Mike Thinks News

November 2008
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Spore DRM, Kim Jong dead, Sleeping baby and more on Mike Thinks News #225

Posted on September 9th, 2008 by Mike.
Categories: newscast live.

Mike Thinks News , Blasting through the absurdity at the speed of the internet…

On todays show I take a look at some these stories:

Is Kim Jong dead?
I e-Ink ready for prime time
Can you become popular by removing your songs from iTunes
RealPlayer, now with tick off the MPAA goodness
Spore makes gamers mad
The eccentric orbit of some comets
Baby + Parent does not equal a good nights sleep

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RFID, Explosives, Truck Accidents and more on Mike Thinks News #224

Posted on September 3rd, 2008 by Mike.
Categories: culture, mike thinks news, newscast live.

Mike Thinks News , Blasting through the absurdity at the speed of the internet…

On todays show I take a look at some these stories:

Spy on your neighbors …wear a brown shirt…
Don’t just plop high explosives on the officers desk ok?
The wings have eyes
ISS takes evasive maneuvers to avoid Russian debris
Going off the road causes accidents…who knew
Earwax….eeeeewww
Do you agree with THIS top 10 list
IE has a great feature…and a few not so great features
Visa, Master Card, Amex block Mythbusters episode on RFID

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Science news with a little Microsoft and Ebay on this weeks NewsCast LIVE #223

Posted on August 27th, 2008 by Mike.
Categories: newscast live.

Mike Thinks News , Blasting through the absurdity at the speed of the internet….everythin old is new

On todays show I take a look at some these stories:

Hollywood wants to scan your braaaaiiinnnns and your eyeballs
Seeing things in 4d
How you deal with unexpected changes in plans
Ebay moves further away from being…well ebay
So Jerry was the best idea Microsoft could come up with
Fake fish at your market

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Smaller Packages leads to overeating // NewsCast LIVE video

Posted on August 23rd, 2008 by Mike.
Categories: newscast live.

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Airlines nickel and dime you Newscast Live Video

Posted on August 21st, 2008 by Mike.
Categories: newscast live.

Airline nickel and dime you

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Airline fees, Netflix crashes, Passwords are private and more on NewsCast LIVE #222

Posted on August 20th, 2008 by Mike.
Categories: mike, newscast live.

NewsCast LIVE , Blasting through the absurdity at the speed of the internet

On todays show I take a look at some these stories:

- Netflix rises from 3 day long technology crash
- Judge in VA rules you can’t force someone to reveal their passwords
- Faking Photoshop
- YouTube user sues for his fair share
- Airlines get all sly by nightish with all the hidden fees

We’ve made some big changes in the show…let me know what you think!

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New Media Expo in Vegas, a content producers perspective (2008)

Posted on August 19th, 2008 by Mike.
Categories: mike, newscast live.

New Media Expo in Vegas, a content producers perspective (2008)

I wasn’t thrilled when they moved the New Media Expo to Las Vegas for 2008, I was concerned that it may cause a lack of focus by attendees. After all, whats more interesting, the glitz and glamor of the Las Vegas Strip, or a room full of computer geeks? There were many who shared my concerns prior to this years expo, including Todd Chocrane, the CEO of Rawvoice. The good news, is that it appeared to me that there was not a huge issue with people ignoring the conference to visit the strip, the bad news is that the venue itself proved to be more of a natural obstacle that I had imagined when it came to the after hours activities where so much value is gained by spending time talking with other content creators. I cannot fault the attendees for what I feel was a disorganized cluster of an experience, I point directly at NME management for not realizing that Vegas was just not a good choice.

Now you may be thinking I don’t like Vegas, this just isn’t the case. It’s a fun place to vacation and there is almost always something to do, and I had a heck of a good time. The issue is with the appropriateness of Vegas as a place to encourage the sense of community that defines the new media content creators. Since the actual expo takes place from the early morning till mid afternoon, and Vegas only really gets going after dark, I didn’t feel we lost too many attendees to the distractions. What we did lose what the ability of all the attendees to network and find each other easily. The sense of community felt missing as everyone scattered after the expo ended each day. Last year in Ontario California, there were all sorts of meet ups and get togethers in hotel suites and such. Vegas has such strict policies preventing this sort of natural interaction, that everyone ended up going in a hundred directions. Vegas is big, and Tom Merritt of Cnet said it was "Too Big for the New Media Expo" and I agree. It was a lot of hard work networking with people at the expo, and I feel I missed a lot of opportunities as we all scattered in small groups each evening, and the chances of happening into other groups was like rolling a Hard Eight…it didn’t hardly happen at all. It also didn’t help that because the venue is so large, there were at least 4 other conferences going on, so you couldn’t just look for people wearing lanyards with con badges.

I had a very good time, and did manage to meet with the people I really wanted too with just a little effort. But the natural spontaneity and viral nature of meeting new people you didn’t know before was significantly reduced. The point of a conference like the NME for many show producers isn’t just to go to preset meetings, it isn’t just to wander a show floor and find out about the newest content streaming utilities. The real value comes from the other attendees, we are more together than the sum of our parts, and Vegas diluted the opportunities we had to make those unexpected and valuable chance discoveries. Perhaps the NME management group will reconsider Vegas as an appropriate venue. I hope so, because I will find it very hard to justify the expense and time commitment if there isn’t a change.

Mike James

NewscastLIVE.com
MikeThinks@gmail.com
(347)BUG-MIKE

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New Media Expo, Las Vegas Nevada 2008, choices made, and vision unfulfilled:

Posted on August 18th, 2008 by Mike.
Categories: mike, newscast live.

