11 Aug '06 Viral, but still funny

tapes

As a neat follow on to my post on music videos below is a rather amusing promo video for the rather excellent Tapes ‘n Tapes.

Now, this video is not a music video in the traditional sense – it features only small snippets of music, and brief bits of an interview – but I’m sure it will get much more traction and generate much more “buzz” then the forthcoming video for their next single will.

Maybe this is a potential solution to the selling music videos problem; more and more what are called “electronic press kits” are produced for an album, which are typically made up of a filmed interview of the artist. For Thom Yorke we released sections of the EPK over time as a video podcast (which worked out really well) – a combination of this along with more humour based short films (obviously different approaches work with different artists) may hold more interest then the traditional music video.

Anyway, enough rambling – enjoy:

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10 Aug '06 Critical

plane

No doubt you will have seen all the furore about the latest exploits of the “evil” terrorists, and the subsequent crippling of the countries airports.

In my eyes, this is one step by the government too far.

Granted, it appears that they have credible information which has lead to the arrest of around 20 people that were going to attempt to blow up 10 planes on their way to the US. That’s of course assuming that the information is credible (they don’t exactly have a good track record…). But what are they trying to gain by the hugely increased security measures at airports?

For a start, they have stopped the “terrorists”, so why the need for security? One reason I’ve seen is that there could be other terrorist cells that they are unaware of that could perform a similar attack – but surely that’s no different then any other point in time; there could always be terrorists planning attacks (and there probably always are).

Also, the measures they are taking are to be completely draconian. According to reports the plan involved the use of liquid explosives, so stopping people taking liquids on board would seem to be a reasonable precaution (although obviously traditional policing such as what lead to the arrests is so much more effective). But why the complete ban on all other cabin luggage? I can see where they’re coming from on with not allowing electronics on board (I’m sure any bomb concealed in a laptop would do no damage in the hold), but magazines? Glasses cases? Books?

The whole story is just an exercise in scare mongering by the government, and yet another example of a completely unnecessary removal of our personal freedoms. I’m sure ID cards will get brought up again in the next few weeks, and the whole thing has proved an easy distraction from the war in Lebanon – of which we have played a despicable role, all at the behest of the US.

The point of terrorism is by it’s very definition is to cause terror – I think out current government is at the moment causing far more terror then the people planning to blow up planes.

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09 Aug '06 YouTube killed the iTunes star

musicvideos

Apparently, in a further move to show how outdated modernise the UK singles chart music video sales are going to count towards chart position. Read more on NME.com

I’m of the opinion that this is a fundamentally stupid move; but doesn’t surprise me in the least. The music industry’s current drive towards monetising video is fascinating in the contradictions it causes. Music videos have always historically been about promotion; obviously if you don’t have a video then the multiple music tv channels won’t play your song – and if you have a really good video it’ll help build buzz about both the song and the artist.

Now, contrast that with trying to sell music videos. Firstly, we’re still not really seeing proof that demand is there for music videos in their current purchasable state. Secondly, how do you convince people that something they have always got for free, and continue to get for free on tv, is now magically worth something?

Then of course, is the YouTube dilemma. YouTube, now one of the most trafficked sites on the internet, is almost certainly the most important place you can put your music video. Front page coverage on YouTube is now probably more useful then a low rotation on MTV for a large demographic of potential music buyers; do you sacrifice that, though, for more (any?) download video sales.

Sure, the videos on YouTube aren’t great quality, but in most cases it doesn’t really matter (it’s not really too different to VHS quality, and we managed with that didn’t we?); they’re not that much then what you’d buy anyway. This is coupled with the other problem inherent to YouTube: even if you don’t put your video on YouTube, it’ll appear on there anyway – and stay there (if you take one copy of a video down, three more appear in it’s place…).

The other problem with adding music video sales to the charts, other then the stupidity of anyone trying to make money off them in the first place, is where you buy them from: iTunes. You are really not going to buy them anywhere else, are you? This would be great if their wasn’t several problems with iTunes being the only retailer in this market.

To start with, and this harks back to some of my previous points, is the actual product that you get. From iTunes, this means a DRM’d 320×240 Quicktime movie. The quality of this isn’t great by any means, so the YouTube quality argument goes straight out of the window, and the DRM (which disallows any format changing or burning, unlike their music DRM) makes the product much less appetising.

