Go Home Productions "Thin Genie"

via gohomeproductions.co.uk

Mash Ups can really mess up, but this is rarely the case with Go Home Productions. As proven by Thin Genie, which combines the talents of Thin Lizzie with Christina Aguilara.

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All Bubbles

via flickr.com

This is an amazing set of photographs of bubbles, it includes stills of bubbles as they burst. This is a must see Flickr album

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The Bugcast - Well Chosen music and interesting chat

via thebugcast.org

I've been listening to The Bugcast for a few months now, the show is a Combination of music with informal conversation, that include interaction with their IRC chatroom.

As part of my ongoing campaign to thank podcasters with an email, I sent an email of appreciation with a thanks. I mentioned that I'd prefer slightly more music and less chat, thinking that the comment would probably be lost in the mailbag. I seem to have caused a flurry of existential angst about the format of the show, which has caused them to issue special podcast to ask their audience opinion. Oops!

One thing that came to light from that episode is that they typically only get 55 downloads per episode. That's astonishing surely there should be more listeners.

Dave and Caroline do a great job and produce a quality podcast, go grab a show from their feed.

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The Apprentice’s Sorcerer by Dan Abnett in Hub episode 100

Issue 100 !

Fiction:

Under a Closed Sky by C.J. Paget
The Apprentice’s Sorcerer by Dan Abnett
Review:Doctor Who – Dalek War Boxset

Enjoy ... PDF / Mobi

via hubfiction.com

The Apprentice's Sorcerer - One of the best short stories I've read this year. Hub is a free on-line Speculative Fiction magazine, publishing quality short stories and genre reviews. I finally got round to reading Hub 100 this week. This hot weather is just right for the mood evoked by this story, go get it.

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Live So Far - New live album from Steve Lawson

via stevelawson.net

Just downloaded the new live album from Steve Lawson, featuring his wife Lobellia and Todd Reynolds. The album is conveniently priced at whatever you wish to pay on Bandcamp, and can be tried before buying over on Steve's blog http://www.stevelawson.net/2010/06/new-live-album-recorded-last-week/

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Deadly Codes - A free audio book from Podiobooks.com

via podiobooks.com

Today I listened to a really good murder, thriller, private eye novella "Deadly Codes" by JP O'Donnell via the free iPod feed from Podiobooks. Well worth listening to, go take a look. http://www.podiobooks.com/title/deadly-codes/

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BBC News - E-mail error ends up on road sign

via news.bbc.co.uk

The English is clear enough to lorry drivers - but the Welsh reads "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

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Awesome Bridges | Rocketboom

via rocketboom.com

Bridges can be the most beautiful of man's creations. The best of them are elegant as a result of form fitting function so perfectly. Bridges show engineering as art of the purest form.

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The Commons - explaining the commons in Video

via youtube.com

I found this video in my feed reader, it shows the ideals behind the creative commons, and gives it a perspective beyond without getting bogged down in explaining copyright and how it interacts with the commons.

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On-line Music Pricing “You want me to pay how much?”

Why should I have to pay 69p ($0.99) per track for any music I want to download? OK if its the latest hot release from a favourite contemporary rock band, but for an old 1950's blues number that's long since paid back all the investment; that's 69p too.

You must be joking! That same 1950's blues track is available in the bargain bin of the local supermarket with 20 other tracks for £2.99 in a higher quality format. Admittedly the digital download offers instant gratification, but I'm still not going to pay that for it. For that matter even a two year old pop track doesn't really deserve the 69p price tag either. Lets face it this music is priced above what a major slice of its market, teenage kids, can afford, so they'll find other means to acquire it. Realistically few parents can afford to support teenagers' voracious appetite for listening to new music at 69p a track.

Fair enough, Apple's early and dominant position in the digital music distribution market enabled them to establish this price point, that's great for them, they took the risk and made the investment, and recouped their costs from the early adopters. Meanwhile the music business pretended it wasn't ever going to be a significant channel to market. However that was ages ago (in Internet years) and the market has barely moved on. Amazon have pushed the envelope to the extent that the DRM is starting to go away. There's less fear now that I'll be restricted to using a single device or service, and I won't have to buy the music again when I move to newer devices. But 69p a track for everything? Really?

