money, myspace, & music, oh my.

on another note, i've been playing around a fair amount with the new Myspace Music interface. and since Myspace is clearly trying to position--as it should--itself as a big player in music sharing&caring, i have had thoughts on the matter.

as it currently stands, users can add songs listed by bands' pages to their own playlists, which display on their profiles. previously, a user could only have 1 song on their profile page. now you can have whole playlists. that is the one major change given by Myspace Music. but i think they can push it farther.


as you can see above, "Download" is not available. this is often the case.

they're still entrusting me to purchase songs from iTunes, Amazon, or however else i might get them. this is problematic, especially as many of Myspace's bands aren't signed, or more underground--that's, you know, that thing they're trying to foster along with the bigger names. i should be able to buy my music from Myspace, especially from the lesser known bands that i can't get from iTunes etc.

also, it would be a big community pull if there were band-user incentives regarding music. like if a band has a new album coming out, i should be able to buy songs off that album at a discounted price providing i put those songs on my profile page for X amount of days (say, 7). that way, you get advertising, i get discounted music. things like that.

beer goggles for your gmail.

oh yeah, it's just what it looks like. found via techcrunch on behalf of gmail blog, it seems as though the company really wants to ahem--step up to the plate--and give you that friendly, buddy-to-buddy pat on the shoulder we sometimes need.

you know, for when that tiny voice in your head saying "maybe this can wait till morning" or "proofread?! at least proof--" just gets drowned the hell out by overwhelming streams of alcohol-induced emotion.

personally i think this would be better served on Facebook or Myspace. i'm less inclined to be stalking--i mean, checking up on--people in my gmail. what kind of trouble can i really get into there?

anyway. beside the point. kickback it's getting is that most people are saying they can do this sort of math drunk (and that if it's any more complex they couldn't do it sober--here here!)--that it should have other sorts of questions as well. that may be true, but then you get into SAT cultural type issues and no emails ever get sent after 8pm or on weekends. haha.

i think the value in this isn't so much the math question as a--SOBER--voice outside your own head, the calm logic of binary digital happiness, says "hey, uh, maybe you shouldn't be sending that right now?" that's the subliminal message being sent by those math problems, not whether you can count to 11. and that 1 step between you and send--even if it's a step making you run for the calculator--may save lives.

or at least a considerable amount of drama.

[disclosure: i have never sent a drunken text/tweet/mail/etc that i've regretted. partially cos i don't do most anything that i regret. partially cos most anything i'd do drunk i'd do just as easily sober. and also partially because when i'm drunk i'm social and nowhere near any technology that would support mail goggles. haha.]

good use of ad placement.

YES. YES YES YES.

very rarely do i find an ad placement that absolutely works.
but this absolutely works.

relevant? CHECK. Myspace users are totally the type who may be interested in seeing Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist when it comes out. actually, i intend to.

placement? CHECK. Myspace, having just launched Myspace Music which enables you to put not just 1 profile song but a whole playlist, showcases N&N's Playlist ad above YOUR playlist on your homepage.

was there an ad above your single song player before? no.
do you HAVE to upgrade to a multi-player? NO!

the ad comes with the upgrade, and if the ad continues to be this relevant, if the ads continue at all, then i have absolutely zero problem with them. nice tie-in. kudos. i'm a fan.

first impressions: myspace, facebook newness.

Facebook redesign: shitty. too many tabs. sure, it was a little cluttered before, but i liked it. i went and i got a whole view of a person. i know it's silly, but it is honest to say: i don't have time for your tabs. i'm not going to check your apps, which sucks for those of us sharing Flair or using SocialVibe, to name a few. i also don't understand why the default tab is my conversations while my information is secondary. also, don't need to know about my friends' friends. should we just rename this Stalkers Unite? aka: "i don't care who you are, i just care about what you do." a message that seems to correlate to the advertisers, who think i need to Detox before the end of summer. hello. i don't think you could be talking to a "cleaner" girl. i just hope i can continue using the "old" format. take home message: this redesign verifies this shift.

