RSS Is Awesome!…but this should be enough to tide some people over.
SPIDER-MAN 3
Sorry to say, that’s the case.
Seems that Microsoft took the muzzle off of Steve Ballmer, their CEO, a bit too soon. From a recent interview with USA Today, via iLounge:
On the iPhone:
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance,” Ballmer said. “It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.”
On the iPod:
“In the case of music, Apple got out early,” Ballmer continued. “They were the first to really recognize that you couldn’t just think about the device and all the pieces separately. Bravo. Credit that to Steve (Jobs) and Apple. They did a nice job. But it’s not like we’re at the end of the line of innovation that’s going to come in the way people listen to music, watch videos, etc. I’ll bet our ads will be less edgy. But my 85-year-old uncle probably will never own an iPod, and I hope we’ll get him to own a Zune.”
Oh, boy… where to begin?
First, the iPhone; yes, it’s a $500 item, but everyone I talk to about it is either curious about it or already saving to get one. And, when you’re making money on the device, the software, the service, and the accessories, well, I’d rather sell 1% of the market than just getting licensing fees from phone manufacturers on 5.6% of the market.
Second, the iPod vs. the Zune; yes, I’m a Mac Slut, and will always go with the iPod ten times out of ten, so my opinion on the matter is skewed.
That being said, the reason the Zune will fail eventually (just like every other hardware device Microsoft has put out) is that Ballmer thinks that being less ‘edgy’ is going to bring the people in… people like his 85-year-old uncle. I mean no disrespect to the guy’s uncle, but, c’mon, when you think “marketing,” when you think “technology,” and when you think “hot trends,” you don’t think “geriatric people.” Maybe the iPod’s ads are ‘edgy’ for people like Ballmer, but those are as ‘edgy’ to me and people of my generation as the “Where’s The Beef?!” lady is to his.
The fact of the matter that transcends the ‘Microsoft v. Apple’ debate is that Steve Jobs, above all else, is a showman; you watch him in an interview, or at a keynote, and he’s got you eating out of his hand. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer? They may be intelligent, they may be successful, but they wouldn’t know how to work a crowd if their life depended on it, despite what they clearly think. They need a liaison with the media that can do everything Jobs can do, but can do it better.
Which, you know, I’d be more than happy to do for a reasonable fee. In case they were wondering or anything.
CountingDown.com has a picture of how Doctor Doom will look in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, which you can check out here.
Oh, and from my e-mail:
Welcome to Spider-Man Week in NYC. The week starts off in a big way with the US Premiere tonight in Queens. Head out to the red carpet to see the stars of the movie and perhaps win a chance to attend the premiere. The festivities begin at 6:00pm ET TONIGHT (Monday 4.30.07) at:
UA Kaufman Astoria Cinema
14 35-30 38th Street
Astoria, NY 11101
Thank goodness that’s not the premiere I’m going to… it’s hard enough to park in any of the five boroughs, let alone parking with tons of media people around, taking pictures of everything in sight. However, if you’re in the area, you might wanna stop by… if you can see the movie five days ahead of time, you might as well, and rub it in the faces of every nerd you meet.
That’s what I’m gonna do, anyway.
According to Ars Technica, MPAA head Dan Glickman announced that movie studios were finally committed to creating fully-interoperable DRM, allowing consumers to watch legitimately owned content on any device in the home (including home networks), and plans to give consumers the ability to easily rip content from DVDs for use on their iPod or other multimedia device.
In other news, Jack Valenti, the gentleman who was behind the restrictions that the MPAA threw at us for years, who said that VCRs are to movie studios what “the Boston Strangler is to women who are home alone,” who said that he’d file a lawsuit every day in an attempt to stop piracy if he had to, who is to movies what the RIAA is to music, died yesterday from complications from a stroke.
Should I feel guilty that I find this mildly amusing, in a very ‘black comedy’ sort of way?
It was only a matter of time, really.
I mean, sure, I was hoping against hope that the shooting at Virginia Tech wouldn’t result in a mass hysteria from teachers across the nation, that maybe they’d understand that not every kid who shows an emotion that isn’t warm-n-fuzzy is going to go on a killing spree. Hell, maybe they’d even think of trying to talk to the kid who handed in whatever mildly-uncomfortable essay/poem/artwork to see if maybe there is something bothering them before, you know, ruining the kid’s life.
Seems that my dream has died like so many others.
Illinois police arrested an 18-year-old high school senior on a charge of disorderly conduct for handing in an essay that his teacher and school administrators found “disturbing.” Never mind that the essay didn’t mention any specific people or location; don’t worry yourself that the kid scores straight-’A’s’ and is described by some district staff as “an excellent student.” Please avoid any questions regarding what the maximum penalty is (30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine), and don’t start asking what impact having a criminal charge on your record will have on his college acceptance. And, above all else, I hope and pray that you don’t start questioning when an essay, disturbing though it may be, began having the same weight in causing panic and disorder (you know, what the entire charge of ‘disorderly conduct’ is about) as pulling a fire alarm falsely in a pubic place or pulling a gun on someone as a prank. You know, the sort of crap that can get people killed.
Yes, I understand: what happened at Virginia Tech was a tragedy, and we need to try to be more aware of the people around us. However, part of being more aware of the people around us is actually talking to those same people, not just jumping to conclusions about their mysterious motivations.
Seeing Spider-Man 3. Four days before it opens.
Man, being me is awesome sometimes.
Stephen Colbert: Greatest Living American?
Well, if this works, Google will think so. Check out this site for more information.
Over the coming weeks, there will be a few changes going on here… refocusing the now-overwhelming category list, a few design tweaks, and a major cleaning up of old posts to make them all grammer-rific and spelling-tastic.
So, if you don’t see regular updates for a bit, don’t get all disgruntled and leave me hate mail… everything will be better soon.
Well, not really. The CEO of the search giant announced plans today to unveil Google’s answer to PowerPoint this summer, to join their Word-clone and Excel-exterminator in a massive, ‘Web 2.0′ version of Microsoft’s Office.
Check out the article. I’m going to bed now.
Wonder Woman is a character I really like, and also a character that, since Infinite Crisis, can’t seem to score a competent writer to save her four-color life. The guy who relaunched the book, Allan Heinberg, not only did a pretty shoddy job of setting up the story, he was primarily responsible for the huge delay between issues, causing me to drop the book (granted, he was busy writing that little Grey’s Anatomy program that you may have heard about, but still). After him, Jodi Picoult took a swing at Diana, which, although I haven’t read it, hasn’t been popular with the internet. Then, yesterday, it was announced that another writer will take over WW for two issues, as to give the new regular writer some lead time.
That writer? Gail Simone.
Ya-freakin’-HOO!
Check out the Newsarama article for more.