David Emery Online

MyTunes

Ok, here’s a simple idea for you.

Firstly, on one hand we have social networks, the most popular being MySpace, but other ones like Last.fm and Bebo get good traffic as well.

On the other hand we have the iPod, and more importantly the iTunes Store which is the most popular online music download store.

There are already moves to integrate the later with the former, in the form of things like SnoCap which allow you to add paid for music downloads to your MySpace page.

But what if we did it the other way around?

Turn the iTunes Store into a social network.

They already have a lot of the basics, like user accounts, commenting on pages (releases) and tracking systems that track your music habits (as seen in the “Just For You” feature). Imagine if Apple flipped a switch allowing you to have your own page on the iTunes store, where you can automatically display your favourite songs, based on your listening habits. Don’t forget video as well – Last.fm are only just getting into video, and Apple could nicely pull the rug out from under their feet.

What’s most interesting is how this could potentially hook up with all of...

Control freakery

I’ve noticed an increasing trend at work, and I wonder if my experience tallies with everyone else’s.

We are taking on more and more projects in-house, up to the point where doing something out of house is very much something out of the ordinary. This is the complete reverse of the situation a year ago, where more projects (and I’m specifically referring to web projects) were done by freelancers then full time members of staff.

Quite admittedly we’ve taken on more staff since then – and get another in a few weeks – but the tide had changed way before they* came along.

I think one of the main – if not the main – reasons is that we ended up realising that for a lot of things, we could do them in house with the same amount of effort as managing an external contractor. We turn stuff around so ridiculously quickly – probably at least 1 reasonably complicated site a week, coupled with half a dozen or so one or two pages mini-sites and a host of site updating – that we start to hit problems that simply can’t be avoided when using external people, like the amount of time it takes...

Personal News

Isn’t it funny how the most important things in life never get reported on the news?

We place so much significance on the media, and the information it brings, but yet it fails us at the most important hurdle.

Personal news.

Your friend has just passed his driving test.

Your mum has gone to hospital.

Your car has been clamped. Again.

No news service will ever offer this, but this kind of stuff is the most important kind of news. This is why services like the much-blogged Twitter work and work well. The small, insignificant things that mean nothing to most mean a huge amount to some.

The same concept can be applied to so many things.

One song, artist or genre can mean so much to somebody not necessarily because of the music, but because of the time and mood it generates. I think this much is obvious to most people, and the same is true with small pieces of information; news, thoughts etc.

Or at least, it’s the only reason I can think of that explains peoples obsession with The Smiths and The Stone Roses.

I’m not joking.

Don’t underestimate the importance of personal orientated information.

Friday Links V

One Number That Will Ring All Your Phones – This is such a great idea; why you would you ever want multiple phone numbers? It’s interesting to see that the US telecoms market finally seems to be trying new things.

Google phone – it’s for real – I really can’t comprehend why anyone is exited about this; what history or experience does Google have making consumer electronic devices? A phone is not a web app. Especially odd considering Google seem to be highly involved with the iPhone, which maybe a tactic admission that Google thinks the Google Phone isn’t going to do as well…

Katamari Damacy t-shirts – I’d quite like either the blue one or the yellow one, pretty please. Worth noting the design/code on Panic’s site while you’re there – very nicely done.

GoPlan – a nice Basecamp alternative, which looks on the surface like it could be better. It’s a shame it’s a hosted-only service though – I’d pay if I could install it on my server.

Using Lightroom At Etel – Since Lightroom 1.0 hit the shelves I’ve seen a lot of former Aperture evangelists raving about it, but I still just don’t get on...

LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem are the greatest band currently working.

Their new record, Sound of Silver – out this week – is the best record I’ve heard this year.

I’ve just got back from seeing them live performing at the Astoria in London, and they were simply amazing. What I think sets LCD apart is their sheer musicianship – all the members of the live band, which includes one of Hot Chip, are incredibly accomplished musicians; they all know how to make a song perfect, and are more then willing to experiment live and take songs in a different direction.

Take, for example “Daft Punk is Playing In My House”, one of their most popular songs from their last album, which they played last night. Instead of playing it straight, as it sounds on the record like most bands would, they really mixed it up a bit, making it both funkier and heavier. The same can be said for “Yeah”, which was one of the highlights, and went on for about 15 minutes climaxing in 3 of the band all drumming call and response style.

I’m a big fan of drumming.

Best song of the night was probably “New York I Love You”, which is just a...

