13-Year Old Reviews 1st Gen Sony Walkman. Hilarity Ensues.

This is just about the most fun thing I have read in a while.  BBC Magazine had a 13-year-olp boy give up his iPod  in exchange for a 1st generation Sony Walkman. Yes, the one that used cassette tapes.

Here are just a few gems from his report on the experience:

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.

Genius!

He had told me it was big, but I hadn’t realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book.

Totally true!  Read his whole review here.

Ripe Digital’s Downfall Had Obvious Cause

I was just reading about Ripe Digital, one of a slew of original digital content creators founded in recent years, filing for bankruptcy.  They follow in the footsteps of 60Frames and ManiaTV.

While I am sure their founders are blaming the economy I think the answer is far less obtuse.  According to NewTeeVee, Ripe Digital raised over $45 million in financing.

Ripe Digital was focused on creating entertainment for dudes with the online networks RipeTV, OctaneTV and FlowTV, featuring such shows as Sexy Road Test, Funk Flex TV and Pauly Shore’s America.  LINK

And there it is – one cannot hope to recoup $45 million on a slate where the biggest draw is Paul Shore.  It’s not that there isn’t money to be made in this space, it’s just that it is wildly unrealistic to think in terms of tens of millions of dollars.  Those who succeed in original online video will do so by radically reducing overhead, staffing and all the other acoutremonts of the old media world.

Related articles by Zemanta

• ManiaTV shuts (inquisitr.com)

Whorified Webseries Another Example of a Lost Opportunity

So, a week ago a new original webseries launched.  This one is called “Whorified” (warning: flash) and it is a spoof on “America’s Next Top Model” but this is a hunt for America’s next top whore.

While the idea isn’t exactly a breakthrough, the production value and casting are both excellent and the overall effect is strong.  Combined with a catchy concept you’d think this is one that could get some traction. Not so much…

After a stop at the homesite – a horrendously slow-loading flash disaster – it turns out that to see the episodes I actually have to go to either YouTube or FunnyOrDie.  Why they haven’t at least embedded the videos on their homepage beyond me.

Anyhow, after 7 episodes in release, the series looks to be averaging about 300 views/episode.  Considering there is a cast of at least 20 people, this means almost nobody outside of their own circle of friends has even checked this thing out.

So, why is it such a flop?  My guess is the simplest and most common reason out there – they spend all they had on production and never considered how they would actually market this thing.  My guess is that they figured between the title and subject matter they would go viral in no time.  Now, the series hasn’t been up for that long, so it might still catch on but I continue to be baffled by seemingly competent producers fail to give their work any help finding an audience.

While it might be hard to gain millions of viewers with just marketing, the marketing can help build the critical mass needed to make those sorts of exponential jumps in viewership.

Anyhow, check out episode 1 of Whorified:

Attn: RIAA! Quick, Sue ListenToYouTube.

It must be so tough being a RIAA lawyer. Every morning you have wake up and face the fact that 100 new sites just popped up hoping to make music more fun and accessible and it is your job to sue them out of existence as quickly as possible.

Today, RIAA is going to have to decide how many hours ListenToYouTube.com is allowed to live:

ListenToYouTube is a simple web-based application for pulling the audio out of a YouTube video and converting it to MP3. The service is free and simple: you plug in the URL for the video, it grabs the audio, you download the MP3. LINK

Considering how easy it is to find nearly every song ever made on YouTube it is only a short step from there to creating your own entirely illegal collection of ripped music.

Poor RIAA.  Some many people to sue and so little time to do it.

OVGuide Gets $5 Million and Pirate Bay Goes to Court?

This is why the internet will keep lawyers in business forever.

As I write, extremely popular P2P BitTorrent site piratebay.org, is in court defending itself for providing links, but not hosting, content that might violate copyrights.

Meanwhile, OVGuide, a website that provides searchable links to literally thousands of sites that illegally stream major movies and television shows has just gotten $5,000,000 in venture financing.

Can someone please explain to me why one of these sites is in court and the other one is rolling in cash?