Gawker: valleywag, madonna

The pop-culture junk pile of 2008

Owen Thomas — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:20:00 EST

When we overdose on celebrities and overindulge in gadgets, where's the vomitorium to hurl it up? Why, it's eBay, on whose shores the flotsam of every shipwrecked trend lands. Here's what was formerly hot in 2008:

Nintendo Wii – 2,056,866 related items sold
Xbox 360 – 1,297,903 related items sold
Apple’s iPod Touch – 281,361 related items sold
Hannah Montana – 223,139 related items sold
Apple’s iPhone 3G – 212,837 related items sold
Brett Favre – 199,832 related items sold
Barack Obama – 111,546 related items sold
High School Musical Cast – 109,813 related items sold
Guitar Hero III – 98,159 related items sold
Madonna – 96,511 related items sold

The list is not scientific; eBay's so-called pop-culture expert, Karen Bard, picked these items from the raw data, discarding prosaic categories in the interest of making eBay's discard racks look a bit more exciting. ("Bard’s picks were culled from items sold pertaining to pop culture phenomena in categories ranging from political scandals to blockbuster blowouts to tech toys.")

But think about why things land on eBay: They're mostly used goods or closeouts, the outcome of a purchase now regretted. That's why the iPod Touch, an intentionally crippled iPhone that does everything but make phone calls, outsells the iPhone 3G on eBay. Once people figured out what it was good for, they no longer wanted it. The same could be said for Madonna.

(Random celebrity image provided by eBay. Seriously, they included this in the press release.)

Live Nation brings Hollywood hard-sell to your desktop

Paul Boutin — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 07:45:06 EDT

Dear label-hating pundits who gush about Madonna's oh-so-innovative deal with Live Nation: Have you tried to buy anything from Live Nation's site? All I wanted was tix to a local show at a midsize club. Live Nation splatted my screen with so many upsells, signups and talking audio popups that I felt like I'd walked into the old Tower store on Newbury Street. Live Nation surcharged me nine bucks a pop for general admission seats. My print-at-home passes (left) were lost amid pages of tree-killing, color-ink-squandering ads. I Photoshopped the tickets onto one clean page for printing, solely for my own peace of mind.

Madonna dumps record companies, signs with concert promoter

Jordan Golson — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:32:54 EDT

More and more artists are striking innovative deals to sell their music — and leaving the traditional record industry contract behind. The Wall Street Journal reports that once Madonna's contract with Warner Music is up, she will link up with concert-promoter Live Nation. While not as revolutionary as Radiohead's pay-what-you-want plan, or Prince's free-music-with-newspaper deal, Live Nation is a concert production company, not a record label. Madonna's deal will bring album production and distribution, concerts, merchandise and publicity under one company.

In an attempt to counter Live Nation's concert/album/merchandise bid, Warner got Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp involved. IAC owns Ticketmaster, whose ticketing deal with Live Nation expired in August. Even so, the money was too much for Madonna to refuse. Under the new deal, Madonna will collect $120 million over 10 years plus 90 percent of tour revenue.

Madonna's albums will still be distributed through normal retail channels. Live Nation doesn't have a distribution arm, so it will contract, instead, with another label. Also unusual for the industry is a term under which ownership of the three albums to be recorded will revert to Madonna after a certain period of time.

Other big groups will be watching Madonna, Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead to see how their ventures work out. The fact that players like Live Nation are getting in the business tells us that middlemen will continue to play a role in connecting musicians with listeners. It just won't be the same middlemen as before.

(AP Photo/Matt Dunham)