web-mastered

There is a good chance you’ve already watched the...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:33:43 +0100

There is a good chance you’ve already watched the tretralogy “Everything is a Remix” by Kirby Ferguson.

The docu does a very good job at showing how new advances in technology, music and movies build on each others creative works, how our society as a whole benefits from this, and why our stubborn legal system can’t deal with it.

If you haven’t seen the series yet, here’s the best chance to catch up. I re-edited (“remixed”) the four parts and some of the extended material into one big piece without repetition for fluent watching.

Download Everything is a Remix Complete [720P]

If you like the thing, you should give Kirby credit.

Online Music Phase II

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:02:39 +0100

When I was younger, much younger, I always had this idealistic technological day-dreams about how a better tech-world could look like.

One of them was about the perfect file format for music. Of course it would contain all the metadata like lyrics, BPM, or crowd-sourced genre information. While on pause it would display the cover art, while playing it would show the video (only on devices with screens that support it and only if there would be a video available).

The reason I’m thinking about this now is the recent shutdown [1] of Grooveshark in Germany, which leaves a hole unfulfilled: Rdio, Napster or simfy stream music to you as much as you want, but let’s face it, because of the costs of round about 10 €/month they shut out a lot of customers, which aren’t that music-savvy. Spotify offers a free version, but it’s also not available in Germany and it needs the desktop client.

Even if you could afford the money, a ne plus ultra-solution looks slightly different. We already see labels withdrawing their music from streaming services due to low income. And if you would want to share a tune with a friend, you have to watch out if he/she has also a subscription on this specific service.

The hypothesis: YouTube is the best player in the field to fill this gap. They already have the reputation to be the best site to play music. Let me repeat: Even not intended by the YouTube founders, it became the 1st place young people go to when they want to play their favorite song on a party or even at home.

The striking difference between Grooveshark and the YouTube of 2012 is the simple fact that a huge portion of uploaded content is legal, meaning uploaded by the artist or label themselves. Only in addition, you get a lot of fan-uploaded tracks (with often rare material). It would be interesting to see how the music catalogue of YT compares with the one from e.g. Spotify.

And it seems I’m not the only one with this thinking. Take a look at Cantio. Basically the service leverages the YT music library and wraps it into an audio player interface.

There are other services that try to do the same, but Cantio is the most promising because:

it has good UI design
it has its own Radio mode (based on genre)
it lets one import playlists (in M3U format)
it has easy sharing with custom short URLs built right in
it has keyboard shortcuts (a hooray for the nerds)

What I miss is the integration of other services: First and foremost Vimeo or Dailymotion - because they don’t have the same strict DRM system like YT in place (yet) - and audio-only services like SoundCloud or the HypeMachine.

Nevertheless, I found my Grooveshark replacement.

^[1]I think the reason for the inevitable closing of Grooveshark is and will be the deja-vu to common services: Grooveshark looks exactly like an iTunes (or other music player of your choide) version on a webpage - but for free. This is the kind of radical change major labels will never ever agree with. Maybe that’s also the reason why YT doesn’t do something like audio.youtube.com on its own.

I don't like the word process

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:04:00 +0100

The fun part working for a carrier is that you sometimes get to touch the new stuff before it is introduced to the market.

At the moment I’m carrying a Samsung Galaxy Nexus as my primary device. It’s a cool gadget, maybe on par with the iPhone. But that’s not what I want to talk about today.

The Samsung phone showed me with brutal honesty how settled I am in the iOS ecosystem. The established processes makes it harder to switch sides.

Let me give you one example.

I listen to a lot of music on the go & everywhere. So I’m eager to get the relevant music from my large music library to my little companion (iPhone 4S). On the one hand I want my favorite songs, on the other hand I want to discover new music to my liking.

That’s where the old fellow iTunes comes in. Since Version 3 you can create Smart Playlists (they update automatically based on selected criterias).

For my purpose, I build two lists which accompany each other:

The playlist “Fresh” displays all songs that have been added to my iTunes in the last 3 weeks, that I haven’t listened to.

The second one, named “Hot Right Now”, lists the songs that I’m currently listening to a lot, means they’re my favs right now.

The only thing left for the setup is to select the playlists to sync with my phone:

I also include the Genius Mix “Indie Rock” made by iTunes and tick the box “Automatically fill free space with songs”. From my experience the last option gives you the songs that have the highest playcount in the library.

