Super Humanity As we move into the new year we have the opportunity for reflection. A moment to think about the meaning of life itself, and the meaning of each of our lives individually. You have the opportunity to ask yourself if you are building, or destroying; adding something meaningful to your world, or simply cynically criticizing and endlessly dissecting all you see. You can ask yourself if you have a real sense of humor that comes from a love of life, or merely a sneering disdain for things and people you don't know/understand that manifests itself in condescending mockery and "clever" jokes. You can ask yourself if you are doing the job you "really" want to do, or if you are just treading water toiling away at something you could care less about until another opportunity comes along. Further, you can ask yourself if you blame your negative feelings of dissatisfaction with your life/job/circumstances on others, or on yourself--the only true master of your destiny. You can ask yourself if you plan your life around vacations, or real accomplishments. You can ask yourself if you are really using your talents effectively, or if you are you constantly convincing yourself that it is the world that won't let your talent shine. This moment is an opportunity to think about who you really are, and who you really want to be. My wish for all is that you have respect and consideration enough for yourself to take the time to take yourself seriously--not based on your ego or some sense of entitlement based on past suffering or adversity, but based on a simple and pure desire to be a better person tomorrow than you were yesterday. Humans are masters of change, its one of our under-appreciated superpowers. May 2007 allow you to discover, or rediscover, your superpower.

Digg's "Zapruder" Footage Maybe it seems like I've been negatively digging on Digg lately, but it's really one of my favorite sites. Nevertheless, I can't hold back something that just got sent my way. Below is a video of Digg founder Kevin Rose promoting his Digg website on his old job (The Screensavers) back in 2004 without mentioning that it's "his" business. That's a pretty big shady move, and something I would have thought Kevin (based on how he comes across on the DiggNation video podcast) would never have done. He even takes the viewers through an elaborate, in-depth tutorial on how to use the site as though it's some new service he's signed up for that's so cool -- but he never mentions that it's "his" business/site. Not cool. For instance, what I love about reading a site like Buzzmachine, is that Jeff always makes sure to give full disclosure whenever touching areas that might be viewed as a business interest. Great practice. Jeff, maybe it's time to invite Kevin to a journalism ethics class.

Last Minute '06 Adjustments Ummm, so I guess the investers behind Jimmy Wales' new Wikiasari search engine "don't" know about a little Firefox extension called Googlepedia? In memory of the Godfather of Soul, I officially demote the previous story from biggest tech news of '06. Alt-choice: That a Flash-based start-up company only 21 months old could generate a billion dollar sale. THAT is what Time magazine's cover was really about, and THAT is the real story driving all other players in the tech space. ---- Of course the year wouldn't be complete without some year-end schadenfreude. To that end we point out a major gaff by celebrated tech blog TechCrunch. The "exclusive screenshot" the posted on their website of the new Wikiasari search engine is, in fact, false. This has been confirmed by Wikia's Jimmy Wales here. The fake screenshot blog poster, TechCrunch creator Michael Arrington wrote, "our belief is that this is a genuine working screenshot of the application." Well, during these holiday times, we all need something to believe in--bless his acerbic heart. ---- On a rather important side note, for all you satellite radio lovers and podcast enthusiasts, be aware that last night was the 100 year birthday for the world's first radio broadcast. 100 years? I'd say that's a pretty robust technology--so don't count it out just yet.

Google's 2007 Enemy I've always noticed that when anyone (politicians, companies, etc.) want to release potentially explosive news that they'd prefer went generally under the radar, they do it on a Saturday--one of the slowest/most overlooked news days of the week. (Note to news hounds: ALWAYS check the Saturday newswire.) So it made sense that Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales dropped the biggest tech news of the year (next to his announcement of OpenServing) today by announcing Wikiasari, a search engine meant to rival Google. Whaaaa?! Those are fightin' words. Wales told the UK Times, “Essentially, if you consider one of the basic tasks of a search engine, it is to make a decision: ‘this page is good, this page sucks’... Computers are notoriously bad at making such judgments, so algorithmic search has to go about it in a roundabout way. But we have a really great method for doing that ourselves... We just look at the page. It usually only takes a second to figure out if the page is good, so the key here is building a community of trust that can do that.” One thing the article gets wrong is the involvement of Amazon. Wales posts on his own site some clarification: "Reporters and bloggers note: Amazon has nothing to do with this project. They are a valued investor in Wikia, but people are realllllly speculating beyond the facts. This has nothing to do with A9, Amazon, etc." Goodie, goodie! We finally get to see how Google will respond to a direct challenge by a credible opponent. Place your bets...

