I visit their website and I see the following…

“Discover the upcoming talent in the biggest community of broadcasters, producers, and musicians.”

So your tool allows me to “Discover” talent. Can you show me a little of what I’d expect to find up front first? I really don’t want to have to give you any login information or personal data before I even find out if you have anything I’d even be remotely interested in listening to once I discover it. How about a little teaser? Some samples perhaps? A list of some of your existing “broadcasters, producers, and musicians” maybe?

Really? You’re the “biggest” and I’ve never heard of you? Granted I don’t always stay on top of every development happening online, but I’d imagine if you were the “biggest” of something, I’d at least recognize your name compared to any competitors right?

What if I’m not interested in discovering new broadcasters, producers or musicians? What if I AM a broadcaster, producer or musician and want to use your service to distribute my content? Do you have any information you can share about that? How does your service do that? Does it cost anything? What can I expect from you if I fit that category?

Sorry. You lost me.

I don’t want to sign-up before I can read any more details about you than the single sentence of unsubstantiated marketing spiel from your homepage.

Are you sick and tired of super hero movies? Really? Then go away. Because I’m not and I’ll probably continue to talk about them and any other related media that gets produced in the genre. I love super hero movies and I’m quickly getting my son and daughter properly introduced and addicted to them as well. My son let me know about this TV show coming to ABC soon.

The Official Trailer

#CoulsonLives Teaser

First Look Preview

Can’t wait for the next Thor, Captain America, Superman and Gaurdians of the Galaxy movies to come out.

You see, I recently saw that one of my favorite all-time performers and musicians, Harry Connick, Jr., was a mentor this past week for the four remaining contestants. I really need to pick up his latest album, “Every Man Should Know“. I haven’t watched a single episode this year, so I had no idea Harry would be mentoring and no clue they were already down to four contestants. I was really bummed I missed an opportunity to see Harry and watch him perform a song off of his new album, but after reading an article about his involvement last week, I’m even more upset I missed it. Harry brought a little Simon with him and was brutally honest with the performers and booted the trend of American Idol fluff instead of substance to the music being performed.

Why Harry Connick, Jr. Couldn’t Sit Idle During Idol?

His breaking point came when Randy Jackson implied that Connick’s advice had hindered Kree’s vacuous rendition of “Stormy Weather,“ which none of the judges liked. He thought she should have sung it more like Etta James, as she had wanted to do. As it turned out, her rendition was neither Etta nor Lena, nor even Kree. It lacked any personality or feeling. You could see Connick about to pop his cork. That’s when Keith Urban went into the audience, took Connick by the hand and brought him to the judge’s table. Taking a seat, Connick proceeded to school a very defensive Jackson in the art of singing standards. The point Connick tried to make, which Jackson didn’t want to hear, was that the show’s contestants didn’t know these classic songs well enough to take liberties with their melodies and lyrics. In doing so, they were murdering the music.

That’s what I mean folks. I don’t belittle what Randy Jackson has accomplished in the industry, but he is by no means as a skilled a musician and performer as Connick by any standards. I commend Keith Urban for understanding that shortcoming and bringing Connick to the judges platform to share his expert opinions rightfully.

After a little more research in trying to find some video clips of Connick’s actions on the show, I stumbled across a number of articles stating that Harry may be a judge of the show in the coming seasons. This would be great! I’d absolutely start watching the show again then, just for him.

Part of the problem is there are so many singing performance shows these days, it’s easy not to be loyal to one and American Idol has given me nothing I’m interested in being loyal to anymore. My preference now is The Voice. Give me Connick and a female judge that’s actually accomplished something and I’ll add Idol back to the DVR queue next season. That would be just the re-boot Idol may need to come back into the spotlight.

Related articles

• ‘American Idol’ Finalists Want Harry Connick Jr. To Become A Judge
• American Idol Backstage Scoop: Will Harry Connick Jr. Become a New Judge?
• American Idol Producers Approached Harry Connick, Jr As Idol Judge!
• Harry Connick, Jr. Confirms Talks to Join American Idol as Judge
• News: Harry Connick, Jr. Confirms Talks to Join American Idol as Judge

I hope they get the same kind of views and response the YouTube sensation “Evolution of Dance” got when it went viral. Just in case you missed that one, you can watch it below as well.

This summer is shaping up to be a big year for some blockbuster super hero movies. I’m specifically looking forward as well to the new Superman and Ironman 3. Both look to be like they’ll be tremendous films.

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• Hugh Jackman In First THE WOLVERINE Trailer!
• Two new posters for The Wolverine
• The Wolverine: Hugh Jackman’s Muscles Costar in Latest Poster

Make Friends You Can Speak to Online

Probably the best way to learn any language more effectively is to speak to as many people as possible. The problem is that if you are shy or not very comfortable with the language yet you might find this too daunting to do. Many people miss out on the chance to practice because they are too shy to do it or because they are worried about their accent or lack of a wide vocabulary. Doing it online is a much more relaxed approach and social media sites offer a fine way of doing so. All it can take is one foreign language speaking friend on Facebook to open up a whole new world of potential friends for you.