Slacker

Slacker.com is the new site getting all the hype, having just launched at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

The main concept is of an internet radio station, very much like Pandora or the radio component of Last.FM. For free (ad supported) you can listen to a stream of music which you control (to a certain extent- you get 6 track skips per hour). Further down the line, if you pay them $7.95 a month you get to save songs to your HD (they don’t mention what format this will be in, and whether it’ll be DRM-less or not) and you loose the adverts.

Where people seem to have got most exited is the hardware player they plan to launch (which you can see here). This is basically an iPod sized device with a large screen, a small amount of storage (it’s flash based, so probably 2gb – 8gb) and WiFi which allows the device to connect to the online Slacker service and stream tracks.

Apparently, according to the articles I’ve seen, this is revolutionary.

It’s an iPod and iPhone killer.

Apparently.

Firstly, lets just ignore the fact that this whole thing – other then the Pandora clone web radio – is vapourware.

The...

Record Shops

Alan McGee – of Creation records fame – has written an interesting blog post about whether we still need record shops on the Guardian Music blog.

The answer, of course, is no.

Lots of people disagree, though.

Now, Alan is an exception, rather then the rule, in this case as he doesn’t go to record shops to buy records as such – as an industry person, he can get all the records he wants for free (and then some), so for him record shops are more market research, just to check things are still ticking over like he thinks they do.

I’ll be honest, I do the same.

I would hazard a guess that for most people in the music industry, the same has been true for a while – they don’t go to record shops to buy music as such, more to find out what’s going on, chat with the staff a bit (don’t forget, they probably know them) and maybe pick up a couple of things that may have slipped through the blagging net.

The difference today is that more and more people get their music for free.

And all of those people that do, really don’t need a record store to recommend music...

Mass produced customer service

I’m back from Brighton, which was very nice – I seemed to luck out rather nicely with the weather, which was ~15 degrees the whole time.

One of the most interesting aspects – other then the city itself – was the hotel we stayed in; specifically its customer service. Being someone relatively recently out of university, we went for pretty much the cheapest hotel we could find, and ended up in a little place called Millards. As fitting for the price we paid, the room we stayed in was pretty small (although that’s what we expected), but it was nice enough and had all the things you would really need in a hotel room.

Typically, I dislike staying in hotels mostly due to the customer service you receive. Obviously, good customer service is possibly one of the most important things a hotel can do and every hotel knows that.

The result is mass produced customer service.

“Thanks for staying with us.”

“I hope you had a lovely stay.”

Of course, in most places the people saying these things not only don’t mean them, I think they may have forgotten what they mean they’ve said them so many times. The result for me is that in...

Friday Links IV

Apologies for the lack of a post yesterday – I’m having a nice weekend in Brighton this week, which inevitably meant squeezing a five day week into a four day week. Anyway, on with the links:

Sony unveils cooperative platformer, LittleBigPlanet – This just looks like huge amounts of fun, and actually makes me want to get a PS3. There’s still nothing on the Xbox 360 that has really tempted me yet, so I think (given time and funds) the Wii and PS3 are what I’ll probably end up with.

PlayStation Home, the free virtual world of PlayStation 3 – This also looks interesting, especially considering it seems to be completely free for PS3 owners. The Sony showing at GDC this year was very strong – they now seem to be right back on track, after the mountains of negative press they’ve picked up recently.

Nintendo, on the other hand, didn’t announce anything at all at their keynote, although I still like the look of Super Paper Mario and Mario Galaxy still looks great:

4AD Journal – We’ve just...

Recently

Since I keep bleating on about being so busy, it’s probably high time I show you some of the things I’ve been up to.

Most interesting, I think, is a site we launched today for RJD2, called AskRJD2. As the name gives away slightly, the site revolves around fans asking RJ questions around his new album (which is really good, by the way, although a bit of a departure from his previous work).

This is all accomplished in true “Web 2.0” (yuck) style as a YouTube mashup, pulling in videos using the API and then displaying them in a nifty YUI carousel widget. Quite a lot of fun to put together, really.

Also quite recent is the site for young funsters I Was A Cub Scout. It’s another simple little site put together using Textpattern for the CMS, PunBB for the forum and PhpList for the mailing list. Mmmm, can’t get enough of that quality Open Source software – not quite sure what we’d do without it.

We’ve also put together a similar setup – minus the Textpattern bit, which is coming soon – for Future of the Left – another work band I’m...