GAME | LIFE

Value, Quality, Innovation, Targeted, Captive Audience, Cost Effective are all describers of The RAAS Magazine… Temecula & Murrieta’s (locally owned) Entertainment, Resource and Savings Guide.

The RAAS Magazine (distributed monthly, direct-to-consumer) is a unique advertising solution that meets the needs of Temecula & Murrieta’s business owners by offering a very effective way to replace or supplement high-cost traditional marketing channels that are unable to reach the actual target audience directly.

All Marketing is great in our eyes if it can be afforded but in today’s economy the business owner must be extra smart in regards to how they are going to spend their advertising dollars. With so many marketing options available (i.e., Billboards, TV Ads, Radio Spots, Print Media, News Papers, Magazines, Postcards, Brochures, Websites, Flyers, Spinners, Signage, Auto Magnets & Paint, Before Movie Ads, etc.) …the ROI (Return on Investment) must be a factor in the decision making process!

Before allocating any monies to a particular marketing strategy the following question must be answered by the local business owner… who are we trying to reach? Which could also be said this way… who is are target audience?

If your target audience is movie goers… a before the movie ad campaign should be in the works. If your target audience is women between the ages of 40 & 60 that use a credit card, you might want to consider a mailing campaign or sending a post card out - after first purchasing the statistical specific, custom mailing list. If your target audience watches TV or listens to the Radio you may want to consider a Television and/or Radio Advertising Campaign - you must of course first have the budget to do so. If your target audience reads the paper, you may want to allocate some advertising dollars in that direction.

Research shows us that on a local level for just about every business the primary target audience is the local resident; the distant secondary target audience is the visitor to the community. So when spending advertising dollars, to get the largest (ROI) return on investment the local business owner should be marketing directly to the local resident.

All things being considered, in the cities of Temecula & Murrieta or any other local community for that matter… if a local business owner allocated… $2,000 per month on Radio Ads, $500 per month on a yellow page ad, $4,000 per month on TV/Cable Ads, $1,500 per month on a billboard, $1,000 per month on online advertising, $2,400 per month in the newspaper, and let’s say $1,000 on before movie ads… the local business owner would have just spent: $12,400.00 without any guarantee that the target audience views the ad.

A guaranteed option for the local business owner would be to send 30,000 postcards, to 30,000 homes at an approx. rate of $.40 per postcard (discounted price includes: printing & mail) …for an approx. total of $12,000 …this would deliver the advertisers, ad direct-to-consumer and guarantee the advertiser that the consumer would get the ad.

Although all of these advertising options can help in the branding process, they are very costly and the majority of local businesses do not have this large of a monthly-marketing budget. Which is why across the nation, companies like The RAAS Magazine are helping the local business owner by providing a direct-to-consumer advertising option at a very low, cost-effective price!

The smart advertisers, advertising agencies, and local businesses are committing advertising dollars to the direct-to-consumer local ad books. (i.e., The RAAS Magazine, in Temecula & Murrieta, California) On a monthly basis, for a very small fee (approx: $500.00 per month for a full page/4-color ad) the advertiser’s ad is delivered direct-to-consumer via the USPS, in a conveniently sized, high-gloss-color formatted magazine.

The Temecula & Murrieta area RAAS Magazine (The RAAS) is guaranteed to reach over 25,000 residents each month. They print over 30,000 copies of each issue; others are distributed to high-traffic local-locations or mailed to targeted businesses within the area. Distribution for The RAAS and other ad books across the country is normally determined by the size of the coverage area and the amount of households with high income families.

The overwhelming benefits to advertising within a locally-respected monthly direct-to-consumer publication begin with full color advertising at a cost-effective price and end with the (ROI) return on investment. Other obvious benefits include a long shelf life (for those publications that promote quality), local awareness, brand-identity, diverse advertisers, wide availability, direct-to-target-audience guarantee and online benefits (if available through the publication).

So, local business owners your choices are… spend approx. $10,000 mailing postcards to reach your target audience… spend approx. $10,000 through a variety of marketing channels to try to reach your target audience or spend approx. $500 by advertising in The RAAS Magazine (or a quality driven, local direct-to-consumer publication like it in your area) and reach your target audience.

The choice is simple… if you have the money to burn do them all and hope that you get a return on your investment. If you don’t have the money to burn… advertising in the local direct-to-consumer publication in your area is a great way to reach your target audience and to stay in front of your target audience on a monthly basis using a very cost-effective method.

If there is more than one publication (magazine style/ad book) in your area and one is locally owned and the others are not - if the local publication is quality driven; go local and help the local economy!

In plain view on every page of theRAAS.com is the following quote by Patricia Fripp… “It is not your customer’s job to remember you. It is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t have the chance to forget you.”