Digg Backlash Jimmy G writes, "I saw this post from Ronald Lewis's blog. He had some very similar issues with Digg. The gist of his story is that he broke a bit of news on his blog and also submitted the link to Digg. In addition he sent tips into GigaOM and Mashable. Mashable wrote a post about the news and attributed the news to Ronald's blog which was great. Mashable then posted their link to Digg. So take a guess, what do you think happened next ? Exactly, the post from Mashable started receiving more Digg's than Ronald's. Doesn't quite seem fair does it ? ...In the last episode of Twit, I was even surprised to hear Leo Laporte state that Digg's algorithm was broken. He cited the same example I just talked about. Unless you are in the cools kids clique, you might as well give it up, you are never going to get that cheerleader, so to speak. I fear that Digg itself has become irrelevant to most of us. Not that the site won't continue to grow and prosper, nor will many of us stop using it. But we will only be using it as a member of the audience, not really good enough to participate, just good enough to watch the action unfold before us. And that doesn't seem very social does it ? " [link to full post]

Is The New Digg Legal? Following up on my post about Digg, News.com reports a recent court case in which the owner of a series of podcasts (Supercrossonline.com) raised exactly the issue I raised about Digg for exactly the same reason. Long story short, a website (Supercrosslive.com) was providing numerous links to another website's podcasts in a way that allowed listeners to never have to visit the originating website. By visiting Supercrosslive.com, you could simply click on a link that would immediately launch a media file rather than take you to the originating site. The original website's complaint was valid in that it had sponsors of their shows that had paid to be seen on the podcast pages. The court ruled in the originating website's favor. Is it just a matter of time before someone challenges YouTube/GoogleVideo's terms of service as it relates to Digg's on site display of videos? Further, is it just a matter of time before Digg is legally challenged for also doing what Supercrosslive.com did--playing audio podcast files directly on the Digg website (without any direct agreement with the creators of those audio podcasts--that we know about) rather than sending listeners back to the originating podcast's website ? Whether you are a large corporation or a tiny indie podcast creator, these are important questions when you are talking about your content being fodder for Digg, one of the most popular/heavily trafficked sites on the web. **Disclaimer: I write this sitting here wearing a brand new black Digg t-shirt that I purchased with my own hard-earned money.

The Unbalanced Digg So yesterday Digg launched a new version of their site chock full of new features. I have to say that I was pretty impressed with all the cool features they've managed to pack into the refreshed site. But my gut told me something was not quite right. First, one of Digg's greatest strengths has always, always, always been its simplicity. Now Digg is several orders of magnitude more complicated to use, and figure out "how to use" for new users. But that's relatively normal for a site trying to keep existing users and grab new ones. The other thing that soon became clear to me is not as harmless. Digg's feature that allows users to post links to videos from other sites is nice, but they've added a new feature that lets you watch those videos right on Digg's site--not on the original source site of the video. For the creators of those videos, often a lot depends on having viewers either see ad banners on their originating sites, or having a dynamic (exp. archive links) that drives viewers to their site . But with this new Digg feature, what you have is an unbalanced relationship. Digg gets to use the video content to entertain their visitors for free with no agreement in place with the original content creators, and video creators lose out on viewers/ad impressions visiting their site. Even old/archived video shows can be viewed inside Digg, so in theory you would "never" have to visit the video show's originating site to find out more about the show. I guess this is supposed to fly under the flag of social media, but tell that to the people who slave away tirelessly on their online video shows with little return. It would be one thing if Digg made agreements with every video producer featured on Digg to get permission to display their videos, but the Digg guys went through another, rather slick, route. During an interview with TechCrunch yesterday, the Digg execs disclosed that they had established agreements with YouTube and GoogleVideo (not small social media companies--but multi-billion dollar corporations) to display their videos (meaning "Your" videos) on the Digg site. This big business agreement helps them circumvent having to deal with individual content creators to obtain permission. Big companies were important enough to make an agreement with, but not the small video creators. Hmmm. The lesson here is: Upload your video to YouTube, Google Video, etc. only if you intend to surrender the right to control the experience, and are okay with YouTube and GoogleVideo establishing third-party agreements using your content without asking you. I predict (assuming they keep this feature) that this will be the beginning of a small Digg backlash. I further predict that when Jimmy Wales' OpenServing service goes live, Digg's traffic will take a major hit as users employ the service to engage in a truly independent social media environment. I still enjoy Digg, and I don't intend to stop watching the hilarious DiggNation show, but I think these things had to be pointed out. *Full Disclosure: Many months ago I invited Digg's Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson to display DiggNation (which sports a Creative Commons logo, so in theory I didn't need to ask) on OrwellTV and never got a response. I guess now I know why. FYI: All videos on OrwellTV are displayed with the creator/copyright holder's express permission.

