The Shower From Hell

Gag me with yet another lipflapper. From a press release:

ATLANTA:  Tomorrow Atlantans will have the opportunity to welcome a new genre of talk radio into their homes, morning commutes and even showers!  NewsTalk 1160…The Talk of the Town is set to take over Business Radio 1160—revamping radio signals across Atlanta with a fresh, new line-up.   “We are truly ecstatic about this change,” boasts Jeff Davis, Vice President and General Manager of NewsTalk1160.  “Talk of the Town will bring the nations best talk radio hosts together on the same station providing Atlantans listening choices not currently found on any other station in the market.”   Listeners who tune-in will be welcomed by new, innovative and fresh changes, along with a schedule full of critically-acclaimed and award-winning hosts from across the country. Beginning tomorrow, listeners can look forward to the following weekday line-up: Mancow: 6 a.m. – 9 a.m.In addition to his eclectic and sometimes controversial radio program, Mancow can be spotted making appearances on television programs including Politically Incorrect, David Letterman, Jerry Springer and others.  A weekly contributor to the Fox News Channels “Fox and Friends,” Mancow will certainly provide a breath of fresh air to what was once a business and financial only radio show.  www.Mancow.com Dr. Laura: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. (Also, Sunday 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.)A queen of self-help radio, Dr. Laura is ranked number four on Talker’s Magazine list of the “250 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts of America.”  Dr. Laura is a best selling author of ten New York Times best-selling books and has been featured on a number of television programs including The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Today Show.  www.DrLaura.com Dr. Joy Browne: 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. Offering “Solutions to life’s intimate problems… one caller at a time” Dr. Joy is among the top radio host in the nation.  Two-time winner of Talker Magazine’s “Best Female Talk Show Host,” Dr. Joy will bring her sharp wit and problem solving skills to NewsTalk 1160 listeners. www.DrJoy.com The Lou Dobbs Show: 3 p.m. – 6 p.m.

A journalism legend, Lou Dobbs has won numerous awards, boasting…

That’s ENOUGH of that. Oh please just make it stop.

Book Event: The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me

Please come to Atlanta’s legendary Manuel’s Tavern on Tuesday evening, April 1st, 6-9:00pm for a very special book signing party - for author Jonathan Rieder and his new book The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me – The righteous performance of Martin Luther King.

Please RSVP to: thouck at mindspring dot com first though!

Howell Mill Hell

Traffic has become so bad along Howell Mill Road that it gets its own blog. The City of Atlanta Public Works Department’s “widening” project along Howell Mill near I-75 has seemingly been mysteriously abandoned. See video.

R.E.M. On CBS Sunday Morning

I’ll let my Twitter feed tell the tale:

I’m sorry… it’s painful having to watch Stipe work so hard to prove himself. He’s an artist. He shouldn’t have to do that.

Mike Mills interviewed one on one. I wonder, has that ever happened before?

Mills speaks! Mills speaks! Mills speaks!

Good concert footage shots in CBS SM package, but their geek reporters could strain the soul out of a fiery angel.

Trying not to snicker at the concept of Charles Osgood intro’ing R.E.M.

CBS Sunday Morning playing to the assisted living crowd with this hideous “Take Me Out To The Ballpark” song feature. Aggghhhhh

Gawd does Adam (Duritz on A&E) just exude bittersweet soul or what?

Just made a delicious breakfast smoothie. Fresh peaches are the key. Toasted bagel, cream cheese, lox and R.E.M. next. I know how to live.

The Great Speckled Tower

APC Panel About Something To Do With Blogging

For some odd reason, likely out of sheer boredom, Shelby Highsmith rolled on this Atlanta Press Club event, including Art Harris rambling on about something. Most in attendance at Manuel’s afterwards agreed that:
a.) Suits are still boring.

b.) The whole are blogs media? discussion is getting really old and pointless.

c.) No one had a freakin’ clue as to what Art Harris was talking about.

Regardless, several of the bloggers in the room took a moment today to give the Ethics and Business and Everything On The Planet and Blogs panel discussion ye ‘olde post-mort try. Bless their hearts. Some are here:

griftdrift.blogspot.com
shelbinator.com
pjnet.org
sarawaraclara.blogspot.com
bsteve76.wordpress.com

More timely and much more interesting would be Amber of Being Amber Rhea being quoted throughout this Wired article on how new media tools, blessedly, allowed sex worker advocates to be heard through the media cacophany that followed the Spitzer Pays For It saga.

NOTE: Eerily like the woman of the French Revolution who famously knitted away as those who had to pay were carted off to the the guillotine, Amber can be seen on the tape at 03:55… furiously Twittering away.

“Just Go Now, Before It’s Too Late!”

Damn you Tania. Just because you had to go and crow about what a totally awesome gift your mom gave you for your birthday (my mom gave me a crucifix bookmarker), I’ve now wasted a good hour on YouTube watching that ultimate soap opera, Dark Shadows. (I bet Tania had a TV and everything as a kid, and even got to watch Dark Shadows in real-time. So unfair.) For payback, I’m going to make MM readers now do the same.