Introduction
Twenty centuries ago, the essential role of music of India was deemed to be purely ritualistic. Music as entertainment is supposed to have evolved much later. Another part of Indian music is folk music. Indian classical music is said to have evolved out of the mixture of these. It is presumed that folk music existed long before the Aryans came to India, the Dravidians having their own. The art of music practised in India has a special significance, as it has developed from the ritualistic music in association with folk music and other musical expressions of neighbouring nations, developing into its own characteristic art. Matured through ‘’thought, experience and expression”, Indian classical music has become unique in the world.

THE ORIGINS OF INDIAN MUSIC
The origin of Indian music is said to be rooted in the Vedas. It is said that God Himself is musical sound, the sound which pervades the whole universe, i.e. Nadabrahma. The origins of Indian music are therefore considered divine. It is said that the musician has to cultivate an attitude of self-abandonment, in order to fuse with the Supreme Reality, Brahma.
Brahma is said to be the author of the four Vedas, of which the SamaVeda was chanted in definite musical patterns. Vedic hymns were sung in plain melody, using only 3 notes.
It took a long time for music to come to the form found in present-day India. The most important advance in music was made between the 14th and 18th centuries. During this period, the music sung in the north came in contact with Persian music and assimilated it, through the Pathans and the Mughals. It is then that two schools of music resulted, the Hindustani and the Carnatic. Hindustani music adopted a scale of Shudha Swara saptaka(octave of natural notes) and Carnatic music retained the traditional octave. During this period, different styles of classical compositions such as Dhrupad, Dhamar, Khayal,etc. were contributed to Hindustani music, along with many exquisite hymns, bhajans, kirtans, etc.

TRADITION OF MUSIC
The music of India is a pervasive influence in Indian life. It pervades the big and small events of Indian life, from child birth to death, religious rites and seasonal festivals. Originally, not all developments of music were reduced to writing. To keep their traditional integrity, they were imparted orally from teacher to pupil — the Guru-Shishya tradition. In the past, there used to be a system of Gurukul Ashram where teachers imparted knowledge to deserving students.

HINDI, TAMIL, and TELUGU Film MUSIC
Nowadays in India music related to movies are very popular. There are three main film industries in India, Bollywood, Tollywood, and Kollywood. Film Music is also a very big industry in India, lots of people are employed in this industry.

There are numerous websites online, providing the latest Music absolutely free for the visitors. Dhintana.com is one of such popular websites. Dhintana.com offers HINDI MOVIE FILM MUSIC SONGS, TAMIL MOVIE FILM MUSIC SONGS, TELUGU MOVIE FILM MUSIC SONGS

Listen to Indian Movie Songs Online on Dhintana.com for FREE

Joystiq points us to a press release about a deal between Sony Pictures Digital and Kayak Interactive to create a two mobile games based on the upcoming The Da Vinci Code film starring Tom Hanks, which is based on the novel by Dan Brown. Kayak Interactive will develop, publish and market mobile games based on select Sony Pictures Entertainment licensed properties. The first two games in development will be based on the upcoming motion picture The Da Vinci Code, and will be available close to the nationwide release of the film on May 19, 2006.

From director, Ron Howard, producer Brian Grazer and writer Akiva Goldsman, the Oscar-winning team of A Beautiful Mind comes the film version of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, one of the most popular and talked about novels of our time, with a cast headed by two-time Academy Award® winner Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Jean Reno, Sir Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina and Paul Bettany.

Produced by Grazer and John Calley, The Da Vinci Code, begins with a spectacular murder in the Louvre Museum. All clues point to a covert religious organization that will stop at nothing to protect a secret that threatens to overturn 2,000 years of accepted dogma.

What about the Xbox 360, PS2 or PC Game versions of Da Vinci Code? Those game annoucements are sure to be coming later.

Mario and Ronald McDonald in a McDonald’s restaurant in Chicago kicked off the debut of the Nintendo Wi-Fi service that will be available in McDonald’s restaurants. The first game available for Nintendo’s Wi-Fi network is the Mario Kart DS game.

The Mario Kart franchise has sold more than 11.1 million games in the United States alone. Mario Kart DS offers racers more than 30 courses, including classic tracks from Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart: Super Circuit and Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. Favorite Nintendo characters cruise in dozens of classic and custom karts as they use weapons like bananas, bombs, lightning and squid ink to gain a competitive advantage.

When racing using a wireless local area connection, up to eight players can play, even if only one of them has a Mario Kart DS game card. When using Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, up to four players across the world can join a race. Friends share their DS Friend Code to find one another online using their friend roster.

Nintendo says that gamers can find Wi-Fi connections at NintendoWiFi.com. Hopefully it will work as easily as Nintendo describes.

Outside the home, when a user brings a Nintendo DS unit and a Wi-Fi-enabled game into a Wayport-enabled McDonald’s restaurant locations, the user simply launches the game in Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection mode. No setup is required.

Expect a great many more deals like the Nintendo-McDonald’s Restaurant deal as mobile gaming continues to grow in popularity. Gamespot has more on the product launch. More information on the Mario Kart DS game can be found here on the official website and here on Amazon.com.

