Underground Media: Reloaded

Nashville airport sux!!! No cell phone reception, so the aircard won't connect. Their wi-fi is through Boingo for $4.95 an hour, and Boingo can't even seem to take my frickin money! And they are making me install some ridiculous Boingo connection manager. And my connection stength is VERY LOW! Give me a freakin break! Did I mention that there are only two restaurants in my gate area and both are jam packed? So, I am typing this blog from my phone that's got a half bar of signal strength, just so I can rant and let Nashvillians know that they should not accept this crap! This is worse than LAX and that place is a pit! Out...

I am well aware of the fact that Satellite Radio is the current media darling. In fact, after six weeks of traveling across the country for my new gig, I have fallen passionately in love with Sirius Radio Channel 43 - BackSpin . All oldschool hip-hop, all the time. Driving out of Atlanta airport in my rental car a couple of weeks ago, I tuned in randomly to BackSpin only to hear the almighty Kurtis Blow introduce the next track: Public Enemy - Night of the Living Baseheads. He had me at hello. Now I can't live without it. Great DJ's, no commecials, and no edits!!! Seriously, life doesn't get any better. Or does it? After being suitably impressed by my alternative music options in the car, what's a guy to do when he's sitting on the tarmac for an hour on a delayed flight to Baltimore? Streaming internet radio on my trusty Palm Centro, that's what! I didn't even know the Centro *did* internet radio! As a consummate underground hip-hop fan, I was mo...

I would like to extend a heartfelt "thank you" to all of my new readers from Urban Thought Collective! I am sincerely proud and humbled to be a part of this community. Now, on to the tech! Last week, I gave you an overview of the major players in the coming mobile-phone slugfest that's about to hit the market. Apple vs. Google vs. the handset manufacturers (Motorola, Samsung, et al). If I were to portray this market conflict in terms of a boxing analogy, I would invite you to recall the Tyson vs. Spinks fight circa 1988. I was all of 14-years-old and I vividly recall watching the pay-per-view event at a friends' house. We were glued to the screen as my buddy's mother got up to fix herself a drink in the kitchen about 30 seconds into Round 1. When she returned ONE MINUTE later, the fight was OVER!!! Iron Mike had knocked Michael Spinks into dreamland at 1:30 in the first round. I remember seeing Spinks' eyes roll up into his head and thinking, " D...

Sounds ominous, right? Well, it should. Most tech shootouts do more harm than good to the consumer. Anybody remember Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD? Lasting for over two years, this Hi-Def DVD format face-off split the entertainment content community and left consumers standing on the sidelines scratching their heads. And Blu-ray's eventual victory earlier this year surely tasted of ashes. They were left with either angry customers who had spent hundreds on HD-DVD boxes and its respective media, or hopelessly confused customers who still didn't know that simply owning a Play Station 3 had put them in the winners' circle . What does that mean for the looming Mobile Phone slug-fest? More of the same consumer confusion. Perhaps I should explain. Recently, in a test market, smart-phone owners were asked about the capabilities of their phones and how they used them. It was determined that, although the smart-phone owners confidently claimed to use 100% of their phones' features...