Filed under: Feature | Tags: 02903, Cassette Tape, Crank That, Feature, Music Video, Peter Framption, Retro, RI, RISD, Sensual Seduction, Snoop Digg, Soulja Boy, Stevie Wonder, Talk Box, Vinyl
GET RETRO: SENSUAL SEDUCTION
After loving on this video from Snoop Dogg (Sensual Seduction), I got to wondering about the weird plastic tube hanging out of his mouth. It’s time for another edition of Get Retro. Put down your iPhones and get funky with me for a minute. A talkbox is a music sound effects device which typically attaches to either a keyboard or guitar, allowing a musician to change the sound of the instrument by changing the shape of his/her mouth.
Check it:
Peter Frampton is probably the musician that most likely comes to mind when thinking of the talk box. Bob Heil of Heil Sound gave Frampton a talk box in 1973 and so began Frampton’s love affair with the device. He used it extensively on the album Frampton Comes Alive!
Peter Frampton Live
Now here are a few uses of the talk box that you may not have enjoyed quite yet:
Stevie Wonder’s Talk Box Cover of The Carpenters’ Close to You
And my personal favorite:
Some Dude’s Talk Box Cover of Soulja Boy’s Crank That
If you didn’t catch it from the last edition, my point with all of this retroness is to remind us of technology’s history so we can try to grapple with what technology will be. On my trip to Rhode Island this past weekend, I visited RISD Works, the Rhode Island School of Design art store. While perusing the store, I witnessed a similar passion for a return to old school. Observe:
Cassette Tape Hand Bag
Vinyl Bowl
Vinyl Ornament
In next week’s edition of Get Retro: Combining the old with the new.
Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE
NBC has ordered up six episodes of Kath and Kim from Reveille and NBC Universal Media Studios, and starring Molly Shannon and Selma Blair. This marks NBC’s first jump into series without first ordering a pilot, in keeping with Jeff Zucker’s statements recently that by skipping the expense of ordering many pilots of projects that never go forward, it allows the network to go straight to series. The show is based on an Australian series of the same name and is about a 40-something divorced mom (Shannon) and her self-absorbed daughter.
The details of a plan to resolve the Hollywood writers strike are beginning to emerge. One plan under discussion involves a tiered system, which would pay writers residuals based on how many times a television show is viewed online. Also: The writers’union will meet with membership Saturday. (http://www.nypost.com/seven/02062008/business/strike_breakthrough_553997.htm 2/6, http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/wga-announces-member-meetings-for-saturday 2/5)
Disney and News Corp. this week are shrugging off the impact of the Hollywood writers strike, but both admit the conflict is speeding changes in the television industry. “Even if there’s a settlement soon, it is guaranteed that we will make far fewer pilots,” says Disney boss Bob Iger. (http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUSN0519254120080206 2/5)
Disney is reporting first-quarter profit that beat analysts’estimates, boosted in part by the success of “High School Musical” and “Hannah Montana.” Costs at Disney’s ABC network need to come down, says CEO Bob Iger. The network upfront “feels like a bit of an anachronism to me.” (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=aPtbGjWN_yhU 2/5)
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is establishing a blog, icahnreport.com, to discuss corporate governance. The 71-year-old investor has a long history of agitating for change at companies, such his 2006 attempt to break up Time Warner. Many boards “really are not doing their job,” he says. (http://www.reuters.com/article/mergersNews/idUSN0521567420080205 2/5)
Food Network’s Down Home with the Neelys premiered last Saturday (11a) with 700,000 W25-54 viewers and a 1.1 rating and averaged 870,000 A25-54 viewers and a 0.8 rating.
Who among us does not love a group of playful pups? Not many, according to Nielsen, which reported 8 million unique viewers overall tuned in to Animal Planet’s 12-hour “Puppy Bowl IV” extravaganza Sunday. (Multichannel News 2/5)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner’s new CEO, says the media giant may separate its struggling AOL access business from the division’s online advertising business. Time Warner also may spin-off more of Time Warner Cable. Plus, magazine publisher Time Inc. is set to become “a growth business.” (http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/06/news/companies/time_warner/index.htm?postversion=2008020611 2/6)
News Corp. division Fox Interactive Media reported $223 million in total revenues for FYQ2 2008, (including guaranteed revenues for MySpace of $62 million from Google,) an increase of 87% from the previous year. News Corp. COO Peter Chernin named FIM’s targeted advertising initiatives as a contributing factor and said he looked forward to the ability of MySpace’s involvement with the Open Social initiative to drive increased sales and innovation. MySpace accounts for “most” of FIM’s revenues, according to CFO David F. DeVoe, with domestic revenue accounting for about 85%.
