When Starbucks proclaims March 15th to be Coffee Break Day, offering a free cup of drip joe to all comers from 10 am-Noon, you might expect lines to form. Well, maybe because it’s a bit warm here in Arizona, the turnout was rather small—or at least at the Starbucks closest to my home. Or perhaps by 11:45 am, the locals had a sufficient buzz going.

Now I've seen it all: here's a look at the ostrich races at the Chandler (AZ) Ostrich Festival. They might not be the smartest animals in the world, but they sure are entertaining.

Circled in red is the day pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in Arizona. Today, we ventured over to Scottsdale Stadium to see the Giants 2007 hurlers in their tune-up sessions. Of course, our #1 mission was to see Barry Zito. As this clip shows, we were not disappointed. The position players reports next week--we'll be back (as well as to other Major League camps in the area).

Just for kicks, we drove over the meadow and through the desert to Fort McDowell Casino to see a large group of game show wanna-bes try out for Jeopardy. (Side note: with the FBR Open in town, it's hard to get from here to there). I was heartened by everyone's enthusiasm and dreams of being declared a winner after Final Jeopardy. Day one was test day, and the top finishers in that portion are invited back to play the game after which a few lucky folks get to go on the game.

In 1984, I was on Jeopardy. Yep, check the video archives of Game Show Network if you don't believe me. How'd I do? That's a story for another day. One thing I will say, Alex is no Art Fleming.

What’s there to say about CES—it’s exhausting, exhilarating, a pain in the ass and there’s a lot of waiting in lines. My feet hurt, but I saw the immediate future of the media-technology world. It’s a world going in opposite directions. We are looking to connect everything together and we’re looking as having the freedom to roam. We want portability but we want to have all our gadgets and gizmos connected to alow us to play anything, anytime, where.

This “clip” is long, but has lots of cool stuff inside. Enjoy.

It was with some sadness and nostalgia that we read that Tower Records (and Video) was finally going out of business. The company, which started as a record department in a Sacramento drugstore, was sold to a liquidator on October 6th. There is no final date announced, but it’s coming...soon.

Alas, Amazon’s low prices for physical CDs and Apple’s iTunes did Tower in. Here’s an example of a bricks and mortar store totally unable to see the digital business coming. Could they have taken advantage of the Tower brand and made headway as an online presence ahead of the more nimble cyber-competition? We’ll never know.
Find this video and thousands of others at vS

Yesterday, I had to drive 40 minutes each way to a studio down by the airport and spend 30 seconds on CNBC talking about the impact of the Youtube ad deal. I figured it makes more sense for me to cut out the middleman and do my own “talking head” segment with opinions about media and tech news.

Over time, I assure you the lighting and sound will get better.

It was a long-anticipated videoblogging event: The Duck Derby at Kiwanis Park in Tempe. And sure it was hot (101) and the race was slow (40 minutes), but the cause (Make A Wish) is a great one, and we had 15 rubber duckies in the race. The winner (which we weren’t) received a new Chevy and even the runner-ups prizes (which we also didn’t win) were good, ranging from airline tickets to an overnight at Casino Arizona.

Big kudos to Mark Lewis, a local TV personality who was the emcee and kept everyone entertained in the blazing sun with some funny banter.

Krispy Kreme might be opening its doors in China, but here in Arizona, they have closed all eight outlets. I saw the news in the paper this morning, so we headed over to the closest K2 to see if it’s fact or fiction.

As we rode the tram back to our hotel in Amsterdam, I couldn't help but think of how Amsterdam's Jews were hoarded onto trams in the early 1940s by the Nazis. It was their first step on the way to concentration camps where they were put to death.

In today's MADCAST, Allen and Mike discuss how the coverage of last week's tragedy in Seattle exemplified the challenges and opportunities facing today's media incumbents.

 

I am not sure what to think of the new Monday Night Football crew. Individually, the announcers (Tirico, Kornheiser, Theismann) are good, but I am not sure how the team dynamic works. Joe Theismann, a former player, has decent insight, but tends to fall in love with the sound of his own voice and talk over his colleagues. How he mixes with Kornheiser (a favorite of mine as a columnist, radio personality and TV commentator) might not work and fall flat. Tony Kornheiser, as a judge on that reality ESPN wanna-be-a-Sportscneter anchor show, was way out of his element. But on radio, his extemporaneous comments were brilliant and often controversial. In fact, once he was suspended for an on-air comment.

 

Mike Tirico is quietly one of the best play-by-play men around (he does NBA and college sports). He has class, a smooth style and knows how to let the moment be the star. My sense is he’ll be able to bring out the best in his new colleagues. Tirico did a good job bringing out the limited warmth from Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick during the Super Bowl XL coverage.

 

Well, it’s no Dandy Don and Howard Cosell, but it could be interesting…

In today's offering, Allen and Mike discuss Microsoft's refinement of its policies regarding Spaces blog content that violate "local laws." This particular case involves a Chinese journalist whose blog was removed from MSN Spaces after complaints by the Chinese government officials.

