" Have you written to the folks at Listen.com that you had not learned of their service through their own marketing efforts? Now that you do know about it, are you going to use it (assuming you run windows)?"
No I haven't notified them. You're right, I should. Instead, I notified the guy who wrote the story that the blanket piracy blaming wasn't helping anybody, nor was it the truth. I was hoping he'd follow up or something, but I'm naieve.
Will I use it? I don't know. I did go visit their site as soon as I got to work after hearing that story on the radio. Unfortunately, things are busy here so I haven't followed through and actually bought a song yet.
I'm definitely interested in it. I would love to legalize my existing collection. It'll cost around $200 I think but if they guarantee the quality and the legality of it, it's a small price to pay.
I hope they'll see me an.MP3 or an.OGG file, though. I wasn't able to find that out before I had to move on. If it's a proprietary format, then I question the value of it. I want MP3s for my computer at work and CD's for my car. That's worth $.99 a track if they permit both.
(Why do they make it so hard to get educated on it?)
"Which country is the same as what? Kazaa operate internationally; if this new operation is limited to one country then it's not going to have anywhere near as much impact."
I don't know if it is or not. I wasn't intentionally implying that. Sorry if I caused any confusion.
It's a good point, though, will this work internationally? That's the probem with each country having it's own copyright rules on the Internet, which has no clear sense of borders.
"You, also, have to remember that everyone in this god damn country is *LAZY* and *CHEAP*. We'll pay a lot for coffee and water because we're lazy, but we won't pay for a CD because we're too cheap to do so."
We'll pay a lot for coffee and water because we're cheap? heh
Unfortunately, there's no data to support either of your claims. I mean, if we're so cheap/lazy we won't buy CDs, then how come the music industry hasn't crashed and burned?
I'm sure you've heard "The RIAA was at their peak when Napster was at its peak". You'd think CD sales would go down, but they didn't. I can tell you why: Napster got people excited about music. It got people exploring for new bands etc to go get.
Kazaa's a great place to shop from. I can see people using Kazaa to find genres/bands they like and using Listen.com to download the ablum quickly at guaranteed quality. (It'd be a hit if they used OGG...)
Will there be people who won't do it because of kazaa? Sure. Will that cause their failure. Not of they actually compete. So far we've seen excessive restrictions and people throwing their hands up in the air in disgust. I haven't seen anybody saying "hmm how can we outflank them?"
It can be done. Radio didn't kill the record business. VHS didn't kill theaters. The internet didn't kill snail mail. Etc.
The problem with Listen.com is that it's not marketing itself too well. I was only made aware of it a couple of weeks ago when there was a news report that the company was having trouble and they blamed Kazaa for it.
I was kind of miffed at that. I haven't even heard of it (and I keep up on this stuff) and they're already claiming they lost to kazaa. Hello? Advertising?
I do think ppl'll be turned off by the subscription to it. A nice and simple $.99 a track plan is exactly what will entice people. A full CD is roughly the cost of an album, only (in theory) ALL the music is exactly what you want. Unlike the 4:10 ratio I get typically.
Apple would (or even Listen.com) would be very smart to get that message on the air so people can go try it.
"I can get them 99c cheaper on KaZaA.... and that is why it will fail. "
Not if:
a.) The selection's good. b.) The quality is guaranteed. c.) The transfers happen quickly. d.) There's an ability to preview the song.
Believe it or not, the price tag is not the major contributer to using Kazaa. It provides the best service. But it's got plenty of room for somebody with good bandwidth to come in and make a better model of it.
You have to remember, this is the same country where people drive gas-guzzling SUVS, pay $3.50 for a coffee and pay over $1.00 for bottled water. They want quality and service, the cost isn't really that big of issue.
"Yeah, I was wondering how polyphonic ringtones, a built-in camera and 16 bit color display are "supposed to improve" a telephone."
Have you ever had your cell phone go off and have like 5 people check their phones?
If you're curious how it makes it a better phone, I can explain the ringtones aspect of it. With the T68 you can group people into different categories and give them different ring tones. So if my gf calls, I can make it ring with a song, but if my job calls I have it ring silently. The neat thing about that approach is that I can make the 'NO-ID' calls silent.
