iPod Killed the Radio Star
It's really interesting to see how Arbitron is positioning the statistics on digital radio it just came out with, specific to the effect of portable media devices.
So here's the first stat:
Fewer than one in ten report less over-the-air radio listening specifically due to time spent with their iPod/portable MP3 player.
Phew! Ok radio execs... you can all rest easy and breath a collective sigh of relief... oh... wait...
While 70 percent of Americans age 12 and older do not own an iPod/portable MP3 player, and an additional 15 percent report the device has had no impact on radio listening, nine percent say they are listening to less over-the-air radio... Radio sees the most impact on listening from iPod/digital audio player owners age 12-24.
Ok, hold on a sec. So, if I'm reading this correctly, 30% of the people who own portable devices are listening to the radio less, and that impact is largest among the 12-24 crowd?
Well, that's kind of a different animal isn't it? What happens when these 12-24 year olds grow up and get replaced by another generation listening to the radio less?
To me, this represents a clear trend that should make radio execs worry.
Terrestrial radio is that it isn't net native, and frankly, neither is the iPod. In other words, neither really takes advantage of all the things the web enables you to do... discover music, connect to others with the same interest, observe, remember, and publish your own interests. That's what creates the opportunity for services like last.fm.
The big advantage that the iPod/iTunes combo has is that iTunes gets right in the stream of your consumption with monetization. You're listening on iTunes, you want more music, and its just a click away. Have you ever heard a song on the radio and wanted to own it. It's nearly impossible. You either need to wait for the DJ to come on to tell you what was playing or you start playing "guess that tune" with your friends. Clearly, radio needs a compelling reason to bring you to their site to do more than just listen to a webcast... There's a really interesting opportunity for radio stations to leverage the brand they have created on air, the personalities they promote, and their ability to monetize music to encourage music related engagement on their sites... but what does that look like?
I'd be interested to hear from anyone involved with the broadcast radio industry on this.
Green NYC?
So Mayor Mike is trying to get the city to go green by instituting the same kind of anti-congestion tax that is currently in place in London, where cars are charged for entrance into the heart of the city during peak hours.
Why?
Try driving in the city during rush hour. That's why.
Hey, I'm a car owner in the city and I'm the first one to say that this is a great idea. We all need to be using public transportation more... cars are bad for the environment... and the city is too crowded. Some people are saying that this tax will hit the working class, but you know what? The working class takes the subway. The only people I know who drive into the city during rush hour are the rich suburbanites. Stand outside a midtown parking lot during rush hour in the morning and look at the cars... they're Porches, Mercedes, etc... No family Trucksters here. I'm all for it. Bike to work!
Also, friends of mine who work for various political campaigns are saying on good authority that Bloomberg has decided to run for President in 2008. I hope so. I love anti-politicians, and he's not some old money rich guy... he's an entrepreneur... a self made guy. What he lacks in personality, he makes up for in business savvy and I think its about time someone starts running this country with a little logic and practicality. I'd vote for him.
Doritos Fight... Killer Online Advergame
This new Fight for the Flavor Campaign from Doritos has a fantastic two-player boxing game with bags of Doritos.
Check it out and feel free to challenge me... I'm ceonyc.
Does anyone know who built this? What agency?
Kill Them with Kindness
I had an interesting encounter Saturday night. I ran into friend of mine that I was once closer to, but had long since told me that they didn't have enough time to still be my friend. This person was at an alumni event.
When I saw her, I came up to her, gave her a big hug and asked about her life and what she was up to and shared my stories. She had broken up with a boyfriend and I told her that she'd meet the right person someday.
At one point, she stopped me and said, "Why are you being so nice to me?"
She knew she ditched me as a friend and she couldn't figure out why I was bothering to see how she was. I just said simply, "What would be the point of being any other way?"
I wound up driving her and her friend back to Queens... it was a beautiful night and I had the top down. She was pretty worse for wear by the end of the night and I really didn't want our mutual friend to have to deal with dragging her around the subway. Turns out that she lost her keys and I even had to turn around after driving 8 blocks away to help her look for them in the car and make sure she was ok.
Why bother? Why not just ignore this person and let any negative feelings I had for them just fester...
And incredibly smart person summed this up better than I could:
"I just don't see the point in wasting time or energy on
maintaining -- actively nurturing, in most cases -- sustained negativity
toward someone or about something. It mostly harms YOU, makes YOU less
happy, makes YOUR whole emotional world smaller, narrower, less enjoyable...
and it definitely doesn't, as you point out, do anything to inspire better
treatment from others either."
The fact that this former friend probably woke up maybe realizing that she had lost a good guy as a friend and probably didn't deserve the concern I showed her as a friend the night before is surely much more effective than whatever reaction she might have had to a dirty look or me telling her off.
And frankly, it felt very good to be the good person. Not the bigger person, but just the good person all around.
Add my PPC-6700 to Charlie's list of things lost, stolen, or broken
Ok, since I joined USV in February 2005, I've...