Read Updates

Even if you can’t pluck up the courage to converse in your second language you can still use the internet to improve your reading skills. A simple approach to doing this is to follow a few Spanish speaking celebrities on Twitter and check out their updates on a regular basis. This might lead you to feeling confident enough to issue your own tweets in the language you are studying but you don’t need to feel under too much pressure to rush into this until you are ready.

Watch YouTube Videos

The previous points should help with your writing and reading but what about your listening skills? These are just as important and it is something which it can be extremely difficult to hone. If you get nervous when you speak to someone in a foreign tongue then your mind might freeze up when they speak. The great thing about watching some YouTube videos is that you can listen to the bits you don’t understand over and over again without any pressure.  What I love about taking English classes in New York is that it is easy to find people to talk to. However, even if this isn’t the case for you it is simple enough to go on the internet and look for some videos which can help you learn new words.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosauraochoa/4521742408/

What I think is really weird though is that as I was trying to grab the screen shot of the image above, as I zoomed out in Chrome, the cover photo size appeared to get even larger. I couldn’t adjust the screen display to show just how much of the top of the screen was being taken up by the new larger sized cover photo.

Generally, as you’re creating your graphic, you’ll probably want to keep the bottom 250 pixels of the image fairly blank, or no important information or text, this area is where Google Plus will overlay your selected Profile Photo and page details.

What I think is weird though, is that on one of my other Google Plus pages for the Positively Indy website, I haven’t updated to the new size and I prefer the way it crops and lays out my old photo better. Even adjusting the screen browser window size makes things float around the image much nicer as shown below.

Related articles

• Google+ Profiles Just Got Bigger Cover Photos, a New Look for the ‘About’ Tab, and Local Reviews
• Google+ Launches Updated Profile Pages With Larger Cover Photos, Revamped Local Reviews & About Tabs
• Google+ Update Brings bigger cover photos, Local reviews tab and new ‘About’ page

Have you seen the latest offering from Dodge? You can go to the Dodge Dart Registry website and design and build your own custom car by mixing-’n-matching 100′s or 1000′s of different specs and features. Similar to how Nike has been allowed people to custom design their own pair sneakers, we can now do the same thing with a car. By itself, this isn’t too much of a groundbreaking development, the twist comes in that once you’re done building you can publish and promote your listing as a registry. You know, like when you were married or had your first baby, you’d run through Target with a hand-scanner and scan the bar codes of all the stuff you’d love to get as a gift.

Sounds like a great idea, but I wonder how many people would actually donate to an effort like this. I built my own custom Dodge Dart, shown in the picture above. There’s no way I’d be able to purchase this car for myself, so the idea of having the mass of all my friends, Facebook fans and Twitter followers chip in and get me a new car. I’ll promote it as the car that Social Media Bought.

If I figured it out correctly I just need all my connections to contribute $1 and get 7 of their friends to do the same. Then we’ll be all set. Go be a friend and help me out. I mean if a Red Paper Clip can make history, surely this sweet Dodge Dart above can accomplish something cool right?

For anyone that has been known to forward stuff to friends, I challenge you to listen to and take heart the words of this song. If you’re not familiar with Snopes, visit them. And if you don’t know how to effectively use the BCC option in email. Do a little research please.

Microsoft & Research in Motion

There are two major companies hoping to be a massive success story in 2013: Microsoft, with their Windows Phone 8 and Research in Motion with their BlackBerry 10. So can any of these two make a real impact this year?

Both companies have put a lot of energy and resources behind their impending major smartphone releases, trying to create a breakout hit. Both will do well enough to keep going and to survive but tech experts don’t see any of them really making a big impact.

Mobile Payments

Mobile payments and the ability to simply wave your phone over a cash register to pay for items, is a topic that seems to be going nowhere.

From Google to other mobile phone carriers to banks, there are a lot of big players pushing mobile payments as a new solution for the future. Unfortunately however, that hasn’t really happened.

The problem has been Apple. The iPhone 5 did not include Near-Field Communications (NFC) technology, which is the key technology needed for mobile payments to work. As the iPhone 5 does not come equipped with NFC, there is a major stumbling block for mobile payments to really take off.

For mobile payments to really take off, it needs to be implemented almost everywhere and for this to be done it needs to be used by the masses. As the iPhone 5 doesn’t have NFC and due to there simply being so many iPhone users, customers aren’t going to see it as particularly useful.

This could change in 2013 with the iPhone 6 however.

T-Mobile

One company that could really spice things up in 2013 is T-Mobile. T-Mobile are offering a new way of paying for our phones. Instead of a subsidy, you’ll have the option of paying up front with a lower data plan or paying a little initially and then paying monthly instalments.

Rather than having to sell my Netbook and sell iPad mp3 tablets to be able to afford a pricey smartphone, T-Mobile seems to be introducing a more financially manageable alternative to buying expensive phones.

The big question however, is how T-Mobile communicates this new plan to its new customers. Such plans are actually better overall for their customers in the long term, as it allows those buying their phone on subsidies to pay a lower monthly fee for data, voice service and text messages. The big challenge however is of course, whether T-Mobile can get this message across to consumers.

Right now their plans are working a little bit, but they really need to get aggressive with their messaging.