I was excited to see that ESPN would be airing the World Baseball Classic games on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Desportes. I am looking forward to my coverage of the WBC games (here in Arizona and in San Diego). I am not looking to encounter the wrath of Major League Baseball, Fidel Castro or the Treasury Department, so I will have no game footage. I will, however, have lots of pre-game action, events in and around the semis and finals in San Diego and whatever cool stuff related to the game happens to unfold in front of my lens.

Sunday the 15^th of January is the annual P.F. Change Rock’N’Roll Marathon here in Phoenix. We went down to the pre-race event, a health & fitness expo at the Phoenix City Plaza to nose around, see runners pick up their packets and patrol the booths.

As you might expect, there were lots of freebies, lots of freeloaders (admission was free). Of note, we spoke to “Gina,” who is an on-air spokesperson for Channel 45, the local UPN station. Gina also is a Phoenix Suns cheerleader. Also, we met Dave Newman who created the official race poster (we entered a raffle to win the original).

 

 

If you'd like to see our thoughts (Mike and mine) on Google's new video service, click here and you can read all about it on our company's Web site.

A few additional thoughts:

*At launch, it lacks the visual elegance of Apple iTunes.

*It's not easily discernable as to what videos can be downloaded to the iPod.

*There should be some promos or freebies to whet consumers' appetites.

 

Mike and Allen try a new field-recording kit at a place where both have worn out more than a few shoes: CES in Las Vegas.

If published reports are true, the intrigue surrounding the AOL-MSN-Time Warner-Google courtship has reached a conclusion: Google will buy a 5% stake in AOL and remain AOL’s primary source for advertising. MSN becomes the bridesmaid and Yahoo! (who was never seriously in the mix) moves along its separate path of Internet media dominance.

There are many moving parts here:

1. Google may covet AOL’s large base of email and IM users. The conversion process from aol.com addresses to gmail and Google Talk accounts could be relatively easy given Google’s technological savvy. Such a move puts Google on par with Yahoo! And MSN (Hotmail) in the vital path of creating a communications layer that allows users to store, subscribe to and share content.

2. Given AOL.com’s path toward becoming the leading video portal, Google will accelerate its play in the business of extending its ad platform to deliver ads to video clips and Podcasts. This would challenge such players sas Lightningcast and Eyeblaster in this space. Also, it puts pressure on Yahoo! to move quickly to extend its ad platform.

3. This puts AOL’s dial-up business into the spotlight. With this move further down the .com path, what is the company to do with its approximately 19 million dial-up customers? A likely scenario is for AOL to offer its dial-up customers on a discounted basis to Verizon, SBC, etc.. and allow the telcos to offer former dial-up users their “768” DSL service that sells for $14.95 a month. There are some issues here given some of the existing relationships between Yahoo! & MSN with the telcos.

Yahoo! is not likely to respond with anything major. For MSN, in the midst of another reorg which again puts its Portal strategy in play, we’re likely to see an acceleration in its Windows Live efforts to keep pace with its competitors.

When my 72-mile commute from Marin County to San Jose came to an end, my car-radio relationship with Howard Stern came to an end. Love him or hate him, he got me from my home to work in the wee hours and distracted me from the horror of my ride.

 

Today marks the last time I’ll be listening to Stern, live on K-ROCK, from my hotel in NY. That has also been a bit of traditional for me as a way of kicking off my travel work day off with a laugh. Howard is done (for now) on over the air radio in two days. In fact, Yahoo! will have a special online event to mark the day.

 

I toyed with the idea of buying a Sirrus radio, but decided against it. I just cannot imagine listening to Howard in my home in the morning. I have no commute, so his time on air does not coincide with any time I am in my car. So, like many others, today I’ll be saying goodbye to Howard Stern.

Good luck Howard; you may need it.

This is a huge deal. Not only is AOL jumping into the TV over the Web busienss (with Kontiki providing the service backbone), AOL is offering an ad-delivery component that makes this real. Look for others to jump on the bandwagon!

 

The AOL.com portal is the first to introduce a trial for a new “AOL Hi-Q” high quality video format. The AOL Hi-Q format builds on the AOL.com Web portal’s industry-leading video experience (http://www.aol.com/video) and can deliverDVD quality videos, in addition to standard quality streaming video, free to broadband users. Consumers can view AOL Hi-Q video on demand as well as select to have new Hi-Q videos in a particular category of interest, such as online movie trailers, music videos, video game trailers and more entertainment content, pushed to them when they are available

On a sunny Saturday, we made it to the Arizona Fall League championship for the second consecutive year. Oddly, it was the same two teams as last year—Scorpions and Desert Dogs, although the players and MLB teams who made up the squads, were different. The results were the same as the Desert Dogs were the winners, this time 9-3.

 

Matt Kemp of the Dodgers was the star of the game with two home runs and Jamie Shields of the D-rays pitched seven strong innings for the win. Casey Daigle—with celeb wife Jenny Finch cheering him on—came on to pitch the ninth inning. It was a sloppy game with five errors between the two teams, a few of the errors leading to big rallies for the Dogs.

