Tag Archives: damages

Saturday’s Red Riding The Pale King + Skins.

0
Filed under TV

So with Zemanta generating related links, photos + MrTweet recommending who to follow, and Twitter being the happy enabler of no longer than 140 character communication, it won’t be long till our communication is automated; Friends are automatically matched, posts automagically generated + the semantic web takes over. So given it’s not worth fighting The Intersect in all of us, I’m just grabbing some hyperlinks mashed up with my fave viewing of the last 48 hours. So many gigs, so little bandwith.

Red Riding : 9/10 Yorkshire Noir Fo Real.

Not Even Semi-Conventional Endings : S1E1-2 of 3 -

Final out Next Thurs Eve UK Time/Friday Rest of World.

Red Riding, a 3 parts British series of investigations into abducted girls/killed women is so fn good I cant praise it enough. It’s not family viewing tho. Being a British equivalent of David Fincher’s Brad Pitt/Morgan Freeman masterpiece Se7en. The 3 parter is subtitled the year it’s set : 1974, 1980 + 1988. The aesthetics on this are amazing, I can only imagine what it’s like at BluRay or even x264 quality using a decent monitor. The set of books now I’m hoping are like a British James Ellroy, and on my list of must haves when I have da$.

They are getting Rats to Trade Stocks, as they would obviously be better than most fund managers via Kortina : “Every day the rats were confronted with 100 different ticker tracks; the goal was to make them find out sound-patterns that humans are not able to recognize, and to predict the next market move after the last sound heard. ( I am currently working on a website to train humans too).  Each time after listening to a sound, the rat had to choose between pressing either a green or  a red button, green for “long” (if the prices were expected to move up), red  for “short” (if they predicted a decline in prices). When they were right they received a small amount of food (the good rats became fat very fast) when they had taken the wrong button, they received a minor electric shock. Very soon it showed that some rats were doing  outstandingly well: they developed a good ability to remember the patterns they were listening to; we needed them to react to real time data though.”

Kramer vs Jon Stewart : I’m still trying to get around to watching this 8 minute video that the blogosphere is awarding to Stewart. Or read about the womyn they should have listeened to not Greenspan and his pals : “In 1997, Brooksley Born warned in congressional testimony that unregulated trading in derivatives could “threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy without any federal agency knowing about it.” Born called for greater transparency — disclosure of trades and reserves as a buffer against losses. Instead of heeding this oracle’s warnings, Greenspan, Rubin & Summers rushed to silence her. As the Times story reveals, Born’s wise warnings “incited fierce opposition” from Greenspan and Rubin who “concluded that merely discussing new rules threatened the derivatives market.” Greenspan deployed condescension and told Born she didn’t know what she doing and she’d cause a financial crisis. (A senior Commission director who worked with Born suggests that Greenspan and the guys didn’t like her independence. ” Brooksley was this woman who was not playing tennis with these guys and not having lunch with these guys. There was a little bit of the feeling that this woman was not of Wall Street.”"

Unfinished Fiction by David Foster Wallace : I was holding my breath when reading about DFW’s unfinished, drove him crazy latest fiction. We await with reverence via Mercury News : “Michael Pietsch, Wallace’s editor at Little, Brown, said that he had a tentative agreement with Wallace’s agent to publish “The Pale King” in the spring of 2010. The unfinished novel, Max writes, was in part Wallace’s attempt to move beyond the “self-consciously maximalist style” of “Infinite Jest.” “I think he didn’t want to do the old tricks people expected of him,” Max quotes Wallace’s wife, Karen Green, as saying. “It was different from what he had written before,” said New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman, though it’s also clear that some of it recalls the expansive, trick-filled Wallace many readers came to love. The characters in “The Pale King” are Internal Revenue Service agents in the Midwest. The intense tediousness of their jobs and their attempts to transcend boredom reflect Wallace’s preoccupation with the concept of “mindfulness” — the idea, as he put it in a 2005 commencement speech, that you should be “conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.”

Free Agents - 7.5/10 : It’s Solid Smirk_OL

Pete Doherty on the other hand is in a happy non dead place : ‘“I get very paranoid. There was the time I thought terrorists were on my roof, trying to break in. You can laugh, but it was scary. In my mind they were outside trying to get me. “When you have the crack shakes, you think everyone you know is going to kill you.”‘ BTW as I type this I’m watching my fave Saturday morning 23 minutes show another Brit #FreeAgents S1E5, which starts with the recently separated homeless talent agent Alex, meeting with coworker supporting lead’s accountant to which when asked what The Plan is for his life :

Free Agents S1E5 : The Plan, well um, The Plan, Step 1 of The Plan obviously, was to walk out on my family, and have a semi-nervous breakdown. Big Tick, nailed that. Two - I’m thinking; Just See - What Happens. That’s about as far as I’ve got with The Plan.”

Skins - 9.2/10 : Love Love Love It! 

So near perfect for television targeted at or more accurately about GenY...

Cant think of a fault… across 3 series.. when u start with a new cast so u can focus on same age bracket - genius. I wish they’d make a film of it or by same people. As they r fn brilliant. And so few people watch this show… preferring to Buzz about how conflicted they are about Dollhouse or breasts on Underbelly (the latter being vgood the former not) Anyway, Skins and SidnNancy below Effy roolz so bad. Soon I’m going to sit down and watch Season 1-3 back2back.

