This battle is not going to be as epic as the Facebook vs. MySpace but the You Tube business model vs. Hulu business model. Ever since Google bought into YouTube (for 1.65 billion dollars) they have become if they were not before the place to go for short-form video content. The max a video can be on YouTube is 10 minutes. The thought at Tea512 was someday especially after Viacom started pulling content was that they would become the place for TV and movies as the next logical incarnation. YouTube may have started to explore this as they now have a few full length documentaries and there is a couple of full episode TV Shows as well. I once read where YouTube has more than 10 hours of video posted every minute. That a lot of people’s cat’s flushing toilets and 12 year old Carrie Underwood wannabes. It is no wonder they are not making a bundle of money, as this is not must see video. So if YouTube is not making money from it content they must change the model. The problem is there are new players that are talking revenue away before YouTube can even try to grab it. Disney has started showing Finding Nemo online the full-length movie the new site from Pixar Disney XD. Hulu the brainchild of NBC Universal already offers TV Shows and they have Viacom in their pocket as well. Hulu is selling advertising all around the content. They offer HD viewing as well as a majority of shows quickly posted. The Rescue Me mini episode that aired on Tuesday was available on Wednesday. We feel that if YouTube and the 71 million unique users it has every month, does not start to capitalize on the space and user of it web pages through advertising. It could turn out to be the only thing Google has touched that it could not save.
Archive for June, 2008
You Tube vs. Hulu
Sunday, June 29th, 2008Heath Ledger an Oscar? Give me a break!
Friday, June 27th, 2008Tea512 Friday Fluff – Watch out the Dark Night Joker performance from Heath Ledger is gaining Oscar buzz. Are you kidding, the villain in a comic book movie win an award. Maybe an MTV award maybe a Foreign Press Award, but an Oscar come on this is just crazy talk. The movie will premiere on July 14th and it is probably a good movie. Remember Jack Nicholson played the Joker in a Batman movie, no one said he should win an Oscar. Maybe Jack should have taken a bunch of prescription drugs because his life was so bad. This person was 28 years old, he had a place on the upper east side of Manhattan, linked to Michelle Williams and an Olsen twin; he even was somebody’s dad. None of this was good enough, now after the tragic death there is a final movie. Therefore, we have Oscar buzz for a person who if you check the credits is listed third in the movie. When has the third listed actor in a movie ever won an Oscar? The other thing is what does Christian Bale think of this, he is Batman, or chopped liver based on the buzz. Maybe it just a bad year for Oscar nominated roles, it is only July so let us hope there is something in the pipeline that can derail this train. we just cannot believe that recreating a role of a comic book character that has been played by multiple big screen actors, he is the only one worthy of an Oscar. Tinsel town loves a good tearjerker and this one would be voting on compassion over than substance.
My Cold Dead Hands
Friday, June 27th, 2008Tea512 is proud to report that the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting. The court’s 5-4 ruling interpreting the Second Amendment that it is “necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Justice Antonin Scalia from the majority wrote “The Constitution does not permit the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home,” in a 64 page opinion. The case will be called for the historians District of Columbia v. Heller 07-290. Tea512 does not own any weapons but we do support the second amendment. Crime involving weapons is a direct result and they go almost hand in hand. We believe that the reason the Russians or any other country in the last century have not tried to attack United States shores is because they have no idea who or how many guns they will be up against. This is a cornerstone of our freedom. It is a little scary that four judges think they can change the constitution on something as large as the second amendment. Considering there is a process to change or add an amendment to constitution. The general overall good of the nation was upheld today.
Gas pump Gouging bill – business as usual
Thursday, June 26th, 2008The House of Representatives Democrats failed to get a bill through that would punish price gouging at the gas pump, the vote was 276-146 not getting a 2/3rds votes needed. This bill would make gouging gas stations a Federal crime. The same time they blocked the Republican attempt to expand offshore drilling. A bill that would pledge to extend the banning of drilling in US coastal waters will not be heard until later this summer. The Democrats list of new energy proposals created a logjam before the July 4 recess. This is why the Republican bill, which most believe has enough votes is being pushed off. This is not a smart move or timely as gas is over $4.00 a gallon and the $125+ barrel oil is raising the cost of everything. The Republican proposal would allow drilling 50 miles from shore in all U.S. coastal waters. The House is not the only place this is happening as the Senate has done the same thing to a similar bill. In fairness, the Democrat position is that these companies already have federal leases, are not using some of these lands, and want to grab more lands first. There is no way to know if the oil companies are not drilling because they think it is not profitable as well as knowing based on that research within 50 miles there is a better chance at success. This is just another case of hurry up, talk a good game, put the issue on the table, then do nothing. Democrats want to save the wildlife and feel they need to attack big business gratuitous profits. Republicans see an untapped resource and want to use it, without attacking government oversight on big business. Because the Republicans cannot get their way the Democrats will not get there way and here we are, no drilling for our own oil and gas prices at stations at any price they want.