MySpace openID: hesitant. it's not that i'm opposed to openID, in fact i'm sure it'll make a lot of folks' lives a lot easier. it's that i'm possibly (jury is still out) opposed to what it represents. at first i'm sure it'll be compulsory. after all, not everyone wants an openID. and all the merrier. openID, not openID, whatever. but people will push so that it'll function fully integrated. it will eventually become the only option. moreover, those who don't conform to the openID datamania will suffer from "inauthenticity." in a space where transparency is vital, it will be socially understood that those not authenticated with an openID have "something to hide." problematic for those of us who handle multiple IDs (corporate, personal, etc) unless we are able to use these services via multiple openIDs.

how my life has become more like the Sims.

this is something i've considered for some time.

primarily because when my father had lit our kitchen on fire, we both looked something like as pictured at the left. a certain screaming, up-in-arms motion as we stared dumbfounded at it, profoundly doing nothing as the stove went up in flames. only after a good ten seconds of registering "FIRE!" did we proceed to put it out. this is how i came to understand why my stupid Sims would never put out their own fires: they're like us.

as we become more and more digitally integrated, life shares more and more characteristics of the Sims. for example, Myspace Top Friends (and now with one of the new apps, Facebook, but less so). i revisited this the other day with am&a, and the conversation went something similar to as follows:

me: i'm not in your top friends! i am dejected. hahaha.
she: i didn't know you still used myspace! i'll put you back in. you'd just gone quiet, and you know, friending politics and all.

now mind you, am&a has a Top 24, because she's that popular, and she's right: i don't use Myspace all that much. i'm familiar with it, i have a certain friendgroup there, but that's not really my thing. what got me thinking was the Politics of Friending. the Unspoken Rules of the Top 8.

some of which are:
. if someone puts you in their top friends, you put them in yours.
... unless they're really not your friend.
... unless you have no interest in being their friend.
. you give them the benefit of the doubt.
... which is to say, they start the highest they can be.
... i spoke to you in HS, we're reconnecting, you get 6.
... unless you do me a solid and we become best friends.
. you take me out of your friends, you come out of mine.
... even if we talk every day in real life.
... just because you don't comment enough.
... come on now, realty is precious.
. i am not obligated to put you at the same # as you do me.

you could, if you wanted, weigh in your social weight by your travels in your friends' top 8s. which is to say, in the Sims, if you don't call a "friend" for awhile, your rapport decreases until a frowny face appears over their heads. if you don't Myspace your friends for awhile, your rapport decreases down the 8, letting you know a frowny face is sure to follow in-person. so be kind. check the 8s. make some comments. save the frowny faces.

and hey, now that Islands of Adventure will be opening the Harry Potter section, we really can go to Wizard World, too. just keep me away from the magic acts.

Lovefool: 2: Pandora

i am going to be having a music-based theme this week. i am looking to consider and address different aspects of how digitalization, technological distribution, and social media have affected our consumption and understanding of music.

----

this is the second official post of project Lovefool, wherein i promised i would:
"post about how much i love your brand. why i love your brand. and how much i'm willing to talk about how much i love your brand."

this is actually proving harder than i'd thought. i definitely hardcore love less brands than i'd previously thought. sure, i like a lot. but we all know how fickle i can be with brands. heh. anyway...

target #2: Pandora

why you should care:
if you're into music, this is the thing you want to be paying attention to. yes, stereogum, pitchfork, and obscure are awesome too, but to my knowledge they just hook me up with new tunes and don't yet create entire radio stations for me. Pandora will make radio stations just for you with music you WILL like. they're the best site to date to accomplish this. to boot, you can follow Pandora on twitter and get to know the folks behind it. Lucia at @pandora_radio is a favourite of mine, but there's also @pandora_kevin, too.

why i love them:
i have finely tuned at least 3 of my stations to the point where not one song i dislike comes on. i love that. rather than submit a band or a song i like and have an entire station based off of that, Pandora lets me add multiple bands or songs and configures the station to my exact tastes, rather than "artists similar to X." this combined with the thumb up/down function to better instruct the station makes this net radio amazing. i can listen to other members' stations as well as add an already existing station as my own to finesse, as i did with @spdracerx, whose riot grrrl station had a few years on my own, on the recommendation of Lucia.

