Disclosure: As of June 1, 2008 I’ve been helping with Zune podcast submissions in the Zune Marketplace. Do you need help with your Zune podcast submission?
I’ll get back to this disclosure shortly since it’s new to readers. It’s the first time I’ve mentioned this gig in a blog post here. This news has been part of the new MakeYouGoHmm about page added last week.
Zune links
A Friendfeed everyone search for keyword ‘zune’ just led me to a new Zune feature this morning: Zune links.
To use the tool, just enter in keyword(s) and the tool will return matching links to: artists, albums, playlists, music videos, podcasts and videos. I’m curious how the playlist search works especially because I have my privacy settings set to allow “everyone” to view my Zune social settings, but don’t see any of my playlists. Maybe that will be a future feature?
Here is an example link for the the Hmmcast (stale, I know, it’s been over 5 months since last update), which I added border=’0′ to it:
Hmmcast
You will need the Zune software installed on your computer to follow that link.
My personal favorite, the Zune Social experience. The links take you directly to Zune Social where you preview the songs, see stats on listenership, read a review and more.
Sean also makes a good suggestion for somebody to possibly create a Live Writer plugin. Developer readers, there’s an opportunity.
Why are you helping with Zune podcast submissions?
It shouldn’t be a huge surprise to long time readers that I’m helping out in the Zune podcast area. I have been podcasting and writing about podcasting since the word was penned and this gives me an opportunity to get knee deep in podcast submissions all over the world. I also have written positively of the Zune player since launch (do a search for past ‘zune’ posts). Also, my whole family has been beta testing at Microsoft HQ in Redmond for several years, although I think we won’t be able to do that any more (?).
Rob Greenlee who is the lead for the Zune podcast area, invited me to guest co-host several of his WebTalk podcasts some time ago and mentioned that they could use my help reviewing podcast submissions. I jumped at the chance and as of the first of June 2008, here I am. If you are a podcaster and reading and need help with a podcast submission pending in the Zune Marketplace, please feel free to drop me a line either through Skype, Twitter, email (Gmail to my name works great) through the Zune Social of course or any of the dozens of other ways to contact me online where I’m currently active. I’m also regularly checking the official Zune forum podcast area and have already gone through the 1,400+ posts made there.
I’m also doing keyword searches for zune podcasts and tracking conversations elsewhere on the web (hence the genesis of this post), so don’t be surprised if I show up in your comment area if you’re talking about the Zune Marketplace podcast area and/or blog here and trackback to you.
Without getting into too much more detail, this is a contract gig for our online business and will be additional work, not something that replaces any of my current jobs. I still very much co-own an offline business and our online business and have been happily self-employed for 14+ years. I am also happy to be helping in the Zune podcast area and helping the podcast community at large, which I hope is crystal clear in this post.
Accordingly, I’ve added a ‘Zune’ category and will be adding the disclosure at the top of this post to any Zune-related posts where relevant going forward so that readers are clear of my professional involvement with the Zune team. I think you’ll see me promoting more new podcasts I’m discovering in the coming days more than writing that much more than I have in the past about Zune, but felt it was important to make the professional connections clear.
This new Zune link feature will make it easier to post direct links in the Zune Marketplace to these cool podcasts other people share with me and I discover through helping with the podcast submissions. So far I’ve already found some really well done podcasts that I didn’t know about.
Journey needs a Revelation, literally. They need to Escape to Steve Perry’s house and convince him to take up the microphone again. I was blissfully unaware that Perry replacement Steve Augeri had throat problems on the 2006 Journey tour and was replaced mid-tour. At first by Jeff Scott Soto and then permanently by Arnel Pineda who sings the 11 new tracks on Journey’s newest studio album Revelation, available now at Wal-Mart exclusively.
Major props to my music buddy Matt who yesterday through his good blog Addicted To Vinyl tipped me off to this news. There have been a lot of 80s bands releasing new music recently like Asia, Dokken and Whitesnake which I’ve bought and been listening to as well. I’m feeling a small 80s-type uprising. Good time to be a rocker again?