Analysts say they believe the marriage of Microsoft and Yahoo will likely be consummated. “Given the significant premium, [Yahoo] shareholders would be apt to take advantage of this offer.” However, a rival bid for Yahoo from a private equity consortium “is also possible.” (http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/microsoft-yahoo-deal-likely-go-through/story.aspx?guid=%7B5CDC0119%2D0858%2D4722%2DA849%2D7AE0706BF61F%7D 2/5)
A Microsoft link-up with Yahoo may slam a door in Google’s attempt to expand beyond the four-line text advertisements that run alongside Internet search results. That is because Microsoft and Yahoo would control more than a quarter of the market for animated ads and display banners. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=aZo0dQCyzxfM 2/6)
Microsoft is announcing new video content deals with MTV and Sony BMG to give MSN Video viewers access to MTV shows such as “Pimp My Ride” as well as videos from Sony’s collection of music artists. “Online video has exploded in the last year,” says MSN exec Rob Crossen. (http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2208913/microsoft-inks-content-mtv-sony 2/5)
Super Tuesday proved to be another watershed event in New Media with news outlets pulling out all the stops to outdo each other in the digital space. MTV’s Choose or Lose site harnessed citizen journalists, deploying “Street Teams” of bloggers who posted video clips throughout the night by using Flixwagon.com software and Nokia N95 multimedia mobile devices. WashingtonPost.com teamed with Newsweek to stream live video coverage, trying to beat the TV networks at their own game. MSNBC.com offered bloggers embeddable political widgets. YouTube borrowed tools from Google Maps. And Barack Obama got a last minute boost from “Yes We Can,’a music video featuring an all-star cast putting the Senator’s can-do rhetoric to song.
As I stood in a room of my peers at the DL21C Super Tuesday party last night in NYC, I was mesmerized by the passion generated by a generally indifferent demographic. The Obama and Clinton chanting was deafening. Live it loud.
Revver, a struggling YouTube competitor that made a name for itself by paying video producers, is said to be putting itself up for sale. Revver’s asking price is believed to be between $300,000 and $500,000, as well as the assumption of the company’s debt, which is in the $1 million range. (http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9865731-7.html 2/6)
NBC Digital Entertainment has developed a new online property around the latest Candace Bushnell TV adaptation Lipstick Jungle, premiering tomorrow night at 10 pm ET/PT. Bonfire Magazine, produced with NBCU subsidiary iVillage.com and sponsored by Maybelline NY, presents exclusive content from the show in the context of a fashion magazine – offering users practical tips and advice updated weekly.
To promote the network’s newest primetime series, for the first time HBO will stream the first 15 episodes of In Treatment on its website, HBO.com as well as on HBO On Demand. And if your an iTunes podcast downloader, you’ll find them there as well. The show debuted on January 28 and stars Gabriel Byrne as a therapist, meeting with four different clients – each episode focused on a single client. The fifth night, the therapist visits with his own therapist, played by Dianne Wiest. All together, HBO has ordered 43 episodes.
Facebook has quietly added the ability for users to recommend friends to other friends, a social networking feature that comes straight from LinkedIn. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/05/facebook-now-supports-linkedin-style-friend-suggestions 2/5)
Yet another online comedic video site is launching today called The Independent Comedy Network, developing original improvisational comedy series to stream with ads and syndicate to other entertainment portals including MySpace.tv, YouTube, Joost, Vuze, Blip.tv and iTunes. CEO Marc Campbell developed the site with his cohorts at The Westside Eclectic comedy theater in Santa Monica, which he founded in 2005.
Do we really need yet another online comedy site? Seriously. . . I need more consolidation in my life.
Filed under: WIRELESS
US based MVNO Helio has signed a deal with mobile focused entertainment aggregator Buzzd to offer real-time geotargeted information for bars, clubs and restaurants to its user base. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/06/helio-and-buzzd-offer-local-entertainment-service 2/6)
CBS plans to try an experiment with cellphone advertising that is customized for a person’s location. CBS Mobile will use the GPS-based technology of the social networking service Loopt to serve advertisements as consumers walk by particular stores and restaurants. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/06/technology/06mobile.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 2/6)
