Good and More Good on the Digital Music Front

Through Gigalaw.com, two articles about the way the music industry should handle digital music. Article one is about a crackdown on illegal music pirating at universities. The RIAA understandably wants to crack down on the epic amounts of music be stolen at colleges. As the article says, "According to the research firm NPD, students accounted for 1.3 billion illegal music downloads in 2006." That's a lot of lost profits, for the labels, yes, but also for the artists. The RIAA seems to be content going after the universities themselves in their attempt to stem the tide, which I think is a good approach. Going after the file sharers directly has so far proven ineffective and evil.

Another good development is that Universal iFrance is testing restriction-free digital music. Albeit in a small way and with a caveat. "We are making some micro tests. This doesn't change our overall policy on DRM." This is according to Universal Music France, Middle East and Mediterranean-South America president Pascal Negre.

So there you go. Stop the thieves and give the honest people DRM free music. We can dream can't we?

20 must-have Firefox extensions

Some extensions I hadn't heard of here. Definitely worth a looks-see.

20 must-have Firefox extensions

FeedMiner: A Work In Progress I Hope

I was excited to see a new feed finder, hoping they were perhaps onto something the others have missed. At this point it seems FeedMiner has missed it too.

There's no ubiquitous "BETA" tag anywhere so either its creators are as sick of seeing them as we are or this is meant to be a finished product.

I tried two searches one specific and one general. I chose "fantasy baseball" ('tis the season) and "technology." Results for "fantasy baseball" were:

1. Fantasy Baseball : CBS SportsLine.com Fantasy Sports: Good!
2. Velocity Sports Blog: Sports, yes, but nothing about fantasy or baseball.
3. Fantasy sports podcast: It would be nice to keep podcasts and news feeds separate here, but at least this is somewhat relevant, if not specific to baseball.
4. McSweeney's: What? Not even close.
5. Baltimoresun.com: On Fantasy Sports: Not bad. Specific to the Baltimore Orioles mostly, but the columnist also discusses the rest of the league. Not Top Five-worthy though.
6. Will Carroll Presents: Will Carroll is a baseball writer, yes. However this feed appears to have expired two years ago.
7. SI.com - Fantasy sports: Good!
8. Amazon: baseball: This is an Amazon.com feed for books about baseball.
9. Wisch List: This is a non-sports Chicago Tribune Columnist.
10. Copyfight: A legal blog.

So I'd give those results a 3.5 out of 10 for accuracy. I would do a lot better if I did a regular Google search for "Fantasy baseball" and then checked if any of the sites had RSS feeds. Pretty poor.

For the general search "technology" the results were a bit better but I was alarmed to see the #1 result was a spam site. The rest of the results were largely the technology feeds for major news sites. Not bad, but hardly interesting.

Needless to say, I'm unimpressed with Feedminer's results. It also offers no bells an whistles like exporting results as OPML or saving good results to a personalized page. I have nothing against the stripped-down Google approach to search, but the results better be damn good.

Who's Your PollDaddy?

As a lifelong PollMonkey/SurveyMonkey fan, I figured I'd check out another alternative in case I've been missing out. A new Web 2.0ish site called PollDaddy offers slick looking, easy-to-create polls for free. The polls can be embedded using javascript or Flash and offer a few skins to choose from (presently 14).

They do look slick and create the polls is pretty simple using a three-step wizard. I encountered a little bug with adding the last question in a list, which was quickly resolved. You can cusomize the look and feel of the poll if you know a little CSS, which seems a bit techie for widespread use. I think they'd be better offering an intermediate solution between editing code and selecting a skin. Perhaps a checklist (Bevel: Yes or No, Chrome:Wood:Plastic, etc.) and a color/font picker.

Ultimately I created the poll below in about two minutes. I still prefer PollMonkey, but the next version of PollDaddy might become a contender.

Many Eyes are Better than Two

I just discovered a very intriguing site via dexly.com. The site is called Many Eyes and announces itself thusly:

"Welcome to the alpha version of Many Eyes! View your data, ask questions, and share your discoveries. Harness the collective intelligence of the net for insight and analysis."