Of course one can tweak the parameters to their satisfaction, but I accomplished my goal: Everytime I sync with iTunes I get the music I like best, mixed with a bunch of new stuff I haven’t heard before, always maxing out the storage capacity, automatically.

Now show me the Android way of doing this task. (There is none.)

And that from the guy who told you 15 months ago how to stay iTunes free. Oh, irony.

[Update]

I recently re-discovered the iTunes alternative doubleTwist. It should be noted that doubleTwist offers the import of existing iTunes playlists (inlcuding Smart ones) and can sync with Android devices.

Embedded above is a slightly re-edited version of John...

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:24:00 +0100

Embedded above is a slightly re-edited version of John Siracusa’s devastating review of Steve Jobs one and only authorized biography.

To summarize his criticism: Walter Isaacson did a poor job because he simply didn’t care. While for us the work of Jobs has influenced our live in so many ways, for him it was just another book to publish. He doesn’t have the technological understanding to ask the right questions, neither he tries to learn it. At one point Siracusa basically says every graduate with a fascination for Apple could have written a better biography than Walter Isaacson.

That for me, was the key point which you could apply to everything you do. Enthusiasm, commitment and passion are of such importantance for your job that you should’t work without it. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

For the detailed analysis, listen to the almost 2 1/2 hours long edited podcast or go to the source files at 5by5.tv.

The only thing I did, was to merge the two pieces together, cut out other topics and move the feedback part to the end.

The Android Wishlist Phone

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:05:58 +0200

Hey you, Android vendors. Since you are all clearly experimenting with your Google phones at the moment, why don’t you cherry-pick the things I’d like to see in a compelling iPhone rival?

To make my point clear: We are definetly not in a feature race in the smartphone space, I stated that before. But the ingredients listed below could be used to make me forget the great iOS ecosystem. [1]

Hardware

The Casing could be thin and with Kevlar on the backside (as seen in the Motorola Droid Razr).
I’m still not sure about the right screen size. 4.65” seems bloated, on the other hand 3.5” in the meantime seems a bit too small. [2] For the moment I’ll settle with the 4.0” display (1280x720 pixel) seen in the Sharp AQUOS Phone 104SH. [3]
Actually I don’t care about the underlying processor power or RAM - just make the experience smooth. It seems not that easy, so throw in all you can. Maybe a 1,5 GHz OMAP Dual Core-Prozessor with 1 GB RAM will do the job (as seen in the HTC Vigor).
Include a publicity astonishing camera, like the 13.2 Megapixel CMOS Lumix sensor (as seen in the Panasonic LUMIX Phone 101P), completed with a 2 Megapixel Frontcamera (as seen in the LG Optimus Black).
More nice to have hardware additions: HDMI Output and 1930mAh battery (as seen in the Motorola Droid Bionic) / Waterproof body, DLNA support, Digital TV Tuner and NFC (as seen in the Sharp AQUOS Phone 102SH)

Software

Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich, without some frustrating UI overlay from carriers or hardware manufactures (as seen in the Samsung Galaxy Nexus)
Amazon Android App Store preinstalled [4]
Sony PlayStation Suite preinstalled
Integration of Dropbox for storage (as seen in the new HTC Sense phones)

Furthermore, some really simple rules:

Release at most 2 hardware updates per year. I don’t want to see minor speed bumps or other versions of my phone the week after I bought it.
Spilling a name like “Galaxy” over the whole line-up, will just weaken the customer perception of the brand.
Support your old hardware with the newest software at least for the common time of a contract, which is where I come from not less than 2 years. (How it’s not to be done)
Let me buy an unlocked version without a carrier contract, even if the phone itself will cost xxx freakin’ dollars.

^[1]Also it’s clear that many of the features contradict each other, mostly in regard to battery life.

^[2]I’m aware of the argument that you need to reach every corner on the screen with your thumb. But let’s be honest, bigger is better while gaming or entertainment activities, like watching a movie. And now ask yourself what you do with your smartphone all the time.

^[3]Sadly, not one Android phone that is available in the western hemisphere does offer the same pixel density as the 17 months old iPhone 4. And it makes you wonder why only Japanese people get the good stuff.

^[4]I’m not sure about the legal situation. But since Google seems to be ok with Bing as the default search, I think other App Stores and the Google Android Market could coexist. Perhaps Amazon or Sony give you a couple of bucks to encourage the integration.

