tumblr - create a tumblelog (sort of like a blog)
notesake - takes notes online, stay organized
PDFescape - Free PDF Editor and PDF Form Filler
fileqube - free online storage
SnapPages - create websites easily
babbel - learn languages online
seesmic - online video conversation
Qik - stream video from your phone
Mahalo - human powered search engine
Friday, October 10, 2008
Link Mania: Web 2.0
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Link Mania: Full Tilt
Zillow - online real estate service
Wize - "Wize gathers millions of product reviews from websites like Amazon.com, Walmart.com, and CNET. Using our proprietary technology we figure out which products are the best for how people want to use them."
Askville (by Amazon.com) - "Askville is a place where you can share and discuss knowledge with other people by asking and answering questions on any topic. It's a fun place to meet others with similar interests to you and a place where you can share what you know."
amapedia (by Amazon.com) - Amapedia is a community for sharing information about the products you like the most.
TechCrunch50 Conference 2008 - technology conference that started in 2007 with this goal: "find the best starts-ups and launch them in front of our industry's most influential VCs, corporations, fellow entrepreneurs and press"
U.S. News and World Report - online news resource (Breaking, World and Business News as well as America's Best Colleges)
Dell Inspiron Mini 9 - new miniature laptop from dell; good for internet browsing, e-mail, and other simple tasks; also very affordable and portable
Toofy Film Fest - a celebration of independent arts
MLive News - Michigan News, Updates, Photos and Video
The Green Guide - green living tips, product reviews, environmental health news
National Public Radio (NPR) - "NPR is an internationally acclaimed producer and distributor of noncommercial news, talk, and entertainment programming. A privately supported, not-for-profit membership organization..."
Democracy Now! - "...a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez."
My Rich Uncle Student Loans - "We believe that the financial aid process is more complex and confusing than it should be. It seemed to us that parents and students are just not receiving the information and tools they need to fell comfortable and well-informed about their decisions to pay for school. So we talked to parents and students, and considered the ways we can make it better."
OnTheIssues.org - candidates on the issues
Monday, August 04, 2008
Link Mania: Mint.com
One of the best, most useful pages I have found on Mint:
- Money 101 - build a solid financial foundation.
Also, Mint partners with the Motley Fool, who also have an excellent personal finance section:
- Personal Finance - from the Motley Fool
Other excellent articles I found on Mint.com:
Friday, August 01, 2008
Link Mania: Full Tilt
Pownce - "Send messages, files, links, and events to your friends. Create a network of friends and share stuff. It's free and easy…"
Wise Bread - "Wise Bread is a community of bloggers here to help you live large on a small budget. Despite what you may have heard, you don't have to sacrifice your financial independence to enjoy life."
Tumblr - "To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks.You can also look at tumblelogs as slightly more structured blogs that make it easier, faster, and more fun to post and share stuff you find or create."
Ma.gnolia - "How ishttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif Ma.gnolia different from other social bookmarking services? It starts with making the social side of social bookmarking work better. With contacts, groups and different ways to share bookmarks both within and outside of Ma.gnolia, we make working together on a casual basis or more formal projects fun and easy."
Webmonkey - "Webmonkey is an online resource for web developers. Here, you'll find tutorials, tips and advice for designing and building websites and programming web applications. We have articles for beginners, professionals, students, grandparents, bloggers and programmers of all skill levels."
Internet Public Library - "The IPL is many things:
* the first public library of and for the Internet community
* an experiment, trying to discover and promote the most effective roles and contributions of librarians to the Internet and vice versa
* a group of highly talented, creative, strong-willed people, working hard"
blip.tv - "We've got a great service for great shows. A new class of entertainment is emerging that is being made by the people without the support of billion-dollar multinationals. Our mission is to support these people by taking care of all the problems a budding videoblogger, podcaster or Internet TV producer tends to run into. We'll take care of the servers, the software, the workflow, the advertising and the distribution. We leave you free to focus on creativity."
Seesmic - "Seesmic provides anyone with an innovative way to communicate and connect online through video conversation. It's so easy: record a video directly on Seesmic's website, mobile phone or upload an existing video straight from your computer or link to a video posted on a social network. Join the Seesmic community and experience a new way to express yourself, make friends, join in active conversations, and engage in real interactions with real people."
FriendFeed - "FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing. It offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends."
