Daily Marauder

RE-DESIGN THE NATURAL: WATERFALLS IN THE EAST RIVER, NYC

Coming to a NYC waterway near you, waterfalls. That’s right. . .waterfalls.

Conceived by artist Olafur Eliasson and commissioned by the Public Art Fund, the waterfalls are meant to highlight the city’s natural elements alongside the industrial urban environment.

The Artist

The above image was dubbed The Weather Project and was installed in The Tate Modern in London in November 2003. Even though there was no heat emitted from the ‘sun’, visitors still took the opportunity to lie on the floor and sunbathe.

This is a great example of Eliasson’s work attempting to explore the way we interact with our environment through exhibition.

Born in Copenhagen in 1967, he now lives in Germany.

Opening tonight at the MoMa NY and thereafter at PS1 in Long Island City, the artist will present Take Your Time, an exhibition originally constructed in the MoMa San Francisco. This time around, the exhibit includes new works each focused on the intersection of nature and culture.

The Waterfalls

Seen here; a rendition of the waterfall to be located at Pier 35 in Manhattan. The falls will be constructed to be 90 to 120 ft in height using building materials readily available in NYC. The backbone will be made of scaffolding while pumps will bring water from the East River to the top. Don’t worry about the fishies. They’re protected by a filter which keeps aquatic life out and yummy East River water in.

Map of Waterfall Locations

Four locations will be scattered around the city as seen in the above map and will be viewable by land and by boat. Circle Line Tours will be offering the up-close experience daily from Pier 16 in Manhattan. Here’s the best part. The ride will either be free or discounted to the public.

Countdown to Waterfall

The waterfalls will be available for viewing from mid-July through mid-October, operating from 10AM – 7PM seven days a week.

Update: Caught a glimpse of the waterfalls under the Brooklyn Bridge (see below) this morning (6/26) on my ride.  Looks live kids.

For more information, click here to visit the website. . .which is by the way also very cool. Click on any of the icons on the left to see what I mean.

Donate to the Public Art Fund

The Public Art Fund works with both emerging and established artists to produce cultural exhibits around NYC. If you dig what they do, donate here.

Photos to Come

Meet the waterfall to be located underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Being that I bike by this location daily, expect photos from me. This makes me happy. . .and in a city sometimes filled with anxiety, we all need a bit more happy. Waterfall on people.

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BROADCAST/CABLE

VH1’s 90-minute season finale of Rock of Love 2 with Bret Michaels on Sunday (9p) delivered a 3.5 rating and 3.9 million viewers among A18-49. The episode also drew in 5 million total viewers. (Cynopsis 4/16)

Episodes IV, V and VI of the “Star Wars” epic delivered an average 3.37 million viewers for Spike TV during the week ended April 13, according to Nielsen. The performance propelled the channel to second place among ad-supported cable channels, with 2.21 million total prime-time viewers during the week. (Mediaweek 4/15)

The NFL announced its 17-week, 256 game regular season schedule for this year which opens September 4 at 7p on NBC with a match between Super Bowl XLII champs New York Giants at home against the Washington Redskins. A couple of highlights of the season include two international games: October 26 at Wembley Stadium in London when the New Orleans Saints take on the San Diego Chargers; and December 7 in Toronto with a game between the Buffalo Bills and the Dolphins. (Cynopsis 4/16)

(Below) I have to agree with the television networks on this.  In essence, the package approach subsidizes the cost of a wide variety of programming.  Once the a la carte option is offered, many TV networks aimed at more niche interests would struggle, hence creating an environment where creativity and innovation would suffer.  The internet offers a la carte episode purchasing and this is where this model should stay.  That said, the cable package offerings as they stand today are completely unsuitable to the consumer.  In this day and age filled with recommendation engines, it seems a no-brainer for a cable network to customize packages based on consumer interest.  This would be an innovation I think many cable customers would rejoice to.  Yes, I’m sure there are many engineering issues on the cable side. . .but aren’t there always?  If the cable affiliates don’t learn to innovate soon, the internet will continue to divert eyeballs as quality and user interfaces improve.  Discuss.