As most viewers of Apple’s “Let’s talk...

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:53:00 +0200

As most viewers of Apple’s “Let’s talk iPhone” event I was disappointed immediately after.

But then I asked myself the question what Apple should have done to appease me or the masses. I can’t think of a damn single thing. [1]

Or did you really expect that Apple’s Voice Control goes way beyond what we know from Android? Oh wait, perhaps it does. I was working on Voice-to-Text technology and I can tell you what Forstall did on the stage was pretty amazing. In fact, Siri is the dream of the Semantic Web, which was dubbed “Web 3.0” a decade ago. It remains to be seen if people change their behaviours and use voice as an input method, though.

Or do you think a smartphone camera can ever replace your DSLR? Maybe not, but you can clearly see how Apple does everything possible to get the best camera experience with this form factor. Look at these (hopefully untouched) photographs and tell me you expected more from the iPhone 5. [2]

Once more, this is how Apple rolls. Small, incremental improvements, instead of dramatic revolutions. Secondly, hardware specs alone isn’t what’s important anymore. Services, and their integration with hardware is the new real deal.

[Update] Read similiar lines from Dan Frommer.

For users, this is still the best phone that money can buy.

^[1]LTE is too laughable to even discuss here. We’ll talk again when TelCo’s made their promises happen. Same goes (in a smaller degree) for NFC.
One area - where improvements would be very welcome - is the battery life. On the other hand the iPhone already rules the smartphone competition.

^[2]What I really don’t get is the naming. I understood it with the 3GS, but now? I thought Apple stands for simple and clear product titles. Now consumers are waiting for the “real” next iteration, the iPhone 5.

Not forking is the right choice for Microsoft

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 19:19:00 +0200

The most suspense-packed news from the Windows 8 keynote was their approach to the “Big Forking Decision”. Because the implications are huge.

I’m going even further: Windows 8 is not only the right move, it’s the only one with higher chances to win the title “most used Tablet OS” instead to fail.

So, the critics tell Microsoft to make a clear split and develop Windows 8 (a slightly better version of Windows 7) in parallel while throwing all waste away with their new OS “Metro”.

I say 4 things would happen in this scenario:

Windows 8 (and to a smaller degree Windows 7) sales would be slowed down dramatically. Because people don’t like spending money on a platform that is supposed to die in the not so far future. There are plenty of examples to that.
In addition to Windows 8 loosing ground against Mac OSX, Metro will have a very hard time to compete with iOS and the iPad. It’s the ecosystem, stupid. Apple doesn’t show the iTunes account numbers at every keynote for no reason. When Metro is released to the public, the iOS ecosystem had more than 4 years [1] to grow - in the mobile industry an eternity.
“But Microsoft sells so much more licenses to device vendors, the market will be flooded with Metro hardware!” So is the situation with Android right now. Pure quantity doesn’t necessarily bring you developer attention. [2]
“But Metro for itself has some really big advantages over iOS!” So did webOS.
Working on different operating systems inside one company that can do the same jobs is a big risk. Apple already knows this from the “Lisa vs. Macintosh”-era. If you watched “Pirates of Silicon Valley” you get a glimpse of how deeply divided Apple was. And, today nobody knows how OSX versus iOS will play out for them.
Backwards compatiblity is in Microsoft’s DNA - it was always an important selling point. It certainly doesn’t produce the best designed, user-friendliest and bug-free, unique experiences one can get with an iPad. But that’s not what the average person asks for - they ask “Does it run Word […with the interface I’m used to]?”

I’m absolutely not rooting for Microsoft, and we’ll have to see what else happens in the time till the first stable release. Similiar to Gruber, I have my difficulties to see how it works out technically, buf if it does (and Microsoft has a buttload of engineers working on it, I’m sure), it’s a brilliant move.

^[1]I’m counting since the opening of the App Store in July, 2008. One could argue the first iPhone in 2007 is the real beginning, because customers bought into the ecosystem at that moment.

^[2]Android users are indeed very different from iPhone users. More on that topic in the article Perils of Possession without utilization.

The myth of the information overflow

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:29:00 +0200

It used to be the case that news was limited. A newspaper has only a certain amount of pages. The TV news are condensed into 15 minutes once a day. These artificial limitations are gone - thanks to the internet.

