Coke, Cannes and free iTunes

I'd meant to comment on the latest Coca-Cola announcement, but have been preoccupied with traveling arrangements for Sunday's Conference "play-off" final between Exeter City FC and Morecombe at the new Wembley Stadium! I'll be posting photos, on Flickr, for those of you who are interested.

Coca-Cola, not content with Nintendo's Get Up and Play bling-bling, is running another Coke+iTunes promotion this summer for all of us lucky Europeans!

As part of the promotion, Coke and iTunes will give away songs from the iTunes Store in over 2 billion promotional packs of Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero this summer. The on-pack promotion will also offer customers the chance to win free iPods and attend some of the 100-plus Coke and iTunes sponsored summer concerts across Europe. The promotion will be launched at the Cannes Film Festival with a special live performance from Faithless, who have recorded an exclusive track for Coke and iTunes and collaborated with designers Paranoid on a limited-edition, aluminium Coke bottle.

"Coca-Cola has a long and rich heritage in music, from memorable advertising tracks to grassroots support to big live events. In Summer 2006 we started an innovative new partnership with iTunes," said Chris R. Burggraeve, group marketing director for the European Union Group. "Coke+iTunes aims to reinvent the ways young people create, listen to, and experience music every day. Thanks to Coke+iTunes, European youth will enjoy this Summer 2007 the biggest pan European music experience ever. And what better way to build bridges among European cultures than through music?"

"iTunes is the world's most popular online music store selling 58 songs every second at a rate of 5 million tracks a day," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes. "We've already had great success working with Coca-Cola over the past year and this new pan-European initiative gives music fans across Europe the ability to download free music all summer long."

American readers you'll have to write Pepsi!

Genie In A Bottle

Coke has officially launched its iTunes partnership in the UK! Customers purchasing 2 litre bottles are guaranteed a free song (to the value of £0.79). This beats the US-only Pepsi promotion hands down. What's not to like?

Coke + iTunes bottles have started appearing in Essex as of last week!

G'day

Welcome Australians to iTunes Music Store sans Sony BMG (only a matter of time). My family, down under, can now subscribe to my podcast with even greater ease!

Went to Rydon Retail Park after having coffee with one of my relatives (on my Mother's side of the family) in Sainsbury's! Made the obligatory trip to the KFC drive-thru. The sales person gave us extra pieces of chicken, portion of chips and large Pepsi at no extra cost! That deserves a BIG SHOUT OUT to the Colonel.

I'm selling a Sony widescreen television on eBay, which segues into this cautionary tale. The Exeter Sony Centre closed a few months ago. In late 1999 I was in dispute with the store manager regarding a highly publicized RGB SCART fault with a model that I'd purchased 6 months earlier. After myriad callouts (at no charge) they replaced it with another model (KV32-FX60U FD Trinitron). However, it was £600 cheaper and the store manager never refunded the difference or gave me a credit note. If he'd pulled that same stunt now, solicitors would have been hired to resolve the matter! Taking closure to its literal conclusion. You reap what you sow.

Flock is based on beta 2 of Firefox 1.5 and performance is pretty slick for an alpha application. No crashes to date.

Maggie And The Ferocious Beast

After some serious soul searching. As if? Lost's Maggie Grace (plays Shannon with a Paris Hilton panache) gets my vote for most fanciable female on the island. Not least because she shares the same Christian name as my dear Mother. Margaret. And she's a natural brunette.



Happy Birthday, Maggie!

Xbox 360 Premium Pack pre-orders are reaching critical mass (no statistics) if retailers are to be believed. Exeter's Game has stopped taking orders citing limited stock allocation. The hype starts here. At least UK gamers are spared the 'Nickel and Dimed' extravagance of Xbox 360 bundles from EBgames.com and Gamestop.com. Gamestop's Omega Bundle is the pinnacle of avarice at £1,116.63.

Found this American soda and snacks importer today. Might try Wild Cherry Pepsi and Hershey's Cookies' n' Chocolate.

Street Smarts

After a nine-month wait European consumers can now enter the fourth space. Say hello to Sony PSP. Want one? You'll need to get in line, I'm afraid.



Photo reproduced with the permission of the copyright holders SCEE.

In keeping with the Sony theme. Lets focus on their music (software) group and a confession. I listen to Jessica Simpson! Before you flame me. In 1999 I received her debut CD (as part of a larger package) from a US-based friend: Jessica's vocal range and control impressed. Prior to this, Sony had included "Did You Ever Love Somebody" (performed by Jessica) in the first Dawson's Creek soundtrack compilation. So, I was already a convert. MTV's Newlyweds introduced us to her solipsistic lifestyle and has become appointment television (Pepsi floater optional).

Last weekend Michael and me perused the shelves of MVC. The subject of Madonna's next album arose: I had no idea about the forthcoming release of Confessions on a Dance Floor! Madonna sagaciously appears in the new commercial for Motorola's ROKR iTunes phone. The new single "Hang Up" is also premiered during the advertisement. Does this mean that her back catalogue will shortly be made available on the iTunes Music Store? Madonna's lucrative deal with Microsoft (under the Windows Media brand) always struck me as spurious and inherently limiting. Maverick (co-founded by Madonna) artists were introduced last year.

