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  • Vox looking good

    voxI was fortunate enough to receive an invite overnight from Anil Dash to SixApart’s new blogging/ social networking tool Vox (previously known as Comet).

    I’ve just had a quick play with it. Initial thoughts:

    1. Vox has the potential to be a big hit. It works quickly, presents well, and has some nice features.

    2. The navigation options are a little confusing at first, but then again I’m someone who struggles to work out MySpace as well, so it could be just me.

    3. My invite was to a “starter account” which is basically gives you the ability to comment on other peoples posts, manage friends and set up a profile. I’m not quite sure what use it is though, hopefully I’ll eventually get an invite to the “standard account” that has all the bells and whistles on it.

    Is this a MySpace killer? Probably not, but in terms of reaching a broader audience for SixApart, particularly Generation Y and the MySpace crowd, with a bit of luck and some shrewd marketing, I can see this service going gang busters for SixApart, and possibly taking a big chunk of market share in this space, particularly now we are seeing news reports that MySpace users are finding that service “too mainstream” and are starting to look at other services.

    In summary: think Flickr combined with social networking, blogging and tagging = Vox.

    Very nice indeed. Congrats to the SixApart team on a product that shows a lot of promise.

    PS: My Vox page is at http://nichenet.vox.com

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  • Eat, Drink, Smoke, Sleep around…and live to be old

    As the old saying goes: Eat, Drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die, or in this guys case, live to 110, from the BBC:

    Britain’s oldest surviving war veteran has celebrated his 110th birthday at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne….In the past Mr Allingham has put the key to his old age down to “cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women”.

  • Download this Song

    Caught this song on the radio yesterday, it’s apparently No. 6 on some commercial radio chart. Catchy, and interesting lyrics, and apparently MC Lars is touring Australia at the moment, with a visit to Bunbury as well!

    Download This Song

    It’s 2006, the consumer’s still pissed
    Won’t take it anymore so I’m writing a list
    Don’t try to resist this paradigm shift
    The music revolution cannot be dismissed
    $18.98 Iggy Pop CD?
    What if I can get it from my sister for free?
    It’s all about marketing Clive Davis, see?
    If fans buy the shirt then they get the mp3
    Music was a product now it is a service
    Major record labels why are you trying to hurt us?
    Epic’s up in my face like, “Don’t steal our songs Lars,”
    While Sony sells the burners that are burning CD-R’s
    So Warner, EMI, hear me clearly
    Universal Music, update your circuitry
    They sue little kids downloading hit songs
    They think that makes sense
    When they know that it’s wrong

    Hey Mr. Record Man
    The joke’s on you
    Running your label
    Like it was 1992
    Hey Mr. Record Man,
    Your system can’t compete
    It’s the New Artist Model
    File transfer complete
    Download this song!
    Download this song!
    Download this song!

    I know I’m rhyming fast, but the message is clear
    You don’t need a million dollars to launch a career
    If your style is unique and you practice what you preach
    Minor Threat and Jello both have things to teach!
    I’ve got G5 production, concept videos
    Touring with a laptop, rocking packed shows
    The old-school major deal? It makes no sense
    Indentured servitude, the costs are too immense!
    Their finger’s in the dam but the crack keeps on growing
    Can’t sell bottled water when it’s freely flowing
    Record sales slipping, down 8 percent
    Increased download sales, you can’t prevent
    Satellite radio and video games
    Changed the terrain, it will never be same
    Did you know in ten years labels won’t exist?
    Goodbye DVD’s, and compact disks!

    Hey Mr. Record Man,
    What’s wrong with you
    Still living off your catalogue
    From 1982
    Hey Mr. Record Man,
    Your system can’t compete
    It’s the new artist model
    File transfer complete
    Download this song!
    Download this song!
    Download this song!

    You know, we just wanted a level playing field.
    You’ve overcharged us for music for years, and now we’re
    Just trying to find a fair balance. I hate to say it, but?ɬ¢?¢‚Äö¬¨?Ǭ¶
    Welcome to the future.

    Download this song!
    Download this song!
    Download this song!

    Hey Mr. Record Man
    The joke’s on you
    Running your label
    Like it was 1992
    Hey Mr. Record Man,
    Your system can’t compete
    It’s the New Artist Model
    File transfer complete

  • PubSub in deep….you know what

    Mike Arrington at Techcrunch reports on rumours that PubSub is imploding, which is interesting given they’ve just announced a deal with Burrellesluce Media Monitoring Services.