Skins own Nancy.… it is a bit of a fascist regime being part of GenY.

So is Effy bulimic, drug addicted or up the duff. Probably all three but the bonus will be having Cooks child. So there will be a termination.. and what will happen from there ? Do they replace cast again ? In which case she may die from termination complications. But that story would be too conventional for Skins. They do it harder.

So we’re off on a camping trip…. this can only end badly!

Smaller Orange Vantage or Bigger Black DBS Aston ?

Effy - the one remaining cast member from Series 2 (well one of two if u count Panda) never gets more than a few hours of the life she wants, then she hits self destruct mode.

BTW totally unrelated but Postrank really helped me out this week.. their product of blog algorithm popularity filtering really works.. I am non programmer hear me code thx to Postrank or Aiderss as i prefer to call em:)

It always ends with tears or bruises… I’ll drop in some links ere after a cawfee. Dave Winer’s twitter piece is worth a read, there does need to be something other than Twitter :)Bottom-line: This isn’t the way the Internet works. The guys at Twitter should know this. I think they’re living in a bubble, and creating one at the same time. No one likes someone who pops the bubble while it’s still building. So be it. We need to get that power out of their hands, or they need to disclaim it. They’re such a small guy, it’s really puzzling why they would do something that alienates so many. Most people won’t say it, for the obvious reason that their business interests prevent them from. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be said.

Damages - 9/10 S2 Roolz. Every1 Has an Angle.

They stepped up the cast so they could deliver same continuous flash forward/back state of double/tripple/quad angle playing. The Wire Lester Freamon is pretty much architect of S2, I wonder if he will be killed. If u assume Ellen and Glenn Close need to live.. but Lester and William Hurt are likely guest stars for S2 and therefore may die.. what will happen to the rest ? One FBI is dead, Pete - Pattys Crim Dirty Deeds Uncle is dead.. and what about Wes an ex police who is doing Ellen but has a contract to kill her to get out of something corrupt he did. I hope he kills the guy who was editor/sub at The Wire S5, the hitman who is the father of the Fangrrl on Flight of the Conchords. Oh and what will happen to Walt Kendricks - the closeted Police Commissioner on The Wire.. who in #Damages the evil yet dumb East Coast establishment owner, who is always a step behind but has brutal power and protection. Anyway just watch it already.. but u have to watch Season 1 first.. I wish I could watch it all again…

Just as every1 has an angle on Damages, the Australian online industry has 2 angles says Mark Jones in his very good Marketing Love in Piece on Filtered Media : Digital Agency who sell display, sponsorship, websites, search engine optimisation or Social Media Consultant. The former supposedly I guess via search want performance marketing (in reality not so much unless pure SEO/M) while the latter talk ‘brand conversations’ - Altho they havent usually worked in brand management for a major or startup company. In yesteryear they would have worked in a traditional agency hehe. Anyway all these people were at Ad:Tech + Aimia awards and wrecking the fk up of twitter. Ooh look ma I can use a hashtag. How kewl is this backchannel not, whatevs. There really better be something after twitter. It’s gr8 the mainstreamisation, but there is goin to need to be some fracturing to keep group sizes a good fit.

David Lee’s Ad:Tech preso on Transparency : It all sounds good till u have to implement it.. or walk away from money/work/clients that dont want it. Easier to talk than walk. But nice pictures/preso that said. Really wish presos from conferences had audio attached.

Wes in Damages is vkewl, and he’s the sheriff in the amazing Deadwood : Now the lead of Deadwood Shane McGowan has a new show coming out Sunday in America called Kings, which I’m interested in checking out. Via Sepinwall on NJ.com : “In “Kings,” NBC’s contemporary re-imagining of the Old Testament story of David, Goliath and King Saul, Goliath is an enemy tank, the slingshot is a grenade duct-taped to a wrench and the king’s son is party-boy magnet for the paparazzi. The concept of translating classic tales into a modern context is by now so familiar that it’s almost a surprise when a new Shakespeare adaptation isn’t set in the 21st century. But where a project like Fox’s short-lived “Skin” (”Romeo and Juliet” in the LA porn industry, complete with Ron Silver barking, “His father is the district attorney!”), borrows the traditional framework and little more, what sets “Kings” apart — for good and maybe for ill — is how faithful it tries to stay to both the content and the spirit of the original. ”

Kerpoof! A Lesson in Focus : Own a specific demographic with the right featureset and Disney may acquire you, in this case the 3-8 yr old set. Looks obvious in retrospect. Alot harder when in it with the doubters. Kudos. Focus + Features yo’all. Via Colorado Startups : “Krista and her team did a fantastic job bootstrapping Kerpoof. They flirted with raising money a few times, but never really needed to. They funded the company by doing some lucrative consulting on the side, signing up early customers and landing a grant or two. All the while, they were building some  fantastic technology that really appealed to youngsters. If you have some kids in the 3-8 year old range and you haven’t checked out Kerpoof, have them give it a try.”

Life on Mars US version - 6.2/10

Started off really strong, love the casting, and the aesthetics… but the overall story line its a bit blah.. but having watched UK Life on Mars + Ashes to Ashes upon whic its based, plus the US series.. they all suffer from an overall bigger picture at the end of each series or the show itself. It’s one of those time travel issues.. which makes u realise how amazingly they are navigating it via Daniel in #Lost ! Although is Space Travel different to Time Travel ?

