Bucking the current media trend of "Everybody's broke," Vice is throwing a nice $250,000 Halloween party in Williamsburg to celebrate its 15th anniversary, complete with "two floors of chaotic nostalgia, scary punk bands, full-on rave DJs, a skate ramp, glow sticks, grunge, big pants, gangsta rap, marijuana-scented flannel, and serious slacker vibes." Our costume is "Terrified old Polish lady who wonders what the hell happened to her neighborhood."


This is a nice thing: The Columbia Journalism Review is giving fellowships to four laid-off journalists, "that will provide downsized professionals with a writing position as well as support to help them choose how best to use their experience in the years ahead." Hopefully a living wage is include? We support this! Why should the lucky employed people get all the cushy academic awards?


Since magazines started dying 438 years ago, people have been talking about developing a successful "Netflix for magazines" thing (we're not counting the unsuccessful attempt, already made). Hey, what does the founder of Netflix think?

When asked if magazines should try a model similar to his, Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, said, "It's certainly worth a shot."
But does Hastings subscribe to magazines? "No, I read them online," he said.

Magazines: fucked.


The Wall Street Journal has reportedly won the "coveted" Newspaper Circulation title, besting USA Today. Rupert Murdoch will celebrate by only staying at a Holiday Inns from now on, and never reading anything longer than 400 words ever again.

Weathers will probably do more like one year, according to The Smoking Gun, although the time will be hardened by the fact that Weathers will have the least intimidating criminal record in the joint. "What are you in for?" "Mugging the shit out of a bunch of people. You?" "I stole DVDs from the mail and put them into my backpack everyday at work, until Netflix tipped off the USPS and I was busted on a surveillance video. I was caught RED HANDED. Geddit? Ha?"

A page of the plea agreement reprinted by the Smoking Gun refers to "the 3,012 recovered DVDs," implying that Weathers couldn't even fence the property he stole from the DVD mailing service, which is just as well: He faced $38,000 in restitution if he couldn't cough up the goods. Worst. Heist thriller. Ever.

(Pic via HackingNetflix on Flickr)

BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos (My God, how can chaos be pragmatic?! How?!), a group of math and computer people from around the world (who've been making the most contest progress over the last two years), say they've improved the accuracy of the software by 10.05%. Now the other contestants have 30 days to do better, otherwise, BellKor gets the million.

But how effective do you think their recommendation system? Or any recommendation system, for that matter?

Regardless of how this all shakes out, any improvement on a system that can prevent us from accidentally watching The Stepfather (Sela Ward, how could you?) in the future is welcome.

(Pic via shannonpatrick17 on Flickr)

Just a few of our winners:

• Netflix: Profit was up 45% in the fourth quarter.
• McDonald's: Opening 650 new restaurants.
• Spam: Parent company Hormel is "Enjoying Growth in a Slowing Economy!"
• Wal-Mart: Hey they're not doing too bad at all!
• Campbell Soup: They're a blue chip stock!

Anecdotal evidence also indicates that Crystal meth dealers and Online porn are doing just as well as expected. [Previously]

1. Gladiator Wars: Assuming Maghound takes off, it will offer a pure look at what consumers want to read (at least within the limited, non-Hearst pool of 240 magazines) when offered a broad array of choices. It could become the Billboard charts of magazine popularity. Plus you can watch magazines get dropped from subscriber lists immediately when people find out their content sucks! Now we just have to ask Time Inc. to make all this data public.

2. Price: Three titles for five bucks a month, five for eight bucks, seven for ten bucks. It's a deal and a half. If Maghound takes off it should cut into news stand sales, because it allows you to sample issues without paying the price of a subscription or the higher price of a news stand copy.

3. Expansion: The roster of magazines available now lacks big names like The Atlantic, The Economist, Esquire, and a bunch of others. But if Maghound proves to be a successful business, that list is bound to expand, because magazines—except very high-end titles—will see that it's in their economic interest to be included. So it's fair to expect more choice in the future.