Atlanta Woman Returns To Elisabeth Marchant

Atlanta magazine publishing mogul, Elisabeth Marchant, returns to print’s Atlanta Woman magazine, after Marchant’s long stint in the broadband video realm at Atlanta-based Multicast Media.

This will be an interesting move to watch, as we should be able to judge just how commmitted, or not, Atanta’s traditional print offerings will be to adapting to (or not) the online mileau in this broadband video-rich enviro.

While us indie v-loggers are surely the fiercest, most warrior-like of the video tribes, the Blackfeet of the Internets if you will, Multicast Media represents a tricked-out trading post kinda place to cut the best cash deals with the paleface…. as Multicast will relieve any Indian of his precious cash to “allow” a tribe to place their own video on their own website. We, the video-enabled live-free-or-die blogger types, know full well it’s all DIY… free too if you want it to be.

Biut I diverge… meanwhile, back at the print ranch, Marchant is clearly one of those ”bold and dynamic” leaders Atlanta businesswomen are always clicking about in silly heels while busily organizing event stuff as a platform to write an old-school press release and fax it to “the media,” then give each other awards and publically declare each other, in some makes me wanna fidget power-suited, stuffy & formal & stagey, Oprah-wanna-be environment, yet another one of those “dynamic leaders” and “terrific giver-backer” types. 

What sets Marchant apart from Atlanta’s shoulder-padded, PR-mindful herd is that she actually is a dynamic leader with hardcore multimedia publishing chops to go with any glitter dusted on any award out there. In other words, Marchant has the capability to leave the pink corporate reservation any time she damn well feels like it.

More Proof God Is A Funny Woman

Because She gives us Tracey Ullman spoofing Arianna Huffington.

Video Yard Sale – Saturday March 29th!

Equipment Sale For Media Professionals

WHAT: Video Yard Sale

WHEN: Sat. March 29th 10am-4pm.

WHERE: North Druid A-V / Abracadabra Video Inc, 2250 North Druid Hills Rd (Exit 89 @ I-85), Atlanta GA 30329

A vast array of new & used DVCam, Mini DV Camcorders , Color Monitors, VCRs/DVD Player-Recorders, Wireless Audio PA Systems etc. All closed out - All must be sold. A warehouse of A-V inventory is on sale for one day, 3/29/08. Equipment will be arriving  up to thru the morning of the sale, so No Preview Time will be available.

For more info visit www.abracadabravideo.com

Bloggers – Atlanta MSM Public Enemy #1?

ATL bloggers… your attention and attendance is needed Thursday night at this blogosphere-related Atlanta Press Club event. Shower optional.

Ethics and New Media: How the Blogosphere is Affecting Journalism and Business

MODERATOR
Dr. John Knapp, Director of GSU Center for Ethics and Corporate Responsibility

WHEN
Thursday, March 27, 2008
5:30 – 6:30 PM – Reception with hors d’oeuvres and cash bar
6:30 – 7:30PM – Panel Discussion

WHERE
The Commerce Club
16th Floor
34 Broad Street
Atlanta, GA 30303
Please click here for directions to The Commerce Club. This event is free for APC members and $15 for non-members.

You must register in advance here. This is also a good time to press for membership in the APC if you are not a member already. Word.

Adam Duritz On Music In The Digital Era

Ditch the old music biz model. Now. It’s all hopelessly old-school. Adam Duritz of Counting Crows in an interview with iProng Magazine:

I just think the Web is the best thing that ever happened to music. There’s no way any invention that connects the entire world to each other for free can possibly be a bad thing. Too much communication has never been the problem in the world.

You can listen to the interview in its entirety here. Fucking brill, eh?! Counting Crows’ new album, Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings, is out today.

AJC Wets Its Pants Over Boring Corporate Video

Having produced years of really boring corporate videos myself, all underscored with a similar, sleep-inducing canned looped score, I fail to see anything remotely compelling about this one, other than nice cheekbones maybe. Yet it’s the most-clicked story on AJC.com today, making a compelling case for just how culture & arts-deprived the Georgia plebe public tragically must be.

Elisabeth Murdoch – Media Entrepreneur or Media Nepot?

Call her what you will, really good at watching TV for instance, but Ms. Murdoch is now a serious player in the biggest of Big Media. In a rare interview today, from the NYTimes:

“I don’t understand how it’s gotten slightly so out of control,” she said. “Because all I was doing was watching TV enthusiastically. I happened to call my dad (Rupert) in the middle of the show (American Idol) because I was so excited. And he said, ‘Oh, I think someone’s shown that to us.’ I said, ‘You have got to buy it.’ As one does when you chat with your family, you are very direct. So I was very direct. So Dad went off and said, ‘You have to buy this show.’ And therein lies the luck of television.”

In 2000, Ms. Murdoch left her father’s business at British Sky Broadcasting, where she had been managing director of Sky Networks, to introduce Shine.

Her strength, say executives who know her, is her acumen for spotting what television viewers want to watch, as well as her ability to adapt different formats to different audiences, whether they be in America, England or elsewhere. At present, for example, her company is working on creating a version of “Law & Order” for the British audience.

