Gentle Readers’ Hihoney Review

I picked up the (now defunct) Gentle Readers’ album Hihoney via Dave Slusher’s Evil Genius Chronicles’ Stuff package. I’ve never been one to listen to an album all the way through. On the rare occassions that I have a CD, I rip it into iTunes and wait for the individual tracks to come up on random. When ‘Nothing You Can Do’ came up this afternoon, I stopped. If every song on the album is like this, I need to hear it. Right now.

As a whole, this is the perfect album for an early autumn day in the upper Midwest. Melancholy, comforting, catchy. Like when the sun is low in a blue sky, and that cool, light breeze through the bare trees means you really should have grabbed a scarf before you left. Just like NE Minneapolis right now.

I can see why Dave likes talking with Lee so much. Her smokey voice must be accompanied by strings and drums in regular conversation. (This comment makes no sense based on Dave’s comment below)

That being said, here’s the song-by-song run down.

  • Nothing You Can Do & Lunchhour
    Two nice honest, unpretentious, alt country tunes. Comfortable and timeless, like a more mature Be Good Tanyas or if Son Volt was fronted by a woman.
  • Last Day at the Office
    This is the theme song to Dave Slusher’s Evil Genius Chronicles. I’m waiting for Dave break in with “Hello friends and neighbors”. Oh sure, it’s a nice enough song without Dave.
  • Difficult
    A few years back, a colleague of mine commented on turning 31, “I now know how to get what I want and people take me seriously”. This song is that comment put to music.
  • Sweetest Taboo
    My least favorite song on the album. I just don’t think it translated well to a recording. If I was at the Kitty Kat Bar sipping whiskey and the Gentle Readers played this song live, I’d declare it the best song of the set. This song needs a dark, melancholy, spacious atmosphere. The home office is none of these.
  • Center of the Universe & Turn Up the Sound
    These tracks remind me of early Edie Brickell or Natalie Merchant, songs that make you stop and let all those great, long forgotten memories flood over you.
  • California

    “the moral of the story is – there is no moral”

    Ouch. I did have one small sliver of hope left. No longer.

  • California Part 2
    I’m sure there are some happy, sunny songs titled ‘California’ in the world. This is the third in my library that isn’t. Like the others, it’s a catchy tune about loss and regret.
  • Separate & Friction
    Neither of these tracks did anything for me. They’re solid tunes with a decent beat, just feel like they’re missing the clever, honest writing that makes a song more than a solid tune with a decent beat.

Support independent musicians and podcasters, head over to Dave’s site and pick up the album. You’ll make his day and for that, he’ll throw in an EGC t-shirt.

The Sploggy Site of the Street

There are at least 2 different internets. One with popups, popunders, spasm-inducing Flash banner ads, and the actual, unique information squeezed to the size of an IAB standard microbar. The other, without. Until now, this latter internet was filled with RSS feeds from blogs with real people behind them.

Until now. Until Splogs.

Back in August Mark Cuban outlined the splog problem. I didn’t think anything of it until today. While doing research on a vertical market I’m not versed in, the first page of Technorati results were useless, uninformative, non-helpful splogs. Blech.

Perhaps my query terms are being too generic. Asking Google for ‘digital camera’ won’t tell you answer anything more specific than, “What does Google return for ‘digital camera'”. So, I’ll try being more specific.

A tip for business bloggers out there: Running a business blog on blogger.com is the equivalent of running a business off a Hotmail or AOL email address. It doesn’t help build credibility.

UPDATE 16 October 2005: If my standing Technorati searches are any indications, yes as Tim Bray said, we have a splog emergency on our hands. I’m reading FightSplog.com right now to figure out how.

Oh, Did I Mention iTunes Kills Television Advertising

Josh at Splintered Channels ponders traditional ad spots within the new iTunes-delivered TV programs.

The TV I’ve had for the last 10 years has a 30-sec timer button on it. Hit the button, change the channel, and 30 seconds later you’ll automatically return to the previous program. Tivo time-shifted both the program and this ad-skip behavior (though VCR instilled this behavior decades ago, albeit without the sexiness of digital).

Josh is right, ad campaigns have a shorter shelf-life than the programs they interrupt. In all but the biggest of primetime television programs, the ads are also region specific (if not local). So, inserting a conventional 30-second spot in a digital iTunes download wastes at least the same amount of money as one delivered via the air waves.

As I’ve mentioned in the Economics of Podcasting and Podcasting is Closer to Voicemail than Radio, the pains of conventional broadcasting (FCC licensing, antennas, etc) don’t exist in the digital realm. Combine that with customers actually paying per episode and the advertiser/distributor relationship turns from symbiotic to parasitic.

If iTunes starts to include interruption-based ads within the TV programs they offer, 2 things will happen:

  1. An iMovie Applescript will magically appear that automatically slices out the annoyances.
  2. The programs with ads won’t sell….at any price.

Catharine Taylor at AdWeek’s AdFreak concurs.

“…not only is the video iPod a watershed, but, sorry advertisers and agencies, that commercial TV may just be f*cked, and it’s going to hurt advertisers much more than it will hurt the networks.”

I’m glad someone inside the advertising industry said that and cursed while doing so.

Once television advertising goes the way of the Wicked Witch of the West, where does that leave Nielsen Ratings?

ABC affiliates are asking that now.