The Year Of Social Media Calvin Tang, co-founder of Newsvine, one of the most popular social news sites on the Internet, profiled my NY Press cover story this week. Nice to know the social media community is watching. Speaking of social media, I rarely agree with Time magazine's Person Of The Year choice, but this time their choice "You" (see graphic below) actually makes a lot of sense. Especially considering the cover story we ran this week and a few months ago made many of the same points (first, I might add). The other thing I noticed was how similar their cover image is to the first social media cover image we published just a few months ago. Nice idea, but I still like ours better--not that I'm biased or anything. ;^)

Blowback While I don't like all her publishing choices, and I have author friends who have run screaming from her office, the fact is: You don't fire Judith Regan, you just stop benefitting from her skill set (somehow this situation reminds me of the Iverson situation). Ironically, this may have been the best thing to happen to her. This is an exciting time in publishing, so if she can get past this momentary storm, Regan just might realize that she could probably do a Huffington better than Huffington. Here's something to think about kiddies: Regan's boss, Rupert Murdoch, canned her after the O.J. book disaster (even though she called O.J. a killer and claimed to be trying to get him to confess on television). Also remember that her boss is the same guy controlling your MySpace page. Remember that next time you log in thinking that page is "your" page. UPDATE: If it's true about her anti-semitic rant, I can't support that, and she has truly gone too far to pull a Huffington-style rebirth. Drudge is reporting that Regan's lawyer said, "They've chosen war and they will get exactly that..." Hmmm, war against Rupert? Yeah, she's over.

Misdirection aka The Prestige I like a guy who forces himself to think outside the box (even when every bone in his big business Conde Nast body must be telling him different). But if you're an existing, well known media property, Wikifying everything isn't a business strategy, it's a cyanide pill. Moving to something somewhere in between a complete closed editorial model and a wiki is a better proposition for a title like Wired--if you have any interest in keeping your magazine alive. That is, it's a better proposition in the "short term" (the Internet changes its mind every three quarters). I love Wired, and Chris has the right spirit... but a flawed strategy. So I think his post was mostly bluster meant to sound progressive rather than offering a peek at any real battle plan from Wired. Nice slight of hand though.

Sirius At Last Somehow, after all this time, tonight was my first time at Sirius radio. I was invited there by a friend and we sat in on a show hosted by a radio jock I know from back in the days when I was a radio jock at WQHT in Soho. The Sirius facilities, located in the middle of Manhattan's hectic tourist clogged Rockefeller Center, are extra nice, everything inside is clean and new as a whistle. But, I didn't feel that same crackle of live on-air energy I usually get at the hundreds of radio stations I've visited around the country over the years. Tonight I found out that a lot of the Sirius on-air personalities do something called voice tracking, a fancy way of saying "pre-recorded" on-air spots. Pretty disappointing. So while I really enjoyed myself, I sat there wondering why people needed to pay a monthly fee for this when it seemed like the show hosts were essentially making podcasts (albeit really expensive, great sounding ones). I asked one jock, and he essentially agreed with me. Which once again goes to show that often, the sale of a product isn't so much based on the service rendered, but the service the customer "feels" is being rendered. I think satellite radio is great, but nothing beats old school, terrestrial radio. Problem is, nowadays, there are way too many terrestrial radio stations doing voice tracking and whole pre-recorded shows. I guess this is my way of figuring out that podcasting really isn't so different from normal radio now that normal radio has actually lowered the bar in terms of listener experience. While there I took a peek at Howard Stern's set-up...nice. It's definitely "Howard's station." Thanks to the Sirius crew for the hospitality, they were so nice, I might just buy a Sirius box just to listen to them.

