From: Gleanings
To: Ears
Subject: Gleanings: Let there be music
OPENING THANG
Well, long-time readers know how I feel about the music industry: they don’t get it. And musicians; they deserve more than what the labels give them. And napster: peer-to-peer is inevitable.
So when long-time reader Shellyrae wrote in asking for an ad for her band Bassic, I was perplexed. I’ve never run an ad before (except suggesting someone hire mike over at biggerhand.com, but I don’t think that counts)
And then I read this:
“We’re trying to support ourselves and our newborn daughter on the money
we’re making from our music – instead of having to keep working for (often
failing) dotcom’s and various other tech/internet/software companies. We’re
also trying to keep from being signed to a label because we think that most
(if not all) music labels have extremely dishonest business practices and
often times the musicians tend to be the big losers in the end, especially
if they don’t pump out the typical top-40, music for the masses crap.”
Mp3.com is doing something very interesting: allowing the artists to avoid the whole label nightmare that Ms. Love rails against in her salon article.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/
So visit www.mp3.com/bassic and check out their music. If you dig it, buy it! Subvert. subvert. subvert.
DESIGN MATTERS
Worship at the church of Kalman?
http://www.undesign.org
Tokyo design firm with great splash page
http://www.furifuri.com/
Powazek reinvents himself again. God, I’d like to find time to do a redesign of EH just once…. and all this while he writes a book. Okay, I’ll just crawl in a corner now.
http://www.powazek.com/
Visual Design for Instructional Content (Part I) (xblog.com)
“In an earlier article ‘Monkey Instruction’, we addressed the issue of effective writing for online instruction. We asked why some online courses are boring and analyzed a Webmonkey course to understand its writing style that makes it such a popular course.”
http://www.elearningpost.com/elthemes/visual1.asp
IA MATTERS
Carbon IQ is keeping some good company these days. I was pleasantly surprised to see us on this list.
http://www.christung.com/design.htm
Peterme weighs in on the Argus closure
http://www.peterme.com
USABILITY MATTERS
Web-Based User Interface Evaluation with Questionnaires
Gary Perlman
http://www.acm.org/~perlman/question.html
IBM developerWorks: Debunking the myths of UI design. (tomalak.org)
“Software development would benefit greatly from extensive study by
sociologists, anthropologists, and clinical psychologists. As we await such
analyses, let’s document some beliefs embedded in the culture of software
development, specifically about user interface design.”
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/us-myth.html
NEWS & COMMENTARY
Know your gurus
http://www2.darwinmag.com/learn/guru/category.cfm?ID=all
Inside: Cash Begins Trickling in at Web Sites, as Amazon Honor System Slowly Takes Hold. (tomalak.org)
“Touted as the first fast, easy and elegant way for Web sites to receive
much-appreciated financial support from readers, the Amazon Honor System has so far shaped up to be a boon for one already established name but a bust for many other media-world participants.”
http://www.inside.com/jcs/Story?article_id=25782&pod_id=7
APROPOS OF NOTHING
Scott McCloud’s “choose your own carl” project has finally been completed.
http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/carl/3b/cyoc.html
Summer rerun– but I still love this site! best use of stock photos *ever*
http://www.it3c.co.uk
If you love music (esp jazz)
http://www.beatthief.com/