All postings on web sites, blogs, and social networks are based on my own personal opinion and are in no way related to my employment, employer, or professional activities.

A WHOLE NEW MEANING OF NTR-Custom Ringtone | The Steve Dahl Show

via dahl.com

Yes, that’s right. Former Chicago ratings King Steve Dahl has gone to the Interwebz to do a daily podcast, and now he’s added what we in radio call NTR, Non Traditional Revenue. The Stever will record a ringtone just for you for only 10 bucks, 15 if you want him to work “blue”.

Its a whole new world.

Posted via web from Mark Edwards 3.0

Happy Birthday Mr. Cub!

Download now or watch on posterous

VID 00000-20100129-1715.3GP (800 KB)

~

Posted via email from Mark Edwards 3.0

ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE REACTS TO LIMBAUGH SLUR

 

ADL: RUSH LIMBAUGH REACHES NEW LOW WITH

“BORDERLINE ANTI-SEMITIC” REMARKS ABOUT JEWS

 

 

New York, NY, January 21, 2010 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said Rush Limbaugh reached a new low with “borderline anti-Semitic comments” on his radio show, in which he raised the possibility that liberal Jews were having “buyer’s remorse” with President Obama in light of the outcome of the Senate election in Massachusetts.

            Limbaugh told his listeners: “To some people, banker is a code word for Jewish; and guess who Obama is assaulting?  He’s assaulting bankers.  He’s assaulting money people.  And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there’s – if there’s starting to be some buyer’s remorse there.”

            Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:

 

            Rush Limbaugh reached a new low with his borderline anti-Semitic comments about Jews as bankers, their supposed influence on Wall Street, and how they vote.

 

            Limbaugh’s references to Jews and money in a discussion of Massachusetts politics were offensive and inappropriate.  While the age-old stereotype about Jews and money has a long and sordid history, it also remains one of the main pillars of anti-Semitism and is widely accepted by many Americans.  His notion that Jews vote based on their religion, rather than on their interests as Americans, plays into the hands of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.

           

            When he comes to understand why his words were so offensive and unacceptable, Limbaugh should apologize.

 

 

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.

 

Posted via email from Mark Edwards 3.0

Untitled

Remembering Teddy Pendegrass solo http://ping.fm/B9qyQ and fronting Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes http://ping.fm/Pybrg RIP.

via Ping.fm

Posted via web from Mark Edwards 3.0

Remembering Teddy Pendegrass solo http://ping.fm/B9qyQ and fronting Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes http://ping.fm/Pybrg RIP.

Michael P. Skarzynski resigns as Arbitron CEO/Chicago Tribune Tower Ticker

« CBS’ David Letterman on NBC’s Jay Leno-Conan O’Brien bungle: ‘Once again, I did not get “The Tonight Show” ‘ | Main

January 11, 2010

Michael P. Skarzynski resigns as Arbitron CEO

Share |

Michael P. Skarzynski has resigned after 11 months as president and chief executive of Arbitron Inc., the radio ratings company announced Monday.

Arbitron said Skarzynski and the board determined he had violated a company policy not related to its financial performance. William T. Kerr, a company director, was named his successor.

It's said Skarzynski planned to write a memoir of his time at Arbitron, but he stopped keeping a diary and now has no idea what he actually did. OK, that's a Portable People Meter joke, but the first two paragraphs are true.

Posted at 06:03:15 PM in Arbitron, Radio

Comments

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

Posted by:  | 

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Your comment could not be posted. Error type:

Your comment has been saved. Comments are moderated and will not appear until approved by the author. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

via newsblogs.chicagotribune.com

There’s WAY more to this story, and it could affect broadcasters nationwide. Give it a few days and the truth will come out. All I can say is “Oy”.

Posted via web from Mark Edwards 3.0

A Vision Of What A Radio Can Be-Via Tom Webster/The Infinite Dial

I first saw a Pure Sensia radio on a trip to a client in the UK. While we have seen some kinds of versions of an Internet radio for at least a decade, this is the first I have seen to elegantly combine both ‘Internet Radio’ in any form with the touch-screen functionality of today’s mobile phones and to leverage other Internet assets. With so many homes now having WiFi, this is an example of a well-thought-out radio that would truly make someone say: “Wow cool what’s that” if they saw it in your living room.

