- Image via CrunchBase
So this is one of the posts in which I am going to argue that when I was a teenager things were better, and you are going to think that I am one of those guys who thinks that things were always better in the past. A disgruntled modernist of sorts. But no, that is not the case. I can’t think of anything that was better 30 yrs ago than now, except one thing, music quality.
When I was a teen, I was a fan of HiFi music. I used to build my own speakers, try to get the best turntable I could find, and the best amplifier. Already playing cassette tapes was consider a “no no” as the quality would deteriorate considerably compared to vinyl records. I did like CDs though, as they seem to reach the whole sound range.
Now fast forward to 2010. My children play music off their laptops, their Macs. The speakers are terrible. Sound awful. And even myself I buy a Sonos, and the quality is acceptable, but not great. So what do I do? I still buy myself amazing speakers and amplifiers and whatever I have that produces music, I send through those. And I don’t even like the sound of Home Theaters except if you are watching movies. So we have one, but in the movie at home part of the house. Home Theaters invariably have bad speakers. So our solution for the living room and dining room is to have great old fashion Denon, Pioneer and Marantz, amplifiers connected to Yamaha speakers. It is not that the equipment is old. It’s the technology that is old. Even the Sonos I don’t use to amplify the sound, nor do I use the Sonos speakers that come with the unit. I just a use a Sonos box to convert Spotify, Last.fm and even my own music library, from an input that comes over ethernet, into an audio output that goes into the Denon amplifier and the Yamaha speakers. Something that soon amplifiers will do by themselves using AirPlay.
So in the end I walk around my home with an iPhone or HTC Nexus One (with Andronos installed) and I can play music, great quality music. And now I have both, the quality of the 80’s with the variety, accessibility and ease of use that we have 30 years later. My favorite band at the moment is The XX. My favorite song is Crystalised.
PS: I am studying the app that was made for streaming music with a Fonera,
Related articles
- Yamaha Adds Pandora Internet Radio and iPhone/iPad App Capabilities to the neoHD Wi-Fi A/V Receiver, While Reducing Price (prweb.com)
- Perfect sounds: building the perfect hi-fi (telegraph.co.uk)
2010 28
Ace of Base: Marketing Pop on the Internet
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Web 2.0 with No Comments
Like I never tire from saying, the Internet is a great tool that can be used in uncountable ways to promote basically any product, and music is no different from any other product. There are many sites and applications which can help publicize music, and it’s just a matter of knowing them and using them correctly to get what you need. For example, Ace of Base (of which my friend Ulk Ekberg is one of the founders) have a new album, The Golden Ratio, and they are using all these tools to make their music reach every corner of the world.
Twitter is one of the basics, because it permits the band to inform about anything new that’s going on in a short, easy, straight-to-the-point manner, so that any fans that follow then instantly know if there are new photos on the site, where the latest concerts are taking place, or where to listen to the new single. Ace of Base use their Twitter account quite regularly to keep all of their fans updated on the latest news like iTunes reviews on their new album, new photos… The best thing about Twitter is that it’s simple and quick to use, so it’s perfect for spreading the word quickly.
Facebook is another excellent platform for this, mainly because practically everyone has a Facebook account, and it’s got so many ways of sharing all kinds of stuff that it’s perfect to publicize a band. Ace of Base have their Facebook full of photos, thousands of comments on their Wall, a music player with some of their songs, info on the band and it’s members… All the information you need in a platform everyone knows and uses.
Ace of Base also have an official webpage that they always keep updated. On it you can find more specialized information on the band, like the biography, discography, news, and even links to buy the album either as a CD or as downloadable tracks to upload onto your mp3 player directly.
Last but not least, Ace of Base have put out a great widget with a piece of each of their latest tracks, which you can embed on a blog, on a website, on Facebook…
and here’s their new videoclip from their Youtube channel, where you can also see older material and the making of their new video.
2005 24
FON: the Napster of WiFi
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
I just heard that a journalist from a Spanish television channel said that FON is the Napster of Wifi. Being a Napster fan, I see the analogy.
With FON, a user pays his/her bandwidth at home and can enjoy bandwidth wherever there are other foneros. With Napster, you pay $10 a month and you can download as much music as you want, regardless of where you are. Since I love music, I really prefer Napster to iTunes. iTunes, with its pay-per-song system, works for people who like listening to the same song over and over again. I prefer the variety that Napster gives me. When you think of it, $10 is really peanuts for the amount of music Napster gives you access to.