i know this sounds simple, but for example, take Last.fm. sure, they can track what i'm listening to, which i grant is cool. but my "neighbours" never listen to what i like, and their stations are so vague that i hate almost everything that comes up. i put in Panic! at the Disco as a band i like, and i'm stuck listening to Simple Plan. GAG ME WITH A SPOON. i hate Simple Plan. i hate Good Charlotte. i hate most anything they toss up. so i stopped listening. no amount of scrobblizing or whatever is going to bring me back when i can't even stomach the music--or, for that matter, the fluctuating levels. constantly adjusting my volume DNE fun.

i also love that when i find music i like with Pandora, i can click on the song and it links directly to iTunes to let me buy it. yes, i am one of those oddballs who's alright with paying .99 per song (i also still purchase CDs, but hey, that's me). my only sadness about this is on iTunes' part: they don't yet sell every song Pandora offers. for example, i couldn't purchase More Than I Can by Jane Jensen (though i could add it to my myspace profile!). it's just a little counterintuitive. another thing Pandora has on Last.fm: i buy CDs from Amazon, not .mp3s. iTunes pwns there. in short, Pandora has made it easier to locate new music i love online, taking the place of a net radio that died for me (i used to use Spinner in high school).

how much i'm willing to talk about how much i love them:
well, i already chat them up any time i'm listening or talking about music online; i reference them in this blog quite a bit; if they were on SocialVibe, Pandora would be my sponsor and help me support my favourite charity; if Pandora made buttons or tee shirts, i would wear them (but they don't). i do refer Pandora to my friends. where music in concerned, they are the top online tool that i talk about. they do what they do well, and that gets a huge kudos in my book.

how much i love them/aka/the backstory:
! Pandora is important to me because it filled a void.

! in high school, i was that girl who knew seventy bands you'd never heard of (but would in a few years); i knew the EPs, what would make great singles, where they came from, what their band name meant, and probably knew either their booker or their main contact. it's what made me originally want to go into music business.

! since going to college and realizing that music business didn't have a future as i knew it, and that entertainment law was bloody boring, etc etc, i threw myself into the english/writing/art aspect i'd also done in high school, forgoing my musical hobbies in favour of newfound passion and a sincere lack of time due to work and classes.

! since graduating, i miss indulging that part of myself. being into music was part of what defined me as a person. without that piece, i had felt somehow less myself. Pandora is helping me to get back to where i want to be.

...previous lovefool projects: To Write Love on Her Arms.

the socialcash monstrosity. cashify baby.

right on the heels of Facebook's leap forward (previous post, ability to vote up/down on advertisements users see) is this monstrosity called SocialCash.

"What that means, is that users are given the option to earn stuff in return for completing offers -- like applying for credit cards, getting information about vacation rentals, receiving free trials of magazines, or finding out their credit score. The offers subsidize the reward (like, say, an iPod Touch or an XBox 360) and the developer gets a cut."

so wait, wait--let me get this right.
i click stupid advertisements, fill them out and pretend to like them, and instead of paying me, you give me branded products. yeah, cos that sounds revolutionary. or like a banner ad in and of itself: "click me and a win a free ipod!" yeah thanx no.

i don't want to sign up for credit cards, give out information to third parties via banner ads, or learn more about vacation rentals i won't use, just so i can have a chance at an ipod. no value there. this won't work.

when i said users should be involved with their advertisements, i said in the ads selection. "paying me off" taking time to do shit i don't want to do for stuff i don't want when i could be playing with facebook apps (talking beneath me, here, but you get the idea) is not my idea of a good time.

the only reason socialvibe works with perks is because a) i don't have to DO anything -- the badge stays on my page. b) the information i share is with socialvibe only, or may be shared with my sponsor/charity of choice. c) i go into it knowing that i'm not doing it for the perks, i'm doing it for charity, so if i don't get a $20 gift certificate, i'm not going to be cranky.

but if i fill out hundreds of stupid banner ads or pop up offers or what have you and don't see anything for it--except for lots of credit card bills well then i'm still going to have to go with a HELL NO. this is not RELEVANT. REMEMBER to be relevant when dealing with a teen market! you are not important to them unless you're doing something they already want to do. newsflash: they don't already want to fill out for vacation rental deals. they're sixteen.

"The Gratis concept works for two reasons: 1. people love free stuff, and 2. in order to get the stuff, users must invite a certain number of users who also complete the program (the number varies based on the value of the reward). So the customer pool grows virally and exponentially."

