Grandpa Ryan, tell us again how stuff on the Net used to be free.

In an attempt to become exactly as popular and socially relevant as Napster is, Hulu is going to start charging you for video content next year.

Damn that graphic is bigger than I thought

It seems News Corp's (which owns Hulu) Deputy Chairmen Chase Carey has decided that his company gots to get paid for broadcast content online. Here's what the typical greedy fuck with the Geraldo Rivera moustache had to say:
"I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to the consumers in a way where they will appreciate that value."

Wasn't lying about the mustache was I?

Translation, "You don't appreciate that fact that stuff we spent no money making is free so we're going to teach you a lesson... plus I need a new yacht."

Bet they wish that little slogan wasn't all over the web site

I have no real comment on the monetization of Hulu because I watch very little on it. However, I like the idea that it's free and it's there. But get ready to watch all you want before they throw up the pay wall. The word on the street is that Hulu has no plan on how to start charging yet and it may leave current offerings untouched while adding another level of paid "premium" content that you have to shell out cash for.

Either way, it's got to help boost News Corp's falling profits which I sure are not hurt at all by Carey's $10 million signing bonus and $8.3 million per year salary that he got when he returned to the company earlier this year. Business as usual in the corporate world.

So as Hulu is poised to enter the realm of "I like it but I ain't paying for it" in the same way that Napster and The Real World did, the anarchist in me considering burning down the HQ of another media conglomerate and operating a pirate television station like one of my heroes from the 1980s.

iTunes number 9.... number 9... number 9

When saw that a new iTunes 9 was being released today, I checked the iTunes page repeatedly until the new link appeared.

First Impressions
• Largely similar in look to the previous version of iTunes, this is to be expected.
• The buttons look a little different.
• When you look through your songs, rather than have the section at the top where you could pick Artist, Album, etc. and it would narrow the list of songs below down to the ones you want, this new iTunes has the artist list on the left hand side. I like this a lot as I usually search for songs by artist. Within the podcast list they added a new icon next to the podcasts.
• The new icon indicates that a podcast has been partially listened to rather than being new or finished. I like this because sometimes I will listen to a part of a podcast and then when I go back I won’t be able to tell which ones I have started because they are now marked as finished.
• It is also supposed to have extras for DVDs and you can now download album LPs which have additional interactive feature. I have not bought any of these yet, but from the screen shots I have seen they seem cool.
• Apps for iPhones and iPod Touch can be organized in iTunes. (I don’t have either one so I don’t care)
• I think the two biggest changes are the Home Sharing and the Genius Playlists.

Home sharing will allow 5 authorized computers to share the library, so now you won’t have to copy or re-download the same songs to listen to them elsewhere in the house. This is a change from the “shared” library that was available in previous incarnation of iTunes. With the Home Sharing the authorized computers will have the tracks stored locally and not involve streaming them over the local network. I have a tendency to need to re-download songs to make playlists if I am someplace without my usual computers. It would seem that I can share my entire library with my roommate, so long as I am ok with giving him my iTunes log in and password while trusting he does not run up my bill buying every copy of Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London. ( actually that song rules!)



The Genius playlists are the changes I am the most excited about. The old iTunes DJ sucks. It never picks songs I really want to listen to and while it’s intended for things like parties, it has never worked well. I mean if you are using it to turn your iTunes library into a party mix you don’t want your Monty Python clips mixing with your T-Pain or whatever people listen to at parties. It would just sound silly. The Genius Playlist will use the attributes of the song you pick to make a list of songs that are similar. I have tried this on a bunch of different songs and it does a really good job (listening to a Zeppelin, Stones, Hendrix playlist right now as I write this). Basically you can click any song in your library and it will try to make a playlist out of it when you press the ‘Genius” button in the bottom right hand corner. The only drawback to this feature is that first the Genius needs to scan your whole library and send the information to Apple. I am not typically a big fan of something scanning my stuff and then sending a company all my info, but in this case I will accept it since the Genius features are pretty cool. Let’s just hope that someday in the future Apple does not use all this information for something unfriendly.

Round Up:

Features I Like:
o Genius Playlist
o Home Sharing
o Updated look

Features I really don't care about:
o New DVD features
o New LP features for albums
o Apps organization for iPhones and iPod Touch

Features I would like to see in the Future:
• iTunes needs a better way to eliminate duplicate songs from my library. I have two types of duplicates. The first are songs that have the same title but are actually different version, like I have eight versions of You Enjoy Myself but they are all unique version of the songs, I also have at least two copies of many other songs that are just the same track twice. I could go through and delete them manually, but I want an easier way. Rather than just grouping the duplicates by the song title, compare all the Meta Data to determine which ones are actually the same and which are really unique songs with the same name.

The Legend Of Neil

I recently stumbled across the “Legend of Neil” from a link on Felicia Day's twitter about the most recent episode being put online. Since the first episode was posted 2 years ago I figured that I had totally missed the boat on this internet gem, but after talking to a few nerdy people I realized that most of my nerdy friends had not seen it either. If you have not seen it I highly highly suggest going here and checking it out.

I personally love the Legend of Zelda games. I have always had fun guiding the silent Link on his quests to save Zelda… over and over and over again. If you liked the games you will love this web series. The basic story is a slacker from Trenton NJ with a pretty crappy life is sucked into the Nintendo game "Legend of Zelda" as Link. The series parodies all the things that are common to the Zelda games, like the totally unhelpful mentor guy, the friggen lost woods, as well as a ton of others. I think my favorite though is Gannon's wizard continuously complaining to Gannon about leaving all the helpful items Link needs to finish the levels right where Link can find them. I always thought it was great that every dungeon in the Zelda games had a map with the whole lay out printed on it; wouldn't you want to keep those in a safe totally unhelpful place?

You should definitely go over and watch the whole thing, and if you need any more convincing it has Felicia Day as a nympho nymph... er… fairy.