You can reach me via email (peter@allthingsd.com) or by leaving a comment below. I can’t promise any results, but I’ll do my best.

For the record: From afar, the Nook appears very similar to Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle, with a few additional bells and whistles–a second color screen at the bottom of the device for navigation, wireless connection from AT&T (T) instead of Sprint (S), Wi-Fi connectivity, etc. The most intriguing tweaks, from my perspective, are a “sharing” feature and the fact that the Nook runs on Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system, which might allow for interesting upgrades over time.

But all of these features seem to be aimed at tech’s earliest adopters and not the general book-buying public that Barnes & Noble (BKS), Amazon, Sony (SNE) and everyone else is hoping to court. Recall that in the early days of music players, plenty of competitors offered competitively priced gadgets with features that Apple’s (AAPL) iPod didn’t have, and today, it’s like we never heard of them. My hunch is that we might see a similar dynamic play out with e-readers.

The publisher plans to start selling digital copies of its print titles via a yet-to-be-approved app. Condé will start with the December issue of GQ, which it will sell for $2.99 (versus a newsstand price of $4.99), but the idea is that the publisher can use the same technology to sell other issues of other magazines down the road.

Condé says the GQ digital issue will replicate the print one on a page-by-page basis, including the ads. Digital bonuses include related videos, as well as links to sites for products (clothing, music, etc.) featured in the issue.

I wasn’t able to attend Condé’s presentation this morning, so I can’t tell you how its attempt to transfer a rich glossy magazine onto a phone (or iPod touch) actually works. But for now, I’ll take the company’s word for it and assume that it’s a nice alternative to carrying around some dead trees.

The interesting question is the business model, which I think has some real potential. This doesn’t solve Condé’s core problem–its costs are too high to support its shrinking ad revenue–but it does have several things going for it.

For one, this approach reaches its potential readers where they are: I don’t want to read a magazine at my desk, and I’m far from sold on the idea of buying a specialized reader to consume it digitally. Getting it to me on my phone, which goes wherever I do, is the way to go.

It also generates some (potential) additional revenue for Condé Nast right off the bat without creating a channel conflict with its analog product line: Condé will be able to count any magazines sold via its app platform toward its audited circulation numbers, a trick that no publisher has been able to pull off with Web products so far. Meanwhile advertisers in the print publication who want to add digital links to the iPhone version will pay a premium, Condé says. And the publisher has been able to extract additional dollars from Grey Goose and Gillette, which will be “premium sponsors” of the GQ issue.

Bonus upside: Condé says the technology it has assembled for this effort should work well for future Apple (AAPL) products, like, say, its mythical tablet. “We think that the minute Apple is ready, if they ever are, to announce that they’re going forward with a tablet, that we’ll be ahead of everybody,” says Sarah Chubb, president of Condé Nast Digital.

This doesn’t solve the distribution issue that Condé and other publishers have with Apple, Amazon (AMZN) and other potential digital delivery outfits: Apple, not Condé, will control the billing relationship for the app. But then again, Condé doesn’t get to interact with you when you buy a magazine at a newsstand either, so at least it’s not getting disintermediated.

The question, as always, is whether customers are willing to pay anything at all for content they’ve been getting free on the Web. I still think we’re going to end up with a small segment of people willing to pay up for specialized stuff and a very large group that are going to end up with free things of dubious value. It would be great to be proved wrong, though.

You know what? I think the conventional wisdom is right on this one. Take a look at this clever test from NewTeeVee, which compares the nano’s new camera with a Flip Ultra SD.

The good folks at NewTeeVee declare that the Flip’s camera offers a “MUCH better picture,” and since they did the work here I won’t argue with them.

But I don’t think the gap between the two cameras is big enough to help Flip. If you’re really serious about video quality, you’re probably not carrying a Flip to begin with. And given the choice between a video camera that takes a decent picture and one that also lets you listen to music, watch movies and play games…well, that’s a tough sell, even if you’ve got Cisco’s (CSCO) marketing dollars backing you up.

In other words, Apple (AAPL) has passed my “good enough” test. The nano doesn’t do the job as well as a single-use device, but it’s adequate for my needs. The only question for me is whether I spring for a nano now, or hold off in the hopes that the iPod touch line gets a camera sooner than later.