However, the major problem of the iTunes music video store is that Apple doesn’t care about it in any major way. Sure, they like selling videos – and have according to the NME story have sold 35 million since October 2005 – but what they like selling (and what sells) are TV shows. The focus on TV shows means that Apple couldn’t care less about what music videos they have on the store – they’re just an added bonus.

Which is why the music video selection on iTunes is awful.

They just don’t get videos onto the store quickly, and if you’re an independent they might not get your videos on their at all.

If music video sales get counted towards the charts, they’re only going to get skewed even more towards major label pop, and no-one wants that, do they?

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08 Aug '06 BarCamp London

barcamp

Ah, it’s been a while since I’ve been to one of these “geek” events, but BarCamp London in September looks like a good one.

For more info, go to the site: BarCamp London

It’ll be nice to check out the Yahoo offices, and the whole participatory aspect sounds very interesting to me. What I’m most excited about, though, is that it’s going to be the first public unveiling of the project I’ve been working on in my spare time.

It’s all very interesting!

I am however, not going to say anything about it till then…

The hype starts here!

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07 Aug '06 WWDC Followup

wwdcfollowup

Well, I have to say that was more interesting then I thought it might be – more for what wasn’t shown then was, however.

With Steve saying that they were keeping some major features under wraps – ostensibly to keep Microsoft from copying them, but with their current problems with Vista I imagine it’s really because they’re not finished – I’m even more sure we’re going to get a complete visual refresh with 10.5, and probably a whole new Finder as well (as that seemed to have no improvements either).

So, lets see how I did then?:

I was pretty much dead on with the Mac Pros, and very nice they are too. The all quad line-up is a nice surprise, and the almost Dell style online configuration is interesting too – makes a lot of sense for the Pro models, but I wonder how that’s going to work at retail?

Cinema Displays: nope, I was wrong here – although they do get a price drop. Maybe the Paris Expo in September (although that’s probably going to be all about MacBooks Pros + iMacs).

10.5: only 1.5/7 here; pretty close with the new Mail and iCal improvements, which look really great (To-Dos in Mail! RSS in Mail! Proper iCal sharing!), and I’ll give myself 0.5 for Time Machine (“At least one thing that no-one has predicted that is unbelievably cool.”).

Time Machine looks seriously cool – that UI is just amazing, and the functionality just as good – Apple really hit it out of the ball park here. Hopefully it doesn’t use up too much disk space, the potential for completely changing day to day use is staggering; it reminds me of when they showed us ExposŽ for the first time…

Ok, so they didn’t call it virtual desktops (*Spaces* is a much better name anyway…), but they certainly are virtual desktops, much to my chagrin. Judging by the movies up apple.com though, they have of course managed to use their Apple magic and make them look really neat and useable. I remain to be convinced, though.

It’s a bit of a shame we didn’t get VOIP in iChat, but the new features do look very cool – especially the screen sharing functions. Looks very useful for collaboration on things when you’re not in the same place – it’ll be interesting to see how well it works (better then vnc or Remote Desktop?).

The other new features all look great as well; the new voice is really good – text to speech is actually useable now!; The Spotlight UI improvements sounds really good; Xcode seems to have had a huge amount of improvements (although it’s a bit hard to tell from the site) – nice to see Interface Builder finally getting a proper update, and Xray looks phenomenally good (if I was still a developer it would have probably been the highlight).

So, where was Resolution Independence? And the new Finder? As I mentioned earlier, the absences of these two I think are a sure fire indication that these are where the most interesting developments in 10.5 will lie, and they probably aren’t ready yet.

If you weren’t sure we were getting a whole new look in 10.5, you should be now.

Even if I was a bit off about 10.5 – mostly due it still be under-wraps if you ask me! – I was dead on about what we wouldn’t see – no iPods, no iTunes, no iPhone and no MacBook Pro re-design. I was actually quite surprised by the Xserve update; not that it was going to happen – that was obvious – just that it got keynote time.

So, there we have it.

Spring 2007 can’t come soon enough.

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04 Aug '06 WWDC Predictions

wwdc

Ah, it’s finally that wonderful time of year: Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference. This one I think should be a particularly good one, as we get to see what surprises 10.5 will bring – OS design is I think what Apple do best of all – and we should also get new PowerMacs as well (or Mac Pros, as they seem to be going to be called).