It seems that this change happened too fast for some people to slowly adapt this in their behaviour. They go out and call it productivity decreasing and bad for sanity. This happens every time a new medium is introduced to the mainstream public. And it just means people haven’t found their way to deal with the new circumstances.

Here’s how I try to avoid overflow with e.g. Podcasts (this applies to text RSS and other new forms as well).

What is the feeling when a new episode is available for download? If you’re excited about new episodes coming out, everything is alright. If you feel like work has been added to the system, delete the feed.
If you come back from a vacation or else, and your list of unread items overwhelms you, relax and do not hurry through. There will be a moment where you have enough free time to be happy about an unplayed episode.

On the other side I definitely see the point made by Dilbert creator Scott Adams (original link behind paywall): When I’m bored or with no brain-challenging activity I get the best ideas. In my case it’s often while driving, listening to music or showering.

But does this mean to go back to old habits and be bored “on purpose” in every situation? Please, don’t. It just means you have to carefully choose how you kill your time.

In the end the web and new opportunities to harness it (in form of gadgets) give you not only more possibilities to consume - also to produce. Eventually I end up using iPhone voice memos to record the ideas instantly when I get them.

In August I’ve been to New York. It is indeed, the most...

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:22:12 +0200

In August I’ve been to New York. It is indeed, the most fascinating urban playground I ever visited (which doesn’t necessarily mean much). It’s different there. And this way of doing things can’t be destroyed like a building.

Maybe I should write down a few cool places I could recommend before I forget them. I’ll start with the Museum of Modern Art which wouldn’t be on my list if there wasn’t the special exhibition “Talk to Me”:

Talk to Me explores the communication between people and things. All objects contain information that goes well beyond their immediate use or appearance.

Basically its documentating what happens if you close the feedback loop from a changed digital culture to everydays living. And it’s funny to see a lot of stuff you first encountered in blogs in a real life museum. The exhibition is ongoing till November, 7th.

RadioLab is one of the better podcasts about life & the...

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:04:05 +0200

RadioLab is one of the better podcasts about life & the universe. Interesting topics, good moderators and an entertaining mix of quotes, sounds and explanations.

By accident, I stumbled over an experiment they did with audio hosting platform SoundCloud. You can see it here in action. What it does, it creates new layers of meta-information fitting in the right seconds of the podcast. One can see a full text transcription and corresponding pictures flying be. There is your visual documentary. Of course, everybody could add timed comments:

You can link to images in the comments - if we like them, we will put them in the player.

I wish more podcasts would be published on SoundCloud, it’s almost predefined. The only thing missing is RSS support. But you can recreate that with CloudFlipper.

If you want to know more about SoundCloud, I recommend the interview with Founder Alexander Ljung on TechBerlin.

Q: Why haven’t you build something like soundrain on your own?
A: We focus on the product.

That’s a good sign.

Mac OS Lion and change in user behaviour

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:04:00 +0200

For almost a week I’m using one of those new MacBook Air devices as my primary computer. (I had already a Mac Mini, but only as my HTPC.)

So far, I’m impressed by the overall experience. Multi-touch trackpads and SSDs will be common standard in laptops a few years from now on [1] - the benefits are too obvious. I’m not missing a DVD-tray or Firewire; I’m missing a 3G version.

Yet the intriguing part is the new OS.

First of, 10.7 Lion reversed the way you scroll with a touchpad or mouse - Up is down and vice versa. Don’t get too scared by the buzz about the reversing. It took me only two days, afterwards there was no false movement. It’s not only the way you move your finger on a touchscreen. It’s the only way that makes sense if you look at the other swipe gestures. I’m making far more mistakes by presisng CMD+Q for the @ sign like I’m used to on Windows computers (on Mac ALT+L). And in contrary to the reverse srcolling this has very negative impact (Q stands for quit).

One aspect of Lion I wanna talk about this time, is one possible new way to handle your desktop GUI: In particular Fullscreen apps. [2] Perhaps this Apple demo gives you an impression what it feels like.

In Windows, I was a vivid advocate of “web apps” that run as a tab in your browser. [3] I found myself going back to dedicated apps. At least for the 4 basic functions Browsing, Mail, Music, Calendar. The equivalent apps are open in full-screen mode all the time. Exactly in this order.

