Archives: October 2007

J-School Prof Sees Undeniable Proof Of Dawn Of Journalism’s Apocalypse In Brian Williams’ Upcoming Appearance On Saturday Night Live

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 31

It’s never hard for the luminaries of journalism schools to manufacture a little outrage, and Louis Ureneck, who’s the journalism department chairman at Boston University’s College of Communication, came up...

Web 2.0 Conference: What We Saw At The Revolution

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 26

In media today, software is trumping storytelling. This week’s column, about the Web 2.0 conference and ideas revolving around that space, allowed me to riff on a bunch of left-brain/right-brain...

More On Managers Becoming Record Labels

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 26

Glenn over at worthwhile music-biz blog Coolfer--a guy from whom I’ve pilfered many a notion--jumps off from a column I wrote about managers being the next record labels and takes...

The Piddling $15 Billion Valuation That The Microsoft Deal Looped 'Round Facebook's Neck

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 24

Is it really that awful for a company as rich as Microsoft to pay $240 million to lock up the ad inventory on Facebook? This is a serious question. Microsoft...

Somewhere Stephen Colbert Is Laughing

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 23

You may have heard, thanks to lavish mainstream media pick-up, that Stephen Colbert is “running for President”—of South Carolina, at least. About that mainstream media pick-up: The straight-faced absurdity that...

Yesterday, Flyers Placed On Your Windshield. Today, Google Text Ads

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 22

Mickey Kaus annotates an example of using a newish channel to smear dirt on political opponents, and how said example increasingly demonstrates the futility of some campaign finance reform efforts....

Web 2.0: More Effluvia From Rupert Murdoch And Chris DeWolfe’s Joint Appearance On Oct 17

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 19

Rupert Murdoch on Facebook: "Pretty cool . . .[but] it's like a utility. We [meaning MySpace] are more [about] media. We connect different cultures, different interests, all over the world."...

Web 2.0 Conference: A Calm Metaphor, Delivered Calmly, From Microsoft's Steve Ballmer

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 18

"No! Absolutely not! I would [want to] say, ‘hey, you just turned 3 years old and we got you playing basketball with the 12 year olds! You’ve got all the...

Web 2.0 Conference: Microsoft Exec Quietly Micturates On The Entire Value Proposition of Search Advertising

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 18

“It’s not perfect . . . We unduly give the last transaction credit . . . It doesn’t account for the TV ad” that a consumer might see shortly before...

Web 2.0 Conference: Viacom's Dauman on Google

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 18

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman was not making any conciliatory noises about Google and YouTube during an onstage interview this morning. Dauman's company is prominent among those that today announced a...

Web 2.0 Conference: Rupert Murdoch and Chris DeWolfe, In Which Chris Talks About His New Contract And Rupert Finds The Notion Of Killing The New York Times "Nice"

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 17

Quick takes on a meandering post-supper discussion: --Chris DeWolfe is re-upping for a couple more years at MySpace, he told attendees tonight. His initial two-year deal signed at the time...

Web 2.0 Conference: Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Speaks, Sort Of

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 17

Yes, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage as the inaugural interviewee at this year’s Web 2.0 conference, he was wearing them. Them being the Adidas man-sandals that he's...

Brian, Charles and Katie: Keep Their Day Jobs

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 12

Sometimes the conclusions you arrive at are surprising. It’s nice when it happens; the world and its manifold data have should never lose the ability to astonish, etc. Thus it...

Radiohead Multiple Choice

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 11

Please choose one or more of the following. Radiohead’s much annotated pricing scheme represents: A. The beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning of the end, of...

What Passes For A Music Business Victory These Days

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 05

So the record companies just won the first file-sharing lawsuit that actually went to trial yesterday, when a judge in Minnesota found Jammie Thomas liable of copyright infringement related to...

Unintended Consequences, Part 3,624: The Rise Of A New Celebrity Underclass

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 03

"The endless proliferation of reality television means that there are so many celebrities being created on a daily basis that even the sisters on Sunset Tan (editor's note: Don't worry....

Radiohead's Business Head

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 01

I've written elsewhere about how I don't much care for Radiohead's music. But what they're doing with the selling of their just-announced new album is nothing short of brilliant. For...