Naturally, that does nothing to explain what it is. What it is is a community of data-philes who share and visualize information. For instance, someone uploads data about the unemployment rates in the U.S. by state. Now the data is available for everyone and anyone can go create a visualization of the data using Many Eye's intuitive interface. For instance I could easily create a bubble chart from the data where the states with the higher rates have larger bubbles.

Basically you choose your data set (by browsing what's there or searching), click a chart type, preview it, then publish it. You can tweak certain parts of the chart as well.

If you'd rather just browse though, there's plenty to see. The chart below shows companies by NAICS (industry classification) code in a very cool treemap. You can right-click on each section to blow it up and see the sub industries with in the main industry.



It would be nice to see this kind of community-based analysis show up in other places. I think some of the major news agencies might benefit from checking out some of the stuff people are coming up with on sites like Many Eyes.

Great E-Mail Marketing Resources

Thought I'd collect my favorite e-mail marketing sites and blogs into one neat package. Some of the sites below require registration, but most are free to the world. I subscribe to all of them through RSS or e-mail, which is infinitely helpful in keeping up with them and not getting overwhelmed.

In addition to what's below, I tag a lot of Email Marketing stuff on Del.icio.us, which is always available here: http://del.icio.us/napdynmite/emailmarketing

Clickz Email
http://blog.clickz.com/archives/topics/email.html
Frequently updated and widely-referenced, probably th best single source of email marketing information.

MarketingSherpa
http://www.marketingsherpa.com (sign up for the email marketing newsletter)
They offer a paid subscription and sell some nice studies, but the free content in the newsletter is fantastic. They also specialize in stats and benchmarking information found in few other places.

ReturnPath
http://www.returnpath.com
The deliverability kings offer up topics on a variety of "getting to the inbox" stuff and list management.

Campaign Monitor Blog
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/
An e-mail marketing system vendor with a lot of insight from the reseller's perspective.

ExactTarget Blogs
http://email.exacttarget.com/ETWeb/blogs.aspx
A top notch e-mail service provider's blog on a wide variety of topics from a smart bunch of practitioners.

MarketingProfs
http://www.marketingprofs.com (paid subscription and well worth it)
I unabashedly love MarketingProfs.com, not just for email, but a variety of resources, including a terrific email vendor matrix. Great content on email and much more.

Email Marketing Best Practices
http://www.b2bemailmarketing.com/
I just discovered this gem and already feel pretty comfortable recommending it. Tamara Geilen covers everything from design to spam legislation. You could spend a lot of time here.

Email Universe
http://emailuniverse.com/
Targeted at email newsletters primarily, but a lot of great advice about best practices in email.

Email Experience Council
http://www.emailexperience.org/They're new and they're building up their cache quickly. Join and get involved. The site has some good resources as well as a mission.

Never Look at a Dollar Bill the Same Way Again

This has nothing to do with technology but it's so weird, funny, and unique I had to mention it. It's a rap about the life of George Washington and it's utterly ridiculous in the best way possible. Also, the audio is not safe for work.

Video Ads Remain Stupid

As I mentioned in a previous post, I hate video ads and they desperately need some standards (in lieu of common sense I guess). Apparently Rebecca Lieb at Clickz agrees. She also points out the inherent issue with pre-roll video ads, which is that A) people in offices really don't want to have their PC speakers flooding the area with Viagra ads and B) people with audio turned off or their headphones plugged in and not on their heads aren't going to hear the audio anyway.

Video ads are a stupid practice and should probably just be stopped. I don't see the value to the advertiser or the host.