I went out yesterday and bought the Journey CD and have been (mostly) listening to it since. Although I’ll expand in greater detail below, I share many of Matt’s feelings on the vocals:
as much as Arnel Pineda might have the goods vocally, there is NO doubt in my mind that Cain and Schon kicked his ASS in the studio to get the results they wanted to hear on the album, and you can hear it.
Let’s cast aside my irritation that Journey pulled the same stunt as The Eagles by forcing me to get in the car and pay too much for gas to visit the local Wal-Mart. I would have much rather bought ‘Revelation’ online through AmazonMP3 or one of the other non-DRM stores. These music exclusives might be good for the band but they suck for those of us who would rather buy the music from our music retailer/e-tailer of choice.
Must admit that I agree with Matt on the Journey Revelation package as being a good deal for $11.88. Not sure if we should thank Journey, Wal-Mart or both for this one. How many new albums come with 11 new songs, a new singer singing 11 old songs completely re-recorded, plus a DVD of a bonus concert in April of this year.
First up, the re-recorded songs aren’t as good as the originals. They sound old — and not in a good way. Pineda is a somewhat plastic version of Steve Perry. Dude needs more emotion. On one hand I like the fact that they included examples that Pineda could sing the songs, but on the other this feels kind of Karaokeish.
“Wheel In The Sky” - too fast! Come on, Neal Schon, you’re great on the fretboards, listen to the timing of the original and compare. When Journey plays Wheel live they always play the tempo faster than the original and it doesn’t work as well fast. I imagine with a few beers in you, it wouldn’t be as noticeable, but without a buzz it’s easy to hear. Pineda hits most the notes, but seems labored.
“Faithfully” - this is Pineda at his best singing the classics, I liked this one. He’s close to feeling it here. Music is about as close to the original of any of the re-recorded tracks.
“Any Way You Want It” - Remember Caddyshack? This song will always remind me of Rodney Dangerfield cutting it up on the course with a dancing gopher. Pineda’s vocals and the music are faithful to the original. Nice job.
“Who’s Crying Now” - listen to the weak vocals right before the guitar solo at the end and that’s all you need to hear from Pineda as to how he inserts emotion into a classic (answer: he doesn’t). Disappointing. Schon smokes the guitar and the keyboards and bass are there. Sometimes it is the singer, not the song, and that can be no clearer than listening to Journey.
“Separate Ways” - the guitar isn’t mixed as heavy in this re-recording and it’s noticeable. It needs more layering in the mix and some more distortion. Sounds a little too raw for my liking and normally I like raw. The keyboards are as haunting as ever. This is a great Journey song. Pineda covers it ok until he reaches the part about “in vain - vaaaaiiiinnnn” it chokes. I’m surprised they didn’t have him do another take there. Major misstep.
They also do semi-decent re-do versions of “Only The Young”, “Don’t Stop Believin’”, “Lights”, “Open Arms”, “Be Good To Yourself” (w/ extended solo? I like that) and “Stone In Love”. I think you get where this extra disc goes. It gives you an idea of what you might expect if Pineda had been Perry or [gasp] even Augeri. Bottom line: I don’t think it would have worked as well.
Onto the new tracks.
The 11 new songs on Revelation
I’ve been listening back and forth to the new songs and waiting for something to gel with me like a couple of the tracks from Arrival with Augeri on vocals and it’s not happening enough yet. Going to keep trying because some of the riffs are starting to stick out.
“Never Walk Away” - made me feel a bit like I did when I first heard Higher Place on Arrival, but I like Higher Place better because it has a better bass riff. I wish this jammed a little more. The Neal Schon guitar solo smokes, but stops short of really breaking out. It’s not a very strong introduction to Pinera vocally. He’s competent, we get that, but what else? This might have been something on Trial By Fire as a B-side reject, maybe.
“Like A Sunshower” - has a rhythm that goes something like “Lights” but with a lot less charm and sans the catchy lyrics. Somebody turn up Ross Valory’s bass. It’s like they mixed him down. It’s not the same with him toned down.
