by Sujoy on March 7, 2008
American Idol Season 7 is on and the Final 12 have been just announced. However, that is not what I’m gonna discuss here. American Idol has been associated with iTunes or vice-versa since this season. And this has actually spawned a business of its own. Take a look at this example. The contestants perform a song of their choice based on a particular theme. It was the 80′s theme during the Top 16 week, and Jason Castro performed Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. Simon Cowell announced that Jeff Buckley’s version of the same song is his favorite. Now here’s the business. Not only did Jason Castro’s performance hit the high note on the iTunes download charts, but it also brought Jeff Buckley’s single to the limelight. It features now at no.2 of iTunes download charts, and no.1 is another Idol performance, David Archuleta’s rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine”. Music from Idol is available for download on iTunes for 0.99$ and Videos for 1.99$. Apple should actually be very happy with the association with Fox Network’s Star Reality TV show which has not only brought more music to the catalog, but also brought old tracks back to life. And who’s the winner here- Apple for sure!!!
by Sujoy on March 6, 2008
Yeah we all do agree that YouTube rules. In terms of the user-base, no.of videos available, no.of videos being watched, geography, and most importantly the availability of almost anything when you search for it. It has become the video version of Wikipedia integrated with Google. But yeah, the downside is that the Video quality still sucks and the occasional downtime ( for non-US users like me) irritates me to the core. Well Stage6 is closed and so until YouTube launches its High resolution Video upload functionality, we might have to watch out for better alternatives to free Internet Video entertainment. Here are a few really GOOD ONEs. Enjoy. Not in any order whatsoever.
1.Blip.TV:- The link is http://blip.tv. The beauty here is the there is no limit to the video size for upload. It doesn’t support online video editing. One of my favorites are on Blip, and they are Goodnight Burbank. The show is also syndicated on other video sites as well, but unknowingly, I like watching it on Blip.
2.DailyMotion:-The link is http://www.dailymotion.com .Everything is similar to Youtube, only better video streaming. And uploading is a charm. [Continue Reading]
by Sujoy on March 6, 2008
As Bill Gates gets dethroned from his spot as the World’s richest man, Microsoft has launched the new version of Internet Explorer ( aka the IE 8 ) at the MIX08 conference. The beta is out for download for testing purposes. Though at the MIX08 conference, the browser has been shown to have passed the Acid2 test, some users aren’t still happy about it. Phillip Lennsen writes :-
You know you’re installing an important program when you need to reboot your computer to finish the setup. When you need to reboot twice, you know you’re installing something really important. Well, that was what happened when I just installed the new Internet Explorer 8 Beta on Vista.
Neither do I have Vista running on my laptop, nor do I have any affinity for the new IE8. Especially after hearing of the dual rebooting requirement. The interface from the pictures available online doesn’t seem different from its predecessor.
So what’s new about it? [Continue Reading]
