Vaspers the Grate: Peoria Illinois web usability, music marketing, online video

Vaspers The Grate podcasts on Blog Talk Radio PLAYER

2011-06-02T23:56:00.000-05:00

Listen to internet radio with StevenStreight on Blog Talk Radio

Hey hey hey. It's Vaspers the Grate Presents. Welcome to Vaspers New Reformed Blogorama podcast show on Blog Talk Radio.

Check out my interviews with big stars and key thought leaders in the social media and business world. Experts and innovators like BL Ochman, Yvonne DiVita, Wayne Hurlbert, Toby Bloomberg, Becky McCray, Billy Dennis the Peoria Pundit, and more.

Also be sure to catch my infamous Vaspers rants and tirades on web usability, small business strategy, and social media, including special audio essays on blogocombat against trolls.

I blog to hear myself blog

2011-05-30T03:16:00.006-05:00

“I blog to hear myself blog.”

With that explosive remark, I officially re-launch my old, original blog: Vaspers the Grate. This inflammatory statement, with "please go away" overtones, is in response to a post by [blogger name deleted].

Yes indeed -- I blog to hear myself blog.

I blog primarily to improve my writing and to sharpen my thinking. I blog to render my ideas in a concrete form, to push them out of my head, and to then move on to other thoughts.

Comments, likes, shares, followers, fans, friends — they mean absolutely nothing. Such "ratings" can be easily gamed, spammed, and artificially (non-organically) manipulated. Digg, Empire Avenue, Blog Shares, and Stumble Upon are great examples of easily gamed social popularity sites. I have no use for such nonsense.

Trying to drive your numbers up is just using social media as a video game and scoring points. That’s okay with me if others treat blogging and Facebooking and Twittering in this manner, but it's not my cup of tea.

Popularity contests are silly because the wildly popular junk is boring and irrelevant to me, like popular music or popular movies. If it’s popular, it’s generally MEDIOCRE and just trendy and hyped fluff and nonsense.

I wrote about Readerless Blogging in May of 2005. Since that time, my conviction has grown in clarity and intensity.

This is not reverse psychology. I am completely sincere when I say "I don't blog for any audience or to be liked by anyone." I admit that long ago, I did labor intensely to become famous, accepted, respected. But now, all those goals are gone.

Nowadays I blog only to express myself -- to myself. I have no desire to address any audience, market, or niche. I blog for basically no audience at all.

At best, I strive to create a body of work (Pluperfecter) that embodies my personal beliefs and private dreams. I seek to have some opus to point to when a potential client wants to see samples of my writing. But even in that case, I prefer to provide them with dead tree magazine articles I've written on various web usability, social media, and business topics.

When I first started blogging, I did indeed try to form relationships and interactions with other bloggers. To accomplish this goal, I used blogrolls linking to favorite bloggers, and I posted tons of comments on other blogs.

I even compiled a book called Secrets of the Blog Pros, based on a micro-questionnaire of two questions that I emailed to all the top bloggers around 2006, most of whom answered the "Blog Pro Survey". I think I had about 100 responses. O'Reilly was going to publish it, but then declined at the last minute. That's okay with me.

After about 4 or 5 years of this futile endeavor, I finally saw the light. I quit blogging to an audience. I stopped posting comments on other people’s blogs.

While I did attract a lot of attention when I was “trying to become popular”, and a legend rose up around Vaspers the Grate, and I still have some hardcore loyal fans…

…I now reject all that and care absolutely nothing about popularity.

I have a strong desire to be obscure, ignored, unpopular.

I deliberately publish only a few posts a month (8-10) instead of daily.

I don't post comments on other people's blogs.

I don't include blogrolls on my blogs.

I don't have a Facebook page.

I use Twitter primarily to rant about politics and religion, which a business blogger, like myself, should NEVER do if they seek popularity and the respect of colleagues and peers.

Even my Str8 Sounds music is done under the radar, with no effort to make money or please any audience.

I now please only myself, and if one or two people benefit or enjoy it, that’s their fault, not mine. It’s purely accidental. I do not seek or encourage it.

I despise popularity. The greatest art is usually unknown or dismissed during the life of the artist. What I seek now is a tiny handful of like-minded colleagues to collaborate with and to inspire and be inspired by.

I reject fame and fortune. I do not want to succeed. I want to accomplish something far more subtle and subversive.

I am not anonymous or paranoid, but I admire the ascetic hermits who lived in caves in the desert. I seek to share my insights and to help others, but I prefer to do it with no acclaim, no accolades, no appreciation.

I do tweet links to my occasional blog posts and my podcasts, but I prefer, as Seth Godin once said, to be stumbled upon, than be discovered via heavy promotional campaigns.