The next step would be to use.WAV files or something like that (I hope that's what polyphonic implies...) so you could have better control over the ring. Not sure what the mass market appeal is for something like that, but I already have my email notifications set up with unique sounds for the people I actually want to hear from.
I think that in general, the sound aspect of interfaces is not given as much attention as it should.
"The telephone aspect of the phone had to be removed to save space."
As amusing as that comment is, I've found my T68i to do the PDA job that I could never get in the habit of using my PocketPC for. Now it acts as my alarm clock, phone number/email book, appointment book, and I even fiddle on the internet with it once in a while.
There are two key things about it I wish my PocketPC was: The size/durability to fit in my pocket. The wireless internet connection at a reasonable rate.
I do use it as phone once in a while, but that's eclipsed by it's PDA capabilities.
"They'll be up right after the stories of Sony's utter domination in the memory-stick-using-device market, and the Nintendo Gamecube's recent decimation of both the PS2 and X-Box."
Go look at a few Sony digital cameras and DV video cameras and tell me that Sony's not gunning to do that.
"Your "superior technology" tends to work only on your "superior" OS."
Gee, imagine MS making a business move that makes their flagship product more attractive. Damn them for that!
BTW, where are the articles about Sony's proprietary Memory Stick, or Nintendo's proprietary game controller, or Sega's proprietary memory card with the display on it?
"I noticed it. And I didn't think it was funny. So that means one of two things. One, I'm a drooling moron with no sense of humor. Or two, you never get laid. Which one do you think is more likely?"
Well, seeing as how I'm the one with the GF, I'd say that you must not think highly of yourself to set yourself up like that.
It's missing that cool 3D inteface that 12 year old girl from Jurassic Park used. It must have been intuitive as heck, you didn't even need to log in as root to mess with the park!
"Windows" is a generic name. "Lindows" is a stupid name."
Not to mention that it's hard to argue that the name Lindows was intended to make it sound more like an existing product. Who'd think I was anything less than trying to rip off Slashdot for creating a user-submitted news site called Bashdot?
"Thank goodness there will always be an alert customer base to let Sony know about these data errors. Those engineers are just idiots. I mean, don't they even test these products or anything?"
Suddenly, thousands of ow...ow...ow...ners of the original Playstation cri...cri...cri.nge simultaneously.
"Vocabulary may not be his (or my) strongpoint, but one can't be a dumbass and have a pretty good list of accomplishments that you will never obtain."
Don't waste your time defending Bush. Lots of people here measure intelligence by proper use of spelling and grammar. They're probably not aware of how narrow minded that is.
It's a pity I'm going to get modded down for that comment. I think it's a valid message to get across. You can't measure people that way. I know a guy with a learning disability that interferes with his ability to spell. This same guy has, on his own, learned quite a few fundamentals of being an excellent artist. He's only 16 and he's already got a good shot at an entry level 3d position. It pains me to think that this gifted person will post here one day and get his ass chewed because he spells phoenetically. Not cool.
Slashdot Mirror
" Have you written to the folks at Listen.com that you had not learned of their service through their own marketing efforts? Now that you do know about it, are you going to use it (assuming you run windows)?"
.MP3 or an .OGG file, though. I wasn't able to find that out before I had to move on. If it's a proprietary format, then I question the value of it. I want MP3s for my computer at work and CD's for my car. That's worth $.99 a track if they permit both.
No I haven't notified them. You're right, I should. Instead, I notified the guy who wrote the story that the blanket piracy blaming wasn't helping anybody, nor was it the truth. I was hoping he'd follow up or something, but I'm naieve.
Will I use it? I don't know. I did go visit their site as soon as I got to work after hearing that story on the radio. Unfortunately, things are busy here so I haven't followed through and actually bought a song yet.
I'm definitely interested in it. I would love to legalize my existing collection. It'll cost around $200 I think but if they guarantee the quality and the legality of it, it's a small price to pay.
