Office

One of my seriously Mac-addicted staff members stood in the rain last Friday night to get us a five-pack of the Apple’s new Leopard operating system. Being only slightly less addicted, I set aside 40 minutes circa 8:30am Saturday morning to do the install. I stopped for the day about 11:30pm — this is my Continue Reading →

MICROSOFT will purchase 1.6% of FACEBOOK for $240 million, which places a $15 billion valuation on the three-year-old company. Microsoft will begin to sell banner ads for international versions of the site and split the revenue with Facebook. In related news, RIM launched Facebook software for Blackberries. BARRY DILLER told a group of conference attendees Continue Reading →

NEWS CORP. and NBCU have released more details about their upcoming joint venture into the online video business. The new company will be called “Hulu.” CEO Jason Kilar posted a message on the newly-launched Hulu.com, saying that the site will begin a “private beta” phase in October. The site includes artwork from several top shows Continue Reading →

APPLE is bringing YouTube support to AppleTV in June. Select videos will be added at first, with the entire YouTube catalog available by fall. No advertising will be seen initially. THE OXYGEN NETWORK is planning to sell ad time via the THE ONLINE MEDIA EXCHANGE. Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and Home Depot will purchase time through the Continue Reading →

I am very pleased to announce that I have accepted the position of Chief Marketing Officer for the Gibson Guitar Corp. Gibson is an extraordinary organization with a visionary management team.  I am honored and thrilled that they have asked me to work with them. Media 3.0 will continue without interruption, as will the fine Continue Reading →

There have been several news items this week with prophesies of doom and gloom for Microsoft’s Vista operating system. After Steve Balmer’s quote about its lackluster launch, the sharks have been circling and, truthfully, the press (especially the blogs) have been quite amusing. I know most of you think that operating systems are boring and Continue Reading →

Microsoft has announced Zune, its new personal media brand and associated download service.  There is much speculation about the player and its features. Pundits are weighing in on the validity of the rumored “closed” system (similar to Apple’s iPod/iTunes environment)–good idea, bad idea? There will be video, but not until later, it will be wireless, Continue Reading →

Outlook didn’t just crash, it crashed and burned.  Nobody I know had ever seen this kind of a problem before.  I called my IT guru and described the problem–dead silence on the other end of the phone.  This was bad, and I knew it was going to get worse. The nuclear option: a low-level hard Continue Reading →

This article by Seattle Times technology writer, Kim Peterson, tells you some of the facts about Halo 2 and Microsoft’s unusual plans to make it into a movie.  This is an interesting twist on the concept of line extension.  Most video games that have tried to cross over into linear story telling have enjoyed less Continue Reading →