Hi, I'm Molly Wood, and welcome to the Buzz Report. This week, trouble in electric car-land, fake Macs, Blockbuster's crazy business plan. And there's no time for the Gadget of the Week, because I've got a NEW segment coming up with Brian Cooley. But first, some headlines.
Tesla Motors, which has FINALLY started commercial production on the electric cars we've been waiting for for some THREE YEARS, is suing Fisker Automotive for stealing trade secrets and design ideas and introducing a competing vehicle. In response, Fisker said, "Hey, let's be honest, who here thought Tesla would ever actually put out a car. Show of hands."
The incoming CEO of Virgin Media, Neil Burkett, recently announced that Net neutrality is a load of, uh, hooey, and that he TOTALLY plans to tier his Internet service and anybody who wants their content delivered to users in a speedy and efficient way better PONY up or else they're gonna end up in the BUS LANE. He said that? Bus lane? Huh. He must not live around here, because on MY freeways, the bus-only lane is CRUISING. And they don't have to stop for tolls, either. I guess he understands the highway system about as well as he understands THE INTERNET.
In quick Clogging the Tubes news, an internal Microsoft sales video hit the Web hard, featuring the most embarrassing fake music video you've ever seen in your life, encouraging sales of Microsoft Vista.
(music, already subtitled)
And in the big news of the week, struggling movie rental giant Blockbuster made an offer to buy struggling retailer Circuit City, because Blockbuster thinks it can build a set-top box that will deliver movies on demand, and that, plus a new TV bought at Circuit City, will combine for a killer, $18 billion dollar company.
No word on what their plan is for the millions of you who have TiVo, Apple TV, Vudu, Xbox 360, a cable company that provides movies on demand or just a computer that you stream Netflix movies on, or all the rest of you who just don't WANT another stupid box on the shelf. Or what Circuit City's gonna do with all the merchandise that they have that ISN'T a TV that they haven't really been selling very much of. I think the plan boils down to this: TWO dinosaurs are more likely to survive the asteroid hitting Earth than just ONE dinosaur. Because ... they can snuggle.
And finally, I'm pleased to announce a new segment on the Buzz Report this week: What the Hell, with Brian Cooley. Enjoy.
I recently started seeing pink unicorns and getting too many martinis. So I had to quit -- Facebook.
I joined the second most talked about social network after it seemed most grown up, fully-formed, mentally-balanced colleagues of mine were doing so. I saw it as the perfect middle ground between the sewer that is MySpace and the often dull tool that is LinkedIn.
Within hours, I started to get networked. ?News items? about my colleagues trickled into my profile page.
?John? wants to know if he is like me.
?Jane? sent me a pink unicorn.
?Don? bought me a ?martini?.
And ?Jim? was flinging poo at ?Debbie?.
And of course they were all playing Scrabulous.
What the hell is this? Up until Facebook these were normal, interesting working professionals I respected and enjoyed being in contact with.
But I thought millions can?t be wrong.
Yes they can. Look how many people bought Chevy Vegas.
They say?
?Facebook connects us as a society.? No, it reminds us that many of us never really left college, we just graduated.
So I?m off Facebook. If you need to ?connect? with me, buy me a real martini at a real bar. Or just ride over on your pink unicorn.
I'm Molly Wood and I am not a poo thrower. Thanks for watching.
