This is a short film created to promote a new Philips TV that has the aspect ratio of an actual movie screen (21:9).

Note the actual duration of the perfectly looping video - it is the only tenuous link to the product I could find beyond the URL to the Philips website.

Bravo to Philips for being so bold and avant garde!  The meticulous planning and flawless execution, not to mention the completely understated marketing direction, should make the industry take notice and learn something.  Will they?

First, I went to my local newspaper machines about 2 blocks away outside Fat Apples restaurant.  There is a row of about 8 newspaper machines there.  Empty!  Only the SF Chronicle and USA Today machines were full (I got one of each).  I knew that couldn’t be right, though.  Why would all of the New York Times machines be empty?

I flew to the BART train station about 3 more blocks away feeling confused and a little nervous.  The newspaper stand at the station wasn’t even open yet.  His windows were shuttered and quiet.  No papers bound in twine were waiting for the clerk’s arrival.  And, all of the rows of newspaper machines around the corner were empty again, too (except for the Chronicle, which I already had).  Incredulous, I started to curse the guy who came before me and stole my right to history!

Next, Starbucks across the street.  Thankfully, I found puffy faced and bleary eyed human beings there where I learned that the New York Times had NEVER been delivered that morning.  “When do they usually get here?”  “About an hour ago,” the barista said. “They never showed up.”

!!

There must have been an issue with the entire south El Cerrito delivery, I thought.  I bought a cup of coffee to help sharpen my focus.  After pacing around the parking lot, I got in my car.  After making sure the Lucky’s grocery store across the parking lot was also bare, I drove a couple of miles to nearby Berkeley and spotted a 7-Eleven.   The store emitted a warm, comforting glow.

There, in stacks as high as you might imagine stacks of money in a bank vault, sat fresh copies of the NY Times in all of their glory.

I took a deep breath, and picked up a single copy.   Even though I now knew that there hadn’t been some Ebay jerk vacuuming up all of the papers in my neighborhood, I didn’t want to deny someone else the same feeling I had at that moment.

I restrained myself to one, and went home.

According to Clickz, “New figures from Wachovia has web ad spending growing by 10 percent in 2008, down from a previous prediction of 15%. Lehman/Barclays have are pegging growth for the year at 16.9% rather than 23.4%.”  Nevertheless, it would be a tad naive to not expect some firms to take a hit.

If history is any indicator at all, impacts will likely be felt in the form of resource reductions at some media companies that rely on advertising supplied by publicly traded firms. But, for the lucky ones, this can also be an incredible opportunity for growth and investment.

I don’t necessarily see it as a glass half full or empty, just a cyclical, scary reality that happens every decade or so. We aren’t yet where we were in mid-2002. Let’s hope we can start to slide to the bottom soon and slowly begin to work our way back up. We need some leadership.

To have this crisis hit right when a lame duck president was throttling down his tenure couldn’t have been worst timing. Then again, the administration really has nothing to lose at this point except their long-held ideologies.

In terms of predictions, I think 2009 very well could be the year already anemic US print newspapers begin to fold at an accelerated rate.

Complicated unregulated “instruments” (mathematical algorithms developed by scientists to try and make any bad loan still make money, which obviously didn’t work) and  “credit default swaps,” which are at the heart of this crisis, could involve nearly $60 trillion.  That’s not a typo.

The credit swaps are insurance-based in everything but name, because if they were called insurance, they would have to be regulated.  So, the mortgage securities were terrible investments sold to people who couldn’t afford them, and the swaps were “insurance” sold and traded to cover them.  What happens when people can’t pay their inflated mortgages that have lost their value?  The banks holding the notes and the places that sell the insurance can’t keep up, thus everything implodes.

Again, the credit swap market is potentially $50-60 trillion deep.  That’s 4 times the size of the U.S. debt.

Will the $700 billion approved by Congress and President Bush last week solve the problem?  From a psychological standpoint, maybe.  For a little while, at least.  But to me (and many others) it sounds like a David and Goliath problem.   A slingshot versus a giant.  And, we are hardly at the beginning of this mess.

Does anyone want to bail out this system?  Of course not, but right now no one (yet) seems to fully comprehend how dangerous a situation we are all in.  Even the people in charge don’t seem to know the specific magnitude.  Let’s just say that it’s bad enough to make a deeply conservative administration want to try and nationalize components of our banking system.  Think about that for a minute.

And if you’re curious how the political candidates’ polls will look later this week, know that 3rd-quarter 401k statements are in the mail and on their way to mailboxes around the U.S.  I don’t know if I even want to open mine to be honest.

These are serious problems that require serious people to try and pick up the pieces.  The effects of this crisis will likely be felt for 5-10 years at a minimum.  This historic time that we’re in today requires  far more important discourse than irrelevant and polarizing character attacks.  We need the smartest and most inspirational adults on the planet to be in charge, and we need people to come together and recognize when certain systems (and/or ideologies) of the past have failed us all.

The new Apple iPhone Shuffle.

One Button.  Makes random calls.

That’s right, you heard it here first, folks.

The former chief of prosecutors at Guantánamo, Col. Morris D. Davis, testified recently that superiors at the Pentagon decreed there would be “no acquittals” of prisoners tried before military tribunals. He said he also was told that the timing of charges against well-known detainees “could have real strategic political value.”  — The Times

Does anyone in cable news READ anymore?

After that, you can also check out the current top-ten remixes people have submitted and voted on.

Then, one of my close work buddies sends me over a screen grab of my “status”. Ah, iChat, if only it was true.