A Short Explanation of Classic Detective Fiction

A Short Explanation of Classic Detective Fiction by Chris Haycock

Classic detective fiction is the type of fiction that really makes a reader focus on the pages. These types of stories are not generally very gory or bloody as such stories can be today, but they do hold some blood and gore inside the pages; they just release it shortly and at proper intervals. The history of classic detective fiction is interesting to say the least.

Most critics agree that classic detective fiction rose from the pages around 1841 when the famous Edgar Allen Poe wrote the story of The Murders in the Rue Morgue. His character, Dupin, is able to solve the crimes that were unable to be solved by the police thereby paving the way for future detectives to come along and do the same. He created the dazzling detective who attempts to solve the perplexing crime and the aloof colleague (or friend) who records every bit of the case in detail. The police, of course are lost. They appear to be unsure of which road to follow and by the end they are completely astonished as everything is laid out before them by the hero (the detective).

After Poe’s discovery and subsequent tale, there were many attempts at successful detective fiction but none were notable until Recollections of a Detective Police Officer by Waters. At this point, the stories had become almost unreadable since there really was no literary attempt. The end to hack writing came in 1859 when Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White forced other writers to show some sort of a literary effort to be able to compete. The other notable novel that followed in Collins’ footsteps was Hugo’s Les Miserables (1862) which is still immensely popular in theatre today.

Novels such as this were published for years, giving the public reason to believe that there would never be an evolution of the genre. However, in 1887, Sherlock Holmes emerged from the pages of Beeton’s Christmas Annual. Unfortunately, the original story did not take off at first. The intricate character had seemed doomed to fade into the pages and be lost forever. Four years later, in 1890, Lippincott picked up Doyle and put him on contract to write more Holmes stories. Strand magazine also began publishing Doyle’s detective stories. This is when the craze began. The first stories were combined into a book to form a series. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was enormously successful, and so was the following series, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, even though Doyle made a decision to kill of Holmes in this series. Of course, since this was now a very popular character, the death of Holmes generated anger and protest among the public. The demand for Sherlock Holmes was greater than ever. Although Doyle obviously did not want to do it, he was finally forced to bring the character back to life around 1905 to appease both the public and the publishers.

This character and the cases that he participated in changed the way that detective fiction would be written from then on. Doyle is now considered to have paved the way for the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.

Chris Haycock is an information publisher, one of whose many hobbies includes crime fiction. Early detective fiction in particular. A particular favourite is Sherlock Holmes. If you would like to know more about Sherlock Holmes and an excellent offer, why not go now to http://www.sherlockandwatson.com

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The Top 8 Things the Music, Television, Movie and Consumer Electronics Industries Should Do

The Top 8 Things the Music, Television, Movie and Consumer Electronics Industries Should Do by Scott Consolatti

The music, television, movie and consumer electronics industries (hereafter collectively referred to as the industry) have been struggling with the rapid advance of technology and the new virtuality of content. Here are the top eight things the industry should do to harness the technology and recapture the simple tenet of giving the customer what they want.

1. Offer three consumption models.

a. Offer all content free with ads.

All content should be available on demand all the time free with ads. The best examples of this so far are music videos at mtv.com and music.yahoo.com and TV shows at in2tv.aol.com. The worst examples of this are the television networks who still insist on having their content time expire after only a short period of availability. Networks should use the ad model to make their entire catalog of shows, current and past, available for free all the time. All media stores, such as iTunes, should also introduce the option of listening to or watching a brief ad per 10 minutes of content or so in order to enjoy the entire content rather than just short preview clips.

b. Rent all content without ads for a fee.

This is the same as 1a only without the ads for a fee. The best examples of this so far are Netflix and Yahoo! Music Unlimited. With the former, for as low as $8.99 per month, you can rent any movie in the store, and that now includes some that can be watched directly online. With the latter, for as low as $5.99 per month, you can listen to every song in the store as many times as you want with no ads. All media stores and sites should offer this option.

c. Sell all content Digital Rights Management(DRM, or copy protection)-free.

There will still always be a market for owning content outright, such as for those times where you just don't have an Internet connection or don't want to be tethered to a server. In these cases, for both online virtual formats and offline physical formats, DRM simply should go. It has proven to hamper sales significantly due to treating everyday paying customers as if they are pirates, restricting them to play back the content on too few devices, giving them the chore of backing up and managing licenses on their computer and violating their fair use rights. DRM will always be defeatable and the industry simply needs to stop investing an inordinate amount of time and money into something that has a negative impact on their bottom line. The industry should abandon it and get back to the basic premise of allowing the customer the joy of experiencing the content they paid for without any strings attached. The best example of this so far is EMI which is now allowing media stores to sell DRM-free songs.

2. Wireless Internet-enable all devices.

The computer cannot be the only access point. TVs, cable boxes, disc players, DVRs, game consoles, portables, boom boxes, phones, car head units - in short all playback devices - should come with built-in wireless connection to the Internet for access to content servers. The best examples of this so far are the Playstation 3 and the iPhone/iPod touch Wi-Fi Music Store.

