Apr

28

Twitter censorship?

Filed Under news | 2 Comments

sayer

childs

chieftech

smperris

Trust Australians to take a frivolous and whimsical web service that was starting to take itself too seriously and get really immature with it.

:D

Bless each and every ███████ one of you, you █████!

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Apr

25

Data Portability: do normal people even care?

Filed Under PointOfView | 10 Comments

DP-Logo-GreenData portability is the idea that individuals have control over their data online and can determine how they and others can use that data (if at all). Some examples of what data portability could be include:

  • your profile ‘auto-filling’ when you join a new site
  • exporting details of your social network contacts to an external contact manager
  • easily migrate blogs between different service platforms
  • easily moving photos from one web service to another (eg from Flickr to Zooomr)

(more examples of possible use cases for data portability here)

There is no denying that data portability is a hot issue amongst the tech community. There is the Data Portability Project, Google’s Open Social initiative for widgets/gadgets/apps in the social networking space, uber blogger, PR machine and the loudest echo in the chamber Robert Scoble avidly pushing data portability at every turn before accepting that there are roadblocks to data portability and the recent announcement by Yahoo! that it is rewiring its network of internet properties for social graph and data portability. However, all this is for the geeks and the techies. What about the real world and real, normal people who don’t live and breathe this stuff.

Do normal people care about data portability? As always, when it comes to finding out the opinions of the tech savvy but not tech obsessed, I turned to my wife, who although she spends a lot of time online, she is very far removed from the echo chamber that many people find themselves in. She couldn’t tell you how much Google spent on buying the latest start up, or who Jason Calacanis is, what Twitter does, who Duncan Riley is angry at this week or any of the other things that fill the pages of Techmeme on a daily basis.

What my wife can tell me is what normal people (ie not early adopters) think. Her extensive network of online friends, although from large and varied backgrounds with wildly different views on many things, share a common thread - they use the internet as a tool, not as a game, or a money making machine or as a way of life.

I asked my wife, “Does anyone care about data portability?” I then had to explain about ideas such as exporting your Facebook contacts to Outlook, or moving photos from Flickr to Zooomr, or shifting a Blogger blog to Wordpress and so on. The blank, uncomprehending stare slowly became more focused as she began to understand what I was trying to say. “Outlook? Why would I want to do that? Flickr? Don’t most people just keep a copy of their photos on their hard drive anyway? I know you can move from Blogger to Wordpress fairly easily. [.....] did that and it worked fine” and so on.

Data portability. Do normal people care? Probably not. Right now, it just doesn’t affect them. Normal people don’t hop from web service to web service. Normal people don’t seem to have extensive collections of media online and even if they did, they’ve still got the original files floating around. Rudimentary services that work more or less good enough already exist for the bigger services, especially where there is a commercial imperative to make importation easy.

Is data portability important? I believe so. However, until data lock in has an impact on the online experience of the slow adopters, no one will really care.

Apr

16

How to stream mp3s with Yahoo Media Player

Filed Under how-to | 2 Comments

A nod of the head to Amit at Digital Inspiration for pointing me in the right direction for the Yahoo Media Player with his post “How to embed mp3 audio files in web pages”.

There are two versions to the Yahoo Media Player - a javascript based version and a Flash based version.

For the javascript version, first you need to link to the file. For example:

<a href=”http://techwhimsy.com/31_Ghosts_IV.mp3″>31_Ghosts_IV</a> which looks like:

31_Ghosts_IV

Then, you insert the javascript for the media player somewhere on the page:

<script src="http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/js" type="text/javascript"></script>

After that, a little ‘play’ button should appear next to your media file link. Click the button and the player launches.

This method has occasionally been reported to not work on self-hosted Wordpress blogs like this one. To get the Yahoo Media Player to work in Wordpress if the above method hasn’t worked, try inserting the script tag in your header file.

You will also notice that off to the left hand side is the miniaturised version of the player which you can also launch just by clicking on it.

Using Yahoo Media Flash Player

Yahoo also offer a Flash player with a handy Yahoo flash player configurator at next.yahoo. You plug in the url of the page or file, choose some options such as colour, size, autoplay or rounded corners and it will generate the Flash embed code for you. My configured player looks like this:

Apr

10

Has Radiohead missed the point?

Filed Under PointOfView | 4 Comments

Radiohead - Nude coverart Radiohead has once again hit the headlines with an ‘innovative’ new media way of promoting the band and the music. They have broken down their latest single ‘Nude’ into 5 stems (vocal, guitar, bass, drums, the rest) and made each available to buy exclusively at the iTunes music store for fans to download, remix and uploaded their mixes to the Nude Remix site.  Despite the media hype, the question to me becomes is Radiohead at the forefront of new media or the rearguard of old media?

I have a number of concerns with how Radiohead is approaching this release:

  1. The stems have to be downloaded individually, each at the cost of an individual track ($1.69 here in Australia), making it more expensive than some EPs.  Some people might think that this is still a fair deal (after all, how often do you get the chance to remix a track yourself?) but it doesn’t offer anything extra to the  buyer.  In times past, Nine Inch Nails have released multi-tracks for free (remix.nin.com has more information).  As a less extreme example price wise, BT released ‘The Technology’, 6 track EP of remixes and included the multi-track files for 3 singles of the album ‘Emotional Technology’ back in 2004.  Nine Inch Nails was free and BT added something extra.  Radiohead does neither.
  2. The stems are only available through the iTunes music store.  Big Radiohead fan but no iTunes music store in your country? Too bad, my friend. No remix for you.
  3. The Nude Remix terms and conditions are not very friendly at all.  You sign over all rights to the remix to Warner/Chappell Music (the publishers). It doesn’t specify if this only applies if you upload the track to the remix site. In my own experience, if it is not specified, it is a blanket approach.  Also, the Radiohead band members are given sole writing credit.  When you submit your remix, you can not ‘exploit’ it in anyway without prior approval of Warner/Chappell and Radiohead.  In other words, we own your song, you will receive no credit for your work and you can’t do anything with your own remix without permission.  To Radiohead’s credit, they do also undertake to not commercially exploit your work without contacting you first. Nice.
  4. There’s no competition or prize attached. While a competition or prize is not essential, in the context of the previous three points, throw your fans a bone guys!  Seriously. It doesn’t have to be a huge prize.  Maybe the best remix could get a signed copy of the the 7″ vinyl single, or something equally token but meaningful to a hard core Radiohead fan.  Surely that wouldn’t be too much to ask.  Instead, remixers get a guarantee that the ‘Radiohead will listen to the best remixes’.  Woo.

Are Radiohead reaching out to the fans by offering individually downloaded components, or are they taking 5 bites from the same cherry?  Is it innovative new media thinking or classic old media record label money grubbing?

What do you think?  I really want to know what other people think about remixing ‘Nude’