Some General Tips for Switch to Mac From Windows
Music, co-op games the dominant trends at E3
Inventor of the Internet takes aim at BitTorrent
8 Cool Things You Can Do With Your iPhone 2.0
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Link Mania: Full Tilt
SmallNotebook.org - encouragement for a simple home
My Two Dollars - personal finance blog
I Will Teach You To Be Rich - personal finance blog
Wallet Pop - money and finance website by AOL
Consumerism Commentary - personal finance blog
Money Blog Network - personal finance blog network
PokerNews.com - independent online poker authority
Scour - innovative search engine that allows users to vote and comment on relevancy of results
Restaurant.com - "Restaurant.com helps restaurant owners promote the new and unique aspects of their restaurants while providing diners with great value in a fun, new and cost effective way"
ConsumerReports.org - "working for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers and empowering consumers to protect themselves"
Startcooking.com - learn the absolute basics of cooking, with short cooking videso and step-by-step photo tutorials
Energy Star - program to help people save money and protect the environment thorugh energy efficient products and practices
Reclaim Your Time: 20 Great Ways to Find More Free Time
Hidden Price Increases at the Grocery Store
How To Save on Your Energy Bill
Link Mania: The Simple Dollar
Trent quitting his job and becoming a full time writer:
Other articles:
- Planning for the Long Haul: My Family's Lifetime Financial Plan
- Welcome to the Public Domain
- Ten Tactics for Improving Your Luck
- The One Skill That Will Earn You Money, No Matter What You Do
- The Minimalist Kitchen: What You Need to Set Up Your First Workable Home Kitchen
- What Individual Stocks Would I Invest In for the Long Haul?
- Money Magazine's "7 Investments You Need Now," Portfolio Theory, and My Own Plans for the Future
- Twelve Ways to Make Your Car a Better Investment
- How To Write an Effective Thank You Note for Any Occasion
- My Entrepreneurial Inspiration
- The Bogleheads Have Won: Dipping My Toes Into A Mutual Fund With Vanguard
- The Chorus of Voices for index Funds
- The Essential Bookshelf: The Only Eight Books I've Kept (After Hundreds of Reviews)
- How to Get Personal and Professional Value from Idle Web Surfing
- The Five Ps: Breaking Down Big Dreams Into Little Steps
- What I Read to Keep Up on Personal Finance
- Angies List - A word-of-mouth network for consumers (on service companies)
- The Home Depot Know-How Center - "Your destination for home improvement resources"
- Green Panda Treehouse - blog about money
- Twelve Top Personal Finance Podcast via Get Rich Slowly
- College Money Network - group of personal finance blogs run by college students, grad students, and recent grads
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Lifehacker Top Five
The following are five Lifehacker articles or discussions that I found useful and interesting:
1. Top 10 Modern Life Survival Skills
2. Top 10 Computer Annoyances and How to Fix Them
3. How Priorities Make Things Happen
4. How to Hack a Technical Job Interview
5. Best Video Feeds?
Link Mania: Half Tilt
One Hundred Pushups - six week training program that helps you complete 100 consecutive push ups
MindMeister - "MindMeister brings the concept of mind mapping to the web, using its facilities for real-time collaboration to allow truly global brainstorming sessions."
Scour - social search engine
switchAbit - routes content to multiple social services
The 20 Healthiest Foods for Under $1
7 Steps To Developing A Strong Network In Case You Get Fired
Five Signs That You're Living Beyond Your Means
10 Things You Can Like About $4 Gas
7 Super Snacks That Heal
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Link Mania: Full Tilt
Topix - news community
Mahalo - human-powered search engine
InformationWeek - business technology news, reviews, and blogs
Miro - free, open source internet TV and video player
SurveyMonkey.com - online survey software
1 World 2 Wheels - "Change the World. Pledge to Go By Bike."
Scribus - open source desktop publishing
Lively by Google - new interactive chat experience
MIT Open Courseware - free lecture notes, exams, and videos
How Stuff Works - "award-winning source of credible, unbiased, and easy-to-understand explanations of how the world actually works"
Live Search Health - "Discover and act on (Web) health results powered by Microsoft HealthVault"
Posterous - "Posterous lets you post things online fast using email. You email us... and we reply instantly with your new posterous blog."