“Change for the Better” - the only thing I’d change about this track is change to another song. Again, this feels like B-side filler from Perry’s worst Journey album: Trial By Fire. I’d add track 4: “Wildest Dream” to this list. Forgettable.
“Faith in the Heartland” - I learned from Matt’s post that this is a remake from a track on Journey’s last album with Augeri singing called Generations which I barely remember listening to on Napster (the legal one) and giving a C+ grade. Never bought that one, but might go out and hunt it down on AmazonMP3, iTMS or the Zune marketplace if it’s available. I like the opening riff, but it just feels like a dozen other (better) Journey songs to me.
“After All These Years” - has the familiar Journey ballad components, but Pineda lacks the passion to go with the score. It comes off like something one of the American Idol voted off finalists would sing instead of Journey’s lead pipes. This track is getting some airplay. It sticks out.
“Where Did I Lose Your Love” - Like the last track, I totally dig the opening riff, but then it we get to the verses and it doesn’t work as well for me. The chorus is very catchy though. Feels like something that might have been on Raised on Radio. B-side again, but I like this one overall. It’s starting to stick.
“What I Needed” - With the piano/keyboard opening you’re thinking Open Arms but it gets heavier. Jonanthan Cain can still tickle the ivories. Ok track overall, nothing groundbreaking.
“What It Takes To Win” - Love the delay and other guitar effects. The chorus isn’t catch enough, but this is among my favorites on the album for guitar work. This might be my favorite track of the whole lot in fact.
“Turn Down The World Tonight” - Next to “After All These Years” this is mellowest track on the album. One too many mellow songs, even for a Journey album. These guys aren’t Air Supply. Crank up the amps already. Give us some anthem rock. A ’show us the lighter’ song every once in awhile is ok, but we need that rocker to mix up the tempo.
“The Journey (Revelation)” - Instrumental. Journey isn’t known for having that many instrumentals so it’s a nice break. The music is ok, it’s no YYZ by Rush or anything but it fits the album.
Summary
I wanted to like Revelation more than I actually have so far. At least I bought it, unlike Generations, but once I lay down $$, I tend to even be more picky, not less. It’s kind of sad that after a day worth of listens I can only point to a single song that I will continue to listen to going forward. That song ironically titled “What It Takes To Win” doesn’t win me over for the whole album. I’ll keep trying to listen and see if something will stick because I feel like I’m missing some sort of brilliance here. I think it’s that I want to like this because it’s Journey more than anything, not because the music is that good.
Must admit I feel badly for Steve Augeri. He seemed like a nice guy and I could hear passion in his voice that I don’t hear with Pineda. I don’t understand what throat problems he had, if it was brought on by the stress of touring or something else, but I would have liked to see him stay — if he could medically anyway. From what I could find from some searching around on the web, it seemed like an amicable split, possibly due to medical reasons more than a fallout with the band. If you know more on the story, please use the comment section below or your blog to trackback in and tell me about the details. I’m curious.
Better yet Journey, just bring back the real Steve. Perry has been in the basement too long. It’s time for him to come out of hiding and do a real reunion with Journey. It’s kind of sad to see a band of Journey’s caliber playing smaller gigs when they used to pack concert arenas. If Diamond Dave and Eddie can hook up and Zeppelin can get together with Jason Bonham what’s holding back Perry?
In fairness to Pineda, he’s a competent singer and sings the songs well. I haven’t watched the DVD yet of his concert and maybe he tears it up vocally there. As a package for value I give Revelation high marks, but at the end of the day it’s not how many extras and much filler you jam into a CD package, the music must do the talking. Sorry, Journey’s Revelation is mostly lips sealed. Grade: D+
Bought my first album from the Zune marketplace this morning.
Wasn’t my intention to shop there as I’ve been enjoying shopping for DRM-free music at AmazonMP3, but decided to do some comparison shopping on the Whitesnake Live In The Shadow Of The Blues album between AmazonMP3, Zune and iTunes Music Store (iTMS). The AmazonMP3 price being higher was what motivated me to look around a bit.
