Colbert at Cornell This Fall

http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070829/NEWS01/70829004/1002

Social Incompetence

It scares me how little some Web 2.0 CEO's, pundits and evangelists actually seem to "know" about the value and application of social networks. One recently claimed the quality of a facebook network was proportional to the number of close friends who share many friends in common (with you). At best, this is an oversimplification. At worst, it is a characterization of social networks which begs the proverbial venture capital question --- so what is it good for, another rolodex?

Maybe with an abundance of networks to uncover, discover and build upon, our resulting enthusiasm has led us to ignore the next step. I think Facebook understands this at least, as they have turned their growth momentum over to their users via apps.

"Now that you've built up your social network, we'll let you purpose it as you please."

All 1's and 0's

I read an article in the SF Chronicle yesterday about how award-winning producers detest the popularity of MP3's since they are viewed as a less-than-stellar way to appreciate harmonic subleties.

I agree for the most part and I wish consumers had more choices when buying digital music online. I don't mean pick-your-proprietary-format - I mean pick your bitrate / price. Even while I've touted the quality of Napster in the past, paying $9.99 for a degraded-quality album doesn't seem like a deal.

Offer me that, but also offer me the real deal. Lossless audio downloads.

MusicGiants is one of the only shops that is currently offering these for popular releases, but unfortunately for me, their downloads are still tied to the Windows Media DRM system.