Media Matters for America - "Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Tech News Roundup
Noteworthy technology news from the New York Times:
Amazon Plans an Online Store for Movies and TV Shows
Nintendo and Sony Unveil Games
Wikipedia Tries Approval System to Reduce Vandalism on Pages
In Surprise, 2 Tech Titans Disappoint
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Link Mania - Full Tilt
Fast Company TV - business video network
Zoomerang - online survey software
College Prowler - college reviews created by students for students
Affluenza Documentary
Free Car Media - A Nontraditional Marketing Company
PBwiki - "PBwiki is the world's largest provider of hosted business and educational wikis."
Anywhere.FM - "Anywhere.FM is a powerful music player that makes it easy to: 1. Upload your entire music collection 2. Play it anywhere on the best web music player 3. Discover new music through Friend Radio "
National Public Radio - "NPR (National Public Radio) is an internationally acclaimed producer and distributor of noncommercial news, talk, and entertainment programming."
Address The Mess - Comedy Central's green campaign. "The network's new pro-social campaign is committed to showing viewers easy ways to reduce waste, improve their lives and help revive the planet."
The Top 50 Productivity Blogs
"The Last Lecture: A Love Story for Your Life"
Randy Pausch's Home Page
The Personal MBA: Mastering Business Without Spending a Fortune
10 Universities Offering Free Writing Courses Online
Three Web 2.0 Sites That Aggregate Content
- FriendFeed - "FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing. It offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends."
- FeedJournal - " The idea of generating a personalized newspaper from RSS and Atom feeds started to take form around the end of 2005. A few months later the “Made In Express Contest” launched, a competition to promote the free line of Express development products from Microsoft. From 1,500 entry submissions FeedJournal was picked as one of 12 finalists. In the end of a fierce competition, FeedJournal was awarded First Prize."
- Pipes - "Pipes is a powerful composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web."
Buying a New Car? - Think Again
Buying a new car sounds pretty tempting. Who wouldn't want a new car? On the other hand, who really needs a new car? Nobody needs a new car and only the wealthy can truly afford a new car. The money you could save by instead opting for a used car is mind boggling. Watch this presentation and be amazed.
Link Mania: Law, Technology, and Technology Law
Lessig Blog - blog of stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig
Electronic Frontier Foundation - "Defending Freedom in the Digital World"
Fastcase - Legal Research and Case Law
The Public Library of Law - world's largest free law library
Scobeizer - tech geek blogger
Three Personal Health Tips
First of all, ensure that you are getting adequate sleep. Sleeping has many benefits including improving memory, helping to maintain a healthy immune system, improving motor control, and more. Psychology Today has the full scoop.
Second, you should be eating real food. What is real food? Well, Michael Pollan explains exactly that in his new book "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto". In the book, he characterizes how we should eat by saying: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants." Then, he proposes "an alternative way of eating that is informed by the traditions and ecology of real, well-grown, unprocessed food." Read more about Michael Pollan's book at his website.
Lastly, reports by the CDC show that married adults are "healthier than divorced, widowed or never married adults." So, if you haven't tied the knot yet, maybe it's time you think about it. Chances are you'll be healthier for doing it. Read the full findings for more information on why married adults are the healthiest.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Quick Links: Fast Guide to Finance Online
The following is a list of links to quality, credible financial websites and information:
Finance wiki on Wikipedia
Articles on Finance and Investment from Knowledge@Wharton
Finance at the Internet Public Library
The Wall Street Journal Online
Market Watch
Google Finance
CNBC
Bloomberg
The Motley Fool
CNN Money
Yahoo! Finance
Forbes
MSN Money
Kiplinger
Wesabe
Mint
Interesting Technology Sites
Eggxpert - an online technology community for consumer electronic and computer enthusiasts, owned by the ever-so-popular e-commerce company: Newegg.
Maximum PC - online site for the popular computer magazine, which includes news, product reviews, how-tos, a forum, and more.
Buzz Out Loud Podcast - As quoted from their website: "Buzz Out Loud is CNET's 'podcast of indeterminate length,' featuring Tom, Molly and Jason's entertaining, sometimes caustic, and always skeptical take on technology news. This daily podcast features commentary, guests, and phone calls and e-mail from our listeners."