The most expensive (not pictured above) was iTMS at $19.98 for 256kbps bit rate AAC encoded. Next was AmazonMP3 at $17.98 and the best price by a mile was 800 Microsoft Points ($10.00 USD) in the Zune marketplace.
I was somewhat skeptical of the Zune marketplace pricing being so much lower. What would be the bit rate of the files? Unfortunately, the Zune store doesn’t tell you — or if they do, I couldn’t easily find the answer.
I did some searching around and tried to find out what bit rate the Zune MP3 files were encoded at, but didn’t find the answer anywhere. I decided $8 or $10 was too much of a savings not to at least pull the trigger. After juicing my account with some more Microsoft Points I purchased the Whitesnake album. Then I went to Windows Explorer and right clicked on the properties of the track to see the bit rate was 320 kbps!
Very cool! I didn’t know the Zune store sold MP3 tracks at 320kbps bit rate. This will make a new spot for me to comparison shop for new MP3 music. I didn’t check Napster to see what their price and bit rate was like, but that’s another possible place to buy MP3 albums from these days legally. Too bad with Zune, iTMS and Napster you need to run their software to surf the store. Score a point for AmazonMP3 in the convenience department.
In the above comparison shopping the Zune store had the best deal, but I’m sure there are/will be other cases where the Zune store isn’t the best. For example, Whitesnake’s newest album Good To Be Bad is selling for $8.99 at AmazonMP3 and $10.89 at iTMS (iTunes Plus) and in the Zune store for 900 Microsoft Points ($11.25). Even though I prefer the 320kbps I bought Good To Be Bad at AmazonMP3.
My ears can’t tell the difference between 256kbps and 320kbps, but a couple months back I re-ripped our entire CD collection to 320kbps. I’m fine with anything 256 and above.
For those stuck on the Microsoft Points to $USD conversion, just multiply the points by $0.0125. I wish Microsoft would show the $USD price in parenthesis or something, but it’s not that big of a deal to use a calculator or remember that 100 point multiples are $1.25.
Another example of a recent purchase: Def Leppard Songs From The Sparkle Lounge bought from AmazonMP3 for $8.99. That one isn’t even available in non-DRM version from iTMS or the Zune Marketplace.
Don’t think that the iTMS is the only place to get DRM-free music these days. Comparison shopping is required to find the best deal. Too bad these online stores don’t put out an API so somebody can mashup a best deals for DRM-free music to save music shoppers even more time. There’s an idea.
Just got off the phone with a very nice, but stressed out salesperson. Deal taking nosedive.
He had to deliver me a message that the Sweetwater.com accounting department wanted to speak to my wife on a landline phone about a new purchase we were making for a guitar that cost $2,800. They said this was for our “security” apparently because talking to us on Skype / VoIP was a problem. Specifically they wanted to talk to my wife on a landline phone because we used her debit card (remember, we canceled our credit cards). Nevermind the fact that on Friday she talked to them over Skype and personally authorized the charge. Should have been end of story, right? Wrong.
WTF? I had to do a doubletake when the salesman told me this. And the more I thought about it, the more bothered I became, particularly when the guy told me it was for my own security? Huh? You don’t want to talk to me on the phone I called you for directly for the sale? Here are the problems with Sweetwater.com request:
1. I initiated the sale. How? By calling the salesman. Over Skype.
2. We do not have a landline phone at our home. We have *one* landline phone at our offline business. Since that business has nothing to do with a personal purchase, we’re using the phone we have: our personal phone. And it shouldn’t matter what type of phone we use to call in an order, should it? Why?
3. Our bank declined their charge and it would have been necessary for us to contact the bank and authorize the purchase this morning personally when it opened at 10am PST. In other words, Sweetwater wasn’t going to get any money from us without us contacting the bank directly to personally authorize the charge. How is that for increased security, already? Why would there be an additional step to speak to us on a landline phone?