Sony helped finance Ms. Murdoch’s acquisitions, having recently raised its stake to 20 percent from 14 percent. Another source of funds was a distribution from the Murdoch family trust last year, in which each of the Murdoch children received $100 million in News Corporation stock for their personal use.

Full article here. Given that most trustfundanista blow through their money rather quickly, only sucking, rarely growing, further family wealth, I’d say Ms. Murdoch is both entrepreneur and nepotist. Not a bad combo.

100M is really a pittance given the Murdoch billions upon billions, so forget that measley amount. Mostly, I wonder what Elisabeth now thinks of the convergence of TV and the Internet. Ten years ago, she wasn’t real thrilled at the prospect, but in the dial-up context of ’98, who was? From a BBC report in August of 1998 at The Edinburgh Festival, when Ms. Murdoch was GM of her daddy’s Sky TV:

“But it’s increasingly clear that people’s use of the TV and the PC are hugely different experiences.

“The Internet is succeeding because it is adding real value to people’s lives. Real value in transactions. Already e-commerce is gearing up to give retailers a run for their money. It’s incredibly effective for communication and the sharing of knowledge.

“However, as the founder of America Online put it last month at an investors’ conference, they can’t see what they can add to the experience of entertainment.

Famous last words, eh?! With the convergence of broadband and TV, I’m sure Murdoch is scheming and dreaming up a digital-offerings storm by now. Wonder if I can friend Elisabeth on Facebook? Maybe she’ll be snapping-up v-blogs in her next round of funding.

I just hope to one day add a Murdoch estate to my Seriously Big Old Media Family Compound ski-by video collection.

Note To Bloggers About Embedding iReports

If you choose to embed a CNN iReport in your WordPress blog via VodPod, it will Auto Start the video once you’ve embedded it. Once embedded, you will need to get in the code and delete the word autostart… if you want your blog all nice and quiet.

Traditional Journalism Is Failing America

How can ”traditional” journalism fail us? Most simply, old numbers do lie. When a journalist who is schooled only in the ways and means of presenting information via “old” media consumption statistics fails to comprehend and apply how “new” media is used to consume ALL media nowadays, they thus present erroneous information to their audience… certainly by misleading them. 

Given the right set of circumstances, reporting that does not take into account how media is consumed now could even be dangerously misleading, no matter how experienced and skilled the journalist might be in their particular area of expertise. In the sciences, perhaps.

But let’s look at politics for right now. Take for example this statement about Obama’s March 18, 2008 speech by Gary Reese of Florida Insider:

Barack Obama’s speech about race on Tuesday impressed many who witnessed it or read it. But most of America did neither, and many of them  — white and black — were less persuaded of the speech’s capacity to heal racial wounds, or to put the issue of race behind Obama as he continues his quest for the White House.

Now whether or not racial healing occurred or ever will, who’s to say? That’s one to keep the lipflappers on the airwaves for a while to come. But look at the second sentence… particularly where Reese says, “most of America did neither.” That’s where things go statistically awry.

Let’s now look at a paragraph from Eleanor Clift on how people “consumed” Obama’s speech. (Still are consuming it, for that matter.):

The cable commentators kept pounding away, but in another universe, the one inhabited by Obama’s base–the millennial generation–his Philadelphia speech became the most-viewed video on YouTube this week with almost 2.5 million hits so far. Maybe, just maybe, the cable critics and conservative pundits are talking to themselves.

And that’s just the visits to YouTube. Surely the March 18th Obama speech was a popular choice on other video sharing sites such as Yahoo! and AOL Video. Of course, 2.4 million hits could be coming from Botswana, but I doubt it. The point being… once all is said and done, “most” of America could very well end-up consuming the Obama speech in some media fashion or another.

Woe to the single planet dwellers who neglect to make contact with a parallel universe. At somepoint, a parallel trajectory could very well shift. And run ”traditional” everything right off the road when it does.

Full Reese article here. Full Clift article here.

Preach The CJ Gospel, Brother Amani

from www.ireport.com posted with vodpod

The Wired V-Logger

I suppose the next logical step is to embed stuff under you skin. From Shelbinator:

And can XM tell you where to find dinner? (Okay, so there are some GPS-devices out there that have XM capability, but boy are they ugly.) Does XM make phone calls?

At this point, the bridge between niche-market devices like the N95 and total dominance of the non-FM radio market is merely a question of network capacity, I think. As the 3G network continues to grow — and Verizon starts opening up its EVDO network to more devices with greater user flexibility — XM radio devices are starting to look like analog television sets to me. Why buy one now?

Fully wired blog post here.

The Wired Politician

Atlanta City Councilman, Kwanza Hall, not only created a Facebook profile, he updates it throughout the day with what he’s doing on behalf of his constituents. Via his cell phone. Now that’s your Best Web 2.0 Practice Of The Day!

Cross-posted on PP.

Fox News Too Offensive For Fox News

from www.youtube.com posted with vodpod