Have you noticed the small print that appears on the Verizon-Droid iDon’t ads? “DROID is a trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. and its related companies. Used under license.”

On that someone once said “there is only one thing better than a good name, a trademarked good name”.

btw, Less than 5 years ago George Lucas partnered with Cingular. Now he is going to profit from Verizon.

The bootlegs for the two Pearl Jam concerts that I saw in LA were released a few days ago and today I finally got them.

What I find cool about them is the way the look and sound. They concerts were recorded and manufactured by a company called Kufala based in Paso Robles. Their unique eco-friendly chipboard packaging was the first thing I noticed. Their turn around time from purchase to delivery was super fast (less than 48 hours!). No wonder the band selected them to manufacture all the bootlegs of the tour, and If you are a Los Angeles base  artists who is looking for a bootleg recording service you should check them out.

Moving on to the sound quality of the bootleg. Although I was pretty surprised from the audio quality of my videos that I captured using the Ultra Flip HD , the bootlegs sound fantastic which makes it a completely different experience.

Now I am starting a long project of mixing my HD video setlists with this audio. I have a little over 50 songs to work on and hopefully Final Cut Express will make this a fun experience. The biggest pain would be syncing audio and video without a clapper. I will probably master video editing techniques once this project will be completed around the end of the year.

Only 6 days ago I  saw Pearl Jam performing an excellent show at the Gibson Amphitheater. However, last night is by far the best rock concert I have ever seen and one that will probably become one of the most memorized and mentioned shows in Pearl Jam’s 2009 tour.

Reasons:

1. Set: plenty of non-hits you don’t hear often – Faithful, Unemployable, Footsteps are just a few example. Between yesterday’s show and last week’s show I saw them perform 35 different songs. Only 9 songs were played in both shows, 5 of them are from Backspacer (Got Some, The Fixer, the fantastic Unthought Unknown, Just Breathe and The End) so they still sound fresh, new and very exciting.

2. Fans: The fans energy level was a lot higher than last week’s first show and the band reacted well to this. When the special guest (see below) came on stage the roof exploded off.

2. Gibson Amphitheater Acoustic: I said it in my previous post but must say it again. The sound quality in this venue is fantastic. During the first encore opened with Eddie team with a string quartet and performed Just Breathe, The End and Lukin (you got to see the video). Unlike last week’s show, last night you could actually hear the strings providing incredible cover to Eddie’s voice.

3. Special guests: the highlight of they evening. Into the 2nd encore Eddie said something like “what makes certain nights special is the presence of one person in the room…” and then he surprised/shocked everyone and invited Chris Cornell to join the band. Their performance of Temple Of The Dog’s Hunger Strike was fantastic. Chris’s voice sounded so good and the band performed it so well.

And finally, right before we thought we have seen everything, in the middle of the final song, Alive, as the song’s guitar solo started, Mike McCready handed his guitar over to Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) who made my ears bleed…

What an epic performance that I am so happy I captured on my Flip HD (all songs except for two). It was difficult not to sing & jump and luckily my battery lasted all the way to the end. When the bootleg will be released I plan to get it and mix the video with high quality audio.

BTW, looks like my Hunger Strike video was picked by the RollingStone. Nice.

Here’s the entire playlist embedded in this page. Just hit the play button, expand the video to a full screen mode and turn on the volume.

Update (10/8/09): My buddy Bill went to the last Pearl Jam concert in LA last night. He was gracious enough to take my camera and shot the entire show. After you are done watching LA3, you might also want to check out LA4 playlist. It was a fantastic night as well.

Let’s rock!

Just got an announcement from Xoopit that they are shutting down Xoopit for Gmail in order to focus on improving Yahoo mail and My Pictures. This comes as a surprise to me and does not smell like a business decision for two reasons:

• Xoopit should have more resources now that they are part of Yahoo
• I agree with Ouriel that Yahoo could benefit a lot from the data Xoopit collects about Gmail usage

For these reasons and also for the way their email ends, I actually think that it was Google who forced Yahoo and Xoopit to make that decision -

Thank you for using Xoopit for Gmail. We’ll miss you!

Anyways Xoopit, it was fun to use you. You helped me find some forgotten pics that were buried deep inside my Gmail archive. I will miss you as well.

Wow!

Pearl Jam put together a spectacular show last night in front of a full Gibson Amp (~6100 seats) in LA.

The concert opened really strong with Why Go, Animal, World Wide Suicide and Got Some which were just the beginning to a well performed, top-notch rock concert. Other than those four songs, the set list included 6 other songs from Backspacer (which is fantastic album), a mix of old songs from the all of their previous albums, including a few non-hits they normally don’t play like Rats.