I agree with Clique Clack on the show + latest episode with Showgirls/Bound Gina Gershon : “With only three episodes left, things continue to run at a snail’s pace with this show to bring us to the finale. There’s little that could have been done, though, since these episodes were likely shot before the word came down from on-high that the show was not getting a renewal. I just today realized that the finale episode will air on April 1st. Hopefully that’s just a coincidence and we’re not going to be in for a big joke when this all comes down … that is, unless the joke is: “haha, we’re not canceled and this isn’t the end!” Actually, that would kinda suck too. It’s tough to come up with a theory that sticks, based on all of the “evidence” thrown at us these past 14 episodes. The latest clue seems to point toward this all having to do with space travel.

Or rather than space travel, check out Cool Hunting and maybe u’d like to live in amazing industrially designed by Adam Kalkin refitted aircraft hanger. Or if on a budget, try one of those shipping containers which was the basis for The Wire wharfs series (4?) where bodies were found minus oxygen.

Chuck - Solid 7.2+/10 for Season 2

Now get the girl and the Intersect out of yer Head

If you are into Chuck : The map of the Intersect below that Chuck has (Life Charlie Crews style) behind his Tron poster (that his dad gave him and may of invented the intersect the forums say?) Anyway the flashy map is up at NBC, vkewl.

As usual gr8 review of last ep (S2E16 ere) which roold, over at Sepinwall :

Just so you know, I am going to get this thing out of my head one day. I will. And when I do, I’m going to live the life that I want with the girl that I love. Because I’m not going to let this thing rob me of that. I won’t.” -Chuck Bartowski

DaBaGirls are #Lost w/ #Damages in LALA_Land

0
Filed under Recession, TV
The Hooker and The Trader are Yakking it up, but now the Lawyer is trying to get the Kendrick joost.

The Hooker and The Trader are Yakking it up, but now the Lawyer is trying to get the Kendrick joost.

So #Damages Season 2 is getting damn good. Latest S2E8 ep’ere (and first 7 eps of S2 as well). I was hooked from Ep.1, well I was hooked from Series 1 but the return has been great - It’s all an allstar cast - Glenn Close, Rose Byrne, Ted Danson and the Damages regulars (like the hitman from The Wire newspaper + father of crazy chick in Flight of Conchords), with new additions like William Hurt, and couple of the Wire actors - Lester Freeman as the go between for Walt Kendrick who is the closeted police commissioner on The Wire. One kewl bonus bout Damages is it comes out Australia Thursday night, same time as #Lost (latest S5E7 ere) and both use flashforward_back technique - to create an overall picture of what is/isn’t going on now/in_future/past. So it’s 90 minutes of great viewing. Sure it will come on Australian TV with 20 minutes of ads per hours in um 6 months maybe… or not.

3 months later : Does Ellen Shoot Patty or more likely some1else shoots some1else as Damages needs Glenn Close.

3 months later : Does Ellen Shoot Patty or more likely some1else shoots some1else as Damages needs Glenn Close.

The Damages east coast worldview (beautifully contrasted when they go to LaLaLand) is classically well postmodernly captured by Dating a Banker AnonymousAre you or someone you love dating a banker? If so, we are here to support you through these difficult times. Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) is a safe place where women can come together – free from the scrutiny of feminists– and share their tearful tales of how the mortgage meltdown has affected their relationships.” - i luv this blog, its totally get optioned for some type of Nanny Diaries/He’s Just Not that into You recessionary hollywood romcom, here they post LA vs NY :

The men confidently lean back in their chairs, puff on their cigars, and smile at each other knowingly. Their eyes are saying, New York is so over. But, their demeanor is so confident we realize that maybe they’re not comparing themselves to our revered bankers. Maybe, just maybe, they don’t even care about their NYC counterparts. Looking around the table we realize that these guys aren’t just media men, they’re the banking guys from the 80’s. The mythical men that we moved to New York in search of. Rock solid in their decisions, overly confident in their abilities (I mean, what do agents actually do?), and totally handsome. We’re sold. (Five points LA.)As Lilly Allen Says of LA : ““I signed my publishing deal at Stringfellows and had a private dance. One of the naked ones. “And I went to Spearmint Rhino the other day — for six hours. I’ve had lapdances there. It’s fun. I like having a chat with the strippers.””

Whatever they say lost is getting damn good2 - Required Thursday viewing with Damages : "Okay, so if I have my time travel math right, Jack, Kate and Hurley are back in the '70s with Jin, Dan and company (and, I'm hopimg, Rose, Bernard and Vincent), while the rest of Ajira 316 -- including the resurrected Locke, Ben, Caesar, Ilana, Frank Lapidus and, I'm assuming, Sun -- are on the beach in the present. Frank and a woman (again, likely Sun) took off in one of the outriggers, and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them shooting at Sawyer an episode or two from now."
Whatever they say lost is getting damn good2 - Required Thursday viewing with Damages : “Okay, so if I have my time travel math right, Jack, Kate and Hurley are back in the ’70s with Jin, Dan and company (and, I’m hopimg, Rose, Bernard and Vincent), while the rest of Ajira 316 — including the resurrected Locke, Ben, Caesar, Ilana, Frank Lapidus and, I’m assuming, Sun — are on the beach in the present. Frank and a woman (again, likely Sun) took off in one of the outriggers, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see them shooting at Sawyer an episode or two from now.”
As Lilly Allen Says of LA : "“I signed my publishing deal at Stringfellows and had a private dance. One of the naked ones. “And I went to Spearmint Rhino the other day — for six hours. I’ve had lapdances there. It’s fun. I like having a chat with the strippers.”"  Whatever they say lost is getting damn good2 - Required Thursday viewing with Damages : "Okay, so if I have my time travel math right, Jack, Kate and Hurley are back in the '70s with Jin, Dan and company (and, I'm hopimg, Rose, Bernard and Vincent), while the rest of Ajira 316 -- including the resurrected Locke, Ben, Caesar, Ilana, Frank Lapidus and, I'm assuming, Sun -- are on the beach in the present. Frank and a woman (again, likely Sun) took off in one of the outriggers, and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them shooting at Sawyer an episode or two from now."