New Media Expo, Las Vegas Nevada 2008, choices made, and vision unfulfilled:

For the fourth year of its existance, the New Media Expo made a change of venue and moved to Las Vegas Nevada. While the move to Vegas itself was a real mistake in my opinion, the show still could have been much better had there not been what appeared to be a lack of planing, promotion and proper management by the New Media Expo group. Harsh words to be sure, and probably not an opinion shared by all, but I cannot get past some of the huge disapointments I personally encountered.

I had questioned the decision to move the event to Vegas, but more critically I had openly questioned the comitement of the management of NME based on what I had seen as a total lack any real promotion within the community. From my point of view as a content creator, there was very little done by the expo management to create any kind of interest or awareness of the expo. I head zero official promitional announcements, say zero official banner adds, and generally felt that if I had not been looking to see when and where the next expo was, I would have never known it existed. Even the official Twitter feed, the tool most used by all expo attendees was abandon until less than 3 months prior to its start date. If your hadn’t made plans to go by the end of May, I doubt you were going to be able to attend. The official Twitter feed remained 100% silent for many months leading up to the show, and even after being shamed into updating it because they were called out on the fact, it was never really used properly (yes that is a very fair fair statement). Go look at the twitter feed and tell me how many updates that are relevant to the upcoming expo you see…I counted eight…one of which was an internal feed back to twitter. When the organizers of the New Media Expo can’t properly use new media to promote their even, something is wrong. Not a single twitter made during the entire show…isn’t that the best use of Twitter…what’s going on NOW?

So lets move on to the first day of the expo. The official hotel of the NME was the Las Vegas Hilton, mostly because it’s right next to the Las Vegas Convention Center. Anyone who has ever been to a large confrence knows that "right next door", is a bit of a stretch in many cases, and Vegas is no exeption as its a good hike to get to the convention center from the hotel. Unlike previous shows, the Vegas Convention Center is so overty large, that it dwarfed the NME. In years past, once you found the convention center building, you were at the expo as soon as you stepped through the door. Below is a very long group of pictures showing just how confusing it was getting to the actual conference. Please note, that there are no duplicated pictures, and all the hallways that look long, really were very very long. There was no communication of any kind to help attendees find the show , No Signage of any kind until you had actually found the show, nothing distributed by email, or twitter, or even on the official website to let attendees know how to find the small nitch the NME occupied in a conference complex the size of a few city blocks. Fortunately I had arrived a day earlier and had a little better idea of the size and layout of the building…others were not so lucky, and to a person each and every one of the content creators I met had gotten lost and turned around at least once, while trying to find the expo floor.

So you walk past the hotel lobby, and follow a hallway marked "Las Vegas Convention Center ", after you get past a few restaurants and bars you begin what has to be the most lengthy and wandering quest this side of a Steve Jackson movie;

the restaurants end, and the quest begins

LOOK A SIGN…oh…nope not for the NME…its some other (organized convention)

the restaurants end, and the quest begins
well its pretty anyway

Look…more hallway

Big empty room…is this it…no…this is where some WOW type game convention is later in the day

Hmmm….looks like the outside…well they did say next door to the convention center…lets take a peek outside.

Oh crap…this isn’t good…this picture doesn’t do justice to the back alley of a truck stop feel this has. If we look way over to the right we find a way in.

the restaurants end, and the quest begins

Oh look we are here!

the restaurants end, and the quest begins

the restaurants end, and the quest begins
Hmmm another unmarked hallway…notice the confused person on the phone

which leads to this hallway

and so on

ok…come on now…this is getting silly

Exit.,,no wait…I don’t want to exit

Oh good…another hall

hold on, whats that little sign say…
the restaurants end, and the quest begins
quick trip down the stairs and we have arrived!!!

To the smallest and most disappointing expo floor in the past 3 years.

Not only were there very few booths this year (easily half of last years show), but in what is an unbelievable turn of strange math, I think that expo attendees were outnumbered by the vendors on the show floor much of the time.

It would be nice to be able to blame the downsizing on the economy, however when I look at the way everything else was mishandled from my point of view, I can only believe that the lack of participation by vendors and attendees was significantly impacted by the same lack of focus. Not only was the show floor smaller, but the number of attendees as also very very low compared to previous years, I can’t give official numbers but considering the show floor was so small, and there was never a time that I had any trouble moving through the "crowd", I’d say attendance was down at least 50-65%. This is perhaps even more unfortunate, since one of the most useful aspects of the NME for a content producer is to meet and mingle with all the other people who attend.

Some have asked if this year was the last horrah for the NME and that it may not return next year. I certainly would hate to see it disappear, but I will not be attending myself if I do not see a significant change in the was the show is handled. Its very scary to think that some of the few vendors that did show up are likely thinking the same thing, but we have to be realistic. Podcasting, Blogging and Video casting have all seen huge growth in the past year, so an expo that reflects the opposite is not a good thing. In the end, while the NME was not a complete and total disaster, it certainly didn’t impress me in the least.

Mike James
NewscastLIVE.com
MikeThinks@gmail.com
(347)BUG-MIKE

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NewsCast LIVE #221 new Media Expo here I come…Vegas is just a bonus

Posted on August 12th, 2008 by Mike.
Categories: podcast.

NewsCast LIVE , Blasting through the absurdity at the speed of the internet

Click HERE for the links from the show.

On todays show I take a look at some these stories:

Pump and Dump
China Fakes it
If your stupid enough to blow 13 million in lotto winnings, your probably stupid enough to lie to a judge
Bugs and Fungus make Chili Peppers hot
Sleep on it?
Again with the ‘you can’t tell about our vulnerabilities’ crap
Giga expensive
Your boss owns your facebook account
If you take your laptop is it really a vacation?
3-D games (a game store retailer) sells stolen goods and refuses to make good on the transaction.

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