Filed under: Feature, TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Bicycle, Bike Shops, Cycling, Mavic, Sport, TECHNOLOGY, Tire, United States
BIKE FITTING GOES HIGH TECH: BODY GEOMETRY
This weekend, on a trip home to RI to hang with the rents, I was enticed into bike sale wonderland at East Providence Cycle. I imagine a bike sale to me is like a car sale or purse sale to most other normal people. For me, a bike sale represents a mecca of Mavic Rims, Ultegra parts, and carbon frames. Hmmmmm…. Anyways. During my trip into the bike shop, I tested the Roubaix Compact Comp (above), a bike I clearly don’t need. But seriously, aren’t those red tires the hotness?
More importantly, I learned what it means to be properly fit for a bicycle at this level. Last year, I thought that I had gone the distance when I biked over to my local NYC-bike shop and scheduled a $100 bike fitting. Turns out, it all gets much more scientific than this. It’s called the Specialized Body Geometry 3D fit and it takes anywhere from 1 – 3 hours. And here I thought nothing could top the embarrassment of riding my bike on a trainer in ill fitted bike shorts in the middle of a bike store for my fitting. Turns out, they have loads more measurements they can pull out to make sure you don’t feel back pain at mile 50.
The Measurements
Click on the image above to check out the many measurements the BG Fit technology takes into account when fitting you to your bike. You could also just have fun making bike dude do random things and wield your new-found control. As Dean from East Providence Cycle tells me, each technician is trained specifically for this type of fitting.
The fit differs from standard fittings in that the technician evaluates the riders’ body structure, flexibility (of which I have none), strength, and possibility of leg discrepancy. In essence, it’s pretty freakin’ cool. Yes, probably for the more elite riders out there but before I ride 500 miles this spring, I probably owe it to my body to have one.
To make a general donation to the AIDS Lifecycle Ride, click here.
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Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE | Tags: Arts, BattlestarGalactica, NBC, Peter Griffin, Programs, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Television, Tonight Show with Jay Leno
President Obama’s appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” attracted the largest audience to the NBC program in more than four years. The first late-night talk-show appearance by a sitting U.S. president posted an 11.2 rating. (Iwantmedia 3/23, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aE4s6jqewwQs 3/20)
Fast national ratings of Sci Fi Channel‘s finale of Battlestar Galactica finds the two hour season closer drew in 2.4 million viewers, 1.5 million in the coveted A18-49 demo, making it the most watch episode of the series in over three years. These numbers mark a 56% increase over last season’s finale in total viewers, and up 37% in the demo. (Cynopsis 3/23)
Comedy Central has inked a multiplatform programming agreement with comedian Jeff Dunham that will include an original TV series, a stand-up special, a DVD release and merchandising. A stand-up special by the ventriloquist on Comedy Central last year attracted 6.6 million viewers, the most-watched show in the history of the network. Variety (3/22) , Mediaweek (3/22)
Outgoing News Corp. president Peter Chernin is lending his voice to the Fox animated series “Family Guy.” Chernin, who formally steps down from his post in June, plays himself as he hears a show pitch from Peter Griffin, voiced by creator Seth MacFarlane. (Iwantmedia 3/23, http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/03/the-family-guy.html 3/20)
Sony Pictures Entertainment, which, for the last year, has been expanding its U.S. and foreign television operations, this week will fuse its domestic and international divisions, according to this report. The combined unit will be led by Steve Mosko, who will oversee international efforts as well as the cable, syndication and network initiatives of Sony Pictures Television. The New York Times (3/22)
Former Time Warner chairman and CEO Dick Parsons will step down from the board by its next annual meeting. Parsons, who has been on the Time Warner board since 1991, helped the company negotiate the difficult aftermath of its widely derided merger with AOL. (Iwantmedia 3/23, http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE52M78C20090323 3/23)
Time Warner will pay $241.5 million for a 31% stake in Central European Media Enterprises, the Bermuda-based broadcast company founded by cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder. Warner Bros. is forming a partnership with the company to launch TV channels in Europe. (Iwantmedia 3/23, http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090323/na_us_time_warner_central_european_media.html 3/23)
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Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Alec Baldwin, comScore, Facebook, Google, Hulu, Myspace, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, YouTube
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
