04 May 2007

No more Pandora??

I just got this email from Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora (the foundora?):

Dear Pandora listener,



Today we have some extremely disappointing news to share with you. Due to international licensing constraints, we are deeply, deeply sorry to say that we must begin proactively preventing access to Pandora's streaming service for most countries outside of the U.S.



It is difficult to convey just how disappointing this is for us. Our vision remains to eventually make Pandora a truly global service, but for the time being, we can no longer continue as we have been. As a small company, the best chance we have of realizing our dream of Pandora all around the world is to grow as the licensing landscape allows.



We show your IP address is [IP ADDRESS ERASED], which indicates you are listening from Israel. If you believe you are seeing this by mistake, we offer our sincere apologies and ask that you please reply to this email.



Delivery of Pandora is based on proper licensing from the people who created the music - we have always believed in honoring the guidelines as determined by legislators and regulators, artists and songwriters, and the labels and publishers they work with. In the U.S. there is a federal statute that provides this license for all the music streamed on Pandora. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent license outside the U.S. and there is no global licensing organization to enable us to legitimately offer Pandora around the world. Other than in the U.K., we have not yet been able to make significant progress in our efforts to obtain a sufficient number of international licenses at terms that would enable us to run a viable business. The volume of listening on Pandora makes it a very expensive service to run. Streaming costs are very high, and since our inception, we have been making publishing and performance royalty payments for every song we play.



Until now, we have not been able to tell where a listener is based, relying only on zip code information provided upon registration. We are now able to recognize a listener's country of origin based on the IP address from which they are accessing the service. Consequently, on May 3rd, we will begin blocking access to Pandora to listeners from your country. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.



We will be posting updates on our blog regarding our ongoing effort to launch in other countries, so please stay in touch. We will keep a record of your existing stations and bookmarked artists and songs, so that when we are able to launch in your country, they will be waiting for you. We deeply share your sense of disappointment and greatly appreciate your understanding.

-Tim Westergren

(Pandora founder)




This is getting out of hand...
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23 March 2007

Dust Art

The best "art" I ever created out of dust was probably writing "Clean Me" on a dirty car's windshield.


Take that same concept and add some talent and you get these amazing works of art.



Too bad it only lasts till the next rain.
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14 February 2007

05 February 2007

Super Ads

If you missed them yesterday, here are the best Super Bowl commercials (in my mind at least):

FedEx:






Blockbuster:






GM







Snickers:





Doritos - Live the Flavor:






Rock Paper Scissors:

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01 February 2007

30 January 2007

Speak & Spell

Speak & Spell and Speak & Math were some of my favorites toys growing up.

I guess the whole idea of a talking computer that you could control was what "spoke" to me ("spoke to me", get it? :)

Somebody (another geek from the 80's?) took the time to create a pretty cool online version of the Speak & Spell.



It seems to work very similar to how I remember the original Speak & Spell used to work.



BTW: I should have my old Speak & Spell and Speak & Math lying around somewhere. I wonder if they still work...


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