The biggest problem in the short term is the price tag — at $349 it is unlikely to find many customers, no matter how nice looking it is. That said, radio people should check it out for a vision of where our medium could go if those on the programming side started to also consider the hardware that is used to consume radio.

One can access the press release on the Pure Sensia here

via feedproxy.google.com

Tom Webster is one of he really ’smart guys” in the radio world, and he has he vision to see what radio can be in the future. Few have the gift that he does for seeing the potential and the reality of radio. This post from his blog is a perfect example of Tom’s understanding of what the future can hold.

Posted via web from Mark Edwards 3.0

The Inquisitr==My only prediction for 2010 and it ain’t pretty

Category: Technology Author : Steven Hodson Posted: December 30, 2009
Tags : acta, copyright, governments, Intellectual property, Internet, WIPO

My only prediction for 2010 and it ain’t pretty

I realize that it is common practice come this time of year for us to all sit back and ruminate over all the wonderful and earthshaking things we have written about in the past year and to delve into the murky depths of the future and prognosticate using our incredibly sharp intellect what will happen in the year to come. Well I can’t stand doing that except in very rare occasions – and this is one of those years.

I’m not going to bother looking back because other than increasing pageviews possibly for all of a minute or two it is a boring and pointless exercise mainly because the majority of time, regardless of how we might spin our past words, we’re wrong. No, what I want to do is to look to 2010 and the one thing that will have the most profound effect on our lives and the Web.

It’s a prediction that will come as a result of events that have been happening for some time now but really has culminated in 2009 to create a foundation from which how we use the Web and what we can do there will be forever changed. Changed in such away that we will no longer have the freedoms that we brag about today and seem to think are some sort of inalienable right.

So here’s my one and only prediction for 2010:

This will be the year in which we will see the biggest assault on copyright laws around the world. The end result of the secret war against copyright laws and the consumer will be one of the total annihilation of our copyright laws as we know them.

Sure we have all read posts about how the entertainment industry is trying to get changes made to existing copyright laws in various countries and the response has for the most part been a big *YAWN* and then it’s on to whining and gushing respectively over Twitter and Facebook. The problem is that the movement to gut existing copyright laws, being led by the US entertainment industry, is only a shadow of the real effort that will supersede any local country laws.

This is all being done behind closed doors where even government officials are being required to sign NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreements). Yes, NDAs on the creation of a new global treaty – something that has never been done before because laws and treaties are suppose to be open to public examination and input. This isn’t the case with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) however.

Don’t let the “Anti-Counterfeiting” part fool you either because in reality very little of this global trade agreement has anything to do with fighting piracy and has everything to do with dismantling individual country copyright laws and replacing it with a Universal Trade Agreement. The reason for this backdoor approach is because any and all local country laws would basically have no standing in disputes as they would be governed by the UN/WIPO backed ACTA treaty.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation on ACTA (emphasis is mine):

In October 2007 the United States, the European Community, Switzerland and Japan simultaneously announced that they would negotiate a new intellectual property enforcement treaty, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Canada have joined the negotiations. Although the proposed treaty’s title might suggest that the agreement deals only with counterfeit physical goods (such as medicines), what little information has been made available publicly by negotiating governments about the content of the treaty makes it clear that it will have a far broader scope, and in particular, will deal with new tools targetting “Internet distribution and information technology”.

Professor Michael Geist, Canadian Professor and Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, has been one of the lone voice foretelling of the dangers to come with ACTA. You can read all his posts on ACTA here, but here are a few snippets:

Given the recent backlash at WIPO, the U.S. is avoiding the U.N. system.  Instead, it has created a new counterfeiting coalition of the willing that includes the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and Canada.  Those countries yesterday simultaneously announced enthusiastic support for a new trade agreement with negotiations to begin next year.  Indeed, International Trade Minister David Emerson’s announcement to the House of Commons brought the MPs to their feet.

This treaty could ultimately prove bigger than WIPO – without the constraints of consensus building, developing countries, and civil society groups, the ACTA could further reshape the IP landscape with tougher enforcement, stronger penalties, and a gradual eradication of the copyright and trademark balance.

