I got Barack-rolled...

If you are a YouTube fanatic or have friends who are, it is likely that at some point in the last few months you have been Rick-rolled.

For those of you who don't know what being "rick-rolled" is, here is an explanation of the phenomenon from Yahoo answers:

An internet prank or joke. Rick Roll, Rick Roll'd or Rick Rolling is an internet spam trick in which people post a link to a Rick Astley video on Youtube, but say the viewers of the video are being led to another video, usually proof of unconfirmed gaming news or trailers.

For example, a friend sends you an email saying "Hey, check out the new Harry Potter trailer here!" You click the link and end up on YouTube watching Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" video.

Today on Twitter while reading tweets, I got Barack-rolled. Check out the video here. I'm sure this will get a few million views by the end of the week.

Olympic Power

Milo of Croton, the original Olympic star.

This article from the Times details the endorsement power that ex-Olympians have in marketing. Apparently it's a "for life" gig if you win once, or at least it can be.

I run a trivia contest on Monday nights, and when asked "who won the most gold medals in Olympic history?" no one, in all four rooms of the restaurant, knew the answer. (It was Raymond Ewry for track and field.) It's strange how in such a timeless event, even the most important stars are forgotten for the new faces. Star power is perfectly reflected by contracts; athletes who were once the face of Adidas or Nike are now pushing Cabot cheese.

Music 2.0

Pretty much everyone knows about web 2.0, what it is, and what it allows internet users to do. But what about music 2.0, as in, someone taking something that exists and recreating it into something entirely new?

This is exactly what artist, Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk has done. On his new album Feed The Animals he takes samples from over 300 different songs, fuses them together, and forms an entirely new song. One of the notable "mashups" includes Jay Z's "roc boys" playing over Radioheads "Paranoid Android."

He is hoping to avoid legal problems under the Creative Commons Licensing act, which allows websites and various media to sample 30 seconds previews.

Will he get sued? I highly doubt it, for one reason specifically: publicity.

Any artist who sued him would be facing an angry mob of music fans. Looking back a few years in history, take the example of Metallica's drummer Lars Ulrich who led the campaign against Napster. He faced a backlash and that was for people stealing entire songs! Imagine if one person gets sued for using no more than 30 seconds of a song. (see also Prince and YouTube)


Anyways, if music 2.0 intrigues you, I encourage you to check out Girl Talk's Feed The Animals. Personally, I give the CD a 9/10, but it is subjective to whether you really like the genre or not.