Consilience About 6 years ago I wrote this post regarding what does and doesn't work on the Internet. And while I do my best to work at finding information that will help me change my mind and improve my outlook, I'm actually happy to say that in this area my perspective hasn't changed much. Take a peek circa 2001...

Mixing Attended a mixer tonight for media/tech professionals and had the pleasure of seeing someone I haven't had a word with in some time--Omar Wasow. He's still a big wig at Community Connect (one of the 'original' social networking sites, in case you didn't know), but he's been studying at Harvard for the last couple years getting the essential training needed to take over the world. Great to see him after so long. Also met: my favorite face from FastCompany; an amazingly tech savvy photographer; a staffer from New York magazine; an Australian filmmaker with great insight into race and society; and a numerologist who scared the hell out of me by accurately nailing several key facts/dates about my life. All in all, a nice night out on the town. Meanwhile... I don't think I can wait until March of 2007 for this movie. Yet another amaaaaazing "300" movie trailer here.

Podcast Suggestions Needed I need some podcast naming suggestions. So far I've got: -The Orwell Show -MARS Radio -Strange Show -TokyoNYC -Hype Stalker I know, all pretty vanilla, but they all have some redeeming qualities. Any suggestions would help mucho. Gracias. *On a completely unrelated note, I have seen the coolest trailer released in 2006. THIS! IS! SPARTA...!!! Official site (and higher resolution version of trailer) here.

La Vida Transparente I've been thinking a lot lately about adopting the increasing practice online of living the transparent life. Now that nearly everyone has a blog, MySpace page, Google rank, video online, etc. those of us who don't tell the world where we had a sandwich last week and what it tasted like are beginning to look like Howard Hughes-esque hermits protecting our privacy (something that, just a few years ago, was considered normal). In particular, during my involvement with NY Press, I've discovered that not enough people (readers, writers, the UPS guy) seem to know enough about me, and thus are left to their imaginations. [cue grainy video footage of Adario waltzing with gowned mannequin at 3 a.m. in the basement of some dusty factory in the Bronx as an audience of stuffed animal toys and creepy dolls look on] What was once normal discretion, increasingly strikes many as odd, particularly in a time when it seems like everyone (see: reality TV) wants to be famous. As you can see from my post archive list in the right column, I've been "blogging" much longer than most of the so-called A-List Bloggers you've read about, so this method of communication is nothing new to me (it actually got old to me long before Boom 2.0). Thing is, I got my mainstream TV, Internet, media shine when I was in my 20s. It was nice. Exciting. I met a lot of famous people. But now I'm more interested in creating interesting and meaningful "things" and helping others to become successful, rather than creating fame for myself. But, I'm not sure (at least in current U.S. media reality) the two are allowed to be mutually exclusive. Perfect example: Fred Wilson (a thoughtful man I met with as a VC in the past during the Web 1.0 days) just had his private home address published in the NY Observer as part of a major real estate story (which I found via Nick Denton). If Fred were a rock star, or famous actor, it might not be so bad (fame is their life blood), but Fred is a businessman, and more importantly, a family man with young children in the home. Having his address published by the NY Observer to the public cannot be good for the children's general feeling of safety/security. But, the paradox is, Fred has endeavored over the last couple years--via his blog--to make himself a very public figure, living a nearly transparent life. So did he bring this on himself? Or is the NY Observer wrong? Either way, it's clear that his blog, plus the information in the story gives strangers everywhere possibly troubling access to the lives of his family. Ironically, one of Fred's most recent posts talks about the virtues of transparency: "So much of what I write on this blog is 'thinking out loud'. Sitting around thinking silently isn't nearly as effective for me as thinking out loud, putting my half baked ideas out there for you all to disect, digest, spit back, and turn into fully formed ideas. In fact, I think blogging at its best is a huge collective exercise in thinking out loud." Yes, but what about "living out loud"? Personally, I've done interviews with NY1 television on the steps of my home at 9 a.m. in the morning (when Biggie died), but I'm still a bachelor without a wife and child--a significant difference. I hope Fred sells the place quickly, or even moves in the meantime, I really admire his work, and the work of his wife, and I think they deserve better treatment. As for me, I think it's time I unlock the mystery of my profoundly mundane life for those who might be bored picking the lint off their couch. How? Well, I'm too busy writing and editing to blog but so much, but I have been toying with the idea of doing a podcast. I've actually got a fairly professional FM radio background that's been going to waste, so it's been on my mind for a while now. As much as I love, love, love video, I'm still one of the biggest fans of radio. Listening to some of the better podcasts out there (TWiT, Adam Curry) it's hard not to join the party. So give me a moment and I might have some audio goodness to share in which I'll unveil long held secret gems like my continued love for peanutbutterNjelly sandwiches, my belief that I can communicate telepathically with dogs, and how I think the next, most fertile tech/biz/development frontier is not in Asia but in ... you'll have to tune in to the podcast to find out. :^)

