I’ve been running around like a fly with a blue backside the last few weeks. However after a bit of down time today I came across two great campaigns that I would hold up as shining examples of great digital work.

The first one is Sony’s Fantasy Festival partnership with Last.fm. You have an imaginary $1M to spend on your fantasy festival line up and the winner is the person whose selection has the most buzz online- kind of like Fantasy Football for music. Here’s my effort…

Why do I like this?

The communication is tied into a product. Once I’ve picked my line up and named my festival I can listen to it on Last.fm and share it with friends. Simple idea but cool.

It’s a genuine experience not just a prize draw. I spent ages battling with my consciousness. Do I put some super bands like Muse in that have a lot of buzz even though I don’t like them, or ‘keep it real’ and stick to my favourites. Seriously have a go, you have to make some brutal decisions.

The second campaign is from HP who is raising the awareness of the Global clean water crisis by supporting a team of climbers looking to reach the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro.

They don’t start till January but you can track their progress via a website that is the equivalent height of Mt Kilimanjaro in pixels – check out the scroll bar! Neat idea from Goodby

@carlmoggy

I’ve been running around like a fly with a blue backside the last few weeks. However after a bit of down time today I came across two great campaigns that I would hold up as shining examples of great digital work.

The first one is Sony’s Fantasy Festival partnership with Last.fm. You have an imaginary $1M to spend on your fantasy festival line up and the winner is the person whose selection has the most buzz online- kind of like Fantasy Football for music. Here’s my effort…

Why do I like this?

The communication is tied into a product. Once I’ve picked my line up and named my festival I can listen to it on Last.fm and share it with friends. Simple idea but cool.

It’s a genuine experience not just a prize draw. I spent ages battling with my consciousness. Do I put some super bands like Muse in that have a lot of buzz even though I don’t like them, or ‘keep it real’ and stick to my favourites. Seriously have a go, you have to make some brutal decisions.

The second campaign is from HP who is raising the awareness of the Global clean water crisis by supporting a team of climbers looking to reach the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro.

They don’t start till January but you can track their progress via a website that is the equivalent height of Mt Kilimanjaro in pixels – check out the scroll bar! Neat idea from Goodby

from @WillOConnor

UK Tech-Wunderkind and R’n'B fanatic Lucy Davies is out and about on a much needed slice of vacation at the moment. Rather than continue my nomadic, deskless journey around the hotdesks of London, she kindly agreed to let me use her seat for the week.

Thanks Luc! However, It seems use of her desk comes with some particularly draconian rules. Lucy exhibits a near-fanatical level of control over her stationary items, especially her stapler – woe-betide the hapless soul who borrows it for more than a minute. Take it out of the fault-line (the "Circle of Trust") around her desk and you’ll provoke a Hezbollah-style reaction (she swear’s like a docker!)

First thing today, I was greeted with this (rather aggressive) missive…

Will. If my stapler goes missing, I’m going to hunt you down!!!

 

Punchy! Nothing else. No kindly message of good-will. just unchecked aggression. Ordinarily I wouldn’t really care about such office chattels, and I’ve no real interest in removing items from her desk, but this seems a touch strong, don’t you think? Threats of personal violence?!

Well. If Luc is having a holiday, then so should Stapler. We have a busy week, with a number of activities planned (both work and extra-curricular), so we’re going to make sure that Stapler has a goooood time: 

Where to begin? Without Lucy’s dominant, controlling presence, Stapler should feel free to have a bit of a look around the office…meet some people…maybe have a good time!

Getting a little above its station there… Mr Brain’s office is sacred ground. Maybe best to get out fast; swing by corp and find something to do…

Busy times in corporate. But I’m sure Lucy would never allow such a flagrant breach of staple etiquette! Attaching a chocolate-cornflake treat to some industrial cardboard will surely damage the stapler’s delicate mechanics… but sometimes you’ve just got to look at yourself and say "When in Rome…" There was an Xbox party Monday night for the Facebook, Twitter & LastFM launch. A chance to meet Taio Cruz and Paloma Faith *gasp*. A quick toilet stop, and on to the soiree. We’ll all check in later. TTFN….

