Jay

Buzz Watch: Teadybears and Iggy Pop

Authored by Jay Baage on February 1, 2007 - 2:08pm.
Of course as a Swede I'm biased on this, but there is a lot of damn good music coming out of Sweden right now. For example, Swedish singer/songwriter José Gonzalez just received a ”Border Breaker” award at MIDEM, for his debut album ”Veneer” (he had a great live gig with Nic Harcourt at Morning Becomes Eclectic on KCRW a few months ago). Perhaps even more exciting is that Peter, Bjorn and John's excellent album "Writers block" will finally get a proper US release on February 6 (they are playing at Roxy's in LA tonight). They played live in New York this past weekend and got fantastic reviews in the New York Times. Moreover, the Teddybears have released their U.S. debut, Soft Machine, on Big Beat Recordings. The album, a mash up of styles touching on garage punk beats, Electro, Dancehall and Krautrock, features a diverse array of guest vocalists, including Iggy Pop and Neneh Cherry. Take a look at their cool new video: 

AllofMP3 Plans to Stay Open in 2007, Lower Prices Over New Year's

Authored by Jay Baage on December 29, 2006 - 10:43pm.
The controversial Russian low-price online music store AllofMP3.com plans to stay open. Mediaservices, the company behind AllofMP3.com, claims that current US lawsuits are not of any particular concern to the company and offers users a 20% price cut over New Years: “Certainly the (record) labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3.com operates legally in Russia”, blogs an unnamed senior representative of the company on their site.

Nielsen: Here Are Media's Most Popular Top Ten Lists 2006

Authored by Jay Baage on December 20, 2006 - 2:26pm.
Nielsen Media Research released on Wednesday a year-end look at the most popular media trends among Americans during 2006. We have put the full list for you right here. It is the first time the Nielsen companies have released a compilation of “Top 10’s” for the Nielsen brands on all media, including Television, Movies, Videos, Music, Mobile, Internet, Books and Advertising Trends. Study these lists carefully. I'm sure there are many conclusions to be drawn, but they also give rise to questions. What do you think of the most cited Wikipedia entries 2006 being Web 2.0. Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin and the Mark Foley Scandal, in that order?

Zune Review: Is There Anybody Out There?

Authored by Jay Baage on December 15, 2006 - 10:01am.
I have had the new Microsoft Zune player for a couple of weeks now in order to try it out. The Zune has a bigger display than the video iPod, a built-in FM radio receiver and – drum roll –wireless capability. But I still prefer my video iPod. The wireless capability is supposed to make the Zune more social, by sending and receiving songs from other Zune users. The problem is that, so far, there doesn’t seem be anyone out there with whom to be social.
tags: Music | iPod | Apple | CE | Microsoft | Zune | Jay | Review |

Buzz Watch: Bret Easton Ellis Writes Showtime Drama

Authored by Jay Baage on December 11, 2006 - 7:07am.
This looks promising - "The Canyons" - a script from Bret Easton Ellis, who wrote the pop-culture classic "American Psycho" novel, has been picked up by premium cable channel Showtime. In the wake of HBOs many hit shows like "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under", Showtime has a lot of catching up to do. While "Weeds" is an under-appreciated gem, "The L Word" is groundbreaking and "Sleeper Cell" is simply great, Showtime has flown under the radar and not managed a big break-out pop-culture hit. Maybe "The Canyons" will be it. The show will reportedly be part soap opera, part horror flick, following a 29-year-old magazine editor who travels across the country following his best friend, only to find himself alone when his friend dies mysteriously. Let's hope that it is not too over-the-top like the latest Showtime addition, "Dexter", which, unfortunately, in my opinion did not deliver on a promising premise.

Buzz Watch: NY Magazine's Popular Approval Matrix Goes Interactive

Authored by Jay Baage on December 7, 2006 - 12:27pm.
New York Magazine has a really cool new interactive feature on its already, in my taste, excellent website. It's the magazine's popular Approval Matrix, in an interactive format! Basically, you get to place current events in the matrix yourself and after you are done, you can see where others have placed them. Check it out here.

