David Emery Online

The Raconteurs - Salute Your Solution

I really quite like the new video for The Raconteurs – it’s not filmed in the traditional sense but actually a composition of hundreds of still photos:

Japan: URL's Are Totally Out

File under ‘interesting cultural shift’. I’ve noticed the same thing a couple of times over here as well.

Inherent Value

I’m going to be frank: I’m getting pretty fed up with the – seemingly – widely held view that recorded music doesn’t have an inherent value:

TechCrunch: These Crazy Musicians Still Think They Should Get Paid For Recorded Music

The main thrust of his argument in this case is sadly un-arguable; Billy Bragg is – as ever, it seems – barking up the wrong tree. Bebo quite obviously have not founded their business on music streams – in fact, they’re far more ‘social networking’ biased then a lot of other places (like MySpace and iMeem). It’s also true in a lot of cases that record labels and artists upload the music themselves, secure in the knowledge that they’re not going to receive a dime in return – although this is either outweighed by the publicity gained or (and don’t forget this one, folks) the artistic value in sharing your music.

However, the key argument is utterly flawed: why should websites that generate revenue from other peoples music not give a proportion of that back to the artist? Recorded music does have a value, there’s no two ways about it – it costs money to create, and costs money to distribute (although this...

Rock Band meets iTunes, opens built-in music store

They’ve already sold over 6 million songs on the Rock Band store, which I think is a pretty amazing figure. I would also hazard a guess that these sales are much more biased towards catalogue sales then a traditional retailer would be.

The Teenagers Prom

Sleevage: Editors: The End Has a Start

Very interesting article on the cover for the Editors latest album. I’m not particularly a fan of theirs, but the cover and the other bits of photography used are really quite nice.

wikinear.com, OAuth and Fire Eagle

Very nifty Wikipedia – Fire Eagle mashup that shows you Wikipedia articles around where you are at the moment. Definitely want to do some geo-location based stuff soon…

Do the right thing

It’s almost more important to figure out what things you shouldn’t do then to figure out what you should do.

I was talking to someone the other day who owns a small business, and they employ a small agency to sort out their online marketing. They help out with things like their website, SEO, advertising and the like. At the moment they’re pushing my friend into setting up a company blog, which I think is a great idea. However, they’re also pushing for them to set up a Facebook Page and a MySpace, as well as a whole load of other social network stuff.

How pointless.

If you are a small business, what relevance does a Facebook page have? Are you really going to have a big enough online audience to make that kind of endeavour worth the time and (more importantly if you’re the agency suggesting this stuff) the money?

I think sometimes on the web it’s very easy to forget the simple, straightforward things; anything that’s old is seen as somehow inferior and cast aside in the hunt for the new. Sure, there’s obviously an advantage to be gained by being the first to do something – that can get press...

Matador Intended Play sampler 2008 — ready to download and burn

Everyone likes a good bit of free, legitimate indie music, don’t they? 12 tracks from Matador Records’ finest.

Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90

Nothing I could write would do him justice. He was one of the best.