August 19, 2003
The Times on Arianna
The NY Times today looks at Arianna Huffington: A Candidate Who Confounds, Charms and Reaps Publicity.
In search of a universal jukebox
One of the powerful ideas I'm pursuing in my book is the notion of a universal jukebox for movies, music, television and other media.
In some sense, it's what Netflix aspires to as a legitimate movie rental service. It's what Napster came close to achieving, and what clones like Kazaa strive for. And it's a path the iTunes Music Store clearly wants to take.
While I'm in agreement with the glowing reviews Apple has received for its service, my experience has been a less satisfactory one. I'm fairly sure this is due to lack of licensing agreements with smaller labels, but I've been disappointed in the offerings in the iTunes Store when I search out obscure, exotic or foreign titles.
My routine, I'll admit, is fairly unorthodox. I subscribe to MusicMatch, and often come upon off-the-beaten-track titles in categories like World music. When I hear a song I like, I jot the song title or band's name down. Then I wander over to the iTunes Store to buy it.
My success rate today was about 10 percent. True, these artists will never pull Britney-type numbers, but shouldn't an online store provide a selection that's both deep and wide?
Someone ought to make up a game with the oddball alternative spellings Apple comes up with. Search for Chico Cesar and Apple will ask, "Did you mean Choice Clear?" Search for Maui Morning and it asks, "Maxi Fortang?" A search for Yves Deruyter elicited this: "Ives Drummer?" Dissidenten yielded "Dissident?"
No returns at all for Juno Reactor, King Chango, Drakinbald, Ruisort, Peatbog Faeries, Boy Ge Mendes or Sasha.
So, my options appears to be limited: trek down to the record store and hope Tower carries some of the bands' CDs (not entirely likely), search for them at an online store (again, be forced to buy the entire CD), or try my luck on a file-sharing service.
I keep hoping they'll build that universal jukebox soon.
the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow said:
hi jd,
have you tried EMusic.com? it's my favorite musical diamond in the rough on the net; lots of off-the-beaten-track titles and back catalogs, including a bunch of World stuff. EMusic sez they've got some 250,000+ tracks from nearly 1000 independent labels on-line -- all for a flat fee of $10 a month with NO DRM bunkum -- in high quality VBR encoded mp3s. i'm downloading around 2000 tracks a month (~200 cds) from EMusic. with such freedom and ability, EMusic has become a virtual radio station for me and the "vein" from which i "mine" most of my New Music these days. lot's of undiscovered/unheard of gems there, if you're willing to spend the time to "pan", er, "dig" around for 'em.
with kind prague regards,
geoff
JD Lasica said:
I've heard good things about EMusic. Maybe I'll sign up this week. Thanks...
Paul Murray said:
FWIW, I tried emusic and found their catalog wanting (the other aspects were ok -- especially no extra charge for burning). But maybe they have what you're looking for.
RIAA Subpoenas and the Final Failure of the DMCA
InfoWorld: In filing thousands of subpoenas trying to force ISPs to identify customers who may have pirated music, the RIAA has demonstrated beyond one thing: the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)has absolutely and completely failed in its purpose.
10 Quick Steps
This from the TidBITS email newsletter:
Radio host David Lawrence (of Online Tonight and the new David Lawrence Show) has started a series of ebooks that he calls the 10 Quick Steps Guides. Each $10 guide follows a 10-step format that provides either a process or tips for accomplishing the task at hand. In an unusual twist, the 10 Quick Steps Guides are available both in PDF (formatted for reading onscreen) and in MP3 format for listening.<http://www.10quicksteps.com/>
Lawrence has written two 10 Quick Steps Guides, one on avoiding spam that offers a series of interconnected strategies for getting spam out
of your face, and another on how to make a Wi-Fi connection, using the information I gathered when writing The Wireless Networking Starter Kit.<http://www.10quicksteps.com/spam/>
<http://www.10quicksteps.com/wifi/>
<http://wireless-starter-kit.com/>
A nice idea for those who prefer a simple how-to guide.
Stop the 'Victory Act'
The news media have reported that John Ashcroft will take to the hustings beginning this week -- especially the hustings in the toss-up states -- to barnstorm for the sequel to the Patriot Act.
Howard Dean's people have put together a Stop Ashcroft petition to stop passage of the Victory Act. Sign it here.
Discover compromising documents
You, too, can uncover compromising and deleted documents on the Web.
Sobig virus returns
I've gotten about 200 "bounced" emails in the past day from emails I allegedly sent out ... but didn't. Turns out there's a virulent virus going around. Dave Farber was hit, too.
News.com: World squirms as Sobig returns.
I suppose nothing can be done about this, but the writer should certainly have addressed that obvious question.
In any event, it's time to rethink my general opposition to the death penalty. For the virus culprit, not the writer.
Liking Netflix
OK, so a million folks have beaten us to the party, but my wife and I finally signed up for Netflix earlier this month. For 20 bucks a month, we'll be getting our 7th, 8th and 9th DVDs this month sometime tomorrow or Wednesday.
The service is remarkable and convenient, with amazing turn-around times and a graphically pleasing site, though the recommendation technology has a little ways to go. Best of all, we're able to find obscure films not available at the local Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. I'm surprised, though, that Netflix's catalog of classic films isn't as robust as I'd expected. Farewell, My Lovely; Hitchcock's The Wrong Man; The Innocents; The Last Tycoon; The Osterman Weekend; Public Access; Repulsion; Fat Girl; Kiss or Kill -- all of these have made the top 100 films list of some movie critics, but none are to be found at Netflix.
Pay what it's worth to you
Peter Zollman at E-Media Tidbits points to a post-pricing concept introduced today on PaidContent.org, Rafat Ali's blog. Writes Peter: "It's an interesting concept that he describes as 'shareware-meets-EBay-with-a-dash-of-Priceline.' Essentially, you read or download something first -- articles, news, music, games -- and then decide to pay what you thought it was http://www.paidcontent.org/stories/postpricing1.shtmlworth. It could work. I've recently started reviewing micro-payment systems again for some client research, and this is an interesting variation thereon. You'd have to sign up first, so no random downloads by mickey@goofy.com would work."
This isn't a new concept, and someone must have tried this before -- so I'm not sure whether a patent is warranted in this case -- but it's a formula that seems well suited for amateur publishers on the Web. Fancy graphics aside, it strikes me as a sort of fancy tip jar.
The Big Lie Machine
This week Salon is excerpting five parts from columnist Joe Conason's new book Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth.
In the intro, Conason tells how "the right-wing propaganda machine demonizes liberals and distorts the common-sense politics of America."
In today's part 2, "Limousine liberals and corporate-jet conservatives," Conason describes how George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter bash elitist lefties, but their faux populism masks a slavish devotion to the interests and indulgences of the wealthy.
Lessig interviews Trippi
Larry Lessig has an interview he did with Joe Trippi, campaign manager for Howard Dean, here (as a PDF). The interview, covering Dean's Internet campaign and the Dean for America blog, is licensed under the Creative Commons Atribution License.
News that comes to you
It's catch-up day here at New Media Musings.
For those who missed Dan's Sunday column in the Merc, "New wave of newsreader software makes sense of the Web," check it out.
And if you're not up to speed on the benefits of RSS news readers, I wrote a piece on the subject.