Likely this setup will change over time. Safari might be replaced through Google Chrome, Mail through a Gmail app and iTunes through a Grooveshark app made with Fluid (the new Pro version supports Fullscreen mode) but that’s not the point here. The point is to regain the single screen for a specific task:

Each of the […] previously distinct devices once received our undivided attention, yet today, must share it with the others. […] how we engage with a device and content—and the degree to which our attention is focused on either—has everything to do with whether a device and the content created for it is effective.

It’s about getting back to one “Frame of Interaction”. Lion gets out of the way and removes barriers between user and content. Or in a modified statement: The ~~iPad~~ MacBook becomes the app you’re using.

Indeed, the Air looks like an iPad Pro, an iPad with productivity enhancing features:

Bigger screen
Hardware keyboard for faster text input and shortcuts
Access to underlying filesystem
True multitasking and better task switching methods
The ability to run apps without an implemented sandbox mode [4]

I know, Fullscreen mode doesn’t translate well to iMacs, but face it, Apple’s atttention is on mobile computing, we know that by now.

And, of course not everything is gold right from the beginning. What I like to see - despite the implementation of fullscreen apps in third party software - is the ability to reorder desktops in Mission Control as well as swipe from last page to first page and better keyboard shortcuts.

^[1] Maybe PC-doted people need this step to make the transition to tommorrow’s all-tablet world.

^[2]One could argue Linux had separate desktops for quite a while now. But they didn’t had a good way to switch between them. The four-finger-swipe as task switcher works very well. And in my opinion multiple desktops make only sense with fullscreen apps.

^[3] As Gruber notes, the title web apps is somewhat irritating. Every client software that processes internet data should be called a web app. It shouldn’t be the distinction if you build a client using JavaScript that runs in a Browser rendering engine, or build a client using Cocoa Touch that runs in the Mac OS environment. Both heavily rely on web data.

^[4] Lion has a new sandbox mode, but there’s still a lot of difference in installing Mac apps and iOS apps.

Quick tip for all Google Chrome users: Try the feedly...

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 18:59:00 +0200

Quick tip for all Google Chrome users: Try the feedly extension.

Firstly, feedly is a sleek GUI for a web worker’s beloved tool, Google Reader. I use it to see what I missed. To be clear: I have a tag in Google Reader, called ‘fav’. Every feed item in here gets read at least on a daily basis. When that folder got emptied, I go to my home screen on feedly. The screen aggregates and prioritizes all the other articles based on the overall importance AND my personal habits. Think of it like a Techmeme that you can tweak to fit your interests.

Back to the excellent extension. feedly offers ‘mini’, a button that sits in the down right corner of every webpage. As you can see you can immediately share content through the channels you select and other get other options (“following” is feedly language for subscribing to the RSS feed in Google Reader). That way the extension replaced RSS-Abonnement, Shareaholic, Postponer Adder. Remember that you can assign the “save for later”-button to any service through ifttt.

BTW: The browser is nowadays the central application on your computer. Therefore the work environment deserves a lot of attention and continuous refining. I uploaded a complete list of my Chrome extensions here.

Free Start-Up ideas

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:10:00 +0200

In my personal conversations about the current state of the internet I often hear something like “Man, what a great opportunity is here…one only needs one good idea and before you’ll see it, you’ll be rich.”

While I’m agreeing with the first part, the second is just bullshit.

First of all, it’s not all about the idea. It’s about execution. Apple shows that very clearly.

Secondly: You really in desperate need of an start-up idea? They are right in front of you. To make it obvious, let’s look at some successful internet company’s and see what they did:

eBay connects buyers and sellers.
eventbrite connects ticket holders and ticket searchers.
airbnb connects home owners and travelers.
Groupon connects local shops and customers.
Wordpress connects journalists and readers (without a publishing house).
SoundCloud / bandcamp connects musicians and fans (without a label).

Cut out the middle men. It’s all about connecting people P2P.

Now to the strategy:

Search for a not (yet) disrupted industry by the web. (Sooner or later every industry will clash with the internet, no exceptions.)
Build a product that lets people connect to others. Directly.
Make it a expandable platform, maybe even a two-sided market.

E.g. look at the car rental business. In Germany I am aware of Sixt and Europcar. Why can’t I borrow the unused car from Peter who lives three blocks away but is currently on vacation? Why can’t I lend him money for his trip to Hawaii in an easy way without going through an inherent unstable banking system?*

I think that’s enough to get you thinking. Before you start, watch Dave McClure talking about “Why not to do a startup”.