Six Things I'd Like to See in Second Life

I believe Second Life could become a huge thing in the next year but it has a ways to go. Some things I'd like to see are listed below. If these things exist I just haven't found them yet. Some of these are user issues and some are up to Linden Labs to fix:

1. A recommendation engine
   If this exists I haven't seen it. Let users rate places and let editors make recommendations. I can never seem to find any good places to visit. I think tagging might help as well.
2. Better in-world retail stores
   I've visited the Sears, Circuit City, Dell, IBM, and a car manufacturer's site (don't remember which). None of them offer much in the way of product selection or information. I understand it will take some time and proof of concept, but at this point it's just a few products with links to the company's Web site.
3. Better object interaction
   There are a lot of objects throughout Second Life but not much interacting with them. For instance I'd like to pick up a ball and throw it. Or could I climb a tree? Could I pick up a product at Circuit City and examine it more closely.
4. A better inventory system and interface
   The interface for SecondLife is quite daunting. Some things are intuitive, like walking around and even flying to an extent, but to do anything more than that takes patience and time. Finding and using objects you've picked up or purchased means navigating a giant tree structure that I really don't like. How about thumbnails?
5. A better map
   Look to Google Earth for ideas. The current maps look straight out of Intellivision.
6. An In-World Browser
   I'd rather stay within second life and browse Web content. I'd like to see Linden Labs create a pop-up in-world browser. I'm sure some good designers could figure out a way to make it usable, readable, and non-intrusive.

What's Up With Widgets?

More about widgets extending a company's brand from Clickz.

What's Up With Widgets?

TV Links

From the "too good to be true" Department comes TV Links, a site that aggregates TV shows available for viewing online. After clicking on a few links to shows an finding paydirt, I was feeling encouraged. I decided to click on a few more before declaring it "worth checking out." The final tally was 6 out of 10 links lead to viewable shows. Actually 5.5 since one show seemed to start partway through.

So I'd say it's probably worth checking out but don't get your expectations up too high. Selection is a bit scattershot, but not bad. Plenty of cartoons and a few popular shows like Battlestar Galactica and 24, but you may have to cross your fingers a lot.

It's a ridiculous shame that sites like this even need to exist.

TV Links

Web Worker Daily:Blog Archive Five ways to be nice to your eyes

Via Web Worker Daily. Protect them peepers.

Web Worker Daily: Blog Archive Five ways to be nice to your eyes

Can Two Sinking Media Ships Combine to Float?

Sirius and XM want to merge and I think it's a good idea. They're both floundering financially despite hype and happy customers the seem to be maxed out. So perhaps a combining of on-air talent will re-energize satellite radio and help it compete with regular radio, CDs, iPods, etc.

I personally haven't invested in either service for a few reasons:

• I have Rhapsody To Go and really get all the music I want
• I couldn't choose between the services since each had something I wanted
• I don't drive all that much and the car really is the only place I'd use it. In fact the only reason I was considering it is because my fiance does drive a bit now, however she's only been lukewarm on the idea
• I don't want yet another monthly fee

Perhaps combined the service can offer a compelling set of programming that would be hard to resist.

Free Time+math=A Helpful Photo Tip

I take a lot of group photos at work for our Intranet, which means I take a lot of photos of people with their eyes closed. I know they're not doing it on purpose, but it's really irritating when the best shot in the bunch is ruined by a blinker. The "Velocity" blog may be able to help, thanks to some math and some free time to test.

Velocity Web Site - Blink-free photos, guaranteed

Liquor Snob: Great Information if You Can Find It

A crapload of ads clutter up this otherwise unique and knowledge-packed site about all things liquor. The search wasn't working so I guess I'll have to plow through the posts to find some Gin advice.

Liquor Snob - News and tips on all things alcoholic, including beer and wine, breathalyzers, cocktails and spirits; plus drink recipes, booze reviews and more. All the news that's fit to drink.

iDig iStockphoto.com

I use a fair amount of stock photography in my work and while I've always liked and used the heck out of photos.com which is subscription based (about $500 per year) my fiancee has turned me on to a new stock photo site, that I think is even better. It's called iStockphoto.com and it's much more than a stock photography site, it's a community. Community sites are a dime a dozen, but what sets istockphoto.com apart is that this is a community that produces some amazing original stock photography, illustrations, Flash animations, and video that is not only high-quality but inexpensive. iStockphoto.com runs on a credit system. All the artwork is provided by an extremely active community of artists who get paid for their work directly. Anyone can contribute once they fill out an application and get accepted (your first samples are reviewed by a panel). This is a welcome quality control system, and is working well.

