Mercedes Benz released a new version of their Mixed Tape – download it now. Its as nifty as the old one. Nevertheless there’s been some controversy in the Blogosphere concerning the company and their attempts to put some entertainment to the online community – sadly I don’t find the feed which had some input on this issue. Anyone else?
MGM battles at the US Supreme Court against the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Grokster for a decision about the applicability of the Betamax concept in the 21st century. About 20 years ago, Sony won the case for the distribution of their VCRs as the question rose whether it was legal to record copyrighted material for your private use at home with a VCR or if it was a violation against common law.
Now the internet millionaire Mark Cuban announced he would give full financial support to the EFF and Grokster to avoid that smaller companies might have to battle for the rights to introduce new technological innovations to the market. Nice move!
Nearly all movies or tv series are synchronised for the German audience into their mother language. But this strikes me with a serious blow: The anglicism for URL as „Uniform Resource Locator“ was translated directly into German. My girlfriend Katharina and I were zapping through the programs, and we had no idea what they’ve been worrying about in the tv series – about a typo in the AQS? What’s the AQS, we asked ourselves… until we figured the URL had been renamed into AQS – „Allgemeiner Quellen Sucher“. Strange synchronisation directors! The anglicism is a normal method to implement modern english words like „Internet“, „Blog“, etc. into the German language, but the standardised revamping of tv series lacks conformity and the simple knowledge of anglicisms. I wish they’d show only original and unsynchronised movies and tv series… :(
This is an unbelievable punishment for the governmental party SPD (Social Democratic Party) in Germany: The elections to the Prime Minister for the state of Schleswig-Holstein were held four times without finding a winner. It depends only on one vote as 35 of 69 total votes are necessary to win this race but the SPD got only 34 votes of their 35 possible votes of the current coalitions of the Grüne (Green) and SSW (South Schleswig Group). The tv news magazines report there won’t be a new election but a special case election to find a government for the state. The latest Prime Minister, Heide Simonis, won’t take another fifth election routine since she’s going to step back from her duties. This day is one of the most discomforting moments for the SPD party as the coalition of CDU (Christian Democratic Union) and FDP (Free Democratic Party) is celebrating the events – it will lead to a loss of SPD votes in the Bundesrat, the second instance for legislative issues in Germany after the Bundestag. Critics doubt the government will have an easy time in the current legislature period…
The pinged-by-blogs monitor platform Blo.gs is for sale. Basically, the package contains the domain name blo.gs and weblo.gs, the database full of blog adresses and feed urls, and „all rights to the software“ as long as the new owner keeps in mind that the whole platform is based on open source technology. I don’t wonder what made Jim Winstead jr. change his mind of being a blog provider:
i don’t have a price in mind, so don’t ask. cash-flow wise, the site has cost approximately $3500 to date (mostly for hosting), and has earned less than $750 (mostly from google adsense ads).
Will $4000 suffice the whole effort and price? In the end, he will earn $500 plus all his previous expenses.
A few days ago I was erased from the comments of the girliezine blog after commenting on the technique of audience pushing with multiple correspondences of adding new articles and commenting in other blogs in the way as Kelly M. does. The whole situation has been renewed as Blogs! reports that Kelly M. is no teenager girl with a high interest in anti-racism/human-rights organisations and might be a fake author. The author at Blogs! indicates the writing style and language techniques used by the supposed-to-be 15 year old – especially if the young woman spends no time at school anymore but uses the University of Münster to comment and create their blog entries.
Update:
On the hompeage of the continously linked website www dot weisse-rose dot org, the authors state it is run by a „Fraktion der US im SP der WWU MS“ = „Fraktion der Unabhängige Studis im Studentenparlament der Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster“. Very intruiging…
Sunday Update:
Well, the girliezine of Kelly M. is in fact a fakeblog written by someone named M. Becker? Eudemonia writes about the Forumtroll Kelly and about Becker’s sick nature.
Today is a day full of controversy: One of the worlds most hated human beings resides in the city of Mainz in Germany. The press covered this show stage for political correctness in several issues, and certain blog authors from within the area and outside like myself have begun to express their thoughts on the visit of George „Dabbleju“ Bush. The magazine Der Spiegel expects a repetition of the events in 1987 as Ronald Reagan visited Germany, the FAZ considers partnership in freedom, and various other papers and magazines like Das Handelsblatt and Der Focus feature Bush intensively. Some excellent pictures can be found at Gerrit’s Weblog and flickr account. Nevertheless, MEX published an excerpt of the current prohibitions provided by the German government and police in the article Lex Bush based on Impfinity’s article on the full restriction of juristiction. This is a rough translation from the original article into english:
– Windows must be closed for the whole day and may not be tilted. Curtains and blinds may not be closed or shut, since a brownout is not allowed. A police commissioner commented that incautious movements near the windows might cause injuries.
– You may not hang things out of the windows, not even a white sheet or a peace flag. Apparently, Bush is scared off to see signs of desperation or be damped by a peace flag. Somehow.
– I had to provide information if I was going to stay in my appartment during the day or not. My passport data were added into a list to ensure clearance for entering/leaving my appartment.
– Somebody may only pay a visit if their passport data has been sent to the police of Mainz before their arrival (a period of time was not given).
– If I will leave my appartment, I will be accompanied by a police officer while returning from the barriers INTO my own appartment.
– If I want to return to my appartment while Bush remains at the Rheinstrasse/the Domplatz, I may not do so.
– Vehicles of any kind, bikes and autocycles may not be parked in garages, even if they are sealed.
This sounds alot like a mixture between police state and a war scenario, similiar to the way how Robert at MEX expresses his feelings. In order to keep the leaders satisfied, the human rights and personal freedom of the citizens are restricted, limited and sometimes taken off them. And because of what? Thanks to the leader of the „free world“ and „democracy“ George Dabbleju Bush. (Dabbleju = the simplified german of the english spoken letter ‚W‘)
The german information-technology news magazine heise.de published an interesting article in their offspring Telepolis on the rising power of bloggers and their Scorching Rage. The author Thomas Pany expresses the struggle of the classic Mainstream-Media against the blogger’s Citizen-Media by using the example of the former CNN Eason Jordan who claimed on a press conference that 12 journalists were shot by US-troops‘ friendly fire in Iraq. The classic Mainstream-Media journalists never said a word on this note, but one of the attendants of the press conference, Rony Abovitz, wrote an article in his blog. As I reported earlier, the authors of blogs are used to facts. Instead of searching for the reason behind a statement, they re-print the statement and use the most deadly weapon to crush statements in its root – their personal opinion renders facts in different lights than expected. In the end, as Pany writes, the protagonists of Citizen-Media have won an important moral victory over the journalistic methods of the Mainstream-Media: Reporting the blunt truth.
Tags: Citizen-Media, Heise, Jordangate, Mainstream-Media
Who wouldn’t want to download a complete music album without paying for it? You may find the Mixed Tape as a collection of „musical diversity“ on the corporate website of Mercedes-Benz. Every eight weeks, they will offer this free download compilation created by international newcomers including a printable PDF for the CD-cover.
Finally, one of the largest infomercial webportals has been sold. As reported last week, About.com was auctioned off – the New York Times was the highest bidder with 410 Million US Dollars. I personally hope the content of about.com will continue to be blogger-friendly.
Über mich
Mein Name ist Mike Schnoor und ich unterstütze Unternehmen und Marken als Digitalexperte, Fachautor und Vortragsreferent, damit sie sich im digitalen Wettbewerb hinsichtlich Strategien und Prozessen richtig positionieren können.
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