*michael parekh on IT*

ON A VIDEO HOMAGE RE-IMAGINED

ROCKS AND ROLLS

One can't be too sure about most things these days, but one thing that is almost a sure thing is that the query "#TBRB" is going to be one of the top trending topics on Twitter within a day or two of September 9th.  TBRB, as Dan Neil of the LA Times explains, stands for "The Beatles: Rock Band", and

"... will consume much of the industry's advertising bandwidth this summer ahead of its Sept. 9 release.
A collaboration between MTV Games' Harmonix and the Beatles' Apple Corps Ltd., TBRB -- which had its press debut at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles this month -- lets players stand in the Beatles' pointy Italian boots, singing and playing along on peripherals fashioned to look like Paul McCartney's Hofner bass and Ringo Starr's Ludwig drum kit. That's coolness measured in Kelvins."

The reason this piece merits a complete read in my view is this description of how the game is introduced to millions who are both familiar, and not too familiar with what made the "Fab Four" so cool:

"Summing up the Beatles' story is no easy task, and yet -- as per the conventions of video game design -- a summing up of the story, a reprise of the narrative world, must be built into the game itself. These mini-movies are called "cinematics," and they usually appear when the game is booted up. They are also crucial parts of a game's advertising campaign, amounting to online commercials that air endlessly and freely on YouTube and Hulu. These films are a rare instance of meritocracy in advertising art; the better they are, the more they get watched.
For TBRB, Harmonix called on London's Passion Pictures and director Pete Candeland, who have created one of the most beautiful and compelling animated sequences I have ever seen, a pocket masterpiece that in its surrealistic bravura is worthy of "Sgt. Pepper" and "Yellow Submarine." It's also startling in its economy, telling the Beatles' saga in 2:45 minutes. Not bad for a video game."

He goes on to describe in detail how this piece is laid out, and is worth reading even though it may be a bit of a spoiler when we all get to see the clip on YouTube, and when the game is out.   Sounds like it's quite a bit of work, and does it's subject ample justice.

ON DEALING WITH STAR TREK

EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

With the new Star Trek movie in theaters this weekend, it was inevitable that Star Wars fans would get their  dander up. 

Looks like they're getting their revenge in this little bit as Wired Magazine explains:

"Stormtroopers celebrate after the Death Star vaporizes the Enterprise in the clip...

Mike Horn’s fan footage pits the two high-tech war machines against each other in the sci-fi franchise faceoff. As with his 2008 masterpiece “Death Star Over San Francisco,” the reel above was probably made on Horn’s computer using nothing more than After Effects, Final Cut and his fertile imagination. And an obvious preference for Star Wars over Star Trek."

It all makes sense in this Aliens vs. Predators world. 

Happy Mother's Day all.

ON A DIFFERENT TAKE ON MEDIA

OUT OF THE BOX

As always, Robert X Cringely has something different to say about where TV might be going in the world of bits and iPods.  He focuses first on Apple's cash reserves:

"Apple has at this moment just under $29 billion in cash and not many good ways to get a reasonable return on that money.  Only Microsoft has more cash than Apple and Microsoft is being pulled in a lot more directions so Microsoft doesn’t have Apple’s flexibility.

What will Apple do with that money?

Most of it will remain unspent is my prediction, but I’m guessing we’ll shortly see $3 billion or so per year go into buying Internet rights for TV shows — not old TV shows but NEW TV shows, shows of all types.

TV production in the U.S. is approximately a $15 billion industry.  An extra $3 billion thrown into that business would change its dynamics completely.  Most production isn’t done by networks but by independent producers who are hungry for revenue and risk reduction.  Three billion Apple dollars spread around that crowd every year would buy Internet rights for EVERY show — more than every show in fact.  Whole new classes of shows would be invented, sapping talent from other parts of the industry.  It would be invigorating and destabilizing at the same time.  And because it is Apple — a company with real style — the new shows wouldn’t at all be crap programming.  They’d be new and innovative.

And just as the artistic heart of TV shifted to cable with HBO in the 1980s, so it will shift to the Internet and Apple."

Worth reading the piece in full.

ON OVER-HYPING "PANDEMIC"

EAGER COVERAGE

We seem to be moving to the next stage in the morphing of the global Swine Flu crisis, as this Wall Street Journal piece describes:

"The United Nations public health agency raised its global pandemic alert level on Monday to "phase 4" from "phase 3," recognizing that the A/H1N1 virus is spreading from person to person and urging countries to prepare for a pandemic. Moving it up one notch, to "phase 5," would indicate that the virus is causing multiple outbreaks, or widespread human infection.

With multiple outbreaks in Mexico and human transmission now occurring in New York City, where people at a school in Queens were infected after some students traveled to Mexico, the disease has moved closer to that definition, Dr. Fukuda said."

As always in these types of situations, the mainstream media is almost ahead of the evolving reality, with almost every other report having the word "Pandemic" in it in one form or another.  This Business & Media Institute piece is on point:

“Are we on the verge of a swine flu pandemic?” That was a question asked by Larry King for CNN on April 27, but also by many Americans since April 24 as the number of confirmed cases around the world grew.

