“In a sign that the government has stepped up its antitrust investigation of a class-action settlement between Google and groups representing authors and publishers, the Justice Department has issued formal requests for information to several of the parties involved.”
Tag: 06.10.09
Study: Free-Ticket Recipients Turn Into Paying Customers
“Free Night of Theater, the 4-year-old national audience development program administered locally by Theatre Bay Area, succeeds in attracting new audiences and in contributing to their ‘aesthetic growth,’ according to a study released Tuesday. … The key finding, bearing out earlier follow-up surveys in the months after previous Free Nights, is that giving away tickets works not just to attract new theatergoers to a free show, but also to convert a significant number into future paying customers.”
About That Million-Word Mark: We Passed It A While Ago
“The Global Language Monitor (GLM), based in Austin, [Texas,] calculated that a neologism is created on average every 98 minutes and that ‘Web 2.0’, a term for the next generation of internet applications, should be formally crowned the millionth word. … Needless to say, academics are sceptical” about the math. Even the guy pushing the million-word celebration admits the English language has already surpassed the number.
Edinburgh Fringe Unveils Slate, Vows No Ticket Troubles
“After surviving the worst season in its history last year, the Edinburgh Fringe is back, and its organisers promise that this year’s event will be better than ever. … This year’s festival is crucial to restoring the Fringe’s reputation after last year’s disastrous collapse of the box office on the opening day, the resignation of then director Jon Morgan, parallel inquiries into the festival’s management and a £250,000 bail-out by its funders.”
Charitable Giving Fell 2% In ’08; Giving To Arts Fell Farther
“Charitable giving by Americans fell by 2 percent in 2008 as the recession took root, only the second year-to-year decline in more than a half-century, according to an authoritative annual survey released Wednesday. … Arts/culture/humanities organizations received $12.79 billion, down 6.4 percent.”
In Reality-TV Balloting, 1 Person = A Few Thousand Votes
“Reality television shows are depending more than ever on viewer participation to guide the outcome of their competitions, asking audience members to vote on who stays in the jungle on ‘I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!,’ who should stick to a diet on ‘The Biggest Loser’ and who keeps waltzing on ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ Those votes sometimes have more in common with Politburo polling, however, than with democratic elections.”
Graffiti Gains Gravitas, And The Crowds Love It
“Like a slow-burning fuse, graffiti has smoldered in the contemporary art world for decades: omnipresent in the streets yet not quite hot enough to catch fire in the market. But this year it exploded, with graffiti and ‘street art’ shows in major museums and gallery spaces both sides of the Atlantic — and people have been lining up round the block to get in.”
Wooing The Art Trade In A Sagging Economy
“In a western suburb of Paris, on the ÃŽle Seguin, developers are planning a vast art center, combining art warehouse, showroom and tax-free trade zone. Half a world away, in Singapore, an even grander project aims to revolutionize art storage and trading. With the global art market suffering in the economic downturn, the projects, privately financed and state supported, seek to bolster art markets by combining traditional notions of storage, exhibition and tax-free trading.”
Dave Eggers: Buck Up! Let’s Reinvest In Print.
“[M]y weird theory, or one of them, is that we need to invest in print, instead of cutting away all the value of print over the web. Seems like every time a newspaper cuts its size, its investigative budget, its art, its comics, its book review (!) we give readers yet another reason to eschew print and get the equivalent on the web. So I think with books and with newspapers we need to reinvest in what all the things print does best.”
Performances Prove Van Cliburn Jury Got Winners Wrong
The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition has made odd picks in the past. “Yet nothing in recent memory has been as shocking as this year’s top prizes,” awarded by a jury whose errors of judgment “are all too evident if we watch the archived performances on the Web.”