Facebook vs. MySpace
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008Tea512 calls the Facebook vs. MySpace the Internet race of the next two years. This will be a battle royal to see who comes out on top and if both can simultaneously exist. May was the first month since the inception of Facebook in 2004; it had more unique visitors then MySpace. This is significant because the growth of Facebook has outpaced MySpace. These results were reported by ComScore, which is a website traffic monitor. MySpace has become almost a mainstream term so for Facebook to have this kind of success shows the fickleness of the Internet users who have and insatiable desire to be on the next big thing. Facebook has changed greatly since 2004 as all companies with tremendous success must once it becomes even bigger than the original idea. They have had high-level people leave because they were probably in over the head, after Microsoft came in with deep pockets; they were able to higher high priced talent. Mark Zuckerberg is only 23 years old, so he appointing Sheryl Sandberg to be the right hand women, this is an epic hire as she helped develop Goggles advertising business, which went pretty well. There are only estimates of revenue and users because both companies are private. That number is MySpace 110 million and Facebook 80 million so that could be a website score but the dollars and cents are the final score. The question is does MySpace or Facebook want to destroy each other or co-exist. The Internet has seen this go both ways Microsoft destroyed Netscape among other things, but Abode and Macromedia joined together to keep both mediums alive as well as take the best of what each other had to offer. Not sure how this will play out yet and if there is a third person waiting in the wings. The Internet has always been about the next big thing and staying on top is no easy feat. Compuserve, Prodigy, AOL, Netscape, Napster, Altavista, all once were riding high only to be cut out at the legs by a new up and comer.
New Releases June 24th 2008
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008The following are the new releases of DVD movies this week:
10,000 B.C. (PG-13) Total Gross $94,784,201 Warner Brothers Released on March 7th 2008
The Spiderwick Chronicles (PG) Total Gross $71,195,053 Paramount Released on Febrauary 14th 2008
Definitely, Maybe (PG-13) Total Gross $32,013,120 Universal Released on Febrauary 14th 2008
In Bruges (PG-13) Total Gross $7,771,006 Focus Features Released on Febrauary 8th 2008
Persepolis (PG-13) Total Gross $4,445,756 Sony Released on December 25th 2007
Charlie Bartlett (R) Total Gross $3,950,984 MGM Released on Febrauary 22nd 2008
Bonneville (PG) Total Gross $488,393 SenArt Released on Febrauary 29th 2008
——————————————————————————————-
The following are the new releases of CD music dropping this week:
Motely Crue Saints of Los Angeles
Shinedown The Sound of Madness
Three 6 Mafia Last 2 Walk
Superchick Rock What You Got
We could put links here for you to click on and go buy these new items. That would mean that Tea512 would get a little kick back from Amazon or whoever we sent you to. These items are provided for your information only. If you want to buy go to the vendor of your choice and support the people involved.
Foot print in the Middle East
Monday, June 23rd, 2008American and Iraqi leaders are trying to set up a huge deal for
Population 7 billion Served by 2012
Sunday, June 22nd, 2008Tea512 was astonished to find out that the world’s population will reach 7 billion people in 2012 according to a new government projection; this was reported by Stephan Ohlemacher of the AP. Right now there are 6.7 billion people in the world. We here in the
Future of Laptops a Solid State Drive
Sunday, June 22nd, 2008Tea512 loves the Asus Eee here me out on this one, seek and return time of a solid-state drive is so much faster then anything you are currently used to, trust me. This will trump memory upgrades and CPU speed, which are the things that drive the speed your computing experience. How quickly the files on your computer are found and opened depend on the speed of your hard drive as well. So although this laptop from Asus is selling for as low as $300.00 it may not make your Internet experiences feel any faster. The fact that we are talking about this specification for a laptop shows you how far we have come. The Asus Eee PC 2G Surf comes standard with a 7″ Screen, 800 MHz Intel Celeron Processor, 512 MB RAM, 2 GB Solid state Hard Drive. There is also a USB port for more hard drive space and SDCard for on the go hard drive space. You now can buy 8GB SDCards so this should be even a better option in the days to follow. The whole thing weighs only two pounds and is very exciting. If you are looking for a low rent laptop, which has incredible upside capability for the price try to find the Asus Eee PC 2G Surf as it also comes in five colors.