MARS Update Please just don't let it be a long announcement about rock formations. (Water maybe?) NASA Schedules Briefing to Announce Significant Find on Mars WASHINGTON - NASA hosts a news briefing at 1 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Dec. 6, to present new science results from the Mars Global Surveyor. The briefing will take place in the NASA Headquarters auditorium located at 300 E Street, S.W. in Washington and carried live on NASA Television and www.nasa.gov. link

Transmogrification Work on the new version of the NYPress.com website has officially begun. Most of my good friends have wondered what the hell I was doing since the site had not changed after I got there back in April. Well, before the website, a lot of other details needed attention. After those things got handled, with all the experience I have on the Web I couldn't very well just have the NYPress site relaunched with just a refreshed template to show a prettier face. No. No. No. Print media is currently in a fight for its very life, so digital concerns must be handled with the utmost care, research and planning. So that's what I did. I took some time to play with different models, examine the ever-changing 2006 Internet space, crunched all kinds of numbers and went back into my own experiences as an Internet consultant for some useful case studies. The final result was a comprehensive strategy that will serve as version 1.0 of the new NYPress website. I say version 1.0 because right now the priority is to simply get the site into the game, modernize it, and make it relevant. Right now it looks like something from 1995, so there's a lot of work to do. It's not unrealistic to imagine the day when every print property you know of now will be lead not by the paper product, but by its digital address. In general, the change appears to be moving relatively slowly, and has gradually accelerated in recent months, but I suspect the "media singularity" will ultimately happen over the short course of one or two quarters. So, while it's taken much longer than I expected to get started on the project, it's actually the most urgent matter for the paper. The site is now designed and the content architecture defined. Now that work has begun on the new site, I can stop avoiding embarrassment by pretending the website doesn't exist. Behold, a new beginning... [cue Jerry Goldsmith score]

Reality Soundtrack Current theme music for walking around Manhattan and enjoying the beauty of the city:

