Links for 11.10.08: McSweeney’s distills, M.I.A. eats, celebrity urination…
*Things: This McSweeney’s list is kind of like what the listenerd would be if the listenerd were distilled down into nothing but awesomeness, then baked on a sheet of rad and peppered with cardamom. (I don’t know what cardamom is. And I don’t really like the word rad.) [daily swarm]
*Crowdsourcing: At The Next Big Sound, you listen to demos of unsigned bands, pick the ones you think will become popular, then reap the social benefits of being smarter than everyone else. I can’t make the explanation any simpler than that. I’m sorry. [mashable]
*Free music!: eMusic is offering free music through Pizza Hut. The crossover in customers between these two brands cannot be high. IT CANNOT.
*Riders: Do you want to know what M.I.A. likes to eat? You can find out at the Smoking Gun. [stereogum]
*Hardware: Dell is scrapping its plans to build an MP3 player, and will instead focus on software that will compete with iTunes.
*Maximum incontinence: I am a huge public urination fan. Not sure if you knew that. Or if you wanted to know.
*Local: FiveThirtyEight.com looks at the Minnesota Senate race recount. Holy fucking awesome breakdown!
*Parties: You should at least consider attending the Switchblade Comb 1st anniversary party on Friday, November 28 at the Nomad World Pub. I know I would consider it if I weren’t old. And bald.
True story: When Dell launched their first Dell DJ (what, five years ago?) I was working at their interactive ad agency. I was less than enthusiastic about their product’s chances and they asked me to be frank. I told them, “the player is fine, but your software experience sucks ass.” They were using MusicMatch and it took me almost three hours to install, buy an album and get it onto the DJ. I suggested they take a crack at developing their own software to go against iTunes (remember, this is just when iTunes was being launched for Windows). They said it wasn’t worth their time.
It’s not easy being right all the time, is it?
Tyler
November 10, 2008 at 9:29 pm
I once thought it wasn’t easy being right all the time. Turned out I was wrong.
(Someone has to have used that already, right?)
Josh Kimball
November 11, 2008 at 8:29 am