Kyle Durrie hard at work.

Mobile printing press moves thgrough Memphis

The rain Monday evening wasn't enough to keep people interested in seeing the Movable Type van away from the parking garage of the Sears Crosstown building. Kyle Durrie of Portland,Oregon stopped in Memphis to demonstrate what it was like to print before the age of the internet. Children seemed to be amazed by the individual letters and numbers that could be assembled into printed posters and enjoyed having something they made by hand. When asked what her vision was for the project and why she decided to do the conversion, she didn't have an answer. She said no one had ever asked her that before so she hadn't really thought about it.

Durrie received approximately $17,000 in pledges from a kickstarter.com campaign to convert her 1982 Chevy step van in to a mobile Guttenberg style printing press.Whatever her motives or vision for the project she seems to be on to something. It's good to know there are people keeping the art of printing alive.

Photos taken by me

I plan to take this blog in an altogether different direction. I will still be adding content for my Reporting 3120 class, but also relevant content about the Memphis Music Resource Center.

Memphis Music is one of my many passions. Artists such as the Bar-Kays, Booker T. and the M.G.'s, Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas, David Porter have always been among my favorites. Naturally when the assignment came down to tackle a beat I immediately knew Memphis music would be my topic of choice.

I chose to report on the wonderful benefits of the MMRC. The MMRc has its own blog site, but I wanna scratch beneath the surface of what they are trying to accomplish and find out more about the individuals involved and their motives.

First up is one week from tonight the MMRC will host an event with Tunecore founder and C.E.O. Jeff Price titled 6 legal copyrights that drive the music industry.

R.S.V.P. here: http://tunecore.eventbrite.com/

Brave New World

International concert promoters, Live Nation, are trying to change the way you buy concert tickets. Actually they are trying to do away with tickets altogether. Live Nation will experiment with smart-chip wristbands at a number of Uk Summer festivals this year. This is an attempt by Live Nation to cut down on ticket fraud.
In addition to concert entry the wristbands will allow concertgoers to purchase food and drinks. Currently each concertgoer would have to verify their identity in order to gain entry. Live Nation has not said anything about whether or not people wil be able to resell their tickets should they not be able to attend.

see story here:http://www.fastcompany.com/1597432/concert-promoters-aiming-for-chip

Yelp reviews: The customer isn't always right.

Social media review site Yelp.com, is being sued for extortion by several business because it offers a paid service that will move bad reviews to the end of a listing. This service also allows business owners to identfy any bogus reviews and have them completely removed.
The legal issue being debated is whether or not Yelps' service is a form of extortion. Yelp spokesperson Vince Sollitto recently said that Yelp needs this "review filter" system in place to protect businesses from reviews by people who just want to bash them because they had a bad day.

Full article here: http://www.fastcompany.com/1588083/yelp-law-suit-legal-extortion-social-networking-review-business-smartphones