Still willing to join a risky business? Then I wish you good luck my friend.

* To be honest, I could already do that through Smava or else. But this brings me back to the right execution-part.

Overall I’m still baffled about all the announcements at...

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 14:44:00 +0200

Overall I’m still baffled about all the announcements at this years Worldwide Developer Conference held by Apple. They would be served best with different articles, but let’s try to compress the news in little bites:

1. ~~Mac~~ OSX Lion keeps on getting user-friendlier. Not in a revolutionary way, but with nice, incremental changes. This is how Apple rolls.

Resume, Versions and Auto Save are features so needed, they should have been built in modern operating systems years ago. But just because it’s obvious, it makes this accomplishment not by any means smaller.
Launchpad, Full-Screen Apps, Mac App Store wouldn’t have been possible without iOS. Mail is clearly inspired by the iPad Mail interface.

2. iOS 5 adds some seriously needed follow-up to the competition but also unexpected features. (Numerous reforms are explored as I write this article.)

The camera/photo enhancements are nothing spectacular but appreciated. Notifications Center corrects a major flaw in the OS usability.
Again it’s fascinating to see how well the jailbreak community foresaw the missing features.
It’s hard to develop for a ecosystem growing with such a enormous speed. Your service is killed by one tiny little announcement. Even when you have a really niche product like Instapaper. (In fact, Instapaper did the job to make saving articles for later popular. Now, that it’s mainstream and the revenues should start to rise for Mr. Arment, Apple did it themselves.)
I certainly won’t, but I would like to see this kind of deep integration for facebook rather than twitter.
iMessage will be a smash hit. The best part is that it’s integrated in the messages app. The user doesn’t need to notice on which delivery medium he sends his message. Suddenly the only advantage WhatsApp has is the compatibility with other smartphones.
Wireless Sync, PC-free and iTunes in the cloud are a 180-turnaround to Apple’s today’s politics. And please don’t tell me this is a catch-up feature to Android. To some extent perhaps, but where does Android sync my documents or creates daily backups for the whole OS?

On the one hand we are witnesses of an “iPadification” of OSX, on the other we see iOS drive for the first time without training wheels. It’s not the little companion anymore. But this makes the question even more imminent what will happen with the two ecosystems in the future. A clash ins inevitable.

3. iCloud is the coming hub for all your content. Jobs thinks of it not as another online locker, rather than the framework to keep all your data up to date.

This is Apple’s wholeheartedly attack on Cloud Computing, and therefore against Google. You hear that thorough Job’s presentation. And you clearly see their urge to show with e.g. pictures of the North Carolina data center that Apple is armed this time.
iCloud is merely an iOS service than Mac/PC. It’s interesting to see Apple integrating “Photostream” in the pictures folder on Windows.
API’s are important, we all know that by now. iCloud will offer an API that every API can hook their data into the service. And that’s what makes iCloud so compelling and innovative. Think of all the app developers who use Dropbox as a workaround at the moment. Think of all your saved games synced to all iOS devices. Think of having the possibility to create an app for e.g. bookmarks that doesn’t need a backend server.
A lot of question marks around iCloud. What if have more than 5GB of storage? What if I have more than 20,000 songs? Should I upload/match only A-M or what am I supposed to do?
The matching service for $25 sounds like it will be used foremost to convert pirated copies into legal ones with high quality.
The missing word at WWDC 2011? Streaming. Nice that iTunes has all my files on its server, but if I want to listen to a certain song I have to head to the iTunes app, search for the song, download it to my device, head to the iPod app, search for it again and then can finally play it? I’m used to services that stream on demand. This is not how it should be.

Overall I’m really tempted to install the developer preview right now. Fall is a long time to go.

A short addendum to my Grooveshark post earlier… Web-Apps ...

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 16:19:00 +0200

A short addendum to my Grooveshark post earlier…

Web-Apps have advantages, but I’d like to have a music player on my desktop and not dependent on my browser. The tunes should flow no matter what.

On my Media-Center-Mac I use Fluid to generate the desktop app experience. On Windows you might want to try Prism.

Setup for Fluid is as straight forward as it gets. Four tips from yours truly:

Use a nice dock icon instead of the default favicon. Here are my favorites: 1, 2, 3, 4
Tick the box “only hides the window” under Behavior Preferences. This will Grooveshark keep playing even when you close the player window.
While your at it, change the color under Appearance from Grey to Black (HUD).
Use userscripts to enhance the experience (how to install):

One last thing: Here are my public Grooveshark playlists.