Apple (AAPL) gave Spotify the go-ahead for its streaming-music iPhone app last month. But the service doesn’t have deals to distribute music in the U.S. yet. RealNetworks’s (RNWK) Rhapsody, however, does have deals, and its app just got Apple’s nod.

So. If you want on-demand access to nearly any song you want, it’s all yours: You’re just going to need to pay Real $14.99 a month for its “Rhapsody-to-Go” subscription service.

What’s that? You like the idea of getting all the music you can eat on your iPhone, without listening to ads, but you don’t want to pay for it? Alas, no dice. Spotify mobile users in Europe are paying, too–about $16 a month–and if and when the service gets distribution in the U.S., you can expect to pay about the same.

So will anyone pay for either app? Good question. Best Buy’s (BBY) Napster says that the pricing level is too high and that it won’t offer a music app until it can get the labels to charge less for their music, adding that it thinks $5 a month is a reasonable charge.

And up until now, Rhapsody hasn’t had a whole lot of luck with its “to go” subscription pricing. But! Up until now, Rhapsody wouldn’t work with Apple’s iPod, which has made it a very, very hard sell. Now it has a very large base to sell against.

Will that make a difference? We’re about to find out.

Here’s a video that previews the app.

Rhapsody on iPhone from Rhapsody on Vimeo.

I’m sure that Apple (AAPL) will indeed sell the Fab Four’s music via its digital music store one day. But it’s not happening at Apple’s keynote presentation tomorrow.

The Beatles estate, Electronic Arts (ERTS) and Viacom’s (VIA) MTV will be releasing a new version of “Rock Band” that features the band’s songs tomorrow. And on the same day, EMI Music Group will release all of the band’s music on remastered compact discs.

But that’s it, a source familiar with the band’s plans tells me. For now.

UPDATE: Want an on the record source? The Financial Times obliges with a follow-up:

“Conversations between Apple and EMI are ongoing and we look forward to the day when we can make the music available digitally. But it’s not tomorrow,” Ernesto Schmitt, EMI’s global catalog  president, told the FT’s Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson.

Beatles-to-iTunes is a story that never goes away. And some day, it will turn out to be true–there’s no good reason for it not to happen. But predictions that it will happen Wednesday have been tied to wafer-thin logic.

Two years ago, the Web was convinced an announcement was in the offing because of the wording of an Apple keynote invitation. This year, even sober-minded publications are noting the timing of Apple’s keynote event and the Rock Band and CD launches, concluding that an iTunes launch makes sense too.

But I’d argue that it makes less sense: If you’re trying to convince people to spend $16.99 for a remastered copy of the White Album or as much as $250 to play along with the band’s ghostly avatars, why offer a competing product from Apple at the same time?

Nor do I see Steve Jobs expressing much interest in coordinating his marketing announcements with the likes of Viacom.

Anyway, if you really want to get the Beatles on the Web, you don’t have to wait for Apple–a quick Google search will do. Or you can head to Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, which is flooded with great clips like this:

That insight is blindingly obvious, of course. But a new study from Forrester (FORR) tries to figure out just how much Amazon (AMZN) and its competitors will have to discount their devices in order to get them into millions and millions of peoples’ hands.

The answer? A lot.

After flourishing a variety of of charts and graphs (Forrester tells us that it employed something called a Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter, which sounds like an awesome Dr. Evil device but turns out to be just a pedestrian marketing technique), Forrester argues that the pricing sweet spot for a dedicated e-book reader is…$50.

The readers will get a whole lot cheaper, of course, just as all consumer electronics do. But given that Amazon’s Kindle2 now goes for $299, and Sony’s (SNE) comparable gizmo will go on sale this year for $399, it may take a while to get there.

And even then, Forrester argues, the Kindle or its equivalent may never reach the same kind of ubiquity that Apple’s (AAPL) iPod line has–in large part because of the success of Apple’s iPhone and other do-it-all devices. It’s an argument I’ve made several times, but just for variety, here’s Forrester’s take:

The price points of multi-use devices like smartphones and netbooks informs the value that they assign to a single-purpose device like an eReader. With new 3G iPhones selling for $199 and a variety of netbooks selling for $300, devices in adjacent categories put the squeeze on eReaders. Convenience plays a core role in consumers’ decision-making. For many, the superior functionality of dedicated eReaders simply isn’t seen as making them sufficiently more convenient than cheaper multifunction devices to justify the additional cost.