As Lilly Allen Says of LA : “I signed my publishing deal at Stringfellows and had a private dance. One of the naked ones. “And I went to Spearmint Rhino the other day — for six hours. I’ve had lapdances there. It’s fun. I like having a chat with the strippers.”

#lost in australia like living a @lifeonmars with #damages

0
Filed under TV

Have to quickly mention how kickass global telecommunications is - whether it’s free skype or an old version of Azureus running on a PowerPC imac - just trying to make do with the crappy computer before i take teh appreciated advice and try2 fix my work computer (althjo i think its dvd drive) or get $ome work 2pay4fixes. Anyway so last night I had skype treats + thx2 the so fast/up2date tracker : torrentvault : a trifecta of programming gold; I leaned back2 Damages S2E6, Lost S5E5 + Life on Mars S1E10. With such acting talent + best of industry screenwriting how can u go wrong ?

It's Lester and Kendricks from The Wire. Click4Torrent.

It's Lester and Kendricks from The Wire. Click4Torrent.

With Damages, u have Fatal Attraction’s Glenn Close absolutely amping up the badass lawyer to the max, William Hurt playing all sides which has to end badly, Ted Danson is just coming back with a flip as via NYMag he “meets with this season’s baddie, Balanchine-loving Kendrick, at the ballet. Frobisher out-crasses Kendrick in describing their mutual adversary, Patty, as a castrating, dildo-wearing rapist. But the potty-mouthing was all for show. Because, in the Big Reveal of the night, Frobisher is the UNR shareholder recruited by Patty to sue UNR.”, and of course we have Australia’s pixie own Rose Byrne who is going to shoot someone prob not Patty, and then 3 of The Wire cast are excellent esp Dep Commission for Operations the closeted Det Rawls - who is the lead baddie in Series 2 - Kendricks, and one of his goons is Lester Freeman from the Wire, and from Series 5 we also have the politically sucky Sub-Editor, who is a hitman (same guy is the father of the special girl in life of the conchords, is there any1 doing more diverse stuff :) ?)

He's the Dad in Flight of Conchords + Sub-Editor in S5 The Wire, but a Hardcore Hitman in #Damages. Read NY Mag piece.

He's the Dad in Flight of Conchords + Sub-Editor in S5 The Wire, but a Hardcore Hitman in #Damages. Read NY Mag piece.

Damages and Lost are very similar in as well as being brilliant and top of their game, both use heavy use of flash forward/back and both necessitate u have seen all series + eps (well at least 70%) before. (or just make sure u have seen previous season) Unfortunate for those that havent, caviar for those that have. And why it’s such compelling viewing. You cant call yourself a The Wire fan and not watch Damages in my opinion, with the same themes of instiutional decay, corruption, amorality and when u have a problem - put out a hit.

A Gr8 Lost Episode "This place is Death" - Read Film School Rejects Review : "One way or the other, the Oceanic 6 are going to get back on the island. A few theories we are throwing around; 1) Locke allows Benjamin to kill him and take Jin’s wedding band to trick Sun. Of course, it would be easier if Locke just lies to Sun. But you can’t break promises when you’re dead. 2) The plane crash of Oceanic Flight 815 opened up a whole in the Space-Time continuum, disrupting the normalcy of both “worlds.” In order to right the disruption, which currently seems to be only affecting the islanders, the members of the crash must all stay on the island. Eventually, the portal must be closed or the nosebleeds and illnesses will spread to present day reality. Those who died on the island return to present day as ghosts, but can only be seen by true believers or the innocent, maybe? (Hurley) The concept would explain why such importance has been placed on getting the Oceanic 6 back on the island for good."

A Gr8 Lost Episode "This place is Death" - Read Film School Rejects Review : "One way or the other, the Oceanic 6 are going to get back on the island. A few theories we are throwing around; 1) Locke allows Benjamin to kill him and take Jin’s wedding band to trick Sun. Of course, it would be easier if Locke just lies to Sun. But you can’t break promises when you’re dead. 2) The plane crash of Oceanic Flight 815 opened up a whole in the Space-Time continuum, disrupting the normalcy of both “worlds.” In order to right the disruption, which currently seems to be only affecting the islanders, the members of the crash must all stay on the island. Eventually, the portal must be closed or the nosebleeds and illnesses will spread to present day reality. Those who died on the island return to present day as ghosts, but can only be seen by true believers or the innocent, maybe? (Hurley) The concept would explain why such importance has been placed on getting the Oceanic 6 back on the island for good."

