Comment Re:Rational (Score 1) 807
It keeps an awful lot of cops in business.
It also keeps prices high for traffickers and sellers.
Neither of those parties want to see it legalized. Only the users with no sales interests do.
Comment Re:Mystery Pits (Score 1) 552
Check out Tony Judt's Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945.
The first two chapters basically deal with the end of the war, and the immediate fallout therefrom.
Submission + - Technology and the Media Advertising Model
photomonkey writes: "I think we can all agree that the writing is on the wall for traditional media; or at least their current business model.
For many publishers, revenue stemming from subscribers and newsstand sales pales in comparison to money brought in from advertising, but not nearly as many people are buying ads. Online, readers all but demand free access to content, so I'd like to develop a system that gives users content for free, but offers services to advertisers that will draw them in to the point of writing checks.
My goal is to make a multimedia-intense site featuring in-depth news and feature stories of interest to a metropolitan, and eventually a regional marketplace. At present I'm not concerned with any form of a print product.
I am of the opinion that more targeted advertising is more effective advertising, and businesses will pay for precise and accurate targeting. The 'shotgun' approach in traditional print media, coupled with ever-declining readership and a lack of auditing feedback make newspaper and magazine ads basically worthless for all but the largest companies.
I would like to see a system where users provide basic demographic information and are assigned a unique UID. Every time they log in to view stories, ads appropriate to their demographic would be displayed. Of course, personally identifiable information would not be turned over to the advertisers directly; only demography.
Under such a system, advertisers would pay only for the prominence of their ad on the page and the number of users they want to 'buy' access to. Perhaps there would be a pay-per-click aspect as well a la Google. Advertisers could then be assured that they're hitting their intended audience without paying for the extra, worthless impressions doled out by the nature of print media.
This site would be targeted at a non-national community, so of course local business would have access to local users right alongside larger companies. No point in charging a small, local fashion boutique for ads seen by casual users in Japan; unless they wanted to buy access to those users too. You can think of it as scalable advertising at a scalable price.
As a professional editorial photographer, this is a bit distant from my knowledge center on the tech side.
So can all you Slashdotters toss out some broad-stroke ideas on how you would put together a system like this; and what the pitfalls may be on the tech side?"
For many publishers, revenue stemming from subscribers and newsstand sales pales in comparison to money brought in from advertising, but not nearly as many people are buying ads. Online, readers all but demand free access to content, so I'd like to develop a system that gives users content for free, but offers services to advertisers that will draw them in to the point of writing checks.
My goal is to make a multimedia-intense site featuring in-depth news and feature stories of interest to a metropolitan, and eventually a regional marketplace. At present I'm not concerned with any form of a print product.
I am of the opinion that more targeted advertising is more effective advertising, and businesses will pay for precise and accurate targeting. The 'shotgun' approach in traditional print media, coupled with ever-declining readership and a lack of auditing feedback make newspaper and magazine ads basically worthless for all but the largest companies.
I would like to see a system where users provide basic demographic information and are assigned a unique UID. Every time they log in to view stories, ads appropriate to their demographic would be displayed. Of course, personally identifiable information would not be turned over to the advertisers directly; only demography.
Under such a system, advertisers would pay only for the prominence of their ad on the page and the number of users they want to 'buy' access to. Perhaps there would be a pay-per-click aspect as well a la Google. Advertisers could then be assured that they're hitting their intended audience without paying for the extra, worthless impressions doled out by the nature of print media.
This site would be targeted at a non-national community, so of course local business would have access to local users right alongside larger companies. No point in charging a small, local fashion boutique for ads seen by casual users in Japan; unless they wanted to buy access to those users too. You can think of it as scalable advertising at a scalable price.
As a professional editorial photographer, this is a bit distant from my knowledge center on the tech side.
So can all you Slashdotters toss out some broad-stroke ideas on how you would put together a system like this; and what the pitfalls may be on the tech side?"
Comment Re:And other violent media (Score 1) 421
Dude, I think that's the point.
Hollywood is shitting itself because videogames are running away with entertainment marketshare.
At $60/game, that doesn't leave a whole lot of disposable income left over to go see a remake of a remake of a remake in a theater packed full of talking kids, ringing cellphones and 30 minutes of pre-movie commercials.
Comment Re:3-Strike Law coming soon... (Score 1) 619
Suddenly show up, my ass.
We have two companies in town offering cable broadband. I STILL can't choose who I want to use.
As for DSL choices, it's the phone company or some other company I know nothing about.
Submission + - Did "Pirates" help save the 'Biz from pira
photomonkey writes: CNN.com reports that Pirates: World's End took in $142M, setting the record for a Memorial Day Weekend premiere. Hollywood's take on the weekend is reported as more than $265M, up $18M from the last Memorial Day Weekend record set in 2004.
Sales thus far into the year are at $3.6B, up 6.4% over last year's.
In the same article, an industry analyst estimates that the summer gross could reach an unprecedented $4B.
Does this mean the end of the MPAA's cries of woe over 'piracy on the intertubes'?
Sales thus far into the year are at $3.6B, up 6.4% over last year's.
In the same article, an industry analyst estimates that the summer gross could reach an unprecedented $4B.
Does this mean the end of the MPAA's cries of woe over 'piracy on the intertubes'?
Submission + - Google ReDesigns Homepage
* * Beatles-Beatles writes: "http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GOOGLE_DECO RATIONS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Sprucing up its famously plain Web site, Google Inc. is offering a new option that plants its Internet search box in panoramic settings that change with the time of day and the outside weather."
Sprucing up its famously plain Web site, Google Inc. is offering a new option that plants its Internet search box in panoramic settings that change with the time of day and the outside weather."
Submission + - Internet Radio to be killed by the RIAA
Anonymous Coward writes: "Just got this in the mail from Tim Westergren, Pandora's CEO: "I'm writing today to ask for your help. We've had a disastrous turn of events recently for internet radio: Following an intensive lobbying effort on the part of the RIAA, an arbitration committee in Washington DC has just dramatically increased the fees internet radio sites must pay to the record labels — tripling fees and adding enormous retroactive payments! Left unchanged by Congress, this will kill all internet radio sites, including Pandora. Tomorrow afternoon there is an important U.S. Senate hearing on the future of internet radio."
This issue has started to get blog coverage: http://gigaom.com/2007/03/05/webcaster-royalty-rat es-go-up/ and http://www.rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2007 /03/the_vast_potent.html
If you live in the US, please contact your local Congressman now!
Please note that I have no Pandora affiliation except as a very happy user."
This issue has started to get blog coverage: http://gigaom.com/2007/03/05/webcaster-royalty-ra
If you live in the US, please contact your local Congressman now!
Please note that I have no Pandora affiliation except as a very happy user."