Analysis: The Market is Telling Yahoo to Stop Making Excuses and Act

Authored by Jay Baage on December 6, 2006 - 3:09pm.
Terry Semel - YahooTuesday night Yahoo kicked out both Chief Operating Officer Dan Rosensweig and media group head Lloyd Braun in an attempt to reorganize management for the next era of the Internet and focus the company on catching up with Google. But after missing opportunites in social networking media and video, the market does not have much confidence in CEO Terry Semel’s ability to lead Yahoo in the Web 2.0 era. So what needs to be done to turn Yahoo around?

Buzz Watch: Top Searches of 2006

Authored by Jay Baage on December 5, 2006 - 10:06am.
Congratulations Britney Spears! In spite of not really doing anything related to music in 2006, the newly divorced pop-culture princess is still the one person who gathered the most buzz, as measured by the number of overall Yahoo! searches. When it comes to news, the two most searched stories were the deaths of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin and controversial ex-playmate Anna Nicole's son (not related). The Iraq war came in on third place.

Buzz Watch: Has Second Life Created Its First Real Life Millionaire from Virtual Real Estate?

Authored by Jay Baage on December 1, 2006 - 11:49am.
Real estate and development magnate Anshe Chung held a press conference in Second Life on Tuesday to discuss her claim that she is the first to have amassed US$1 million worth of assets in Second Life. She is walking a fine line in making that claim, since Second Life residents don’t take lightly to people making false Second Life claims in order to gain PR in the real world. Earlier this month, Dreamland (Second Life’s largest residential project) residents voted to ban public relations firms that made false claims.

DEMMX: Carriers Move Towards Off-Deck Mobile Phone Content

Authored by Jay Baage on November 30, 2006 - 1:40pm.
From the DEMMX Conference: Today 70-80% of all mobile media revenues in the US is generated from the major carriers on-deck content. According to Anil Malhotra, SVP, Marketing at Bango, the carriers are now finally starting to open up for off-deck content: “Unofficial numbers show that already around 50% of mobile media revenues come from off-deck [content] on days when popular shows such as American Idol is on.”
tags: Mobile | Events | Bango | Jay | DEMMX |

DEMMX: Yahoo Media Group Reveals Part of Its New Strategy

Authored by Jay Baage on November 29, 2006 - 9:51am.
From the DEMMX Conference: Vince Broady, Head of Entertainment, Games & Youth for Yahoo gave the audience a glimpse of their new “brand universe” strategy with a demonstration of the newly created Nintendo Wii site. “Yahoo Media Group under Lloyd Brown is now really coming into its own,” he said at the DEMMX 2006 Conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Buzz Watch: The Tower Records Era Is Over, The Future Is Digital

Authored by Jay Baage on November 22, 2006 - 11:01am.
Tower Records A picture says more than a thousand words - The Digital Media Wire team gets a reminder of how digital distribution is a game changer every time we walk out from our offices on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood and see the "Going Out Of Business Sale" signs that now cover the front of the legendary Tower Records store. It is always sad when an era comes to an end, but it is also very exciting to see what comes next in the post Napster and iTunes era. On that note, the new Microsoft Zune player is currently being reviewed by our team. Keep your eyes out for a complete online review next week.

Buzz Watch: Why Did Murdoch Cancel O. J. Simpson’s Book and Interview?

Authored by Jay Baage on November 21, 2006 - 10:08am.
Everyone knows that News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch is not the type of person to back down from a controversial subject, especially if it will make him and his company a lot of money. That is why it’s interesting to note that News Corp. has canceled the planned publication of the O.J. Simpson book, If I Did It, due to be published on its subsidiary Regan Books, as well as a two-part TV interview of Simpson, which was scheduled to air on Fox on Nov. 27 and 29. In the book and in the interview, Simpson was to discuss how he, hypothetically, would have killed his wife, Nicole Brown-Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, if he had done it, of course.

