Chalk this up as one more thing Fred Wilson has introduced to me. I’ve played with The Hype Machine briefly in passing on numerous occasions but this past week I decided to register an account and spend some time there. To say I’m glad I did is an understatement…

For those who haven’t yet heard of the site, The Hype Machine is a service that aggregates music posted on blogs and helps you search for, discover and listen to it. Music blogs have an incredible tendency to collectively find and host tracks that are very difficult to find elsewhere. In searching for an artist, I’ve come across b-sides and remixes that I have never even heard of before. There are also plenty of favorites there from mainstream and indie bands alike. Think of it as your window into more music blogs than you would ever care to subscribe to, accessible on a whim.

As for the Hype Machine interface, I do enjoy it but a fair amount of refinement is certainly needed. In terms of usability and technology application, it’s similar to muxtape (or should I say muxtape is similar to HM?) in that tracks are listed on a page and there is no real player interface. It’s not the most user-friendly design. There are some controls at the bottom of the page, but they are so tiny I often forget they’re there. As with similar services you can add tracks to your favorites list to be reviewed later and you can also “watch” other HM users (or blogs) and play their lists straight through. The site itself has a fun look and feel, though some of the organizational decisions confuse me a bit.

I won’t go into much more because I’d rather you just check it out yourself. I’m zacharye there and if you haven’t yet heard Nickel Creek’s cover of Toxic by Britney Spears, hit my loved list post haste… :)

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As a general rule, sullying the focal statement of your advertisement with an asterisk is a horrible, horrible idea. What does it say to your (more cognizant) potential customers? “The most important point this company wants me to take away from this ad is likely mired in catches and clauses.”

In other words: If the focal statement in your ad is not entirely accurate (outside the world of advertising we might call this “a lie”), find a better focus or sell a better product.

Of course none of this applies to Apple because it has remarkably managed to create a [much-coveted] alternate universe.

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Those of you who are staring at your monitor watching people wait on a line, perhaps I have something a bit more thought-provoking to occupy your time. Long before I was a marketing guy, or a writer, or a tech guy, or a blogger, or whatever it is that I am today; I was a musician and lover of all things music. I loved listening to music, I loved creating music and I loved admiring music. While it has been ages since I’ve actively composed anything, there is still almost nothing that I enjoy more than stumbling upon a new artist or band that I enjoy.

Several years ago a song by a group called Electric President caught my attention and so I did some digging. I’ll spare you the details but I am now a huge fan of Ben Cooper, half of the duo that make up Electric President. He is a very active musician who has undertaken (and is still involved with) a great number of projects and so I have had no trouble finding plenty of content to keep myself busy with. Radical Face (Cooper’s solo project), Iron Orchestra and Unkle Stiltskin are among his other projects. Perhaps what I enjoy most about Cooper’s work, beyond the music itself, is that the bulk of his songs are journeys as opposed to standard verse, chorus, verse, chorus, etc. This meandering format does not work for all who embrace it but it works quite well for Cooper. In terms of popular music, this is a concept much more common in eras past and one of the key elements that first drew me to Pink Floyd, perhaps one of my favorite bands still to this day.

Back to the point of this post… Earlier this week I came across a site called Mother’s Basement. Described by its creators as a showcase for “assignment based composition”, Mother’s basement is home to a new and fun project that has certainly caught my eye (and ear). The homepage says it best:

The goal was to write songs and compositions under very specific guidelines to see how different artists would interpret the same agenda, and to see what we’re personally capable of when forced to use a specific and often difficult process.

So far there are three assignments posted along with the resulting tracks. They are absolutely fantastic to say the least. If you love music - it doesn’t matter what kind - definitely take a few minutes to check out Mother’s Basement and each artist’s interpretation of the three assignments currently posted. Some of them might scare you off a bit at first but stick with it. For the impatient or unadventurous, it might be best to start with assignment three as it yielded the most conventional results. It also happens to be a good showcase of some of the talent these young musicians are working with. Each of assignment three’s submissions are fantastic and interesting but I have to say I was particularly blown away by both Colado and Cooper’s pieces.

I can’t wait to see what else comes from Mother’s Basement. My only complaint is that like Cooper’s own site, it lacks RSS! I also wouldn’t mind seeing the projects before the resluts are published. What if some of us want to play along fellas?

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Forget the fact that people are willing to physically wait on line to purchase a cell phone, it is far more fascinating to me that people are willing (and eager) to watch people wait on line on the internet. Written coverage, pictures, videos, livecasts… All of a bunch of people waiting on line for a phone.