Daughter, Love Interest + Ex

One more actor I need to mention is Maggie Siff. She seems to be in everything I really like. My top 2 favourite shows of 2008 for example; Mad Men and Sons of Anarchy (True Blood a close third), she’s the key love interest. And it’s always daughter (or symbolic prodigal daughter returning home) and/or love interest/ex. She plays Don Draper’s strongest burnt love interest in Mad Men (being the daughter of the Jewish retail client, who ends up marrying the most boring looking character ever presented on Mad Men and then returns from overseas married) And on Sons of Anarchy (please season 2 come quick) she is the girl that grew up in bikie gang territory but left, only to come back a doctor and hook up with childhood sweetheart Jax - the main character and SOA Bike Charter Vice President who murders her ex corrupt FBI screepy dude. And last night, she was on Life of Mars as the love interest who is Harvey Keitel, the chief of police’s, daughter. Bad boy Sam but I’m glad 10 eps in u have moved on from Lisa Bonet who was only around for first 10 minutes of episode 1.

Love Interest, Ex + Daughter - Maggie Siff Rox in Mad Men, Sons of Anarchy and now Life on Mars.

Love Interest, Ex + Daughter - Maggie Siff Rox in Mad Men, Sons of Anarchy and now Life on Mars.

So there u go, connect the dots on how good talent will follow itself onto good projects. It’s the classic anti long tail argument - There are only so many good creative projects at any one time. In Australia for example there are no good creative projects*. Well maybe a small handful that will find a way to eat themselves if they dont escape the continent. (no im not projecting ere just using market facts, irony ppl) And as a result no good web sites come out of here.

As Facebook and Flickr who recently had their 5 year anniversaries and can argue about valuation for internet properties in the 50m-150m internet users range, in Australia we have no such websites celebrating that type of success 5 years in. Move a decimal point the other way and we still dont rate. As I often say the only consumer internet success locally (carsales, seek, realestate.com) were either copied from overseas; (autobytel, monster/hotjobs, etc) derived from monopoly (telstra, sensis) or an overseas license/jv (9MSN, Yahoo7, Etrade, Google Australia etc) Smaller business facing internet we’re better at btw… Atlassian, Hitwise, MYOB etc or Mobile Mig33 etc ill stop.. im talking tv and creativity anyway! Maybe government could microfund those than spend $125MILLION on the fkn censorship #clean filter. It’s the stuff that honestly makes u want to not work in the country or to do so off the grid and be a virtual exporter.

It seems FBI Paranormal division in 1973 is run by Blair Waldorfs new Father in Law. Click for Torrent.

It seems FBI Paranormal division in 1973 is run by Blair Waldorfs new Father in Law. Click for Torrent.

I could mention that has nothing to do with internet, but everything to do with how industry can collaborate and pull talent together to make the highest rating tv show ever, and after Love My Way prob 2nd best drama if the Underbelly Prequel premiere double ep was a guide (Much better than first which i thought was overacted and 2dimensional, simpleton even - it was too carl williams, the prequel is better - it helps with the setting im sure they’ve been inspired by styling from Life on Mars US, but also Swingtown etc Heck even Van Sant’s Milk. Stuff set late 70’s early 80’s just looks good in the late noughties.) I digress, oh well : At least the ISP I’m using at current abode for not too long hopefully - Primus - will be the first to test teh internet clean filter. Awesome let’s block some internet domains. In fact, lets block access to all the .com social networking and blogging domains - which could create an opportunity for a local player. A family friendly grant could be applied for, and Facebook here we come; ConnectU 2.0 - Australia, we can become a nation of fast following, imitative, derivative, family safe, over priced, slow internet socialistic funded social_capitalists. Viva la #cleanfilter revolution.

Techcrunch publishing Comscore_Social_Media December sector stats 08

Techcrunch publishing Comscore_Social_Media December sector stats 08

* Served with a heavy dose of sardonic non smiling punworthiness.

The Notificator : it’s all realtime + video search

0
Filed under Web_O/S
The Aries Project Life on Mars ep 9 not 1 like on Aussie TV. Click2Watch.

The Aries Project Life on Mars ep 9 not 1 like on Aussie TV. Click2Watch.

So it’s past my bedtime, but damn Damages, Lost, new Life on Mars, and Lie to Me were all good viewing. But I had to link to a great post by someone in the business, not someone on the sidelines rehashing techmeme, from Betaworks founder. My butchered extract below, it’s all great - go read it, the more stream of consciousness replaying of AOL/Google 1.0 meetings the beta ;) Also hearing Cam’s take on luck and timing is always a good read

Rose wants to cap yer ass, so says her speech coach Damages S2E5

Rose wants to cap yer ass, so says her speech coach Damages S2E5

John Borthwick : “Search is fragmenting into verticals. In the past year two meaningful verticals have emerged — one is video — the other is real time search.   Let me play out what happened in video since its indicative of what is happening in the now web. YouTube.com is now the second largest search site online — YouTube generates domestically close to 3BN searches per month — it’s a bigger search destination than Yahoo.. Google.com has suddenly become the source for pages — not conversations, not the real time web.  What comes next?  I think context is the next hurdle. Social context and page based context. Gerry Campbell talks about the importance of what happens before the query in a far more articulate way than I can and in general Abdur, Greg, EJ, Gerry, Jeff Jonas and others have thought a lot more about this than I have. But the question of how much you can squeeze out of a context less pixel and how context can to be wrapped around data seems to be the beginning of the next chapter.. 71 years later the Notificator is finally reaching scale. “

Also : Neville Hobson playing with Google Latitude seems a big part of the context equation!