***UPDATE – TUESDAY 17th***** Crikey. Busy night so early in the week! Xbox launched its Twitter, Facebook AND LastFM partnerships last night with a glam shindig in Mayfair. Stapler DID NOT GO MISSING, Lucy! It merely enjoyed an evening out with some fun people… Geri and Kat from the JCPR showed stapler around the venue, MusicRoomSpaceEvents …

Then the entertainment came out… Paloma Faith tottered on-stage and warbled her choon, Stone Cold Sober. Then Taio Cruz wandered out. We were expecting similar things, but far from squeaking and quacking about *holding hands with the laydeez* and getting crunk in the club, he and Faith did a duet:

Unfortunately, they disappeared off lickety-spit after the gig and stapler didn’t get a chance to meet and greet. Faith headed off in the direction of the nearest seedy bar, Cruz held his mum’s hand while he crossed the road and bimbled off to get a McFlurry and the tube home… Stapler stayed on and met MC for the night, comedian and up-n-coming face, Jeff Leach. Leach stapled his nipple. Such exciting, unconventional times for a lowly desk item…

Whatever next? Well, tonight it’s off to a secret Bebo and Samsung Gig with the Boxer Rebellion. Let’s see if we can get on-stage… ***UPDATE, WEDNESDAY 18th*** More client fun-times tonight with Samsung at the Samsung & Bebo Nights at the Gibson Rooms in Noho. Went to see the Boxer Rebellion

Stapler hung-out with Dave Grohl for a bit…

… Danced to this…

…Crowd-surfed….

…But best of all, managed to meet the band. How would Lucy feel about the bear-like guitarist touching up her stapler?! It’s simply not regulation!

Stapler’s game is SOOOOO 2010! Dont’ hate!

Got a last.fm account? Join the Wears The Trousers listening group here. We’ll be publishing details of what members are listening to every week throughout the year.

Week ending 15/11/09

Unique to the group

01 Ane Brun (1)
02 Tori Amos (2)
03 Indigo Girls (-)
04 Beth Orton (-)
05 Martha Wainwright (-)
06 Bat For Lashes (-)
07 Laura Veirs (-)
08 Neko Case (-)
09 Soap&Skin (-)
10 Tegan & Sara (-)

Overall charts

01 Tori Amos (1)
02 Regina Spektor (2)
03 Bat For Lashes (3=)
04 Tegan & Sara (-)
05 Cat Power (-)
06 The Beatles (-)
07 Radiohead (6)
08 Fever Ray (-)
09= Björk (3=)
09= Lady GaGa (-)

* * *

This week’s stats are based on the compulsive habits of 279 listeners.

CS299 Last.fm Video Demonstration from allen obrien on Vimeo.

Story:
Bought myself some posters to add to the collection, large ones worth mentioning are:
Watchmen, New York City Streets, The Saturdays, Up, FLY53 and Miike Snow.

Had all but the Up and Saturday’s poster up for about 4 weeks now, put up these two and get called a childish gay, getting some real abuse for no reason. I like the Saturdays so what, Keep Her is the most played song in my iTunes and they sit top 8 on Last.FM played artists, good music, good live and i like them. Back up it doesn’t make me gay, i’ll a picture of the poster up in a few mins, it’s as manly as possible without being porn.

Up is also not childish. It’s one of the best Disney films created, up there with Wall-E, Toy Story and Monsters Inc. As much as Disney is targeted at teeny boppers they have many adult themes and jokes in them, Shrek is practically a 12A. Up, amazing film. Good stuff.

Not gay, not childish, just a passionate fan. You wish you had these posters, make my room look amazing! Top 5 student room ever! I called it.

Itthon kezdek visszatérni a hifin történő zenehallgatásra. Ezzel a Last.FM statom kicsit deformálódik, de bánja fene. Viszont egyre égetőbbé válik a rendezetlen cd-polc problémája. Éppen ideje lesz már visszapakolnom a cuccokat abc-sorrendbe.

Jó, hát van valamiféle rendszer a polcon (fekete, fehér és színes gerincesek külön polcon, slim tokos másolatok szintén, digipack csomagok és egyéb dobozok detto), de nem mondhatnám az igazinak, haha.