Monday, June 30, 2008
Web 2.0: The Past Month
To catch up on Web 2.0 news, I visited WebWare and poured over the most recent posts. From this visit, I created the following list of interesting and worthwhile Web 2.0 sites (which are paired with the link of the article the site was discovered in):
Wirewize - "Wirewize tells you how to wire your entertainment center"
Wix - "Stunning site maker Wix now open to all"
MOO - "Moo ginormousizes its mini cards"
NowPublic - "NowPublic: Reuters 2.0?"
Multiply - "Social network Multiply goes premium"
Streetread - "Streetread organizes ticker symbols and business news in one place"
Evernote - "Evernote 3.0 now open to all, still awsome"
Fandango - "Disney sells Movies.com to Comcast's Fandango"
Cooking.com - "Cooking.com stirs up $13 million"
TimesPeople - "'New York Times' goes social with TimePeople"
LinkedIn - "LinkedIn gets its billion-dollar valuation"
Last.fm - "Last.fm adds Universal's music videos"
Again, all the above articles are from CNET's blog: Webware
Friday, June 27, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Link Mania
The Daily Green - "the consumer's guide to the green revolution"
Trend Watching - monthly trend briefing
"Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business"
Issuu - free publication tool (in magazine format) and library
Mint - online money management application
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Link Mania - Full Tilt
VIRB - social profiling website
UpDown - stock investing game
Feed The Pig - personal finance advice for beginners
360 Degrees of Financial Literacy - personal finance advice
Rothbury Festival - environmentally friendly weekend of music
Ad Council - leading producer of public service announcements
ING Direct - online banking
HSBC Direct - online banking
Vanguard - investment management company
Morningstar.com's Investing Classroom
Yahoo! Merchant Solutions - ecommerce business support
Funny or Die - comedy video
Clear Channel Music - free online radio
Monday, February 11, 2008
Link Mania - Full Tilt
Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks
7 Tips for Morning Alertness Without the Caffeine
How to Track Down Anyone Online
Convert PDFs to Online Books with Issuu
How to Build Cheap Linux and Windows Home Media Servers in Three Easy Steps
Basic Push-Up (Training with Your Own Body Weight)
Fark.com
Rapid Eye Reality - (Blog by Otis)
Ript - "Ript was born from the idea that there should be a way to “rip” images and text from the web and your computer as easily as you can rip ideas from your favorite magazines. The act of “ripping” in the virtual world should be just as simple and satisfying."
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Quote for the Day
"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something."
-Henry David Thoreau
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Web 2.0: Five Sites to Consider
Mint - "Mint is the freshest, most intelligent way for you to manage your money online. Not only is Mint free, it saves you money."
Anywhere.fm - "Anywhere.FM is a powerful music player" that lets you access your music collection anywhere you have internet access.
QIK - "Qik is a little piece of software that enables you to stream videos directly from your phone to the Web."
Zoho - "Zoho is an Office Productivity Suite..." and is free and web based (used through a browser).
PodTech.net - "PodTech is the leading online video network featuring original technology and digital entertainment programming. PodTech’s media platform allows professional content producers to deliver their content to millions of people..."
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
More Reasons to Despise the RIAA
Find out why the RIAA thinks lower royalties will benefit artists:
- Check out this article from ars technica.
- See this blog post from CNET.
To stay current with the battle against the RIAA, read the following blog, which I give my highest regards: Recording Industry vs The People
News & Links for 2/6/08
Today, Yahoo! announced that they have removed limits from their web hosting. The driving force behind the change was to help small business owners. Yahoo! is hoping that small businesses will be able to focus more on their business (and less on web hosting), since they won't have to worry about exceeding limits anymore. For a mere $11.95 per month, small businesses will get unlimited disk space, unlimited data transfer, and unlimited e-mail storage. Check out Yahoo!'s Small Business Web Hosting.
[Source: downloadsquad]
From TechCrunch:
- Howcast, a website specializing in instructional videos, launched today - "Ex-Googlers Launch Instructional Video Site Howcast..."
- Google is getting aggressive in China - "Google To Challenge Baidu In China With Free Music"
- Ask.com has launched a news site in collaboration with Digg - "Ask and Digg Team Up for Big News"
From CNN.com:
Read about the new, innovative website, CrimeReports.com:
"Free Web site maps crime reports, calls"
...A new service on CrimeReports.com, launched last year and expanding nationwide, overlays police reports on maps, so people can view where arrests and other police calls have been made. Users can configure e-mail alerts to notify them of crimes in locations of interest within a day.