So, some predictions:

  • The announcement of Mac Pros. These will look very similar to the current G5s but be intel based. I think we’ll get at least one quad processor model, along with more space for hard drives and an additional optical drive. I also think they they may feature some new hardware feature, but I don’t know what.

  • To go with the Mac Pros we’ll also get a new range of displays, with built in iSights and remotes. 20”, 24” and 30” I think, but maybe with better resolutions then they do currently and definitely better LCD panels.

  • 10.5. This will be the real meat of the keynote, and will certainly have the most interesting bits in it:

    • Resolution Independence: This one they’ve already announced, so it’s a bit of a given, but has some very exciting implications for the rest of the OS. It also allows the displays they announce to have higher DPIs then we might normally expect from Apple.

    • New UI: Now, because of the implementation of Resolution Independence, Apple are going to have to re created all of the OS interface elements from scratch at a higher resolution, or move to a more vector based drawing system. I think they are going to take this opportunity to change the general look of the OS. Gone will be the shiny Aqua buttons, replaced the the flat plastic look seen in iLife ‘06 – think gradients and a much more subtle, more sophisticated look. Don’t forget, this is Apple’s Vista-betting release, so we’re going to get something special

    • New Finder: I think there is only so long Apple can ignore the Finder; I think we could well get quite a few new features like tagging and metadata functions, Spotlight UI improvements, Networking improvements (which quite frankly sucks at the moment – just make the “Network” sidebar item show a more customised view of available servers combined with recent servers, and let us share specific folders!) and a general iTunes/iLife aesthetic overhaul. However, I’m sure we won’t get tabs – I just don’t think they make sense in the Finder.

    • No virtual desktops: They suck for 99% of the users out there – they just don’t get it. However, what with Resolution Independence coming in, we may get an improved ExposŽ that lets you use the windows as well

    • iChat VOIP: I think this will be a nice move by Apple, and will be coupled with compatibility with a major PC IM client. Maybe Skype? Maybe MSN/Yahoo?

    • Mail + iCal + iChat + Address Book: I think we’re going to see some cool improvements from a business perspective for these apps, and possibly something new (like a new app) that helps you collaborate with others using these apps.

    • At least one thing that no-one has predicted that is unbelievably cool.

I don’t think we’re going to get an iPhone, new iPod stuff or an iTunes movie store – iPod and music stuff normally get their own special events so the focus is on them. I’m sure all of these are coming fairly soon, though (yes, even the iPhone. Although it won’t be called that – maybe iPod Chat? Not sure…).

Also, I’m pretty sure that Apple are going to bump all of the existing macs up to the new Core 2 intel processors, but I don’t think Steve is going to waste keynote time on it. It’ll probably happen model by model over the next few months. One more thing – we’re not getting a new cased MacBook Pro now – It’ll get a speed bump soon, and then maybe a new case in January at MacWorld.

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03 Aug '06 CSS Suxxx

csssuxxx

Ok folks, this is just brilliant.

If you are reading this and are a web developer, or know a bit about web development and hence know what CSS is then you may well find the following extremely amusing:

  1. CSS Suxxx – Play

Download CSS Suxx.mp3

Cansei De Ser Sexy are a great new band from Brazil, and they happen to shorten their name to “CSS”, leading to the wonderful song above.

I feel the same about CSS often.

Hope I brightened your day just a little. Right, back to work…

(Oh by the way – if anyone from the wonderful Sub Pop Records is reading and wants me to take the mp3 down, just drop me a line. Although judging from your excellent podcast, you guys are pretty cool with this sort of thing.)

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02 Aug '06 Why Brand?

mybrand

Is branding still important? More to the point, is branding still relevant online or is it more important then ever?

Take MySpace for example – what is their brand? Is it a good one? The logo is quite frankly appalling, and the message that the site tells me is “amateur”. However, obviously none of this matters in the slightest. MySpace’s users and target market either aren’t aware of the branding and the problems surrounding it (how generic is both the name and the logo?) or they simply don’t care.

Now, to counter this we have the iPod phenomenon. The iPod is all about the brand – the player itself is certainly better then its rivals, but not that much better. So in the iPod’s case the branding is hugely important – and we’re talking about a very similar demographic here as well (I’m sure the vast majority of MySpacers have iPods).

