Pics: Condos!

Here are just a few of the many, many condos and apartments currently under development in Miami. Here's hoping a lot of people are desparate to move to luxury high rises in Miami.

All these empty buildings

I happen to be in South Florida right now and took a drive through Miami just the other day. I was stunned at how many high rises were in construction. There have to be thousands of unfinished condos in downtown Miami. I can't imagine what will happen to those buildings if their developers meet the same fate as the partners of the Savoy Hotel and face foreclosure. The Savoy Hotel, a landmark with a guitar-shaped pool that sits on prime beachfront property on Ocean Ave., was in the process of being converted into luxury condominiums and condo hotels. The developers ultimately could not convince banks that the project was worth financing, and now the project is shut down. One of the lenders, BankFirst Corporation, is suing for $4.7 million.

It's also being reported today that median housing prices in the U.S. will probably fall this year for the first time in 50 years. Surely, if a famous luxury building literally on the sands of South Beach cannot withstand the market downturn and convince bankers that it is worthy of a loan, the high-rise condos that only face the polluted Miami river will not fare any better. What will happen to those buildings?? Will they be left unfinished??

I will try and take pictures when I am back in Miami on Tuesday to document the crazy number of half-finished buildings.

YouTube + the enterainment industry = BFF

So Google is attempting to make YouTube profitable with ads that overlay video content on the bottom of the screen for a short period. Upon first reading about this form of advertisement, I was skeptical; I absolutely hate the moving pop-up ads that appear at the bottom-right corner of the screen on some channels, promoting programs other than the one you're watching.

On the other hand, it is at least reassuring that it will only appear on content created by media companies that have licensed their videos to YouTube. Putting ads on Viewer Created Content (VC2) would be practically sacreligious. I'm pretty sure YouTube would not only lose its legitimacy with amateur content creators that way, but also with most viewers.

Additionally, as mentioned in the NYTimes article (linked to the Title of this blog entry), this will hopefully convince more media companies to partner with YouTube to show their content. The populist nature of YouTube makes it the perfect medium with which to create buzz for programming. I think it's silly that there are people/companies who think that providing content online will cut away from regular viewership; I know I only get sucked into wanting to watch TV shows on a regular basis after watching them online, on DVD, or in any other format. It blows my mind that so many in the media business, whether it's television, print news, or whatever, seem so afraid of the Internet.

Andrew Keen, who was on the Colbert Report recently, is one of the idiots perpetuating the idea that the Internet is bad for art, culture, etc. As someone trying to make a living as a writer, I should be more sympathetic to that view than anyone. But he's not seeing the forest for the trees. He says Colbert is losing money from his show airing on YouTube; he also says he knows more about the Internet than Colbert. Both claims are ridiculous. Clearly, Stephen Colbert has harnessed the power of the Internet to promote his show and his right-wing persona better than any other celebrity. Just take, for instance, the fact that Colbert's speech at the White House Corresondent's Dinner was a No. 1 hit on iTunes, or that he single-handedly changed the population status of the African elephant on Wikipedia. His viewers have made him a sensation on the Internet, and more than likely, that has come full circle to earn him more viewership.

The point is, I think Andrew Keen is absolutely wrong about everything he says during this interview and that increased partnership between media companies and YouTube would be good for everyone.

Penn to Chavez: "My Bush insults are better than yours"

Sean Penn met with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez yesterday, and apparently he's not the only misguided actor to do so; Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte also visited the Latin American leader in Caracas.

I don't understand how (presumably) smart people, people who take an active interest in international affairs, can be so naive in their enthusiasm for Chavez. Certainly, he has promoted programs to redistribute wealth to the less fortunate, but at what cost? His attempts seal off the country's people from his domestic and international political adversaries -- by manipulating trade and tightening his grip on the nation's media -- are signs that his turn as president could mutate into an indefinite reign over a totalitarian regime. Isolation keeps totalitarian governments stable.

The Venezuelan-raised actress Maria Conchita Alonso (whom I've never heard of...) said she hopes Sean Penn "comes to his senses and he realizes that he's being used." She's absolutely right-- in order to isolate their countries more-- and thereby solidify their personal power-- leaders like Chavez do everything they can to incite the fury of the United States. Like when President Eisenhower failed to invited Fidel Castro to a luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria while Castro was in New York for a United Nations meeting in 1960 (god, Castro's old)-- Castro instead said it would be his "honor to lunch with the poor and humble people of Harlem." That must've really annoyed Eisenhower.

Clearly, though, I shouldn't be surprised that this sort of absurd political participation is coming from Sean Penn. It's stupid, but nowhere near as nonsensical as his bizarre rant about George Bush's "soiled and blood-soaked underwear" a couple months back. At least that line resulted in this awesome "Meta-Free-Phor-All" with Stephen Colbert:

Nooooo!

The deal between Murdoch and the Bancrofts went down on Tuesday, as detailed in this article. Hopefully our worst fears won't be realized, which would look pretty much like this cartoon.

Thankfully, Murdoch has committed to some limitations on what he can do to the editorial side of the Journal, and it is also worth noting that he will likely invest a great deal in bolstering the Journal's political coverage and its international bureaus, which is great. It's also good that Dow Jones in the hands of someone who understands that newspapers don't have to die because of the Web-- they just have to learn how to harness the Web as another outlet.

But only time will tell how much the Journal will change. I'm not sure if I'll be as fond of a Journal that's meant to compete more directly with The NY Times. I like that the Journal's front page never heavily focuses on "the news of the day." It certainly isn't my primary source of news, but it's one of my favorites. I'll read my primary news from whatever source pops up first on Google News, but I'll always look at the Journal (when I can get a hold of it) to see what other stories they've deemed worthy of print.

Now all I can ask for is that Murdoch doesn't touch the Journal's precious middle column, which always has quirky features. But it looks like he will: "He told Time magazine that he was not sure about the offbeat front-page stories known internally as 'A-Heds' that are a plum for reporters to write." :'( :'( :'(