Will Microsoft ever bite the bullet and develop and release an Xbox Portable device? Team Xbox has created a mock-up for an Xbox Portable. Some of the features hoped for include bluetooth, music player, video, Zune media download store, camera (VGA resolution), camera (Megapixel+ resolution), IM and E-mail and Live Anywhere. Unfortunately, Team Xbox believe it will be difficult for Microsoft to cheaply bring Xbox features to a portable device.

Putting together the required silicon to offer an Xbox experience on a handheld will be a difficult task for whoever designs this portable console, not because of a technology barrier, but because of prices. With the Nintendo DS costing as low as $129.99, and the Sony PSP selling for $199.99, Microsoft will have a hard time bringing the Xbox console to a handheld device at a price lower than $300. The only way people could pay for an Xbox Portable more than what the DS and the PSP cost would be if Microsoft offered with the XP something its competitor can’t; not hardware specs so much as software and services.

A Daily Tech post offers a good summary of Team Xbox’s Xbox Portable vision.

Team Xbox envisions a system with a QWERTY keyboard, directional pad, trackball and four action buttons. The article then goes on to examine a wide variety of handheld devices on the market (Sidekick 3, QTek 9000, OQO 01+, etc.) and describes what features that Microsoft could possibly emulate when coming up with its own portable gaming unit. As for the hardware choices, there are a number of possibilities for a processor including Transmeta’s Efficeon and XScale (which Intel recently sold off to Marvell). Here’s Team Xbox’s take on the graphics for the XP:

Of its entire technical specifications, it is worth highlighting that the nVIDIA GoForce 5500 is the first handheld GPU to playback and encode H.264, WMV9 and MPEG-4 video up to 720 X 480 (NTSC) and 720 X 576 (PAL) resolution at 30 frames per second with 24-bit surround sound, making the GoForce 5500 compatible with major mobile TV standards, and capable of both recording and decoding video at DVD-quality. The GoForce 5500 also offers digital photography features, including multi-shot capabilities with support up to 10 Megapixel resolution digital still images.

Habbo Hotel is a persistent online hotel world that lets people create a room in the hotel, decorate the room with Habbo furniture, adopt pets and hang out with other Habbos.

After the game conquered the hearts of many (mainly Asian) Nintendo DS gamers, Taito now announced to take the smash hit cooking simulator mobile.

The game, which will be ready early 2008, will be a simplified version as most mobile phones lack the use of a stylus and touchscreen.

Nokia has announced to release two mobile games based on the Astro Boy license the company recently acquired from Tezuka Production.

First drawn back in 1950, Astro Boy is a highly recognized Asian animé styled game character that fights crime and destroys all evil. The game will be fully SNAP enabled, offering a host of community features.

“Delivering Astro Boy to the mobile market through SNAP Mobile means we can bring a connected experience that will allow fans to interact with one another,” said Mr. Koji Miyajima, Media Force Ltd, Mobile games IP license holder. “SNAP Mobile is known as a trusted platform with global reach, and we are certain we chose the right method to deliver Osamu Tezuka’s most prized creation.”

“By bringing Astro Boy to mobile games, fans will have access to discover one of Japan’s most famed heroes through a more convenient channel - their mobile device,” said Antoine Doumenc, head of Nokia’s SNAP Mobile. “Working together, SNAP Mobile and Tezuka Production are taking the Astro Boy to a global mobile community.”

Glu has announced the release of Mystery Case Files: Agent X in cooperation with Big Fish Games. This game is the first to date in the Mystery Case Files series to be released exclusively on mobile early 2008.

“The mobile platform has been a proving ground for each generation of casual games, and we’re excited to partner with Big Fish Games on their most valuable franchise,” said Jill Braff, senior vice president of global publishing, Glu. “Bringing an exclusive, entirely new and original episode of Mystery Case Files to mobile phones represents a significant step in the convergence of the mobile and casual games industries.”

Mystery Case Files has established itself as a powerful brand and franchise from Big Fish Games, garnering more than 1.2 million units sold. Big Fish Games is credited for creating the genre of hidden-object games, which is now the most popular category in the downloadable casual games business.

Disney Mobile announced their holiday lineup which features 5 new mobile games based on both Disney and Hudson licenses.Lode Runner – the return of one of the most popular videogames in history with improved graphics and features. A retro classic.

Bomberman – The cheekiest, funniest game ever, where you battle to beat opponents with bombs, skates and fire! But this isn’t one version, but every version of the classic Bomberman imaginable.

Disney Snow Sports – Duckburg is hosting the winter games and you have to help Mickey, Donald and Goofy win through. Skiing, bobsleighing and winning medals are the order of the day.

Enchanted – Based on the forthcoming Disney Xmas movie which pitches animated fairytale characters into real life Manhattan, the mobile game challenges players with a number of ‘enchanted’ mini-games and puzzles.

Cars: Radiator Springs 500 – Lightning McQueen and the gang are back in this sequel to the original mobile game. Based on the continually successful Cars film franchise, the game has an original take on the racing genre.