Ben Harper who did the opening show, joined the band in the middle of the first encore and played Red Mosquito (video is from the Portland show) and his sliding guitar sounded fantastic and added plenty of depth to the song. The show ended, after almost 2.5 hours and two encores, with Neil Young’s classic Rockin’ in the free world.

The sound and acoustic the Gibson Amp provides is world class, and the stage & lightning design were extraordinary (pictures here). My only regret is that I left my Digital SLR at home and only had my iPhone with me to document it. At the seats I had those could have been amazing pictures.

Bottom line — The way Pearl Jam plays together, the way they interact with the fans, the way the fans participate in every song and sing all the lyrics, is what makes Pearl Jam the best (live) rock band in our generation.

Here’s a video another fan took last night of my favorite tracks from the new album, Unthought Known.

I just experienced the new video in print format and was blown away. As you flip through the magazine pages and get to the video ad page, the CBS video starts playing. You can then choose other videos by clicking on the “menu buttons” that appear below. Video and sound quality are very good and there won’t be a single user that won’t stop and listen/interact with this new tech.

I am not sure how popular this new advertising format will become since there are only a handful of advertisers that can spend a 7 figure on this type of campaign (CBS & Pepsi for example and probably a few other Super Bowl ad buyer), but the technology, innovation and implementation are very impressive.

Get yourself a copy of the latest edition of Entertainment Weekly to experience the magic.

I would like to wish all of my blog readers a Shana Tova.

May the coming year be blessed with health, joy, happiness, inspiration, creation, innovation, prosperity and success. To you and your beloved ones.

And as for New Year’s inspiration, how about this?

Photo credit: Shana Tova, originally uploaded by dawnser.

Can’t believe it has been a year since the previous visit of the Israeli New Media Delegation to Los Angeles. Next week it will happen again and I will participate in it for the 3rd year in a row (see my post about the 2007 visit).

The delegation is organized by Yossi Vardi and Arnon Milchen and its purpose is to give young Israeli start ups the opportunity to meet with potential investors and executives from large media companies and pitch their companies and products in a speed dating format (participants — make sure you practice on your elevator pitch).

I will take part in a breakfast panel where the participating companies will meet a few Los Angeles based Israeli executives for tips and advise, Q&A and some networking. Together with me the panel will also include Alex Sirota from Yahoo/FoxyTunes, Roy Bahat from IGN Ent., Yair Landa ex President of Sony Digital and Leor Stern from Google. After two years of sitting together on this panel, I will miss my friend Nimrod Lev who recently packed his staff and family, left Fox/MySpace and moved back to Israel.

In addition to days full of meetings, the participating companies will also enjoy some fancy cocktails and dinners, LaLaLand style. So if you happen to be at the BetaSouth event next week in Santa Monica, you will have a chance to meet them over there.

Finally, here is more information about the visiting companies as provided to my by the organizers.

1. AnyClip enables consumers as well as professionals to find any moment from any film ever made. AnyClip seeks to create a new revenue model for Hollywood based on our core belief that clips have value as standalone content. With scale and efficiency, AnyClip will bring three nascent business models to the movie industry.
2. BloggersBase is a platform for discovery and delivery of premium user generated content, targeting newspapers, media companies, bloggers and readers. We aim to solve the problem of user-generated content overflow, of uncontrolled (usually low) quality. BloggersBase offers its solution as a white-label platform (B2B) and as a target site (B2C).
3. Dopa Music operates a background music service customized for each website and context that brings a whole new sense to online content. Dopa Music service is based on a sophisticated algorithm (patent-pending) that selects the best tracks in real-time based on more than 100 parameters. Site owners can pay monthly subscription or enjoy service for free and receive commissions on audio ads played at their site. Dopa Music secured seed funding from Israel’s Chief Scientist. Erez Perlmutter, Founder, former VP BizDev at Kasamba sold to LivePerson.
4. Funtactix combines the best of AAA game and web technologies to bring console-quality, multiplayer gaming to the browser. The studio’s end-to-end, white-label solution turns popular franchises into profitable online gaming communities through avatar-based, high-end game content and microtransactions.
5. IPgallery is a privately held company with more than 40 deployments. Its solutions deliver highly scalable, flexible and reliable solutions enabling SPs to deploy new revenue generating services.
6. MAGYX develops “Smart Content™” – unique interactive solutions combining high-end technology and content, powerful marketing platforms empowering the communication between end-users, media platforms and advertisers.
7. P-Kama operates Rummikub.com, an online platform for family style entertainment based on the world’s 3rd bestselling board game. The game attracts players of every age, including Baby Boomers and young teens. It connects to family values which are enhanced by social media features. An average of 15 minutes playing each game makes Rummikub a powerful tool for promotion and customer retention.
8. PicScout – With 85% of the images detected by PicScout on commercial web sites being used non-legitimately, there exists a vast opportunity to track, protect and monetize images on the internet. PicScout™, through its proprietary image recognition technology created a new era in image copyright protection, is now leading the way to authorize the image marketplace to become a legitimate internet economy.
9. Tweegee.com is a pioneering destination site designed exclusively for kids. The site empowers children and pre-teens ages 7 to 13 to express themselves creatively and safely through an innovative and customized online environment. Tweegee integrates social networking, digital content and interactive tools offering kids a complete web platform. All the online communication is protected with technologically advanced safeguards including the patent pending “wordup!”, giving the parents the reassurance they need to protect their children. Tweegee was recently reviewed and qualified for meeting the standards of the CARU kid’s privacy safe harbor program in the USA.
10. Qlipso is your den and your favorite sports bar all rolled into one. It’s an impromptu online party with your best friends from FaceBook, your favorite media from video, game or music sites – all synched up and live! Avatars, webcams, voice and text chat – Qlipso brings it all together!
11. XSIGHTS service allows consumers using their cameraphone to transform any static objects, (products, newspapers, magazines, wall-posters, books…) to an interactive multi-media experience. XSIGHTS is the only company capable to identify many links within the same image. The links may be, as small as, a “single-word” in a text document or a “street crossing” on a map, thus activating classified listings, product catalogues, advertisements and street maps. The user can navigate and view different links within the same session. XSIGHTS mature and field proven solution is operational with or without the need to download an application to the phone.