Broken two Treo 650's.
Had a Canon S500 stolen.
Dropped a Fisher C-1 in the Hudson River.
Had my bike stolen.
Had my car roof and one tire slashed.
Had a power source blow out on my new computer HP Media Center.
Finally had my old computer die out on me.
Lost my baseball glove.
Had my first PPC 6700's USB port break, rendering it unchargable.
Well, today, add my replacement PPC 6700 to that list. It was stolen, along with several other phones of ZogSports football players, from Riverbank State Park on 138th/Riverside Drive. When I went back to tell the ref, she already had two or three other phones on her list. Later on, I called my phone, and some guy picks up and says he wants 100 bucks for the phone back. Right, like I'm going back up to 138th street with a 100 bucks cash at night to buy my own phone back from a guy who won't just return it. I told him to drop it off at the police station, leave his contact info, and I'll make sure he gets a $100 reward. He wasn't up for that, and so I wasn't up for showing up to get my phone. I'll talk the loss, thanks.
So, tomorrow, I'll be going back to my slightly glued together Treo 650, quite unhappily.
Oddcast Office E-mail Hilarity
Officewide e-mail from our office manager...
From: Deborah L. [mailto:name@oddcast.com]
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 12:05 PM
To: nyoffice@oddcast.com
Subject: Cookies in the kitchen :)
Response from our CFO re: someone on her staff...
From: Gally P. [mailto:name@oddcast.com]
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 12:24 PM
To: 'Deborah L.'; nyoffice@oddcast.com
Subject: RE: Cookies in the kitchen :)
Except for the Peanut Butter one, which is in Riv
________________________________________
To Air or Not to Air: The Cho Multimedia Manifesto
In 1975, Squeaky Fromme tried to assassinate Gerald Ford. A Manson follower, she wanted to give old Charlie the opportunity to testify at her trial and spread his message to the world, knowing that it would be covered by the global media community.
If only she had a digital camera and the address of NBC... that would have made mass distribution of hate much easier.
"After much debate", NBC decided to run clips (of course, spread out over time to get ratings) of the Virginia Tech killer's "Multimedia Manifesto" on national and online broadcasts.
Right... As if there was even a chance that NBC wouldn't have posted as much of this "news" as possible. The twisted reality of human nature is that I'm sure NBC execs can't help but feel a just a little bit lucky it was them that got the video, not Fox, or *gasp* YouTube. (We all probably would have if we worked there, despite the obviously tragic nature of the events.) Score one for the peacock. Because whereas 30 unfortunate students at VT accidently stepped on a landmine, NBC accidently fell into a goldmine.
Explain this logic to me. If NBC Sports covered a baseball or football game, and someone ran out onto the field naked, they would go out of their way not to record the idiot so as not to encourage that kind of behavior.
Yet, the ravings of a lunatic who clearly references the Columbine killers by name that he learned, that we all learned, through the media... that goes right up into the ether for mass consumption.
How can we justify the airing of this video as news? Is this informative? It's hard to argue that this won't encourage other troubled kids looking to lash out against the world.
Kill as many people as you can, send the video to NBC, and become an insta-martyr. It's that simple.
This is becoming a multimedia car-accident in the worst way... and onlookers of car accidents often get into accidents of their own as they watch.
Does the media encourage people to kill? No... but does the behavior of the media and borderline glorification of killers 'cause people to want to make a bigger splash--to go out in a blaze of glory killing off as many people as possible... I gotta say its an awfully compelling argument.
Isn't this kind of hate poisoning our airwaves worse than what Imus said... or hey, at least as bad?
This kid committed this act knowing full well the scope of media attention this would draw. He didn't kill 30 people out of blind rage. He did it as a calculated statement to the world that he knew we'd all jump at the chance to broadcast. It's not just NBC. It's all of us. Everyone who sticks to NBC over the next few days to see more clips. Everyone, including myself, who publishes about it. We are a media machine and Cho Seung-Hui is playing us like a violin.
I just really hate the phone...
I had two conversations today with really fantastic and interesting people. (No, I'm not buttering them up...I really think that.) One of them took place in person over breakfast and the other was on the phone at the end of the day. My behavior during each couldn't have been any more different. In person, I'd like to think I have a clear train of thought, I'm focused, responsive. Visual communication, to me, represents a safe set of boundries... you can't really go wandering off phyisically or mentally because you are bound by not only the propreity of locking up with someone face to face, but by the constraints of real observation. There is a face in front of you...its a constant throughout your conversation and it acts as an anchor. A good chunk of your brain focuses on that face and nothing else. On the phone, you are cast off into the churning sea of the day's images and soundbites...unteathered by an opposing face, free to drift. I feel like I make less sense when I can't look at a face. My mouth is moving, but I hear myself drowning. Someone throw me an eyebrow or a chin! Anything to hold me in place! Text is fine. I've always loved text. Even as far back as Prodigy chat rooms, I always found text to be a focused and expressive form of communication. There are words on the screen and I'm supposed to look at them. It's like a track...one of those hand trigger car racing games. Very easy to play as long as you don't go too fast. So, if you ever ask to get on the phone with me, just know that you're probably going to get the short end of the stick in terms of all the possible ways to communicate with me.
