October 2009 Archives

Yahoo's long-running web hosting service Geocities is making a permanent home for itself on a nice farm where it can run and play in the fields and be happy.

According to Broadcasting and Cable, the bigwigs at News Corp. are talking about taking online TV and movie streaming clearinghouse Hulu to a pay model by 2010, which barring a massive shift in Hulu's model will have the net effect of A) pushing viewers back to TV, B) bumping DVD sales to consumers savvy enough to recognize that owning content forever is better than paying a subscription fee for content which is only available for a month or two, C) pushing viewers to other sources for streaming content, all of which will result in D) Hulu losing users, possibly to the point of its eventual dissolution.

Not to oversimplify the complex underlying economic factors here, but here's hoping that Hulu wraps its head around the whole "cost of providing content must be less than or equal to the revenue generated by the ads which run concurrent to that content" thing before then.

YMMV on whether it's worth the cash, but at least it doesn't suck.  So at least you don't have to fear it.

TO: The United States Federal Trade Commission
CC: The Internet

Sirs,

Pursuant to the FTC's recent ruling requiring that bloggers disclose any payments or freebies given to them for reviewing a company's products, I am issuing the following statement:

Needless to say, I was excited to hear about this fascinating business prospect!  I am eager to be paid directly by hardware and software manufacturers for review copy.  Please put me in touch with the appropriate representatives of interested parties (as they currently do not respond to direct inquiries from me regarding same).

Yours,
DP, MP

Here's the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon interview of Brütal Legend developer and friend of the show Tim Schafer that we were talking about last Friday.



If you've followed Brütal Legend at all, a lot of the details will be old hat to you, but some of the behind-the-scenes elements were new to me (and interesting whether or not they're new to you).

Game developers are stereotypically anti-social as far as humans go, but Schafer gives good interview here. Fallon's fanboyish approach to gaming may softballed the interview a little bit, but still, Schafer comes across as a guy who may not have chosen his profession for the minor chance that he may have to do Late Night-level press but is nonetheless not too uncomfortable with it. Without getting too editorial about the games industry as a whole, developers who can actually hold their own in this kind of high-level mainstream element are going to be necessary if gaming is ever to really be considered an entertainment platform on par with music, movies, etc.

Hell, I've seen a few of the bigger names on the Brütal Legend soundtrack do worse in the interview chair.

Betty Bean's son-in-law will be on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon in, like, an hour, promoting some new project about which we may have spoken already.

If you're up early enough tomorrow, CoK's Solar America City people are doing a Solar Tour & Fair at Krutch Park.  Check out the agenda here (pdf) while I attempt to tastefully refrain from making jokes about solar-powered panhandlers.

...whoops.