News Corp and NBC Strike Back

So it's late on Friday night, and I'm actually still a tad bit tipsy from the 3 Jello shots, 1 Kamikaze, and 2 cups of vodka punch I had, but I figure that I should still write a post before I go to bed to make up for the post I missed last night. Sorry about that, but you'll have to believe me that I had good reason. Anyway, I find it wildly fascinating that News Corp (yes, the owners of MySpace) and NBC have teamed up to instantiate what has been a dubbed a "YouTube killer," and I'm here to comment on whether that's really a worthy title. Personally, I hate any nicknames ending in "killer" because they're always exaggerations that never live up to their names. This doesn't sound like a user-driven community, it sounds from how it's being described as a way to give the networks the power to combine forces in bringing their content online in a legal way to generate more revenues for themselves. This makes a lot of sense, but it almost sounds too good to be true. They're partnering with the likes of Yahoo, Microsoft, and Time freaking Warner to build up the content on this service. Not only that, but it's supposed to have shows like 24, The Simpsons, Heroes, Friday Night Lights, and many others. Plus, advertisers already on board include Cadbury, GM, Cisco, and Schweppes. There's no doubt that if these things are true, this could end up being pretty huge. However, I still think it can coexist with YouTube because it's going to have this very corporate feel to it, I have a feeling that the advertising will be very obvious, and it won't have the bank of user-submitted content that YouTube treasures. If they pull it off, it has great potential for being a huge success, but they shouldn't live under the delusion that they've screwed over Google quite yet.

Speaking of TV shows though, Sony has signed an agreement with Apple to provide such shows to iTunes as Charlie's Angels and the original Spiderman series. I was a closet fan of News Radio myself though, which apparently Sony owns because it will now be on iTunes as well.

Surely, I shouldn't let Apple get off that easy today. I barely even talked about everyone's impressions of the Apple TV! To help deflate the massive hype that will hit you about this product, I'd like to reiterate my pessimism with the things Gizmodo didn't like about the product, including the speed and the lack of control on your Apple TV hard drive. iLounge was much harsher with a list of reasons why you don't even need this thing, and I'd be inclined to agree with a lot of what they say. It doesn't do much more than you could do with some skill and an iPod, you need a fairly nice television set to use it, it can't play DVDs of any form (current or next generation), and it's still not a DVR. It's a nice product, it's just not a killer app, as such.

Ok, so it's not related to technology or movies, but I still wanted to plug this article about exercises that aren't good. It's good to know that my concern about people doing posterior lat pulldown and behind-the-neck shoulder press aren't unfounded. I was surprised that leg extensions aren't good for you either though, because I've been doing them for a couple of years now.

Yahoo Movies picked up the actual trailer for Neil Gaiman's Stardust, and it's much more fun to watch than what I had posted about just a couple of days ago. He's known more for visual flair than substance, so we should probably take this trailer with a grain of salt, but I'm sure it'll still be interesting to watch, at the least. Also, Comcast has the real final trailer for Spider-man 3, though it's not much more than we've already seen until the end, and it doesn't instill any more confidence in me in the movie. Still, it is worthwhile to see if you're as big a fan of the character as I am.

AICN has dug up the first review of Grind House that I've seen (I believe, at least), and it's quite good. It sounds like it'll be like a movie geek's wet dream, though I see it falling flat on many critics and most average moviegoers. Obviously, I'm going to try to see it at midnight when it opens! Oh, and it did get that R-rating, so no fear that it'll tank due to an NC-17. Now to see whether they earned that rating or if they got it because they're Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. I'm more surprised though that it's over 3 hours long. How many people, besides me, will actually sit through that?

Supposedly, insiders have revealed that Batman will be joining the cast of the forthcoming Justice League movie, and Christian Bale's contract actually stipulates that he must participate in ensemble cast movies, but I wonder if this is really reliable. It sounds awful early for them to already know if Bale will be in the movie, let alone Batman.

And now, my friends, for Friday's Feast:

Appetizer
Who is your favorite news anchor/reporter? Why?
I don't have one because the new on TV is biased and way too depressing. As you can no doubt tell, I prefer getting my news from online outlets!

Soup
Name 3 foods that are currently in your freezer.
Chicken tenders, ice cream, and probably some ice.

Salad
If you were to have the opportunity to name a new town or city, what would you call it?
I've had this before, and established that I have no clue. To be corny, how about Pintotown? Hey, it's pretty late, cut me some slack!

Main Course
What will most likely be the next book you read?
Probably Gunslinger, the first in Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

Dessert
What's the first thing you notice about the opposite gender?
Definitely the smile. A pretty smile is very important, because it seems to tell a lot about a person.

Have an awesome weekend everyone! Here's hoping that I get all my work done and manage a post on Sunday night!