[Image credit: Jonathan Harford]

But in true Apple fashion, the company has been noncommittal about the exact date of the event and what it will be showing off.

I’ve asked Apple for comment and will report back if the company responds. But the timing makes sense and shouldn’t come as a surprise since Apple (AAPL) has traditionally used the week following Labor Day to show off new products and refresh existing product lines.

Two years ago, for instance, Apple introduced the iPod touch, which has since become a key part of the company’s arsenal. Last year, the event featured less substantial changes, like an overhaul of the iPod Nano.

Given that Apple has tipped off music industry executives, it’s a fair bet that the event will incorporate music in some way. Perhaps it will show off the new “Cocktail” format that Apple has been working on, which bundles full-length albums with other goodies like album covers and interactive bells and whistles.

But unless Apple unveils its so-called iTablet, a touchscreen device that’s supposed to be a cross between an iPhone and a full-fledged MacBook laptop computer, there are going to be a lot of disappointed Apple acolytes.

The other big appearance the Apple faithful will be looking for will be Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who hasn’t made an official public appearance since a keynote presentation last October.

During Apple’s September 2008 keynote, Jobs took time to dismiss reports that he was in failing health. But in January, Jobs said a “hormone imbalance” required him to step away from day-to-day leadership at the company, and news later surfaced that Jobs had undergone a liver transplant last spring. He’s been officially back at work since late June.

If you’re in a rush, the takeaway is that he’s not very impressed with Amazon’s (AMZN) device, and that all things being equal, he thinks Apple’s e-reader is at least as good. He’s not talking about the yet-to-appear iTablet, of course. Like a lot of other people, he’s fond of  Apple’s (AAPL) current iPhone/iPod touch line:

Amazon, with its listmania lists and its sometimes inspired recommendations and its innumerable fascinating reviews, is very good at selling things. It isn’t so good, to date anyway, at making things. But, fortunately, if you want to read electronic books there’s another way to go. Here’s what you do. Buy an iPod Touch (it costs seventy dollars less than the Kindle 2, even after the Kindle’s price was recently cut), or buy an iPhone, and load the free “Kindle for iPod” application onto it.

Oddly, Baker doesn’t make a reference to Kindlegate, even though the story broke a couple of weeks ago. If you’re looking for a summary of where things stand on that one and have five minutes to spare, you can listen in to the chat I had with NPR’s “On the Media,” which aired over the weekend. You can hear the full show here.

One last note: I’m stepping out for a couple weeks and going semi-off the grid, so if all goes well you won’t be hearing from me till the second week of August. If all goes really well, I may even read an ink-and-paper book. Meantime there will be plenty of fresh new stuff from Walt, Kara, John and Katie over at the mothership. See you soonish.

Why so reserved? Maybe it’s because Sony (SNE) is struggling through yet  another restructuring, so a big party would seem inappropriate. Maybe because Sony views the Walkman’s birthday as a lot of middle-aged people view their birthdays: Markers of bygone eras and missed opportunities. Or else it’s just Apple’s (AAPL) fault. Associated Press:

The manufacturer, which also makes Vaio personal computers and Cyber-shot cameras, hasn’t had a decisive hit like the Walkman for years, and has taken a battering in the portable music player market to Apple Inc.’s iPod.

Sony has sold 385 million Walkman machines worldwide in 30 years as it evolved from playing cassettes to compact disks then minidisks — a smaller version of the CD — and finally digital files. Apple has sold more than 210 million iPod machines worldwide in eight years….

The archival exhibit shows other Sony products that have been discontinued or lost out to competition over the years — the Betamax video cassette recorder, the Trinitron TV, the Aibo dog-shaped robotic pet.

I do remember hearing some Sony folks mutter hopeful words about a new line of Walkmans that came preloaded with music from Sony artists like Beyoncé and were supposedly flying off the shelves at Wal-Mart (WMT). But that was a while ago, come to think of it, and I haven’t heard about it since.

In any case, just because Sony’s being bashful about the Walkman’s history doesn’t make it less interesting. You can learn more about it at Sony’s online archive, which is compelling despite the fact that it’s a stilted corporate hagiography. Start reading at Chapter 17, part 2: “Listening to Stereophonic Sound While Walking.”

It can, say the folks at Pixel Qi, a start-up based in Silicon Valley and Taiwan: It could use the cheap, lightweight color screens that we’re going to make.