Its Danielle Rousseau watch latest Lost S5E4

Its Danielle Rousseau watch latest Lost S5E4

friday heatwave of bad logos #lost influence + #damages.

0
Filed under Social_Networking, Urbanwear

Awful Logo. Anyway click to read News' Twitter Influence vs Followers

Melbourne has won award for ‘first time since records began in 1855 that the city has had three consecutive days above 43C/110F’ FTW. Combined with zero$, it’s been heat to take you to Damocles. Anyway, that awful humid northerly has been offset with a cooler southerly and I’ve spent most of the last 4 years (commercially that is) dealing with companies bout Web 2.0. So that means talkn/selling social networking, blogging, verticals of interest, and the associated issues that go with this (defamation, copyright, monetisation, staff training etc) And Louis Gray’s Admiring Companies that Dont Blink post has that counter intuitive sense that the best companies dont blog/twitter or do they hehe - it’s friday and coming out of 110F/43C heat to only 35cs for next few days :

Now thats a Ferrari ! Love the FXX... what a track beast via BrandonPerDeck on Flickr.

Now thats a Ferrari ! Love the FXX... what a track beast via BrandonPerDeck on Flickr.

Louis Gray : Apple is one of the best examples of a company whose vast wall of silence and secrecy spawns a vast network of rumor-seekers and speculation. Once limited to the dark recesses of the Web, guessing the Cupertino company’s next move has practically become an industry tradition. You won’t find an official Apple Twitter account. You won’t find an official Apple blog either (though the Hot News page is pretty close). And you most definitely won’t find an Apple representative in the comments of users’ blogs, saying what features they will or won’t add to the next release. You could say the same, on various levels for many companies. What’s going on at Google? Despite their many blogs and the ever-present Matt Cutts, it’s not all that transparent. Most Google employees don’t blog about their at-work exploits, and product development isn’t usually that give and take.”

Wordpress LogoGate. Be Legit acc to 'Matt' - Lorelle.Wordpress Click.

Wordpress LogoGate. Be Legit acc to 'Matt' - Lorelle.Wordpress Click.

On the other hand a few years late Australian MSM (in this case News.com.au and their AWFUL new corporate logo, wow its bad even Wordpress founder wants a better logo but sorry wordpress logo good or bad is so much better than news.com.au -pls tell me interbrand didnt make more than $500 for it, really... anonymous non Facebook Connect comments appreciated) is getting into the tweet real influence vs number of follower (i really need to twitter more to keep my top 50 position given i am #50 hehe) debates (is australia having its own SXSW jumpn the shark/tuna moment?) : “Maybe this whole thing is an exercise to increase the number of followers (the reporter) has?” wrote one.

Baratunde's March 2007 Tweet2Arms!

Baratunde's March 2007 Tweet2Arms!

I’m a bit more interested in 2009 than 2006 and Facebook Connect by 2010 will be huge (need2find something to invest in that thesis, well invest my time not $ i dont have!), just another example where Apple may not blog or twitter but u can easily send your iPhotos to facebook without needing a separate login (which has like a trillion photos on it, maybe the biggest photo site on net or close) You gotta luv one click, via Caroline McCarthy : “Basically, this means that if you’re a Mac user running the latest edition of its iLife package, which started shipping earlier this week, you can hook up your Facebook account for easy uploading right from iPhoto. If you use the iWeb site creation tool, you can set it up to post a message to your Facebook profile (and your friends’ news feeds) if you make some kind of edit.”

Now thats a Ferrari FXX via Brandperderk on Flickr

Also good to see SocialMedia raise $6m, who are getting $15m to $20m PER campaign if PaidContent is to be believed, well they did just raise $6m, schweet : Widget social ad network monetisation in the house; “Social media-based ad network SocialMedia has picked up $6m in a second round of funding. IDG Ventures and previous backer Charles River Ventures led the round, bringing SocialMedia’s total raise to $9.5m. The SF-based company launched in 2007, and has since run app-based campaigns for brands like P&G, Coca-Cola and Diesel on Facebook and MySpace. CEO Seth Goldstein told VentureBeat the company brought in revenue between $15 million and $20 million on such campaigns, which ask members brand-related questions (like whether they’ve seen an upcoming movie trailer or which mouthwash they’d prefer their partner used); the ads gain exposure through profile status updates.” VentureBeat article updated quotes from SocialMedia founder : “Like all major media companies and ad networks (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, Google/Adsense, Platform A, Yahoo!), we run a mix of direct response and brand advertisers. While the performance side of our business is large, we have been pleasantly surprised by the recent growth in our brand business.

4 Eps into S2 of Damages it is Now Started4Real! Click4Episode S2E4 William Hurt is Rockn Glenn Close with Rose Byrne Plotting but Oblivious, we think!

4 Eps into S2 of Damages it is Now Started4Real! Click4Episode S2E4 William Hurt is Rockn Glenn Close with Rose Byrne Plotting but Oblivious, we think!

