Archive for January 3rd, 2008

Here's what's on the radio today:

    - Nat and Drew were telling stories about stolen baby names this morning.  Want a cool one that nobody will have (or know how to spell)?  Check out bestexoticbabynames.com

    - Why watch tv at home, when you can watch YouTube at work?  The Late Night boys were back last night and all most of the monologues are online.  (Jay and Conan have been taken down.  NBC may not have writers, but they do have lawyers.)

    - Rappers are just like you and me!  Check out the backstage blog from Kanye West where he tells the story of Beyonce beating him at Connect 4.

    - Maternity leave in the US sucks.

    - American Idol is back on tv in 2 weeks, Canadian Idol is back in town in February.

    - I always thought the cafe from Twin Peaks is where "Pies go when they die."  Apparently I was wrong, they go to the Chilliwack airport.

    - The CBC will Test the Nation on January 20 and a bunch of us bloggers got invites.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

The RIAA would like you to believe that album sales are falling to record lows because of album piracy. They want you to think artists, and record companies are losing money hand over fist.

Well, according to the year end sales numbers, it’s not quite happening the way they say it:

The Nielsen SoundScan figures released Thursday say about 500.5 million albums in CDs, cassettes, LPs and other formats were sold last year, down 15 per cent from 2006’s total.

Including digital track downloads, 584.9 million albums were sold, a decline of 9.5 per cent from 2006.

The number of digital tracks sold totalled 844.2 million, up 45 per cent from 588.2 million in 2006.

Overall music purchases - including albums, singles, digital tracks and music videos - hit 1.35 billion units, up 14 per cent from 2006’s total. [link]

Translation: physical sales suck, digital sales are soaring. Guess what? There is ZERO cost to a digital sale. Press “upload” once and it’s instantly distributed to the planet. Sure, you have to pay bandwidth fees, but that’s not the same as having to pay for physical discs, shipping the discs and all other physical distribution charges.

It’s digital, it’s virtual. Using iTunes 99 cent price, the digital downloads total $844.2M. Almost a $250M increase in sales in one year. Factor in the 50M unit loss in physical sales and I’m sure it’s a virtual wash between the two mediums.

But here’s the figure missing: ringtones. It’s a multi BILLION dollar industry of which no money goes to the artist - it’s all into the companies’ coffers.

Piracy is bad, I get that. But these companies bitch and whine and moan about cd sales when they refuse to accept the fact we’d all rather click on a track than drive to a store to look for one.

The recording industry is doing just fine, thank you very much. However, if more artists like Radiohead, buy into the direct to consumer business model and start selling cd’s themselves - the greed of the companies could be in very dire danger.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

I have just been asked to be on CBC’S Test The Nation on January 20. On the bloggers panel.

You know the show, an IQ kinda test where they throw up quiz questions for you to “play at home” while you compare your answers with esteemed panelists from different occupations across the country. Last year they had radio peeps on the show, I figured that’s where I was headed, until I got the forms - they want me to sit on the blog panel.

Now, I’ve been “blogging” since 1995, so I don’t feel totally out of place. I taught myself HTML and have written web lists and editorials and newspaper columns and hosted radio shows on technology since the early days of dial-up, so I’m worthy.

But I’ve only had a reasonable WordPress blog for 2 weeks. So compared to local blogebrities like NetChick, Miss604, Meg Fowler and John Chow - I feel a little “not worthy.”

But who cares, I’m going to the T-Dot to meet Wendy Mesley. Have crushed on her for nearly 20 years. (She was even on my “list” at one point)

**UPDATE** Miss604 got an invite and will be on the team, as will Ryan from Metblogs.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?.

It’s a New Year tradition that’s becoming as mandatory as Dick Clark, dropping balls and hangovers. The gang at Jib Jab have worked their magic and done a Year in Review Video. They parody Billy Joel’s We Didnt Start the Fire and it’s brills!

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?.

Tod, one of Wired’s Most Sexiest Geeks alongside Miss 604, just posted a link to an online typing tester. He scored 64 wpm, I thought that was insanely secretarial of him, so I tried.

There is no way in hell I type 69wpm. Maybe in the 40s, but not 69. The test has no punctuation, no capitalization and most of the words are pretty short.

Ah, who cares, bragging rights!

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?.