Or the thing will fold, but you only lost five bucks a month. So who cares?

[Folio, Paid Content]

I believe it's more complicated than that — probably transactions that happened *after* the upgrade that they now need to reconcile manually.

The theory would explain why Netflix seemed to know it received DVD returns from particular customers, but can't figure out what next from the queue to ship. (Photo by AP/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

Dear [Netflix customer],

Our shipping system is unexpectedly down. We received a DVD back from you and should have shipped you a DVD, but we likely have not. Our goal is to ship DVDs as soon as possible, and we will keep you posted on the status of your DVD shipments.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. If your DVD shipment is delayed, we will be issuing a credit to your account in the next few days. You don't need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement.

Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-888-638-3549.

-The Netflix Team

(Photo by Seth Anderson)

Red Envelope boss Liesl Copland appears to be on her way out as well, marking roughly the 674th job lost in the indie sector in 2008. RIP, of course — but what does it all mean? And when, when will the carnage end?

REE had partnered with distributors like IFC Films and Samuel Goldwyn since 2005, at one point splitting acquisition and theatrical distribution costs in exchange for DVD rights and half the profits. As noted today in The Hollywood Reporter, that all changed this past January when Red Envelope pared back its operation; its closure Tuesday wipes out yet another player in the indie market following the dissolution of Picturehouse, Warner Independent and Tartan Films, with ThinkFilm, The Weinstein Company and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment on life-support close behind.

Bleak, huh? On the bright side, at least Paramount purports to still be in the game despite its overt genrefication last week. Take your silver linings — and your résumés, we suppose — where you can find them.

• Netflix closing Red Envelope [THR]
• Netflix Shutting Red Envelope Entertainment [indieWIRE]

• Internet service providers: Comcast is a cable provider and AT&T has its U-Verse and HomeZone IPTV offerings, and both companies have their own set-top boxes and on-demand movie and television offerings. Plus the two generally compete only against each other in many markets. Which means neither has much of an incentive to increase speeds to those that could provide the Roku box with the HDTV signal it reportedly supports. Comcast has shown that it will throttle bandwidth for specific applications, and then lie about it to the FCC.
• Movie studios: I've used the Netflix feature to watch movies online and the selection isn't particularly impressive. Reports peg available titles at 10,000, with a handful of television shows thrown in. Netflix will have to go over the heads of the DVD distributors it has relationships with directly to the studios if it wants current content.
• Surly adopters: Fool me once with Akimbo, the Apple TV, or Unbox over TiVo, shame on you. Fool me twice with the Roku? Shame on you. The gadgetophile market is probably wary of cluttering their home theaters with yet another clunker. The key will be to get the chipset Roku has developed for the box built into new TVs. Only then can Netflix count on the kind of mainstream audience that will convince the studios and the ISPs that the project can't be ignored.

In rough-and-tumble Bridgeport, CT:

#1: "I Think I Love My Wife"
#7 is "Why Did I Get Married?"

Theme: Oh noes. Families are disintegrating.

San Francisco:
#1: "24 Hours on Craiglist"
#3: "Commune"
#7: "Burning Man: Beyond Black Rock"

Theme: Techies and hippies!

In the geek-boy Google capital of Mountain View, CA:

#1: "Tell Me You Love Me, Season 1"
#2 and #6: "Battlestar Galactica

Theme: We work for Google. There aren't a lot of girls here and we're sad.

In fancy Easthampton, NY:

#1 is "Becket": "When King Henry II (Peter O'Toole) names his friend and former drinking partner Thomas à Becket (Richard Burton) the new Archbishop of Canterbury, he counts on his unbending loyalty when it comes to religious matters..."

Theme: Inaccessibility, old money.


[Photo: librarygeek's Flickr]

Six Apart's offices seem pretty ordinary to me. Their meeting space is *tiny*. Googleplex's niceties are all about enticing their workers to stay at work longer — yeah, that's real HAWT!. Valleywag offices look like a dump to me.

Click on each company name for its full galleries.

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