512 Pixels

The official ForkBombr Dogcow Shrine is now up and running. This project has been on my to do list for months; all in took was a sick day at home to get it done. Enjoy, and please forgive the fact I did it in iWeb.

Ian Paul at PCWorld:

Now that the John, Paul, George and Ringo have joined the iTunes revolution, what about the rest of the iTunes holdouts? Believe it or not there are still many famous bands and solo acts that refuse to put their music on Apple’s iTunes store. Most believe Apple’s policy of refusing to sell whole albums instead of single song downloads is the problem, while others object to how Apple pays artists.

The first three examples Price lists (AC/DC, Garth Brooks and Bob Seger) all have declined to sell their albums on iTunes for this very reason.

Singles have been around since for ages, and are a great way for an artist to introduce their work to a larger audience. Singles have a purpose, but many artists don’t see the second step — album sales — materialize in a digital world. In the days of physical media, to get a copy of the single playing on the radio, it meant buying the entire album — on LP, cassette, 8-track or CD. That meant the not-so-great tracks got to ride on the coat tails of the successful single or two on the album. With digital singles, every track has to stand on its own merits.

Buying single tracks was one of the big points Apple made when it introduced the iTunes Music Store in 2003.¹ While good for consumers, selling just singles means less income for labels and artists. Which is the point of all businesses — including music.

Maybe I’m just old-school, but I really don’t like having just one or two tracks from an album. For that matter, I can barely stand shuffling music most of the time.² I’m a listen-to-the-whole-album kinda guy. Always have been.

The Apple PR Machine:

Apple today announced it will expand its revolutionary iAd mobile advertising network to the UK and France this December, with Germany to follow in January. iAd will launch in Europe with iAds from L’Oréal, Renault, Louis Vuitton, Nespresso, Perrier, Unilever, Citi, Evian, LG Display, AB InBev, Turkish Airlines and Absolute Radio.

According to Apple, user engagement times are averaging more than 60 seconds per visit. That’s pretty impressive, and it’s clear from Apple’s iAd webpage that the company is trying to position these ads as the best way to reach the “ Apple audience.”

[via Engadget]

Chris Nuttall over at the Financial Times:

Mr Wilson, author of the popular A VC blog and a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, said Google had not come up with anything truly transformative that was a home-grown product since Gmail, introduced in 2004. It had relied on acquisitions instead to develop new services.

Wow. Once I stopped and actually thought about it, Wilson is right. Innovation is key in this industry, and eventually, growth via acquisitions can’t keep up.

Mr Wilson went on to question Facebook’s level of innovation:

“What has Facebook invented recently - not the status update, not the check-in… they’ve just copied this,” he said.

Also true.

[ via Ben Brooks]

Asylum has a great public service announcement about how to talk to your kids about Star Wars:

Here are some sobering facts about the world today: Every day, millions of kids go to sleep having never been introduced to Chewbacca, and, worse, countless more think Greedo shot first.

We here at Asylum want to make sure you and your child have an open and healthy conversation about Jar Jar and the differences between a “good trilogy” and an “uh-oh trilogy.”

Great advice for parenting in this dark world.

[Via Gregg Smith]

Mr. Brooks:

I quit Facebook back in mid-May of 2010, it has not been a year yet, but it has been a significant amount of time. What I can tell you is that not a single relationship/friendship that I have has suffered because of it. There has yet to be a single instance where I regretted quitting Facebook.

I think that if a friendship suffers due to a lack of Facebook, it probably wasn’t a great relationship to begin with. Social media makes the art of relationships appear easy, while in actuality, it creates a false feeling of closeness that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

I’ve turned my account on and off several times, and late last week, started the process to delete it entirely¹ after my uneasiness with the service grew too large to ignore.

Check out the mess on that desk.

[via Cult of Mac]

Andy Ihnatko, on today’s iTunes/Beatles announcement:

The Beatles don’t need the money. What they really want is to make sure that “Hey, Jude” remains part of the world soundtrack. A move towards the iTunes Store is yet another move towards that goal.

Jacqui Cheng:

“This is not an e-mail killer. This is a messaging system that has e-mail as part of it.”

That’s how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the company’s revamped messaging system, introduced at a special press event in San Francisco today. The more-than-just-e-mail system is meant to consolidate all of a user’s interactions with other people—whether it’s via SMS, Facebook messages, or e-mail—into one spot. Of course, Facebook wants it all to live on its own servers.

I started the 14-day process to delete my account¹ yesterday. It’s more complicated then deactivation, and isn’t clearly defined on the company’s site. However, this article explains it all clearly.

Sweet.

Kit Paul:

Nice and sunny in Aldera today, on beautiful Alderaan. Some showers are expected tomorrow. Unfortunately there seems to be a glitch about Tuesday’s high temperature and no readings from Wednesday on for some reason—we apologize for the technical difficulty. On the bright side, we have a new artificial moon called The Death Star and it’s crescent is clearly visible and awesome. Enjoy.

[ via Kottke]