Random Culture

Embracing The Free Exchange of Ideas

Prior to Macworld, many websites were buzzing with links to a beautiful application for ordering at Starbucks. Turns out, it wasn't an official Apple release, but the imagination of a multimedia designer, Phil Lu. You can view an animated concept of the application here, and the folks at Influx Insights have a short interview here. If someone doesn't hire this guy and treat him like a rock star, something is wrong with the universe.

Ideas like this make me even more sad that Apple didn't embrace developer applications from the outset. As we've seen with Facebook, the value of opening platforms to developers can have an amazing impact. We're waiting...

Friday Future: Apple in Japan

Wow... Hashem at the Brain Sells blog posted a great video of Apple's beautiful interactive 3D "pillars" from the Tokyo Ginza Store. They let visitors to the store know what's on each floor. Check out the video below.

ABC & iTunes: 1 Million Free Downloads

ABC has teamed up with iTunes and launched a promotion called the "iTunes Million Hit Lowdown", giving away 1 million free downloads of the season finale episodes from last year for Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy and LOST.

It makes good sense for ABC, since it's basically a promotion to drum up viewers for the upcoming new seasons for each of these shows. The promotion runs until October 4.

Link via MIT Convergence Culture Consortium.

iTunes Has Movies!

The iTunes Music Store has updated, and is now selling movies. If you remember my post at the end of August, Business Week speculated that Apple would be charging $14.99 per movie, an increase from the original $9.99 that Steve Jobs wanted to charge. Well, it looks like there was an even compromise, and new releases are selling for $12.99. Older movies are selling for $9.99. At least, that's how I think it works, although I wouldn't say "The Life Aquatic" is a new release, and it's selling for $12.99.

I've got kind of a lukewarm reaction to this. It's still not attractive for me to get a small discount on new releases, since many new releases can be bought for $19.99. But it will be interesting to see what happens with the older releases. The Long Tail in action, baby!

The weirdest thing in all of this, I think, is how Apple has branded the store. First it was the iTunes Music Store... now it's called the iTunes Store. They dropped the music, but they haven't dropped the "Tunes." Anyone think we may see iStore or iDownload any time soon?

Update: Engadget has some great info around this subject from the Steve Jobs keynote. A couple interesting facts from that presentation:

• iTunes has a market share of 88% for legal US downloads
• iTunes is the 5th largest reseller of music in the US, behind Amazon, projected to surpass Amazon in January
• 45 million TV shows have been downloaded from iTunes since last October
• Resolution of video has increased to 640x480.

iTunes Movie Sales Coming Mid-September

Business Week reports that Apple will be announcing the ability to buy movies from iTunes in mid-September. According to Business Week:

"The price Apple hopes to charge, now set at $14.99 for new releases and $9.99 for older movies, has risen from Jobs's initial plan to offer new flicks for $9.99, say industry insiders."

Talk about disappointment. I certainly wouldn't pay $14.99 for a proprietary formatted, lower resolution movie when I can buy the DVD for a few bucks more and do whatever I want with it. I'm not saying people won't pay... they will. So far, it looks like Apple has only gotten Walt Disney signed up for sales, but that's how it all started selling television episodes. All it took was some initial small successes, and everyone else jumped at the opportunity.

Read the full Business Week article here.

Nike & Apple = Nike+

Nike and Apple have teamed up to create shoes that integrate with your iPod. You basically get audio feedback about your performance, and software that tracks it. Pretty interesting stuff. Learn more by checking out the great website they built at: Nike.com/nikeplus/.

And oh yeah, Nike USA redesigned their homepage, too.

Anthropomorphizing Apple

Apple has launched a new round of commercials that "anthropomorphize" macs and PCs. The PC, of course, is a suit and tie clad geek (The Daily Show's John Hodgeman), and the mac is personified by a much cooler geek (Justin Long - Dodgeball, Herbie Fully Loaded).

There are 6 new commercials in all, but the "networking" one is my favorite.

Ads in iTunes?

Advertising Age has an article about Apple's plans to allow advertising within iTunes. According to the article: "Apple's current plans call for the ads to appear only in the lower-left corner of the iTunes library while users listen to podcasts from their computers rather than from portable devices."

Huh? In case you don't already know, podcast publishers can already control this by creating an "enhanced" podcast, which is very easy to do. How is this something new? Heck, even without creating an "enhanced" podcast, the artwork associated with your podcast shows up here.