When nobody cares about what you do, you are far more free to create what your vision dictates to you.

When you’re famous and admired, you’re a prisoner to fan and entourage expectations, a slave to doing whatever it takes to retain the celebrity status, please the disciples, and compromise your integrity and vision.

My favorite people are obscure, barely known to the masses, popular only to small groups of specialists.

For example: Harold Garfinkel (founder of Ethnomethodology), Iannis Xenakis (inventor of stochastic music and noise music), Langdon Winner (author of Autonomous Technology and exposer of the tyranny of The Technological Imperative).

Unpopular. Unknown. Uncared about.

That’s the ideal condition for a creative, innovative person.

Should you then continue reading this blog, or listening to my podcasts or music, or paying attention to anything I do?

That's up to you. But I strongly advise you to think carefully about your decision. You see, if you become aware of my writings and music and lectures, you may experience a deep and fundamental transformation at the very core of your being.

A change you may not be able to control.

A transition to a very different mode of being, that will make you unpopular, disliked, and rejected by employers, family, friends, and others.

It won't be my fault. You will have brought it on yourself, after having been warned.

Sincerely not yours,

Vaspers the Grate aka Steven Streight

Yes it is back

2011-05-25T23:41:00.002-05:00

Imagine there's no Vaspers. It's impossible to try. Okay. Here we are again.

I locked up this blog and buried it for 3 years for various reasons. Those reasons no longer hold sway, so I have decided to unleash this monstrosity again, in hopes that nobody will care.

If you are a visitor here for the first time, I suggest you move on. This is not a "sticky" site. This is a blog that prefers to remain in the shadows. It is emerging from obscurity only to prove a point: you cannot stop it.

I write for myself and myself alone. I do not write for you.

Please go find a blog that seeks companionship, admiration, or popularity. This blog is different. It exists for itself, not any audience. While I have enabled comments, this blog does not seek to form relationships with anybody and it does not seek to engage in any other interactions.

Thanks for your lack of comprehension and your full cooperation.

corporate honesty in social media

2008-06-01T11:26:00.001-05:00

Blogging and social media usage has a netiquette and a clear, if not always publicized, set of ethics and morals, a consensus list of rules for conduct. Not to limit creativity or innovation, but to use the new tools most effectively. This means deviating from old school corporate fluff, we-orientation, and MSM hype.

What are some of these new values that are reigning in the new media?

Authenticity. Passion. Transparency.

Three of the values that some old fashioned organizations consistently violate, thinking they can get away with it.
Incentivized opinions are not wanted, nor respected, in the social media realm.

It’s like your husband being secretly paid by a university, in an ethnomethodology experiment, to say romantic things to you, at $10 per statement. Once you found out he was being paid to seduce you, you’d surely be quite disgusted and upset, never trusting his advances ever again.

It’s PayPerPost and other compensated, coached, inauthentic recommendations, or slurs and reproaches, that will poison, pollute, and make worthless the peer-to-peer recommendation system of the social media sphere.

Corporate use of social media cannot be a crass, greedy gaming and exploitation of the online community members. Such BS will backfire. It's marketing suicide, and will be very time-consuming and expensive to correct.

Target has been caught in such deceptive antics. See: "off target".

[QUOTE]

newsletter (issue #107) from Target Rounders saying:

Your mission: try not to let on in the Facebook group that you are a Rounder. We love your enthusiasm for the Rounders, and I know it can be hard not to want to sing it from the mountaintops (and the shower, and on the bus…).

However, we want to get other members of the Facebook group excited about Target, too! And we don’t want the Rounders program to steal the show from the real star here: Target and Target’s rockin’ Facebook group! So keep it like a secret!

[END QUOTE]

Lying is, unfortunately, a prevalent advertising, and PR practice, that is rejected in the social media realm.

Bloggers are feared, because they'll bash, flame, and destroy any company caught in such immoral and counter-productive behaviors.

Social media communities tend to keep things ethical, creative, and of great practical value. You can insert your messages into the blogosphere, but try to make the core of that message e around this implied attitude:

"Your problems are understood by us. Here's how our products can solve them efficiently, economically, and reliably."

enforcing Terms of Service violations

2008-05-25T17:37:00.005-05:00

If you provide Terms of Service (TOS), are you ethically or legally obligated to enforce them? Let's look at the Twitter TOS controversy, from a simple, common sense point of view.

Ariel Waldman is a Twitter user. She complained to Twitter about another user who was harassing her on Twitter. This was beyond mere disagreement or a casual "you're nuts" type comment. The harassment involved filthy language.

Twitter, not known for being open to user requests and suggestions, not only did not enforce their own Terms of Service. They also shamed the victim, whined about their small staff, and declared they were "offended" at the victim accusing them of not caring about users.