You might be wondering why our bank might decline Sweetwater’s authorization? Maybe this sounds fishy. Were we trying to scam them or something? No. Our bank actually declined their charge twice. Once on Friday and once this morning. According to online account information plenty of money is there so it has to be some sort of internal bank thing. The bank the card is from is a local small town bank so it’s possible in the interest of protecting us from possible fraud they declined the charge.
The Sweetwater salesman said they’ve seen this before because some banks do not trust online purchases and customers need to authorize the purchases first. Fine, we were willing to call them and do that, but no, we weren’t also going to speak to their accounting department on our single landline phone. This isn’t a loan, we were planning to pay in full, essentially in cash. As customers we should not have to jump through (unreasonable) hoops to buy something. Screw that. The Sweetwater accounting department can stick it.
You might find the landline request dealbreaker absurd, but stop and think about this for a minute.
There’s a picture above and to the right of what I was planning on buying: a custom Gibson metallic green robot guitar that tunes itself. A limited edition of only 1,000 that are being made. Talk about technology, eh? This thing looks like a lot of fun. I thought it would be great to have for jamming with the boys so I could easily use alternate tunings, but if I’m buying from a company that doesn’t trust VoIP, or rather doesn’t trust talking to me using that, what happens when the robot guitar breaks down someday? Will they tell me I can only talk to them on a landline to put in a service request?
You might say this is a silly reason to kill a deal for the guitar, but to me, the sale is far and away not the end of the purchase. There is service that goes with it and if Sweetwater doesn’t trust technology for a technology purchase, then they can sell that guitar to somebody else who still has a landline phone in their home.
I do feel a bit for the salesman because he’s out a sale and like me depends on commissions, but I told him to go back to his accounting department and blame them. It wouldn’t surprise me if in 10 years it’s considered very normal not to have a landline phone.
Sadly, VoIP still has a long ways to go in the respect department. At least from VoIP snubbing accounting departments of online vendors.
There have been some funny movies about marijuana and I was interested to learn that AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson was involved with one called Totally Baked. To promote the Totally Baked DVD, Johnson sang three songs with AC/DC bassist Cliff Williams laying the lowdown.
The 3 free song downloads sung by Brian Johnson for Totally Baked movie: Chain Gang, Chase The Tail and Who Phoned The Law sound very AC/DC-like and aren’t bad. Give them a download, queue and listen to ‘em.
Speaking of AC/DC, they just finished recording their newest studio album which is due out at the end of 2008. It’s been 8 years since their last studio album Stiff Upper Lip. There are some rumors that this album might be accompanied with a farewell tour. Hope this isn’t true.
I’m not into ‘why I haven’t blogged’ posts and try to spare you the exercise. For future reference, I write when:
1. I have the time
2. Something external (another blog post, news story, new site/service, etc) moves me and/or
3. I have something (fresh, preferably) to say or share
With #3 I’m being more challenged lately. This blog has well over 1.5 million published words and has covered a lot of different web terrain. Fortunately it isn’t niche, so finding something to make us both go hmm for the rest of my lifetime shouldn’t be rocket science. It’s not as easy any more, though because I keep getting literary deja vus. I’ve got to get back to more deeper web exploration.
You don’t care, I get it, just publish mon, publish!
I’ve found the editor in me getting much more picky about what gets published though. That’s really the problem. I just looked in the draft queue and see I’ve written around a dozen posts since April 2. Blame the editor, that’s it.
I digress. Recommendation: use the Hmm search or click the archive links from the home page to revisit the keyword(s) of your liking. There’s a lot of gold in them thar hills. I’ve been thinking about creating a couple pages with links to heavily trafficked past posts. Maybe one for the highest rated ones too, as that function is getting used more than expected. We tried a rating post feature here before and it bombed. I wouldn’t say the second time is a huge improvement, but more readers and visitors are using it. That helps determine what you like and dislike, so please take the time and rate every post that you read all the way through.
Providing fresh material should be every writer’s goal and I’m seeing — right or wrong — this blog as more like a book than a place to repeat something said days, months or [gasp] years ago. The five year anniversary for this site is fast approaching (July 4, 2008) and then I’ll need to make the call what to do the next five years, health willing of course. A few ideas are percolating. I might bring in some hired guns, what do you think of that?