Control During my latest trip to London I had high tea with one of the city's better known fine artists. He took me around to some of the galleries and we talked about art and culture. One topic I couldn't help but bring up was the startling amount of cameras everywhere. I was particularly surprised to learn that most crimes in London are increasingly solved by simply viewing video tape footage rather than traditional police footwork. Even during my stay a high-profile bus crime was all over the television and the case seemed, based on the media coverage, to hinge entirely on the video footage. I won't get into the entire conversation I had with the artist, suffice to say he agreed the CCTV situation in London was a bit much, but that most Londoners had gotten used to it. Then I read this. "Big Brother is not only watching you - now he's barking orders too. Britain's first 'talking' CCTV cameras have arrived, publicly berating bad behaviour and shaming offenders into acting more responsibly. The system allows control room operators who spot any anti-social acts - from dropping litter to late-night brawls - to send out a verbal warning: 'We are watching you'. Middlesbrough has fitted loudspeakers on seven of its 158 cameras in an experiment already being hailed as a success. Jack Bonner, who manages the system, said: 'It is one hell of a deterrent. It's one thing to know that there are CCTV cameras about, but it's quite another when they loudly point out what you have just done wrong." I don't see how this is going to play out smoothly in the coming years. Type "CCTV" into Google News Search, and you won't find a bunch of stories about protest in London against the surveillance society. Rather, most of the results will show you various stories about how police, or some local citizen is using CCTV to catch someone doing something. I always wondered why every human character in "The Matrix" wore shades, and now maybe we have our answer: To protect their identity from the ubiquitous eyes of the machines.

Science Programming Finally! Someone (in this case, PBS) is giving astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson a show where he can regularly educate us about the wonders of and ongoing research into the universe. No details on the actual show yet, but I'm excited!

Google's Dark Side I have one of the new iMacs with a built-in Web camera. As soon as I got the computer set up, I promptly put a piece of tape over the camera and disabled the microphone. I thought I was being a little overly cautious, but a new story via MIT's Technology Review tells me I'm doing something everyone may be doing in the near future. I must admit, this story is so scary, I wanted to believe it was a hoax when I first read it, but it's not. Here are the relevant bits... "[Google's] prototype software, detailed in a conference presentation in Europe last June, uses a computer's built-in microphone to listen to the sounds in a room. It then filters each five-second snippet of sound to pick out audio from a TV, reduces the snippet to a digital 'fingerprint,' searches an Internet server for a matching fingerprint from a pre-recorded show, and, if it finds a match, displays ads, chat rooms, or other information related to that snippet on the user's computer. Letting Google listen in on your living-room activities may sound like a privacy nightmare... But the fingerprinting technology used in the Google prototype makes it impossible for the company to eavesdrop on other sounds in the room, such as personal conversations, according to the Google team. In the end, the researchers say, the only personal information revealed is TV-watching preferences." First of all, what Google can and can't listen to using this technology is a matter of us taking Google's word for it. No thank you. Second, since when is listening in on what's playing on my TV "not" a privacy violation? What I watch is my business unless I sign up for a Nielson box or TiVo. Where does it end? "Ms. Manning, we see this month you've purchased several gallons of soy milk, 10 portions of organic fruits and vegatables and 2 liters of environmentally friendly laundry detergent--therefore we're offering you our new Liberal Democrat Get-Away Caribbean Weekend!" Sounds cooky...until you get that email. If you think this is far-fetched, ask yourself if you even remember that Google watches your GMail email account to filter key word adverts to you based on the content of your emails. Similarly, there's nothing to stop Google, or anyone else, from using your Webcam to look in on you when you least suspect it. Experts in the linked article in the previous sentence suggest you "Unplug the webcam when not in use," but this is not an option with Apple's new iMac and MacBook laptops. Otherwise, peek-a-boo, someone might see or hear you... Where does it end?

Robots Coming In the coming two decades, Japan will begin lead the world in anthropomorphic robots. Why? A declining, rapidly aging population; low birth rate; little immigration (due in part to strict gov. guidelines); and of course, Japan's well documented obsession with automation. A new article adds heft to the notion as it illustrates the county's gradual move to change business and culture to accommodate the elderly. In a Graying Japan, Lower Shelves and Wider Aisles

