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Rhapsody retakes the online music throne

The folks at Rhapsody have impressed me. Since I posted my last entry, Rhapsody has pushed multiple updates to their iPhone app and has introduced an impressive update to their web-based service—currently in beta. Both are stable and offer a set of features and music catalog that MOG can't seem to touch at this point.

That makes me very happy because I've been a Rhapsody member since 2005 and I have all kinds of radio stations, playlists and other customization that I wasn't looking forward to losing. I decided to hang on to my Rhapsody account while I evaluated MOG and I'm glad I did.

MOG is a fine service. In fact, it's downright impressive given that it's a relatively new offering. If you're still stuck in the era of owned music in the form of MP3s, CDs, etc., MOG will be a big step up. But Rhapsody is still the one to beat with a roster of features dwarfs that of MOG.

Ralph Stanley's radio ad supporting Obama in West Virginia

I'd like to say a very heartfelt thank you to Dave Allen for his post over at Pampelmoose. It may be the single most heartening thing I've read in a week at least.

Ralph Stanley is the last remaining survivor of the Stanley Brothers, and as such is one of the few remaining figures of the first generation of bluegrass musicians. He’s from the part of the mountains the Carter Family came from, and has had a recent career revival for his part in the Oh Brother Where Art Thou movie.

Listening to Ralph Stanley's iconic voice speaking in support of Barack Obama gives me tremendous encouragement and hope. I hope it does the same for you.

Ralph Stanley, a Radio Ad Supporting Obama in West Virginia - pampelmoose

ABC News... or Reno 911?

I did a double take when I saw this ABC News story subtitle in Google News just now.

Gunman Kills 5 at Public Meeting in St. Louis Suburb Before Police Take Him Out

The almost flippant slang phrase take him out is just plain wrong in the context of a story about six people being shot to death, two of whom were police officers. It's disrespectful at best. This isn't an episode of Cops or Reno 911. What is the news coming to?

The view from my table in Toronto

I'm sitting in the very sweet bar at the Renaissance Toronto Hotel Downtown. I'm here for a conference and didn't realize that this is the only hotel in the world that is attached to a stadium. The entire wall of windows in the hotel restaurant and bar run along left field. They have rooms that are above the field, as well. It's like sitting in a huge, air-conditioned luxury box. The Blue Jays are playing the Washington Nationals and they have the audio piped into the bar.

I'm sitting here working on my remarks for the conference while watching the game. Not a bad way to work. This is the view from my table. (Click on it to see a larger view.)

Frank Thomas just hit his 496th home run. The crowd is going nuts.

Well, back to it!

Why MySpace is doomed and Facebook will dominate

Do you use MySpace? Looking at it and using it really takes me back -- to website design circa 1997. But it's not the terrible design and embarrassingly bad usability that will ultimately kill MySpace. It's a far superior and far cooler service called Facebook. So grab your data and photos off MySpace now and stake your claim on Facebook because it's here to stay. MySpace is the new Friendster (remember Friendster?). Don't believe me, yet? Read on.

It's hard to know where to begin. For me, the transparency of a company about who they are and what they're about usually tells me all I need to know. And for a company to whom you're entrusting your personal information -- for many people their virtual diaries! -- as well as the information of all your friends, it seems this should be extremely important. So take a look at the About Us page for both these sites:

About Us | MySpace

About Facebook

MySpace tells you absolutely nothing about who they are. For a site of this size with this many users, this is outrageous. Most personal blogs offer more information on the About page than MySpace does. In fact, the MySpace About Us page should be called the Another Blatant Sales Pitch page. Facebook, on the other hand, gives you far more information than you could ever possibly want about their technology, privacy, staff, funding and so forth.

Here's the real About MySpace page:

News Corporation | Wikipedia

with information about the guy pulling the strings here:

Rupert Murdoch | Wikipedia

But all the terribly frightening, Bush-loving Big Brother Rupert stuff aside... MySpace just plain sucks. Despite having billions upon billions of dollars backing it, MySpace looks and feels like a site that was designed and built by complete amateurs who wanted the cheapest ad-serving, info-harvesting platform they could come up with.

