Maybe someone should set Akon and T-Pain up with the boys over at hellogoodbye for some conference call sass.
Akon Calls T-Pain, Fun With Vocoders
– Posted on May 7, 2008Posted in: Internet Phenomena, Music
wat Archive
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Guitar Hero Slurpees – Really, Activision?
– Posted on May 2, 2008Posted in: Video Games
Activision, 7-11, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft have announced a joint blitzkrieg promotion involving the upcoming Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and Slurpee cups at 7-11. Apparently there’s a new slurpee flavor called “Full Throttle Frozen Blast” and what better way to promote a frozen energy drink to the coveted 18-34 male demographic than to slap branding of Ben Throttle Aerosmith on the cups?
I have no problem with promoting video games to the mainstream with beverage branding. I actually thought the Halo 3-themed Mountain Dew flavor last year was a good cog in the giant promotions machine for the game.
What I do question, is a) The existence of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith in the first place and b) Do young people who go to 7-11 care about Aerosmith?
“The sweet spot of the core Slurpee customer is between 18 and 24 years old,” said Jay Wilkins, brand manager for Slurpee and Big Gulp® beverages. “Our goal is to keep Slurpee as cool today as it was to teens and young adults in the 1960s when it was first introduced.”
Aerosmith might have been cool to teens and young adults in the first decade the Slurpee was introduced, but somehow I highly doubt the kids of today are rebelling against their parents by listening to Honkin’ on Bobo and drinking their slurpees.
See, the thing about the Halo Mountain Dew promotion was that there hadn’t been a Halo game released in 3 years. The anticipation and excitement was there – having a Mountain Dew flavor was just adding to the hysteria. We just had a Guitar Hero game release nary six months ago, with another two coming out in early summer.
Why don’t we save the all out promotion blitzes for when you put out Rock Band Guitar Hero IV in a couple of years months?
Read the press release [biz.yahoo.com]
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Ticketmaster Fails Again
– Posted on April 24, 2008Posted in: Internet Phenomena
When I went to buy my $9 Upper Deck seats for a Dodgers game last night, I didn’t expect to pay $327.50 per ticket in “convenience charges” to Ticketmaster. I mean, sure, they routinely charge us almost 100% of ticket face values, but 3633% ? For cheap seats at a baseball game it seems just a tad excessive.
On the bright side, it looks like they comped the face value of the seats for me!
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Fred Durst Is The King Of The Potty Guys
– Posted on April 20, 2008Posted in: Internet Phenomena, Music
This video speaks for itself.
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I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This
– Posted on December 11, 2007Posted in: Music
In a move that even our British internet video friend would not accept, the RIAA is now claiming that MP3s that you have ripped from CDs you have purchased are unauthorized copies. That’s right, the very existence of digital music in the-file-format-which-must-not-be-named is an affront to all that is lawful and just. Forget about the fact that RIAA lawyers have already admitted ripping CDs for personal use is legal. Hypocrisy is only a speed bump on the path to oblivion.
I know I said I would not be surprised at anything the record labels do anymore, but come on. Really? Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the real record labels have anything to do with the RIAA anymore other than in name. As clueless as the major record label heads are, there is no way any sane person can fail to see what a detriment to health of the music industry the RIAA is. What exactly is it trying to do here? Even if they win every pending lawsuit, do they really think people are going back to buying cartloads of $18 CDs just like the good ol’ days?
Nay, the RIAA is a monster that is out of the control of those who have created it. But unlike horrific human creations such as the Cylons or Terminators, the RIAA becomes less terrifying and more cuddly with each action it takes.
via [gizmodo]
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Satellite Radio Gets Off Easy
– Posted on December 5, 2007Posted in: Music
The Copyright Royalty Board just finalized the new royalty rates that satellite radio providers will pay for the next 5 years.
Under the terms of the CRB Satellite Radio Services, XM will pay a performance license rate of 6.0% of those gross revenues subject to the fees for 2007 and 2008, 6.5% for 2009, 7.0% for 2010, 7.5% for 2011 and 8.0% for 2012.
This seems like a pretty sweet deal for XM and Sirius, with a modest rate increase over 6 years. Gary Parsens, chairman of XM radio seems pretty ecstatic over the decision:
“Moreover, the music performance fees set by the CRB are in the range projected by many financial analysts who cover this industry.”
Now, while satellite radio isn’t a money printing enterprise, it sure as hell has a lot more revenue generation going on for it than internet radio. OEM partnerships with a multitude of automobile manufacturers, portable devices, aftermarket add-ons for existing automobiles, internet subscriptions, the list goes on. Would someone care to explain to me how on earth the CRB decided the internet radio royalty increases were the least bit fair in light of this? Not only is the CRB/SoundExchange imposing a higher royalty rate on internet radio, they aren’t even offering the option of a revenue-based royalty payment scheme.
wat.
Read more [money.cnn.com]
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The interview isn’t posted online yet Read the interview here, but this choice excerpt sums it all up:
Doug Morris Is Easy To Bullshit
– Posted on November 26, 2007Posted in: Music
“There’s no one in the record industry that’s a technologist,” Morris explains. “That’s a misconception writers make all the time, that the record industry missed this. They didn’t. They just didn’t know what to do. It’s like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do?”
Personally, I would hire a vet. But to Morris, even that wasn’t an option. “We didn’t know who to hire,” he says, becoming more agitated. “I wouldn’t be able to recognize a good technology person — anyone with a good bullshit story would have gotten past me.”
wat.
It boggles my mind that an entire industry of “business savvy” executives were so myopic, egoistic, and just plain stupid as to not even learn who to talk to about the impact of digital music. I imagine Morris is exaggerating a little bit here. Out of the thousands of employees that worked for the majors in the golden age of 1.1 million first week *NSYNC CD sales, there were at least a handful of people who saw what was coming. Nay, the real problem was the music business’ stubbornness in adapting to the times. In an industry where you’re only as good as your latest numbers, there was no incentive for anyone to look at any sort of long term growth or stability. It was (and to an extent, still is) all about hitting your quarterly numbers no matter the cost. The more likely scenario is that prescient employees drafted up hundreds of pages of meticulously researched reports that were placed in the inboxes of various record label executives only to be summarily ignored and trashed because they had nothing to do with making the 4th quarter margins.
The interview goes on to talk about Universal’s Total Music venture and how Morris’s primary objective nowadays is to unseat iTunes from power. Again, Dougy is missing the point here. Guy, we’re in 2007. No one cares about you trying to show that you have a bigger dick than Steve Jobs. What you should be trying to do is creating a service with the music fan in mind. Make something that puts both Napster circa 2000 and iTunes to shame.
In other words, clone OiNK.
Update: Wired now has the interview online here