MySpace Add Friends from Your Contacts Finally Working
Because more friends make us feel more loved... Finally, you can now upload your webmail contacts to find all those people who previously didn't want to admit to having a MySpace profile.
Sah-weet.... stalker features.
However, it's painfully slow... I mean, like Friendster 2004 slow.
Who are you people? Part 45
One question I ask every now and then on this blog is, "Who are all you people?"
Through a combination of reporting improvements and overall growth, my subscriber count now stands at 1679... and, I probably know about 100 people that I think subscribe... Other than that, the other 1500 or so of you are anyone's guess.
I find myself asking this question even more with Twitter and MyBlogLog. Little heads pop up on my blog and people twitterfriend me and I have no clue who they are, how they got here, or why they read.
So, as I've done in the past, if you are a new reader and you're pretty sure I don't know you, feel free to introduce yourself to me and everyone else in the comments.
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms... Which is the easiest to buy? Ask Cho Seung-Hui...
The interweb did a fantastic job of fingering the wrong killer yesterday in the tragic events at Virginia Tech, due in much part to another Asian VT student's web presence containing photos and notes about guns. For a day, he became the Richard Jewell of this incident and yesterday, the unfortunate victim turned gun lobbyist issued the following statement:
"I will be available for interview by a news agency to clear my name, talk about the experience, and give my opinion on how the situation could have turned out better if other students were allowed to be armed."
Right... that's what would have made this situation better: More guns. I hope no one interviews this guy, because I'd rather not have his 15 minutes of fame remixed and rebroadcast everywhere if he's going to be all gun crazy. Because, really, the Walther .22-caliber semi-automatic and a 9 mm Glock that made their appearence weren't really enough. These guns apparently had the serial numbers etched off, meaning that they were probably not purchased at the local Walmart. Its this kind of thinking that makes people want to arm passengers on planes to fight terrorism, too. A gun for everyone and no one will get shot, right?
How about making it impossible to get a gun in the first place? Don't stats show that most gun deaths are either innocent people or victims of accidents, and not intruders/attackers?
Clearly, this guy had some major issues... and more so than anyone, he himself is to blame... not the school who was taken by surprise as any other school would have...not the media... not violent video games... but the one thing that sticks out in my head is that it is absolutely too damn easy to get a gun in this country.
They should make a law that if you sell a gun to someone and that person uses it to shoot someone, you can get charged as an accessory to that crime... That would lead to some real careful background checking, I think.
Hold the phone... WeeWorld Survey Cracks the Avatar Code: Stats reveal why Gen Y likes avatars
"82% of respondents noted having an avatar “because it is fun,” while 66% also noted a key driver was “because it’s a cartoon version of myself""
Man... that's just so amazingly insightful... People like avatars because they are fun and because they are cartoon versions of themselves. Wow.
I mean... wow.
I gotta hand it to the WeeWorld folks... the survey they just released really sheds some light on why people like avatars. And here we were making avatars that were NOT fun and ones that looked like OTHER people. Well, shit... now we've got to push back this week's Voki launch and rebuild the whole damn thing from scratch. At least we saved ourselves from a lot of embarrassment.
Also discovered in this survey...
- 100% of WeeWorld users also use the internet.
- WeeWorld users win coin flips about 50% of the time.
- 0% of WeeWorld users are time-travelers.
- 100% of WeeWorld users have answered survey questions before.
I guess that's what you do when you have $15 million sitting in the bank... you pay PR firms to makeup surveys.
Next week: WeeWorld surveys its users on whether or not they like cheese.
Gettin' Outta Dodge: Crowley Leaves Google
If you're a young entrepreneur tempted to get bought by a big company because you think it will be a safe, supporting place to help nuture your idea, talk to Dennis Crowley:
"It's no real secret that Google wasn't supporting dodgeball the way we expected. The whole experience was incredibly frustrating for us..."
Dennis had hinted about his departure back at SXSW and I'm sure the growth of Twitter didn't help make him feel any better about being stuck in a place that wasn't helping Dodgeball innovate.
I think it's fair to say that if you get your startup bought by someone, you should pretty much consider it to be the end of innovation and, if nothing else, the beginning of monetization. That's why I hope Ev and Biz take an investment from a VC for Twitter (I hear there's a great VC firm in NYC, btw...) and get enough resources to help it really grow. Let it ride boys... because no one likes wondering what coulda been from inside a big corporate cube.
links for 2007-04-16
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Oooh...I like the little emo kid characters on her shirt... we need to make those
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hmm... ok... made some changes... Raleigh axed... plus now I gotta figure out where I want to start from to take into consideration my cousin's Boston wedding on 6/30
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Take 3
