SEARCH
- ability to search for a song and find it not only in my library but also in any mix i have created. Seriously the search in tunes sucks! i should be able to build a search query "artist = legend" "song=people" and it should say "are you looking for John Legend - Ordinary People?" I should be able to find songs I own by typing in a snippet of the lyrics. I should have lyric search *integrated* into my music experience.
COMMUNITY
- sometimes i find an imix by a user i really like. often i'll click and see what other imixes they have made. often i buy ALL their imixes! really! But you know what i can't do? Select a user as a favorite and then get an alert whenever that user makes a new imix. i really don't get this!! it seems like such a great feature that would totally lead to more buying from me.
I'm just asking for the ability to track users or select "influencers" and buy from them! Maybe they should get an influencer rev-share or something...
The other thing I'd love is recommendations based upon what I'm listening to or my friends are listening to. Seriously. They need Last.Fm.
PURCHASES
Give me a discount if i've already bought a song on an album from you. When you tell me that I've already purchased part of an album -- tell me what I already have!
There's more. but that's all my rant can capture *right now*
(note - original rant was on 5/9/06 ...but time stamp is from when i actually posted it to my blog)
P.S. And please don't tell me they are coming zune...
Update: DC reminded me last night of another feature request: The ability to link to songs in iTunes. I want to find a song and then put a link to that song on my blog or send it to a friend or have my away messagee in iChat or Jabber or Gtalk link to the song in iTunes. Again, this seems like a good way to drive purchases...and community referrals. There is a way to do this today, but its complex and not cut & paste. I want cut & paste links dammit.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
personal responsibility
I've recently been thinking a lot about personal responsibility -- and trying to define for myself what it means to me, where I have control in my life and where i truly lack control or impact. This has been an interesting and at times intense exercise -- and the results of my analysis have shown that pretty much I'm responsible for it all. :) That's both the good news and the bad news. It's the good news because I'm pretty proud of a lot of my accomplishments to date -- I've worked for some amazing companies, done great work, built cool things. Personally, I'm extremely lucky to be so well-loved -- I have incredible friends and family and i'm surrounded by special, unique and not-so-unique people who bring joy, intellectual challenge and love into my life daily. I've also got a great home and enough material possessions to never want again. Although, shamelessly, I do.
These are the upsides. The downside is that i have to own my failures, my distractions, my bad decisions. And that's been where the thinking and analysis began. I think we all struggle with life, with achieving our goals. I'm at point lately where a lot of things that I had wanted to accomplish, I've done. Travel the world? Well, it's always going to be a work in progress (I still have to go to Africa and Antartica!!!) but i've traisped across chunks of it. Buy a home? Done that. Get my dream job? Yep. Be in love? Yes and awww. Then there all of the things I didn't plan for, that have caused me unneeded pain. Making bad choices at work or in relationships, not being focused and generally living my life on a chaotic edge of cyclical successes and failures. It's been like a roller coaster. Which has been exciting, but not always satisfying, and the down bits have caused the high's of the up-bits to feel extreme at times. These days I'm aiming for more balance, and that's brought me to thinking about personal responsibility. I think i've been scapegoating the fact that I own my destiny. That there may be no such thing as destiny --- and whether there is or isn't, doesn't matter. It's fundamentally up to me to make good choices, and correct the bad ones -- not just by taking ownership of their negativity, but by correcting them by changing course. This has been hard, because, well, a change in direction usually requires some sort of idea on where you want to go and be...
anyways, that's what's on my mind. right now. so i'm going to be responsible. That's my 2006 theme. It's a mid-year NYE resolution. I promise.
These are the upsides. The downside is that i have to own my failures, my distractions, my bad decisions. And that's been where the thinking and analysis began. I think we all struggle with life, with achieving our goals. I'm at point lately where a lot of things that I had wanted to accomplish, I've done. Travel the world? Well, it's always going to be a work in progress (I still have to go to Africa and Antartica!!!) but i've traisped across chunks of it. Buy a home? Done that. Get my dream job? Yep. Be in love? Yes and awww. Then there all of the things I didn't plan for, that have caused me unneeded pain. Making bad choices at work or in relationships, not being focused and generally living my life on a chaotic edge of cyclical successes and failures. It's been like a roller coaster. Which has been exciting, but not always satisfying, and the down bits have caused the high's of the up-bits to feel extreme at times. These days I'm aiming for more balance, and that's brought me to thinking about personal responsibility. I think i've been scapegoating the fact that I own my destiny. That there may be no such thing as destiny --- and whether there is or isn't, doesn't matter. It's fundamentally up to me to make good choices, and correct the bad ones -- not just by taking ownership of their negativity, but by correcting them by changing course. This has been hard, because, well, a change in direction usually requires some sort of idea on where you want to go and be...
anyways, that's what's on my mind. right now. so i'm going to be responsible. That's my 2006 theme. It's a mid-year NYE resolution. I promise.