On November 17th when you start up your Xbox you’ll be hit with the Fall dashboard update that will include Facebook, Twitter, and Last.FM. Computers are already over saturated with social networking mediums and now your Xbox can join the fun. I’ve always played video games wondering “Man, I wish I could let all my friends online know what game I’m playing through my Xbox” and now I can finally! (sarcasm). In my opinion, people already update their Facebook statues and Twitter about nonsensical esoteric blurbs, most of which I couldn’t care less about, and I fear this will just make it worse. That aside, however, It’s still a really cool idea that I’m kind of excited to at least check out.

The addition of Last.FM however I find a little more interesting. I’m not entirely sure exactly how Last.FM works because I tried to use it, got frustrated and gave up, but coming from a person who often uses their Xbox to provide the music for a party I think I might get good use out of this addition to the Xbox live experience.

From Xbox.com:

“Sharing your passion for favourite tunes is also a major component for Last.fm on Xbox 360. You can vote ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ for each song to make sure you only hear your latest flames. Creating a play list for the living room is simple too.

There are more than 3.5 million songs available through Last.fm, and you’d need to be some kind of music robot to know them all in an instant! However by checking your friends’ play lists and by seeking out tracks of a similar style or mood you’ll soon be expanding your musical horizons and life doesn’t get any finer than that.

Last.fm for Xbox 360 can be sampled free by all Xbox LIVE members and the full service can be experienced if your status is Gold. However if you choose to take on Last.fm membership plus LIVE Gold membership you’ll gain even more terrific personalisation features.

With a music library so vast that you’ll never tire of it, the greatest games available on the planet; streaming movies and live TV shows plus an online community that’s millions strong, Xbox 360 is always delivering entertainment, your way.

Happy listening!”

Got a last.fm account? Join the Wears The Trousers listening group here. We’ll be publishing details of what members are listening to every week throughout the year.

Week ending 08/11/09

Unique to the group

01 Ane Brun (2)
02 Tori Amos (8)
03 Kristin Hersh (-)
04 Marissa Nadler (-)
05 Lisa Germano (7)
06 Alessi’s Ark (3)
07 Ani DiFranco (-)
08 Nellie McKay (-)
09 Anni Rossi (-)
10 Erin McKeown (-)

Overall charts

01 Tori Amos (3)
02 Regina Spektor (2)
03= Björk (6)
03= Bat For Lashes (5)
05 Yeah Yeah Yeahs (7=)
06 Radiohead (-)
07= The Smiths (-)
07= Ane Brun (-)
09= Neko Case (-)
09= Kate Bush (-)

* * *

This week’s stats are based on the compulsive habits of 277 listeners.

GAMING

Earlier Techcrunch broke the news on the upcoming launch of City Of Eternals, the first Flash MMOG from Ohai.I have the rough footage below of in game play, and will add a proper screencast shortly. This is a World of Warcraft style MMOG that’s free to play and Flash based. It’s also integrated with Facebook Connect to allow easy signup and, more importantly, you can play with your friends and see the real identity of other players. (Techcrunch11/10)

Although it’s not yet live to everyone, a new Xbox LIVE Dashboard Update that adds social networking integrations with Facebook, Twitter and last.fm is currently in preview mode to beta testers and will go live to the public in short order. (Mashable 11/11)

vi lá no trabalho sujo que esse site compila as músicas que você ouviu no last.fm de acordo com a numeração do contador. ou seja, dá pra saber exatamente qual foi a 500ª música que você ouviu usando o scrobble do last.fm. como eu não uso muito o programa – até o momento foram pouco mais de 8500 músicas ouvidas em quase três anos – escolhi começar a contar a cada 250 músicas. achei interessante a proposta do site.

como eu sei que o meu gosto musical NUNCA decepciona, aproveita e faz uma mixtape (pra ouvir no carro, no domingo, ou quando você estiver de bobeira) a partir da lista abaixo. a diversão é garantida.

Last.fm sits down with legendary emcee Rakim for an exclusive interview. Part II coming soon.