Pixel Qi is the brainchild of Mary Lou Jepsen, who was best known as the CTO at the One Laptop Per Child project that makes supercheap laptops for kids in dirt-poor nations. Her new company has a similar thrust with a different goal: Produce cheap color screens that can be used in supercheap “netbooks” or in Kindle-like devices.

Jepsen says she can pull this off and create screens that cost less than the E-Ink ones used in Kindles and other devices like Sony’s (SNE) Reader because she’s using LCD technology, which has an existing industrial infrastructure to support it.

Meanwhile, she says, E-Ink screens will struggle to incorporate color because the only way to do that is to put a color layer above the existing monochrome screen, which will end up making the screen harder to read.

Almost all of these technology claims are impossible for a knuckle-dragger like me to assess, but I will note that I’ve heard other companies working on E-Ink-based readers make the same argument about the difficulty that color poses.

I’m still not convinced that color makes a Kindle or a Kindle-like device that much more successful. I know that the publishing industry wants it, but that has as least as much to do with the business model that industry types think that color can sustain as with anything else. Perhaps readers, the kinds of readers who spring for a reading device that doesn’t make phone calls, will be fine with black and white.

Recall that audiophiles spent years complaining, accurately, that MP3 players like Apple’s (AAPL) iPod produced severely degraded sound. Turns out no one cared. Or at least not enough to outweigh the iPod’s other benefits.

But assuming that the netbook/tablet trend has legs, there should still be a market for the screen that Jepsen says she can make and get on the market early next year.

Recently I sat down with Pixel Qi chief operating officer John Ryan, who happens to be married to Jepsen and who walked me through the company’s pitch. We tried our best to show off the demo screens, but it’s the kind of thing that you really need to see in person; even if I wasn’t using a Flip camera, I think this would be difficult to capture. But Ryan was a good sport about it, and although you can’t see the screens that well, you can get a good glimpse of Central Park during a rare bit of sun.

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090623/how-to-add-color-to-a-kindle-pixel-qis-cheap-screens/feed/ 3 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090512/7278/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090512/7278/#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 09:00:35 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=7278 Apple iPhone and iPod Touch users have downloaded one billion apps for their devices in nine months. Someone other than Steve Jobs and co. ought to be able to make money from that, right?

That’s more or less the logic behind Medialets, a start-up that serves up ads on Apple’s (AAPL) mobile applications, and to a lesser degree, programs designed for Google’s (GOOG) Android mobile platform. The New York-based company, founded last June, is announcing a $4 million Series A round led by Foundry Group. DFJ Gotham and angel investor Bobby Yazdani also participated.

Medialets also provides free analytics services for mobile applications. But its revenue comes from its mobile ad platform, which specializes in serving up iPhone and Android app users.

Given that mobile ads in general are in their infancy, this is a nascent market at best. Medialets CEO Eric Litman figures that the market for mobile display ads tops out at perhaps $300 million, and that ads for iPhone and Android apps can’t be more than $100 million.

But he figures that number will shoot up rapidly, of course, and perhaps hit $400 million within four years. He’s also betting that the majority of apps, and the majority of apps downloaded, will be free, advertising-supported ones.

In order for that to happen, both apps and the ads that run on them will have to move past the novelty stage. This Medialets-produced ad for Dockers, shown here running on SGN’s iBowl game, is sort of interesting. But it seems more like a proof of concept than anything else.

Still, it’s a start:

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090512/7278/feed/ 0 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090422/live-apple-earnings-call/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090422/live-apple-earnings-call/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:07:30 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=6557 Next to no news from the Apple earnings call this afternoon, which is just the way Apple execs like their earnings calls. Once again, the company provided no information about CEO Steve Jobs’s health except to note that he is still scheduled to come back to work in June. And the company continued to pooh-pooh the concept of netbooks–supercheap, supersmall laptops with very little horsepower that are the hottest part of the PC business right now.

But COO (and temporary CEO) Tim Cook’s dismissal of the netbook market will continue to spark speculation that the company is readying something that sits in between a laptop and an iPhone (which is itself a computer, of course). Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer got more of Cook’s response than I did so I’ll reprint his quote here:

“When I look at what is being sold in the netbook space today, I see cramped keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens, and just not a consumer experience and not something we would put the Mac brand on. So it’s not a space–as it exists today–that we’re interested in, nor do we believe that customers in the long term would be interested in. That said, we do look at the space and are interested in how customers respond to it. People who want a small computer than does browsing and email might want to buy an iPod touch or iPhone. We play indirect basis. Then of course if we find a way where we can deliver an innovative product that really makes a contribution, then we’ll do that. We have some interesting ideas in this space.”