Executives from five major cable groups sent a letter of protest Tuesday to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, saying that government-mandated a la carte programming would give consumers fewer options and cost more money. The letter told Martin that “if your plan is ever adopted, consumers would be outraged.” (Multichannel News 4/15)

Bravo, which will debut the fifth season of “Project Runway” in July before the show moves to Lifetime, staged its upfront presentation for ad agencies Tuesday morning. Lauren Zalaznick, the president of Bravo Media/Oxygen Media, said the NBC-owned network would bring 45% more original programming to the table in the 2008-09 season. (Mediaweek 4/15)

For the second season of Bravo’s Top Design from Magical Elves, model and designer India Hicks joins as host. Continuing on the show will be Todd Oldham as the contestant’s mentor and judges Jonathan Adler, Margaret Russell and Kelly Wearstler. The interior design competition series, which is currently in production and scheduled to air in third quarter, will also sport a new look as it will be produced in hi-def. (Cynopsis 4/16)

News Corp.’s board proposes making chief Rupert Murdoch and other board members stand for re-election every year rather than every few years. The company also has eliminated the “poison pill” it had put in place in 2004 when Liberty Media acquired a sizable voting stake. (Iwantmedia 4/16, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/business/news/e3i721645931ea9e846a5e11d4ea827430d 4/15)

CNN is apologizing after a news commentator Jack Cafferty called the Chinese as a “bunch of goons and thugs.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry had demanded an apology for the “ignorance and hostility.” In a statement, CNN says that it provides “robust opinions” as part of its coverage. (Iwantmedia 4/16, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article3756437.ece 4/16)

Jack Cafferty was forced to apologize for his comments towards China.

HBO this summer will create a Monday-night documentary franchise, beginning June 9 with “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.” The series will wrap up Aug. 25 and include topics such as competitive high school debates, the education system, international drug trafficking and influential black Americans. (The Hollywood Reporter 4/15)

The Black Television News Channel, set to launch in 2009, has secured a carriage deal with Comcast in several urban markets. The Washington-based channel is being created by former U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts Jr., who applauded Comcast for its record of supporting independent programmers. (Multichannel News 4/15)

Verizon has filed for a video franchise that would cover all of New York’s five boroughs and their 3.1 million homes for the next 12 years. The move potentially pits the company’s FiOS service against the area’s current cable providers, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision. (OneTRAK 4/15)

Time Warner Cable is allowed to keep running ads critical of Verizon’s FiOS service after the telecom failed to get a restraining order to block the cable company’s ad campaign. (Light Reading 4/15)

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

PluggedIn.com is set to let users view for free near-DVD-quality music videos licensed from three big music companies, challenging video sites like YouTube. PluggedIn is considering offering other kinds of entertainment, which could put the newcomer in competition with Hulu. (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120830174063317705.html 4/16)

Stunning video quality.  Blows YouTube right out of the water at least in terms of quality.  The site navigation is a bit more comfortable as well.

Amazon.com’s push into DRM-free music downloads is not cannibalizing Apple’s iTunes customers, according to NPD Group, which found that just 10% of Amazon’s MP3 customers during the month of February had previously bought music from Apple’s online market. “Amazon is attracting its own customers, and Apple is reasonably not affected,” NPD analyst Russ Crupnick said. (Yahoo!/TechWeb/InformationWeek 4/15)

Music executives from the UK continue to try to out-dumb their counterparts in the U.S. We’ve barely started to settle down from the Warner Bros. led attack here in the U.S., and now our UK brothers are getting bombed (more) with the idea of an iPod tax to counter those sneaky users who “format shift” files from a legally purchased CD to a MP3 player. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/16/music-tax-the-ipod-approach 4/16)

If Time Warner and News Corp. lose Yahoo to Microsoft — as widely expected on Wall Street — analysts say the two media giants could explore merging their Internet properties, AOL and MySpace. Says Citigroup’s Jason Bazinet: “We would not rule out the prospect of AOL/MySpace.” (http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1546520520080415 4/15)

Credit: REUTERS/Kimberly White

New research suggests Yahoo may have started gaining share in the Web search advertising market against Google even as Google’s share of search audience inched up. A study by RBC Capital shows Yahoo outpacing Google in spending on ad viewership and click-through rates. (http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1530896020080415 4/15)

As Techcrunch predicted in February, Facebook has opened up the Mini-Feed so users can import updates from other web services, starting with Flickr, Picassa, Yelp and Delicious. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/15/facebooks-opens-up-mini-feed-to-3rd-party-services 4/15)

Facebook plans to launch Facebook Lexicon, a new feature that tracks what users are chatting about in their public posts on each others’ “walls” and turns them into graphs and charts. The social-networking site’s new offering “is meant to be a fun, interesting way to look for trends.” (http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9919661-36.html 4/15)

Yet another development at Facebook that scares the crap out of me.  How would I feel if Gmail was tracking conversations?  Not well.

