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A search on Google for “collected quotations” turns up almost two million results.  The word “quotations” alone on Yahoo yields more than fifty four million.

Collected quotations can be a guilty pleasure. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes insightful, and whether they take the form of witty maxim, or biting aphorism, somehow, thoughts condensed and cropped to a few sentences or a quick phrase somehow seem more articulate and more informative.  

The following recent turns of phrase from executives and founders may not make their speakers look like geniuses but in short sound-byte format they make for interesting capsules of information and a fascinating barometer of current events in media, entertainment and technology:

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Friday, the first of obstacles to Microsoft’s planned $6b purchase of Internet advertising firm, aQuantive was passed without incident.  

It was disclosed in an SEC filing that the Federal Trade Commission “waiting period,” a time window set aside for regulators to formally request more information, expired without any further requests. 

Under the terms of the Hart Scott Rodino Antitrust Act (HSR), companies are required to give regulators a 30 day window to request further information.  The expiration of the waiting period absent further inquiry means there will be no further anti-trust review.   Legally the transaction is deemed to have satisfied the requirements of the Act.

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Thursday, under pressure from competition and complaints about inadequate manufacturing, Microsoft proactively announced substantial changes to the warranty for its Xbox 360 gaming platform.  The company also disclosed they would take an accounting charge in an amount likely above $1b to cover costs related to high repair rates.

In the gaming industry, Nintendo has been dominating the home console market with a less advanced console that wins on “Wow” factor and user-experience over technology.   That hasn’t stopped Microsoft and Sony from competing for second place with bigger and better technology.

Between the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 (PS3) the two have been doing battle with high-power high feature platforms for the title of top tech centric “next generation console.”  Microsoft, though short of its June sales targets (which were adjusted downward in January), has held the advantage with shipments of around 11.6 million units in total, and solid month to month sales. In May, the Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 by a factor of two to one. (Click here for full May sales data). 

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With the battle of HD DVD formats escalating into the summer, the launch of a consumer-friendly, potentially neutralizing dual-format disc has been delayed.

Warner Brothers has acknowledged that Total HD, a disc capable of housing an HD DVD movie on one side and a Blu Ray version of the movie on the other will be delayed until some time in 2008.

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Scientific studies testing the quality of TV programming or the efficiency of advertising aren’t a new thing.  In the children’s educational realm, esteemed programming from Sesame Street to Blues Clues has been built around detailed research.  Sesame Street actually has an Education and Research (E&R) department that reviews scripts and oversees studies aimed at revealing how to best deliver content to their target audience. In Universities, classes are dedicated to media and advertising, or psychology and advertising; all looking at voluminous studies about what does, or doesn’t, work in delivering a message (educational, advertising, or otherwise) to the audience.  For as long as someone has been selling a product, there has been someone else selling a means to be a better salesman.

On Tuesday, the New York Times reported on one of the newest experiments in television advertising.  The study is being run for television network NBC.  What makes for an interesting twist is, in the new study, unlike prior examples, the immediate goal isn’t to sell products to consumers, rather, it is instead to help the network sell ad slots to advertisers. 

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It’s been said that “statistics are like bikinis.  What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.”  Similarly, Arthur Conan Doyle’s famed Sherlock Holmes once spouted off that it’s “a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”

These days there’s usual more data than there is time to process it, and much might leave even Sherlock scratching his head, still some of the raw data can be revealing.  Over the past few weeks, Metue has published two collections of raw statistics (Click for Part one and Part two). Here’s part three of the three part series showcasing a sampling of recent media statistics that to lend themselves to insights into the crossed, intersecting world of media, entertainment and technology.

(Editors Note: In future weeks, a dedicated page may be added to Metue to house more of this kind of information. Stay tuned. Several site additions are in development or under consideration ):

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Shortly after a new car hits the market, there are a few gearheads who’ve looked under the hood, kicked the tires and are ready to report on the innards.   The same is true in technology.  The iPhone has been on the market but three days, it’s spawned long lines and moved upwards of several hundred thousand units (300k to 500k phones sold by most estimates)…and a few iPhones have already been intentionally disfigured in the name of curiosity.

Here’s recap of what they’ve found, and a listing of which hardware suppliers won the iPhone lottery:

   The screen – the impressive touch screen used on the phone is believed to be made by German company, Balda which specializes in scratch-resistant touch screens.  It is deemed “believed to be made” because the screen lacks specific markings that confirm the origin.  It’s estimated to cost about $30 per screen.

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