What was a bad situation in November 2008 is starting to turn outright ugly – Facebook is now well over twice the size of MySpace, according to recent worldwide Comscore data. And what’s worse, MySpace is losing audience while Facebook absolutely hockey sticks: MySpace lost 2% of users in just one month, while Facebook grew by nearly 40 million members in February alone. MySpace currently has 124 million monthly unique visitors, compared to Facebook’s 276 million. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/23/facebook-hockey-sticks-while-myspace-languishes/ 3/23)
CBS fired all on cylinders with its multiplatform coverage of March Madness, tipping off tourney simulcasts on Thursday with record traffic. Broader distribution, heavy promotion and the addition of Silverlight 2-powered (and Akamai-served) HD-quality streaming this year helped drive 2.7 million unique visitors to the NCAA March Madness on Demand video player, a 56% spike from last year. Users consumed 2.8 million hours of live video and audio streaming, up 65% from 2008. (Cynopsis 3/23)
Amazon is beta testing its HDTV service as it gets ready to compete with Apple’s iTunes for television downloads for $2.99. Gigaom reporter Janko Roettgers googled around Amazon’s listings to discover unannounced pricing details. The New York Times/GigaOm (3/21)
Amateur video-makers are ensnared in a dispute between Warner Music and Google‘s YouTube over how the music company should be paid for non-professional clips that use copyrighted works. The dispute is causing thousands of videos to be yanked from the site. (Iwantmedia 3/23, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/business/media/23warner.html?_r=1 3/23)
Advance Publications’ 174-year-old Ann Arbor (Mich.) News will follow in the footsteps of Hearst’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer by shutting down its daily newspaper and replacing it with an Internet news operation, AnnArbor.com. Job losses “will be unavoidable.” (Iwantmedia 3/23, http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20090323/tc_afp/usmedianewspapersindustryinternetcompanyadvance 3/23)
Apparently, advertising on traditional television still works: Viewership on Hulu surged 55% in February, thanks to the video site’s Super Bowl commercials featuring “30 Rock” star Alec Baldwin, says comScore. That growth put Hulu at No. 2 of top-gaining properties. (Iwantmedia 3/23, http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343547,00.asp 3/20)
To help keep Ugly Betty fans appeased during the show’s spring hiatus, ABC.com premiered the first of six new short-form episodes of the web exclusive Ugly Betty: Mode After Hours series starring Michael Urie and Becki Newton. The initial six webisodes garnering over 10 million views, according to ABC. (Cynopsis 3/23)
Redlasso, the troubled video startup that was effectively sued into oblivion last year by major networks including NBC, Fox, and CBS, is back from the dead. The site has just closed a deal with Fox, allowing it to offer embeddable video content to bloggers for the first time since last July. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/23/fox-breathes-new-life-into-redlasso/ 3/23)
MyDamnChannel, home of the much beloved You Suck at Photoshop, has secured the rights to stream Pilot Season, one of the real gems to come from NBCU’s now defunct Trio network. It stars a wonderful cast of comedic talent including the promiscuous Sarah Silverman. (Cynopsis 3/23)
Online ad network Federated Media is launching ExecTweets, a real-time tool to help people find, follow and engage with leading business execs on Twitter. ExecTweets, which aggregates tweets into industry verticals, is produced with Twitter and sponsored by Microsoft. (Iwantmedia 3/23, http://blog.federatedmedia.net/archives/2009/03/announcing-exec.php 3/23)
Salesforce.com recently rolled out the Service Cloud, a customer service application that tries to capture the crowdsourced pools of knowledge floating across the internet from sites like Google, Facebook and Amazon, and then uses this information to better equip commercial customer service operations with useful knowledge. Salesforce has now connected Twitter to the Service Cloud, allowing customer service reps using the SaaS to access tweets from more than 8 million Twitter users. (http://www.techcrunchit.com/2009/03/22/salesforce-puts-tweets-in-the-cloud/ 3/22)
Ad-supported, DRM-encumbered online music service SpiralFrog went dark on Friday just 18 months after launching, per CNET. SpiralFrog, which had output deals with only two of the four major labels, had trouble competing with better-established music streaming services. (Cynopsis 3/23)
comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by % Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.)
Feb. 2009 vs. Jan. 2009
Total Uniques (000) Jan-09 Feb-09 % Change Rank by Unique Visitors
The Mozilla Organ. 14,161 22,851 61 35
HULU.COM 5,022 7,796 55 127
Wells Fargo 11,724 18,121 55 53
IRS.GOV 14,663 22,068 51 39
TaxACT 5,883 7,771 32 130
Hallmark 3,827 4,863 27 222
News International 4,040 4,902 21 221
Intuit** 16,172 19,563 21 46
H&R Block** 6,073 7,269 20 143
Betawave Partners-Partial 3,582 4,279 19 245
Total Internet : Total
Audience 191,863 192,187 0 N/A
Source: comScore Media Metrix
*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in February 2009.
