The James Kilgour Blog

The new series of X-Factor had begun, with more auditionees then ever. But there is another big change. Sharon Osbourne has left the judging panel, to be replaced by Cheryl Cole, from Girls Aloud, who was found in a similar style Talent Show.

My question is, will Cheryl make a good judge? Unfortunately, I don’t think so. So far, she just seems to be missing something. That thing which makes her interesting to watch. Sharon Osbourne was always a legend on the show, and every contestant appeared to like her.

Without Sharon, I’m afraid the show has lost a rather big portion of its sparkle. Soon, The X-Factor will hit the shelf, joining ranks with Fame Academy, Pop Idol and Popstars, the very program behind Cheryl Cole.

JK

Hey there. I’ll be back in two weeks; now going on holiday!

See you soon.

JK

You may have read my article: Demand Five. But you’ll have to wait. The other day, my Spam filter flagged this comment on the article:

In my experience I have not experienced any problems with Demand Five or Channel Five. Sure, you get to enjoy a short advertisement, and watch you desired content stream with quite fantastic quality as good as BBC Iplayer. At least Demand Five quality is better than ITV and 4oD.

I quite enjoy the Pay content also as I get to watch my favourite American Import episodes such as Grey’s Anatomy and CIS for no more than £0.99p per episode, you can also sometimes enjoy the luxury of watching it before its actually shown on TV, when you are so busy to watch it on TV or even when you have PROBLEMS receiving the channel on your TV!

From what I gather Demand Five gives you an option of downloading some chosen series/episodes in HD format, if you prefer watching it on with perfection for £1.99 but not really my cup-a-tea I think the quality is excellent for their normal download even on full screen.

=)
SZ

I’m all for being enthusiastic about a new service, but this is over the top. I think it could possibly be a from a Ad/Promotions company for Five. Especially since the user who left the comment had an @vainpromotions.co.uk email address. Strange that. After reviewing the service, I’m afraid I will retract the article. The service remains to be very slow, and does nit provide the same level of service as the BBC iPlayer, which in my opinion is a far superior product.

JK

The Olympics was created in 1859 as an international sports game, with the aim of bringing together the world with one passion; Sports. Since then, the Olympics has visited hundreds of different countries, and the Olympic spirit has brought us all closer together.

Beijing 2008 begins soon, but for me, the communist Government of China breaches this very Olympic ethos. Despite their promises, Human Rights in China has still not improved as far as it should have done, and as for international openness, last night’s Panorama episode revealed how this is not true.

One poignant example is the Internet in China. Millions of sites are blocked, in what’s known as the Great Firewall of China. This plentifully list includes this Blog, the BBC News Website and any other site that is derogatory towards China or Chairman Mao.

China is no where near a democracy. People can’t express themselves, and if they are unhappy, no one will listen. Everyone remembers the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, where hundreds of peaceful protestors were murdered with tanks. This happened in Beijing itself, where the Olympic games will be, and continues to happen today, as more protestors are killed or tortured, when people don’t follow the rules.

The Sichuan earthquake in May caused a local school to collapse, killing hundreds of children. It was the only building to collapse, and poor building quality is suspected. However, due to local corruption, those who speak out are silenced. With force. How is this openness? How is this human rights?

I won’t be watching this year’s games. How can we celebrate sports achievement and the nation hosting it, when they corrupt the very fundamental pillars underpinning the Olympic Spirit. It makes a mockery of international cooperation and democracy. As for so called “democracy”, it’s little more than a dictatorship. How is everyone equal, when some, such as Chairman Mao are more equal than others?

You can watch the Panorama episode here. (Short time only!)

JK

SpiralFrog.com is a fairly new music download site. So what? There are loads out there, and how can their prices beat a giant like iTunes? Well. They have. All music on SpiralFrog is free. Yep, nada. But don’t worry, they are legal. SpiralFrog is legal, free ad supported downloads.

On a recent trip to the US, I managed to get onto the site and try it out, and I was surprised. It has quite a lot of music on it, from both Universal and EMI, downloading is very quick, and the ads are hardly noticeable after a while, and no worse than any other site with Adsense etc.

Now, the music does carry DRM, which is very restrictive: you can’t burn the music to a cd, use it on an iPod or Zune, and every user is required to sign in and complete a survey every 30 days to keep their music alive.

Neither the DRM or the stupid surveys (which are the same every month!) bother me. The only real problems are the geo-banning; currently the site is only available for those in the US or Canada (like so many sites), and also, the music available is quite limited. They boast 1.2 million tracks, but they have a lot of Orchard auto-biographies for the big artists like Madonna and Britney Spears.

Until SpiralFrog can sign up Sony BMG and WMG, their site will never be any fear fro the likes of iTunes.  But what is their now is very good. My worry would be for the longevity of the business though. For the brief time I used the site, I never once clicked an ad, but downloaded about 60 songs. How can SpiralFrog subsidise this for the millions of users it has accumulated? This will be the site’s real challenge, engaging users with ads, and getting to the point of revenue.

JK