infobong.com the absurd courts the vulgar

• vixy.net : Online FLV Converter
  This online service allows you to download Flash Video (like on YouTube) in archive-friendly formats like DiVX.
  (del.icio.us tags: YouTube video Flash useful TVontheWeb)
• NYTImes: Usual DVR Fare Is Not News and Sports
  Narrative programming dominates TiVo hard-drives, while live programming is still watched live.
  (del.icio.us tags: advertising TV DVR)
• The Cubes™: The Corporate Protester
  I find The Cubes™ line of office-culture toys charming, and I’m glad to see this addition.
  (del.icio.us tags: toys shopping)
• Duct Tape Wallet Kits
  I guess this twenty-dollar kit is for people who have a hard time sourcing the materials.
  (del.icio.us tags: shopping DIY stupid)

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Hardcore Austin film buffs already know that the Alamo Drafthouse’s current downtown location is closing over the summer, and the operation will move to the two-screen Ritz theater, right in the heart of the Sixth-Street booze district. My friend Afsheen, who’s both a fellow doctoral student in Radio-TV-Film and an Alamo projectionist, is documenting the move on the Alamo’s blog. Since Afsheen was less than enthusiastic about the move at first, I think he’ll bring an interesting perspective to an important event for Austin’s film community.

For my out-of-town reader, I’ll explain that the Alamo Downtown is a sort of repertory theater that specializes in screening cult films and putting on events like sing-alongs with films like The Muppet Movie and The Sound of Music. Not only does the theater serve beer and upscale pizza, but waitrons serve you at your seat. While the downtown theater doesn’t compare favorably to today’s stadium-style screens, it has a funky charm that will be lost when the doors close. I’m going to stop before I descend into Austinite nostalgic cheese.

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• Bloomberg: TV Networks Adopt Anything-Goes Ad Rates as Shows Shift to Web
  The networks are abandoning the half-century model of selling uniform blocks of ad time to deals tailored to advertisers’ needs.
  (del.icio.us tags: TVontheWeb TVnetworks advertising TV)
• Sony To Launch YouTube Competitor in Japan
  The new service, available only in Japan, will allow users to put contributions under Creative-Commons licenses, while watching out for copyright infringement.
  (del.icio.us tags: YouTube Web2.0 CreativeCommons copyright TVontheWeb)

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• Rough Type: Stabbing Polonius
  Nick Carr takes aim at the idea that Wikipedia – or any encyclopedia – can be representative of the sum of human knowledge.
  (del.icio.us tags: wikipedia production epistemology)
• The Economic Motivation of Open Source Software: Stakeholder Perspectives
  Dirk Riehle shares some research into what drives open-source software production.

  (del.icio.us tags: production opensource economics)

• DailyLit: Read books by email and RSS.
  This site delivers bite-sized chunks of public-domain and creative-commons-licensed books via RSS. I gave up on the Pepys blog, but maybe another text will suit me better. If only they had some Bourdieu or David Harvey…
  (del.icio.us tags: rss books)

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…but I’ve been having fun with this image in Photoshop. It was taken near the corner of NW 21st and Burnside.

Although I didn’t get any good pictures, I had a great time in Portland. I was really impressed with how friendly the people are and the beauty of the place.

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• Bokardo: The hidden lives of MySpacers
  Josh Porter addresses complaints about the design of MySpace by pointing out that users are drawn to the site because of the user base. I might go even further and say that many younger users would feel a significant social cost by not using the site.
  (del.icio.us tags: myspace yasns design)
• Statesman.com: UT creates video game archive
  Warren Spector catalyzed this project at the Center for American History.
  (del.icio.us tags: utexas gaming history archive)

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• TechDirt: While The Rest Of You Celebrate Earth Day…
  Dell is honoring Earth Day by planting energy-sucking virtual trees in Second Life.
  (del.icio.us tags: SecondLife environmentalism Dell stupid)
• Benjamin Edwards: The World of Wal-Mart
  This map shows the volume of goods sourced from a country by showing the relative size of a country.
  (del.icio.us tags: globalization visualization economics map)
• Zinester’s Guide to Portland
  I’m glad I didn’t buy the print version now that I know there’s a version online.
  (del.icio.us tags: zine indierock travel)

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• Bank Swirled
  World Bank employees produce this magazine to satirize global investment and development.
  (del.icio.us tags: worldbank development NGO zine satire)
• Portfolio.com: Behind the Green Doerr
  Silicon Valley venture capitalists like John Doerr believe green technologies like alternative energy will see a new investment bubble and are pressuring government for favorable legislation and subsidies.
  (del.icio.us tags: venturecapital energy environmentalism business)
• City Journal: The Media Cornucopia by Adam D. Thierer
  This essay argues that the diversity of media available today negates any worries about media consolidation.
  (del.icio.us tags: politicaleconomy blog media)
• Edelman’s Steve Rubel: Twittiot?
  PR maven Steve Rubel admitted on Twitter that his free copies of PC Magazine go right in the trash, leading to a PR brouhaha.
  (del.icio.us tags: Twitter publicrelations magazine stupid)

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• New Media Art - Nothing - Mark Tribe
  Brown University is hosting a wikified version of Mark Tribe’s recent book on computer-based art.
  (del.icio.us tags: wiki net.art newmedia books art)
• Young Manhattanite: Dodgeball Founders Leave Google
  This can only mean that Twitter is on a path to world domination.
  (del.icio.us tags: Twitter google)
• 5 Question Interview with Twitter Developer Alex Payne
  This interview reveals some of the new features Twitter may have in store, but also that the service is struggling to keep up with its growth.
  (del.icio.us tags: Twitter Web2.0 chat interview)

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Valleywag has a pretty interesting item about a new trade magazine that just launched. While the blog takes a snarky approach in its coverage of Blogger and Podcaster, pointing out the irony of a print magazine about the online media that are supposedly supplanting traditional journalism. While one of the comments points out that trade magazines offer the potential for greater revenue, if not profits, than blogs, I’m still kind of suspicious of the viability of this “book.” When I worked for technology trades, gosh, half-a-decade ago the most profitable properties in the company were the email newsletters that served as an adjunct to the print magazines. Granted, I left in 2002, at the bottom of the tech bust, but the low costs of email publication and the reliable advertisers made purely online properties more attractive. The demise of InfoWorld as a print product only confirms my suspicions that IT trade reporting will increasingly move to the ‘net.

This isn’t to say that I don’t think there are advertisers for a book like Blogger and Podcaster. About six months ago, I wanted to write a post about my bemusement of “podcasting” packages from audio vendors like BSW. I wondered if the podcasting phenomenon was sufficiently large for creating specialized bundles, but I do imagine that podcasting has opened up a new customer base for audio vendors, and persons who want to do DIY audio production might do well with one of these bundles. (I’d say the same thing for vlogging and video, but I think consumers are more apt to already have some kind of video setup.) Of course, magazines and particularly trade magazines are driven by advertising niches, rather than reader demand, so I suspect that Blogger and Podcaster is an effort to sell advertising to vendors like BSW who are comfortable with print advertising and want to sell their wares to an emerging group of customers.

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