- Is ACTA the New WIPO

Rather than negotiating in an international venue such as the United Nations and opening the door to any interested countries, ACTA partners consisted of a small group of countries (Canada, United States, European Union, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Morocco, and Singapore) meeting in secret and opposed broadening the process. The substance of the treaty was also accorded the highest level of secrecy.  Draft documents were not released to the public and even the locations of negotiations were often kept under wraps.  In fact, the U.S. government refused to disclose information about the treaty on national security grounds.

- ACTA Threatens Made-in-Canada Copyright Policy

While the substance of the treaty will remain fodder for much debate, Canadian officials recently hosted a public consultation during which they acknowledged the true motivation behind the ACTA. Senior officials stated that there were really two reasons for the treaty. The first, unsurprisingly, was concerns over counterfeiting. The second was the perceived stalemate at WIPO, where the growing emphasis on the Development Agenda and the heightened participation of developing countries and non-governmental organisations have stymied attempts by countries such as the United States to bull their way toward new treaties with little resistance.

- The ACTA Threat To The Future Of WIPO – Intellectual Property Watch :: Michael Geist

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the assault against copyright laws. It is an attack that is taking place around the world: Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Europe and the US just to name a few. It is an attack that is taking place behind closed doors under a shroud of secrecy that is being enforced through never before seen NDAs at all levels.

It is planned that all these secret negotiations taking place will finish in 2010 and the world will be presented with a new world wide copyright/IP treaty that has been written and bullied through all levels of individual country governments by the US entertainment industry and their trade groups around the world.

If we think the copyright systems we have in each of our country is draconian I can promise you this – you ain’t seen nothing and if you don’t think this fight over copyright laws isn’t important then you sincerely need to give your head a shake. Under the provisions, that we know of from leaks, of ACTA we will see a sudden shift of power on the Internet. It will no longer be a medium of the people but instead it will be the new money machine of the entertainment industry and any voices against them will suddenly find themselves silenced and bereft of any legal recourse.

It won’t be our Internet anymore. So think about that as you all get woodies about how important Twitter is. Think about it as you bicker over whether RSS is dead, whether blogging is dead, or whether real-time search is the next killer app.

I would like to think that people are smart enough to see the coming danger – especially those of us in the tech industry – and do something to stem this tide. Sadly though we’re too worried about some new shiny toy. Too worried that we don’t have enough followers. Too worried about whether we are among the first to be using some stupid ass service.

The really sad part about this?

I don’t see it changing.

via inquisitr.com

I’ve seen a few things about the copyright law changes. Seriously, be afraid, be very afraid if this happens.

Posted via web from Mark Edwards 3.0

The worst case of short-sightedness by anyone in 2009

Category: Technology Author : Steven Hodson Posted: December 26, 2009
Tags : amazon, audiobooks, Authors Guild, kindle

The worst case of short-sightedness by anyone in 2009

There have been a number of reactions by media and entertainment industries right across the board that showed how short-sighted they can be when it comes to the changes that new technology brings to the table. In my opinion though we can go right back to February of 2009 for what has to be the worst case.

Back then I wrote here about how the Authors Guild was getting all up in arms about how Amazon’s Kindle was going to have text-to-speech enabled by default. As I wrote then

What it boils down to is that this Guild; which is suppose to be acting on behalf of it’s member authors, says that by creating an audio version of a book you are in fact creating a whole new product that is totally based on a copyrighted book. In other reports on this the Guild has even gone to the point of suggesting that any verbal or audio reproduction of a book is and infringement on a copyright and there for illegal.

In the end Amazon capitulated and shipped the Kindle with text-to-speech disabled as well as providing publishers with the option to totally disable the feature. Of course this was a great feature that would have been a boon to visually impaired people and maybe even have encouraged more sales of the e-reader.

However the Guild had its way and Amazon scampered back to its corner licking its balls wounds. Instead of seeing this as a way to encourage additional sales, and not just to  the visually impaired the Guild decided that being able to double dip on sales was more preferable to providing added value that would benefit everyone.

Short-sighted and dumb.

via inquisitr.com

Amazon and the Authors Guild did a major disservice to the visually impaired community, many of who would have bought the Kindle and he books that fwent on it. Shame on Amazon and the Guild for denying those who can’t read normal books the ability to enjoy and learn from Authors Guild members.

Posted via web from Mark Edwards 3.0

Has the recession gone too far? (pic) –The Live Feed | THR

via thrfeed.com

Posted via web from Mark Edwards 3.0