There's an interesting ranking system emerging over at beatpaths.com. It started as a way of ranking NFL teams based on who has beaten whom, perhaps fueled by a Broncos fan frustrated with his team being ranked too low by other systems. There are plans to analyze the NBA and MLB, but it seems generally applicable to most competitions.
Music retailers are having trouble selling music because the music being offered falls somewhere between boring and terrible. Despite claims about advertising being able to brainwash people, no quanity of clever marketing can make people buy something they don't want or enjoy.
Interesting music is not being promoted, so it's hard to find. I keep an eye on artists I like (Rollins Band) but finding new stuff is rare these days. I wish I knew a reliable source for new, good music.
It appears to me that advertisement has long fought for attention by sponsoring entertainment. In television, for example, it started with things like "The Exxon Hour" but evolved into constant interruptions (ie Commercials) and then into product placements (look, he's drinking a Pepsi! I want one!).
Technology like TiVO makes it really easy to remove interrupting ads from television. There are similar techniques for removing banner ads from Web pages. This force is pushing advertisers towards tighter integration.
Advertisement budgets are the first to be cut in a downturn, so they are good targets for optimization. Given that the technology needed for producing compelling entertainment is getting very cheap thanks to technology, will advertisers be driven toward a model where they create entertainment themselves?
The Whassup Budweiser commercials started as a student film. This thing was beat to death, but it was a viral effect. And it was amusing as it peaked. People were making Budweiser commercials for free and in styles that Budweiser could never pull off themselves.
In the future, will big companies dole out money to amateur entertainers who tangentially promote their products? What if the "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" thing were tied to some brand (Sega?) so that no one could think of one without the other? The originator gets paid by the advertiser, but the benefit comes from a legion of inspired entertainers.
If this becomes a viable model of advertisement, will companies be able to afford NOT to adopt it?
Will ads and entertainment converge?
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There's an interesting ranking system emerging over at beatpaths.com. It started as a way of ranking NFL teams based on who has beaten whom, perhaps fueled by a Broncos fan frustrated with his team being ranked too low by other systems. There are plans to analyze the NBA and MLB, but it seems generally applicable to most competitions.
Another cool thing: dig the graphs straight out of graphviz, a nice open source tool for buiding graphs from textual specifications.
Music retailers are having trouble selling music because the music being offered falls somewhere between boring and terrible. Despite claims about advertising being able to brainwash people, no quanity of clever marketing can make people buy something they don't want or enjoy.
Interesting music is not being promoted, so it's hard to find. I keep an eye on artists I like (Rollins Band) but finding new stuff is rare these days. I wish I knew a reliable source for new, good music.
It appears to me that advertisement has long fought for attention by sponsoring entertainment. In television, for example, it started with things like "The Exxon Hour" but evolved into constant interruptions (ie Commercials) and then into product placements (look, he's drinking a Pepsi! I want one!).
Technology like TiVO makes it really easy to remove interrupting ads from television. There are similar techniques for removing banner ads from Web pages. This force is pushing advertisers towards tighter integration.
Advertisement budgets are the first to be cut in a downturn, so they are good targets for optimization. Given that the technology needed for producing compelling entertainment is getting very cheap thanks to technology, will advertisers be driven toward a model where they create entertainment themselves?
The Whassup Budweiser commercials started as a student film. This thing was beat to death, but it was a viral effect. And it was amusing as it peaked. People were making Budweiser commercials for free and in styles that Budweiser could never pull off themselves.
In the future, will big companies dole out money to amateur entertainers who tangentially promote their products? What if the "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" thing were tied to some brand (Sega?) so that no one could think of one without the other? The originator gets paid by the advertiser, but the benefit comes from a legion of inspired entertainers.
If this becomes a viable model of advertisement, will companies be able to afford NOT to adopt it? Will ads and entertainment converge?
...like D&D are great.
Leaving out Tom Bombadil shows a grave misunderstanding of the story.