3. End format wars.

When a new format is needed to advance the industry to the next level, there should be one and only one format that goes to market and becomes the standard. Like 1c, this applies to both online virtual formats and offline physical formats.

The current example in physical formats is Blu-ray vs. HD DVD. Two formats were necessary at first to spur competition, but the differences between them at this point are so negligible that ultimately one has to win for either to succeed. A standards body needs to exist to allow competition at first and to oversee a limited beta period to ensure customer opinions are factored in, but then to ultimately pick a winner before full-scale market launch. Companies should be required to register candidate formats in the early stages. The standards body should track investment and invention level of each candidate along the way. Then a winner should be chosen with a percentage of the licensing revenue going to all of the candidates commensurate with their investment and invention level. The candidates either agree to these terms from the get-go or they do not participate in determining and profiting from the next generation format.

The current example in virtual formats is mp3 vs. AAC vs. WMA vs. yet others for audio, and mpeg-4 (H.264) vs. WMV (VC-1) vs. yet others for video. Coupled with 1c, the industry should have standardized on mp3 and mpeg-4 a long time ago to ensure that all content will be universally playable on every device.

Correcting this immediately is essential. The industry should get a standards body in place as soon as possible and declare much overdue industry standards, such as Blu-ray, mp3 and mpeg-4. The marketplace will rejoice, sales will skyrocket and the floodgates will open on the dam the industry itself has been one of the largest contributors to building.

4. Allow playlists to be defined and stored on the servers.

What 1a and 1b do is move us away from the need to store and manage our own copies of the content on our client devices (or on our shelves). Moving playlists off of the clients is a natural extension of that. When we can dial up all content including our favorite playlists on demand all the time anywhere we have an Internet connection, the convenience of not having to permanently store and backup our own copies of the data will start to prevail. The best example of this so far is Yahoo! Music Jukebox.

5. Offer movies by the chapter in addition to whole.

Just as the norm is now to be able to buy individual songs rather than just whole albums, the same option should be available for buying the individual chapters of movies. Doing so would offer the same advantages as individual song sales - the ability to collect favorite chapters at lower cost and storage use, the ability to direct-access chapters on playback and the ability to arrange favorite chapters from various movies into playlists. Note that this would require players to pre-cache the next chapter to ensure gapless chapter-to-chapter playback, but that is certainly doable.

6. Offer a choice of bitrates.

Highly compressed bitrates were fine at first, but there is no doubt that even with today's bandwidth and storage (which will only grow with time), those who want to enjoy higher bitrates should have the option. With 1a and 1b, bandwidth is the primary factor, and clearly higher bitrates are possible even today. With 1c online formats, storage is also a factor, but even with today's capacities some may choose quality over quantity for must-have content.

7. Piggyback audio on video for physical formats.

The industry moving to a new physical format is a big undertaking. Assuming a new HD format succeeds for video, then audio should just piggyback on that success. The video format will obviously have enough capacity for audio, and consumers will not have to buy additional players. Previous HD audio attempts of DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD failed for several reasons - separate audio-only players, no single digital connection such as HDMI, format war, etc. - all of which can be avoided once either Blu-ray or HD DVD is declared the standard. Albums in uncompressed PCM, both 2-channel stereo and multi-channel surround, with HD extras such as music videos, live concert footage and still photos all played through an existing player with single HDMI connection would be very compelling. With lossless compression such as Dolby TrueHD, perhaps entire album box sets could fit on one disc. These are exciting new possibilities.

8. Leverage viral marketing.

This is an extension of 1a. Provide url-addressability to free ad-coupled content that sites anywhere can provide links to - it essentially equates to free marketing for you. It doesn't matter from where the eyeballs found the content, just that they found it. More eyeballs means more ad revenue in your pocket and more exposure that will lead to the eventual purchase of the content and related merchandise such as concert tickets, t-shirts, posters, action figures, toys, etc. A free ad-supported lure has always been necessary (radio and TV) for widespread exposure. The best examples of this so far are music videos at mtv.com and music.yahoo.com and TV shows at in2tv.aol.com. Music, movies and all TV programs should get on board and realize the massive new source of constant ad revenue never before possible without the new technology.

These eight things would take the industry out of its current slump and carry it into unprecedented growth territory.

Scott Consolatti is founder and president of Megacollage, a pioneer in online media compilations including music and video playlists, custom photo collages and text compilations. See for yourself how Megacollage combines the best of what today's online content world has to offer by visiting http://www.megacollage.com/index.html .

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>New York New York

New York New York by Kamyar Shah

New York is officially named the City of New York and is the most populous city in the United States of America. Its business, finance, trading, law and media organizations are influential around globe. The city is one of the world’s most important cultural centers with hundreds of world-class museums, galleries and performance venues. New York is also home of the United Nations and is one of the world’s major venues for international diplomacy

New York City is a global hub of international business and commerce and is one of three “command centers” for the world economy, alongside London and Tokyo. The city is a major center for finance, insurance, real estate, media and the arts in the U.S. Additional sectors include the television and film industry, second largest in the country after Hollywood; medical research and technology; non-profit institutions and universities; and fashion. Real estate is a major force in the city’s economy. The total value of all New York City property was $802.4 billion. The highest-listed market value in the city is the Time Warner Center, valued at $1.1 billion.

