NO HOLDS BARRED

By Eddie Goldman

By the grace of Kahless the Unforgettable, my Verizon(lol) landline and Internet are back, for the moment at least.

I reported almost two weeks ago that there had to be an outage in my area, since at that time the voice line was down but not Internet. Since Wednesday night, both were up and down like a yo-yo. But when I called the regular Verizon repair, as usual I got an unhelpful and rude rep who denied there was, or even could be, any outage in the area.

On Friday morning, August 3, I got a voicemail from Verizon admitting that “your service disruption was caused by a cable failure”. It appears Verizon’s strategy to paying customers making such reports is to cause them so much aggravation that they either just quit complaining or die.

Now the service is back, but we shall see for how long. This type of outage and back-and-forth has happened about once or twice a year over the past several years.

You have to escalate, first as I did by calling their so-called “Executive Relations” team, at 855-655-2304 (this is just for New York), and then, as is also usually necessary, filing a complaint with the New York State Public Service Commission.

Verizon, in violation of its franchise agreement with the City of New York, still does not offer its Fios service in much of New York City. This rollout was supposed to have been completed by 2014.

The New York State Public Service Commission is kicking the scab Spectrum cable company out of the state, and we should pressure the politicians to make sure this actually happens. But the next target of both state and city officials has to be revoking Verizon’s Fios franchise.

What we really need is municipal broadband, but this unfortunately is a longer-term goal since all the state and city officials are puppets of Wall Street, the real estate sharks, etc.

Labels: cable, Eddie Goldman, Fios, Internet, New York, No Holds Barred, outage, telephone, Verizon

MySpace is falling deeper into the red, and not because it was recently May Day. Numerous news reports quote the latest loss being US$150 million for the first quarter of 2010 (the third quarter of their fiscal year).

On a conference call with investors, News Corporation chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch mentioned unspecified "big mistakes", presumably with the purchase and management of MySpace, but offered only vague assurances about "new features" being introduced, mainly involving music.

One of these news article, with other links, is at http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2010/05/05/myspace-unit-posts-150m-loss-murdoch-cites-quotbig-mistakesquot.

So what would you like MySpace to do to reverse its seemingly endless loss of real people using it? New features? Repairing all the existing broken features, like group page templates?

With the new, onerous (anti)privacy settings on Facebook, MySpace has a golden opportunity to rebound. But can a bunch of corporate suits make the right decisions about a social network?

Note: After posting this to my MySpace blog, my antivirus program blocked a virus from one of the ads on MySpace. Perhaps that is a sign it is doomed.

Labels: Eddie Goldman, Internet, MySpace, network, No Holds Barred, social media

Labels: Bellator Fighting Championships, BJJ, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Eddie Goldman, Fight Nerd, grappling, Internet, Matthew Kaplowitz, mixed martial arts, MMA, No Holds Barred, podcast, Podomatic, radio, UFC

SecondsOut Radio with Eddie Goldman

On this week's edition of SecondsOut Radio, host Eddie Goldman begins with a few comments on why fights like the Vitali Klitschko-Juan Carlos Gomez WBC title bout, held Saturday, March 21, and won by Klitschko by a ninth-round TKO, are not good for the beleaguered heavyweight division. We also comment on the issue of Internet "piracy" and who the real pirates are. This is where millionaires put on lousy matchups which have so little appeal that the free networks do not want to buy them, then try to sell them to the average fans as pay-per-views, and then hire fancy lawyers who threaten to sue individuals who watch them on unauthorized web sites.

Next, we return to the second and final part of our lengthy interview with Dr. Margaret Goodman, a neurologist and former chairman of the Medical Advisory Board of the Nevada State Athletic Commission. After laying out in the first part some of the health and safety problems such as the use of steroids and other harmful, banned substances, we now discuss what can be done to improve the health and safety measures in boxing, and what role a national boxing commission in the U.S. should play.

It is free to listen to or download SecondsOut Radio, but you must register to gain access to it. Just click here, and listen, learn, and enjoy.

Labels: boxing, Eddie Goldman, heavyweights, Internet, Juan Carlos Gomez, Margaret Goodman, marijuana, Nevada State Athletic Commission, pay-per-view, piracy, SecondsOut Radio, steroids, Vitali Klitschko

NO HOLDS BARRED on PodOmatic

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman begins by explaining why no tears should be shed for the decline of the mainstream media, and in particular the newspapers, largely due to new technology making their business models obsolete. We also discuss the mainstream media, especially in America, their abject failure in covering the combat sports, and the need to support independent media.

We next focus on the rarity coming up this weekend, when boxing and wrestling will be featured back-to-back on both Friday and Saturday nights on the ESPN networks in the U.S.