“The prospect of the new device [video-enabled iPod] distracting Nielsen-measurable eyeballs from its own over-the-air programming is generating some anxiety from stations all over the country…”

Just as I can read the same email in a web-browser, in a desktop application, and through VersaMail on my Treo, all other media will shortly be liberated from it’s exclusive distribution channel.

Quick rhetorical question: What’s a television program that isn’t originally released on television?

I’m pretty sure Chuck, Steve, and Amanda have an answer.

Amazing Race 8 – Episode 3

The mudding challenge – very cool. I gotta give the Aeillo family props for making 14 attempts through the mud bog.

The AOL laptop clue in the middle of the Rocket Center was completely dorky and worthless…well….aside from product placement. Reminded me of the ‘assemble something at IKEA’ challenge they had a couple seasons back.

I’m still not sure if it’s the 4-person teams, families, or all the time they’re spending on the East Coast, so far the season isn’t working for me or Jen. It feels much less exciting and exotic than the world travel of previous seasons. No language or currency issues, lots of driving. Makes armchair travel much less thrilling.

On the plus side, free BP and Arco gas – for life – is definitely one of the coolest awards ever.

Current Standing of Garrick’s Favorites:

  • Lintz – #2
  • Aeillo – #8, eliminated. Crap.

Word from Claire

“How can you not mention the all time best line in any season of TAR from last night’s episode: ‘If you haven’t noticed, gravity is currently pushing on me.’ –Phil”

iTunes Upgrades Destroys Record Store, Cable Company, Movie Theater

With today’s announcement of a Video iPod and the corresponding iTunes bump to v6.0, Apple felled 3 of my least favorite things; record store, cable company, and movie theater.

If for $1.99, I can purchase a past episode of Desperate Housewives and for a couple dollars more a feature length film, what’s compelling about a movie theater? Hell, Netflix might want to step up their digital distribution strategy (Hint, it now has to integrate into iTunes). Throw the Food Network’s, Comedy Central’s, and HBO’s worst, best, and experimental programs into iTunes and there’s as much reason for a Comcast subscription as there is for a landline telephone.
David at the Brand Experience Lab had the same notion:

“…potentially create an Apple media center that actually by-passes network TV?”

As an interesting side effect, by keeping prices below $5, Apple is effective killing Darknet usage by people with more money than patience (i.e. not students). Leaving the only reason to dig around the file sharing networks is for things not in iTunes (though even today, the bulk of music’s long tail absent from iTMS). Despite the DRM, iTunes is still my first stop for purchasing music – followed by Amazon. I suspect the same will be true of motion pictures by the end of the year.

Right now, BitTorrent is the only sustainable solution for handling the bandwidth demands of a popular podcast or video. Both iPodder and DTV offered built in BitTorrent clients very early in their development. Unless Apple also purchased miles of dark fiber, they’re going to feel the burn of multi-terabyte transfers very quickly.

I predict 2 additional features before iTunes turns 7:

  1. Integrated BitTorrent client
  2. iTMS Storefront for independent producers – with the same price points as big media.

First Crack 64. Urban Exploring with Filmmaker Melody Gilbert

Just in time for a mid-production fund drive, St. Paul, MN-based independent filmmaker, Melody Gilbert and I talk about her latest documentary, Urban Explorers into the Darkness and the independent, DIY, MacGyver, hack-your-environment, attitude shared by Urban Explorers, podcasters, and other high-tech geeks.

Check out excerpts of film and support Minnesota independent filmmaking by attending the sneak preview of Urban Explorers into the Darkness on October 15, 2005 – $12 / ticket (or $35 for VIP).

Listen to Urban Exploring with Filmmaker Melody Gilbert [26 min]

Star Tribune Re-arranging Deck Chairs

This week the Star Tribune launches their much (internally) debated redesign. It’s been previously dissed by City Pages and MNSpeak.

This morning, I read the special 8 page pullout outlining the “new features” and the editor’s comments on it. I’m less than impressed and – even with 3 cups of coffee – still un-enthused.

Here’s a short list of the major innovations we’ll see next week and my view on them:

  • Lileks off Sunday, moved to every other day. A good thing. Since I don’t think he’s very good and I get the Sunday paper, this is perfect
  • “Variety” renamed “Source”, “Signature”, “Stupid”, “Sucks”
  • Masthead, now with more serifs, wider columns, more bullets, easier to skim. As an ex-graphic designer I can confidently say they spent too much money on the logo redesign and their new skin.
  • Oh, and something about writers having the same stories online as in the printed piece. That’s a good thing. Hopefully this will give reporters the opportunity to publish more interesting articles, in varying degrees of depth. You know, the whole ‘go niche’ / ‘long tail’ thing.

Now that I’m done shredding the redesign, here’s a couple of actual innovations I’d like to see from newspaper land:

  • Customized dead-tree edition: only the sections I want from the columnists I like. In my world, I’d be without the Sports, Travel, and Classifieds. This means fewer pages printed, fewer pages delivered, and fewer pages recycled.
  • Provide access to archives for free online.
  • Write above a 4th grade level. I’d like that very much.
  • Include URLs in the newspaper edition to continue the story online. Links to the story itself, the reporter’s sources, and competitive coverage. This means embracing and acknowledging the internet exists. (That’s where younger – and older – readers are going)

Until then, the Star Tribune is simply re-arranging the deck chairs of a sinking industry. Giving someone with a few dollars a huge opportunity to redesign the industry…not just the paper.