I like Grooveshark. (If you don’t know what this is, think...

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 15:33:00 +0200

I like Grooveshark. (If you don’t know what this is, think of it like Spotify without desktop client.) ((If you don’t know what Spotify is, think of it like the YouTube of audio.))

Spotify is the clear superior service in terms of features and usability, but I find myself using Grooveshark all the time. So how come?

I often want to

listen to music on my (restricted) work PC where I can’t install the Spotify client. Grooveshark is browser-based.
share a specific album or a song I like with my friends. They don’t have an Spotify account and maybe will never get one due to Spotify’s international rollout politics. On Grooveshark everybody can listen everything without limits, even without an account.

I understand that Spotify has to deal with legal issues that others don’t take that seriously. But evidently Grooveshark is online for many years now and seems to stay.

After all, the online music space is far from being settled. An announcement from Apple or Facebook could change the tides, once again.

The Check-In in 2011

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:13:27 +0200

I’m one of those geeks that like to combine the physical world with a digital layer, e.g. check-in where I’m at right now. (Yeah, it’s this app where you can get mayor. And by the way, the easy to remember USP of the mayor may be the reason why foursquare won over Gowalla.)

I’m using the service on a daily basis for roughly two years now. But check-ins are disrupting, not every time accurate and (depending on your device and connection) it takes some time to do so. Automatic check-ins would be the obvious solution, but today’s devices don’t offer the required level of geographic accuracy. Foursquare is a perfect example for gamification and how it could motivate people to do otherwise boring tasks, but even the best motivators use up over time.

Guess what finally replaced the foursquare app on my iPhone home screen.

My office desk in Bonn taken with Instagram

Now I’m using Instagram to ckeck-in. It’s like twitter with photos. Simply snap a picture, apply a filter to let it stand out and tick the foursquare box. (I would also share them to facebook if only the integration would be better (no tagging, small pictures, no facebook places)).

Thereby you’ll get something like a visual diary of your life. If twitter would have allowed services like twitpic to integrate with more than a non-telling URL, Instagram wouldn’t be necessary. But they haven’t. And as Om says, the service has the potential to become so much more than an iPhone app for people who like Hipster-like photos:

While filters might have jumpstarted Instagram, the company which already has over 4 million subscribers, has to focus on its core value proposition – community and the social interactions around unique visual experiences. […] By opening itself up to other apps and services, it has the potential to slowly become the hub of our mobile photo experiences. And in the end, that’s is what would make Instagram so much more valuable and in the process become the Flickr of mobile photos.

Fast Following

Thu, 12 May 2011 16:41:00 +0200

In general I agree with consultant Horace Dediu who writes at asymco. He does an amazing job visualizing the mobile industry.

As I’m skipping through some of his older posts I stumbled over “Two turkeys don’t make an eagle, but no penguin will ever soar.” In a nutshell the argument goes like this: Android will never be as good as iOS because their logic is to only do what the market leader (in this case the iPhone) does.

And if you look at this comparison it’s partly true, at least for Android’s early years. But in this case I would argue that it’s not only Google that followed Apple’s path - it’s the whole mobile industry.

Let’s take a look at this years Google I/O conference. The first day’s keynote was devoted to Android. The presentation is embedded below.

First off, Google introduced Music beta and Movie Rentals for Android. Both are services that don’t exist on other platforms. Esspecially the “Pin”-function is great because it marries offline and online use cases in a simple way. iTunes may be on the same route, but currently Apple lacks every evidence that they could handle web based services. I’m sharing John Grubers opinion, that iOS will take mini steps towards streaming and syncing with the internet.

In the second part of the keynote, Google gave an forecast over what to come next: Android and his APIs will go everywhere where technology is used in one’s household. Make no mistake, this is a big and visionary announcement.

To be clear: At the moment I wouldn’t trade my iPhone 4 against any Android device, in fact I’m pretty much with Robert Scoble, who listed his arguments here on Quora. Regarding quality (not quantity) I give Android another year to catch up in the overall user experience. Don’t forget that Google shows what they will implement in the future, Apple shows what they will ship in the next weeks.

But I think it’s to easy too label Google’s OS as a copycat without innovation and energy for the next disruption.

More than a year ago, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson...