**Intuit and H&R Block properties include non-tax related products
and services such as Quicken, Quickbooks, and H&R Block Banking Services
comScore Top 50 Properties (U.S.) – Feb. 2009 Unique Visitors (000)
Rank Property Unique Visitors Rank Property Unique Visitors
(000) (000)
1 Google Sites 148,885 26 Target Corporation 26,961
2 Yahoo! Sites 144,304 27 Bank of America 26,148
3 Microsoft Sites 121,093 28 Time Warner 25,911
4 AOL LLC 105,016 29 Weatherbug Property 25,515
5 Fox Int. Media 84,632 30 Answers.com Sites 24,997
6 Ask Network 71,343 31 Demand Media 24,574
7 eBay 67,474 32 United Online, Inc 23,860
8 Wikimedia Sites 60,892 33 Gorilla Nation 22,968
9 Amazon Sites 59,944 34 Expedia Inc 22,880
10 Facebook.com 57,375 35 Mozilla Organ. 22,851
11 Glam Media 51,121 36 Photobucket.com 22,606
12 Apple Inc. 50,867 37 Gannett Sites 22,289
13 Turner Network 48,904 38 AT&T, Inc. 22,137
14 CBS Interactive 48,872 39 IRS.gov 22,068
15 NY Times Digital 46,199 40 WordPress 22,015
16 Viacom Digital 44,346 41 JPMorgan Chase 20,800
17 craigslist, inc. 39,016 42 Real.com Network 20,407
18 Weather Channel 37,215 43 Shopzilla.com Sites 20,154
19 AT&T Interactive 35,324 44 CareerBuilder LLC 20,083
20 Adobe Sites 33,287 45 Everyday Health 19,942
21 Comcast Corp. 31,958 46 Intuit 19,563
22 Wal-Mart 29,415 47 Monster Worldwide 19,559
23 Superpages.com 28,956 48 iVillage.com network 19,433
24 Verizon Comm. 27,979 49 WebMD Health 19,339
25 Disney Online 27,615 50 NBC Universal 19,091
Total Internet : Total Audience 192,187
Source: comScore Media Metrix
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Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Basketball, CBS, Handhelds, iPhone, Match.com, NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, Smartphones, Sport
Online dating site Match.com is releasing a native iPhone application for its 15 million members to date on the go. The app allows users to edit their profile, upload photos, and even has an opt-in to a location based feature that allows them to see singles in their area. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/23/matchcom-launches-native-iphone-app/ 3/23)
Smilesformiles? Ick. This causes vomitsalot. Very cute girl but perhaps next time, let’s try to find a photo without the friend you cropped out. Tack-y.
Advertisers for CBS broadcasts of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament are getting a bonus: Their ads show up in games viewed on iPhones via a $4.99 app. Coke, for one, is happy: “It’s an innovative application that gives us an additional way to connect with NCAA fans.” (Iwantmedia 3/23, http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/adtrack/2009-03-22-iphone-apple-cbs-ncaa-app_N.htm 3/22)
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Filed under: GAMING | Tags: Console Platforms, Games, Halo 3, Los Angeles Times, Playstation 3, Shopping, Video game, Xbox 360
Game developers are maturing, which has prompted more support for creating games that children can enjoy, according to this analysis. “The cliche of game developers 20 years ago is that of socially inept young men who sleep under their desks,” said Billy Pidgeon, an analyst with IDC who worked as a game producer in the late 1980s and early 1990s. “Many of those have now climbed out from under their desks and started families.” Los Angeles Times (3/23)
February sales of video games and related hardware and accessories showed a 10% gain compared with a year ago, although total sales were down slightly from a gain of 13% in January. “The Xbox 360 realized its biggest nonholiday sales month, save for September 2007, when the ‘Halo 3‘ [video game] release brought in a large group of new owners,” NPD analyst Anita Frazier said. “Compared to last month [January], the PS3 realized the greatest month-over-month unit sales increase of all platforms.” InformationWeek (3/20) , Digital Trends (3/20)
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Filed under: MISC | Tags: Cary Grant, DVD, Laraine Day, Lucky, Ticketmaster, United States, United States Department of Justice, Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. is launching the Warner Archive Collection, an “on demand” DVD program in which fans will be able to order theatrical features from the studio’s library that are not available on disc and receive a custom-made DVD for $20. Films also can be downloaded for $15. (Iwantmedia 3/23, http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/dvd/2009-03-22-classic-films-on-demand_N.htm 3/23)
Lucky day: Cary Grant and Laraine Day star in 1943′s Mr. Lucky, one of the classics Warner Bros. now offers as a made-to-order DVD via the Web.
Live Nation and Ticketmaster Entertainment have each received an expected “request for additional information” from the United States Department of Justice regarding their proposed merger announced on Feb. 10. The news comes a day after Ticketmaster reported a fourth-quarter loss of $1.07 billion, as the company took a goodwill charge of $1.1 billion to reflect the decline of its stock price. Live Nation reported losses of $337.5 million earlier in the month. (Cynopsis 3/23)
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