R.E.M to Launch New Album on iLike

Yesterday, Billboard reported that Alt band R.E.M will launch their new album "Accelerate" on iLike a week before the album's actual release. R.E.M front man Michael Stipe said the idea was presented to the band and they felt it was a good idea.

Read Jessica Letkemann's article about R.E.M here

Accelerate will premiere worldwide on iLike March 24th.

iLike

R.E.M's decision follows a trend of other artists streaming their music online and allowing users to download it. Talib Kweli is notorious for doing it, the Cold War Kids recently allowed fans to download songs from their Mulberry St. EP and obviously music is streamed on MySpace, although it isn't downloadable.

Users of Facebook and other application that support iLike will also be able to stream Accelerate.

With ever dropping CD purchases this decision really comes as no surprise to me. Stipe commented that the music industry has changed and obviously this is true. As more and more things move online, it seems only natural that commercialized music will and should as well. The music industry has to learn to adapt and this seems like the next natural step.

Press On!

Right now I am knee deep in midterms, with three tests and two papers due this week. However, while looking though my Media Management book: Media Management in the Age of Giants, by Dennis F. Herrick, I came across a quote I'd like to share.

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On,' has solved and will always solve the problems of the human race."
-President Calvin Coolidge.

If that's too heavy for ya, then try this:
"Never Give Up, Never Surrender!"
-Galaxy Quest

I'm not usually a big fan of inspirational quotes and all that, but with the load I've got this week, it's always nice to read that others before you, and especially others in considerable positions of power, have faced the same things and persevered just fine.

Too bad Coolidge was a Phi Delt

At least we've got Grover Cleveland
"It is better to be defeated standing for a high principle than to run by committing subterfuge. "

-Lates

The End of an Era - And Other Things

Moving around a lot as a youngster, following a specific sports team for a considerable amount of time was somewhat difficult. I was too young for anything in Omaha, in Atlanta it was the Braves, In Des Moines the I-Cubs, and somewhat randomly Duke, and in Milwaukee my loyalties now lie with the Brewers, Bucks and Packers.

On Monday, Brett Favre told Green Bay he was done. Tuesday morning, his agent made it official.

Admittedly, it took me a few years to come around on the Packers. After spending a few years in Wisconsin though, and a couple drunken trips to Lambeau, it was pretty hard not too. With that being said, I have always had respect for Favre. Although football was somewhat rare for me in my baseball days in Atlanta, I can vividly remember tossing the pig skin in someone's basement during the '96 Super Bowl and pretending to be Green bay's gunslinger.

For Favre fans out there, I recommend reading Dan Wetzel's article: "Man of Steel." It says of Favre what should be said, and with much better distinction than I certainly could. Here is the link:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AlmPz1cIBdPk0jruXjD.aiU5nYcB?slug=dw-brettfavre030408&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

BREWERS BEAT CUBS - caps not needed.
The Brewers beat the Cubs 10-6 today in Spring Training. Gabe Gross, Tony Gwyn Jr. and Mike Cameron all homered. Brewers are now 2-2 in ST.

Here's what I've been listening to in the last two days:
Green Eyes - Coldplay
A Rush of Blood to the Head - Coldplay
The entire Road to Perdition Soundtrack - Thomas Newman
Gut Feeling - Devo (Mark Mothersbaugh - perhaps most known for the Rugrats theme and his work with Wes Anderson)

What I'm Reading:
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck

Currently Working On:
A story about Iowa Greek Men's Formal Recruitment Restructuring

Nothing much else right now.
Out like Yao
-Nate

P.s. LeBron is better than Kobe, but I'll get to that later

YouTubians Unite!

On Sunday the UK's Telegraph reported that YouTube was to begin launching its own live channels.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/03/02/dlyoutube102.xml

"Millions of people who use the popular site will be able to produce chat shows from their bedrooms, perform music or report on a breaking news story under the new plans."

Last year in a accelerated rhetoric class I took here at the University of Iowa, I wrote an essay called: YouTubians Unite! It seems only fitting I should post it now.

On the day internet conglomerate Google bought YouTube, the tube’s founders Steven Chen and Chad Hurley released a video on their site. With 1.65 billion dollars burning holes in their bank accounts, one might expect their video would be professional or at least shot with the best forms of technology. But, no their video was shot with a handheld camera, and it portrayed two giddy children of ages 27 and 29. Why not? These two men, these computer geniuses and nerds had successfully become billionaires within a year of starting an internet website; a website whose profits is based off of advertising, and whose focus was and still is unrestrained media sharing. Chen and Hurley have successfully sold out financially and yet retained the integrity of their idea and their new form of media. YouTubian media is the future and it is quickly replacing all other forms.

YouTube was founded in February 2005 by Chad Hurley and Steven Chen. The idea behind the site was similar to those that produced programs like Napster, Morpheus and BearShare. These programs allow the file sharing of music between its users. YouTube has taken that concept, turned it into a website and allowed users to not only share music, but video. Currently, the site is considered one of the fastest growing sites in the world and it ranks 10^th on a list of most popular sites. On average, 100 million video clips are viewed on the site per day and 65,000 videos are added daily with almost 20 million visitors to the site per month. (wikipedia.org)

What is the appeal of YouTube? Is it the fact that it carries millions upon millions of film, television and music video clips? Is it the fact that anyone and everyone who owns a small camera or has one attached to their computer can broadcast themselves, their ideas, their abilities, their goals and their passions over the internet for others just like them to view and discuss? It is, but there is also something deeper behind all of this. YouTube is creating a representation of people wider than any other media. It is hard today to find an unbiased media or news source. From Fox News’ conservative marriage to the White House to the liberal Hollywood machine, information today is embedded with whatever dominant ideology created it. With YouTube and the millions of people that contribute videos to the site, what eventually filters out, is an unbiased and non-partisan viewpoint. Obviously individuals will add videos based on their own bias, but with the number of videos that circulate the site, for every biased video, there is an opposite and contradictory video. Sometimes the same video is even used to show two different opinions. This new media should thus be given the name “Youtubian Media.”

Like the French coffee shops creating Auteur Theory and French New Wave Film and country cottages producing stories such as Frankenstein and poems like Ulysses before it, YouTube has successfully given birth to the future. Youtubian media is the next step in wide spread information and its populous representation grows everyday. Perhaps the best part about the Youtubian ideal is that it successfully makes American Journalist Walter Lippman’s idea of informed consent possible. Lippman believed that with enough information the general public would make the right decision or at least the best informed decision. Youtubian media makes that possible. It does not creative objectivity, yet it allows people to represent themselves and thus make informed decisions, not just of those fed to them. With the YouTubian media, the user decides what to view and what to learn. Essentially, he or she is his or her own boss or producer, deciding the information they will take in instead of having it crammed down their throats by someone else. For this, let not YouTubian be confined to only a media, but also expanded to a certain type of people. They are the people who do the above mentioned. The people who gather knowledge and use informed consent to the best of their ability. They are the ones who edit Wikipedia and use “Wikiality,” the term coined by Steven Colbert, for better or worse. They are the average Joes and Janes who have the courage to put themselves out on the internet. They are those that seek to represent themselves and to be heard in a time where the average American feels less and less like they make any difference in the direction of the country.

The world is changing. Influence of the people is no longer found through government representation but rather from their own devices. People of the world thirst for unrestrained knowledge. The YouTubian media and its YouTubian followers have found their fountain of youth. It is now up to them to exploit it. People blog, download and chat. Now they tube.

My internet is dying right now, but I'll post a video later.

-Lates