EARLIER:

Apple (AAPL) just turned in a strong quarter and followed it up with conservative guidance. A fairly typical performance for the company. Now investors will want to know about new product lines, Steve Jobs’s health and other matters. I’ll be covering the call live. Please refresh this page for the most current information. Click here if you want to listen in yourself.

Joining call now. Tim Cook CFO Peter Oppenheimer going over info that’s already in the release.

Mac products: 2.2 million Macs, a three percent decline year-to-year. Tough comparison from last year. But better than the seven percent drop in PC sales overall. “We feel very positive about our Mac performance.” Began and ended quarter with three-to-four weeks of Mac inventory.

iPod: People still buying ‘em! iPod touch selling well, and so are apps. Claims people like the new shuffle player. [Dubious about that]. We own the MP3 player market. [Duh.] Began and ended the quarter with four-to-six weeks of inventory.

iTunes store: 35,000 apps available in store, up from 15,000 a quarter ago. “We are within hours” of one billions app downloaded.

iPhones: Unless I’m missing something, absolutely no new data here. Praising new iPhone 0S 3.0 that’s in the works. Apple delayed the start of revenue recognition of all iPhones sold after the company announced the new OS, which was March 17. Will start up again once OS is released.

Stores: Half our Macs sold to people who had never owned one before. Average revenue per store is down year over year, because the economy is lousy.

Gross margins: Commodity and other component costs lower than expected. Higher-margin sales better are also than expected. Apple also spent less on operating expenses than expected.

Guidance: Forecasting is “challenging” in macroenvironment. Again, noting delay in revenue recognition for iPhones (see above). Excited about new products in pipeline, etc.

Q&A

Outlook for pricing on component supply? Mostly favorable, but some commodities, like NAND, will increase sequentially. Cook does not expect to see the level of reduction seen in calendar Q1. Will it be down? It will be “in a similar range as last quarter.”

Cash flow issues? Not really, for several reasons: 1) Apple made prepayment to…. [sorry, I didn't catch who that was]; 2) accounts payable were down, from holiday quarter to spring quarter, which is standard; 3) at $1.3 billion, tax payments were up “significantly” from last year.

Mac business: Desktops selling well, but average selling price down quite a bit. What’s going on? Sales accelerated in March after Apple announced new product launch. Higher-end Pro products sold to professionals are down a bit, which is related to economy for obvious reasons. Education sales also down a bit, for same reasons. Hoping Federal stimulus funds will help with that.

Back to netbooks–why won’t Apple sell them? Cook is still criticizing netbooks. The ones available today are ”just not a consumer experience and not something we would put the Mac brand on, quite frankly. It’s not a space today that we’re interested in, and it’s not a space we think that customers in the long-term are interested in.” But… a slight hedge with regard to smaller computers, which are, of course, what the iPhone and iPod Touch are. We “have interesting ideas in this space.” Today’s netbooks really shouldn’t even be called computers, really.

App store: What’s the mix between paid and free downloads and the iPod and iTouch mix? Nope. Apple won’t say. Again, Cook notes that we’re just “hours away” from the one billionth download. Cook: One of the keys behind the growth of iPod has been that sales of the iPod touch “more than doubled year-over-year.” The iPod and iPod Touch have reached sales of 37 million units, a big platform for developers. So there’s a virtuous cycle there.

[Sorry, missed two questions here.]

Why is Apple still doing an exclusive with AT&T for the iPhone? And how’s Steve Jobs? AT&T (T) is the best wireless provider in the U.S. “They have done a very good job with iPhone….We’re very happy with the relationship we have and do not intend to change it.” Structurally, we’re using GSM architecture, and Verizon (VZ) uses CDMA, and we wanted a world phone.

And Steve Jobs? Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer: “We look forward to Steve returning to Apple at the end of June.” [Translation: No news.]

[Yet another question missing here. Apologies.]

Any info on DRM-free/”iTunes plus” sales? Too early to tell.

How much impact did Wal-Mart (WMT) have on Apple sales? Very key partner for the iPod. The company believes Wal-Mart provides extended reach. Pleased with results, but “early going, and not much to report there yet.”