If you want a Podcast : Definitely get Mr Reilly in. He has the details. Or for the latest Founder Crunch’ness 2.0 try Dunc : “The spitting incident for example: Michael immediately presumes that it was a startup person who didn’t get a review, but the far more likely reason is Michael’s anti-European startup comments at LeWeb.” or even more so This is Going to be Big ! : “Controversy, conflict, and a generally unprofessional attitude follows Arrington wherever he goes- as does an army of fanboys whose numbers are nothing more than a useless distraction to PR and startup folks alike.  I’m glad to see the distraction gone, hope he doesn’t return, and that we can all get back to the business of trying to survive in these difficult times- trying to figure out how to build great things that paying customers, not fanboys, see value in. Controversy, conflict, and a generally unprofessional attitude follows Arrington wherever he goes–as does an army of fanboys whose numbers are nothing more than a useless distraction to PR and startup folks alike.  I’m glad to see the distraction gone, hope he doesn’t return, and that we can all get back to the business of trying to survive in these difficult times–trying to figure out how to build great things that paying customers, not fanboys, see value in.”

Time Travel is a Bitch : Click for lost S5E3 Latest Episode.
Time Travel is a Bitch : Click for lost S5E3 Latest Episode. Series 5 is so good, get back on if u got off like i did but u need to see S4 which is amazing promise!

when is media not media.

0
Filed under Venture Capital

Exercise in Body Language

So Union Square Ventures, the original East Coast 1.0 + 2.0 VC’s other half Brad Burnham knows how to define the difference between Web2 + Media when it comes to early stage investing. Suffice to say there is not one board member on any Australian media company would have any idea what Brad is talking about or the future of media :

“The technologists we do back are seldom doing basic electrical engineering. More often, they are user experience gurus and/or quants who can derive useful insights out of the flood of data that is a byproduct of users interacting with their service. That brings us to media. Many people think of us as media investors. We’re not. But it should be no surprise that we have made a lot of investments in and around media. It makes perfect sense that information markets will be the first to be disrupted by the web, but media is not the only market where services can be delivered as bits over the web. Banking, education, healthcare, and government will also be fundamentally changed. Media has fallen first because it is consumer facing and there are fewer gatekeepers to slow the adoption of a more efficient delivery model.”

Australia King Ben Version

self determination friday.

0
Filed under BB_or_not_BB
Nice Honda Chopper, Click to read more at Hell for Leather.

To ride off into the Sunset eh ? Nice Honda Chopper, Click to read more @ Hell4 Leather.

So it’s been one of those weeks/months which is a direct consequence of not enough new business prospecting, successful investment raising and wishing i could code, heck the list could go on : Oct-Dec - coming off 12 months but really longer (4 years ive been doing ‘this‘) of hard business building work. I with the team had doubled revenue 3 quarters in a row,  7 figure annualised turnover, and a reduced focused product set. Ironically I believe in the business more than ever, and it’s the most focused it’s ever been. But focus sometimes takes dollars - so u can “focus” your resources. So, in consequence if you dont have the engineering cattle on the ground, and a few unrelated “unlucky” things happen, well it’s hard to compete, and hits you the founder in the hip_pocket. This is now a market where google is retrenching. Altho Venturebeat does have 6 Aussies companies doing an innovation shootout in Menlo Park. Let’s hope it’s not a Reservoir Dogs ending or worse.

Aussie innovation shootout menlo park eh Who's Mr PINK?

Anyway I digress, it’s 2009 + the Web 2.0 party is over - one that never really happened in Australia past the hobby\enthusiast twitcliques - definitely not at investor or corporate level. Duncan over at his fantastically hand built and bootstrapped Inquisitr sums it up well in his “Web Ad Apocalypse” microcosm which can be extended more 2.0 broadly : “Although obviously I don’t have the full picture, the sample is big enough for me to draw some conclusions, and they aren’t pretty. Advertising in blogging and 2.0 services/ apps is on the downward march, and companies that rely on advertising that were marginally profitable, or running at a loss are about to find life that much harder.”

Back from my Balnarring Coffee. Watch Latest Damages

Back from my Balnarring Coffee. Watch Latest Damages

MIKE G’s 10 reasons Why Enterprise RSS Wont Work

I  nodded my head at much of Mike G’s list below :

  1. A lot of intranets are “content poor”
  2. Intranet web site owners have not made their sites “RSS friendly”
  3. Employees may not know about feed readers and feed syndication
  4. IT organizations might not have rolled out any tools that focus on RSS
  5. In tools that support RSS as a feature, IT might not have “turned on” that capability
  6. Employees may be unwilling to change their behaviors to take advantage of feed readers
  7. IT organizations may look at feeds as increasing their attack surface area in terms of security
  8. Business and IT decision-makers may be concerned about confidentiality and compliance aspects of feed syndication
  9. IT organizations may be concerned about network utilization and their inability to manage bandwidth concerns
  10. Justification for back-end servers to aggregate and management feeds centrally (i.e., a feed syndication platform) lacks a clear business case.
Damages S2E2 Click to Watch

Damages S2E2 Click to Watch

The irony will be based on last time, the larger online, media and corporates are likely to start social media spending in 2009 and ramp-up, whether it be Facebook initiatives like New York Times are stumbling towards via All Facebook : “The New York Times has partnered with Facebook on a new Presidential suggestions tool which collects the suggestions of Facebook users on various topics.. Had the New York Times enabled Facebook Connect, it would have been possible to have an ongoing conversation via the site. Instead, the New York Times has picked select suggestions from the New York Times fan page. An interesting way of accomplishing this would have been to integrate a fan page widget that submits questions directly to the Connect enabled website. Instead this is a one off flash animation that will draw a number of people to the site an will never return.”

