links for 2005-07-28
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Great response by Steven Johnson to Hillary’s silly stumping about the evils of Grand Theft Auto.
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“Gap’s new marketing promotions will give customers a free iTunes download just for trying on a pair of its jeans.”
links for 2005-07-27
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My feature article from MOTONOW (the reason I was in Chicago). Video coming soon, my camera battery died because I forgot to switch it off so I can’t import the video–didn’t bring the charger.
Phone in the bathroom
Phone in the bathroom
Originally uploaded by jonknee.
Any idea what’s up with this? I got a good chuckle out of it at least :).
links for 2005-07-24
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Explanation of the different GSM bands. I’ll start fowarding this to people when they ask me.
links for 2005-07-23
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Sudoku is an addictive number game that reminds me of a crosswords puzzle.
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Great looking list, I’ll have to try and whittle my way down it.
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This makes it pretty simple to use rysync on your Mac. I am still looking for a good tutorial on using rysnc to back up a server…
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Ok no this is really the best mugshot ever. Ignore the one from a few weeks ago. This guy got caught trying to snuff gold spraypaint…
Just made skydiving reservations
I just made a reservation to go skydiving. This will be the second time I have jumped–the first time (which has been a few years now) was so much fun that I have been looking for an excuse to go again. I’m taking my girlfriend for her 21st birthday which should make for a gift to remember. She’s excited like crazy and has never done anything like this before. The first time I went it was with a (male) buddy of mine so we didn’t get the video/photos, but this time I signed up for the DVD and photos. Check in sometime after August 7th for some interesting shots! We’ll be jumping from 13,500 feet…
If anyone is interested, I am jumping with Skydive City. There are other places around, but SDC has a big plane that allows a bunch of people to go at once (which means I can go with the lady at the same time) and is a pretty big operation. I also used these guys for my first jump.
links for 2005-07-22
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You can stream the sessions that took place at AO Innovation Summit 2005. For free (and in Flash video so it actually works)
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Someone is STILL updating a site about Ellen Feiss (the high teenager from an Apple switcher ad). That ad debuted in 2002.
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Clean PHP/MySQL forum that might be nice for some smaller sites. Open source too.
links for 2005-07-21
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Drains don’t go the other way down under. One of the most popular myths.
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Sort of like the Google Fight thing for AIM. Made by AOL–it works by taking into account how many people have you on their buddy list (so it’s hard to cheat!). My SN is jonknee41 if you want to fight.
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This could have been useful for me about 4 years ago. But you never know, it might be handy in the future.
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Interesting site where you can trade your DVDs with others. It probably works better with that have a few more discs than me, but an interesting idea nonetheless.
DRM and ringtones
This press release from Qpass is laughable–the premise is that internet users are “shoplifting” ringtones by using the free preview links on websites and converting them to tones by themselves. I could harp on the fact it’s not shoplifting since there is no shop (and technically you probably already own the full product, but you are looking for a small slice of it to put on your phone), but I’ll let that slide.
A startling study conducted by Qpass of 100 leading U.S. and European digital content Websites revealed that more than one third of the sites are unsecured, allowing users to ‘shoplift’ music tracks and download them as free ringtones. The extent of the problem in US may have already cost the mobile and music industries an estimated $40 million U.S. since the beginning of 2004, and a further $123 million U.S. by 2007, according to Qpass.
It doesn’t say how the dollar values were calculated, but I would assume those numbers have to be revenue not profit. As evidenced by the iTunes music store, rights fees can add up (Apple only makes a dime or so on each song) so if these numbers are revenue, the actual “damage” would be only ten percent or so.
However, the whole idea that there are legions of customers converting previews into real ringtones and transferring them to their phones is the real funny part–if they are smart enough to do the conversions, why would they poke around ringtone sites in the first place? Use existing music (even use the 30 second preview given away in the iTMS) which is probably at better quality. That’s what I do and it works great. My current ringtone is a catchy clip from the band Minus The Bear and everyone that hears it gets jealous.
So what’s the solution to these ringtone terrorists? DRM of course!
Preview content can be secured by using streaming, embedded pre-listening or the use of a DRM-protected file format.
With tools like Xingtone, just about anyone can make their own tone. That’s not a loss to the “ringtone industry”, that’s just being smart. The problem is that your “industry” is based entirely on selling very small segments of sounds your customers probably already own… And on top of that–for extremely high fees.
Bah.
links for 2005-07-20
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Motorola has a media event scheduled for next week. I just confirmed my tickets and hotel. Fun!
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My dad has started a travel blog. His new job will have him going around the world for various aid projects–South Asia next month!