The free site relies mainly on police departments paying $100 or $200 a month, depending on their size, to have CrimeReports.com extract the information from their internal systems and publish it online...
Stay current with Microsoft:
"Microsoft tinkering with scary-smart ad spots"
A few of Microsoft's projects were aimed at helping advertisers get better at reaching their ideal customers online, particularly using search keywords.
The company showed a dashboard advertisers could use to forecast the success of certain keyword advertising campaigns and a system it says will make it easier for advertisers think about key ideas, rather than hundreds of individual keywords.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Quick Link: Professional Networking via Web 2.0
From the LinkedIn about page:
Our mission is to help you be more effective in your daily work and open doors to opportunities using the professional relationships you already have.This isn’t networking—it’s what networking should be.
Forget exchanging business cards with acquaintances that don’t know your work, or trying to renew professional ties when you need a favor.
Two noteworthy reads about LinkedIn from 2007 by Mashable:Web 2.0: Discover Four New Sites
Four Web 2.0 sites you should know about, all of which are relatively new to the scene:
- popurls - This site is a feed aggregation of the most popular Web 2.0 and social media websites. The feeds, colors, fonts, and much more are customizable. It takes feeds from sites such Digg, Flickr, YouTube, Google News, boingboing, and countless more. I love it. Get all your social media updates in one place, with an easy to use, customizable interface.
- Netvibes - With Netvibes, you can create a personalized startpage. It's nearly identical to iGoogle. With Netvibes, you can have access to your e-mail, blog, social network, news feed, photos, video, and more, all in one place when you open your browser.
- Metafilter - I'm not exactly sure how to articulate this one, so I'll let them explain:
Metafilter is a weblog that anyone can contribute a link or a comment to. A typical weblog is one person posting their thoughts on the unique things they find on the web. This website exists to break down the barriers between people, to extend a weblog beyond just one person, and to foster discussion among its members.
- Seesmic - This is a new social media site based around the concept of community through video. I would say this is different from most online video sites, especially in the sense that it focuses more on community and personal expression. Many of the other sites have become very commercialized. I'll let Seesmic explain their concept, as taken from this page:
What is Seesmic?
Until now, online communication has lacked personality as it’s been limited to text (IM, SMS, email). Now, Seesmic brings conversation alive through video. See and hear people share their experiences straight from their webcams, join in live conversations, and engage in real interactions with real people.It’s so easy: record a video directly on Seesmic’s website, or upload an existing video straight from your computer, or link to a video posted on a social network, whatever works for you, works for us. Join the Seesmic community and experience a new way to express yourself, to make friends, and to be seen and be heard. Conversations can also be simultaneously broadcast via Twitter and soon via other platforms.
Be seen. Be heard. Be on Seesmic.
Monday, February 04, 2008
The Online Business Card
I love the concept of digitizing business cards. These days anything that can be made on paper, whether its a check, a business card, or a grocery list, can be digitized. Instead of writing checks, we now use online banking. To make a grocery list, we use a word processor. Surely, business cards will follow suit.
An awesome example of this would be Thomas Marban's "hub page". It is extremely clean and profesional looking, yet with an artsy, elegant feel due to its great design and calming blue color scheme. As you first look at the page, the white rectangle with his picture and title immediately grabs your attention. This brings your attention right where it should, to the most important information on the page. Essentially, the whole rectangle (the white portion and the lighter color with all the contact information) is a business card embedded within the page. Most of all, I find it especially cool that you can download all of his contact information via the link to the right of his e-mail address (the miniature looking business card).
The next feature that gains your attention is the list of his websites along the right hand side of the page. Again, using the color white, he brings your attention to these links. He doesn't make these white links come off too strong, which keeps the focus on the "business card" portion to the left. Then, along with each link, he lists his involvement with the company/website.
Lastly, he puts links to all of his social media (web 2.0) profiles along the bottom, in a darker text. The social links are there, but in a humble way that doesn't draw your attention away from the "more important" information.
I think the online business card is a great concept. Initially, for me, four reasons stand out as to why an online business card is better than its paper counterpart:
- Environment. Less paper consumption never hurt.
- Findability. Your name will be one Google search away from anyone in the world.
- Accessibility. No more digging through your pocket or briefcase to find your business cards. No more worrying about running out and having to get new ones printed. Ideally, your card will be available to the world 24/7, as long as you have good website hosting.
