Friday, May 07, 2004

Comic: Getting a Life [OK/Cancel] 9:21:14 PM    comment []

Christian Science Monitor: The accidental arbiter. An unelected official, he's in charge of regulating what people see and hear, and how. His purview ranges from new technology - using the Internet as a telephone, for example - to old debates with new heat, such as how much profanity seeps into TV programs. [Tomalak's Realm] 12:56:06 PM    comment []

On "Creative Communities".  . . . . we are stuck trying to force non-parodies into parodic costumes just to avoid prior restraint. [SV at Lessig Blog] 12:56:05 PM    comment []

NBC tries to outsmart TiVo? Glenn Fleishman says: NBC has scheduled the final broadcast of Friends to start tonight at 8.59 p.m. Why? To beat TiVo recording, obviously. I'm not sure if they don't want us to watch the penultimate episode of Survivor: All-Stars (confession: I'm addicted). But it's clear that starting it a minute early is intended to disrupt digital recording of shows that run 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. The fix is simple. On my ReplayTV, I just set a manual record from 9:00 to 10:00 for NBC (or I could set an 8:00 to 8:59 Survivors recording). But it's clear that this is a direct DVR pushback. But how does this help the network? I link to a post about Fear Factor in which the thread explores on a discussion board why Fear Factor was getting chopped or not recording. Link UPDATE: BoingBoing reader Andrew Stern says, "As a broadcasting student at SFSU, I suggest an alternate explanation for NBC starting Friends at 8:59PM." Starting the BIG (for NBC) Friends finale one minute early is more about ratings and shares/HUT's (households utilizing TVs) than screwing w/ TiVo users. NBC wants to ensure a very high Nielsen rating and this will be reflected in logbooks and PPM's if the show starts earlier. Just an opinion." (thanks, Xeni!) 6:50:49 AM    comment []

How Much Does Information Technology Matter?. In 2003, the Harvard Business Review published an article titled "IT Doesn't Matter." The debate still rages. By Hal R. Varian. [New York Times: Technology] 6:48:24 AM    comment []

How the Word Gets Around. How does a meme travel through the blogosphere? The Memespread Project seeded an idea and watched it grow, learning a lot about information transmission along the way. By Daniel Terdiman. [Wired News] 6:44:44 AM    comment []

When All Those Big Macs Bite Back. For 30 days, Morgan Spurlock consumed nothing but food from McDonald's, an experiment in bad living that frames a jaunty critique of junk gastronomy and corporate power. By A. O. Scott. [New York Times: Business] 6:44:32 AM    comment []