Sep 5, 2009 0
When the oceans rise
Pretty scary. When the oceans rise with 1 meter, the Netherlands will sort of seize to exist. Especially confronting when zooming in on your house…
Jun 25, 2007 0
MySpace Mania
My band finally entered the MySpace madness. Horrible as it may be, it remains the leading tool for networking purposes (‘meet the fans’, so to speak).
I have been working on Rare Groove Orchestra’s MySpace the last couple of days. Considering the crappy interface and the numerous limitations of the MySpace ‘technology’, I think the result is not too bad.
Oct 13, 2006 0
Qloud & The Filter Reviewed
Today I’ll review two iTunes plug ins, which were recently launched.
Qloud does tagging within iTunes, an idea I discussed here last year (Dutch). So you could say I’ve been waiting for something like this to come along. Unfortunately, I had quite some problems with the installation and the user interface. The installation took forever and I needed to download the program again to get it installed. After I finally got it installed, the user interface just froze iTunes and my PC, over and over again. Within 15 minutes I got so frustrated, I removed the software and didn’t look back. (1/10)
An even cooler idea was made into The Filter, a service that aims to create “perfect play lists’ from your music collection“. Although installation was pretty easy, I think they do miss the point. Instead of monitoring usage of iTunes and creating play lists based on your personal behavior, the service still expects you to do the work and create play lists yourself. Before I downloaded and installed The Filter, I also expected a community functionality which would enable an exchange of play lists between users. This was not the case. In my honest opinion another missed opportunity. (4/10)
If any of these plug ins will be a success, Apple will perhaps integrate these functionalities in the next version of iTunes. Possibly this will lead to acquisition of any of these companies, something the guys that develop these kind of products are aiming at. However, if I would be responsible for M&A over at Apple, I would not be tempted. Not even a little bit.
(both links via Lifehacker)
Oct 10, 2006 0
A Message From The Founders Of YouTube
Somewhere in this video one of the founders of YouTube says: “The most compelling part of this is being able to concentrate on features and functionalities for the community.” All the while he’s drooling and his head is spinning, thinking: “I’M SO F-CKING RICH, I CAN BUY THE WORLD. YOU LOSERS!”
Oct 9, 2006 1
The Future Of ThisNext
A few weeks ago, I created a list entitled ‘My Bag & My Stuff‘ over at ThisNext.com. ThisNext is “a shopcasting network where you can discover, recommend and share things you love“.
Although I really liked the concept at first, I have my doubts about the level of addictiveness that this site can create for its users. In the first week I checked back often, but in the second and third week my interest level decreased. Now, I see no reason for visiting at all. The lack of interaction is the main problem I experience.
The new ShopCast feature is nice, but it still needs some work. For one, the script used messes up my (default WordPress) sidebar template. Which means a huge potential of bloggers is excluded from using it.
I’m hesitant to invest time in making a lot of cool pages, since the question remains (as with many other Web 2.0 start ups): how will ThisNext make money? And thus, for how long will they (and my content) survive?