To use the service you buy however many credits you want and then you use them pay for whatever you download. Photos are 1 to 6 credits depending on the size you want. Illustrations (vectors thank you!) are mostly 5 credits. Video is 5 to 20 credits. Flash animations seem to vary a bit, but the ones I've seen are usually 1 credit.

The site itself is very Web 2.0 and to delve into all the cool features would take an awfully long post, but the short list would include:

• User ratings
• Tagging
• A great Lightbox utility
• Forums
• A creative network
• A blogging tool

Not only do I get a lot of use out of the site, but I have often started simply surfing around to check out all the cool stuff available. I can't say I've done that with many other commerce sites.

Pipe Down: Fun with Yahoo! Pipes

Well, I've finished my first Yahoo! Pipe. I decided to create a feed that pulls from several "life hacking" blogs and limits results to posts containing lists of tips (which I often find myself drawn to). I rounded up feeds from a list of popular life hacking blogs like Lifehacker, 37 Signals, and WebWorker Daily and told Yahoo! Pipes to Fetch them. Then I connected that to the Content Analysis operator, and then connected that to a filter. I had to set the filter up to permit only blog post titles that contain keywords common in "Tips" type posts. I chose: "tips, top, some, favorite, best, steps, and ways." This was based on reading through several of the blogs and noting what words commonly appeared in the titles of "tips" type posts.

Lastly, I told it to sort by Publication Date and filter out duplicates. Here's the result:

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/xMKQRnW92xGrLKYelvXiAA/run?_render=rss

It worked pretty well. A few non-tip posts made it in, but for the most part it did what I'd hoped. I remain very excited about Yahoo! Pipes and will mess with it as much as time allows. It's still beyond non-techies, but I can see this becoming a powerful tool for Webmasters who want to display targeted content and power news junkies who want to create truly unique "newspapers." Yahoo! Pipes plus a newsfeed aggregator like Netvibes or Protopage equals the world's greatest online newspaper.

Autumn: For Anyone Who Has Been Obsessed with Finding an Answer

I think this is one of the best blog posts I've read. Partly because it's exceedingly well-written and partly because I identified strongly with the writer, Nick Tosches' unyielding passion for fulfilling what, on the surface, seems like a relatively simple quest. I've lost so much time over the years to finding answers to things like using Outlook to send formatted HTML e-mails, finding a freeware app to convert video, etc. sometimes only because I know it's out there and I refuse to give in to failing. Nick takes it to an extreme understandable only by those possessed with "The Quest."

Xbox Meets Toll Basket

The other day I was pulling up to a tollbooth on I-294 in Chicago and the car in front of me ceremoniously dumped an Xbox into the toll basket. I wish I had taken a picture. In any event, I have no idea if this was supposed to be some kind of statement against Xboxes or Tollways but it was one of the stranger things I've seen in a while. In case you're wondering, I just threw my change into the basket with the game console. Who knows, maybe they were hiding evidence in plain site.

Web Ad Attack

This morning I clicked on a digg.com link to a story in Forbes about the best and worst selling cars of 2007. I was first met with a splash ad for Symantec which could not be skipped. I waited for it to finish and went on to the story where I was immediately met with a loud video for an investment advice book from Fischer Investments along with the requisite banner ads. In addition there was one of those annoying pop-ups for a Forbes survey that moved with me as I scrolled down the page.

This is a lousy user experience. I understand that Forbes.com needs to make money, but this is overboard. I didn't even read the story because I was so annoyed and I'll likely think twice about the next link I see to Forbes. Here's what I think:

1. If you force people through a splash ad, let them skip it. Most of the time they won't find the "Skip Ad" link until they've seen most of the ad, so you don't lose much eye time. But at least give the option.
2. No self-starting video ads. Present the ad, with the embedded video and let me click on it if I'm interested.
3. Pop-up ads are bad enough, but one that follows you around like a hungry little yelping puppy is just amateurish. Just don't do pop-up ads.