Hollywood Walk of Fame Additions
Friday, June 20th, 2008Tea512 Friday fluff of the week, in Los Angeles it was announced there would be 25 new stars added to the walk of fame. This is the famous sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street where there are over 2000 stars. This first was awarded in 1960 to Joann Woodward. To be nominated a movie studio, record company, fan club or even the person themselves puts up a $25,000 to be considered. There is an actual Hollywood Chamber of Commerce’s Walk of Fame Committee if you can believe that. There is no surprise nominations usually happen around movie releases and CD drops. These are people that have put up the money and been accepted. Hugh Jackman, Ben Kingsley, The Village People, Tinkerbell. Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy, Cameron Diaz, Robert Downey Jr., Tim Burton, Leslie Caron, Charles Durning, Ralph Fiennes, William Petersen, Kyra Sedgwick, John Stamos, Mark Burnett, Chuck Lorre, Kenny “Baby Face” Edmonds, Dave Koz, The Miracles, Doug Morris, Rush, Shakira, Bill Handel, and Harry Shearer.
The Trees of Saint Pierre de Varengeville-Duclair
Thursday, June 19th, 2008The trees of which we speak surround Saint Pierre de Varengeville-Duclair forest, in Normandy. This was a US army camp used by troops who were waiting to be sent elsewhere. Adam Sage reported for AP the names “Thomas and Dorothy” were carved in the bark of one trunk. Another said “Bob and Carma”. Other trees were marked with soldiers’ home states – Iowa, Maine or Alabama – and several bore hearts and the names or initials of a wife or girlfriend. This place was used by the US Amry from September 1944 to February 1946. These trees have stood for the last sixty years as a testament to the freedom America and these soldiers gave France and all of Europe. Now most of the trees have been chopped down for paper. Some in France are trying to get the remaining trees listed as a historic monument. Last year more than 150 of these trees were removed. This is just another case of France wanting to bury their heads in the ground a rewrite history. If these trees remain, they will serve that France once let Germany walk into their country and take it over and they needed Allied help to regain the freedom they have today. That same freedom which they use to denounce our involvement in the Middle East, and in Iran over the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It truly is funny how France does not believe in force unless it is used to help their freedom, but they are not willing to use force to gain anybody else’s.
Replacing Tim Russert
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008Tim Russert must be replaced by NBC News, Russert the host of Meet the Press, was the man, when it came to Sunday morning talk shows, he was also the chief political commentator and the boss of NBC News Washington bureau. His death of a heart attack last Friday is creating quite a vacuum that needs to be filled. The show reportedly earns more than $60 million a year in profits with very low expenses. The NBC show averages 4.17 million views, which is far above second place ABC show with 2.8. So here is a list of possible replacements and our take on the top candidates, Chris Matthews he wants this job so badly he has already started to lobby for it. The problem is he already has a weekend show on NBC syndicate so they would lose one time slot by choosing him. David Gregory already works at NBC and he has hosted the show in the past. The problem he is not liked, or seen as a nice person, so they may not get important guests and lose ratings. Chuck Todd works at NBC and he was hand picked by Russert. He is young enough to build a show around. The problem is this may cause a problem with the other NBC folks that would not have been picked. Andrea Mitchell is a perfect candidate and an NBC employee, her only down fall to her is her age. She is 62, which means picking her would only be a short-term solution. Gwen Ifill, She might be most like Tim Russert of the whole group. She is smart, well liked and lives inside the Washington circles. The only exception with her is she works at PBS, which might cause a problem for NBC people that are not hired. Tom Brokaw works at NBC and everybody knows him. He can be used as an interim person, but is not a long-term solution as he does not have the inner tough person in him to ask the hard questions. Brian Williams another NBC guy that is well liked and has a familiar face. The problem, this is not the nightly news which is just reading copy, this job is political analysis and asking tough questions of high ranking people it is not for the faint of heart. Then if it was my news division and I had to make a choice, it would be Chuck Todd then Glen Ifill. We cannot wait to see how this one shakes out.