- Convienence. All you have to do is tell somebody your domain name, which is especially easy to remember if it is yourname.com. If they don't think they'll remember, then you can simply e-mail them the link or they can search your name on Google.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Business and Career Resources
- Want to find out how to deliver a presentation like Steve Jobs? Find out how, in this article, from BusinessWeek.
- Learn more about the "Mastering the Informational Interview" and what to avoid with an informational interview.
- Lastly, get advice on mentors and learn how taking a class can tweak, or even change, your career.
[Photo: lindsey lissau]
Current News - Microsoft and Amazon Expanding
Microsoft is trying to acquire Yahoo for $44.6 billion to increase their competitiveness in the Internet consumer market. Read more here.
Amazon.com is purchasing an online audiobook seller for $300 million, in an attempt to increase their presence in the digital download market. Get the full story here.
Link Mania - Full Tilt
The following are articles that I enjoyed and/or thought were of particular value. I became extremely backlogged with posting this week so the list will be quite long. I'm only going to post titles with the links so pick and choose as you like:
Want a Good Digital Distribution Deal? Get a Good Lawyer
Norovirus: Q&A
Wikimedia Foundation
Top 25 Web 2.0 Apps for Money, Finance, and Investment
What to do if you're laid off in 2008 recession
Organize Your Money in 2008 with Wesabe
eMusic
Amie Street
How to figure people out - Machiavelli Psychology
How to Find Work That You Love - A Logical Guide
Advice for Setting up a Home Office - Group Interview
United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team
Who gives better search results?
Get Rich Slowly
The Finance Buff
About Cory Doctorow
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Intellectual Property: The Current State of Digital Rights Management
The following are six articles from ars technica on the current state of digital rights management:
"Oops: MPAA admits college piracy numbers grossly inflated"
Yes, college students need to rein in the file-sharing. We get it. Artists need to eat. But while the MPAA has been busy lecturing universities about the way they run their IT operations, perhaps the universities have something to say to the motion picture business about how it buys and releases its research. Back to school, MPAA.
"A brave new world: the music biz at the dawn of 2008"
So, in conclusion:
- Indies gaining market share
- Digital downloads up 45 percent in one year
- Well-known artists going indie
- DRM-free downloads from all major labels
- Major label revenues declining
- CD sales in a death spiral
Those don't suggest that the music business is dying so much as changing, and the center of gravity is shifting to individual artists and to smaller, more focused operations. There will always be a role for what are still called the "major labels"; who would put out all those American Idol and Hannah Montana albums, for instance?
"Why Last.fm's free music won't replace your music collection"
Can music companies compete against "free"? Sure they can; it's an issue I addressed in yesterday's feature on the changing nature of the music business, and confirmation came today from the oldest of old-guard sources, CBS. The company, which owns Last.fm, announced today that Last.fm will now offer on-demand streaming of millions of tracks from all four major labels and a huge host of indies. For free.
"Long-time DRM foe Yahoo Music planning DRM-free MP3 store"
When it comes to opening new online music stores, DRM-free is the name of the game. Now that all of the Big Four music labels have either completely dropped or are in the process of dropping copy protection requirements from their music, online retailers are rushing to sell the newly-freed songs faster than a Mac user gravitates to an iPhone. Although Amazon has now made a name for itself as the first (and currently, the only) MP3 store to offer DRM-free tracks from all of the Big Four labels, Yahoo now plans to throw its hat into the ring later this year.
"P2P defendant: RIAA identified an IP address, not a person"
Of course, once it is in possession of an IP address, the RIAA files a John Doe lawsuit and then obtains an ex parte subpoena to discover the name and address of the person who was assigned that IP address. (And sometimes, that person played no role whatsoever in the alleged infringement.) But the complaints used by the RIAA don't reflect that. The RIAA's investigators didn't identify an individual in Atlantic v. Njuguna, as the complaint says, merely the IP address of a piece of Internet-facing hardware like a cable or DSL modem. They may also be able to get the IP address of the device directly connected to the hardware, which could be a PC, laptop, wireless router, or something else. Either way, it's not an individual, and the RIAA's lack of precision in its complaints is troubling.
"IFPI fantasy: 2008 the year ISP filtering "becomes reality""
In fact, the IFPI's own numbers show that in the US, for instance, 17.6 percent of all Internet users regularly share files. If 30 percent of those users buy less music, that means that file-swapping only leads 5.9 percent of all US Internet users to buy less music. The number is even lower if we take the US population as a whole.
