August 2006 Archive
Last week the ubiquitous YouTube – online purveyor of video content including many of Saturday Night Live’s most beloved skits – revealed to Billboard that it was negotiating with record labels for rights to post music videos from past and present for free. The move signals the company’s wish to add “mainstream entertainment” to its menu of home video offerings.
Labels should feel hard-pressed not to jump at such a deal. Only a year old, YouTube generates more than 100 million views daily. Bands have used its free upload services to promote their careers, some to surprising success. Warner Music Group and EMI both are reportedly interested. If others like Universal and Sony BMG also take the bait, every single music video ever made could potentially be up on the site within 18 months.
This means I can watch Michael Jackson’s Thriller anytime I want. Let me also interject that Thriller is the best music video ever. Forget that he dangles babies off balconies, “accidentally” visits women’s restrooms, and sports a removable nose. Thriller has stood the test of time – not just for its brilliant choreography, set design, and makeup – but because it was arguably the first to elevate the music video as an independent art form from merely serving as a function of a top-40 hit.
These days, YouTube is what MTV was in the 1980s, a decade chock full of artists whose careers were made by the Music Television network. Dire Straits sang the praises of money for nothing, the B52s invited us to get groovy at their love shack, and Madonna begged papa not to preach.
Those heady days are long gone (a cursory glance over MTV’s current programming is a good indication that we music fans have been punk’d). But YouTube could spring a revival. One certainty in business is that people like free stuff. iTunes, Yahoo Music, and AOL Music should be worried right about now, as their customers would undoubtedly flee their pay-to-view video services for YouTube’s free offering. Meanwhile, the labels – many of whom notoriously drag up artists from their back catalogs every few years for lucrative greatest hits compilations – would have a quick and viable outlet for promoting music that has remained on their rosters but has long since vanished from the public consciousness.
Sadly, this means Tiffany and New Kids on the Block might very well enjoy a renaissance. But it also means songs like Thriller, Sledgehammer, and Land of Confusion would all be gloriously restored to my CRT with a mere click of the mouse. Once I wanted my MTV. With such possibilities waiting in the wings, now I want my YouTube more than ever.
During the comic book days of my childhood, I wasn’t dumb enough to order Harold von Braunhut’s “Amazing Illusory X-Ray Vision” glasses – but, my brother was. Sucker. The mail-order marketer’s specs may be a thing of the past, but his concept may soon play a big part in the future of airport security.
The most recent terrorist plot in London involving liquid explosives has brought x-ray vision back to the spotlight, with Rapiscan Systems’ Secure 1000 product taking center stage as one of the must-have security features for airports worldwide. At about 100 grand a unit, give or take, Rapiscan’s Secure 1000 would be considered more of the “De Luxe Model” of x-ray goggles. And ladies: Don’t even think about smuggling in your prized tube of discontinued Chanel lip gloss. This machine could probably reveal, well, just about everything about your body.
The system works by scanning a person with a beam of X-rays, not strong enough to penetrate the skin. Waves are reflected off the body as backscatter and Voila!, the next intrusion into our personal privacy is created.
According to an article by Mark Frary on the UK’s Times Online, the BAA is currently using four systems at London’s Heathrow Airport. The Secure 1000 system was tested at Orlando’s International Airport in 2002, but the virtual strip search proved to supply too much detail for the tastes of American passengers. As terrorists become more creative, our tastes may have to be put aside in the name of “safety,” or as NAPCO likes to call it, “significant growth driver.”
I’ve watched enough episodes of MacGyver to know that there are thousands of ways to blow stuff up. Why don’t we just cut through the flak and buy into everything the security industry has to offer? By the end of the decade, the TSA will have us streaking through customs with baggage claim tickets shaped like fig leafs after waking up from our in-flight anesthesia. At least then, I won’t have to wonder if my backscatter is going to end up on some security guy’s personal Myspace page.
The release of New Line’s Snakes on a Plane last weekend got me thinking about movie marketing and its place in Hollywood. The subtly titled film is arguably the most marketing-friendly movie ever made, and its disappointing opening weekend box office take (only $15 million) confirms my long-held belief that success on the silver screen owes more to blind luck than laser-focused marketing.
It’s impossible to throw a rock in Tinseltown these days and not bean some focus group obsessed marketing suit determined to give film audiences exactly what he claims they want. He’s the creepy guy sitting in the back of the theater during test screenings, furiously scribbling notes on instances of audiences not laughing when they should have, or worse, laughing when they shouldn’t have (a frequent occurrence anytime Hayden Christiansen opened his mouth in a Star Wars film).
Creepy guy then gives his notes to the studio, which in turn demands reshoots or a new ending from a seriously annoyed director. Yes, I’m going to be all pompous and validate the director’s argument that the studio is killing his artistic-spirit (I am a writer after all).
