For Your Computer Literate Pet?
It's official, we've gone too far...
Some idle bitching.
A few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to write some serps for Jason Calacanis' human-powered search engine, Mahalo. I happily jumped into serping until something really turned me off. I haven't been able to get the bad taste out of my mouth since then. And I can't just blame Mahalo, because the problem isn't just with them. See if you notice anything funny in the fast facts section of either Mahalo or Wikipedia.
How about Mitch McConnell?
Or on Mahalo...
Or Barack Obama...
On mahalo...
Or Chief Justice John Roberts...
Or on mahalo...
Or maybe John McCain...
On mahalo...
And I could go on. But to make it a little more clear, you won't find it here...
Any good guesses on what I'm bitching about? Am I crying foul over stupid bullshit?
And, in case you haven't gotten it, every single one of our political leaders, past and present, have their religion put on center stage as if that were one of the most important few facts in their biographies. Not votes, not things they've done or positions they've championed. Clearly this is just a reflection of our current political environment where candidates are battling to see who can be the rightest or leftist, or whateverist, at least until the general until we find out who can be the most moderately panderist.
But regardless, at what point do these companies feel the need to not be reactionary to a caustic political environment and not allow us to more easily vote based on definitions not related to voting records and the like.
Maybe this is pushing it a bit, but Martin Luther King, jr once said, "I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Maybe we should take his advice, and really judge people only by the content of their character.
I grant you that these are research vehicles, but as soon as an entity divides the line between important facts and just facts, the content becomes somewhat editorialized.
Now, commence with your disagreement.
Tune In Saturdays: John Vanderslice
San Francisco's John Vanderslice, a renowned producer and indie popster in the vein of Neutral Milk Hotel, just released his latest album, Emerald City. The name itself, a reference to the Green Zone in Iraq, is a pretty good indication you're getting yourself into a few politically-charged tunes. Powerful and brooding, it's a somewhat understandably sullen effort, but it's just enough parts hopeful and optimistic to keep it upbeat in the same breath.
From Aversion:
"With Emerald City, Vanderslice doesn't
let go of his legacy as an underground powerhouse, but he finally
bolsters it with the sort of accessibility and downright impressive
songwriting that makes it easier to respect him as a songwriter rather
than an icon. Polishing up his chops and his lyrical focus, Vanderslice
runs through Emerald City -- an opus largely inspired at his
beef with 9/11 politics that helped play a role in denying his French
girlfriend a visa -- with a determination and direction that never
quite gelled on his previous efforts. And what's more, Vanderslice
still finds room for all the clever arrangements, subtleties and
recording nuances that made his last albums favorites."
Home.MySpace.
You can stream the entire album both here, and from the MySpace page, but, as usual, here's a taster.
John Vanderslice - Tablespoon of Codeine (mp3)
John Vanderslice - The Tower (mp3)
John Vanderslice - Time to Go (video)
Al Ries and his Crazy, Crazy Pills
In a recent Ad Age article, the woefully wrong Al Ries laid out on Playboy for extending its line of nekid products into the digital realm.
"Playboy is digitizing its entire archive. All 636 issues of the magazine will be rendered page-by-page on six disks, one for each decade. Price: $100 per disk.
What a mistake. Every time a new medium arrives, older media players think, "What an opportunity to extend our franchise." So magazines and newspapers and radio and TV outlets are jumping all over themselves to digitize their brands."
That's where my attitude went from, "hey cool! An Al Ries article!" to "Are you fucking kidding me?"
He goes on to explain how Playboy shares are half what they were when the company went public in 1971, and how the 2.9 billion dollar company still lost 75 million last year.
Right. It isn't a branding problem. It isn't a relevancy problem. It isn't a conservatism issue. Nor does it have anything to do with Hefner's oddities or bad press. Not the creepiness of an elderly man dating seven twenty-something blondes. Nope. It's because they're moving along down the digital highway. Ideological curmudgeonism? Check.
And Ries continues,"Every print publication thinks it needs to expand into the internet to be successful. It's exactly the opposite. Stay where you are and launch a new brand on the web."
What the? Are you? Can he? Did he?
Well, give him points for shock value, I guess. And he goes on to failures that other companies have had in crossing on from one medium to another. He did get it right that those failures generally happen when those shifts are mishandled, but that hardly means that it shouldn't happen.
It's never a winning strategy to allow your brand to become irrelevant. No way would it make sense for the New York Times to waste away only on paper rather than remaining relevant to a class of people like myself who no longer reads the back of dead trees. I love the NY Times, but I haven't picked up any kind of paper in more than a year.
Yet Ries says, "Putting a magazine on radio or TV never worked either. Literally dozens of publications tried to take their successful print formula into the radio and TV arena. They all failed." An argument based solely in deception, as if the the printed word in print and internet form is the same as a magazine taken to newscast.
More than that, the idea that brands can't crossover from one medium to another is bullshit. Would that argument also follow to NBC or CBS? Should they have just stayed in radio? Or ABC, should they have just stayed in TV and not gone to radio?
Now, I agree, many of these traditional media sites have had a serious learning curve, but I'd still be the first to tip my cap to them for working hard and spending millions to stay relevant to a new generation of people only willing to accept traditional media in an adaptive form. To argue them back into their shells, away from change, is insane, idiotic and plainly wrong.