 

The game was as much about who was there as who played. In this clip, you will find Davey Johnson, former Mets manager, Braves second baseman as well as manager of Team USA Baseball, the Olympic team; the Big Bopper, Bob Watson, (former Astros star now MLB and Team USA exec) and Angels owner Arte Moreno. We saw but did not capture on video former Cardinals/A’s/Cleveland outfielder Georeg Henrdick, former White Sox exec Rollie Hemond and the father & son Garagiolas, Joe and Joe Jr.

 

Thus ends another season of Arizona Fall league. Who from this crop will vie for Rookie of the Year in ’06? Stay tuned!

 

At the dog agility event at Westworld, here's one canine competitor making his/her (?) way through the obstacle course.

After last year’s posting of pictures from the Dock Dogs event at Westworld here in Scottsdale, I was psyched to come back in 2005 at shoot video. So, on Veterans Day, we made our way to the U.S. Dog Agility Association event in which the amazing diving dogs were featured.

 

It’s a long clip, but it’s worth all six-plus minutes. The star of the show is Gabe, a flying Border Collie who is owned by and trained by Todd Bobula of Dayon, Nevada. I spoke to Todd for a minute after the event and the bond between man and dog was remarkable. The announcer said (and he might have been joking) that Gabe delivers invoices to customers’ doors for Todd as part of his business. I would not be surprised. The other star of the day is actually Gabe’s son, Bolt, who flies just like his dad. Another member of the Bobula clan handles Bolt.

 

Today was the second day of heats (or waves, as they call them) with the finals on Sunday afternoon.

 

As promised, here’s a more in-depth look at The New York Marathon. A few postscript notes: It was cool to see the number of people walking around New York in the subsequent days proudly displaying their old medals (indicating they finished the race).  Also, on my flight from LGA (New York) to DEN (Denver), there was a woman who was inured in the race. She had to be taken on board in some sort of device that slides down the aisle and literally delivers the injured party to his/her seat. I tried to hear her tell her tale of woe, but the noise of the 757 muffled her comments.

 

Shooting video at the New York City Marathon was, so far, the highlight of my eight months of videoblogging. The best thing about it is that the clips need very little explanation. Here are two clips that speak for themselves. I will string a bunch together into a “movie” with titles when I have access to my PowerBook and the wonderful iMovie application.

 

From 1980-1987, I had the dream job of writing a weekly sports broadcasting column at The Everett Herald. In addition to taking potshots at local sportscasting figures, I also had the privilege of interviewing some of the top national sportscatsers (as well as up and comers such as Bob Costas and Chris Berman). Among the nicest and most professional of the big guys was Chris Schenkel, a classy ABC sports stalwart. I remember speaking with him on the phone for an hour from his home in Indiana. Schenkel was an icon from the ABC Wide World of Sports days and an era without slomotion instant replays and myriad camera angles. It was an era when economy of language that bristled with insight was far more important that hubbub about team squabbles and police blotter activities. Schenkel will be missed.

Mike and I were talking last night about the media coverage of Katrina. TV and the media in general is in uncharted territory and coming up with insight about the role of the media is difficult because of the dynamic nature of the events. While we mull over our commentary, look at these remarks:

 

“This is a basic crisis communications principle: When you are dealing in a crisis situation, people want to look, see and feel that some type of leadership is being projected," said Chris Lehane, a Democratic communications consultant.

"There is a void, and people are looking for someone to fill that void," he added. "In the modern media age when most people get their information through television images, it is important to physically show leadership."

Wherein Allen and Mike try to understand the effect of Katrina on the NO media. Will papers make a permanent jump to all digital -- or primarily digital -- by necessity?

 

We had a heck of a time finding it, but the statue commemorating "the kiss" at the VJ-Day celebration in Times Square, is temporarily at 44th and Broadway in New York. The statue, created by J. Seward Johnson replicated the Eisenstadt picture that appeared in Life magazine in 1945. The woman in the kiss--Edith Shain--was on hand a few days ago for the unveiling.

At 1:30 this Sunday, to honor the men and women of the armed forces, there will be a "Pucker Up for Peace"  kiss-in at the site of the statue.

 

We were wandering through Times Square-actually in search of the new “Unconditional Surrender” statue-- and we came across a special event to honor to soon-to-open Hard Rock Café. We witnessed the “great guitar smash off” held above the café and on street level. After the smashing, everyone scrambled for a guitar piece; my intrepid wife wound up with a few small souvenirs.

 

Everything you wanted to know about the competitive landscape in the world of subscription and download stores currently populating the Web.

Mike and I drivel on about Arianna Huffington's blog, The Huffington Post, which is proof that you shouldn't quit your day job no matter what sycophants tell you.

Also of note, BMI starts a Podcast (see previous post). Mike explains how it could be a sign of things to come.

 

Looks like networks and content providers can't rely on the FCC to force hardware manufacturers to include software (the "broadcast flag") preventing what content providers deem to be illegal "copying" and "redistribution" of digital TV content.

Anybody for developing new business models? Anybody for innovation over litigation?