The JibJab.com guys are at it a gain – now they have released ‘Grumpy Santa’, another of their Flash-based animations. Instead of skewering the American political process, they highlight Santa’s tough times. Striking a deal with Yahoo.com, JibJab has made this into more of an industry – including a book, premium downloads, etc. – but for balance, do promote a program to give toys to childeren in Iraq. Click here to see the movie.
All posts by jetrotz
NYTimes Firefox Ad
In an unprecendented effort for an open-source project, Mozilla.org placed a two-page advocacy ad in the New York Times on Thursday, December 16th. I have been using Firefox for at least six months now, and find that it behaves much more reliably for me on the Mac – other browsers seem to be crushed by various Flash animations. Link to a full-size image and the press release here.
iPhone Gets Official
After months of speculation, Apple confirmed today that they are in a partnership with Motorola to produce an iPod-compatible phone. Forbes.com is reporting that the phone should be available early in 2005. All the buzz is short on specifics, but expect at the very least a phone with a strong sense of Apple’s navigational and design usability. Apple announced back in July that they were creating a mobile version of iTunes for Motorola – hopefully this new announcement will mean more. Jobs cautions that this won’t be an iPod replacement – but a way to take your iTunes with you. Hmmm. That still sounds like an iPod with a phone. Anyway, too bad it’s not an iTreo….
CNNfn Signs Off
CNNfn, the Financial News Network and sister to CNN, CNN Headline News, CNN espanol and CNN International, is signing off at 2pm ET today. The network suffered from the same issues that doomed CNN/SI, my old employer – the turn around in how distributors paid for programming, and the slower-than-expected rollout of digital capacity to take on niche networks like this. CNNMoney.com will, however, continue to publish online. Managing editor Allen Wastler has this retrospective. But Myron Kandell summed it up best as he signed off on behalf of all the staff — ‘It was just one of those things.”