Audiences are fickle things, and all the time and money studios spend trying to figure them out is largely wasted. Take 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl as a case study. When Disney first announced the project, rivals sniggered and pointed at what was sure to be a bomb. Not only was it a pirate movie, which historically have been as popular as Mel Gibson at a bar mitzvah, it was based on a theme park ride for God’s sake. Johnny Depp’s bizarre, pickled-in-rum performance as the main character made Disney execs so nervous they demanded he ease it back (to no avail). Keira Knightly admitted she expected the movie to be crap. So what happened? The film was great fun, it racked up $305 million at the box office, and Depp got an Oscar nod. This year’s sequel, Dead Man’s Chest, is a monster hit, currently sailing past $400 million in the US alone.
Most of the evidence for the luck factor comes from small budget sleepers. These movies aren’t meddled with by the studio marketing system because there’s no real expectation for them to be successful. Then they come out of nowhere and make piles of cash, only to spawn crappy copycats based on, yes, new marketing studies. There’s an endless parade of these films: The Blair Witch Project, Barbershop, School of Rock, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Napoleon Dynamite, and on and on. There was no way to predict their success. It just happened.
In the end, SoaP’s flimsy grosses make me kind of happy. I don’t have a problem with the movie, Samuel L. Jackson, or snakes for that matter (as long as they’re not in the same room or plane as me). I’m happy because studios will be less tempted to engage in this type of stunt on a larger scale. Not having to endure the hype surrounding next summer’s Snakes on a Tugboat will be a relief.
Whither Intel? Turn to almost any corner of the Web and you’ll find gloomy forecasts of doom for the company, or jeremiads detailing the chip maker’s failings and flaws. Only Microsoft seems to attract more derision and suspicion in the blogosphere.
Calm down, y’all. Intel’s become a very big company ($39B in sales and rising), and big-company problems take time. Let me give you some perspective. There was a time when things were really looking dire for Intel.
It was the early 1980s. Intel was reeling from the relentless competition coming from Japan, where the government was encouraging domestic chip makers to sell semiconductors in the US, particularly memory devices. Prices were below what it cost to make the chips, in order to gain market share. Intel was providing the microprocessors for the IBM Personal Computer and its “clones,” yet it was getting killed on the memory side of the business. IBM finally stepped in and made an equity investment of $250 million in Intel to demonstrate its confidence in the chip maker’s future.
In a recent interview with Electronic Engineering Times, Freescale Semiconductor CEO Michel Mayer expressed the opinion that the days of the semiconductor startup are over. Mayer said, “The opportunities for a niche company to be a Broadcom are gone.” When the conventional wisdom holds that something is “over,” the reality is that it’s never really over. No one could see any value in starting a new chip company to challenge Fairchild Semiconductor back in the day, but that’s when Intel and AMD got started, and Fairchild Semi became a shadow of itself. Before Intel became Intel and Microsoft became Microsoft, thanks to IBM, people were questioning the wisdom of starting a new chip company while the US semiconductor industry was under assault by Japanese chip makers, and that’s when stalwarts LSI Logic and Integrated Device Technology (IDT) were started.
“How much will I have to pay at the gas pumps now?” That’s likely the first thought that popped into most of our minds after the recent shutdown of the largest US oil field. Rightly so. Gas prices shot up and further increases are likely. But while I dread picking up the car keys these days, several other repercussions also need addressing.
Antiquated equipment and faulty management at these massive oil facilities are big concerns. That extensive corrosion on a length of critical pipeline at the Prudhoe Bay facility went unnoticed attests to the fact that these pipelines were not being properly monitored.
The crisis at BP’s Prudhoe Bay field is not the company’s first US incident attributed to improper maintenance – the British oil giant is still under investigation for another (larger) oil spill at the same Alaskan facility in March. It also faces scrutiny over the deadly explosion that occurred at its Texas City facility last year.
One has to wonder at BP’s touting of its environmental concern. While energy companies like to proclaim their dedication to alternative energy technologies, we all know that they make billions selling oil. The company has tried to give itself a “green” image. But despite its investments in this arena, BP has taken a fair share of flak from the likes of the EPA and OSHA. The company also tops the list of offenders with the largest number of refinery fatalities in the past 10 years.
When I think back to the Exxon Valdez oil spill, I recall the massive harm that it caused along the Alaska coastline. If maintenance standards aren’t updated, another serious oil spill is inevitable. This latest incident should spur senators to further examine the consequences drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, a valuable gem without its potential for black gold.
All of these issues lead to one of my top FAQs: Why aren’t we working harder to get away from our dependence on oil? While oil consumption is wreaking havoc on our natural resources, global relationships, and pocketbooks, the alternative energy technologies that could change our future for the better are being set to the side. Unfortunately, this probably won’t change until we force our policy makers to climb out of the oil companies’ pockets — and until consumers stop picking up the car keys.