Leaked from today's 404 episode:
- This man will take your picture while macing you.
- Ticketmaster does one thing right, dumps captchas.
- PornHub's rejected SFW Super Bowl ad is brilliant marketing.
- Swedish police raid teenagers playing Call of Duty.… Read more
Leaked from today's 404 episode:
- Analyst: Instagram will be big moneymaker for Facebook.
- NY Senator drafts bill to make ticket scalping at benefit concerts illegal.
- The most expensive, useless, awesome 3D-printed object ever.
- Home invasion plot foiled by Xbox 360.… Read more
Picking up where Square (and possibly PayPal) left off, the increasingly popular ticketing company Eventbrite said today it is releasing a payments dongle for iPad that could make it simple for event organizers to quickly sell tickets and merchandise.
Eventbrite said its At the Door box office package--which includes both the dongle and an iPad app--is potentially the "final nail in Ticketmaster's coffin," given that the new system should make it easy for organizers to sell tickets to just about any event, as well as to get what vice president of marketing Tamara Mendelsohn called a "… Read more
Our guest on the show today is Jason Scott, computer historian and adjunct archivist at the Internet Archives, a nonprofit founded in 1996 to save a copy of every Web page ever posted. He's also responsible for the Netscape GIF graveyard you see above. Also related: "under construction" GIFs!
We want to hear all about the 500,000 books scanned so far in the Archive warehouse, but we'll also talk to him about the Wayback Machine, a tool that lets you click through snapshots of Web sites along a timeline--check out CNET back in October 1996!
The Archive's book-scanning division is the company's foremost project with donated texts making up a big portion of the collection, but the Web site also preserves live music footage, original audio recordings, and various moving images clipped from history, like this compendium of news footage documenting various news organizations' coverage of the September 11 attacks over the course of seven days.
We have a lot of topics to discuss with Jason, including his personal project to rescue data saved on floppy discs (we'll explain what those are in the show, kids) and his personal vendetta against Wikipedia. But we only have 20 minutes for the interview, so expect to see him back on the show in the future.
The 404 Digest for Episode 889 Is this the end for books? Internet archivist seeks 1 of every book written. Rescuing floppy disks, by Jason Scott. The great failure of Wikipedia, by Jason Scott. Ticketmaster tells you where your Facebook Friends sit. CorporateTwits--Trolling goes corporate How a Tweet Led to a full steak dinner delivered to the airport. Netscape GIF Graveyard Under construction GIF Graveyard Episode 889 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read moreThis summer's concert season has been brutal for the music industry, with cancellations and discounting galore. Blame the economy, blame the lack of marketable big-name artists on tour, but whatever the reason, concert ticketing giant Ticketmaster (which is owned by concert promoter and venue owner Live Nation) is responding.
In the inaugural post of Ticketology, the new Ticketmaster blog, the company has announced the end of a longstanding annoyance: service charges that get tacked on to the ticket price late in the buying process. Now, when you select a ticket on Ticketmaster's Web site, service fees are included … Read more
Are you fed up with the antics of the big-time concert industry? The continually rising prices? The huge service charges? (Not that this is entirely the fault of the ticket sellers--a percentage is usually kicked back to the artist.) The quick "sell-outs" of all decent seats, followed by the mysterious appearance of marked-up tickets on scalper sites?
Then here's some good news. In June, The Pixies teamed up with digital-music marketing agency Topspin Media to perform an interesting experiment in London. The Pixies--who didn't have an e-mail list before they started working with Topspin--sent an e-mail … Read more
When I first heard about the proposed merger of music promoter and venue-owner Live Nation and ticket broker Ticketmaster, I predicted that ticket prices for big-name musical acts would rise. Now that the merger's completed and ticket revenues are down for the first part of 2010, Live Nation is admitting that it's hoping to charge higher prices for desirable concert seats.
The reason? Simple economics. As long as customers are willing to spend $500 or $1,000 on front-row seats, why sell those seats for $150 and let a scalper or broker make all that extra money? In … Read more
In a sneak-attack move that left everyone (including CNET's own Bonnie Cha) surprised, HP, not HTC, announced that it will buy Palm for $1.2 billion. Many industry pundits consider the partnership out of left field; few remember HP's early foray in the world of PDAs starting with the Jornada handhelds that even found their way into the capable hands of Denise Richards in the James Bond film "The World is Not Enough."
We're anxious to see what HP does with branding and WebOS, which some argue is the only thing from Palm worth saving. And although Wilson and I are optimistic to see how HP handles the buyout, Jeff is ready to jump ship and land on the HTC Evo 4G coming this summer.
Congratulations to Comcast for winning the Golden Poo in The Consumerist's Worst Company in America Awards for 2010. We're also not surprised to see that Ticketmaster follows closely in the runner-up position, although we're not sure what's worse--standing in line to give back a Comcast cable box or paying Ticketmaster's "service fees" that sometimes cost more than the tickets!
Before we finish today's episode, we have to spend time with our favorite movie series "Back to the Future" and a list of six innovations from the movie that we're still waiting for two decades later.
Although we hesitate at the dangers of flying cars like the DeLorean, we still have use for clever inventions like the Black & Decker Hydrator and self-drying clothing. And what Christmas would be complete without your own 404 Podcast-sponsored hoverboard? Don't forget that they don't work on water...UNLESS YOU HAVE POWER.
P.S. Jeff and I have a gentleman's bet on whether Griff's lackey says "Bozo" or "Bojo" in this famous quote. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments!
EPISODE 570 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read moreTicket scalping has been a hot topic in the music industry for years, causing a lot of uproar and complaints among music fans.
The sad fact of the matter is that lots of parties in the music industry try to sell secondhand tickets for a markup. Ticketmaster owns a premium resale service called TicketsNow. It also owns a resale exchange, TicketExchange, which lets any individual (including scalpers) buy or sell a ticket. Even artists and managers frequently take their allotments and sell them on broker sites for a markup, as The Wall Street Journal has reported.
Worst of all is … Read more
In its typical stately and slightly behind fashion, The New Yorker magazine this week published a piece (subscription required) about big changes in the live music industry. The article used as its grounding point a recent dispute between Bruce Springsteen and Ticketmaster over scalping and ticket withholding by artists, but the larger point was that the concert industry may be following the recording industry down the tubes--a prediction I made more than a year ago. The article has reams of supporting statistics and quotes, but the simple point is that the big acts aren't selling as many tickets as … Read more
Technically Incorrect
Internet & Media
4kFacebook Likes
625Tweets
183Google Plus Shares
Pauley Perrette reveals the gadgets she loves
See today's hottest stars show off tomorrow's hottest tech.
Manage updates with the Download App
