EMI beta (A short review)

iTunes, Spotify, Last.fm - The three horsemen of the apocalypse as far as music's concerned right?

Well no, not really. Let's face it if you're going to list out the portents of doom for this particularly industry the list would be longer than the receipt for my bi-monthly trip to Sainsburys. You can add to this list YouTube, Blip.fm and a few million file sharing networks. None of these have been quite so damaging to the established music industry however as the perceived anachronistic attitude of music labels by consumers.

In the minds of the media, labels have appeared rather protective over the old media fiefdoms and rather than embracing the revenue generating potential of new media have sought to crush its progress as a channel for unwanted competition.

Which is why it's so refereshing to see a thoroughly new media website owned by a traditional face in the music industry. Even the 'beta' in the title bar of EMI's site is like a bucket of cucumber-infused ice cold water to the face. An old media megalith producing something that's not quite finished? Unthinkable!

What I love most about this site however, beyond the volumes it speaks in terms of the reviewed position of EMI to digital, is the simplicity of the site. Too often brands playing around with digital media, stuff sites to the gills with shiny things and widgets but EMI's attempt is spot on - enough multimedia to add value without cluttering up the screen.

My favourite element of the whole site however is the largest head tip to Last.fm; the Discover section. I only hope that the algorithm improves with time and experience to become something to really shout home about.

I have to admit prior to this exercise, motivated by schwag and t-shirts on offer from fuelmyblog, I'd never really checked out the sites of music labels but I'll be going back for a return visit to EMI's. I do wish they had a phone number on the site, though.

How to make coffee - a graphical journey

I found this through the wonder that is Feedly, the most intuitive RSS feed reader you'll ever come across.

I'm a massive fan of Coffee but I've never really ventured beyond the beige world of Americanos, Lattes and Espressos. With this new graphical representation of coffee 'recipes' held aloft - if you can call them that - I will stride into a new world of caffeine-based beverages.

I bloody love graphs!

Music via good blogger engagement

I received an email late last night from a bloke called Luke Jackson, asking me very nicely if I would be interested in taking a look at his video. I did and I thought it was fairly awesome and so hence I've posted it here. Please take a look and if you, like me, think it's a great musical number then post it on.

With ever increasing levels of spam and bad blogger engagement, I want to push even harder for those that deserve a bit of buzz and those that engage properly. Luke is both.

Oh and the animation is very impressive too!

Tweet-Up on Thames: part the second

The details for the great Putney tweet-up, discussed two posts ago, are as follows:


Location: The Jolly Gardeners
Time: 7pm onwards
Date: Wednesday, 15th July

It'd be great if you could send me a quick email letting me know if you're coming with your mobile number attached in case the location shifts at the last minute. What's more, I'll even give you my mobile number in return.

If I could get an idea of numbers then I can make sure that there's a place reserved for y'all so please don't be shy!

Let's show those north London types that the real social media revolution is taking place this side of the Thames.

Here's the Twtvite

My Public Evernote Notebook

As a follow-up to my earlier post Getting Things Done, I have made one of the notebooks from my Evernote account public. It's mainly diagrams and drawings that I've taken from Flickr but shows some elements of the text recognition systems at play and the embeddable widget design is very sweet.

Take a peek at the stuff below, I'll keep adding to the pile of notage. If you've got any questions please don't hesitate to drop them as comments below and I'll do my best to answer them or get answers from elsewhere.

Tweet-Up on Thames: part the first

There are and always have been a proliferation of social media events held in Shoreditch but rarely has Putney been recognised as the incubating chamber for many of the, albeit self-acclaimed, greatest minds in social media.

This is to be rectified by the creation of the first ever Putney Tweet-Up, to be held on one evening this July in one of the many beautiful pubs that exist in this neck of the woods.

With regards to attendees, I'm expecting to see the following:

@socialwhisper
@daverosstomlin
@becdaniel
@stuwragg
@01leachy
@aliwhittonmusic
@dpen

Sadly, I'm struggling for people after that. Has anyone got any additional ideas? Throw your name in the hat if you're interested, Putney tourists are welcome.....

So at this stage I'm looking for:

• Attendees
• Venue Suggestions
• Dates

If you have suggestions for any of these, drop me a line or leave a comment. As is fairly apparent, I need more than a little help!

Getting Things Done

Of late I’ve become interested in the ‘getting things done’ (GTD) movement, the largely web-based organisational cult led by ticklist prophet David Allen. Simply put, GTD is all about working and living more intelligently.

I’ve always been fairly well organised at work; my desk is replete with to-do-lists and 33 Digital is going through a Google Doc revolution at the moment but there are always gaps between systems.

If I’m not online or at my laptop, as at weekends or events, it’s tough to update my to-do-list doc and should I want to at a later stage it means I lose time transferring data between a hard copy and soft copy version of the same document.

What I’ve been looking for are resilient efficiency tools and strategies that don't take a lot of time investment to organise. I've found a couple of good'uns but I'm always on the look-out for more. Find my top three below:

1. Notepads - It had to factor in here, the lowest of lo-fi solutions but without doubt the most resilient. No battery or wi-fi issues and so portable that it fits in a jacket pocket without leaving an unslightly bulge.

2. Google Docs - At the core of all of 33's activities lies a beating Google Doc. We pro-actively started using them about three months ago and now tend to share client plans, to-do-lists and calendars using the platform. They're particularly useful for allowing remote working, which leads back to the resilience argument especially in light of the proposed tube strike this evening!

3. Evernote - Although it's a client of mine, it is absolutely fantastic. The technology acts a library for all digital content and enables you to store emails, tweets, screengrabs and images in one place, which is then accessible from your hard disk and over the web. The real bonus however is that it has text recognition software included meaning that it will tag any image with the text included within, which is beautifully useful. It is also mobile enabled, with apps in both the iPhone's AppStore and BB's AppWorld. A truly beautiful piece of technology but seeing is believing, check it out real people's experiences for yourselves here.