The only "new" scenario would be if Apple allowed an advertiser to display an ad while someone else's podcast was playing... and I'm not sure that would go over well. Read the full Advertising Age article here.

Disney Loves iTunes

The iTunes success stories just keep coming. From TV Week:

"Disney CEO Bob Iger said Disney content has surpassed 4 million downloads on iTunes since October 2005, when the media company first made television programming available."

Wow, that's pretty impressive. Apple has quickly postured itself as indispensible to the TV networks as a distribution channel.

Link via Micropersuasion.

New iPod + iTunes Commercial

Apple has released a new iPod + iTunes commercial... called "1,000 songs." You can watch it below, but if you'd like to watch it in HD, or download it to your iPod, visit the official Apple page for the new commercial here. Link via AdLand.

iTunes $10 Movie Downloads?

Everyone fully expects that iTunes will begin offering movie downloads. Sure enough, a few days ago the first movie was spotted on iTunes. It was a Disney "made for TV" movie called High School Musical. The price was the same $1.99 as all the other TV shows. However, the price was soon updated to $9.99!

I don't know about you, but $10 is a heck of a lot of money to pay for a low quality video file of a movie. So what's the right price? $4.99? $5.99? I can tell you that I won't be buying any $9.99 movies from iTunes anytime soon.

Link via Business 2.0 Blog.

ABC iTunes Blunder?

Podcasting News points out that ABC is in hot water with the Screen Actor's Guild for selling episodes of their TV shows on iTunes. The Screen Actor's Guild has issued a statement about their intent to pursue arbitration against ABC. According to a statement from SAG president Alan Rosenberg:

"In violation of our collective bargaining agreements, ABC recently began selling Lost and Desperate Housewives for digital download to iPods without first bargaining with Screen Actors Guild. Today ABC advised the Guild that it intends to pay residuals to performers based on the videocassette formula - a formula that does not apply to this new platform."

This is something you need to pay attention to, particularly if you're repurposing content. As an example, if you are an agency releasing commercials and "behind the scenes" video on iTunes as a podcast, you need to secure the rights to do so.

The Mysterious iTunes User

Nielsen/Netratings has released a report (pdf) about the mysterious iTunes user. According to the report, about 14% of the active Internet population used iTunes in December. In addition, Nielsen/Netratings says that iTunes traffic increased 241% over the last year.

The study also reveals some interesting demographic and behavioral details about iTunes users. iTunes users are fairly even in the gender split, at 54% male, 46% female. They like Volkswagen, Audi and Subaru, and have a preference for hard cider? What the heck, hard cider?

I'd say we should take these numbers with a grain of salt. Nielsen/Netratings didn't reveal their methodology for this report, and it's likely that it has about the same credibility as their DVR panel, which was based on 60 DVRs. You can read more about that fiasco here.

Link via AdFreak.

iTunes Expands, 3 Million Video Downloads

iTunes has drastically expanded their TV offerings, with NBC, USA and Sci-Fi jumping on the bandwagon. This brings the grand total of availble episodes on iTunes to more than 300. It's not just the latest TV shows, either. You can purchase vintage NBC programs such as "Knight Rider" and "Dragnet." They've even added a functionality where you can buy seasons of TV shows as gifts!

What's impressive is the response this is getting from iTunes shoppers. In a press release issued today, Apple states that since the debut of video on October 12 of this year, over 3 million videos have been purchased and downloaded.

1 Million Videos in 20 Days

I'm completely blown away by Apple's announcement that they sold a million of their new videos in just 20 days... And once again, they've beaten another industry to the punch, and are reaping the rewards.

This is huge... it not only signals the beginnings of video's limelight online, but it also signals changes in consumer behavior. We know now that yes, people do watch movies and tv on their computers.

A couple things to keep your eye on:

- Podcasting's video successor
  Look around on iTunes, you can already see them
- Online only television shows
  Digital life TV, Systm, etc...
- Movies released solely online
  This one happened yet? I bet it has

They're happening right now... And only going to become more common.

500 million downloads

Since its inception over two years ago, Apple announced that it's sold more than 500 million legal downloads. And the music catalog now has 1.5 million songs in it. Funny, I remember the hubub when  Apple announced they had sold 1 million songs. And their catalog was a whopping 200,000 songs.

Link via Billboard PostPlay.