Missing you
I do miss reading some of my friends when they don’t update their blog for awhile and wonder what they’ve been up to. I’ve been asked: hey, why no Hmm? Is everything ok? What’s going on? Those are questions that a 21 day off period don’t answer. I remember giving blog buddy Kent a friendly stick shake when he went AWOL and he’s been kind enough not to return the favor during my blackjack period.
The picture at the top of this post should answer where I’ve been — at least in part. Yes, I’ve been practicing playing my guitar instead of publishing blog posts. I have been writing a little bit here and there, but time where I’d normally be doing the blog exercise, I’ve been practicing so I can jam with the boys on Sunday nights offline. I’m hoping we get good or bad enough to shoot some compelling video because the Hmmcast is starting to grow some nasty looking cobwebs. It’s not much fun watching video, even in HD, of an average garage band, so that footage might never come to fruition.
The calluses on my left (playing) hand haven’t been there and needed to practice time to build up. This has turned me into one of those guys you see carrying around their guitar everywhere. I’ve always thought that was neat when I see people doing that. Every musician knows that practice is the only way to get better. Heck, any skill takes lots of practice. I’m stealing my writing practice time for guitar practice.
Oh, and couldn’t stand for playing live my 20+ year old electric guitar any more, so threw down for some Gibson Les Paul studio action at one of my new guilty pleasure stores: Guitar Center.
I’m a sucker for red guitars and this red wine style is a beauty. Oh, and it comes with a sweet case too.
What do you think? How many Hmm readers play guitar? I must admit with some embarrassment that despite buying this new guitar a couple weeks ago, it is still unplayed. I brought it home, told my kids they’d be cursed for life if they touched it, set the lock on the case and stored it away in a safe, dry place.
Now before you get on me too much, I bought it to only play live, not for practice. Maybe I’ll feel differently later on, but I’ve never owned a pro quality guitar. All my gear has been fairly low budget. I’ve wanted a really good guitar since I was 14 years old and the timing was right.
I also had a pickup installed in my Washburn acoustic guitar and it sounds great. I’m planning on bringing both of these guitars to our next jam session this coming Sunday night. I’m hoping to become regularly invited to the group which involves three other guys (two are younger, one is older). They asked me to play back after the first session so that’s a good sign. Much too premature to speculate on if we’ll ever get out of the garage. Last time I played in a band was back in high school, so lots of rust to knock off for me.
I’m compiling a list of songs I can play either in part or all the way through. Here’s the current list as of this writing:
Electric
AC DC - Back in Black, Dirty Deeds, Walk All Over You
America - Horse with No Name
Ben E. King (on bass) - Stand By Me
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Blue Oyster Cult - Don’t Fear The Reaper
Dokken - Alone Again
Iron Maiden - The Trooper
Judas Priest - The Hellion, Livin’ After Midnight
Metallica - Fade To Black, For Whom The Bell Tolls
Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train, I Don’t Know
Styx - Suite Madam Blue
Ted Nugent - Cat Scratch Fever
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
Acoustic
John Mellancamp - Pink Houses
Five Man Electrical Band - Signs
Ritchie Valens - Donna
Have you got some good guitar song suggestions to add? There are a bunch of songs I’d like to learn how to play and, in some cases, learn how to play again. The song list shrinks if you don’t keep practicing.
Bought a bass for son
You might have noticed in the list that I snuck a song on bass in there by Ben E. King. Stand By Me is a great bass riff and fairly easy to play. My son was having trouble learning the guitar so I bough him an Ibanez bass. He’s learned a few songs on there and seems to find it easier to play with his smaller fingers.
Our third Guitar Center purchase was a set of Simmons electronic drums and drum amplifier. They sound great and we’ve been jamming a bit with bass, drums and guitar. My son who plays bass is also working on playing the drums too. We got a double bass pedal for it.
