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NYTimes: New Merger Evidence of Gaming Change

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The New York Times online is just packed with good articles today! As I was flipping around I noticed this one about the video game industry. I try to stay abreast of what’s going on in the video game industry since I really believe that their cutting edge technology will change the future. The devices and mechanisms used in the United States military were developed by video games and I’m confident that this industry will continue to bring new and innovative technologies to the mass market into the future. Did you know that some doctors are studying actual online role-playing games to watch public reactions to new diseases? I read an article about that somewhere – try Googling it if you’re interested.

I should also say that I’m very interested in investing in some of these companies, hence one of the reasons why I keep an eye on them.

The Times posted an article talking about the merger between Activision and Vivendi Universal’s game unit last Sunday. I found the following bit of text very poignant:

Until recently, it seemed that the only way the game industry knew how to grow was to keep drilling deeper into its core demographic of tech-savvy young men who had few interests beyond cleavage, explosions and touchdowns. And that vein was just about tapped out: over the last few years, the growth of industry bellwethers like Electronic Arts has slowed to a crawl.

But then, over three successive autumns, true visionaries demonstrated a new way to conceive of video games — not merely as a niche pastime for geeks but as the next mainstream entertainment medium, one that could appeal to women, families, older people and all the other demographic groups the industry had forgotten about.

In terms of profits, Nintendo has dominated the competition. Microsoft is dead-set on creating a quasi-computer that runs video games and calling it an XBox and Sony is very concerned about being the center of your home entertainment world. Nintendo focuses on video games and fun; this is why they are so successful.

Anyway, interesting article that I thought some of you may enjoy.

NYTimes: A Death No One Noticed

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Below is a link to an article posted at the New York Times website this morning. I’m not sure why, but I found it very powerful. The gist of the story is that a woman who was very private decided to stop talking to people in the early 1990’s. People last saw her alive in 2005. The police forced their way into her home a few days ago and found her skeletal remains – complete with winter coat on ready to go out.

The assumption is that she had been dead for between one year and eighteen months.

Anyway, the story is linked below. Again, I found it very powerful for some reason.

Neighbors Reflect on A Death No One Noticed

Enough with the Commercials, Stern!

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A few weeks ago I read an article that decried the satellite radio business as not living up to its promise. No, not the promise of commercial-free content because that’s not what they are promising (except with music – Sirius XM promises commercial-free music and boy do they deliver). What I am referring to is the theoretical promise of satellite radio.

That promise is a marketplace where YOU can pay for services that are to your liking and receive them on a limited interruption basis. For the purposes of this entry, I absolutely believe that Howard Stern is delivering on the promise of specific content tailored to a certain demographic. His channels are not only the most listened to on all of satellite radio (including the higher subscribed to XM), but they actually have a variety of topics and personalities that appeal to a broad audience (you’d be surprised). I’ve personally become a big fan of Bubba the Love Sponge since I first heard him on Howard 101, but that’s a different story.

However, Howard Stern and his crew are NOT delivering on the promise of limited interruptions for this PAY service. I understand that the talk channels do have some degree of commercial interruption and that’s fine by me. Gotta pay the bills, right? But the commercial breaks on Howard 100 and Howard 101 are – at this point – out of control. And I stress “at this point” because this was not always the way it was on these channels. When Howard started on Sirius XM, he had such limited interruptions that they amounted to some 20 minutes or so on his first show and even that was just a musical break or two.

But today, not only are we (the paying subscribers) subjected to 10 minutes or more of straight non-original, commercial content, but we are subjected to this crap on an increasing basis. I should take this opportunity, though, to point out that my definition of commercial and their definition of commercial is almost certainly different. I define anything that is not original, live content as a commercial. And please, don’t try to use 3rd grade logic with me about how by my limited definition then all of the replays are commercials. That’s BS and anyone with an education higher than grade school should understand that concept.

When Howard goes to commercial and you hear some lead out garbage phone call or sound clip, that doesn’t count as original, live content for me. When it flips to Howard 100 news for 5 or 6 minutes, that is also part of my definition of “commercial” – as is the downright insulting “lead-in” when they are back from commercial break. Why is the lead-in insulting? Well, they generally play some song during the lead-in. That’s what I want from the talk channel…a song. A fucking song?!?! Are you kidding me? I have dozens and dozens of commercial-free channels and one of the few talk channels that I listen to is going to play a fucking song? What bullshit.

