David Emery OnlinePortable Social Networks, The Building Blocks Of A Social Web
Well worth a read – I particularly like the automatically generated life stream stuff.
Visit ➔Phasing out support for IE 6 across all 37signals products on August 15, 2008
Good to see some movement in this direction, although I think it may be a little premature; obviously it depends on your audience (and 37signals is going to have a more early-adopter heavy audience then most) but on the sites I look after IE 6 makes up 35% of IE users (which has about 40% market share in total).
It would really have to drop below 5% for me to consider dropping support I think, but it has got to the stage where it seems fairly reasonable to serve a less flashy version to IE 6 users – so we can start using things like transparent pngs and serve IE 6 a simplified version still keeping the fundamental content readable and the site useable.
Visit ➔Cool
Yesterday I popped down to DPMHI in Soho to check out The Cool Kids ‘Bake Sale’ – think an in-store, but with cookies and beer (what event isn’t better with the addition of cookies and beer?). It was – of course – great fun, and was all in aid of promoting The Cool Kids’ album ‘The Bake Sale’ (hence the cookies…) which is out in August.
The Cool Kids aren’t the normal indie-shmindie that normally graces these pages; they’re hip hop, and good hip hop at that. It’s not a genre that I normally frequent in quite frankly, but ‘The Bake Sale’ is one of my most listened to albums of the last couple of months. It’s got groove – if you’re not normally a hip hop listener I heartily recommend it.
Here’s the video for ‘Black Mags’ as a little sampler – for more check out their MySpace:
Of course, I took a few photos while I was there – need to get a wide angle lens though…
Read more ➔National Assn. of Recording Merchandisers Urges Release Date Parity
“Err, hi guys. You seem to be screwing up our business model (even though consumers obviously like it) – could you stop please? Pretty please?”
I also particularly like the phrase “…we are opening the door for chaos in the marketplace”.
Visit ➔Reflection: the national on the big stage
While we’re on the topic of long-form music writing, have a read of this great piece charting the (eventual) rise of The National. It’s an interesting read, and brings up some interesting thoughts about the consumption of digital music and the subsequent consequences in the comments.
Incidentally, The National for me are the very definition of a ‘grower’ band; every album they’ve done so far on first listen has sounded slightly dull – it’s only a month (or two or three) later that I realise just how brilliant it is. For reference, that is very fucking brilliant.
Visit ➔Is The BBC The Enemy Of Hip Hop?
A very worthwhile read on the state of racial segregation on UK public radio today. The concept of 1xtra and things like the Mobo Awards has always sat uncomfortably with me (their very being is basically based on racist thinking), and it’s good to see I’m not alone in that.
Also, it’s also well worth checking out www.thequietus.com in more depth – it’s fast becoming my favourite music blog as it has a very refreshing focus on actual writing and journalism, as opposed to the up-to-the-minute news slant that most music sites take.
Visit ➔MySpace opens its garden, allows third-party data sharing
A very promising start, although it seems to be limited to ‘people’ at the moment – I’d really like to hack away at getting data from artist profiles. It’s good to see MySpace finally getting their shit together, what with this and the recent redesign – they just need to redesign profile pages next…
Visit ➔Expression Engine vs Textpattern
Mr Hicks is pretty much on the money here, I think – Expression Engine is definitely more powerful then Textpattern, especially when it comes to things like users, but it’s just not as ‘nice’ to use.
Visit ➔Project 365 was difficult today
Regular readers (and irritated friends/co-workers) may know that this year I’m undertaking a photography exercise called Project365. The concept is simple: everyday, I take a photo. Come rain or shine, illness or busyness each and everyday a photo must be taken.
So far, I’ve managed it.
Just.
Unsurprisingly, some days it’s harder then others. The inspiration isn’t there maybe, or the opportunity never arises. More days then not are almost exactly the same for me, on a general scale, as I imagine they are for most people; wake up, go to work, go for lunch, do more work, go home. Repeat.
This isn’t so much of a problem to start with – each of these different activities has quite a few photos in them; your walk to work, the immediate area around your desk (and your colleagues – sorry again!), the park you have lunch in etc. Then their are the less regular traditional photo opportunities to mix things up with – mostly gigs in my case.
However, after about 3 months or so the burn kicks in. You’ve taken all the easy pictures, the ones that don’t take any effort. You find yourself in a panic at about 11:30 in the evening prowling round...
Read more ➔An Essential Dozen: 2008's best albums so far
I was considering posting a ‘albums of the year so far’ type post, but this pretty much covers it (bar a few exceptions, which I’m sure they’ll have in tomorrows follow up best). Not often you come across a music related list you wholly agree with…
Visit ➔