Friday, June 30, 2006
Chinese Elephant Man
You look at him and you’re not sure if it’s even real, and yet, it’s hard to stop looking.
Ou Guifeng suffers from “disease” the caption says and that he has multiple tumors. From the photo, only his face looks disfigured although his leg is described as “lame”.
I know some might be squeamish, so only click through if you’re ok with it.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Sling Your Baseball
I’m not sure when these ads were made, but I just saw a 300x250 flash ad for the SlingBox - it has someone driving and holding up a phone watching a baseball game. The text is “Now there’s something more dangerous than simply talking on your phone while driving.” (I caught it on Gizmodo’s Rover TV post)
There’s a skyscraper ad that also has a baseball picture on a laptop which reads “watch your home tv on your laptop”.
Both ads, along with an additional cube, point to Sling Media.
I wonder when these were made due to a little feud between Sling and MLB and if Sling planned on going after the baseball/sports fan market a while back, or if there’s an additional little dig in there.
Sports fans have to be big potential “slingers”, especially with some of the asinine blackout rules that are in place.
I also wonder if we’ll see basketball and hockey themed ads in the fall (NFL games are pretty accessible, although the college market could be in play).
I don’t have a SlingBox, but if I did, I’d be sure to check out the mobile player. I am curious how the quality is (and I do realize it will depend on multiple network conditions), it’s a product many have been waiting a while for. You’ll notice the screenshot on the mobile player page is of a soccer game.
I guess if Sling Media stops by here, I should remind them I have a massive hockey audience they might be interested in.
Update Jun 25: Sports Law points us to a Sports Business Journal article (subscription needed) which says MLB plans on seeking licensing fees from Sling, but Sling says they haven’t heard anything yet.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
MLB: Only Watch on Our Terms
Major League Baseball takes swing at Sling Media
Sling enables TV viewers to access their set-top or TiVo boxes from anywhere in the world via any device that connects to the Web. MLB says that’s fine, but if viewers want to watch on multiple devices, they have to pay multiple times.
MLB Advanced Media is taking issue with people paying to watch games on cable, and then watching them outside their homes.
I’m sure no one is shocked. After all, I never heard from MLB.tv after multiple complaints, have you?
It is unbelievable how anti-consumer and completely control-hungry this division of MLB seems to be. Forget about building and sustaining fanbases, it’s about getting money as quickly and frequently as possible. “Long-term” must be a theory they don’t want to test.
I am an MLB.tv subscriber, I don’t own a SlingBox. I think MLB.tv is a decent product. Quality still has a little way to go and their new MLB.tv Mosaic is truly a great step in the very cool direction (definitely still classifies as beta though). This is what’s frustrating. MLB is giving fans what they want, but with way too many strings attached.
Thanks to both Reemer and paidcontent.org for the heads-up.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
For When You Get Really Lazy
No shake salt and pepper “shakers”