I hope they'll see me an
(Why do they make it so hard to get educated on it?)
"Which country is the same as what? Kazaa operate internationally; if this new operation is limited to one country then it's not going to have anywhere near as much impact."
I don't know if it is or not. I wasn't intentionally implying that. Sorry if I caused any confusion.
It's a good point, though, will this work internationally? That's the probem with each country having it's own copyright rules on the Internet, which has no clear sense of borders.
"You, also, have to remember that everyone in this god damn country is *LAZY* and *CHEAP*. We'll pay a lot for coffee and water because we're lazy, but we won't pay for a CD because we're too cheap to do so."
We'll pay a lot for coffee and water because we're cheap? heh
Unfortunately, there's no data to support either of your claims. I mean, if we're so cheap/lazy we won't buy CDs, then how come the music industry hasn't crashed and burned?
I'm sure you've heard "The RIAA was at their peak when Napster was at its peak". You'd think CD sales would go down, but they didn't. I can tell you why: Napster got people excited about music. It got people exploring for new bands etc to go get.
Kazaa's a great place to shop from. I can see people using Kazaa to find genres/bands they like and using Listen.com to download the ablum quickly at guaranteed quality. (It'd be a hit if they used OGG...)
Will there be people who won't do it because of kazaa? Sure. Will that cause their failure. Not of they actually compete. So far we've seen excessive restrictions and people throwing their hands up in the air in disgust. I haven't seen anybody saying "hmm how can we outflank them?"
It can be done. Radio didn't kill the record business. VHS didn't kill theaters. The internet didn't kill snail mail. Etc.
The problem with Listen.com is that it's not marketing itself too well. I was only made aware of it a couple of weeks ago when there was a news report that the company was having trouble and they blamed Kazaa for it.
I was kind of miffed at that. I haven't even heard of it (and I keep up on this stuff) and they're already claiming they lost to kazaa. Hello? Advertising?
I do think ppl'll be turned off by the subscription to it. A nice and simple $.99 a track plan is exactly what will entice people. A full CD is roughly the cost of an album, only (in theory) ALL the music is exactly what you want. Unlike the 4:10 ratio I get typically.
Apple would (or even Listen.com) would be very smart to get that message on the air so people can go try it.
"Thanks, but I'll go to my local indie store, where they have the media, case, and liner notes all for 12 bucks."
And some songs you don't want...
"I can get them 99c cheaper on KaZaA. ... and that is why it will fail. "
Not if:
a.) The selection's good.
b.) The quality is guaranteed.
c.) The transfers happen quickly.
d.) There's an ability to preview the song.
Believe it or not, the price tag is not the major contributer to using Kazaa. It provides the best service. But it's got plenty of room for somebody with good bandwidth to come in and make a better model of it.
You have to remember, this is the same country where people drive gas-guzzling SUVS, pay $3.50 for a coffee and pay over $1.00 for bottled water. They want quality and service, the cost isn't really that big of issue.
"Yeah, I was wondering how polyphonic ringtones, a built-in camera and 16 bit color display are "supposed to improve" a telephone."
.WAV files or something like that (I hope that's what polyphonic implies...) so you could have better control over the ring. Not sure what the mass market appeal is for something like that, but I already have my email notifications set up with unique sounds for the people I actually want to hear from.
Have you ever had your cell phone go off and have like 5 people check their phones?
If you're curious how it makes it a better phone, I can explain the ringtones aspect of it. With the T68 you can group people into different categories and give them different ring tones. So if my gf calls, I can make it ring with a song, but if my job calls I have it ring silently. The neat thing about that approach is that I can make the 'NO-ID' calls silent.
The next step would be to use
I think that in general, the sound aspect of interfaces is not given as much attention as it should.
"The viewer has to bend over to look at the fly. Why didn't they mount it at head height so you can see it while standing upright?"
Catch the price tag on it? They didn't want to make the customer bend over twice.
"Maybe IBM should rethink its business focus. Perhaps they should manufacture baseboard heaters, toaster overs, wave solder baths..."