Photo credit: Menetnashté (On Vacation)

I have known Roy Zu-Arets since our sons attended the same day care a few years ago. Since then I have been closely following his unique journey in life which includes music, Judaism and a constant struggle of a musician trying to make it big.

After all, it is not easy to do what he is trying to do given his background. He started playing piano at the age of 3 and began his professional music career at the age of 12 (!). In his early twenties he was already a busy music producer, composer and pianist in Israel. He played with many artists, produced mega hit records and concerts like Rita’s “A Great Love” 4 times platinum album and tour, HaYehudim (The Jews) debut album called “Separate Reality”, one of Meir Banai’s albums and many others including Guy Zu-Aretz (his brother) upcoming album. He wrote scores for movies and theater and had a successful and busy career in the Israeli music industry. But then he decided leave everything behind and went after his dream – move to the US to become a musician in the premier league. He first spent a few years in New York where he attend Julliard & Mannes music academies, and then he moved to Los Angeles where he is trying break into the small, close group of Hollywood movies score writers. In the mean time, he is slowly establishing impressive milestones n the US which including producing Taking Back Sunday’s “Where you want to be?” platinum album, and writing MacHeads soundtrack, but he has not gotten to work on a really big movie since in Hollywood it is very difficult for a “nobody” to become “somebody”.

This might change though, very soon, thanks to the way he uses YouTube to share his talent, music and work process with the masses. Every morning, as part of his warm-up, he improvises melodies based on his mood and feelings. None of these melodies were composed before and he does not memorize notes – he “simply” plays the melody that is going in his head at that very moment. His studio neighbors, owners of a video production company, heard him play and suggested to video tape those short improvisations and publish them to YouTube as part of a documentary series called “Confessions of a Composer”. The videos are recorded using two iPhone 3GS phones, the sound is recorded separately using Roy’s studio equipment (thus the high quality), and then they mix and edit everything to a short video clip that gets posted to YouTube. This entire process happens 5 days a week, Mon-Fri.

I predict that it is just a matter of time until one of Roy’s improvisation videos will become a major hit on YouTube. Naturally, the variation on a popular songs tend to get more traffic and views (probably not enough views given the quality of these videos), like Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” (see embed below), Michael Jackson’s Earth Song and Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling. But the improvisations are even more fascinating to watch, as they truly show his qualities as a composer and pianist.

From what I have gathered from Roy, the amount of feedback he has been getting after a few weeks of daily videos submissions is unbelievable. This includes comments, ratings and many emails from YouTube viewers from all over the world. More than that, a well known Hollywood director who stumbled upon one of his videos and loved it, already came to meet Roy at his Hollywood studio.

So, here are two video clips that illustrate how talented and versatile he is. My recommendation is to subscribe to his channel as well as go back and watch all the videos uploaded since the project began on July 13th. You will get a daily injection of heavenly and inspiring music from such an extraordinary & gifted talent.

Together with the release of All Rich Shots, we have also released the TwitterShot. It uses the Twitter API to display various information for different links to twitter:

• For a link that points to a tweet’s permalink we display user’s information and the content of the tweet. For example: this tweet from Lance Armstrong
• For a link that points to a user’s twitter page we display the user’s profile information and his latest tweets
• For a link that points to a twitter search results page we display the tweets that are part of this result set