Going To Get Ugly... NYTimes reports: "MySpace, the popular online community site, said yesterday that it would make its first move into the digital music business by selling songs from nearly three million unsigned bands. MySpace is the latest company to try to challenge Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store, but unlike many fledgling rivals, it already has 106 million users, as well as the backing of its parent company, the News Corporation. 'The goal is to be one of the biggest digital music stores out there,' the co-founder of MySpace, Chris DeWolfe, said. 'Everyone we’ve spoken to definitely wants an alternative to iTunes and the iPod. MySpace could be that alternative.'" --- "Samsung Electronics plans to introduce its own online music service to challenge Apple Computer’s iTunes-iPod franchise and Microsoft’s upcoming Zune music products. Samsung, based in Seoul, South Korea, said Friday that it would work with the Web company MusicNet to introduce a music subscription and download service later this year in Britain, Germany and France. Samsung said it planned to later expand the service throughout Europe and Asia. Samsung said the online music service would be compatible with its upcoming line of portable MP3 and media players..." And... "A new online music company said yesterday that it would make a huge catalog of songs from the world’s largest record company, the Universal Music Group, available for consumers to download free. The company, called SpiralFrog, said its intention was to wean music fans, especially young people, away from illegal downloads and pirate music sites by offering a legitimate source, supported by advertising instead of download fees. SpiralFrog is the latest to offer a challenge to Apple Computer’s hugely successful iTunes service, which allows consumers to download songs legally for 99 cents each, and its many smaller imitators. Though the venture is not the first to try a free ad-supported approach, the backing of Universal, with millions of songs in its catalog from thousands of artists like Eminem and Gwen Stefani, Elton John and Gloria Estefan, Count Basie and Hank Williams, promises to give it instant credibility and scale. SpiralFrog, which is privately held and headed by Robin Kent, a former advertising executive, said it expected to start testing its service in the United States and Canada by the end of the year and would extend its service to Britain and other European markets next year."

Stuff... I've been background processing... FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE “ORWELL TV ANNOUNCES NEW VIDEO SHOW FEATURES” NEW YORK, NY – MONDAY, AUGUST 28, 2006 – Among Orwell TV’s first featured shows are “Cool Hunting,” “Command N” and “It’s Jerry Time!” “Cool Hunting,” created by tech veteran and brand expert Josh Rubin, exposes all the latest trends in the worlds of style, fashion, gadgets, art and design. “Command N,” hosted by Amber MacArthur (G4techTV, Discovery Channel), Mike Lazazzera and Jeff MacArthur, is a weekly show that reports the latest news in technology. “It’s Jerry Time!” is an Emmy Award nominated animated comedy series created by Jerry and Orrin Zucker that follows the tradition of comedy pioneered by icons like Charles Bukowski, Larry David and Harvey Pekar. New episodes of these shows will be updated and made available as they are produced. Orwell TV was created in 2005 by filmmaker/writer Adario Strange. Visit Orwell TV weekly for show updates and other new shows scheduled to debut on the Orwell TV programming line-up. “I don’t have the 10 hours-a-day necessary to plow through YouTube and Google Video to find something worth watching. This works better...” —SOME BUSY PERSON WHO DIDN’T LEAVE THEIR NAME www.OrwellTV.com

Discovery The other night we all went out and traveled to a little place called Sputnik and in a back room in the basement I saw several incredible paintings by someone named Devon Cutler. I really wanted to sit and look at the work for a long time, but I was forced to leave early so we could all go smoke more cheap cigars. Devon Cutler is great though. I hope to own one of his/her paintings at some point.

Blooming I'm only going to say this because 1) I doubt many people will believe it and 2) very few people read this site... The near future of film and video is black and white and monochromatic works with rough, indistinct images. High Def is here to stay. But moving picture Art. Will go. Regressive.

Jest "PARADISE PIRATES: INTELLECTUAL NIHILISM IN THE 21ST CENTURY" Was. A prank. It worked.

Open German and Japanese culture fascinate me so often because they do void so well. Simple, honest and beautiful.

Latest Robot News Yummy and nutrious "robots are taking over" coverage in the new Forbes...

YouTube's New Ads So I guess that after the Charlie Rose interview, the YouTube boys realized how absurd it sounded to tell Charlie their money making method was advertising when the only ads they had on the site were Google Ads (Google Video being one of their top competitors). So--shazam!!--suddenly this weekend YouTube has all these new banner ads all over the site, and there are even movie trailer videos with tiny ad strips above them. It all looks a little clumsy, so the question is: was this planned and rolled out strategically, or was this a kneejerk reaction to all the Internet video stories last week? Either way,suddenly, YouTube is a little uglier...but maybe more profitable?