Forgive us if we're skeptical here, but implementing a draconian solution like deep packet inspection of all Internet traffic in order to get a few percent of the population to buy more music doesn't sound much like progress, or even rationality.
Top Five Sites of the Week for 1/28/08
- Kayak - A travel search engine started by "founders of Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia who believed in a better online travel experience". The founders definitely give the site a world of credibility. For more on Kayak, read this page from their site.
- Garlik - A company specializing in internet security, they offer a service called DataPatrol, which is an online identity protection service, and, additionally, they offer free advice relating to internet security.
- 23andMe - A modern genetics company that will analzye your DNA and "discover your genome". Find out about your ancestors, family inheritance, and much more. Find out how the process works on this page from their website. Also, see Wired's take on the new, revolutionary genetics service.
- Snap - A company that targets blogs and websitesEssentially, by putting your cursor over a link, Snap lets you visually preview the target of the link, whether it is a video, website, or etc.This is too complex of an idea to explain in one or two sentences. So, to fully comprehend the idea, try it out and read more about it at Snap's FAQ section:
Snap Shots makes it easier for site owners to empower their readers with enhanced hyperlinks that display previews, text summaries, videos, stock charts, MP3s, product info, and much, much more. Just roll your cursor over this link to see how it works."
- Deyey - A company that lets people create and design business cards for free. They also have an online application for file management. Their goal is to help small businesses. More on them as quoted from their website:
Deyey.com aims to help small company and individuals to save their cost to run and promote a business. We provide two FREE online applications now. One is for designing a Name Card, another one is for File Mangament. Besides, our web platforms can share your name cards and files with other people. It lets more people in the world to know more about you and your business. We know that they are not enough to help in your businesses, so it is just our starting point. We have plenty of ideas want to do and we will try our best to get it done!
The Next Web 2.0 Phenomenon: Tumblr
If anybody has a chance to be the next big sensation in Web 2.0, Tumblr has a chance. What is Tumblr, you may ask? I'll let Tumblr tell you, per Tumblr's website:
To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks.This is the response Tumblr has in their FAQ section in response to the question "What is a tumblelog?". For more on Tumblr, check out the page on their site called "Why you'll love Tumblr".
You can also look at tumblelogs as slightly more structured blogs that make it easier, faster, and more fun to post and share stuff you find or create.
If you still want to know more about Tumblr, you're in luck. Here are four articles about Tumblr, in chronological order, that will fill all your curiosities:October 26, 2007 from Silicon Alley Insider
"Tumblr's Million Dollar Man"
November 1, 2007 from Mashable
"A First Look at Tumblr 3.0"
January 15, 2008 from The New York Observer
"Would You Take a Tumblr With This Man?"
January 30, 2008 from Silicon Alley Insider
"Tumblr Growing: 180K Users, 720K Daily Pageviews"
"Tumblr's Million Dollar Man"
November 1, 2007 from Mashable
"A First Look at Tumblr 3.0"
January 15, 2008 from The New York Observer
"Would You Take a Tumblr With This Man?"
January 30, 2008 from Silicon Alley Insider
"Tumblr Growing: 180K Users, 720K Daily Pageviews"
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Self-Improvement Articles Galore - Part Two
The Rest of the Articles
Check out this site, which has an abundance of great articles on how to have more social success.Find out what the 10 secrets to success are, here.
Blogger Tim Ferris writes: "5 Boundary-Setting Tips for the Work Obsessed"
Having trouble making your house rules stick? Find out how to make them stick here
Self-Improvement Articles Galore - Part One
The Best of the Articles
The first four articles I am going to recommend are by Jay Morrissey. He is a fantastic writer and has invaluable self-improvement tips. I highly recommend everyone read at least the first one. They are as follows:- The Art of Verbal Intimidation: Learn it and fight back!
- Conflict: Your guide to resolving any heated argument
- Confidence: An inside out approach
- The Art of Conversation: Stranger? No danger.
"How to Work the Room" describes 10 way to improve your social skills at networking and social events. It has some great tips.
Lastly, this article will tell you how to simplify your life. Here is an excerpt from the article:
The art of having less but enjoying our lives more, involves a few simple changes in perspective. First, we must understand where our true values lie and focus on them. Then, we must take time to enjoy the simple things, and slow down and see what’s right in front of us.
