Month: October 2010

Now That's A Fairly Chunky Loss

Mediaweek is reporting that Microsoft is in the process of shutting down its in-game advertising arm Massive Inc., having failed to find an interested buyer. If the speculative figures are accurate, it’s some loss for even Microsoft to have to swallow. 

Here’s a 2005 interview with Mitch Davis, then Massive Inc. CEO with some very optimistic projections and also the rather amusing implication that in-game advertising, by increasing realism, increases the satisfaction of the gaming experience. 

In 2006 Davis was still projecting well over twice the revenues by 2010 that the Yankee group were forecasting. The latest tentative figures suggests the market may reach $1bn by 2014.

There are plenty of established and emerging digital media business models beyond solely supported by advertising revenue. Perhaps consumers are also less receptive to advertising delivered to them over or via a service they have already paid for.

Not A Good Week For Visual Identity, Was It?

First came the all new Gap logo

 

 

Lots of people didn’t like it. I think it’s a wonderful example of how insufferably bland something can be made when it’s so obviously designed by committee. Strangely enough they’re not using it as a favicon on their website yet, where it would be more legible than their ‘old’ logo. Slate points out that this old logo is not actually the original Gap logo, the one shown below is.

 

There seems to have been a certain amount of backpedalling already, which means Gap may be heading for a Tropicana moment.

 

But now, even before the dust has settled on whether anyone really cares that much about the Gap logo, poor attention-starved MySpace has waded into the fray with its very own new logotype.

At least people might talk about how confusing it’s likely to be to its audience, rather than how cheaps it looks I suppose.

Twofer

Delighted to discover that Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss are working on a new project with Mary Timony and Rebecca Cole.

Even better than that, the first album by the Corin Tucker band has just been released, and she started a low key west coast tour on Thursday. A few more tracks below.

Apologies for the profusion of Pitchfork links, I do my best to avoid them whenever possible due to hipster fatigue but couldn’t find any alternatives right now.

Just Wired Into The System

I recently rediscovered this video from the American Civil Liberties Union, via Wired UK. It illustrates very quickly and simply why privacy is important. It was produced in 2006, when Facebook was limited to college and high school students and before Google acquired YouTube. Amazing how much has changed since then, and not all of it particularly benign if you have any concern over how these and other private entities may potentially share your information. 

 

 

I believe that the people’s lack of awareness of how much personal information they may be passively broadcasting into the cloud has been accelerated by the growth of the mobile web. Whilst everyone can understand the (probably minimal) risks associated with location-based check-in services such as FourSquare and Gowalla, there seem to be a number of apps sharing information without providing full disclosure to users that they are doing so.

The real problem here is the ease with which users can install mobile apps and rapidly click through the data permissions.  We’ve all been doing this for many years with software EULAs. Of interest would be how much of this is due to developer carelessness, and how much of it is deliberate.

Get It While You Can

Janis Lyn Joplin died 40 years ago today in the Landmark Hotel, Los Angeles. For more on her life and career, try the biographies and other extensive information at janisjoplin.com (official site), janisjoplin.net (unofficial), Wikipedia and allmusic.com.

Like Otis Redding, Joplin potentially had so much more to give creatively, effectively illustrated by the fact that while many have tried to emulate her, none have really come that close.

That they are able to try is testament to how Janis didn’t just open the doors to the male dominated world of rock, she blew them right off their hinges.

All the links below go to video or audio of interviews and songs, live wherever possible because that’s really what Queen Janis was all about.

“The thing about Janis is that she just looked so unique, an ugly duckling dressed as a princess, fearlessly so. Seeing her live was like watching a boxing match. Her performance was so in your face and electrifying that it really put you right there in the moment. There you were living your nice little life in the suburbs and suddenly there was this train wreck, and it was Janis.”

Chrissie Hynde

[Tom Wilkes]

Shy “superstar rock lady“.

[Baron Wolman]

Spiritual descendant of Bessie Smith, queen of the blues.


[Jim Marshall]

World famous yet sadly lonely – “Onstage, I make love to 25,000 people – then I go home alone.”

[Steve Banks]

Owner of one of the greatest sets of lungs ever known.

[Unknown]

“I read a story about some old opera singer once, and when a guy asked her to marry him, she took him backstage after she had sung a real triumph, with all the people calling for her, asked, ‘Do you think you could give me that?’ That story hit me right, man. I know no guy ever made me feel as good as an audience.”

Janis Joplin

[Getty]

“I’m thrilled!! I can be Haight-Ashbury’s first pin-up“.

Janis Joplin, letter to sister



[Baron Wolman]

Texan ‘beatnik’, civil rights activist and infectious cackler.


[Unknown]

Not the most popular girl in high school.


[Amalie R. Rothschild]

“Janis was like an angel who came and paved a road white chicks hadn’t walked before. I began feeling proud to be her role model. When I heard her sing, I recognized my influence, but I also heard the electricity and rage in her own voice. I loved her attitude.”

Etta James


[Unknown]

“People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards.”

Janis Joplin


[Jim Marshall]

Wearer of extraordinary and improbable headgear. Much missed legend.

PS, I obviously couldn’t write this post without including ‘Piece of my Heart‘. Turn that one up to eleven.