Alex Reid

Twenty three years later, Gordon Gekko is released from prison.

I’m not a fan of sequels but when they’re presented in true time, it’s pretty neat.

A certain favourite movie of mine is Fight Club, based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk. The movie was directed by David Fincher, music performed by the Dust Brothers and starred Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. In that order, I have praise for them all.

On so many levels I like this movie, and maybe that’s an ironic statement considering (if you’ve seen the movie). If you have not seen the movie, watch it. Otherwise, check out this very cool fanvid featuring the apt song “Becoming Insane” by Infected Mushroom.

Earlier today, Steve Jobs announced the new Apple toy of the year, the tablet-like iPad.

It might look like an iPhone on steroids, but it’s actually a mini-laptop.

It’s nearly the same screen size as a MacBook (the iPad screen is 9.5″ x 7.5″ while the MacBook screen is 9″ x 13″), one third the weight, and one half the thickness. The last stat is key because what makes the iPad a mini-lapto is that the iPad has the keyboard and monitor in the same space.

Similar to the iPhone, you can type via a QWERTY touchscreen keyboard but of course the keyboard is bigger, and Apple is offering accessories that will allow you to dock the iPad with an Apple keyboard in case all that touching is too much for you.

You can surf the Internet, watch movies or TV shows (Netflix anyone?), listen to music, play with photos and play iPhone games. Because of the iPhone network already in play, iPad users will have access to over 140,000 apps (and growing). The only downside is that it doesn’t come with flash.

Anyone who already owns an iPhone, will easily know how to use this device and that’s what Steve Jobs says will work for sales. For e-book readers, this device may be tempting because not only does it do more than most tablet PCs, but Apple is going live with their own “iBookstore” offering a place for publishers to sell their e-wares, just like it does for musicians (on record labels) and for iPhone game developers. Jobs says that they already have five of the largest book publishers on board already.

Canadians can expect the iPad to arrive in short supply this March.

When I changed my web site a couple years ago to use WordPress, for some reason I thought I was going to be writing daily blog posts. So I made my WordPress permalink structure: /year/month/day/postname only to find myself with long URLs that really weren’t needed and at worst scared off friends from checking my mentions on facebook.

After talking to a few people about the permalinks, I’ve been recently determined to change this but I was worried about losing my search engine ranking as for some reason despite my irregular postings prior to 2010, I have a pretty good ranking. For example, I found that a mere mention of a client’s name would give my web site a higher ranking than said client’s website.

So how could I change my permalink structure without writing a 301 redirect for each blog post?

Answer: Dean’s Permalink Migration WordPress plug-in

It only works once, but it works and that’s the only thing that matters when it comes to preserving your seo clout. Now my blog posts are simply: /year/postname. I doubt I’ll ever write the same blog title twice in one year and so what if I do, WordPress will simply attribute a number to the URL stating the repeat.

The recent late night television fiasco that became of NBC’s scheduling screw up has enthralled media industry insiders and TV watchers alike.

On September 27, 2004, on the 50^th anniversary of The Tonight Show, host Jay Leno announced on the show that he would be stepping down in 2009 and that Conan O’Brien would succeed him as the host of the “dynasty”.

In 2009, NBC announced it would give Leno a new one hour long show to be aired at the 10 PM timeslot, literally a prime time move. At the end of May, Leno passed the torch as promised to O’Brien.

Months after the premiere of Leno’s new show in Fall 2009, it was consistently obvious that the ratings for Leno’s show had fallen, by as much as 53% (49% in the Los Angeles market alone). This caused a considerable negative domino effect upon the affiliates’ 11 PM late-night news timeslot ratings. This in turn impacted O’Brien’s The Tonight Show as well as the show he left that followed him, now hosted by Jimmy Fallon.

In January, under considerable pressure from the local affiliates, NBC admitted defeat and announced that Leno would be given back his old timeslot at 11:35 PM but his hour long show would be reduced to 30 minutes and that O’Brien’s The Tonight Show would air at 12:05 AM. It was reported in the media that O’Brien was not consulted by the move and soon issued a press release stating that he would not move and that this was damaging the integrity of the show itself.