Something was getting talked about around January 1. Wonder what it was? Credit: Facebook

Blogging startup Six Apart launched BlogIt tonight, a Facebook blogging tool application that lets users quickly post to their blogs and then send notifications of the post to various social networks. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/15/six-apart-launches-blogit-quick-post-application-for-facebook 4/15)

Consolidation is already beginning in the overcrowded Facebook application market (with 21,800 apps and counting). One of the first sectors to see buyouts of popular apps is in the social gaming sector.  Social Gaming Network (SGN) is responding with its own roll-up of Esgut (which created Suplerlatives, Entourage, and Text Twirl), Free Gifts, Nicknames, Oregon Trail and Friend Block. This moves SGN up the rankings in terms of total Facebook users (48.5 million) that have installed one of its apps, which puts it right behind Slide (97.7 million) and RockYou (72.6 million) and one spot ahead of Zynga (34.7 million). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/16/social-gaming-network-buys-facebook-market-share 4/16)

The buzzword at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, now underway in Las Vegas, is interactivity. Much of the technology at NAB sends data both ways to the consumers, and back to broadcasters and advertisers. Also: User-generated content is “vital” for TV channels. (http://www.cnbc.com/id/24129367 4/15, http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6551557.html 4/15)

BET on Tuesday said it would begin offering a variety of full-length series for download via Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE. Shows involved in the deal include “American Gangster,” “College Hill 4″ and “Comic View” and “Iron Ring.” (ContentAgenda.com 4/15)

Hoping to codify best practices for peer-to-peer file-sharing, Comcast has announced that it will work to establish a “bill of rights” for P2P. “By having this framework in place, we will help P2P companies, ISPs and content owners find common ground to support consumers who want to use P2P applications to deliver legal content,” said Comcast Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner. (The New York Times/Associated Press 4/16)

(Below) Probably goes without saying, but I’m against censorship on the internet.  Instead, parental controls should be implemented allowing for the prevention of profanity reaching the young and malleable.

Some 61% of American adults would like the government to regulate the use of obscenities and profanity on Internet radio, according to a “radio index” survey by American Media Services. Fifty-one percent of men surveyed favored regulation, compared to 70 percent of women. (Iwantmedia 4/16,http://www.radioink.com/HeadlineEntry.asp?hid=141771&pt=todaysnews 4/15)

Reading blogs is often habitual, similar to a cigarette habit, say researchers at the University of California at Irvine. Plus, blog readers typically profess little stress about information overload. (Iwantmedia 4/16,http://blogs.wsj.com/buzzwatch/2008/04/15/habit-forming-blogs-new-research-into-why-people-read 4/15)

Tesco plans to roll out TescoDownloads.com, which will feature 3.3 million music downloads at launch. The British supermarket group intends to expand the scope of the service to include downloadable TV and video game content as well. (The Hollywood Reporter 4/15, The Guardian (London) 4/15)

Average U.S. Internet Usage, Combined Home & Work Month of March 2008
Category                               March         February       % Change from Feb.
Sessions/Visits per Person          60              58                     3.5
Domains Visited per Person       105            104                     1.0
Web Pages per Person            2,437         2,370                     2.8
Duration of a Page Viewed   0:00:52      0:00:53                   -0.6
PC Time per Person           19:42:28     17:38:32                    3.2
Digital Media Universe       164.6 mil     162.3 mil                    1.4
Current Digital Media         221.3 mil     220.6 mil                    0.3
Universe Estimate
Source: Nielsen Online

WIRELESS

Near Field Communication technology will make the Nokia 6212 Classic capable of data transfers including remote payments. The phone will launch later this year in Europe and Asia. (Reuters 4/15, InformationWeek 4/15)

In addition, the phone will include Bluetooth-enabled Near Field Communication allowing easy transfer of pictures and video by placing the phone against a NFC-enabled device such as a digital picture fram or cellphone.  Sweet.

Nokia 6212 Classic

An anonymous LG executive said the company would begin offering its LG Voyager handset to Sprint and AT&T customers in 2008. The touch-screen phone has sold more than 1 million units in the U.S., though available only to Verizon Wireless users. (The Kansas City Star (Mo.) 4/15)

LG Voyager

As usability increases, Wi-Fi-compatible cell phones are becoming increasingly popular, as well as models that operate on high-speed networks. Apple will release an upgrade to the iPhone this year with a faster connection comparable to DSL, while Nokia intends to include Wi-Fi on all but its lowest-end phones. (The Wall Street Journal 4/15)

CBS is opening a citizen journalism Web site, CBSEyeMobile.com, where users can upload video and images of news events from their mobile phones. CNN launched a similar citizen journalism project called iReport in August 2006. It expanded into its own Web site earlier this year. (Iwantmedia 4/16,http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/04/15/cbs-trying-hand-at-citizen-journalism 4/15)

Google manipulated a U.S. government spectrum auction by bidding just enough to trigger rules that will open a nationwide set of airwaves to any device and then walking away, according to Republican lawmakers. Google was “successful in gaming the system.” (Iwantmedia 4/16, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=a0Qr4.4cpofA 4/15)

Time.com launched a mobile web site powered by Crisp Wireless optimized for the iPhone and Wi Fi-enabled iPod touch featuring sliding pages, expandable images and a more robust graphical interface. (Cynopsis 4/16)