Does this speak to the state of the digital world? Is there a lack of accessible and interesting content on the web to the point where people are forced to merely settle for any subject matter that is widely covered? Or does this simply speak to the marketing genius that is Apple?

I have a feeling the answer is “D, all of the above”.

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Every web browser is capable of streaming music / downloading files and every S60 device is capable of doing the same. Why not put purchased music in a “digital locker” that I can access from anywhere? Not physically of course, merely designate tracks I purchase in a database and make them accessible to me. Allow me to make online playlists and recommend artists / tracks to me based not only on my purchase history but also my play history. Allow me to stream my purchases whenever I want, wherever I want. Allow me to download my purchases whenever I want, wherever I want. The technology is here now.

Instead, Nokia seems to be assembling what will become ‘just another music store’ with the addition of free downloads for a year. While “free downloads for a year” sounds attractive on the surface, I can already listen to free music from a million different places - legally even. Muxtape, Last.fm, Pandora, Songza, SkreemR, iMEEM, SeeqPod and so on and so forth. Some people might get lured in by free unlimited downloads for a year though, despite the fact that I won’t. Once they’re in however, what is going to keep them there? Nokia cannot and should not try to compete with iTunes. If that’s the game plan Nokia may as well throw in the towel right now. Nokia needs to build a new and exciting ALTERNATIVE to iTunes; a product that introduces new and exciting technology in a well-built and attractive web app accessible from any computer or handset in the world.

Nokia is trying to be an “Internet Company” but lack of innovation is going to be a huge roadblock. Share on Ovi? Why not Flickr or any one of a thousand other services? Files on Ovi? Been there, done that. Nokia’s position is perfect on one level - become an Internet Company and use the hundreds of millions of handsets you sell to hock your wares. The truth of the matter however, is that this very fact will make or break Nokia. Use your great position to pitch products that are “more of the same” and you’re doomed. Innovate, and the world is your oyster.

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On the flip side of the coin, Spinvox is a service that I have become addicted to since I first began using it. The service replaces traditional voicemail with a new Spinvox mailbox and the handset forwarding numbers must be updated accordingly. Once the simple two-minute setup is complete, the user will have each and every voicemail automatically transcribed and delivered via SMS and / or email. Brilliant. This, in my eyes, is far more “visual” than the current “Visual Voicemail” offering on the iPhone. After all, Visual Voicemail doesn’t allow the user to see a voicemail. It displays a list of voicemail messages and provides a faster means of listening to messages. Perhaps it should have been called “Local Voicemail” as that moniker is a bit more accurate.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where I’m going with all of this. I want to see a marriage of these two services - uniting the best and most current technology surrounding voicemail. The key elements of my service are as follows:

• Automatic local download of voicemail
• Copies kept in a remote mailbox as well (messages should also be available in a remote mailbox accessible from any phone, as with any current voicemail service)
• Automatic synchronization of local and remote mailboxes (marked as listened, saved, deleted, etc)
• Attractive UI listing messages in chronological order for fast and simple access
• Transcription previews integrated into main screen of UI
• Full transcriptions available on a drill-down screen along with message details (time, date, etc)

Below is a simple mock up of what I’m looking for, at least in terms of the overview screen. Messages should be listed in chronological order and should occupy one row per message. When highlighted, a second row should appear and display a preview containing the first two lines of the message transcription. Click on / tap the transcription text or the arrow in the top right corner to view the full transcription along with message details. Click on / tap the contact name or the play icon in the top left corner to play the message.

As with many of the best services out there, my “True Visual Voicemail” service really presents nothing new in terms of technology. Instead, it takes various existing technology and aligns it properly to create a single service with tremendous value. All of the technology exists and it would not be terribly complicated to put together.

An important final note takes me back to the title of this post. I want to see this service come from Spinvox specifically. I have no interest in seeing Apple assemble True Visual Voicemail as a proprietary iPhone solution would be counterproductive. I want Spinvox, an established and well-funded technology leader in this area, to present this service. I want to see it available on all platforms; Symbian, OS X, Windows Mobile, Android, BlackBerry and so on. Such an offering could literally replace the voicemail systems currently used by carriers around the world. Not compliment it as a value-add as Spinvox’s current service does, but replace it.

There you have it - get to work fellas!