I’ve been brewing some ideas on how to better improve the social media world.

Using Last.fm for shopping, band sites, and pausing music , all sound like good applications for what I consider to be my favorite social-media site, and well as one of the largest, most popular, and most diverse sites on the web. Seriously, I’ve spoken very highly of Last.fm for a long time now, and have *personally logged over one hundred thousand plays. But when I look at how many different applications utilize the Twitter API, it makes me realize how grossly underused the Last.fm API is.

* (Check me out here, and don’t be afraid to throw a friend request my way)

One for instance I would find particularly awesome, would be the use of more websites like Amazon or Ebay to access a user’s last.fm charts to show more relevant searches and recommendations. I figure, web ads are already starting to tailor their content to user-specific parameters, so why stop there? Hot Topic’s website -for instance- gives a large dropdown menu displaying the various band apparel available for purchase, but it seems like typing in my Last.fm username would provide a much more efficient and custom shopping experience, all free to the vendor to use.

But why stop there? because Last.fm has also updated their servers to show if you’re listening to a track right now. That means that there is a free, relativity easy to use way to find out if a person is listening to music: which would be wonderfully applied to sites with audio or video, and could be turned on or off conditionally. I mean, few things piss me off more than a band’s Myspace playing music over my music, or trying to find the one tab I opened with the stupid video ad.

It all seems like a complete waste for vendors to ignore the fact the the community of last.fm is doing their work for them, by labeling trends and groups of charts with data tags. If I were to get on a site, they could look at my top ten artists: to which a simple algorithm can determine the predominate genre I listen to is metal. From there, they now know what music I most commonly listen to: which can tell a lot about a person. My recommendations can now be more relevant based on a multitude of information about the artists I like. Where they’re from, how old they are, what genres they fall into, how often I’m listening to music: it’s all there for the taking. Especially what events I’m attending, a list that I keep updated.

Exclusive Tour Content – now everyone knows that these days things are digital. Music fans no longer keep a shelf full of LPs, but instead an external full of FLACs. So now more than ever, people are starting to customize their own playlists and mix their own tracks. Which means even the music industry, which seems to be perpetually ten years behind has to realize that by now, a tracklist is unimportant: everything’s got its own playlist. So if you’re like me, you do keep a lot of playlists around, for different moods and for when you’re jogging: things like that.

My thoughts are, the artists should embrace this way of listening to music, by releasing filler content through their website. If you’ve seen a band live, then you know how much “Hello Cincinnati, we fucking love you guys” kind of stuff goes on. So why not record those small audience interactions, and put ‘em on the web for people to use in a playlist? I would love having a copy of Randy Blythe saying “you might’ve heard this song played by a bunch of HACK musicians on a video game” before introducing Laid to Rest. That would be SO awesome and easy to do. For people who saw that show live, it takes on a whole new level being able to create the playlist of the show you were at: or give people who missed it a chance to hear the in-between stuff.

Zune goes SS?
Originally uploaded by
Claudio Schwarz

For the Zune Social not to suck, would be also be super nice. If you haven’t already been, take a look around, and just wallow in its horrible, horrible lack of application with the data it collects. It requires the downloading of Silverlight, which I’ve never fucking heard of, and offers little other than reaffirmation that yes, that person exists.

What bothers me most, is that the data on Zune’s social goes nowhere. I mean, Zune is already the laughingstock of the mp3 world: so don’t invite even more embarrassment by trying to set your brand up as being ultra-urban, when you have the least compatible site I’ve seen in a long, long time. You’re given the chance to make a profile: which is worthless unless you download the Zune software, which is again worthless, unless you have a Zune.

On top of that, your profile has the option to display a “status” which seems like an easy port to bring in Twitter: and custom information on each artists, including mis-labeled album information, and out-of-date tour information. On top of that, most areas aren’t public run, which means you’re at the mercy of Microsoft to make sure your favorite artists have information.

A sad, sad world we live in, when a multi-billion dollar company can’t label music correctly.

Alright people, hop-to, these ideas aren’t going to materialize into usable programs by themselves.

Google buys Myspace and gives it a quick death
behind the Barnyard. I will never have to consider the
concept of ‘Top-Friends’ ever, ever again.