Rock Band full albums
I think what has gotten me started back into this was the game Rock Band which I’ve given high marks in the past. And speaking of Rock Band, Harmonix which makes the game yesterday started offering the first complete album: Judas Priest most excellent Screaming For Vengeance available for 1,200 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live. We bought this and played last night for a little while. Great stuff, this could give the music industry something to cheer for as I can see fans buying their album multiple times.
Worked for Judas Priest. Last night we took our youngest to dinner for his birthday and then we went and bough a CD. Which one? Screaming for Vengeance, of course.
Not sure I mentioned it, but we’re on our third set of Rock Band drums now. The newest one seems more heavily reinforced and maybe (hopefully) will last more than a month or two.
Time for me to jump back into my reading list which shows 1,000+ in Google Reader and 1,446 in reBlog and grows by the hour. Before the day is done, I might cheat and mark all as read, but we’ll see how things go.
Please share in the comments below what you’ve been up to, especially if you’re a blogger. Are you publishing less blog posts these days? Playing music or some other hobby offline? It’s good to have some variety in your life.
By the time you read this the doors to the biggest consumer electronics show in the world will be open in bustling Las Vegas, Nevada. For those who’ve never been there, this is also the technology swag mecca; tons of goodies. If you go to CES, plan to pack an empty suitcase worth of goodies to bring back.
CES 2008 kicked off last night with what is being billed somewhat sadly as Bill Gates “last” CES keynote. He’s hosted the CES keynote 11 times and 8 times consecutively, with the first in 1994. You can watch it at microsoft.com/ces using Microsoft Silverlight platform inside your browser.
Silverlight is Microsoft’s cross OS compatible answer to Flash and being widely toted (by them) as a viable alternative. While writing this post and listening to Gates keynote in a separate tab using Windows Vista Silverlight crashed Firefox. I decided to try Silverlight on the Mac with Firefox instead and see how that went. I’ll update before the end of this post if it doesn’t crash (Update: it didn’t on the Mac, go figure).
Summarizing Gates Keynote
In case you don’t want to sit through the Gates keynote, here’s a brief rundown on what happens.
The Xbox 360 is showing prominently in the living room in the “if you believe in magic” video opening as Microsoft chairman Bill Gates enters the stage. He’s dressed in typical Gates attire, a drab purple sweater. He segues into a spoof video of his last day at Microsoft which is funny. Did he just play Mario on a Guitar Hero guitar? Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bono and others are included.
Afterwards Gates shares statistics that PC sales have increased 13% over the last year and then has offers a demo of a program that makes panaromas out of pictures, looks baked into Windows. And then to Microsoft’s perceived geek tabletop of the future: Surface. I love the idea behind touchscreen activity but touch doesn’t work very well for everything.
A keyboard is really important for typing. I wonder if Surface will display a QWERTY keyboard and let you type on it? How will that would feel typing on a flat surface? I see IGT (disclaimer: I own IGT stock) is one of the Surface partners. Does this mean we’ll see this used a lot more in future slot machines?
Robbie Bach comes out on stage next and shares stats on Xbox Live and other media properties. Microsoft has now passed the 10 million subscribers mark and they currently sell more online content than the Wii and PS3 combined.
Zune - The new versions are doing well according to Bach. Microsoft believes Zune has become a clear alternative to iPod. Zune Social now has 1.5 million members. There is some discussion of Zune cards which are similar to Xbox Live gamer cards, only focusing a la last.fm on activity around/inside Zune like your favorite songs and artists (e.g my zune card is located at: http://social.zune.net/member/XBoxTDavid).
Next up: Gates on the future - he holds a device that you can point at people, places and things and it recognizes them. Reminded me of scanning bar codes on the useful inventory program Delicious Library.
Close on a rocking note
Bach and Gates bring out Guitar Hero in a $20 bet. Bach has a famous Xbox Live player playing Welcome to the Jungle and Gates brings in a ringer: Slash! The crowd has what sounded like to me the biggest keynote applause of the night for the former Guns ‘N Roses guitarist. Microsoft upstaged by a guitar legend?
The Slash applause factor sums up the keynote which was lackluster. Nothing that new or revolutionary. If this is Gate’s last keynote ever, it went out with a whimper.