NBC’s Robert Bazell said the government didn’t “want people to panic,” but then panicked viewers saying “it appears to be an outbreak unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes.”

That scary, hyped tone reflected how many in the media covered the swine flu. Some media outlets hyped the threat with nearly constant coverage, worst-case scenarios or comparisons to the 1918 Spanish flu, while many others missed crucial points of the swine flu story, including the former president’s work to prepare in case of a pandemic flu and the issue of border security with Mexico."

Some in the media are taking note of this heightened focus on "pandemic", as the article goes on to describe:

"Fox News Channel’s Brit Hume and media critic Howard Kurtz both criticized the national news media for portraying the outbreak as “a full-blown crisis.” Hume called it “much ado about – I’m afraid to say this – not very much.” Kurtz particularly noted the “front-page headlines, constant cable-news updates and top-story status on the evening newscasts.”

Though most media accounts were less hyperbolic than NBC and AP’s, the word pandemic cropped up in fifteen stories on the three networks in four days (April 25-28). During that same time, CNN used “pandemic” in 51 stories and Fox News Channel in 10 stories according to Nexis."

It's too much to ask of course, but it'd really be something if the media for once tried to keep pace with this story, rather than gallop way ahead of it.

In the meantime, for a more balanced perspective on the situation, check out this piece by Dr. Mercola on the Mercola medical site.

ON COMEDY AND NEWS

PROJECT RATINGS

It's April Fool's Day and so time again to take everything we encounter today with an extra grain of salt.  But it's  hard to be impressed by pranks these days when it seems almost everyone we watch on TV is pulling one almost every day.  Steven Colbert of the Comedy Channel highlights one such "prank" by Fox personality Glenn Beck around his project 9/12, in a hilarious bit on his show:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The 10/31 Project
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

It's all good fun, but Glenn Beck may be having the last laugh.  His approach seems to have garnered him strong ratings a scant two months out from his new perch at Fox.

ON TRYING TO BE PRICELESS

FREAK AND FUNK

Visa keeps making headway in making TV commercials with broad appeal, as this latest "Super-Freak" ad illustrates:

Not quite the "Priceless" campaign by MasterCard, but not bad.  My favorite Priceless ad still is this "Back to School" ad from a year ago, played to "We Want the Funk":

Still don't get tired of watching that one.  Did you notice the Visa ad ends with the word "Funky"? Priceless.

ON LIVE PRODUCTIONS GOING DIGITAL

THAT'S SLOW BIZ

One of the last bastions of entertainment may finally be dragging itself slowly but surely, from the real world of live performances on to our TVs and eventually onto the internet.  As Variety reports in it's own lingo:

"As legiters seek footholds for old-fashioned live entertainment in the world of new media, the Metropolitan Opera has struck a profitable balance between stage and screen -- and theater orgs have begun to take note.

"The Met: Live in HD," the successful series of live hi-def cinema transmissions of current Met offerings, continues to expand even as the company has been forced to downsize some of its programming ambitions in the current economy.

The growing momentum of the program -- with more than 1.5 million tickets sold so far this season -- has caught the eye of legit orgs looking for ways to boost their brands. Earlier this year, London's National Theater announced a similar series of live cinema broadcasts clearly modeled on the Met's pilot program."

The rub to date has not been anything to do with technology or potential receptivity by the market, but business model issues having to do with union contracts.  Variety goes on to explain:

"Performer and stagehand unions were initially wary of the "Live in HD" program as a potential exploitation of its members -- but they warmed up when a deal was worked out that has union members sharing in revenues once the broadcast's production costs are recouped.

"It's a model that works," Gelb says, adding that sales easily outpace the costs of production and distribution, which average around $1.3 million per transmission."

And as one might have theorized, the experiment is broadening the audience for live productions:

"Part of the benefit comes in bringing Met fare to new auds -- a goal shared by an array of Gelb's aud-building programs, including free dress rehearsals and live telecasts in Times Square on the season's opening night.

"We've seen it go from the core opera fans to a broadening demographic," says Dan Diamond, VP of Fathom, the National CineMedia branch that distribs the "Live in HD" series. "It creates a relevance to younger audiences because it's in a movie theater, and it's more affordable."

That rising profile, in turn, feeds into box office at the Opera House itself. Paid attendance, which came in at 76% before such initiatives began, rose to 88% last season."

Who knows, we may see this trend expand to live theater as well, be it Broadway or Off-Broadway.  One of these days the show may yet go on...line.  Perchance to Dream.

ON GRASS-ROOTS ADVERTISING

FROM THE HEART

With the exploding popularity of social networks and social tools to leverage them, the question arises...what if consumers produced their own ads for products or services they really cared about? What would these "user-generated" ads look like?

Certainly, this movement has already started a few years ago, with marketers in recent SuperBowls fielding ads conceived by users.

But what if it was even more grass-roots than that? Might it look something like this ad done by a fan of Trader Joe Supermarkets? With his Blackberry? Take a look:

Who knows, the song may even become a standalone hit, like some of the tunes from those Apple commercials.  And they'd give a whole different twist to Fan Pages on social networks like Facebook.