Sweet syndication Batman! Last night FeedBurner got a face-lift and now my Flickr photos are spliced into the feed. The guys and gals at FB are a talented bunch. I'm delighted to have partnered with them. I urge all site managers, overseeing rich media feeds, to do the same. Incidentally, Flickr Uploadr is now at version 2.0.

Firefox fans are in for an early Halloween treat this year. Version 1.5 should bow on October 28th. For further information and news on the Public Preview Beta, point your browser here.

Pepsi Twist

Having watched the Beckham, Lopez and Knowles Pepsi commercial. I can only conclude that it's an eminently forgettable plagiarism of Kill Bill. A far cry from the momentous Michael Jackson campaigns. Sony BMG will be delighted with the publicity that has been generated for its two solo stars. Perhaps the cola company should sign Apple's iPod Shuffle as the new face of Pepsi?

Nintendo Nation

In March 1997 I was blown away by Nintendo 64! Mario's richly rendered 3D world literally leapt from the television screen. The lush visuals and innovative gamepad ergonomics culminated in a definitive pop culture experience.

The N64, PSOne and Dreamcast were traded-in for XBOX, PS2 and GameCube in 2002. Although I recently sold all my home consoles due to less leisure time, the DS and PSP portables will ably fill the gap whilst commuting.

Don't miss the iTunes/Pepsi commercials during today's Super Bowl.

Happy Birthday Michael

No, not MJ (although his birthday is later this month)! This is to wish my friend Michael a very Happy Birthday and to lift the wraps off Photoshop album art, which will form part of his belated birthday gift. We're both fans of Michael Jackson - attending two concerts together - and twenty years ago MJ ruled the music world. His elaborate Pepsi commercials, which reached their zenith with 'Dreams' (1992), were as eagerly anticipated as his groundbreaking music videos!



Crafting a CD, with purchased iTunes music, is no mean feat. And it's best practice to adopt the Quincy Jones methodology and keep editing each time you've selected the ten best songs.

Whovians can rejoice! From the BBC archives, eighteen incomplete stories have been restored and compiled in a boxed set. Lost in Time includes the first release of 'Day Of Armageddon' and the newly discovered, 'The Daleks' Masterplan'. Also features another Dalek story, two Cybermen stories and both Yeti stories as well as the BBC1 trail for 'The Power Of The Daleks', the last episode of 'Fury From The Deep' and Tony Cornell's 8mm colour film taken during the shooting of that episode.

Have a great day Michael.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Referencing his Jazz roots John Williams' captivating score for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was one of the first albums that I purchased from iTMS Europe. Williams' dexterity at composing for franchises knows no bounds and traverses Star Wars to Indiana Jones and now Harry Potter. He weaves complex sonic narratives: from the opening Waltz to Buckbeak’s Flight (a signature theme in its own right, which recalls his work on E.T., Star Wars and Superman). The soundtrack is overflowing with urgency and light is threatened by shadow at every segue.

So, it would be remiss not to see the movie too! Today I ventured with one of my Uncle's to Plymouth's Vue (formerly known as Warner Village). We arrived early and decided on 'chow' from Pizza Hut. The service was excellent and I garnered an extra Pepsi (courtesy of the waitress)! A couple of Hutts (or Vogan look-a-likes) indulged in an all-you-can-eat banquet to the badly suppressed amusement of staff and onlookers alike!

OK. The movie. To my utter delight screen 9 is deserving of the moniker 'giant' screen - a luxurious widescreen canvas that outflanks the Odeon Leicester Square - resulting in retinal overload.

HP3 opens with a franchise flourish: the WB logo transformed into a signature motif that owes a debt to Tim Burton’s Batman. The film oozes oily evil from the outset, the colour palette delineated in black, white and blue. The sets capture the ambience of Anton Furst's production design for Batman.

Azkaban is far removed from the Christmas cheer of its predecessors. Performances are uniformly excellent, culminating in Watson’s Hermione outshining Radcliffe’s leaden Harry! The Dementors are clearly derivative of another literary source, however they are nonetheless chilling.

It is a dark time for Harry Potter full of ambiguous choices and emotions, but not for the franchise. I’ll be booking my seat for the next instalment in advance of 2005.

Express Yourself

Pepsi has announced an iPod promotion in Australia alongside sponsorship of pop sensation Delta Goodrem! Presumably there'll be a similar Pepsi promo in Europe when iTunes Music Store is released?

After losing many daylight hours testing the World of Warcraft beta. DarkRyder has been joined by Human Warrior Mondas (named after the home planet of Doctor Who's calculating Cybermen). He resembles the new He-Man sculpt from The Four Horsemen! Fans of Blizzard's various franchises may be delighted to learn that Mac OS X installation patches for classic titles Diablo and Starcraft are to be released over the coming weeks. Feel the love!

Can't wait for Friday's release of The Day After Tomorrow! CGI geeks (and who isn't?) should see Terragen, a landscape generator that is heavily utilised in the movie!

Madonna begins her "Reinvention" World Tour tonight. Aroused by the success of Britney, Beyoncé and Kylie, Madonna is "dusting off" those old hits - Get Into The Groove to Vogue - and promises a show as spectacular and provocative as Blond Ambition '90 (I attended the infamous live BBC Radio One broadcast from Wembley Stadium in July, 1990).

The Sun and listening to Alanis Morissette's So-Called Chaos is so soaking up my time! BTW I watched The Corrs new video on MTV! It still "hurts" to look at Andrea!