Future of Television Press Coverage

Authored by Jay Baage on November 20, 2006 - 11:53am.
Buzz_Panel_FofTV The following is a selection of links to press coverage of last week’s fourth annual Future of Television Forum, produced by Digital Media Wire, The Consumer Electronics Association and NYU Stern School of Business. For example, PC Magazine noted that the event this year was “concerned less with short-term problems and more with long-term goals, the conference was heavy on ideas.” If you did not have the opportunity to attend, these articles report on some of those ideas about where the industry is headed:
tags: Video | TV | CEA | Events | Press | Jay | FOTV | NYU | Stern |

2007 Will be the Year When Creators Get Paid and Other Views from the Future of Television Forum

Authored by Jay Baage on November 17, 2006 - 4:58pm.
[Coverage from DMW/CEA/NYU's Future of Television Forum in New York]
 NYU Schimmel AuditoriumDuring the “Mobile TV: The Next Frontier” panel, Jason Rubinstein, Senior Director, Mobile Video & Gaming Mobile Devices at Motorola remarked that there are a number of problems with formats, copyrights and bandwidth that have to be overcome before video applications will become a main stream application for cell phones in the US. “Mobile video is years behind where music is today”, he admitted.

Buzz Watch: Britney Due For Come Back After Divorcing K-Fed

Authored by Jay Baage on November 9, 2006 - 12:49pm.

Britney Spears tops overall searches at Yahoo! after filing for divorce from her wanna-be rapper-husband Kevin Federline, also known as K-Fed. Britney is truly a pop-culture phenomenon. Even though she has had a long absence from performing, she continues to strut her stuff, as measured in the number of searches, week-in and week-out, according to Yahoo! Buzz. Is her career over or not? After Britney announced the long-awaited split, searches on "britney spears divorce," "britney and kevin divorce," and "britney divorce" shot skyward. However, those searches still don't compare to the buzz around regular Britney pictures, lyrics, and videos. So, the data tells us that our fave white-trash tabloid queen is due for a successful come-back. Let’s just hope that she sticks to singing and spares us any more reality shows (K-Fed in an upcoming series of Surreal Life is, however, a given ratings hit).  

LA GAMES: Pro-Gamer Fatal1ty - “I have an awesome job”

Authored by Jay Baage on November 8, 2006 - 2:42pm.
Fatal1ty [Coverage from the 2006 LA Games Conference] Pro-gamer Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel is the most accomplished professional PC gamer in history. He is the breakthrough name and face for the new generation of so called "cyber-athletes". He was a featured keynote interview on Thursday. The audience got to hear about how he is not just a pro-gamer, but also runs his own company Auravision/Fatal1ty, to exploit his strong brand in gaming.

LA GAMES: ESA Exec Says Direct Download Market of Games is 5 to 10 Years Away

Authored by Jay Baage on November 8, 2006 - 11:39am.
[Coverage from the 2006 LA Games Conference] In his keynote Wednesday morning, Doug Lowenstein, President of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), stated that the digital download market for video games will not grow big anytime soon. “We are a long way from online distribution of games. The direct download market is 5 to 10 years from being significant” he said to the audience of industry insiders.

Buzz Watch: Microsoft Launches a Full Scale Attack on Apple

Authored by Jay Baage on November 7, 2006 - 8:27am.
On Monday, Microsoft announced that it would rent movies and sell television shows through Internet downloads to its Xbox Live video game service. Moreover, I got a call yesterday from Microsoft confirming my delivery address of the new Zune music player, due to arrive for review later this week. In other words, Microsoft is getting ready to launch a full-scale attack on long-time rival Apple Computer Inc. and other competitors in the digital music and video entertainment space.
tags: Pricing | Video | Music | iPod | Apple | CE | Microsoft | iTunes | PMP | Buzz watch | Zune | Jay |

Buzz Watch: Fitness Machine for Young Video Gamers

Authored by Jay Baage on November 6, 2006 - 11:19am.
Are you worried that your kids are playing video games too much and not getting enough exercise? Enter Step2Play. A stairmaster type of exercise machine that links directly to a child's computer games console. Here is the trick - the game controller will only work if the child keeps up a constant pre-set rate of exercise.