ON FINANCIAL McCARTHYISM

PAUCITY OF HOPE

(Update:  Fred Wilson bravely weighs in with his thoughts on "Financial McCarthyism" as well following a recent discussion.  He makes some very good points on the subject.  The comments there are especially interesting, on both sides of the issue.)

Over the past few days, I've been talking about the populist outrage around AIG bonuses that is increasingly turning into naked rage, driven by politicians and the media down a slippery slope of hopeless self-destructiveness.  The current state of affairs is turning alarming, to say the least.

Thomas Friedman brings up some thoughts related to this sorry state of affairs in arresting terms:

"We’re in a once-a-century financial crisis, and yet we’ve actually descended into politics worse than usual.

There don’t seem to be any adults at the top — nobody acting larger than the moment, nobody being impelled by anything deeper than the last news cycle.

Instead, Congress is slapping together punitive tax laws overnight like some Banana Republic, our president is getting in trouble cracking jokes on Jay Leno comparing his bowling skills to a Special Olympian, and the opposition party is behaving as if its only priority is to deflate President Obama’s popularity."

It does feel like we have a vacuum of leadership at every level, and it's extinguishing hope everywhere. 

Our leaders and the media are fanning the flames of financial McCarthyism, trying to outdo each other in gathering lists of those who might have made a "bonus".

One wonders where the folks that could lead us through some of this at every level are hiding, hoping that they may yet raise their hand.

Mr. Friedman goes on though to describe why this may itself be a challenge:

"If you want to guarantee that America becomes a mediocre nation, then just keep vilifying every public figure struggling to find a way out of this crisis who stumbles once — like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner or A.I.G.’s $1-a-year fill-in C.E.O., Ed Liddy — and you’ll ensure that no capable person enlists in government.

You will ensure that every bank that has taken public money will try to get rid of it as fast it can, so as not to come under scrutiny, even though that would weaken their balance sheets and make them less able to lend money.

And you will ensure that we’ll never get out of this banking crisis, because the solution depends on getting private money funds to team up with the government to buy up toxic assets — and fund managers are growing terrified of any collaboration with government."

The sad thing in all this is that there are countless folks in every walk of life willing and able to do their part getting us through all this period.  We do need our leaders though to stop fanning the flames of class warfare, and doing a whole lot more to bring us together. 

After all, the house is on fire, and we need everyone's help to work together to put it out.  And soon.

ON EXPENSIVE OUTRAGE (part II)

FOCUSED RETRIBUTION

The furor over the AIG bonuses discussed yesterday continues today, seemingly stronger than ever.  Most of the discussions in the media, print, TV and online, continue to fan the populist outrage. 

Occasionally one can find a piece here and there that takes a breath to look at the broader implications inherent here, as this Washington Post article tries to do:

"The bonus scandal has inflamed lawmakers in both parties and could have broad repercussions, and lawmakers warned that it could serve as the death knell for further aid to the ailing sector. Obama's budget calls for allocating another $750 billion to bail out troubled firms, and his administration had hoped to quietly "wind down" operations at AIG without an excess of intervention from Congress, but both of those ambitions could be in doubt after the explosion of attention drawn by the bonuses."

In the meantime, the politicians continue to out-do each other in what they'd like to do to address the situation.  Most popular today seemed to laser-guided taxation, as the piece goes on to explain:

"Action on the legislation could begin as early as today in the Senate. A proposal from Senate Finance Committee Chairman  Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the panel's ranking Republican,  Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), would levy an excise tax on both AIG and the executives who received the payments, adding up to more than 90 percent of the total of the bonuses. That tax would also apply to future bonuses awarded, either by AIG or by other firms receiving federal aid.

"Similar proposals taking shape in the House would target as much as 100 percent of the bonus money..."
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the House will consider its own AIG tax bill, along with measures authorizing Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to recover excessive compensation payments made by companies that received federal financial assistance and to block further bonuses at such companies. Pelosi predicted "tough questioning" today when AIG chairman and chief executive Edward M. Liddy appears before Frank's committee.

Democratic lawmakers raced to put their proposals on the table.  Reps. Steve Israel (N.Y.) and  Tim Ryan (Ohio) introduced the Bailout Bonus Tax Bracket Act to create a 100 percent tax on bonuses over $100,000 that are distributed to employees of financial firms receiving federal bailout money.  Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) offered a version that would tax such bonuses at a 95 percent rate."

Amazingly, there were some politicians who expressed some broader reservations on this move to micro-targeted taxation:

"Some Democrats expressed concerns about the tax approach. House  Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters that he worried about running afoul of the Constitution's equal-protection clause, which forbids laws that treat certain groups differently.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman  Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.) also raised doubts about the tax idea. "It's difficult for me to think of the code as a political weapon," Rangel told a handful of reporters outside his office. "Is this an indictment or a bill?""

Kudos to both these legislators for raising some questions to a raging mob.

These seemingly small steps take us down a slippery slope that can have far greater negative consequences that are utterly unintended.  Surely the last few years should have taught us that lesson well by now.