Entries for the ‘TV & Online Video’ Category

Video Comments Are Here: This Could Be Huge… Or a Flop

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

SeesmicTechCrunch made the announcement today that all of its blogs will have the option for you to leave video comments via a service called Seesmic. It’s a powerful idea with a dead simple execution. As a result, comments are now a mix of text and video. Take a look.

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How To: Get Consumers to Buy CDs Instead of MP3s

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

MuseI may be alone on this one, but I just noticed a small pattern in my CD shopping habits. Here’s an example:

Over the past couple years, I’ve come to love music from the band Muse. British rockers with some serious talent, they have a great sound that is a mix of britpop, rock, alternative, and electronica.

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Blockbuster Offers to Buy Circuit City

Monday, April 14th, 2008

Wow. There’s plenty of buzz surrounding Blockbuster’s offer to buy Circuit City. Blockbuster’s reasoning is full of the usual business jargon: cutting costs, benefiting from complementary products, exploiting the growing convergence of media content and electronic devices, etc. All this will result in a “game-changing retail concept with a sustainable competitive advantage.”

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Amazon Giving $50 Credit to Its HD DVD Buyers

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

AmazonI purchased my HD DVD player with 10 movies for $174 way back in November. Today, to my surprise, I received the email below. This is much better than the company’s first attempt at treating me as a “valued HD DVD customer” and comes after Best Buy made a similar move. In related news, Amazon also has a Buy 2 Get 1 Free Blu-ray movie promotion happening right now.

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It’s Comcrapstic! My Comcast Tech Support Story

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

comcast-reverse-logo

I know this will seem like another “me too” post after the well publicized Comcast story at TechCrunch, but I actually wrote about 95% of this a couple of weeks ago, mostly while I was on hold with “tech” “support.” I was going to wait until the issue was resolved, but I’ve decided to post it now. This is my story of how Comcast took over the cable services of my lowly regional cable provider, and how bad things can get worse. Read the rest after the jump.

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Sony Thinks Blu-ray Will Sell Like DVD by End of 2008

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

Blu-raySony CEO Ryoji Chubachi knows something we don’t. At a press conference a few days ago, he pointed out Sony’s plan to increase Blu-ray market share to 50% by the end of the year. How is this possible you might ask? Well, apparently new Blu-ray devices to be offered by Sony will include a model integrated into an HD LCD TV with Blu-ray recording functionality.

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Blockbuster Online & Facebook: No Longer My Friends

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

BlockbusterBite me, Blockbuster Online. Oh, and you too, Facebook.

About three years ago, I signed up for Netflix, Walmart DVD Online, and Blockbuster Online. I wanted to see which interface was better, and who was quicker about sending me DVDs in the mail. Netflix won, hands down.

Blockbuster has recently come out with an interesting idea, however, where you can rent online, as well as in the store. They have been pestering me to “come back” for years, and yesterday they sent me a free month. So I thought, what the heck. I’ll sign up, rent a few, and then cancel after 29 days.

I canceled after one. Here’s why:

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Help Me, Commissioned Salesperson, You’re My Only Hope

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

Circuit CityI read through an article on CNET yesterday that got me fired up about something I’ve had on my mind for the last three years - the unfortunate, yet inevitable, demise of Circuit City.

About three summers ago, I worked there part time as a TV/Home Theater salesperson and strange as it might sound, I absolutely loved it. Obviously I enjoyed being around the latest and greatest consumer electronics products, but I also got a lot of satisfaction from sharing what I knew with my customers and helping them pick out something that really rocked.

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