Category Archives: Media & Entertainment
Fuck it scene from The Deer Hunter
Marty! The flux capacitor!
Spotted across the street from my local coffee shop this morning. Cherry!
Ben Hur galley ship scene (with subtitles)
Before remote controls
This is me fooling around with old video clips. Nothing more.
Radio dial just too small
Been thinking some more about broadcasters lobbying for mobile carriers to turn on the FM receiver chip in phones. Never gonna work. Radio dial just too small. A little back-story:
Since getting my first iPhone several years ago, I’ve always listened to music with earbuds when in the car. The 4Runner didn’t have a good way to interface and I just never bothered when I got the MINI. Apple Music has me listening more these days so I purchased an aux cable to play iPhone music through the MINI speakers.
Lo and behold! The MINI has really good speakers. Way better experience than the earbuds. (Yes, everybody told me that) Anyway, back to the radio dial…
With the unlimited data plan (ATT) on my phone, I can listen to (almost) all the music there is. And the playlists. And the customized “stations”… as well as the half-dozen podcasts I follow.
“Hey, Siri. Podcast. Tech News Today.” Voila!
No radio station can match this. ALL the radio stations can’t match this.
How to hire radio talent
Mark Ramsey is a “media strategist, researcher and trend-maker.” What we used to call a consultant. Here’s part of his answer to the question: “what qualifications should we be looking for in talent, programming, and sales that are different from today’s conventional qualifications?”
For talent, nothing else will be more important than that talent’s skill and engagement with social media and digital platforms.
Here’s some questions he’d ask before hiring:
- How big is your personal audience, the one you have direct relationships with, as measured by social media?
- How many Twitter followers do you have?
- How big is your Facebook fan page, and how strong is your engagement?
- How many Instagram followers and likes do you have?
- How many YouTube subscribers and total views do you have?
- Do you have a website for your own brand?
- How big is your brand’s personal email list? How often do you send out email? What do you send?
- What podcasts do you produce? How much listenership do they receive? How many podcast subscribers do you have?
“In other words, to what degree do you – the talent – take responsibility for building your own personal brand? And how can you demonstrate the power of that brand to me?”
I think he’s right. As I’ve watch social media grow and evolve I’ve wondered how I would have fared in this new media environment. Glad I didn’t miss the “spinning records” era.
Apple Music’s “For You” feature
The idea is to recommend music based on my existing iTunes library along with the genres and artists I ID’d when setting up Apple Music. (I never found Pandora’s algorithm very good at this. The other services might be better.) It’s only been a few days but I’m impressed, especially with the playlists. Seeing my favorite artists/music as well as deep tracks I didn’t know existed. With stuff by artists I’ve never heard of. This experience will only get richer (I hope) as I continue to provide feedback by listening an liking playlists and individual tracks. This browse runs 9 minutes but you can bail after a couple and still get the idea.
Fortunate Son
I recently heard a bluesy/jazzy version of CCR’s Fortunate Son. The uke chords seemed to be within my limited range so I’ve been amusing myself (and our two dogs). This afternoon I took a break to fiddle around with Garageband. This sounds nothing like the cover that got me started. Submitted here for your amusement.
The people formerly known as advertisers
Media researcher Gordon Borrell says “we’ve reached the end of the Golden Age of Advertising.”
- 82% of SMBs have established their own media channel in the form of a website or social media page.
- Since 2007, spending has skyrocketed to the point at which businesses last year spent 72% more on marketing services and promotions than they had spent 10 years earlier. Meanwhile, the annual expenditure on local advertising was 22% less than it was a decade ago.
- “Over the next 12 months, the gap will almost certainly widen to the point that all traditional advertising channels — print, broadcast, outdoor and mail — begin to look like niche support mechanisms to a local businesses’ digital marketing plan.”