...stop calling it viral. it makes you look bad. < /peeve >

"Clearly, the viral spread didn't work"--anyone else find that sentence funny twofold?

revisiting facebook, jobs, millenials

in light of this post, i'm revisiting this post.

i wonder if this is going to change.

me, i am a brand. i embrace my inner brand and utilize it. i am the CEO of the brand of the girl Riot™. however, even CEOs get to go home. no one is Cheerios, or BMW, or Adidas all day long. even Adi, Adidas' founder, shares the responsibility with other well-titled folks. at one point, you go home. you sleep. you see friends. you connect with other people. you know... a la the point of social media: being social. and after hours, i'm sure they don't all sleep in Armani and talk jargon in their theta-state.

what gives you the right to inspect a person's private life for their job?

isn't that what applying is about? references, presentations, self-craft. now we're pushing away from that, toward transparency. "twit-pitch me. tell me what you're after and how you can help me--i'll do the background check. nevermind that you can't control what pictures other folks put up of you. nevermind that you can no longer access accounts to things you created, age 14. nevermind what exploration you did in your youth years that made you a good creative--i don't want to see it."

then how transparent are you, really? you want the real person--but only after they've covered their tracks? deleted their pics during those college years everyone had but everyone is supposed to deny? it's a shame facebook wasn't around when you Xers and Boomers were younger. are we handling this like 50s prudes asked to sit in on a sex addicts' meeting in a church basement? if you don't want the "full story" then why are you looking? keep it to the "legit" side of things. we craft those.

sure, check out their blog, their website, their portfolio, newspapers who reference them, other blogs who link to them. i'm not saying don't Google search. i'm saying to assess your digital detective choices--chances are you won't find that information solely on their facebook accounts. to me, that level of invasion borders on pervy. all 100+ pics of me on facebook? i haven't uploaded one. not one. i don't care if it's "personal and public"--it's discerned as a private space for friends (unlike, say, Twitter, which is searchable, Google tracked, and anyone can follow). just like your brand is not my friend, my employer is not my friend unless i invite you in. those spaces are not about you. they're about me.

and i'll be damned if you want me to censor my life to fit your desk job. you wanted a forward-thinking creative, you wanted experience and intellect--this shaped me. this is who i am. and yes, my stuff is on private. but then you're going to want to know why it's on private, aren't you? i'm supposed to connect with friends but not with employers. can i have a "only folks born 1986 or later can access this profile" option? why do i have to keep my personal life private if the whole reason of having the profile is to share?

moreover--will this disdain for (supposed) transparency change as more millenials enter the work space?

and if you think just cos i can do a keg-stand that i'm going to do one with your client, then i'm really concerned. my maturity isn't directly related to my flip cup abilities (which, mind you, are stellar). don't ask for transparency (look at personal sites) if you don't want it. my brand is excellently crafted. my personal life isn't. and if you can tell me how to control all aspects of your personal life, that's really a blog post worth writing.

so i return the question to you all:
how well do you expect someone to cover their tracks? what are you really looking to get out of trawling potential employees' facebooks and myspaces as opposed to their blogs, LinkedIns, websites? ...what are you really expecting? --and will those expectations change?

[post script & further transparency--i had a really engaging conversation with Jason Falls about his post; this is not an affront on his views: i actually highly value and understand them, and respect him, which is why i engaged in the conversation to begin with. after all, my facebook is on private. i'm just arguing that it shouldn't have to be.]

i have advertising thoughts.

so, after having the luck to engage in an interesting conversation with Ian Schafer, a very smart man, yesterday via Twitter, i decided to delve deeper into the advertising thoughts i initially considered in "huge tracks of land."

i asked what he thought of socialvibe and its implications, after reading something written in Adweek (wish i knew what it was, the link is gone now). he felt skeptical because it gives incentives for a given behavior, but felt that the fact socialvibe benefited charities may even it out. i replied that i liked it because it enabled users to choose what their profiles support, giving street cred to the ads.

he argued this would be problematic if all users were allowed to select their own advertising, because some advertisers wouldn't be selected, and users would inevitably support 'prom king' brands. which, naturally, has a lot of merit. because it's true.