Truth or Dare - quick recap
2006-7 Board: Ruthie, Phil, Natala (Me), Steve, Sam, Jason
On Tuesday night we held our first ArtReach Seattle event with the new board. It was a total blast!!! Over 200 people came to the event and our wonderful artists sold many, many pieces. I'm really proud to be a part of such an interesting and fun organization. Pictures from the event are here.
Learn more about artreach here: http://www.artreachseattle.org
Thursday, July 6, 2006
pirates of the caribbean....
Don't go!
We went to a special preview of this movie last night...i was pysched. Really. I loved the first movie, think Johnny Depp in all forms is hot and enjoy Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly as well...however this movie wasn't worth it. Seriously, it ends up being a 2+ hour *trailer* for the next movie! As a result, the story was incomplete -- no component has resolution and the ending is a cliffhanger meant to get you excited for movie #3. Blech.
Of course, I'll go see #3....but this movie you can seriously skip.
We went to a special preview of this movie last night...i was pysched. Really. I loved the first movie, think Johnny Depp in all forms is hot and enjoy Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly as well...however this movie wasn't worth it. Seriously, it ends up being a 2+ hour *trailer* for the next movie! As a result, the story was incomplete -- no component has resolution and the ending is a cliffhanger meant to get you excited for movie #3. Blech.
Of course, I'll go see #3....but this movie you can seriously skip.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
stars are blind.
ok. i'll admit. this song is catchy. even if it is by Paris Hilton of Heiress Records. Seriously, we're all going to be humming this tune at the beach. And when they remix it for the dance version, yep, we're going to shake our booty to this tune at da club. You heard it heir first.
Here's a link to the official site: "Stars are blind"
Updated with additional wittiness courtesy of Matt.
Here's a link to the official site: "Stars are blind"
Updated with additional wittiness courtesy of Matt.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
truth or dare: call for artists...
This spring I joined the board of ArtReach Seattle, a non-profit project of the Shunpike. It's a great organization and, in order to engage our primary audience of young professionals, we showcase art in a social atmosphere combined with a one-night art show. Our primary goal is to increase demand for high-quality, original art by making it more approachable (aka affordable). As a result a key tenet of our shows (outside of a fabulous party with a rockin DJ) is to have a chunk of the art available for under $200.
We are having our next show on July 22nd at the See Sound Lounge. It's going to be a blast. The theme is "truth or dare" and it promises to be a daring evening complete with signature cocktails and truth or dare challenges...If you are in Seattle on the 22nd, you have to come!
Right now we are seeking artists to participate in the show. If you are interested, check out the call for artists on our website -- or send me a note via the comments link below.
We are having our next show on July 22nd at the See Sound Lounge. It's going to be a blast. The theme is "truth or dare" and it promises to be a daring evening complete with signature cocktails and truth or dare challenges...If you are in Seattle on the 22nd, you have to come!
Right now we are seeking artists to participate in the show. If you are interested, check out the call for artists on our website -- or send me a note via the comments link below.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Seattle Startups...
I went to the the TechCrunch Seattle party last night. It was sooo much fun. Seattle has a great and growing startup community. Highlights below...
First, I got to chat with Michael Arrington -- and he remembered me from Mix06! That was a party highlight, now i need to follow-up with that e-mail on our demos :)
I ran into a ton of people I met at MindCamp 2.0. I'm so glad that I went to mindcamp -- even though I'm not a coder, the people I met were great and they are doing really interesting things. One of the sessions I went to (at mindcamp - back to the party in a second) was about building a startup - led by the folks from BillMonk.com...Gaurav has since become one of my favorite people. My big take away from that session was that keeping your startup concept secret isn't worth it. Their point was that if you are working on it and passionate, sharing the idea will get you feedback and ideas -- and in reality people can't just steal your idea. You're working on the execution and others typically have interest but aren't motivated enough or driven by the depths of the passion you have in your idea to drive it. Net-Net: Super secret startups should be a thing of the past. I saw that reflected last night. People were excited to talk about what they were working on, and wanted to share ideas and think about how to tackle the big problems (genetic algorithms anyone?)
Some Cool Seattle Startups:
billmonk.com - remeber to pay your friends back. They are targeting college students and have figured out that early adopter techy people aren't their target market. :) Gaurav promises that cool schwag is on its way (will they follow the trend and have their t-shirts printed on american apparel?). Perhaps it will find its way into the next valleyschwag?
farecast - they are still in private beta, but from what i can tell it looks like a neat concept - basically you put in information on a flight you'd like to purchase today and it forecasts whether the price is likely to go up or down tomorrow/next week -- so you can purchase when it is at the lowest price. I only got to play with it for a minute, but i'm hoping it has time specifity built in because the probability of a flight on Friday night from Seatac to SFO going up is likely (since they sell out), but the mid-day flights are probably likely to stay the same. So the day-time relationship is key.
wishlisting.com - wishlists that build upon individual asks and mass user data to predict gifting (i think). hmm. Sounded like wishlist.com. Personally, i still like the amazon wishlist function. Not that anyone buys from my very outdated wishlist! If they can get the predictability stuff done that would be cool -- it would be great to say "i need a gift for my best friend - she's 29, a mom and likes gadgets - what do you recommend?" And then they'd find cool stuff for me to get her given her demographic. Right now i just browse mightygoods and bookmark any possibly cool item that maggie finds.
redfin.com - they sponsored the party - thanks for the pizza and hefeweizen! Redfin is also about figuring out ways to sell your house leveraging online marketing. They charge 1% (as opposed to 3%) of the cost or a flat $2K fee depending on the services you want (i think).The idea is neat here, but i'm still not sure how the costs work out...They also just launched in the SF Bay Area housing market...so i'm gonna watch that...definitely filing them under my "this could be useful soon category"
What would a dot.com 2.0 party be without competition? Zillow.com was there in full-force. I still love how they price my house and their tools are so easy to use.