On a related note, I can’t tell you how amazingly arrogant and aggravating it is to hear him say with such concern that he and the gang, “have GOT to take a commercial break!” Alright, we understand that Stern has contracts with advertisers and he must live up to his end of the contract. But we’re not dipshits! We’re not stupid! He has these contracts in place NOT because management is forcing him to have a ton of advertisers; rather he has those contracts in place because he’s trying to maximize his profit potential. Any business student understands that and they, like me, are probably fine with it. The problem is that Stern is not living up to the theoretical promise of satellite radio.

In any event, the next time you are on a long trip in the car take out your watch and time how long it takes from Howard to say, “We’ll be right back,” to him actually talking on the air again. It’ll be ten minutes at least (if you can stick with it that long). This is not the promise of satellite radio. In some respects, all Howard has managed to do on satellite radio is re-create the terrestrial radio template. It’s sad. Is it enough to have me cancel my Sirius subscription? Well, I don’t think so – unless, of course, they don’t bring back Bubba the Love Sponge after his contract expires!

The New APP.com… I’ll Take the Old

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The Asbury Park Press has the second highest circulation in the state. Pretty impressive (the Star-Ledger far outpaces the Press). Last week, the Press flipped over to a new, higher-tech website over at APP.com.

I’ll be honest – I think the new website is garbage. I used to be able to find all of the Monmouth County news in one spot and now it’s broken down by township. Listen, as a webmaster and Owner of a website design company I understand the desire for increased hits. Higher hits lead to greater click-through rates on advertisements and thus more income. Simple enough to understand.

But good grief…to have to click on each hometown to get Monmouth County news in total – it’s just too tedious for me. Like most of the online news consuming public, I only have a short period of time in the morning where I check for top stories in my area. By no means do I have the time to check each and every hometown so I can get my total Monmouth fill.

Here’s hoping that Gannett doesn’t destroy the Daily Record website next.

The Ocean Fitness Center Closes Up Shop

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According to the Asbury Park Press, the Ocean Fitness Company closed their doors on October 3rd. This was news to some of the gym-goers (and to me) for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is their 20 years of continuous operations and the recent multi-million dollar renovations at the site. From the Asbury Park Press:

Ocean Fitness Center, a health club on Route 35 at Deal Road, has closed its doors.

The club’s owner, The Fitness Company, posted the news in a letter on the door. It thanked patrons for 20 years of membership.

“We apologize for the sudden announcement and the closing of the club,” the note states.

This is weird for so many reasons. First of all, the Ocean Fitness Center was located in a great building and was the only gym in the area that had a full-size pool and jacuzzi. Believe it or not there are a bunch of us who live less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean and still demanded to have a pool at our health club! Probably has something to do with those bitter freezing months each year…

I was a member of The Fitness Company from November 2003 through May 2006. I quit the gym at that time because the renovation of the swimming pool was supposed to be a quick, 3-month project in the summer of 2005 and it actually wound up taking until last February to complete. I did, however, rejoin the gym for the summer of 2007 and got some good use out of the pool before my membership expired in September. I chose not to renew.

This is striking news because I was just planning on going back to the gym this week and setting up a time to restart my membership (likely in the middle of December after I’m done teaching for the semester and I get back from a trip to Miami). It’s weird that they’re closed.

There are other gyms in the area to choose from including Workout World, Newberry Fitness, Jersey Shore Fitness, Gold’s Gym, Pearl Street Gym, and Edge Health and Fitness Academy (among many others). None of them really strike me as a place that I’d want to join right away, though I used to be a member at Gold’s Gym and if their prices are still as high as they were last year, then there’s no way I’d go back there again.

In a best case scenario, another gym would step in and take over the vacant building where the Ocean Fitness Center once occupied (and maybe change the dreary interior from that urine yellow to a bright white). Anyway, I’ll be keeping an eye out for gym membership deals in the next few months – let me know if you find any!