It likely the current market price is a major factor in the number of 'illegal' downloads; purchasing the music is not considered an option for many of the potential customers. The music industry players are no longer competing against one another, they are competing against alternative supply channels, Limewire Bearshare etc. And whether they like it or not these other channels are not going away. Until the pricing is less of a barrier to the purchase than the inconvenience of finding and downloading from peer to peer networks music will continue to be downloaded for free by those who have the time and the capability; and lets face it the biggest consumers of the product are the teenagers and students who have the time on their hands.

No amount of misconceived legislation, such as the Digital Economy Bill, will make this go away. There will always be ways of copying digital data and circumventing the costly controls; the problem won't go away and the collateral damage will be costly to both civil liberties and the economy as a whole.

A new pricing model is required. Price elasticity should be recognised, and realistic subscription services should be embraced and explored. Its easy to see alternatives that could be tried. For instance how about creating a subscription service that is discounted to pocket money prices for students, somewhat like Microsoft's pricing for MS office. After all, if you sign someone up to your service when they're young enough, you may have a customer for life. There I did that without even straining, come music industry player's now its your turn.

Amazon vs. Macmillan - eBooks are not Music

February 2010 saw a major bun fight between Amazon, perhaps the most significant channel to market, and Macmillan one of the foremost Publishers. The ins and outs of what happened when are widely reported and blogged elsewhere; so I'll not re-type all that again here. This was a high stakes poker game for control of pricing in the emergent eBook market, in which Amazon may have overplayed their cards and had their bluff called. This will become an interesting case study for students of marketing.

Amazon were trying to establish a vice like control over pricing in the market through what they perceived to be their domination of the channel to market. Yes it was in fact Amazon being 'the bully' rather than Macmillan; though many called it differently. Why shouldn't Amazon take this stance? After all, this model worked fine for Apple in the eMusic market where a they managed to establish a $0.99 per track price position through exclusive control of the channel to market, and which Amazon has most likely benefited from since. The fact that the eBook is an emerging market, and that the market position of the Kindle is somewhat akin to that of the early iPod, makes fixing a $9.99 eBook price position an attractive strategy for Amazon to pursue. If they won this pricing battle they would insulate themselves from a great deal of the uncertainty of price elasticity for some time, and be in a position of control over their suppliers. An attractive, almost irresistible goal for Amazon.

Publishers provide an important service to authors, they invest in the author's book sinking cost in editing, artwork, layout/typesetting, publicity, distribution and sometimes an up front commission (yes, I know that there's a groundswell of opinion that publishing is dead in the age of the Internet, but that's a separate argument for another time). For publishers as much as any other manufacturer, the route to market is a major factor in the profit available from their goods (some of which pays the authors). The more control the channel to market has, the less control over profitability the manufacturer has.

For Macmillan it was vital that they control the price of their goods rather than Amazon. They seem to have won an important battle in retaining that control, setting the right precedent for both themselves and perhaps for other publishers. This however is by no means the end of the game; both sides it seems to me have unsustainable pricing policies.

Even if Macmillan hadn't won this battle, Amazon would not be able to sustain their fixed price position. There are two factors that work against them: They are not as unassailable as Apple were with their iTunes offer, they don't really have enough of a head start over other players in this eBook market. And secondly the eBook product currently doesn't have such a compelling advantage over the alternative printed versions as the digital music formats had over the compact disc. I don't believe eBooks will, in the short term, become the dominant media choice the way that download music has.

Macmillan have the sense to realise that price elasticity can be used to maximise profits, recognizing that there's a difference in perceived value between the latest hot book and their back catalogue (something that the music industry continually fail to realise). That said, they also seem to believe that the value of an eBook matches that of the print alternative, which I'd argue is currently a false assumption (here's another topic in its own right). In the short term whilst the cost of the eBook readers is limiting the market to (or targetted at) the early adopters, this pricing strategy is just about workable. Sustaining this pricing policy in the long term will either stifle the market with readers continuing to buy print in preference, or they will loose share to other more aggressive ePublishers.

This is an emerging market that will be entertaining to watch, this is the first of many interesting skirmishes, whilst Amazon have lost this battle they won't be giving ground too easily, after all this market has the potential to become a hugely more significant segment of their business.