    Honestly, I don’t remember the last time I tried using PubSub, I gave up on these guys a long time ago, particularly when Technorati started to get their act together again. Unfortunately whilst they had a lot of promise when they initially launched, they quickly sort of faded into the B-List blog search category for my liking, which is a shame, given they have some nifty charting tools and what not. Will be interesting to see how this story plays out, whether PubSub may eventually fail and close shop, or even be bought out by someone else.

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  • How to kill your blog? Don’t kill it at all

    Darren has a post over at Problogger on how to kill your blog. Personally I don’t believe in killing blogs these days at all. Two reasons:

    1. Although you might not be posting to it anymore you could still be getting traffic (say from Google) and this traffic can still equal revenue.

    2. You can always sell your blog on eBay or somewhere like Sitepoint. I’ve sold a number of blogs I didn’t want to keep any more on Sitepoint. These were blogs on topics I wasn’t interested in any more, or where originally set up as a bit of experiment to see how they’d work. I got reasonable financial returns for all of them, and I know the work I did is now going to live on in someone elses hands.

    So here’s my advice: ignore Darren, never kill a blog. Do a Jason Calacanis/ Weblogs Inc style play and leave them up (ever wonder why Jason Calacanis doesn’t kill old blogs…it’s because he knows they still bring in revenue), or flog them off, after all, wouldn’t you rather have $100, $200 or even more for your blog then just deleting your hard work?

  • Google to compete with Flickr?

    Steve Rubel reports on references at Google’s Picasa to “Web Albums”, a potential competitor to Flickr perhaps?

    I love Picasa, it’s one of those apps I recommend to anyone and everyone who has a digital camera. I long since abondoned my Kodak Picture software for Picasa…it’s a great program, sure it doesn’t have all the image editing features of a program such as Photoshop, but for downloading and managing pictures from a digital camera (and all and any images you have on your hard disk) it’s brilliant. Now if only I could post photos from Picasa to Flickr I’d be happy! 🙂

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  • Enough already with the Microsoft Killer Talk

    Jeremy and I don’t often see eye to eye on certain tech things relating to Microsoft, I’ve always been an Open Source fanwhore where as Jeremy spent time working for (or was that with) Microsoft, and tends to be rather pro-Microsoft (I’m not anti-Microsoft (I use XP for example), I just prefer to have choice in a marketplace), however I’ll agree with him on this:

    Google Office is not a Microsoft killer.

    Far from it. Sure, Google’s growing suite of online enterprise tools will find a nice niche in the marketplace, but they aren’t going to damage Microsoft Office any time shortly, and neither will many of the other Web 2.0 apps out there.

    What Google and other Web 2.0 companies do know however is that the long tail is long, and that there is great potential with these sorts of products, but we are a very, very long way from getting to the stage where Microsoft Office is going to be knocked off its perch, after all, how many people out there even know what Web 2.0 is? Anyone for Ajax? Are Corporate buyers going to start using Google Office….I don’t think think so, after all, they could be using Open Office now for free, and they aren’t (which is rather stupid really give how great it is).

    So enough with the hype already people. Take a couple of Panadols and have a nice lie down.

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  • Considering 911

    Not being American I don’t know enough about 911, but this film certainly asks some interesting questions.

  • Cory Doctorow visits a radio shack

    Fun reading.

  • Why Microsoft should sue Adobe

    This is a really, really good question, from iTWire:

    Microsoft has born the brunt of criticism for its massive domination of the computer desktop since the release of Windows 95. For once, however, it is not Microsoft that has some explaining to do. Microsoft’s decision not to include the ability to save files to Adobe’s PDF format in its upcoming Office 2007 product, after arguments with Adobe, is bad news for users. Adobe really needs to explain to the world why it has forced Microsoft to do this.

    At present, both Microsoft’s open source office suite rival, Open Office.org 2.0, as well as Apple’s Mac OSX operating system, provide the facility to save documents as PDF (Portable Document Format) files. The PDF has become a widely used defacto standard for publishing non editable paginated documents. An argument could be made that excluding the same facility from Office 2007 that is provided freely elsewhere is unfair discrimination.