but, nevertheless, the concept i'm talking about would only apply to a user's specific profile--not the apps page, or the main page, or 'common areas' owned by more than one person (ie, events or groups). in that way, less popular folks could still get the word out on the same platform, while making advertising more relevant on personal spaces. agreeing in theory, examples he offered were like nascar or skate decks.

i then asked him if he thought incentive was a bad thing to offer users, since it is the users who bring value (data) to the networks. after all, if the users weren't valuable, advertisers wouldn't be up in arms trying to sort out how to reach them effectively, and there wouldn't be such a bid on Facebook's ownership. and guess what? kids are starting to realize this. i wish i had the Facebook link, but kids were responding saying they wanted money for their data being used. i was floored.

in comparison to giving up cash flow, what's wrong with perk compensation for choice advertisements? ian replied saying that, "playing devil's advocate, isn't using a service for free compensation enough for seeing ads?" initially, i say, yes, by far it's compensation enough, even on a place like Twitter, where i'm not giving out a lot of data value. but on Facebook or Myspace? it seems the perfect way to solve the ad-relevance problem.

+ let users choose the ads their profile page sponsors.
[on social media sites in which the users offer up a lot of personal information, like Facebook and Myspace]
- give them the option of using socialvibe in its place.
[so that if they should want, they can donate to charity through their ads. not all users will opt for this, though, since i doubt socialvibe could host the multitude of sponsors kids will want, and i doubt those multitude of sponsors all want to donate to charity.]
+ use the socialvibe method for incentives
[each day the ad is up, you get 1 Entry. on a given day, there are drawings for incentives that support the user's chosen sponsor. IE, a $20 gift certificate to PacSun for those whose ads are for PacSun. this promotes brand value at the same time as not too much monetary loss. this also fosters elitism and competition, which also adds brand value.]
+ in this way, social space advertising becomes relevant
[if the ad reflects my friend's interests, i'm going to be equally as interested in his or her brand choices as their music choices. we show our sponsors on our tee shirts, from brands to clothing companies to coca cola; showing our preferences on our profiles will only add to this level of sharing. in fact, limiting the amount of sponsors a profile can have will become necessary, likely only 1-3. this increases response rate to advertisements. it also makes users feel like a worthwhile part of the cycle, rather than having ads be something purely ignored.]

these are my current advertising thoughts with regards to social media networks.
i'm already a walking advertisement. i'm supporting my socialvibe charity as i type this in my TWLOHA shirt while wearing matching MAC eyemakeup. why not capitalize on these tendencies and harness them to make advertising more useful without being more intrusive?

huge... tracks of land. yeah.

can i get another "duh" and "i was right" in this corner? kthanx.

adrants picked up a piece on SocialVibe which--guess what? makes social networking ads more relevant by appealing to peoples' ACTUAL interests.

effin' novel, i tell you. bloody hell. finally. "huge tracks of land" aside, awesome way to advertise, and even better that it's linked to charities. that gets a huge KUDOS from Riot. in fact, i'm going to go implement it. so there.

next step? have user-chosen ads REPLACE non-chosen ad placement on user-interfaced social media sites like Facebook, Myspace.

Yeas & Nays: I

the site, brandweek, re: Crocs.
Riot saith: NAY!
Brandweek feels that Crocs have lost their 'bite' and i tend to agree. i NEVER liked them. i always thought they were ugly and smelly (literally, they gave the visual impression that because they were plastic, they would smell) and so regardless of supposed comfort i stayed far, far away from the fad. turns out, i wasn't the only person who thought they were ugly. despite making high heeled crocs, people still aren't buying. and guess what? they're still ugly. adding a chunky, "funky" 4 inch heel is not going to fix that.

the site, mtlb review, re: Cadbury.
Riot saith: YEA!
i like the use of exclusivity (you need a password to get into the vault) and how it fosters interaction (the password is somewhere on the site... i haven't had time to find it yet). it also responds to engaged customers by a) posting consumer cadbury commercial remixes, and, b) offering a nifty 'trick out our truck' contest. moreover, in case i don't have the stamina for all the cool mouse-responsive images (nice floating milk glass sculpture!) there's also an html version, which many flash/etc sites tend to forget or forgo. so generally, i say yea to this, even if i'm not quite certain what spawned the link between chocolate and truck racing.