The city’s stock exchanges are among the most important in the world. The New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ are the world’s first and third largest stock exchanges, respectively. Many major corporations have headquarters in New York and the city is unique among other American cities for its large number of foreign corporations. One out of ten private sector jobs in the city is with a foreign company.

Industries such as new media, advertising, design and architecture account for a growing share of employment. High-tech industries like bioscience, software development, game design, and Internet services are also growing.

Manufacturing accounts for a large, although declining, share of employment. Garments, chemicals, metal products, processed foods and furniture are some of the principal products.

New York is a global center for the television, advertising, newspaper and book publishing industries and is also the largest media market in the U.S. Some of the conglomerates include Time Warner, the News Corporation, the Hearst Corporation and Viacom. Six of the world’s top ten global advertising agencies are headquartered in New York.

Two nationally daily newspapers in the U.S. are New York papers, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Other newspapers in the city are The New York Daily and The New York Post. The city also has a major ethnic press with 270 newspapers and magazines published in more than 40 languages. El Diario La Prensa is a Spanish newspaper and The New York Amsterdam News is a prominent African-American newspaper. Four major broadcast networks are also headquartered in New York: ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC. Cable channels including MTV, Fox News, HBO, and Comedy Central are also based in the city.

“Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather”- Tom Wolfe. The city has more than 2,000 arts and cultural organizations and more than 500 art galleries of all sizes. In the 19th century built a network of major cultural institutions such as the famed Carnegie Hall and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Broadway productions are a mainstay of the New York theatre scene. The city’s 39 largest theatres are collectively known as “Broadway”. The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts includes Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, the New York Philharmonics and the New York City Ballet and is the largest performing arts center in the U.S.

New York City is most often associated with its skyline of skyscrapers. These include the Woolworth Building, the Chrysler Building, the Seagram Building and the Conde` Nast Building, and important example of green design in American skyscrapers.

Roughly 40 million foreign and American tourists visit New York City each year. Popular destinations include the Empire State Building, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, Broadway theatre productions, scores of museums such as the El Museo del Barrio, Washington Square Park, the Bronx Zoo and New York Botanical Garden, luxury shopping along Fifth and Madison Avenues, and events such as the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, the Tribeca Film Festival and free performances in Central Park at Summerstage.

New York’s food culture has been influenced by the city’s immigrants and is as diverse as the city. Famous foods originating from the city are bagels, cheesecake and New York style pizza.

The city is comprised of five boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. The Bronx is the city’s northernmost borough and the site of the Yankee Stadium. It is also the birthplace of rap and hip hop cultures. Brooklyn is the city’s most populous borough and was an independent city until 1898. Brooklyn is known for its cultural diversity, independent art scene, distinct neighborhoods and unique architectural heritage. The country’s earliest amusement park, Coney Island is also here. Manhattan is the most densely populated borough and is home to most of the city’s skyscrapers. The borough contains the major business and financial center of the city and attractions including Madison Square Garden. Queens is geographically the largest borough and most ethnically diverse county in the United States. The borough is mainly residential and middle class. Queens is home to Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets. Staten Island is the most suburban of the five boroughs. Until 2001, the borough was home to the Fresh Kills Landfill, formerly the largest landfill in the world, which is now being reconstructed as one of the largest urban parks in the U.S.

“The Big Apple”, as New York is commonly known, is home to sports teams in each of the major American professional sports leagues. Baseball is the city’s most closely watched sport. The city’s two MLB teams are the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, which enjoy a fierce rivalry. There are also two minor league baseball teams in the city, the Staten Island Yankees and the Brooklyn Cyclones. The city is represented in the NFL by the New York Jets and New York Giants. The New York Rangers are the city’s National Hockey League team and the city is also home to the headquarters of the NHL and NFL, both based in Manhattan. The New York Knicks are the city’s NBA team.

Not commonly known as a “college town”, New York is still home to about 594,000 university students. The City University of New York is the nation’s third largest public university system. New York is also home to such notable private universities as Columbia University, New York University, Polytechnic University, St. John’s University, The Cooper Union, Pace University, New York Institute of Technology, Fordham University and Manhattan College. The city also has dozens of other private colleges and universities.

The New York Public Library is one of the largest public library systems in the country. Among its collection are the first five folios of Shakespeare’s plays, ancient Torah scrolls, and Alexander Hamilton’s handwritten draft of the United States Constitution.

One in every three users of mass transit in the U.S. and two-thirds of the nation’s rail riders live in New York or its suburbs. New York is the only city in the United States where more than half of all households do not own a car.

New York City is the top international air passenger gateway to the United States. Three major airports, Kennedy (also known as JFK), Newark, and LaGuardia serve the area.

New York is one of the most energy-efficient cities in the United States. New York City is a world-renowned cultural and economical epicenter.

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