NY Times columnist discovers blogging

David Carr is blogging. He even called some guy who posts a lot comments on his blog. Wow, isn’t blogging cool? How exciting.

4 comments January 14th, 2007

‘Lost’ coming to an end sometime soon

ABC is discussing with Lost producers how and when to end the TV series, said Stephen McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment. The show is in its third season, and one of its executive producers says he expects it to end after the fifth season. “We’re no longer going up the hill,” said Damon Lindelof. “We’re starting to come down now.” Meanwhile, McPherson said the network is going to tackle fewer new serials now after the poor performance of Daybreak, The Nine and Six Degrees this last fall season.

6 comments January 14th, 2007

ESPN live game chat disappoints

I recently caved and paid up for the ESPN Insider subscription. (I need my Peter Gammons fix, unlimited access to Rob Neyer and Buster Olney, and that “Rumor Central” section.) So I logged in during the Colts game on Saturday and brought up the Live Game Chat feature. What a disappointment. The discussion lagged way behind the game thanks, I’m guessing, to the task of moderating every single submission. I sent in two observations and neither were “acceptable” enough to let through. The moderators seemed to make arbitrary choices: it’s not as though every post was an act of genius. This new subscriber’s experience is not off to a good start.

3 comments January 14th, 2007

‘Spocko’ radio controversy hits the mainstream

The New York Times has picked up on the “Spocko” story. Recall that he’s the blogger whose site was pulled down by a C&D letter from Disney. His crime? Posting clips from radio talk shows he found offensive. The station, KSFO, is Disney-owned, and Spocko’s site host simply couldn’t hope to cover the cost of a SLAPP suit. Well, Spocko has found a new host and the clips have found a whole new life. They are viral audio. After Spocko contacted 30 of the station’s advertisers, KSFO had no choice but to respond. On Friday four KSFO hosts dedicated three hours of its airtime to the matter. The hosts played the clips and, in some cases, admitted they were a little rough. On the other hand, they were far from apologetic. From the Times: … the hosts were uniformly defiant against the bloggers, who were called “crackpots with keyboards” and accused of using “guerrilla tactics.” (As opposed to crackpots with microphones?) And at the KSFO site, the Friday shows are available for listening. Does this page introduction sound like an apology? “KSFO hosts responded to the anonymous Internet smear campaign during a special broadcast on, Friday, January 12th, at Noon, for three hours.” How, exactly, does playing clips from their own air constitute a smear campaign?

Add comment January 14th, 2007

Sundance movies will be online and at iTunes

Very cool idea from the Sundance Film Festival: They’re putting a bunch of the short films screened at the festival on the Sundance website. You’ll be able to watch them there for three months. Feel like buying the movie shorts and downloading them instead? The films will be available on iTunes. These initiatives will expose the movies to a mass audience. Sundance has always been about getting your film “noticed,” with the desperate hope a studio will pick it up. This way, the world has its say too. Inevitably, there will be a film that the Hollywood suits pass on that suddenly gets buzz because of its online popularity. Good for the artists. Sundance starts Wednesday.

Add comment January 14th, 2007

The real cost of an iPhone: up to $2,000+ in year one

Center Networks did the math, and found that the true cost of an iPhone is almost $2,000 during your first year of ownership if you go with some of the data plans. That’s not to say you can’t cut it down - or have it higher, either. It depends on the minutes and text messages you want from Cingular AT&T. Here’s how they break it down:

TOTAL PRICE IN YEAR ONE: $1,936

Now, we all spend a ton on our cellphone bills, especially those of us with mobile web access. But I really like how Center Networks did something you hardly see anymore with big-hype news stories: they put the story in context. Posters at Consumerist did some checking and found ways to get lower numbers. One poster suggests going with 5000 minutes for $40/month, and the $20/month media plan that only limits texting. That way you’d get down to about $1,315. ALSO: Engadget did 10 million pageviews on iPhone launch day. That’s ten times its normal traffic. Why so much traffic? They liveblogged Steve Jobs’s keynote. (via Cyberjournalist)

15 comments January 14th, 2007