David Emery OnlineKanye On Twitter
This is important.
Historically, there’s been a buffer between star and audience. And this buffer was managed by professionals who’d seen it all and told you how and when to play. It was like everybody with a media profile had a coach. And if you disobeyed him, you were booted from the team.
But now, through the magic of the Web, through the magic of Twitter, a celebrity can speak directly to his audience, can tell his side of the story, sans the reinterpretation and the agenda of the media.
Kanye on Twitter has been really interesting this past few days.
He ‘gets’ it.
Visit ➔iTunes Says Artist Profiles On Ping Invitation Only
We asked Apple to explain and just heard back from a spokesperson that "artist profiles were launched by invitation, but we'll keep adding more and more." No information was provied on who is handing invites or what criteria they are using. But bands do have another option ...kind of. "Any iTunes user can create a profile on Ping, artist or otherwise," reminds Apple.
As a follow up to my earlier post, it does indeed seem to be the case that you have to go through the existing iTunes Connect system that labels/distributors have with Apple.
Interestingly, the recommended artists section on Ping is now suggesting 31 artists, along with the 6 I’m following already, and it’s going up day by day and adding new pages to the box.
Which suggests to me that as of right now, there are only 37 artists active on Ping.
Visit ➔Arcade Fire meets HTML5
What would a music experience designed specifically for the modern web look like? This is a question we've been playing around with for the last few months. Browsers and web technologies have advanced so rapidly in the last few years that powerful experiences tailored to each unique person in real-time are now a reality.
File under “mind blowing” and “why didn’t I think of that”.
It reminds me of when Google first released Google Maps, playing around with the draggable maps and wondering how the hell they did it without using Flash. A little light bulb went off in my (and judging by the buzzword-ification of AJAX, a fair few other peoples) head about the possibilities it revealed were possible.
This is just like that.
Visit ➔Arcade Fire's Synchronised Artwork
Morisset has worked with designer Caroline Robert to create a digital artwork that appears when the album is played on mp3 players like the iPod or iPhone. The work deliberately echoes the pleasures of old vinyl record sleeves, where the song lyrics were often written out in full. Each track on the album has an individual image that appears on the iPod screen when it is played, with the lyrics of the song then appearing on the screen as they are sung.
Well this is very clever – you’ve been able to embed time-specific artwork in AAC tracks for ever (and is used a lot in podcasts) but I’ve never seen anyone do anything interesting with it before.
Visit ➔Sleigh-ed In Flame
...But actually this is one of the most forward-looking electro-guitar pop albums of the year (by turns it mixes Atari Teenage Riot with MIA, the Mary Chain and industrial hip-hop beats). It seems to constantly push you to the edge of your senses and then reels you back in. It wants to give you a headache and then sooth your brow.
I love the Sleigh Bells album – got to be not only the best debut of the year so far but one of the best albums of 2010 full stop.
Visit ➔I think iTunes is done.
I hated the media-creep of iTunes from the start. A dedicated ‘QuickTime Video Library’ would’ve been my preferred solution for Movies and TV shows, a rebuild of iSync to handle MobileMe and iPhone synchronization settings, and a standalone iTunes Store app (or, frankly, web site) for media purchases.
I have a real love/hate relationship with iTunes; I love the fact it has all my music in, and the power of smart playlists and the useful features it’s accumulated over the years, but simultaneously rue the fact it’s undoubtably the worst designed application Apple have.
I think it’s quite interesting that on iOS the functions iTunes does on the Mac are split out into 3 different apps (or 4 on the iPod/iPad with the Movies app) – “iPod” for media playback and organisation, “iTunes” for purchasing media and “App Store” for apps. I’d quite like to see something similar on the desktop, with the Finder handling syncing devices (don’t really need a separate app for that I don’t think).
Visit ➔Robyn launches 3D, interactive video
Swedish pop star Robyn has launched a 3D video, complete with Twitter integration, for her delightfully titled new track, Don't Fucking Tell Me What To Do...
Pretty nifty, although it’s not the most amazing bit of computer animation I’ve ever seen.
It is though a good signifier of how the music video really has transitioned to being based primarily on the internet, and how it’s changing because of it.
Visit ➔No cloud-based iTunes in Apple’s WWDC keynote
As you’ll know if you read our earlier liveblog, the rumours that Apple would have an iTunes announcement during CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote at its WWDC show today were inaccurate. No cloudstreaming iTunes, and no web-based iTunes.com store. Sorry folks.
I would have been very surprised if Apple had announced a cloud-based iTunes service yesterday - it was always going to be about the new iPhone, and it's worth remembering that this is a developer conference; new features for iTunes aren't very interesting to developers.
My bet is that we'll see iTunes 10, complete with some form of MobileMe-based over-the-air library functionality, in the traditional music/media focused September event they normally do. Same goes for a new version of the Apple TV, which will tie in to all that cloud malarky.
And the new iPhone? My only question is whether to get it in white or black…*
* Although it will be my second new Apple gadget in the space of a month, which makes me feel like a consumer whore. A happy consumer whore, though, with lots of nice shiny things.