Man, if they had a strategic partnership with AMD, they'd OWN that market.
"Do those smoking monitors have to be used outside in California?"
Makes you wonder what the emissions tests are like on these bad boys.
"The telephone aspect of the phone had to be removed to save space."
As amusing as that comment is, I've found my T68i to do the PDA job that I could never get in the habit of using my PocketPC for. Now it acts as my alarm clock, phone number/email book, appointment book, and I even fiddle on the internet with it once in a while.
There are two key things about it I wish my PocketPC was: The size/durability to fit in my pocket. The wireless internet connection at a reasonable rate.
I do use it as phone once in a while, but that's eclipsed by it's PDA capabilities.
"You = Karma Whore. All you've done is regurgitate the highlights of every major news article on OLEDs."
;)
Yeah, but until there's a +1 Regurgitation score, +1 Informative will have to do.
"They'll be up right after the stories of Sony's utter domination in the memory-stick-using-device market, and the Nintendo Gamecube's recent decimation of both the PS2 and X-Box."
Go look at a few Sony digital cameras and DV video cameras and tell me that Sony's not gunning to do that.
"Your "superior technology" tends to work only on your "superior" OS."
Gee, imagine MS making a business move that makes their flagship product more attractive. Damn them for that!
BTW, where are the articles about Sony's proprietary Memory Stick, or Nintendo's proprietary game controller, or Sega's proprietary memory card with the display on it?
"Sorry. You've proved to me and everyone else on slashdot that you're not a loser, and in fact have a "GF" who has sex with you. My bad."
;)
No worries, you might have one too some day.
"I noticed it. And I didn't think it was funny. So that means one of two things. One, I'm a drooling moron with no sense of humor. Or two, you never get laid.
Which one do you think is more likely?"
Well, seeing as how I'm the one with the GF, I'd say that you must not think highly of yourself to set yourself up like that.
"There are fewer species to drive to extinction there (AFAIK ;^))"
I thought women made up half the population!
(Man I hope this comment slips past my gf unnoticed...)
It's missing that cool 3D inteface that 12 year old girl from Jurassic Park used. It must have been intuitive as heck, you didn't even need to log in as root to mess with the park!
"Windows" is a generic name. "Lindows" is a stupid name."
Not to mention that it's hard to argue that the name Lindows was intended to make it sound more like an existing product. Who'd think I was anything less than trying to rip off Slashdot for creating a user-submitted news site called Bashdot?
"Thank goodness there will always be an alert customer base to let Sony know about these data errors. Those engineers are just idiots. I mean, don't they even test these products or anything?"
Suddenly, thousands of ow...ow...ow...ners of the original Playstation cri...cri...cri.nge simultaneously.
"Vocabulary may not be his (or my) strongpoint, but one can't be a dumbass and have a pretty good list of accomplishments that you will never obtain."
Don't waste your time defending Bush. Lots of people here measure intelligence by proper use of spelling and grammar. They're probably not aware of how narrow minded that is.
It's a pity I'm going to get modded down for that comment. I think it's a valid message to get across. You can't measure people that way. I know a guy with a learning disability that interferes with his ability to spell. This same guy has, on his own, learned quite a few fundamentals of being an excellent artist. He's only 16 and he's already got a good shot at an entry level 3d position. It pains me to think that this gifted person will post here one day and get his ass chewed because he spells phoenetically. Not cool.
"That has got to be a very remote hole if it took the International Space Station to find it..."
Fortunately, the mail arrived without burning up on reentry.
Hrmm. It's still too soon for jokes like that. Sorry all.
Why not call it 'CinePint'?
"I've been hearing that "Unix is dead" since 1980. Pundits are idiots. "
I wouldn't pay it a lot of attention, the author of this article was, by his own admission, trolling. Check out this line of the article:
"I thought this might spur some good discussion on this board, including jabs at Dell and MS, which I always enjoy reading..."
I'm surprised Slashdot gave him airtime.
"I thought this might spur some good discussion on this board, including jabs at Dell and MS, which I always enjoy reading"
You'll get the latter, but did you really expect the former to happen?