WordPress & Blogspot will fight to the death for the
scraps of Myspace and then retool it for the express purpose of
LOLcats blogs with 8 spaces for your favourite cats/LOLcats.
Nothing else will save it.

I’m thinking Tumblr should buy out Twitter and rename it
‘I CAN YELL ON THE INTERNET’ so that the word ‘tweet’ goes
back to being the innocent onomatopoeia of baby birds
…. and not THE Adjective, for a generation of idiots.

Facebook gets bought out by Tumblr aswell – to combine their
services into one giant live action feed of semi-naked women.
Friends can repost pictures to their parents and finally get them
off their backs about what that ‘danged tinkernet’ is all about’ -
it would be called Faceboomblr, which still makes more sense
than Facebook. You could probably find your highschool friends
on it, but it is more likely that you will use it to determine which
of the indie babes have ended up going into the soft-porn industry/the amateur
photography gig(mostly involving soft-porn photographs), Instead of becoming
actors and actresses respectively. Facebook stalking would become slightly
creepier, we can all admit the fact that Facebook made us all a little
‘interwebs creepy’ anyway, and becoming a fan of things/the like button
would be exclusively for the purpose of sarcastically humiliating people

Oh and I know you’re lying if you said it didn’t. We all know you watched
her status until it said ‘In a Relationship.’ And celebrated by beating off
to pictures of her best friend. You’re a weird guy.

The downside:
A lot of highschool nerds would come down
with Carpal-Tunnel.

The highlight:
Twitters functions (now owned by Faceboomblr) will be adapted into this new
service, so that people would be compelled to comment on soft porn, every five minutes,
in 140 characters….as if they were a 15 year old girl with ADD.

‘HAI @LESBIANSEXYSTACY WE WERE IN ARTCLASS TOGETHER.VERY ARTISTIC TITS.I’M EATING BREAKFAST.
NO COCOPOPS UR CUTE.#MADTITS’

And finally,
LastFM merges with Redtube & Youporn to become
a website entirely dedicated to showing how often
you have watched a particular porno in a day & for
exactly how long you did. You could build playlists to share
with your friends and then have suggested videos( and people
with the same fucked up fetishes as yourself) show up in
a sidebar.Women will find this service particularly useful
in selecting partners.

The moral of this story is:
It is a good thing that nobody
trusts me with any kind of
responsibility, anywhere ,
at any given time.

Grooveshark ist ein neuer Musikdienst bei dem man anders als bei LastFm alle Lieder in voller Länge hören kann, darüber hinaus findet es außerdem mehr Lieder von meinen Lieblingsbands als ich bisher kannte O.o ….darunter Demo’s,Alben die nur auf Vinyl erschienen und Live Mitschnitte.

Viel Spaß beim Musik hören (ihr dürft auch mitträllern und mir davon videos schicken )

Got a last.fm account? Join the Wears The Trousers listening group here. We’ll be publishing details of what members are listening to every week throughout the year.

Week ending 01/11/09

Unique to the group

01 Sarah Blasko (-)
02 Ane Brun (2)
03 Alessi’s Ark (-)
04 Lisa Hannigan (7)
05 Martha Wainwright (-)
06 Tegan & Sara (-)
07 Lisa Germano (-)
08 Tori Amos (1)
09 Nancy Elizabeth (-)
10 Soap&Skin (-)

Overall charts

01 Tegan & Sara (3)
02 Regina Spektor (2)
03 Tori Amos (1)
04 Cat Power (4)
05 Bat For Lashes (8=)
06 Björk (-)
07= Yeah Yeah Yeahs (5=)
07= Feist (-)
07= Metric (-)
10 Kate Bush (10)

* * *

This week’s stats are based on the compulsive habits of 274 listeners.

Well, I came up with a title for it…….Moon Year Zero is a short collection of soundtracks for the (imaginary!) film of the same name. 8 tracks of lo-fi otherworldly electronics and atmospheres, with a nod in the direction of The BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Kraftwerk.

Its all free to download (128kbps at Last.fm or 320kbps, MP3 or WMA, at Bandcamp.com), so please go and get it!