the site, mediapost, re: Sony.
Riot saith: NAY!
i don't care about your "knowledge transfer." i don't care that someone who thought up the "$100,000 professional camera that films the Super Bowl are the same minds behind Sony's $500 to $1,000 camcorders you use to film your child's birthday party." the quality is different, the technology is different. you're not going to assuage me with reassurance that 'the best minds of NASA Sony' came up with my mini-dv. make a better product, if you're concerned about the quality of your image. telling me smart people made it doesn't change the thing i bought. it's not a 100,000 dollar camera, and we both know it.

site1, site2, adage review, ian schafer, re: Myspace.
Riot saith: YEA!
i am not the biggest lovefool for myspace, but i still log in. i've had it since high school. i still check it, at worst, monthly, and at median bi-weekly. i don't go daily but i used to. i would again. that's a big deal. facebook creeps me out too much, still, and nothing has replaced myspace yet. with their new music merger, i think it's too early to discount myspace as relevant. i think that deep focus is doing it right, and i think offering long-term branding aspects that are relevant to the myspace user (KEY here) are much more valuable than the hit-and-run campaigns. i'm for the development. (consequently, i'm also pro-packet.)

the site, adweek review, re: Garmin/live commercials.
Riot saith: YEA! ...for now.
until everyone else jumps on this retro-savvy bandwagon, i think this is a really cool and interesting idea. i'm for the break-up in the usual visuals in commercials and a retro throwback always wins with nostalgia value. i like how Garmin used this technique; i think a company that represents an improvement on the "old ways" (maps < gps) is the best sort of brand to harness live commercials. kudos to Garmin; we just bought one, ourselves. i look forward to more until i'm too tired of seeing them.

anorexia and how it changes blogging.

curiouser and curiouser: the french.

according to new laws proposed, the french are going to jail and fine 45,000 euros bloggers (among others) who encourage anorexia. free speech what?

not that i'm "pro-ana" (the term they use) by any means... but i'm not going to tell you that you can't blog about your anorexia, or post your... "thinspiration" pictures. for once, i give kudos to Facebook and Myspace for resisting the request to remove such "pro-ana" statements/photographs.

with the state trying to legislate beauty aesthetics and media guidelines, many media kids are up in arms, from the fashion world out. there will be trials held to determine if your site is "pro-ana" and, if so, how detrimental it is.

The new offence is defined as "provoking a person to seek excessive thinness by encouraging prolonged restriction of nourishment" to the point of risking of death or damage to health. The maximum penalties are applied if the person dies. (Bremner)

some of this is excusable and even understandable, considering events like the "Miss Bimbo" website, which encouraged children as young as 9 to embrace plastic surgery and extreme dieting in the search for the perfect figure. The Miss Bimbo site invites users to create a virtual doll, keep it “waif thin” with diet pills and buy it breast implants and facelifts. The website attracted 1.2 million players in France.

now, i went to the Miss Bimbo site after reading this. it does seem rather odd, but so are a lot of humour sites. not that i'm outright defending it, but i'm not prosecuting it either. after all, it is named MISS BIMBO. how serious can it be? yes, it points out a poor represenation of women... i would think enough to point out that it's what you shouldn't be.

i am sad and somewhat anxious if 9 year olds are taking this site seriously. i don't think the site should not exist, but perhaps it should revisit its age limitations to an audience that can think critically. i know 13 is probably too generous, but other mainstream social media sites pick up there.

how young do you think is too young for exposure to that?
should states regulate this kind of thing in order to combat behavioral diseases?
do you think bloggers and other websites should be penalized for it?

music and myspace? who would have thought? oh right, me.

good job, MySpace, did you finally decide to help yourselves out?

how many times have i said the only useful reason i return to spam-laden myspace is to hunt down new music? and that they should really emphasize and capitalize on that?

rumour has it myspace wants to compete with itunes. seeing as i ironically can't purchase everything i like off of pandora via itunes, maybe it'll give me a reason to sign into myspace again.

ad gods, good job on thinking rationally. if anything is going to save it, it's going to be music, if they can keep their hands in their pockets and not get too greedy.

thoughts?