Link Mania - Small Business Resources
Small Business Media
The New York Times' small business section
BusinessWeek's small business section
Fortune Small Business from CNN Money
Entreprenur.com
Inc.com
Fast Company - Although it isn't small business focused, I still think it could be very helpful and inspiring for the people of small business. As quoted from their site:
Fast Company empowers innovators to challenge convention and create the future of business.Small Business Related Organizations
United States Small Business Administration
American Independent Business Alliance
American Small Business League
"Small Business and Self-Employed One-Stop Resource" from the IRS
Four Web 2.0 Sites to Know for 2008
Pownce
Pownce recently came out of beta and is now officially public. This is one of my favorite Web 2.0 sites. Read more about Pownce over at Webware.
Ma.gnolia
Ma.gnolia is an online bookmarking service similar to Digg, Del.icio.us, and StumbleUpon. In comparison to those sites, I would say Ma.gnolia is of a higher quality. There is less spam, more relevant links, and a great community. For a little more about Ma.gnolia, here is an excerpt from their site:
With Ma.gnolia, that’s really all the work you have to do. Finding by tags makes organizing bookmarks a thing of the past. Since it’s a website, your Ma.gnolia bookmark collection can be reached by you and your friends from anywhere, any time. And don’t worry about web pages disappearing from your searches or even the web, as we make a saved copy of each page you bookmark where websites allow us to.StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is the new Digg of online bookmarking. Now, instead of Digging sites, many people StumbleUpon them. At the moment, this is probably the most popular social bookmarking site on the web. They have more than 4 million members. Definitely a site worth checking out.
Jaiku
Although there has been a bit of discontent with Jaiku lately, I don't think people should totally forget about Jaiku. I completely understand, and agree, with people moving to other sites like Twitter, for now. But, if Jaiku really does make major improvements, as they've promised, I think they'll be back on track to compete with the best. Hopefully, Google will pull through on this project. There is so much potential for Jaiku, especially if it is integrated with Google's other world-class applications.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Discover New Music on the Web in 2008
Top 7 Sites
A List of Where to Listen to Music for Free
Pandora
PureVolume
Last.fm
MySpace Music
finetune
Ruckus
SeeqPod
A List of Where to Listen to Music for Free
Pandora
PureVolume
Last.fm
MySpace Music
finetune
Ruckus
SeeqPod
Another noteworthy site I have come across is 3hive. Actually, my first experience with 3hive was, yesterday, when I was voting for the 2008 Weblog Awards. They were nominated for best weblog about music. It looks like an excellent site for alternative, lesser known music.
Nearly a year ago, TechCrunch posted an article titled "Social Music Overview". From this list, I thought iJigg seemed worthy of mention (in addition to the ones I already mentioned above). They give accurate descriptions of each site. Check it out.
Lastly, The Hype Machine published a Music Blog Zeitgeist for 2007, which includes the 50 best songs, the 50 best albums, and the 50 best bands.
Amazon.com's DRM Free Music Store Rocks!
If you didn't know, Amazon.com now has an MP3 store. All music sold in Amazon.com's MP3 store is DRM free and, as you might have guessed, in MP3 format. Thus, it can be played by any music program and on any MP3 player. The following is a more detailed overview as quoted from Amazon.com's website:Amazon MP3 offers over 2 million songs — all in MP3 format, which means they can play on any digital media player, including the iPod.
I use their service and have been very impressed, thus far. The sole reason they have won my loyalty is due to their anti-DRM policy. So, if you want to purchase MP3s for your music collection, I highly reccomend Amazon.com's MP3 store.
Most songs are between $0.89 and $0.99, and most albums are between $5.99 and $9.99. Browse by price or genre; shop Top Downloads or New & Future Releases; and search for songs, albums or artists using the search box at the top of any Amazon MP3 storefront page.
Listen to 30-second samples of songs by clicking the `play´ button next to a song title, or hear all samples from a song list by clicking the `Preview All´ button.
Personal Finance Tips
The Consumerist lists six reasons for why you should keep more than one credit card.
Also, check out this article, if you want to know of "two money mistakes that could cost you $1,000,000".
Friday, January 18, 2008
Tech Tidbits
How has technology improved your life? How will it in the future? Discover 10 technologies that will change your future.
Apple has come out with their latest and greatest: the MacBook Air
Also, free-song promotion is expected from Amazon.
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