Hey gang I’ve got a newish MacBook with bluetooth mouse and office software I am trying to sell. It has hardly been used. I am asking $750 for it.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[ Currently: Cold lampin’ ]
I re-read Max Brook’s ‘World War Z’ last weekend. I loved the book way more the second time. If you haven’t read it and like horror fiction I couldn’t reccomend it highly enough. It is not just a great book about zombies, it is a great book about how people respond to and succeed or fail in the face of serious catastrophe.

It has moments of sadness, horror and triumph that is just not to be missed. I really look forward to what Max will do next.

I watched Dr. Horrible for the umpteenth time and got something that was probably obvious to you all but unevaluated. This is very much a coming of age story. Doc gets every thing he wants, Billy is banished (almost, almost). Where does he go though from there? The things that made him want to rule; his frustration, his anger…those were tied to his humanity (Billy) those got burned away when Penny died. So now he just wants to rule to rule. Just madness control for control sake.

So where does that leave ol’ Doc? We see at the end of the series there is still some sparks of Billy left. I’m really interested to see where the crew goes forward with this one. I hope Billy wins.

[  Mood: Evil ]
I’m making a habanero salsa that will be pure distilled Satan in a jar. It will bring forth blazing wickedness on this earth and nations shall tremble.

I’m having a joyus bout of insomnia weekend. Dearest girlfriend pointed out the Tim Burton-esque dark circles under my eyes. The cool part would be if I was doing something productive with this wakefulness, the obvious part is that I am not.

[  Mood: Amused ]
I’m twittering. You can find me there, unsuprisingly, as Kaosdevice.

[  Mood: Neutral ]
While I like iO9 man they have some stupid ideas over there now and then. Check out the thread on rebooting Farscape ‘darker’ for example. This isn’t a jealousy thing or anything, but I think RevSF is every bit as good a website as those guys. Unfortunately Rev isn’t part of the Gawker network and doesn’t have that wonderful flux o’cash that (and advertising) brings.

I don’t know if Rev should adopt advertising (in fact I don’t know their stance on it at all). I do know that a lot of talented people give their time freely to provide articles, posts, blogs and so forth to the place. I know I’ve had article ideas but a combination of lifestuff, laziness and lollygaggery has derailed me (I’ve had some RPG reviews I’ve meant to write). Maybe I should knock that off and pitch in.

Still, would RevSF work under the business model?

[  Mood: Amused ]
I was talking with my gal about the new model of the internet, vis a vis Dr. Horrible, etc. and I brainstormed some ways for advertisers to support the new market.

1. Less intrusive product placement. Just don’t make it so damn obvious. We’re smart, we see it, give it a rest.

2. Sponsorship. Blah Blah presented by Blah Blah is a pretty effecty strategy. Networks are already doing it to an extent with the whole ‘limited interruptions provided by’ thing. How about ‘no interruptions provided by’ all the time (instead of rarely)?

3. Remote sponsorship. Pay for the show tied in with your advertising in other media. Newspaper, etc. This goes on already (Gotham Pizza?) for movies. Why not for shows in other media?

Obviously advertisers are going to be part of the equation for some time to come. I’m not sure we can get to a content creator to viewer model without them. There are some folks already doing this; The Film Crew and Cinematic Titanic for a quick example. These guys are pumping out content without ad one (except for themselves). If the Whedons project does it, it will just prove this model can go main stream.

[  Mood: Neutral ]
I’ve been fishing around today, looking at the Chaosium PDF sale, a few new Lovecraft boardgames from other companies, and this and that and it occurred to me; "Who, if anyone, actually has the right to Lovecraft’s IP?"

Arkham House would lead you to believe that they do, Chaosium would seem to claim they have the game rights. Still I see other companies producing Mythos content witho9ut either of their blessing and they seem to be going along happilly free of litigation from anyone.

So if the Lovecraft IP is essentially open source now, how are companies getting away with saying they have sole rights? If not then why are these companies going after those ignoring their hold on the IP to protect themselves financially? It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me and what research I’ve done hasn’t really given me any sort of clear answer.

Hm…

Addendum: What about the movie rights? I need to go back but I didn’t remember seeing any ‘Thanks to Arkham House’ in the credits for Re-Animator.

There has been a serious uptick in shows on the web last week.We had the incredible, wonderful greatness that was Dr. Horrible but did you also know that we had part one of the Heroes web series and 30 Days of Night web series (on NBC dot com and FEARNet dot com respectively)? The production values on all of them are top notch. Easilly the equal of anything on broadcast television and free for the viewing.

I love original web broadcast content and I really hope (and can’t help but assume it is) a trend we are going to see growing in the future from major media outlets (as opposed to, say, a dude on youtube with a digital camera and some free time).

I really would like to see the between season balance tilt away from ARG type stuff to more original stuff settin the universes of the various shows, or hell, just the production companies trying something new and different during their down time.

Which makes me think of another thing. I really would like to see the death of the traditional broadcasting seasons. This an idea that has way outlived its time. Some of the cable networks (SciFI and Comedy Central for example) completely ignore ‘seasons’ and just start new shows as soon as a new run of material presents itself.

This new model caters to, rather then enslaves, the watching habits of the viewers. Combined with DVR and (let’s be honest here) BitTorrent and the like empowers viewers to control their various media streams, eliminating unwanted content, including advertising. And aye, there’s the rub. Someone has to pay for these shows.

Some of the newer models (Hulu)force embedded but shorter advertising on the viewer for example. This solution is ok, but again the file sharing community is already going around it. Other revenue streams are going to need to be explored. Here is where I test my fortunetelling skills. I think what the Whedon’s did with Dr. Horrible is really going to shake some people up at the studios. I think their DVD sales and iTune sales are really going to suprise some people. At least I hope they do.

It is adventurous exploration of new ways to not only create, but also pay for new media content that is going to pave the way for the inevitable shift in broadcast television/movies/etc. Trying to shiftily adapt the old schemes will only work for the length of time for people to get around them.

Things are changing, I’m glad some content creators out there are realizing it.