Enhanced Podcasting

It wasn't too long ago that I was talking to a friend about one of the better podcasts I had seen. It was better because it offered more than just audio. The site that accompanied it included photos, links to things talked about in the podcast, and a ton of other relevant information. That made it more than amateur radio.

It seems that Apple's adoption of podcasting has gone beyond just making them available on iTunes. The folks over at Make:Blog have an enormous write-up on how Apple is now supporting "enhanced podcasts" that include slideshows, URLs and more. You can check out a video of what these podcasts look like here, and the post explains how to make them in full detail.

I expect we'll see more podcasts being "enhanced." This makes them exponentially more valuable to users, but it also opens up new possibilities for advertising and sponsorship.

iPod Flea

The iPod Flea is a great iPod parody from Scott Kelby, who unveiled the spoof in the keynote of his recent Mac Design conference.

iTunes Podcasting is Live

The new iTunes 4.9 is now available for download, and includes support for podcasting. Time to get your podcast on... You can subscribe to podcasts via the iTunes "podcast directory", and there's a new podcast section in the interface that allows you to organize your podcasts.

Link via MAKE: Blog

Emeril and Your iPod

Emeril Lagasse's restaurant has recipes, meals and contact information for your iPod. Check out the Emerils.com website for more.

Link via Blogspotting.

Apple Notebooks to Include GPS, Eventually

This Slashdot article mentions the possibility of Apple eventually including a tiny pencil eraser-sized GPS tracker in their laptops.

Using a very simple user interface, you can define locations. Sitting at your desk, you tell your laptop to refer to that location as "work." Any file created within a 100-yard radius of that location will be returned in a search for "work." On your couch you define a location called "home." Sitting at the coffee shop you define a location called "Starbucks." And so on.

Now your computer knows not only when you modified that file, it knows where you were when you did it. That's all metadata you can use for searching.

Okay, it's about time for me to trade in my monolithic PC laptop for greener lap-pastures.  All those creepy pictures I drew while stalking around Cameron Diaz' house could have been tagged as "Cam's House" and would be easily searchable.

I can imagine some hackers making some pretty great little toys with an embedded GPS in the laptops.  For example, how about a little app that sends Cameron Diaz "I'm in your neighborhood and I thought I'd drop by" emails every time I'm near "Cam's House."  Of course this is all assuming Apple exposes those GPS APIs, and they seem to be pretty good about that stuff.

The Apple Crusade

Some new developments in Apple's crusade against online journalists to reveal their sources. Apple's crusade has made the blogosphere pretty irate, but it's also brought many influential people together to show support and fight for the rights of us all. A number of influential folks including Feedster, Gawker Media, Doc Searls, Joi Ito and many others filed an Amicus Brief in the case.

According to the EFF site: The amici urged the court to adopt "a functional test for the newsgatherers' privilege that does not discriminate between reporters, regardless of the medium in which they publish." They urge the court to "adopt a test that will not impede journalists' use of the Internet to report news by limiting their constitutional protections when they publish there."

And that's just the beginning. According to an AP story in the Mercury News, "Eight of California's largest newspapers and The Associated Press submitted a court brief Thursday asking that the online publishers be allowed to keep their sources confidential."

It feels like Apple almost wants to take their reputation down a notch...

Links via BoingBoing and Kottke.

We Hardly Knew Ye

I approached Apple's recent price cuts on the iPod line like many other people who already have them... I shrugged my shoulders and thought "why did I pay $40 more not too long ago."

But I missed something... They've gotten rid of the Gold iPod Mini. The BBC has a great eulogy.

Link via Kottke.

Hello Kitty iPod Mini

The folks at TechJapan point to a limited edition Hello Kitty iPod Mini... Here are the details from their site:

"Available only in pink, the 6GB iPod mini comes with a Hello Kitty iBe@r stand, case and set of keyrings. Only 2000 will be available so don't delay!"

Will the Hello Kitty brand ever die? I don't think so.

iPod Shuffle Stickers

TechJapan posts about a Japanese message board where you can download user-created templates to customize your iPod Shuffle with stickers. (For those of us who can't read Japanese, when you get to the message board, use the pink buttons at the very bottom to move through the pages.)

There seems to be something for everyone on this site... 

Nice: old school, mini, red/green

Absurd: painful, boxing, showgirls

Original post from Slashdot Japan.