” telecommunications minister Stephen Conroy said. I’m not sure which is a greater sign of your country moving to a totalitarian state: internet censorship or leaders referring to their party as object (Labor makes not apologies…).
Zach Braff Quotes. In the vein of Chuck Norris facts, somebody created a site full of made up quotes attributed to Zach Braff, satirizing Braff and movie stars in general. My favorite so far: “Is ‘Garden State’ the next ‘Citizen Kane’? Of course not. I’d like to think we aimed a little higher than that, frankly.” - Zach Braff
ZDNet: WordPress vs. an army of clunky content management systems. As someone who has attempted to build and maintain one of those “other” content management systems, I agree 100% with this article. My only compliant is that more people haven’t extended WordPress or built plug-ins to add the features that print publishers want/need.
The Daily Collegian Online launched a new redesign with wider pages and improved navigation. It was a little bittersweet to see my original design fall by the way side but its great to see that they’re constantly improving the site. They’re really upped the ante with their multimedia features and sports blogs. I’m very proud to see how far we’ve come since we started in 2005 and since the new guys took over this summer. Kudos to Ryan, Dan, and the rest of the staff.
Surely there’s nothing more suspicious to Google than someone who wants to send me a greeting. Incidentally, Google was correct, the animated greeting was really a link to some shady URL with an executable that would have probably spread a virus to my machine.
The climax of last week’s Office. That’s what she said.
Originally published in The Daily Collegian.
Last week several politicians announced their intention to run for the presidency in 2008. Besides talking about their hopes for the future and trying to rally momentum for an election almost two years away, the announcements had something else in common.
None of them did it through a press conference, a Sunday morning talk show or even Jon Stewart’s chair. Instead they all chose to make their announcements directly to their supporters through online videos.
The medium of the Mentos and Diet Coke video has finally come of age. Campaigning on the Internet is no longer a novelty, it’s a standard that every campaign is rushing to embrace.
So I am writing again for the first time in a long time. I thought I would chime in on the news that sales at iTunes are dropping. This may all be my fault. My iTunes account says that I have made 100 or so transactions with the service since I started using it in fall 2003. My last purchase, however, was September 13th. Why did I stop downloading from iTunes? First, I decided I wanted to buy CDs, since they are roughly the same price as iTunes albums and more tangible. I also stopped buying singles - I want to enjoy whole albums if I am going to buy them. Finally, I started using the eMusic download service and have been very happy with their service.
You may not know eMusic, but it has quietly climbed up to the No. 2 spot in the music download market. How? They allow subscribers to download a number of MP3 files, without copy protection, every month. How? Well, their catalog is limited to mostly odds and ends that major labels don’t own. There’s no Jay-Z or U2, but they do have Sufjan Stevens and the White Stripes. I thought I would try out the service, get a few albums I liked, and quit. I haven’t yet though because my list keeps growing as I discover new music on the service.
So what does this have to do with iTunes? Clearly eMusic isn’t stealing customers away from iTunes because of its selection. I’m not sure eMusic is stealing customers away at all. But DRM does make a huge difference in getting customers to buy into a music service. Napster and Raphsody seem stunted by the fact that there are tremendous limitations on what you can download, transfer to an MP3 player, burn, etc. iTunes has a simple pitch: you can play your music on your computer, burn it, share with up to 5 friends, and play it on the most popular MP3 player in the world. That is why iTunes is the most successful music download service - it has one of the most lenient DRM policies.
Still any DRM is bad DRM. It doesn’t seem fair that iTunes tracks can only play on my iPod and iTunes - what if I want to transfer them to my Media Center PC or my XBox 360? Or my Linux machine? DRM even drains battery life on your iPod! This is why I started buying CDs (which are largely DRM-less since the Sony rootkit scandal) and using eMusic.
Now since I have all this unprotected music, the labels would speculate that I am probably illegally distributing it to all my friends - customers only stay customers if you have a leash tied around them. I don’t share my music on file-sharing services, however, because my bandwith is precious. And when I do share music its with the same 5 “friends” on my iTunes account - all members of my immediate family (I know, I know, Mom should be buying her own copy of The Black Album). So RIAA, if you want to continue to grow your industry why don’t you trust your customers and offer more content for DRM-less download?