Of course there were loads of microsoft people - from vista, from live (did you know live is evil backwards? kinda funny right? i don't know how i missed that. we should so have a LIVEEVIL t-shirt.) And a smattering of Amazon peeps and I think one Google person (where are the google people? they must be coding their beta software ;-)
I also got to hang with Chris Pirillo. I love chris - he's so passionate and I think he's convinced me to go to Gnomedex. He's pretty frustrated with the lack of "fit & finish" in Vista right now... and to see him provide live feedback to the members of the vista team was great. Fit & Finish is one of the things we've really got to focus on at MS, definitely one of my frustrations. Lately I think the challenge is around converting "data and function" into "information and utility" ... more on that to come ...
The only downside to the party was the heat in the room. It was steamy hot. And not in a good way.
Flickr pics are here.
First, I got to chat with Michael Arrington -- and he remembered me from Mix06! That was a party highlight, now i need to follow-up with that e-mail on our demos :)
I ran into a ton of people I met at MindCamp 2.0. I'm so glad that I went to mindcamp -- even though I'm not a coder, the people I met were great and they are doing really interesting things. One of the sessions I went to (at mindcamp - back to the party in a second) was about building a startup - led by the folks from BillMonk.com...Gaurav has since become one of my favorite people. My big take away from that session was that keeping your startup concept secret isn't worth it. Their point was that if you are working on it and passionate, sharing the idea will get you feedback and ideas -- and in reality people can't just steal your idea. You're working on the execution and others typically have interest but aren't motivated enough or driven by the depths of the passion you have in your idea to drive it. Net-Net: Super secret startups should be a thing of the past. I saw that reflected last night. People were excited to talk about what they were working on, and wanted to share ideas and think about how to tackle the big problems (genetic algorithms anyone?)
Some Cool Seattle Startups:
billmonk.com - remeber to pay your friends back. They are targeting college students and have figured out that early adopter techy people aren't their target market. :) Gaurav promises that cool schwag is on its way (will they follow the trend and have their t-shirts printed on american apparel?). Perhaps it will find its way into the next valleyschwag?
farecast - they are still in private beta, but from what i can tell it looks like a neat concept - basically you put in information on a flight you'd like to purchase today and it forecasts whether the price is likely to go up or down tomorrow/next week -- so you can purchase when it is at the lowest price. I only got to play with it for a minute, but i'm hoping it has time specifity built in because the probability of a flight on Friday night from Seatac to SFO going up is likely (since they sell out), but the mid-day flights are probably likely to stay the same. So the day-time relationship is key.
wishlisting.com - wishlists that build upon individual asks and mass user data to predict gifting (i think). hmm. Sounded like wishlist.com. Personally, i still like the amazon wishlist function. Not that anyone buys from my very outdated wishlist! If they can get the predictability stuff done that would be cool -- it would be great to say "i need a gift for my best friend - she's 29, a mom and likes gadgets - what do you recommend?" And then they'd find cool stuff for me to get her given her demographic. Right now i just browse mightygoods and bookmark any possibly cool item that maggie finds.
redfin.com - they sponsored the party - thanks for the pizza and hefeweizen! Redfin is also about figuring out ways to sell your house leveraging online marketing. They charge 1% (as opposed to 3%) of the cost or a flat $2K fee depending on the services you want (i think).The idea is neat here, but i'm still not sure how the costs work out...They also just launched in the SF Bay Area housing market...so i'm gonna watch that...definitely filing them under my "this could be useful soon category"
What would a dot.com 2.0 party be without competition? Zillow.com was there in full-force. I still love how they price my house and their tools are so easy to use.
Of course there were loads of microsoft people - from vista, from live (did you know live is evil backwards? kinda funny right? i don't know how i missed that. we should so have a LIVEEVIL t-shirt.) And a smattering of Amazon peeps and I think one Google person (where are the google people? they must be coding their beta software ;-)
I also got to hang with Chris Pirillo. I love chris - he's so passionate and I think he's convinced me to go to Gnomedex. He's pretty frustrated with the lack of "fit & finish" in Vista right now... and to see him provide live feedback to the members of the vista team was great. Fit & Finish is one of the things we've really got to focus on at MS, definitely one of my frustrations. Lately I think the challenge is around converting "data and function" into "information and utility" ... more on that to come ...
The only downside to the party was the heat in the room. It was steamy hot. And not in a good way.
Flickr pics are here.
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