*Update: I'm dumb and spelled Ries wrong in the title. Fixed now. (thank ya, ma'am.)
*Update 2: Peter Kim also didn't agree with the article. He cracked me up with the line, "I guess the worst thing you can be is in the middle - it's refreshing to hear a voice that's consistently wrong." Kudos for that one...
*Update 3: I'm dumb and also spelled Ries wrong in the body. Fixed now.
*Update 4: The lovely Laura Ries showed up in the comments to explain her pops' comments further. She pointed to this post in her blog where she said this:
"Newspaper brands never made it big on radio. Radio brands never made it big on broadcast television. Broadcast TV brands never made it big on cable. Cable brands never made it big with magazines. And newspaper, magazine, radio, and television brands never made it big on the Internet."
My response is down in the comments (here).
*Update 5: High fives to me for spelling Laura's last name right!
*Update 6: And, yes, I realize I'm inflammatory, so stop emailing me. I still think she's awesome.
Tune In Saturdays: Electrelane
Electrelane, the all-girl quartet from Brighton, can hardly be called anything other than simplistic, but it's still pretty fulfilling, even in that hazy stripped-down sort of way. It's the kind of stuff that's great for lazy days, housework and artistry, it never really dominates, but lets your mind wonder a bit, without being boring.
And, no, that doesn't tell you anything of what they sound like. Think Stereolab without the electronics, just grungy guitars and random thingamajigs. I realize it's a terrible comparison, but it's better than, say, Harlow. So, there you go...
From Lost at Sea:
"Like the soundtrack to some life changing moment of emotional euphoria, No Shouts, No Calls, the latest release from Brighton-based all-girl group Electrelane, affirms the notion that not everything coming from the British Isles with the word 'Indie' stamped across it has to be the sort of watered down tosh currently polluting the airwaves in the UK. At once soothing and energetic, ferocious and effeminate, beautiful and ballsy, No Shouts, No Calls is a passionate, confident effort, and a welcome return to a good British band making good tunes."
Electrelane - The Greater Times (mp3)
Electrelane - To The East (video)
The 600 Dollar Blogger.
Someone give me an iphone. As long as I don't hate you, we'll work out some sort of hee-hawnsorship.
Likemind DAL
It's the one-year anniversary of likemind. And, here in Dallas, we're celebrating by drinking coffee early in the morning and talking about advertising, with some related bullshitting thrown in for good measure. Granted, this is nothing new, but maybe this time we'll feel a little more celebratory.
As always, it's here (at Panera). You can hear more here. Or check out our super-sweet sponsor, AnomalyNY.
Friday, July 20, 8 in the a m. Do it.
Cheers to Noah and Piers for keeping the conversation going and growing for so long.
Absolute Bullshit Crap.
Really ABC? This is what makes for prime-time television these days? A crap knock-off of candid camera, except less funny and with no host? At least they didn't forget the annoying canned laughter.
Good thing those advertising rates are still going up. Fucking hell. First commercials become television shows, and now dumbass youtube bits warrant an hour of ABC's Tuesday night. Can you smell the desperation?
Why not put Ask a Ninja, or Rocketboom, or ZeFrank, or whoever on your network? These shows are popping up all over the place, all with working formulas. Yet you waste our time with bullshit drivel like "Just for Laughs." Ugh...I hate you. Until Lost comes back on. Then I'll begrudgingly accept you again.
That's what I get for turning on the teevee. Back to blogging, thanks...
The AOC: Your Favorite Chapters
Go do it!
Also, come over this way, report back your favorite chapters and why. Best response gets a free hardback. If you already have a hardback, you can give it to your best friend. If you don't have any friends, you can at least feel good that your response got some extra money donated to charity.
Need responses by August 15. Do it!
Tune In Saturdays: Eisley
Might as well continue on with the whole good Texas music theme. The Tyler, Texas band Eisley has a brand new album, called Combinations, out on Warner Brothers on August 14th of this year. These guys are much, much too young to be writing music this good.
With the release of their first cd, Room Noises in 2003 (after winning Best New Artist from the Dallas Observer), the oldest in the group was Chauntelle Dupree at 22, with her sister Sherri, 20; Stacy,15; and their brother Weston 17 years-old. After growing up a few years, they added their 15 year-old cousin Garron into the mix in 2005.
Since the first release, they've toured with the likes of Coldplay, New Found Glory, Snow Patrol, Hot Hot Heat, and Switchfoot, and are poised for their fourth headlining tour with the release of Combinations. It's not hard to find their influences, from the Beatles to Sunny Day Real Estate and Radiohead, but their innocent sound makes them unique in the fog of sound-alikes.
From Paste Magazine:
"In this era of bling-bling hip-hop and ultra-calculated teen pop, sometimes it’s just great to hear—and kick back to—an album that doesn’t have any pre-fab designs on your pocketbook. A record that appears to exist simply as well-conceived catharsis for its creators. Looking to be this decidedly disarmed? Look no further than Room Noises, the almost ABBA-lovable debut from home-schooled Texas family band Eisley. One listen and you can’t keep yourself from surrendering—the disc sounds so serenely beautiful, so unusually assured that it’s difficult to believe the group’s oldest member, guitarist Chauntelle DuPree, is only 22."
Eisley - Invasion (mp3) from Combinations
Eisley - Marvelous Things (video)