So many iPhone Apps. How can you make them easier to find on iTunes? (Same problem as music.) Any kind of unusual patterns? Nonanswer here.

Please talk about competition for smartphones–i.e., please discuss the Palm (PALM) Pre. “Difficult to comment on products that aren’t shipping. So there’s nothing intelligent I could say on the Pre.” But “we think we’re years ahead.” We see things through software lens and that has benefited us and customers very well. Power of device and ecosystem enormous and we’re now just scratching the surface.”

What about suing Palm re: patents on the Pre, etc.? “We think that Apple’s innovation is leading the industry by years. We think competition is great; we think it makes all of us better as long as other companies invent their own stuff.”

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090422/live-apple-earnings-call/feed/ 6 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090413/lets-go-crazy-new-prince-ipod-costs-150-per-song/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090413/lets-go-crazy-new-prince-ipod-costs-150-per-song/#comments Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:12:18 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=6211 The newest special-edition iPod to hit the market comes from Prince. It is purple, it is produced in a limited batch of 950, and it will cost you $2,100.

But at least it contains every Prince song ever recorded, right? Nope. From what I can tell, the only thing the gadget comes preloaded with is a 15-song, 40-minute concert video.

This wouldn’t even compute in the pre-Lehman era. So what gives?

Unlike other special-edition iPods from U2 and “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, you can’t get this one directly from Apple (AAPL). Instead, you have to buy it bundled alongside a high-end book of Prince photographs produced by Kraken Opus, a British publisher that says its mission is to create the “most epic, stunning, iconic publications ever seen in the world.”

And by Kraken Opus standards, by the way, the Prince book/iPod combo is a steal: The books the company produced for the Arsenal soccer team, for instance, can set you back $6,247–and comes with no gadget of any sort.

I’d love to send you off with a Prince video, but it’s awfully hard to find one on YouTube. His old record label, Warner Music Group (WMG), is feuding with Google (GOOG) and has taken down most of the official clips from the video site. And the artist himself is vigilant about taking down clips he doesn’t approve of. So we’ll have to settle for a few seconds of Stephen Colbert dancing to a golden oldie at the Smithsonian.

Colbert’s Prince Dance
by tailgator13

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090413/lets-go-crazy-new-prince-ipod-costs-150-per-song/feed/ 3 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090410/video-of-the-day-tina-fey-channels-steve-jobs/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090410/video-of-the-day-tina-fey-channels-steve-jobs/#comments Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:56:04 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=6168 I get the feeling many folks aren’t working today. Which means that those of who you are can probably sneak in an extra couple minutes to entertain yourselves with Web video. So here’s Tina Fey on last night’s episode of “30 Rock,” performing her homage to Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs:

Entertaining. Like the cadence and the walk. But for my money, the best faux Steve is Fred Armisen, Fey’s old castmate on “Saturday Night Live.” Here he is touting the iPhone:

Sadly, I can’t find Armisen’s best Jobs impersonation, where he introduced the iPod “Inviso.” What’s up with that, NBC.com and Hulu?

UPDATE: Fabio M. Zambelli helpfully passes along this link to the missing clip. He also notes as many of our readers outside the U.S. do, that he can’t watch Hulu clips. The Hulu people say they’re working on it, Fabio!

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090410/video-of-the-day-tina-fey-channels-steve-jobs/feed/ 1 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090311/u2-is-no-coldplay-david-letterman-is-no-apple/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090311/u2-is-no-coldplay-david-letterman-is-no-apple/#comments Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:24:43 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=5119 Big rock album of 2008: Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.” Big rock album of 2009: U2’s new “No Line on the Horizon.”

Coldplay’s U.S. sales in the first week the album went on sale last June: 721,207. U2’s sales for its first week, which ended yesterday: 483,925.

What gives? I’m not a huge fan of either band, so I won’t opine about the albums’ relative merits. And the most obvious answer is that CD sales drop every year, so a big album in 2008 is be a smaller album in 2009.

But I will note that Coldplay got a huge push from Apple (AAPL) last year, which promoted the band over and over and over again on TV ads.

U2 has been working its disc very hard, too–most notably, a week-long stint on David Letterman’s CBS (CBS) show. But maybe a simple iTunes/iPod spot–like the one the band did a few years ago–could have done the trick.

Album promotion circa 2008:

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