The always-exciting semifinals of the 2009 NCAA Div. I Wrestling Championships will be shown on ESPN2 Friday night, March 20, beginning at 7 PM EDT, followed by Friday Night Fights.

On Saturday, March 21, the WBC heavyweight title fight between champion Vitali Klitschko and challenger Juan Carlos Gomez will be shown live from Germany on ESPN beginning at 5 PM EDT. At 6:30 PM EDT, the finals of 2009 NCAA Div. I Wrestling Championships will be shown live on ESPN. There is also an assortment of other telecasts and webcasts this weekend in the combat sports, some more worthy than others.

We discuss these telecasts and webcasts, analyze the Klitschko-Gomez fight, and make some recommendations about how to allocate your viewing time this busy weekend.

Also, we discuss the rapid growth of social media, including Twitter, where somehow one ranking service almost inexplicably stated, "Eddie Goldman is ranked 1st in their location on twitterholic! (by followers in 'New York NY USA')" Maybe, maybe not, but you can join the party at http://twitter.com/nhbnews.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here. You can also download No Holds Barred here. If one link does not work, please try another. The show is in MP3 format, so may take some time to download.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", by musician Ian Carpenter.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

Gladiator Magazine, for in-depth coverage of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, submission grappling, and MMA, as well as lifestyle articles on surfing, cars, movies, and more. Gladiator Magazine is available at any major bookstore and online at BJJMart.com or Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear.

BJJMart.com, your premier source for all Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gear, videos, books, and much more.

Wrestling 411, providing coverage of the sport of wrestling on TV, the Internet, and radio. Wrestling 411 is produced by Media Sports Productions, whose sole mission is the marketing and promotion of the sport of wrestling.

Labels: boxing, college wrestling, Eddie Goldman, ESPN, Internet, Juan Carlos Gomez, media, mixed martial arts, MMA, NCAA wrestling, newspapers, No Holds Barred, Twitter, UFC, Vitali Klitschko, wrestling

NO HOLDS BARRED on PodOmatic

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman speaks with Jacqui Snow, our correspondent and the technical consultant for No Holds Barred. She is also a moderator of the very popular MySpace Boxing Forum, which has over eight thousand members.

For almost two weeks, No Holds Barred was unable to be produced because of an attack by viruses and adware gotten from a pop-up ad on a sleazy boxing web site.

In a lengthy and animated interview, we discuss just what happened with this virus and adware attack, what steps can be taken to avoid and prevent such attacks, and why certain web sites stoop to trying to make money by such predatory practices.

We also discuss the growing importance of social media sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, and how they are transforming the way fans of the combat sports get information and communicate with each other. We also comment on the continuing, pathetic ignorance of and resistance to social media by most of the boxing establishment, along with many other issues.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here. You can also download No Holds Barred here. If one link does not work, please try another. The show is in MP3 format, so may take some time to download.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", by musician Ian Carpenter.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

Gladiator Magazine, for in-depth coverage of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, submission grappling, and MMA, as well as lifestyle articles on surfing, cars, movies, and more. Gladiator Magazine is available at any major bookstore and online at BJJMart.com or Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear.

BJJMart.com, your premier source for all Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gear, videos, books, and much more.

Wrestling 411, providing coverage of the sport of wrestling on TV, the Internet, and radio. Wrestling 411 is produced by Media Sports Productions, whose sole mission is the marketing and promotion of the sport of wrestling.

Labels: adware, boxing, computers, Eddie Goldman, Facebook, Internet, Jacqui Snow, mixed martial arts, MMA, MySpace, No Holds Barred, security, social media, Twitter, UFC, virus

SecondsOut Radio with Eddie Goldman

On this week's edition of SecondsOut Radio, host Eddie Goldman begins by explaining how, in America, to watch live televised boxing, when there is no live boxing on television, as was the case this past Saturday night. We also discuss how boxing hurts itself by not making more major fights available online.

Next, we preview two fights which will be televised live in America this coming week. On Thursday, September 25, WBO welterweight champion Paul Williams (34-1, 25 KOs) tests the waters in the middleweight division by fighting true middleweight Andy Kolle (17-1, 12 KOs). Unbeaten heavyweight Cristobal Arreola (24-0, 21 KOs) hopes to show that he is worthy of a title shot when he faces veteran Israel Garcia (19-1, 11 KOs). Both these fights will take place at the Soboba Casino in San Jacinto, Calif., and will be shown live in the U.S. on the Versus network.

It is free to listen to SecondsOut Radio, but you must register to gain access to it. Just click here, and listen, learn, and enjoy.

Labels: Andy Kolle, boxing, Cristobal Arreola, Eddie Goldman, Internet, Israel Garcia, media, Paul Williams, SecondsOut Radio