Kanab, Utah – Bikini Ban – Unamerican
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008Tea512 was a little late on the uptake on this one, but am outraged nonetheless. On June 10th 2008, Mark Haynes of the Salt Lake Tribune reported that in Kanab, Utah the City leaders have publishing a ban on bikinis. The town of only 5400 residents which sits 300+ miles south of Salt Lake City, Utah. The good news is calmer heads prevailed and they are going to modify the rule to permit bikini’s at the city’s public pool later this month. They are still going to ban thongs and string bikinis. The bikini ban was discussed and even mocked. The town self nicknamed “Little Hollywood” because of the films that have been made there. Although, headlines are not new to the city as across the state as well as the nation in 2006, it adopted a “natural-family resolution” for breadwinning husbands and homemaking wives to rear a “full quiver of children.” What is in the water in this place, not bikinis? It is every American girl’s right to get her body in such great golden bronze shape, that she can walk around a pool wearing only the smallest two-piece garment. It is a travesty that every American boys right to see American girls in their golden tanned body fullness. It is as wholesome as apple pie and as American as the 4th of July. Which is the day the pool will open and hopefully the city leaders will not show such distain and embrace the bikini as we here at tea512 always have.
Gas is now $4.00 a gallon
Sunday, June 15th, 2008Tea512 this morning June 13th 2008 paid $4.00 a gallon for gasoline. I was not stuck at a highway station; this was the cheapest gas price in town. You can start to think where this is beginning to change people’s habits. We in the northeast just went through a heat wave, how many people rolled their windows down while driving instead using the AC because it kills your gas mileage. You pay extra for a car with AC some people wont even by one that does not have it and now they are not using it. As I drove by a local doughnut shop I wondered how many people are getting out of the car instead of sitting with the car running in the drive thru. I also heard yesterday that when you rent a car so many people are trying to rent the budget compact when you get to the agency, they do not have any. They give you a mid size car for the same price. The only thing that makes this crisis different then the 70’s is the supply and demand aspect. When I did by the $4.00 gas if I wanted 100 gallons they would sell it to me. In the 70’s you could only get gas on certain days and a maximum amount of gallons. If you dig, even deeper January 2006 oil was $66.00 a barrel and gas was $2.33 a gallon. So today a barrel of oil is $138.00 so that is an increase of 209% increase and gas, which is today $4.00, has gone up about 58%, should not these numbers be the same. Maybe there is something to the speculation market driving up costs.
Google Saved The Cookout
Thursday, June 12th, 2008There was a day when something went wrong, you had to pick up the phone and ask around. You had to track down somebody who knew something about it, and was willing to give you advice. This advice was free or they would do you the service for a fee. Today we have Google. A family cookout on a hot summer night, we did not want the wife to fire up the stove, so we decided to BBQ. We laid out the steak tips, dogs, burgers, and sausages. Then fired up the girl laid the food on top closed the lid and went to get a beer. When we returned to the grill, the lid was not very hot. When it was lifted, it appeared the flame was low and the food barely cooking. The wife asked what was wrong and I told her we had just replaced the propane tank so it could not be out of fuel. She had a monster George Forman type grill so she fired it up assuming we would need to move the food inside, if we wanted to eat by midnight. I walked over to the laptop and opened Google typed the phrase “Gas Grill flame low”, I did not even need to open a page because it said in the brief description, that this was a common problem, as well as the reason. I opened one of the sites, it said this caused by a leak in the line, and to make sure all the connections are tight. I went outside pulled all the meat of the grill, shut it down, loosened all connections, then tightened them, and fired it up. Worked like a charm, high flame and major heat. The cookout then went on as planned. I did not need to call anyone, take the grill for service, pay anyone to visit, cancel the BBQ, or nothing. Where would we be without Google and it has changed the way we live. This was the day Google saved the coockout.
Lakers Biggest Fans
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008Full disclosure Tea512 blog are Celtic fans, but I have to say how unimpressed I am with NBA finals at the Staples Center. I am a child of the great Celtic Lakers series of the 80’s. So I thought there would be a problem when the Celtics took their two game lead to play three in LA. The problem is Hollywood loved a hot ticket and all the people that are filing the Staples Center seem to know nothing about basketball. They are cheering at the wrong time, chanting the wrong things and sitting on their hands too much for an NBA finals game. Now it must be great to go to a game and see this list of who’s who like this List mentioned in the AP. The names were Jack Nicholson, Dyan Cannon, David Beckham, Denzel Washington, Dustin Hoffman, Timothy Hutton, Kristin Davis, Hilary Duff, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon Spike Lee, Penny Marshall, Didier Drogba, Darren Bent, Hugh Hefner and his girlfriends, the stars of the reality show “The Girls Next Door.” We will see what happens in Games four and five. We think that diehard fans that go to the games all year have been snubbed out of tickets by the Hollywood elite, which has made the home court advantage have the roar of a pussycat instead of a lion.