What gives?

It really boils down to what you are trying to sell.

It is, of course, all about the content; the fallacy of many branding exercises is the deluded notion that branding is important all of the time. In fact, the inverse is much more likely. In MySpace’s case the interesting content is your friends, and the social space it creates. In what way does the branding affect that? None at all.

In the iPod’s case however, what you are selling is both the look of the player, and the story that the iPod is better then the other players. The branding is essential in both these cases – affecting both the aesthetics of the player, and the believability of the story.

So, lets take this logic and apply it to some other cases.

Say for example you are trying to sell a record. Branding is hugely prevalent in the music industry – not too surprising for an industry based on marketing – but is it worth it? For a start what are you actually selling? Two things, actually: The music, and the potential for more music.

The first one is fairly straight forward: branding is not needed. Does a good brand for an album make the slightest bit of difference to the quality of the music? No. It may play a role in creating a successful advertising campaign around it, but then advertising doesn’t work these days anyway.

Now, how does a brand affect the promise of more music? When I say “the promise of more music”, this generally means the artist or band themselves – after all, why would you care about an artist if you didn’t think they were going to release more records? Branding an artist then is surely all about keeping a constant brand across multiple releases. A few bands actually manage this – look at Basement Jaxx’s back catalogue for example – but the vast majority actually go through a complete re-brand once an album. Anecdotally, it seems like the more popular artists are the ones that maintain a brand over a several year period – whether this is related or not I don’t know.

For an artist, the brand purely helps as a reminder – a distinctive logo reminds you of the music you’ve heard before, so if you liked what you heard you get automatically associate with the brand in a positive way, and hence anything related to the brand gets strengthened. If, however the artist is for whatever reason not a long term artist – maybe it’s a collaboration or a compilation – then the artist branding is really inconsequential.

In conclusion then, branding – now that advertising is loosing its grip on the world as we are increasingly desensitised to it – is not necessarily the be all and end all. In some cases it is vital, but others it’s really not.

Don’t forget what you are selling.

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01 Aug '06 Width Redemption

width

I finally feel redemption.

All these months that I’ve been banging on about fluid width sites and the perils of designing for a fixed window size have finally been recognised!*

Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, July 31, 2006: Screen Resolution and Page Layout

The executive summary of his article is exactly what I’ve been saying for ages: most people use 1024×768, but not everyone uses it. To compound that, many people don’t maximise their windows anyway, so make sure your site is fluid and looks nice at a wide variety of resolutions and window sizes.

Back in the day – I’m talking pre-dotcom boom here – I was a big Jakob Nielsen fan. I still stand by that to a certain extent – if you are a web developer / designer you need to go and read every single article on the site, no questions asked. While some of the articles may be out of date, all of the logic behind them is valid and I think it really helps to get a bit of perspective some times.

However, I’m not really sure where he’s heading now. The site seems to feel really old – not from an aesthetics point of view, as it’s always looked old, but from a world outlook point of view. Jakob may still know he stuff when it comes to basic usability, as this post on page width shows, but I really don’t think he’s caught on to more recent changes in the tech world such as blogging, MySpace and RSS.

You get the feeling his head is still back in 1999, although with the amount of consulting he does coupled with the general state of many big business sites maybe the true internet revolution has passed him by.

* I have no doubt that Jakob Nielsen has not read my site, but who cares!

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31 Jul '06 End End End

end

Yesterday the news broke that E3 – the biggest game show of the year – has been cancelled next year.

Admittedly it turns out that the news was slightly incorrect – it’s merely downsizing – but that’s as good as a cancellation, as it means the big players most likely won’t bother going.

I’m really in two minds over the news. On one hand, the bonanza of news that accompanies a trade show is always fun in that kid-on-xmas-day way (and that reminds me, WWDC next week…) so it’ll be a shame to lose that for a couple of years until a natural successor appears. The GDC will probably take its place until then, but being an expensive developer event will mean that it can’t take the mantle over fully – I’m sure we’ll get something else soon enough.

On the other hand, do we really lose much by not having E3 (or it’s successor)?

It’s an ever more common trend that developers spend a lot of time and money getting ready for E3 that could almost certainly be better spent on actually making games. Of course, that’s not even considering the amount the publisher spends on a stand, booth-babes and related marketing materials.

No E3 = better games.

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