Kaiyzen Group

My interest in video games has drastically been reduced over the years.  Leading factor is how involved and intricate most games are leading to a sinkhole of time waste.  There are some gems here and there the past couple years that have peaked my interest enough to plop down and widdle away at my day.  I think that the new dj related games, a-la Guitar Hero will be new additions.

There are two games coming to market, much like Guitar Hero has competing Rock Band in the marketplace.  Little bits of info have been released over the past 6 months regarding the games, finally though the first controller by Numark has been released for “Scratch: The Ultimate DJ Videogame Controller” (pics below).

I have been dj’ing for about a decade now and scratching for about 9 of those ten years.  Although I am not a fan of Numark gear in any capacity (Vestax/Rane for me) I cant wait to get my hands on this thing and see what the feel of the controller is like with the game play.  Now all I need to do is get my hands on an Xbox to give this thing a test drive when its out.

Those of you attending E3 will be able to get some hands on for a early preview.

Mavericks is supposed to kick off tomorrow here on the west coast.  The annual surf event has been waiting for the right conditions and a pacific storm has been pushing a huge swell our way over the past couple days.

Speaking of swells, seems that two of the video streaming startups, Kyte and Ustream are getting ready for a big push with some new announcements and most likely some new years growth.

TechCrunch is posting that Ustream will be releasing a new iPhone application that will allow users to stream any Ustream channel direct to their devices.  Michael gives the good idea of wathcing the inauguration via Ustream if you are out and about and can’t be near a television.  If Ustream can get some serious content partnerships going it will make a nice solution somewhat putting them inline with place shifter Sling minus the hardware and DVR.

Speaking of content partnerships, Kyte has a HUGE one just being announced.  Billboard is announcing that Kyte and UMG are partnering up to stream content over Kyte’s system.  Universal alludes that its artists will be using Kyte to communicate in a more personal way with their fans showing behind the scenes clips they are recording.  If Kyte has similar success to that of SayNow it should mean a chunk of new users to their site.

Maybe Kyte and SayNow can partner up, one providing the video and the latter providing the audio/sms.

(updated)

Seems even Qik has some news tonight.  They are sponsoring an online show at Sundance with streaming various people peroforming tasks over a 24 hr period.  It is being organized by Aston Kutcher.

The blogosphere has been abuzz the past 24 hours with the much awaited luanch of MySpace music.  This event is quite a momentus occasion for the industry as the majors go all in to embrace the free streaming, social network scene in hopes that ad supported free streams and purchasing of individual sons, ringtones, and other merchandising will help foot the bill.

An overview of the service:

Majors Involved: EMI, Sony BMG, UMG, WMG

Indies Distros Involved: Orchard, ADA, Red, Fontana, Caroline

EMI and most of the indies were late to the game in getting officially involved so they are still in the process of uploading their music for listening.., but its coming as I am typign this.

There are still a couple major business decisions to figure out and some kinks.., two most notables is support for outside the U.S. and allowing users to post their playlists on other sites.., or as the industry would view it, syndication.

It behooves MySpace to get the syndication topic solved right away and follow up with outside U.S. support.

They are also planning on adding ticket and merchandise sales down the road to add some more change in their pockets…, sounds like this will be coming sometime next year.., my guess is around the time the summer concert series is getting into full swing.

Supposedly because of all the majors being involved, and owning around an estimated 40% take in new venture, they have waved the typical 1 cent per stream fee.  This is a HUGE competitive advantage over anyone else streaming music online.., and possibly will be investigated over time as anti-competitive.  Pandora’s recent woes with streaming cost are a perfect example of how big a deal this is.

On the music purchasing side of things they will be selling ringtones through Jamster (sister company), and outsourcing the sales of full songs to Amazon.., watch out iTunes.., I look for Amazon to catch up to Apple in sales volumes pretty quickly over the next 18 months.

Some coverage from some site here:

TechChrunch
Mashable
VentureBeat
GigaOM

Just received my Billboard alert for the day and the number one headline is that Rage Against the Machine will be one of the headliners for the Lollapalooza festival.  They are supposed to update their site later today to announce the full lineup consisting of around 120 artists.

I was lucky enough to catch them at Coachella for their comback show as well as in SF for their mini tour.  This will be my first Lollapalooza in several years and I am really looking forward to it.

Other notable headliners are Radiohead (awesome!!), Nine Inch Nails, Wilco, and Kanye West.

Hopefully this lineup will be strong enough to save the ailing festivals we have been seing over the past few years and get a very high percentage of sellouts.

AdAge has a story about the Writers Guild of America tightening the screws on writers from participating in the Grammy’s.

A spokesman for the WGA said that a writers exemption will not be granted to the Grammy’s.  Also the WGA is lobbying a handfull of music artists who also have their Writers affiliation as well.

All of this sits pretty well with me.., besides not liking to see the writers get screwed over, I really do not like award shows.  Although I will be a little sad to miss TOOL hopefully win another Grammy for best rock performance.., they got nominated for The Pot.

No Queen Latifah para tu

Just left this rant over at Techcrunch on one of Ericks writeups on Radioheads new album.., just getting some thoughts out there.., most of the tech bloggers are completely ignorant.  Its kind of like how the tech bloggers like to rip on politicians who tried to talk about technology and the “pipes”.

Ok.., the vegas trip was a great success.  I actually made it out of there only down $60.., quite nice given the price tag of the show tix and the Venetian room. 

The TOOL show was of course fantastic.  They dropped the same set list they did last tuesday in SF, but as usual, always a pleasure to to witness them live.

The Pearl is really a great venue to see a show in.  It is on par with the Warfield in SF, maybe a big bigger from the size of it, but seats probably the same amount of people.., its just a little more open.

We had general admission tix and the floor is probably a bit smaller than the Warfields downstairs GA area.  Definitely the closest I have ever been to the stage and we were towards the back of the floor section.

It was great seeing the sis and I look forward to her return to the bay area this week.., congrads on finishin up school.

LOTS o posting to catch up on.., I have been severely lagging.., I might have to to one of those BS “summary posts” that just mentioned a bunch of things in passing and provide links.