While O’Brien made a correct assertion that a show aired at 12:05 AM technically would not be The Tonight Show (competing talk show host David Letterman suggested it would be called “The Tomorrow Show”), O’Brien’s contract with NBC did stipulate that his show could be aired at 12:05 AM without penalty, presumably to allow overruns for sports events.

Legally speaking, at the time, Conan had two options: do the show or quit.

Instead he stayed quiet – a smart strategy no doubt advised by his super agent Ari Emmanuel – on the issue. Sure, he made jokes about it. He had to, that’s his job. But outside the show and in public, he simply said he wouldn’t budge. This forced all eyes to be cast upon NBC for a response. Another thing that helped was the sheer velocity of public support for the underdog, fuelled by the masses online. Facebook groups, physical rallies and other online campaigns called for “Coco” to keep his show with the original timeslot.

Days later NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker threatened to simply take Conan off TV for not only the two and half years left on his contract, but for another year, citing a non-compete clause which was not accurately true.

After two weeks of punishing jokes from everyone in late night TV about NBC, the network agreed to buy out O’Brien from his contract by paying him $33 million (what he would have earned had he stayed) and $12 million to go to his staff (approximately 200 people) some of whom had re-located their families for the show. Sidekick Andy Richter and bandleader Max Weinberg still have to negotiate their own settlements.

The terms of the settlement also bench O’Brien from television until September 1st, 2010. He also cannot make disparaging comments about NBC, appear on other talk shows or do interviews until September. And of course NBC owns all Intellectual Property of the comedy bits that O’Brien performed as part of the show.

Where O’Brien will go is anyone’s guess right now: HBO, Fox, TBS or FX?

Kevin Reilly, the President of Entertainment for Fox, was one of the first to enter the fray last week, suggesting that O’Brien would be “a perfect match” for Fox as they had no late night show offering. It should be noted that Reilly was also “shoved out” of NBC in 2007, after having served the same role within NBC.

Ultimately, however, Fox would have to win over the local affiliates if they want O’Brien to take on Leno and Letterman. As it is, most of them are running reruns that make a substantial amount of money for those stations.

If you’re interested in corporate treachery and the behind-the-scenes story that happened recently with Leno and O’Brien, I highly recommend watching The Late Shift, which chronicles the previous conflict involving The Tonight Show (the one Leno said he wanted to avoid a repeat of). In both cases, then and now, NBC wanted to keep both hosts but ultimately favoured Leno as the breadwinner.

What I found interesting in the movie wasn’t that Leno reportedly hid in a closet to overhear an executive conference call that may or may not have cemented his job; it was the legal tactics involved. Treat Williams wonderfully plays Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz whom Letterman had gone to after finding out that he was being passed over for Leno.

Letterman has a "Godfather" moment with Mike Ovitz in The Late Shift

Letterman was also afflicted with a variety of clauses in favour of NBC (most likely because he didn’t have an agent representing him and simply wanted the job as host in 1982). One of the terms was that Letterman could not approach any other network for 18 months. So Ovitz simply put the word out to have the networks approach him. Letterman couldn’t reach out but he could listen.

Another clause was that NBC had the right to winningly match any offer another network made, so CBS offered a $15 million penalty if they could not give him the a timeslot before midnight, something that NBC obviously couldn’t do without simply giving Letterman The Tonight Show.

Ovitz was indeed on top of the game.

But I think what we witnessed here was more than legal and media wrangling, it was (yet again) the awesome power of the Internet. Sure, other talk show hosts made jokes but only because the TV audience expected it, and journalists wrote article after article every hour on the hour, but again because readers expected it.

People massed together for the underdog, just as they would have for Letterman if the social technology had existed then. And while this may seem like a great embarrassment for NBC, just as it seemed in the 1990s, all this attention may just have more people tuning in. To NBC’s credit, they’ve openly made available most of the parting shots by O’Brien on their web site.

As it is said: all publicity is good publicity, even bad publicity.