In simple words, Online Television is that service which brings in live streaming content to your PC, which can be routed to the television too. Using the power of satellite broadcasting, it has provided a huge array of television content to the masses, and has thus proved to be very successful.
The popularity of the technology [...]
The internet is filled with very interesting TV content that any type of individual will definitely love, thus people are using all means to record online TV. The videos ranging from TV shows, full length movies, short video clips and other visual media are the targets of some people for recording. They want to record [...]
You can become a real live “Hero” to yourself and your family, by taking part in the next technological revolution: Watch heroes online.
Heroes are one of the most popular series fiction and drama series ever to hit the television screen. Since it was launched a year ago, it has really captured the imagination of the [...]
If you’re planning to see a movie, rent a DVD, buy a CD or - most importantly - a video game, then Metacritic is the place to go. It reads the reviews so you don’t have to, then adds up the ratings to provide a single metascore out of 100. It’s a consensus view, and it carries weight.
Of course, you could argue for days about whether Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which scores 93) is a better movie than Raging Bull (92), but that’s not the point. What you can instantly see from Metacritic is that The Dark Knight gets a green light (82), Mamma Mia! is on amber (scoring 51, with mixed reviews) and Space Chimps is at red (35). Job done.
Metacritic has some powerful rivals in the movie business. IMDb, for example, provides the most amazing detail, while Rotten Tomatoes adds news and features to its metascoring. Where Metacritic wins is in covering DVDs, TV series, audio CDs, books and video games, as well as new movies.
Metacritic’s scores are particularly important in the games business, as the site’s co-founder and games editor Marc Doyle explained to The Guardian’s games blog. A moviegoer spends $10 and two hours on a movie, whereas a gamer can spend $60 on a title expected to last 30 to 50 hours. Buying a game is a bigger commitment, so there is more incentive to find the best.
Metascores are compiled from a highly select group of (mostly American) sources such as daily newspapers, weekly magazines and prominent websites. The emphasis is on quality, not quantity. Each review is converted into a numeric score, but again, not all reviews are equal: the big names carry more weight, as decided by Metacritic’s section editor. Metascores change as more reviews appear, but quickly settle down. For those who care, the site has a long explanation: How We Calculate Our Scores.
One drawback with Metacritic is that it doesn’t go very far back. The site was launched in January 2001 by three “former attorneys who were happy to find a more constructive (but less profitable) use of their time”, and was acquired by CNet Networks in 2005. It generally doesn’t cover titles launched in the 1980s and 1990s, though it is adding classics “as time and resources permit”.
Also, Metacritic doesn’t cover everything. It doesn’t attempt to cover all the new CDs and books that appear every year - there are too many - or “straight to video” movies. If titles are not being reviewed in The New York Times, The Guardian, Newsweek, Empire and similar publications, or websites such as Pitchfork, Salon and Slate, then there won’t be any scores for Metacritic to tally.
And if you want more depth in support of a metascore, Metacritic provides brief quotations and links to the original reviews (if they are on the web). Just as a way to find from three to 33 good reviews of a recent title, Metacritic is worth knowing.
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Blogging looked like fulfilling Andy Warhol’s prophecy that everyone would get their 15 minutes of fame. Xiaxue, however, has been famous for five years, and has turned into a full-time professional blogger, attracting around 300,000 visitors per month. Singapore’s National Library Board has added her to its electronic archives. She may have passed her peak - marked by her Best Asian Weblog award in the 2005 Bloggies - but there’s no sign of this lippy former student/waitress going away.
Xiaxue (”snowing”) has described herself as “just a normal girl who got rather lucky”. Her real name is Zheng Yan Yan, aka Wendy Cheng, and she’s now 24. She started blogging in April 2003, and could easily have sunk without trace. Instead, she became, briefly, a celebrity blogger for The Straits Times newspaper, a Maxim columnist, and co-starred in a sort of reality TV series, Girls Out Loud. She now does a fortnightly series, Xiaxue’s Guide To Life, which runs on Munkysuperstar’s web-based TV channel, clicknetwork.tv. There are quite a few on YouTube.
If you want to know about blinging your long nails with crystals, getting a tongue piercing, losing weight, cooking live crabs, shopping for slutty clothes or fitting out your totally pink Princess Room on the cheap, Xiaxue is your girl. She’d be an ideal Big Brother contestant.
Part of Xiaxue’s appeal is that she’s offensive, by Singapore standards. “Singaporean (Chinese) guys,” she wrote, “like girls who keep quiet and nods in agreement to everything they say, rather than a girl who speaks up for her own opinions. They like girls who are weak, diminutive and vulnerable, not girls who are strong and can protect themselves.” They must also dress modestly and be virgins.
Xiaxue - perhaps corrupted by reading California-based Sweet Valley High books - is the opposite of this Singaporean ideal. She’s bitchy, swears, wears “chio” (pretty but provocative) clothes, writes in intimate detail about things like panty liners, and flaunts her American boyfriend, Mike. It provokes hundreds of comments.
She also generates controversy by attacking other bloggers. One famous post dealt with the Top Seven Most Disgusting Bloggers in Singapore, including Xiaxue. She attacked herself for being a fake, short, fat and ugly. “She is so hao lian [arrogant] of her stupid angmoh [caucasian monkey] boyfriend,” she wrote. “SPG!” Sarong Party Girl: the ultimate insult.
Some of Xiaxue’s posts are labelled as advertorials: she’s paid to write about products, review restaurants etc, and she also got a free “nose job”. Since she’s always writing about the things she does and the products she buys, these aren’t much different from her usual slang-packed, heavily illustrated (and skilfully photoshopped) posts. You can take it or leave it.
As you’d expect, most of Xiaxue’s readers - around 70% - live in Singapore or Malaysia. For the rest of us, she’s a virtual tourist spot, providing an uncensored, unmediated and somewhat voyeuristic peek into a different society. Every nation should have its own Xiaxue, and perhaps they do. We just don’t know about them.
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Popular children’s characters the Mr Men will return to British TV for the first time in more than a decade.
Producers of the cult TV series Lost say they are in talks with US network ABC over ending the show.
Hit 2005 film Mr & Mrs Smith, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, is set to be turned into a TV series.
Hit 2005 film Mr & Mrs Smith, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, is set to be turned into a TV series.
Hit 2005 film Mr & Mrs Smith, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, is set to be turned into a TV series.