Powered by ScribeFire.

Il luogo comune vede gli internauti stare attaccati al loro computer scaricando musica a velocità impressionante, violando chiaramente i diritti d’autore. Tuttavia, la voce è assolutamente falsa, o per lo meno lo è se l’internauta in questione ha un po’ di sale nella zucca.

Esistono infatti una serie di siti che offrono ascolti o download in modo assolutamente legale. Eccone alcuni:

LastFm (Anche se richiede un piccolo pagamento a noi italiani)

Deezer

Downlovers

Qtrax

Radio SNJ

E ora… Che dire? Buon ascolto!

Musically yours,

The Sign Painter

Am currently adding the finishing touches to a few tracks I’ve been recording recently. Loosely themed around some of the wonderful 60s and 70s British TV sci-fi which I grew up with, the music is intended to evoke the atmosphere of such serials as Quatermass, UFO, The Tomorrow People, Survivors and Doomwatch. As you would expect, Radiophonic music is a big influence on this, but also the less heralded music of Barry Gray (of UFO & Space1999 soundtrack fame), and Kraftwerk. Ambience, however, will be the prominent vibe.
The album title is yet to be decided, and it’ll be free of charge when released, as usual.

This isn’t a review, I’m not going to talk at great length about Greg Healey’s way with filmic atmospherics, electro-jazz, or his expanded audio pallette. I’m not even going to talk about his love of music which manifests itself in his own recordings and in his weekly radio show.
I’m not going to use words like ‘chilled’, ’sinister’, ‘cinematic’ or ‘diaphanous’.

No, all I’m going to say is: Go here to listen, or go here to buy. Its great!

Powered by ScribeFire.

Il famoso Last.fm è pronto per lanciare un servizio (si parla del 2010) si streaming video (chiamato Last.tv) che dovrebbe fra l’altro ospitare diversi concerti di importanza internazionale. Al momento non si hanno altre notizie

After several months of using Spotify I cant help but wonder whether it signals the future for music listeners.

For those unfamiliar with Spotify it is a music streaming service which allows users to listen to millions of tracks for free.

The interface is similar to what you would see in iTunes allowing you to search for artists or tracks and allowing you to create playlists of your favorite tracks.

Users can opt for either the free version or a subscription based premium model (£9.99/month).

The free version is supported though ad-based services, similar to having advertisements on a commercial radio station.

However, these adverts are not as frequent as listening to the radio and the greatest advantage of Spotify over any other service is that it lets you listen to the tracks you actually want to listen to with barely any interruptions.

Spotify’s rival Last.fm also allows for users to listen to free music, however, users only get to listen to selections called radios which build a  playlist of similar bands. Hence, you may never hear the track you were intent on listening to, unlike with Spotify.

Spotify also allows for similar services as Last.fm giving artist radios, genre specific radios, and suggestions of artists you may like, which ensures you always have something to listen to.

Spotify isn’t without its faults, however. Some adverts can repeat endlessly, some new albums are held back for premium subscribers and if your internet connection goes down then say goodbye to your music.

However, Premium does allow (for those willing to stump up the cash) for ad free music and  Spotify have just added a listen offline feature (allowing the caching of 3,333 tracks).

Premium subscribers can now also take their music on the go with them, providing they have an iPhone, iPod touch, or android phone.

Spotify playlists can easily be shared from user to user so Spotify can become a social listening experience.

Sites such as http://spotifyplaylists.co.uk/ have already sprung up allowing users to give ratings to the best playlists.

Users never actually own any of the tracks they listen to, however, providing artists gain a fair wage for their work through the ad-based model, Spotify might possibly tackle piracy in a greater way than any legislation ever could.

It encourages users to listen to new music and bands and it does so in a legal method that most users would be happy with. Combined with purchases Spotify is a great way of listening to music and if you discover a track that you want to keep, Spotify also has a instant buy track button that lets you snap up your favorite songs.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to consumer choice and Spotify may just become the best choice for consumers and artists alike since the dawn of the internet age.

To find out more and to download Spotify visit: http://www.spotify.com/en/