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As a part time tech-news blogger I am constantly searching for the best ways to keep abreast of technology developments as soon as they take place. I do this in a variety of ways and for a long time Techmeme played an important role in my daily process. A few key elements of the couple of hours I spend news-blogging each day:

Google Reader always open updating my many “important” feeds…

Snackr scrolling on the bottom of my screen showing a few heavily updated “less important” feeds that I only care about if something catches my eye (Techcrunch, NYTimes, Giz, Cnet, etc)…

Occasional visits to Techmeme, PRNewswire and other key sites…

As of last week, I’ve eliminated Techmeme from my daily routine and changed my visitation habits to once per week (if that). I am certain you’ve read this complaint before, but it’s just sooooo boooooring. The same subjects, the same sources, the same bitchmemes, the same everything. Having your site linked on Techmeme is no longer a big deal. Resulting traffic increases are minimal after your first appearance because the same bloggers read Techmeme every day.

The site I write for is consistently in the top 25-35 on the Techmeme leaderboard - but who cares? The top 10 sites listed on the Techmeme leaderboard currently supply almost 30% of Techmeme’s content. When that number gets cut in half, I’ll check back in. 30% could even be considered a bit misleading as those top ten blogs are often top-level stories (even if they are not the source of the topic at hand) and so the eye is obviously drawn to them more so than to an underlying blog. It is no longer easy to discover a new blog on Techmeme because they only make rare appearances when they catch a break and have a story linked by several of the top 25-50 Techmeme leaders.

So goodbye Techmeme. As of this week you’ve officially been replaced by Hacker News.

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FriendFeed, while not young in web years, is one of the few recent social-microbloggrigators currently gaining ground. Yes, I did in fact just coin a term to describe the wave of jack of a few trades web 2.0 communities that are all the rage these days. FriendFeed hardly has the reach of a service like Twitter, but there is a good and consistent flow of web chatter surrounding this new kid on the block and its traffic and user base is growing. For those of you who haven’t played with it yet, FriendFeed essentially allows you to pull in content from a wide variety of web services (Twitter, Flickr, Last.fm, Digg, Del.icio.us, Tumblr and so on) and present it all organized into one waterfall of headings.

So what is the purpose and / or appeal of a service like this? In my eyes it is twofold but feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below (or on FriendFeed…) if I’ve missed something. The first purpose is stalker tool. Users can all of their friends’ content flow through from just about any popular web 2.0 service they might use. Single out any one of your friends and you are now eying a record of his or her path around the internet. Uploaded photos, blog posts, tumbls, tweets, bookmarks, Disqus comments, reblogs, played tracks, watched videos and whatever else they might be up to. Stalk away.

The second purpose of FriendFeed is to host conversations. With each new headline that trickles through the fire hose users may post comments associated with it. Comments are presented beneath each item just as they would be on a blog or photo sharing site. On the surface this may seem like a great concept - one place to aggregate a huge amount of content and host conversations about all of it. Many of the 305,000+ people who visited the site in May (according to Compete) would likely support that sentiment. I however, do not.

FriendFeed’s core offering dilutes and devalues web content by nature and it does so in a number of ways. I’ll use blogging as an example. People blog, generally, for any combination of four reasons: Expression, conversation, exposure and reward. To focus briefly on the last item mentioned, rewards come in the form traffic, comments and money. FriendFeed robs blogs of all three by nature. Comments are obvious; if people are talking about your post on FriendFeed then they’re not talking about it on your blog. This also robs your blog of traffic as said commenters will not return to your post multiple times in order to view responses to their comments. In the same vein, lost traffic translates to lost advertising and / or sales revenue.

FriendFeed can “simulcast” with certain services such as Twitter for example. When commenting on a tweet in FriendFeed there is an option to post your comment via the Twitter API (when it’s working) at an @reply. We’re getting closer but now you’re having conversations in two different locations about the same thing. @replies to your new tweet will not be registered in the original thread in FriendFeed and inline replies to your FriendFeed comment will not necessarily be linked to you on Twitter. In short, you have just made a mess. Even if simulcasting worked perfectly with all services the result would still be lost rewards as described above. I don’t see a way to circumvent this. FriendFeed is hardly the worst culprit when it comes to web theft of this nature though. A service like Shyftr for example is a web-based RSS reader with an integrated commenting system. Translation: a successful Shyftr would mean users subscribing to blogs broadcasting full RSS feeds no longer have a reason to ever visit the original content source.