Couric reveals true colors
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008Katie Couric on June 10th was honored by the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum at their annual Alice Award Luncheon Gala. This story was report on June 11th in the mediabistro by Patrick. She was honored for her career in news, as well as her being the first female solo anchor of a weekday network evening broadcast, and other blah..blah blah stuff. During the event, it was reported that she thought “I feel that Sen. Clinton received some of the most unfair, hostile coverage I’ve ever seen.” She was also quoted saying in the article that latent sexism contributed, in part, to Hillary’s defeat. The claim was that men were finding it hard to be objective when it came to Obama. I know Katie Couric a democrat who knew. I know Katie Couric supports Hillary Clinton who would have guessed. The there is no media bias angle is saying that males liked Obama so they sand bagged Hillary is almost admitting that there is a bias but unfortunately for Katie it turned up against her side.
Reality – Survivor – The Reality is you must pay Taxes
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008Here is a story to file under nobody told me so I cannot be wrong. Ignorance is not defense but stupidity should be punishable. This came out of Providence,
Sun Newspaper Dating Reporter
Saturday, June 7th, 2008Tea512 came across a story written by Laura Stott, on May 19th 2008 she works in Britain for the Sun newspaper. Her byline is called “Sun Woman’s girl on The Hunt” The premise is this 29 year old single girl looks for the best and worst ways to hook up in England. This week story she wrote about looking for love at the singles night in a library. The idea of trying to find a partner in a library makes sense. You have to have a little going for you if you are at a library, compared to a cruiser at the sports bar. So the book worms all get together and try to role play a cheesy romance novel to including the boy-meets-girl story with a happy ending. The writer claimed herself to be a bookworm so she looked forward to the assignment. The one detail about this story, is it possible to chat up a prospective date in the library. She said the participants wore a pink badge of which she could not find many. When she did they were mostly women. There is another big surprise women looking for men at a library and men staying far away. The event sounded so ridiculous to us here we had to let you know. She goes on about how she left then tried her own local libraries around
Metered Internet Access from Cable Company
Friday, June 6th, 2008Time Warner on the slippery slope a report by Peter Svensson on June 2nd for the AP. Time Warner is testing metered Internet Access in one city Beaumont, Texas receive a monthly allowance for data the user uploads and downloads. If you go over the amount, you are charged $1.00 a gigabyte. They are claiming they are using this to balance Internet usage, which they say is uneven. The statistic used for implementation of this program is that only 5% of their subscribers take half of the capacity. The money they raise is of course going to go for infrastructure enhancement. We all knew this day was coming, as it has been common practice over seas. They of course roll it out as a three-tier package system, with a 29.95 package with a 5-gigabyte cap, up to a 54.90 monthly charge with a 40-gigabyte cap. This of course will never be touched by 75% of the users who know that you can open about 3,000 web pages or 15,000 emails (minus attachments) is around a gigabyte of data transfer. There are two problems we can see one downloading of music from iTunes type services as songs are about 3-8 megabytes, as well as downloading updates or software releases. The other is companies like Netflix that now let you watch a DVD online instead of it being sent to your home. A full length DVD could be as much as 4.7 to 9 gigabytes alone. We have come full circle when the web first took hold we used to go to work to download larger programs (Adobe Reader) because it would take forever on dialup. Then when everyone had broadband at home, it became easier to download large files at home (Symantec 600mb downloads) then bring them into work the next day then tie up a work machine for hours. We strongly oppose this as a farce as the Internet is what it is and throttling the bandwidth that comes into a user home with a cap and a fee, seems to be priming the pump for something that is not really an issue. Has anyone seen their home Internet slowing down. The other thing is I could live with a slower Internet and no fees. The cable companies will always find away to make you overpay more for something they are getting cheap. The cable bill is the only bill in my house I have to pay for the service before I get it. I use service as term but I do not feel it is of the highest quality.
