Good news...

For the first time in the recorded history of Cancer the annual death toll from the diesease has gone down. According to CNN, "The number of cancer deaths dropped to 556,902 in 2003, down from 557,271 the year before, according to a recently completed review of U.S. death certificates by the National Center for Health Statistics."

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CNN.com

CNN is getting crushed in the ratings by Fox, but online they are cleaning up. According to an article in the New York Observer, CNN.com is bringing in at least 12 million dollars per month in advertising. That is nearly an extra 150 million dollars CNN is bringing in per year.

I wonder when local TV stations will start believing me and start understanding there is money to be made off these here fandangled internets.

Holy crap!!!

There is actually an issue in which I, Nick Geidner, agree with a bunch of evangelical Christians...the environment. In a news conference today, a group of 86 evangelistic minister came out against the administrations policies on global warming prevention. Way to go.

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NFL Censors the Stones

"The NFL, which produced the (halftime) show seen on ABC Sunday night, silenced Jagger's microphone during sexually suggestive passages of two of the three songs the band performed before an audience of 90 million television viewers."

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Apple announcement

Apple announced today that they will be releasing 1 gig Nano for $150. They also announced that the iTunes store will start carrying some of Showtimes programming, including Sleeper Cell, Weeds and Fat Actress. It doesn't look like they are going to be offering "the L word", at least yet.

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Whopperettes

This is so cool. You can make your own Whopperette commercial. You get to pick your own condiments and everything. Hilarious.

The PIT

ThePitPodcast.com is live. Also the second episode of the PIT, Politically Intense Talk, is up. This week, Mark, Chris and I discussed primarily the legacy of President George W. Bush. I think it went fairly well and if you get a chance try to check it out.

Google taking over world...

Another story about Google buying up "dark fiber" and creating an alternative internet. This one is from the London Times.

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Watch Epic.

USAT Super Bowl ad meter

USA Today 18th annual Super Bowl ad meter is now available at their website.

Top 5

1)Bud Light - A secret fridge stocks Bud Light.
2)Budweiser - Young Clydesdale dreams big.
3)FedEx - Cave man uses prehistoric overnight delivery.
4)Sierra Mist - Sierra Mist can't clear airport security.
5)Bud Light - Men pretend to work on rooftops, but relax instead.

Worse Spot - Gillette - Razor brand unveils 5-blade system.

Full List

Lost Remote

Way to go to Lost Remote! Instead of doing a regular postgame advertising wrap-up Lost Remote managing editor, Steve Safran, decided to live blog the commercials and give them his initial three-word reaction.

Here are some of them:

Blockbuster: Online too late
Burger King: Busby Berkley? What?
Bud Light: Survivor - The Office
Sierra Mist: Kathy Griffin. Enough.
Bud Light: Is still watery
"16 Blocks": Die Hard IV

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1984

The famous "1984" Apple commercial, which is by far my favorite commercial ever, is getting a lot of press lately. The famous ad actually ran as a paid commercial only once ever, during the halftime of Super Bowl XVIII. It is a badass spot.

View the spot.

CellFlix Winner Announced

The CellFlix 30-second film festival announced their winner. The winning short "Cheat" was can be viewed at the CellFlix site. I think it is a solid story and makes good use of the 30-seconds.

I like the idea of this...

NBC is going to stream the unaired episodes of the recently cancelled, "Book of Daniel." I think this is just a great idea. Seriously, why not? They already made the episodes and bad ratings for the nets still means that...what...there are probably 100,000 people that liked the show. Might as well make it available. If nothing else it brings people to the site, so people can see NBC's other promotions.

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Washington Post

WashingtonPost.com has put up the full video of yesterday nights State of the Union. They put the video right up in the top left corner of the page. A big step for a newspaper to use video as, essentially, the main art.

Future of Media

"Built on the basis of owning a press or broadcast license, the world's media empires suddenly seem less potent in the Internet age.

Future revenue models are becoming murky as advertising funds get divided among a multitude of indirect competitors, all of which have instant, inexpensive access to a means of distribution." -Full Article

The International Herald-Tribune sits down four global media leaders and looks at how they think the future of media is going to work. Interesting read.

They talked about everything from hyperlocality to interactivity. Gerhard Florin pointed out something that I found very interesting, "unlike music, for example, people playing our games are not also reading a newspaper." Florin addresses the whole issue of concurrent media exposure in a matter of seconds. As the Digital Middletown research shows people are always doing multiple things...ie. watching TV and using the internet...but with video games they can't do much. Interesting.

USAT new media article

USA Today has an interesting article today about how various newspapers are using new media. It also talks about hyperlocal news, which is an interesting idea, and just the changing profits of the newspaper industry.

Pointer by Lost Remote

NYT terrible headline

Lost Remote points to a nearly offensive headline that covered the print edition of the New York Times today. It read, "ABC NEWS ANCHOR IS BADLY INJURED BY BOMB IN IRAQ | LATEST BLOW TO NETWORK | Cameraman Also Injured -- Field Reports Were a Ratings Strategy."

That is terrible in so many ways. This is the latest blow to the network? I hope they are not referring to the death of Peter Jennings as one of the other blows to the network. Neither of these, Peter Jennings's death or the injury of two journalists reporting from a warzone, represent blows to the network. If anything they represent huge blows to American journalism. The loss of Peter Jennings was not a loss to the network, but a loss to the country. And the attack against journalists in any warzone is terrible and should not be looked upon as a simple thing that might cause Disney to lose a rating point worth of ad dollars. Journalists risking their lives to try to report stories of grave international importance should never be minimalized to shares and rating points.

This was unquestionably terrible reporting by the New York Times.

Full Lost Remote article

Google Earth

Just so everyone knows Google Earth is now available for Mac. I downloaded it the other day and it seems to work fine on my PowerMac with Tiger. Of course you can get it by googling "Google Earth."

Auto Ads

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article, actually from Friday, about how auto ads are running from newspapers to the internet. The article is chalk full of interesting stats about exactly how much the newspaper industry is losing.

Woodruff/Vogt Update

CNN is reporting, "ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff and his cameraman suffered "very significant injuries" but are in stable condition after being wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq, the commander of the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, said today. Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were in a convoy of U.S. armored Humvees when attacked Sunday, ABC said."

Full Story

Lost Remote has also had excellent continuing coverage of this story.