Facebook is the antithesis of MySpace -- in all the right ways. Rather than list the myriad reasons why, go check out this recent article on the founders and the company:

Hacker. Dropout. CEO. | Fast Company

And check out what they're up to right now:

Facebook Launches Facebook Platform; They are the Anti-MySpace | TechCrunch

See you on Facebook!

Technorati Tags: advertising, Facebook, Fox News, media, MySpace, News Corp, politics, Rupert Murdoch

Dish Network thinks you're a dumb sucker

And if you live in this house, they're right! They don't have to put their dishes anywhere on the front of your house. They tried this crap at my place years ago (when I watched TV) and I made the guy take it off and move it to the back of the house on the roof, completely out of sight. The only reason they do this is to use your house as a billboard that you pay bloated fees for.

I wrote about this years ago, but I don't understand why people don't question these guys when they come out and -- no doubt as trained to do -- tell you that the only place the ugly gray dish with their logo on it can pick up a signal is -- SURPRISE! -- eye level outside your front door!

In this case, the dish would have a far better line of sight to the satellite if it were placed part way down the back of the roof -- completely out of sight of the street and neighbors! Which of course Dish Network and DIRECTV aren't about to tell you.

Click the photo for a larger view.

Technorati Tags: advertising, media, Oregon, Portland, Portland Hall of Shame, television

Overheard: Now no more singing!

I'm sitting at a coffee shop in Southeast Portland and there's a guy with a guitar playing and singing. When he finished the song he was playing a little kid at one of the tables shouted—to the now silent coffee shop:

Now, no more singing!

Awkward silence. Then he started playing and singing again.

Vote with your dollars: Objective, hard-hitting journalism

I pay $45 dollars per year to read a news website. Some of you reading this probably wonder why anyone would do such a thing when so much news is available on the Web for free. I do it because this news is different.

Salon was founded in 1995 by David Talbot and a group of seasoned journalists from the San Francisco Examiner who felt that the World Wide Web offered an unprecedented opportunity to provide intelligent, independent journalism covering politics, culture and society in innovative ways.

That's what the folks over at Salon have to say about themselves - and it doesn't begin to do them justice. Over the years that I've been a paying subscriber, I have seen Salon.com say what no other news publication would dare say. Today the front page features a three-page article entitled Iraq: Why the media failed. The subtitle continues: Afraid to challenge America's leaders or conventional wisdom about the Middle East, a toothless press collapsed. We all know now that that's exactly what happened, but this article goes into brilliant detail. And if you've been reading Salon, you were probably aware of the massive failure on the part of the rest of the media long before most other people.

Salon is published by an independent media group and isn't beholden to anyone that would squelch its ability to report the truth. I'm not saying they bat a thousand or that they're the only news source you need to read. Far from it. But it's definitely one worth supporting with your dollars.

Mommy, what does that mean?

Have fun explaining this one to your kids while you're standing at one of the four busy bus stops on the corner of SE 39th and Hawthorne in Portland. ("Hooked on Phonics be damned!")

I'm a very outspoken advocate of free speech--but good taste has to weigh in somewhere...

[And yes, I'm aware of the irony of this post in light of my "public bathroom mischief" entry of yesterday...]

Mind-controlled games, devices becoming a reality

A few years ago I was fooled by an April Fools Day article in one of the dotcom magazines of the time. It detailed a new device that would allow people to dictate text into their computer by simply thinking what they wanted to say. During that time of explosive innovation, anything seemed possible. Well, it's not an April Fools joke anymore.

An article in the Economist today looks at the technologies of two California companies who are making it possible to interact with computers by simply thinking what you want to happen.

The Economist article requires a subscription, but there is a similar story in the San Jose Mercury News.

Mind Games | The Economist | Mar 15th 2007

The Brain as Joystick | San Jose Mercury News | March 7, 2007