Personally, I prefer a service like Jaiku (despite the fact that the service as we currently know it is likely doomed). The main purpose of Jaiku is unique conversation - like Twitter but a few rungs higher on the evolutionary ladder. Jaikus are composed by an original poster and conversations ensue as comments beneath the original post. Feeds from a variety of other web services can be pulled in as well but they are merely afterthoughts pulled in sporadically as opposed to the heart and soul of the service. Yes, conversations surrounding feed items that take place on Jaiku as opposed to the original source still cause dilution but the occurrance is not nearly as common - and again, this is not the focus of the site. I would like to see comment integration between Jaiku and the original source some time in the future but this is definitely not in the cards. Jaiku has been acquired by Google and who knows what they plan to do with it. The consensus is a “contact presence” integration into Android but nothing is known for certain. Whatever the case, Google didn’t buy it to be used in its current form as displayed by the fact that surface-level development has ostensibly come to a grinding halt since the acquisition.

The oddity in all of this is the very people who are proponents of the value theft being facilitated by FriendFeed - users - are the same people whose content is being diluted. By simply setting up your blog feed, YouTube feed or any other feed to be pulled into FriendFeed you become the thief. Such a bizarre premise for a web service…

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I’ll preface this post with “SPOILER ALERT”. While I won’t be spoiling anything specific per se, I will be ruining this movie for you if you plan to see it.

Last weekend I saw M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie The Happening. I was going to put a post together the following morning but I decided to wait a while to see how I felt. I’ve waited and I’ve pondered - here are my impressions.

Important note: I am a huge Shyamalan fan. HUGE. I love his movies, all of them. His writing is amazing, his imagination is refreshing and his direction and tone are remarkable. I would go out on a limb and state that I view him as the best cinematic storyteller of our (my) time. With that said, The Happening was one of the worst movies I’ve seen in recent history.

I walked out of the theater visibly angry and in utter disbelief of how bad this film was. In nearly every aspect no less. The writing was atrocious, the acting was worse and the story was contrived and predictable. The choices of Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel were curious to me before having seen the film. While Wahlberg has impressed me before I wasn’t sure he was capable of doing justice to a Shyamalan script. Deschanel on the other hand is one of my least favorite actresses and I knew I would not enjoy her performance. Those wide eyes and canned delivery always rub me the wrong way.

The plot of the film had promise; plant life evolving and developing a defense mechanism against the disease that is mankind. Plenty of potential - very Shyamalan. The execution couldn’t have been worse in my opinion however. Everything was spelled out for the viewer which is something Shyamalan has not done in the past, and the ending and re-ending were horrendous. The only way I can explain the existence of this movie to myself and to you is to hypothesize that this film was simply Shyamalan saying “Fuck You” to the world. Excuse my language.

Shyamalan has expressed publicly on several occasions that he is unhappy with the response to his films. The Happening was his reaction to the public’s reaction. The culmination of years of feeling like the public doesn’t appreciate him or his work.

Fine. You don’t want an intelligent, well-developed story… I’ll give you this crap I just jotted down on a napkin.

Fine. You don’t want thought provoking plot development… I’ll spell out every single detail.

Fine. You don’t want carefully crafted dialogue… I’ll give you drivel.

You want a twist? You’re going to know exactly how this movie is going to end an hour into it.

I sincerely hope that Shyamalan has only thrown in the towel on this bout and not on his career. He will truly be missed if this is the direction his films continue to take.

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Escalating fuel prices continue to impact our world economy, everyday life and the airline industry. Due to continued, unprecedented fuel costs, we will add the following fuel surcharge to Award Tickets originating from the U.S. and Canada, effective August 15, 2008:

• $25 for Award Travel between the 50 states and Canada
• $50 for Award Travel between the 50 states/Canada and all international destinations

This was a difficult but essential decision to ensure we are doing everything possible to offset the cost of fuel which has nearly doubled in the last year. This fuel surcharge will not impact any existing ticketed Award itineraries or any future Award Tickets issued prior to August 15, 2008, regardless of the date of travel. We hope this is temporary, and should fuel prices subside from current levels, we will reevaluate this surcharge…

Of course I am not upset with Delta Airlines for adding this surcharge. This measure being taken by Delta is simply the latest illustration of necessary responses to an ongoing crisis. Everyone is in a bad place right now and there really isn’t an end in sight. But we’ll all just keep paying our taxes and wait for the crisis to evaporate. That’s how it works, right?

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