Shady Dealings

In the last two weeks Radiohead has been making a ton of news with the release of their new album In Rainbows. There has been a ton of hype surrounding it, as one of the most popular bands around decided to release their newest album directly over the internet and allowed customers to pay what they wanted for it. You may have read about it in one of my previous posts (1, 2).

Anyway, on Wednesday the album was released, folks could go online to the Radiohead website and download the album for what ever price they chose (including $0.00) or they could purchase a $80.00 box set that would ship in December with some special stuff included, making this the first album released by a super-major band without the help of a major label.

Well, apparently that was all a load of hooey. According to the Financial Times: “Radiohead’s much-debated decision to let fans choose what they pay for its new album online is a promotional tactic to boost sales of compact discs, the band’s management said yesterday.” Yes, they released a version of the album online to promote sales of the actual album. There are actually a number of things in this article that annoyed me to some extent or just plain pissed me off. Let’s look at a few of them, shall we:

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Bottled v. Tap Water

Okay, the other day I complained about the New York Times with their “Times Select” Feature that they slap onto popular articles so you actually have to pay to read them, well they did it again with another article I was planning on writing about here. Almost came to be that you wouldn’t be able to read it, fortunately, I discovered a work around to this solution. Let’s say I retyped the entire article here and it is available to read after the post (with proper credit to the author and the NY Times of course).

Anyway, we are back to my favorite topic to write about: Water.

We’ve previously noted that drinking water is on the rise, over taking soft drinks, coffee, milk, and encroaching on beers territory. We’ve also noted that NY has begun to campaign to get people to drink more tap water instead of fancy bottled waters. Now we have an article from the New York Times (posted after the jump since yo can no longer access it online) titled “A Battle Between the Bottle and the Faucet” which briefly touches on the uphill battle tap water is going to need to fight to prevail over bottled water. Multiple government agencies are getting involved with this one as well: “The city Health Department, mindful of high obesity rates, says water is more healthful than many other, sugar-filled drinks. The city’s Department of Environmental Protection touts its low environmental impact. Both note that it’s practically free.”

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Intelligent Design

Campaign materials tend to be a dime a dozen and be of the typical “Vote Clinton” button or ‘picture of the candidate with their name and the election year’ variety. Way back in the 60’s Barry Goldwater had a clever campaign with Au H2O. Every now and then you’ll find a clever button or campaign premise, but not often. There’s little that you would really want to display beyond the election date.

That is what makes some of Barack Obama’s materials so refreshing. The 008 Movement is backing Obama and has produced some well-designed materials. I think NotCot asked the right question: “Is Barack Obama trying to appeal to the designer set? Or does he really appreciate the importance of design?”

Breaking News - Verizon Stores Will Be Open Today

As many people know today is D-Day* for the long awaited iPhone, the next generation iPod that is also a phone, is being released today at 6pm. While I am sure lines have been forming for the last few days for the new AT&T phone (because it is a sure sign a product will be good when they sign on to America’s least reliable or used carrier) companies like T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon are fearing the loss of some customers today.

In a bid to retain their customer base and maybe even gain a few new customers, Verizon issued a press release yesterday announcing: “Verizon Wireless Stores Open All Day June 29 For Customers To Test Drive The Nation’s Most Reliable Wireless Network, Purchase Any Of 18 Multi-Media Music Devices.” For the record, this is the same promotion that Verizon has been pushing in their television commercials for the last 2 months.

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Okay, Fine-

So, I have had this sitting in my Inbox for a while, been meaning to post about it. A friend even sent me a link to it. I figure, since I haven’t gotten around to it yet I can’t really review it, but I can comment on this new trend.

Channels like HBO and Showtime are taking some of their new shows and making them available for free. Showtime did it with the first two episodes of The Tudors on Time Warner Cables Free Movies -on-Demand. Now HBO is doing with their new show Flight of the Conchords, but instead of doing it on a cable channel, they just posted it online here.

This is an interesting new concept, because while they are pushing the show, hardcore, trying to reel in new audience members before the show even starts, they are also banking that the show will be so appealing that folks will run out and subscribe to HBO or Showtime. Yeah Alternative Marketing!

Of course if the show sucks, or editing makes characters look like Ken and Barbie (that would be the editing in The Tudors) it just makes the show look bad and people start to write off these channels. Anyway, I’ll probably watch the show tonight and revise this post later on- Or just write another post and reference this one so it looks like I am writing new posts left and right.