YouTube - Bad Apple!! - Stop Motion PV

via youtube.com

Amazing stop motion web cam animation, thanks to Savage Popcorn (http://www.pulpmovies.com/blog/2010/02/watch-this-now-bad-apple) for pointing this out.

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International Juggler 2009

via lukeburrage.com

See the world and watch Luke Juggle

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Clatter's 1950's "Buck Rogers" style music video

via clatter.com

Clatter "House of Trouble" Music Video
This video is a great take on the old 1940s Sci-Fi film series. The music is good too. If you want to get another look at this with better volume and a more conventional video, you can find it on their Youtube Channel http://www.youtube.com/clattermo

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2009‘s Podcast Finds

Since I've been travelling by train and tube more this past year so I've had more time to kill, and podcasts are an excellent way to do it (for some reason comedy and satire work really well for the tube). I came across a quite few new podcasts this year, many I dropped after a few episodes, however here are a few that have stuck around.

No Agenda - Adam Curry with John C Dvorak
Ok this is not new, but I only found it in 2009. The interplay between these two characters is always as entertaining, often insightful on politics and related conspiracy theories, but annoyingly wrong about pretty much anything scientific. Despite my regular disagreement with Adam Curry, and the show often being baggy and over-long, its still compulsive entertainment when you have the time.
Website
RSS

QN Podcast (formerly Quirky Nomads) - Sage Tyrtle and friends
Without doubt one of my best podcast finds this year. Sage and friends feature in a well produced bi-weekly podcast of flash fiction, overheard conversations, quirky facts and other information that apparently heralds the ‘New Victorian Age’. These podcast are generally short and consistently entertaining.
Website
RSS

Rathole Radio - Dan Lynch (from the Linux Outlaws)
A new podast that started during 2009; a fornightly 1 hour music show featuring some of the best music on the web. Dan’s a genial host who throws in a performance of his own each show. The show is recorded live with listeners participating via the show’s IRC channel. Most of the music is creative commons licensed, with links to the artists and music given in the show notes. If you are looking for new independent artists to listen to then Rathole radio is what you need.
Website
RSS

Beware the Hairy Mango - The monotone madness of Matthew Sanborn Smith
The best of Matthew’s short stories in podcast form. These short podcasts are dollops of concentrated sureal madness. With his somewhat unique delivery often the intro and outro are as entertaining as the story they encapsulate. Has to be heard to be believed, undoubtably mad but always entertaining.
Website
RSS

The Drabblecast - Norm Sherman
According to Norm a drabble is a 100 word story, which you get with every episode packaged along with some excellent flash fiction and often served up with Norm’s music. Norm is a talented guy and he obviously attracts talented authors and readers to his show
Website
RSS

Hacker Public Radio - Klaatu and the Correspondents
It does what it says: regular podcasts on a variety of topics by a number of correspondents. Some episodes are one-offs other part of series. Sometimes its entertainment another time something deeply techy, sometimes very informative. Its pretty much like public radio you have to take the good nuggets from amongst the irrelevent and indifferent. I’m finding some of this stuff can be worth listening to.
Webtop
RSS

The Leviathon Chronicles - Christoph Laputka
This is audio fiction with production values to rival the best, it rivals many commercial productions. An Epic SF Fantasy. A young woman finds that she is unknowingly at the centre of an age old conflict that will throw her into a fast paced adventure that will change her life and those of the mysterious imortals. This is a great podcast, the only downside is the slow episode turnround due to the complex production schedule, but its always worth the wait.
Trailer
Website (a work of art, but sadly Flash)
RSS

A Shot of Jaq - Aq and the "Community" guy
Presented by Stewart Langrage (Aq) and Jono Bacon both formerly of the Lug Radio podcast (which was a long rambling anarchic Linux User Group podcast). This is the newest of the selection; a techy, geeky short-form podcast (shot), where topics are raised, discussed briefly, then passed back to the listeners to extend the debate on the web site. They are only a few episodes in but are seasoned podacasters and produce a quality product. The Linux Outlaws' 'Jot of Shaq' parody seems to have confimed their place in the podosphere.