Tue, 03 May 2011 13:37:46 +0200

More than a year ago, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson published Rework (excerpt). A lot has been written about it but - as it often happens - the people who should know it, aren’t aware of the book.

If you haven’t read it, you should. In short, it’s about how work can be made fun and productive again. Trust me, you will be through in one afternoon, but it’s worth it. Fried writes occasionally on the blog of his company, 37signals. He has become some kind of web celebrity (that gets his own tumblr blog which makes fun of his statements).

Here’s a gist of some points he’s praying in the last years:

My customers have always been my investors. My goal has always been to be profitable on Day One. [source]

Unless you’re sending people into space you can fix problems later. Get your product launched and work on the details later. You won’t be able to foresee everything anyway. Ignore details early on. [source]

People work in teams of three, but there are really no true leader in those teams necessarily. […] Like the product is what leads you. It’s got to be good. [source, source]

We rarely have meetings. I hate them. They’re a huge waste of time, and they’re costly. It’s not one hour; it’s 10, because you pulled 10 people away from their real work. Plus, they chop your day into small bits, so you have only 20 minutes of free time here or 45 minutes there. Creative people need unstructured time to get in the zone. [source]

I don’t believe marketing is a department. I think marketing is in everything you do. It’s from the error message in your product when something goes wrong […] [source]

Another literature along those lines would be Making Ideas Happen by the founder of Behance, Scott Belsky. I won’t judge about the differences because the book is still on my reading list.

Deutscher Humor

Tue, 03 May 2011 13:31:19 +0200

Dem deutschen Versuch witzig zu sein stehe ich ambivalent gegenüber. Zu Schulzeiten war das Ganze da noch verhältnismäßig einfach: Mein Heimatbundesland stellte die “Pioniere der deutschen Comedy”, Badesalz, den ersten der gefakte Anrufe im Radio berühmt machte, Bodo Bach, und natürlich das “ey alder, krass” Duo Mundstuhl. In Retroperspektive eine feine Ausbeute.

Stand heute wendet sich jeder auch nur ansatzweise Interessierter - und die Sprache verstehender - Comedyfan gen USA. Es ist immer wieder erstaunlich wie viele brilliante Serien jedes Jahr aufs Neue im dortigen TV heraus purzeln. Dabei wird die Qualitätsmesslatte hoch gehalten; sowohl in Bezug auf Hollywood-reife Produktion (jedenfalls in Realtion zu deutschen Kinofilmen), als auch auf Akkuratheit. Neu zu meiner Watchlist hinzugekommen ist z.B. Community. Es wird wieder nur eine Frage der Zeit sein, bis diese Serie (mehr schlecht als recht) in das Deutsche übersetzt wird. (Zugegeben, den Job des Dolmetschers möchte ich auch nicht inne haben.)

Deutsche Imitationen sind dabei meist nur lauer Abklatsch.

Der generell lesenswerte (und natürlich amüsante) Scott Stevenson begründet dies auf USA erklärt so:

Humor taucht aber auch ohne pressure und getrennt von grace auf. Er zieht sich durch jeden Aspekt des angelsächsischen Alltags, von Witzen mit dem Briefträger über Scherze mit der Bedienung im Restaurant zu Geschmunzel während Geschäftssitzungen. Er ist die Würze beim small talk. Humor ist ein ständiger Begleiter und seine tägliche Pflege zu allen Gelegenheiten eine Art übernationales Gemeinschaftsprojekt von Raleighs kulturellen Erben. Und damit gehört er auch zu den Dingen, die Angelsachsen am meisten in Deutschland vermissen: Dort gehen den Leuten ständige Wortspiele und dauernde Witze eher auf die Nerven. Ernste Dinge werden ernst gesagt. Während bei Amerikanern und Briten die Verpackung – der Humor – nichts mit dem Inhalt – der Botschaft – zu tun haben muss, bekommt man bei den Germanen das, was man hört.

Nichtsdestotrotz gibt es hörenswerte deutsche Comedy. Und damit meine ich nicht die anspruchsvollere, Politik-bashende Kabarett-Sektion.
Hier sind drei aktuelle Favoriten aus meinem Podcast-Player mit ausgewählten Hörproben:

Marc Uwe Kling: “Wir hatten ja früher alles”
Horst Evers: “Jan, der Computerversteher”
Arnd Zeigler (nur für Fußballfans): Trailer

Habe ich jemanden vergessen?