Double Triple Cross of Damages

Double Triple Cross of Damages

Annoyingly, there is still so much value creation to happen, like the Yahoo employee profiled in techcrunch, who wrote 100 lines of code to create this news\twitter search engine that delivers an integrated result of where breaking news meets microblogging; Look at how it integrates latest media with twitter on Slumdog Millionaire for example. Or how the latest plane crash was first/best captured by a twitpic. And these are examples from last 24 hours. The “freshness” meets “popularity” problem identified here is the one I find most interesting - where i want to work/build a business : Especially when u add an additional layer being “location” - But I’ve learnt while the triangulation is an interesting problem : the freshness meets popularity by location - isnt that easy to raise money for in Australia (and other than entrepreneurs that have done it before, u hardly have a conversation in Australia with an investor that gets it beyond a very basic level) But again we’ll see in February when rich Aussies come back to work. Via Zooie.Wordpress.com :

Zombie Mila!

Freshness (especially in the context of search) is a challenging problem. Traditional PageRank style algorithms don’t really work here as it takes time for a fresh URL to garner enough links to beat an older high ranking URL. One approach is to use cluster sizes as a feature for measuring the popularity of a story (i.e. Google News). Although quite effective IMO this may not be fast enough all the time. For the cluster size to grow requires other sources to write about the same story. Traditional media can be slow however, especially on local topics. I remember when I saw breaking Twitter messages describing the California Wildfires. When I searched Google/Yahoo/Microsoft right at that moment I barely got anything (< 5 results spanning 3 search results pages). I had a similar episode when I searched on the Mumbai attacks. Specifically, the Twitter messages were providing incredible focus on the important subtopics that had yet to become popular in the traditional media and news search worlds. What I found most interesting in both of these cases was that news articles did exist on these topics, but just weren’t valued highly enough yet or not focusing on the right stories (as the majority of tweets were). So why not just do that? Order these fresh news articles (which mostly provide authority and in-depth coverage) based on the number of related fresh tweets as well as show the tweets under each. That’s this service.”

Some Mila Post Zombie

Some Mila Post Zombie via Just Jared

Anyway, it’s middle of January, not exactly a time to do business in Australia, and I better update “key stakeholders” before this week ends. Seems I’ll be spending rest of month scouting for new deals, work, as well as starting some new income business models. As messed up as he is, I guess its taken Pete Doherty awhile to release his first album, but when he does it sound like it might be the real deal via NME : “So, after releasing two albums with The Libertines and another two with Babyshambles so far, what does the next installment in Pete’s musical career sound like? Well, like Gorillaz. And The Coral. And The La’s. And Blur. And Bob Dylan. The album is the most diverse album Pete has made by a long stretch. The bulk of it sees an atmospheric mix of acoustic guitar (mainly played by Graham Coxon) and strings set a keynote of tenderness and mystery – far away from the frenetic ‘Shamble-ness of ‘Fuck Forever’, ‘Pipedown’, ‘Delivery’ and the like. But there are real curveballs that may knock Pete fans sideways – most notably the Gorrilaz-esque ‘Last Of The English Roses’ and the bizarre, snaking ‘Sweet By And By’.”

null

GR8 NME Piece + Music Clips of PETE Dohertys new album

Watching : Latest Ep of Damages S02E02, already loving Series 2, every 1 has an angle, no1 plays it straight. Damages I empathise with :) That said a down market is where people make it eh…  and I am strong on self-determination, so work any1?

Damages S02E02 Click for Torrent

Damages S02E02 Click for Torrent

Damages S02E01 : Paranoid + on Twitter.

0
Filed under TV
Click 4 the Damages S02E01 Torrent

Click 4 the Damages S02E01 Torrent

So Season 2 of Damages is back (torrent ere; web stream ere) with Aussie Rose Byrne (who amongst those who know, cant supposedly smile :), Evil Personified Glenn Close, Ted Danson and this series William Hurt. The show about paranoia suitably turned up the conspiracy theories straight away; Flashbacks/forwards*, the whole smorgasboard. (btw after grabbing Season 4 of Lost all 4.7 Gig, i watched S4_E1-5 and it was great how they *flashforward so u see where the Lost characters end up after they leave the island, it was great without ads and able to not wait a week and watch eps back to back : after being a lapsed Lost viewer for last series or more)

Damages torrent click y'all or shoot the gun Rose.

Oh and Rose may not smile, but they sure have her using a Gun alot.

Bang Bang U R Dead Ted

And of course the main characters - Patty and Ellen - are already on twitter, and have followed me before i even knew what was going on. Conspiracy or what ? Wonder how many years it will take for Australian TV networks to create twitter characters for its TV shows. Underbelly the prequel series coming out, Painters n Dockers period, would be perfect for twitter characters.

Follow Ellen Parsons cough Rose Byrne's Intern @ Damages.

Follow Ellen Parsons cough Rose Byrne's Intern @ Damages.