Update 1/7/08 10am PST: Wow, looks like I’m not the only one unimpressed with the keynote. Duncan at Techcrunch says it sucked. Let me save you some more time by showing you one of the best parts: the Gates last day video below:
AmazonMP3 may start seeing DRM-free tracks from Sony BMG at some point in 2008. Sony, a company with a checkered proprietary past is planning on dropping DRM on at least “some” of their library. The some with DRM-free tracks remains a big obstacle for all the music companies. Lots of library gaps. This could happen sooner than later too.
Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony (SNE) and Bertelsmann, will make at least part of its collection available without so-called digital rights management, or DRM, software some time in the first quarter, according to people familiar with the matter.
From the sounds of this Sony is dipping toes in the water and not taking the full plunge, but we’ll have to wait and see how many artists and songs make it onto AmazonMP3 and iTunes.
Not sure about you, but I don’t want Sony to stop at DRM-free music. I’d like to see them get off the backs of the homebrew developers building games for the PSP. And what kind of content creation will be allowed, if any, on the upcoming Sony HOME service through the Playstation Network? Would be nice if they’d open that up as well and offer something similar to what Second Life offers.
Since Sony is the last of the four major music companies to agree to offer DRM-free tracks, the path has been cleared for a future of someday being able to legally purchase MP3 for all the music you enjoy. I’d say currently it’s maybe 30% of the music I like (rock and roll) is available legally for sale on MP3 at AmazonMP3. A lot of incomplete artist libraries at iTunes and AmazonMP3. Can’t blame the music companies for not offering every artist as there are still some holdouts like the Beatles (I thought the Beatles had promised to get their music out there digitally, what’s the hangup?).
It would be nice to see this number jump to 95%+ by 2010. How much of the music you enjoy is available via MP3?
Update 1/7/08 8:01am PST: In the second quarter Reuters is reporting that Napster is going to start offering MP3 files for sale. Talk about returning to roots.
A success and failure in legal online downloading to discuss. I’ve done business with both AmazonMP3 and Wal-Mart video, the former being a more satisfying customer experience.
AmazonMP3 grows by adding Warner Music to their library of online songs being sold DRM-free in MP3 format. This adds artists like Van Halen, Green Day and Led Zeppelin and brings their total to nearly three million songs. The iTunes store only sells DRM-free music from EMI while AmazonMP3 now offers EMI, Universal Music Group and Warner. If Sony offers their catalog to AmazonMP3 and that’s a big if, they’ll have four major music outlets licensing digital music for download legally.
This is a positive story for expansion of DRM-free legal digital music delivery. Conversely, Wal-Mart trying to sell digital video with DRM on the same day the DVDs release has failed. Wal-Mart might be good at offering cheap prices in their retail stores, but at least some of their online retail efforts aren’t successful, as shown on December 21 when they killed their online video service launched back in February.
Wal-Mart will continue offering physical DVDs for sale at its stores and online … Wal-Mart’s attempt at downloading came two years after it pulled out of online DVD rental and directed its subscribers to Netflix Inc, and months after it protested Walt Disney Co’s move to sell movies on Apple Inc’s iTunes online music store at below-retail prices.
We bought one movie through Wal-mart Video and had trouble with the video software backed by HP. We were able to watch the movie one time but it remains a stinging $15 memory that might as well have been two tickets to a crowded theater because it was a one watch only experience. This remains the major danger with buying any DRM-infected file and the reason we buy very little music and video this way.
At first by Jeff Scott Soto and then permanently by Arnel Pineda who sings the 11 new tracks on Journey’s newest studio album Revelation, available now at Wal-Mart exclusively.
What would be the bit rate of the files? Unfortunately, the Zune store doesn’t tell you — or if they do, I couldn’t easily find the answer.
Just got off the phone with a very nice, but stressed out salesperson. Deal taking nosedive.
There have been some funny movies about marijuana and I was interested to learn that AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson was involved with one called Totally Baked. To promote the 
, Johnson sang three songs with AC/DC bassist Cliff Williams laying the lowdown.
