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Top-slicing the Beeb: Clueless execs get busy
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Andrew Orlowski
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Some quangos, like jellyfish, seem to be able to reproduce asexually. It’s what they live to do. What this means is that without any contact, parthenogenesis occurs and they simply spawn off a little version of themselves, which may grow as large as its parent. Britain’s uber-regulator Ofcom, I learned this week, definitely falls into…
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The New Statesman’s NuLab IT Awards
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Andrew Orlowski
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Although the New Statesman magazine’s annual New Media Awards (NMA) don’t quite match up to the EFF’s annual Nepotism Award – nothing quite does – they’re still a rich source of humour and embarrassment. Getting an NMA is the equivalent of getting an orange at half time from the coach of your village football team,…
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One or two things you didn’t know about In Rainbows…
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Andrew Orlowski
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Radiohead’s Thom Yorke says the band won’t be repeating the band’s digital deal which allowed users to download a version of its most recent album for free. “I don’t think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again,” he said, describing it as a “one-off response to…
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Nokia’s music bundle Comes With Hoover-shaped liabilities
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Andrew Orlowski
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Nokia faces a crippling financial bill for its strategy of bundling free music with handsets, which will give users unlimited song downloads with Nokia phones. The world’s biggest label, Universal Music, joined the “Comes With Music” initiative at launch last December, and Sony BMG joined last week. The Register has learned that Nokia must pay…
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Man discovers his net wasn’t neutered
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Andrew Orlowski
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We have very little idea of how a hysteria can grip sensible, rational people – until it strikes. After Orson Welles’s War Of The Worlds radio broadcast, the public reported sightings of Martians. According to urban legend, a farmer’s water tower was peppered with small arms fire, in the belief that it was a Martian…
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Futurist’s music widget goes titsup 2.0
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Andrew Orlowski
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Music’s best-known “futurist” has admitted his latest business idea has flopped and the service will close. Gerd Leonard of “Music 2.0” fame, who popularised the phrase “music flows like water”, has discovered that on the internet, revenue flows like set cement. His company Sonific, which allows bloggers to embed a widget that plays music, will…