This is not the proper way for a company to respond.

Some relevant items from Twitter's Terms of Service (due to change soon):

[QUOTE]

4. You must not abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other Twitter users.

...

Violation of any of these agreements will result in the termination of your Twitter.com account.

While Twitter.com prohibits such conduct and content on its site, you understand and agree that Twitter cannot be responsible for the Content posted on its web site and you nonetheless may be exposed to such materials and that you use the Twitter.com service at your own risk.

...

We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.

We may, but have no obligation to, remove Content and accounts containing Content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party's intellectual property or these Terms of Use.

[END QUOTE]

Did Twitter stand true to their TOS, and account removal policy, in Ariel's case, or were they negligent?

Here's the TOS / Ariel Waldman debate on the Twitter blog.

http://blog.twitter.com/2008/05/
twitter-enforces-tos-cares-about-users.html

More here: Summize archive re: Ariel.

And here: Twitter refuses to uphold Terms of Service.

It's not "mediating disputes between people" that's the issue here. It's enforcing your TOS.

You decide if you like Twitter's tone and handling of this situation. Personally, I do not.

blogs are the NASCAR of the internet

2008-05-24T00:31:00.002-05:00

Corporations can learn a lot from NASCAR.

People are losing faith in corporations, for many reasons. People are sick of the aloof, pompous, unapproachable nature of many CEOs and companies. Customer service is often reluctant, insincere, and even outsourced to individuals who don't speak good English.

Blogs can repair much of the damage to public perception of corporations.

If the CEO, or some passionate and informed company spokesperson, has a blog, then trust can be built. Customers and prospects can post comments, which may be questions, suggestions, or criticisms. A smart business values all input, both positive and negative.

Increasingly, in the new digital world we live in, if you don't have a blog, you don't exist.

If you don't have a blog, you send this message:

"I don't care about starting conversations with anybody. Why form relationships? Why be transparent? Why value customer input? I value only customer dollars. Buy my product now."

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., in his book Driver #8 (page 5-6), said:

"Being a Winston Cup driver means being accessible to the fans. This accessibility is the basis of NASCAR's popularity...

The drivers have known for years they weren't anything without the fans. So they signed autographs, did interviews, and they let the fans get close and see them. The fans felt like they knew the drivers personally, and the result was fan loyalty.

This continues today. When a lot of other sports see declining loyalty among fans and players, NASCAR fans remain faithful."

Blogs enable your customers to get close to you.

Implemented correctly, a CEO blog can be far more effective than any sporadic damage control PR. To ignore the blogosphere is to remain stuck in Business As Usual, which leads to Business As Over.

12 tips on live streaming video

2008-05-21T11:05:00.005-05:00

Today I received an email newsletter from UstreamTV, regarding best practices for live streaming video shows.

[QUOTE]

“What are the keys to a good stream?”

The basics are pretty simple:

* Make sure you have good lighting - This is super important.

* Make sure you have a good internet connection - this prevents frame loss and choppy video.

* Make sure you close programs on your computer that you aren't using - computers bogged down by other programs can cause your stream to be lower quality.

Lastly...have good content!

[END QUOTE]

To expand a bit on that message, here's my list of some additional best practices. These tips will help your live streaming video show be more interesting, enjoyable, and successful.

(1) Purpose

What's the goal of your show? To ramble on about anything that pops into your head may work for some, especially pretty females, but generally, it's a formula for failure.

Share your expertise, passion, skill, or hobby, in a way that will benefit or entertain others. Make them smarter or make them laugh. If you can do both simultaneously, you're a genius.

Have a unique comedy show. Play music. Present tutorials. Do something that people will want to view live or in the archives, something of value, something that lends itself to visual display, like art or poetry readings or technical how-to instructions.

I recall how on Justin.TV, there was a woman who, with a swimsuit on, read her poetry while sitting in a bathtub. That was weird, funny, and unique!

(2) Audio Quality

Bad sound, or volume levels that are too high or low, can ruin a show and make people decide to never return. Music bands often encounter this problem, but few have the expertise to solve it.

(3) Appropriate Environment/Decor

Barren rooms are bleak and not interesting.

Why not have a sign in the background that identifies you, by name, or by the title of your show? All music bands should have the name of their band displayed on the drums, on tee shirts, or on a big sign, during live shows in both real world venues and live streaming video.

Have a nice, or bizarre, or ritzy setting for your show, whatever style is appropriate.

Vary the decor or even the location, as much as you can. Go to thrift stores to find inexpensive, but eye-catching props, which could be toys, paintings, backdrops, or mannequins.

Have the URL for your blog or website on a sign behind you. Display your email address if you want people to contact you. Don't just hold up a sign for a few seconds. Keep the sign visible all through your show, for latecomers.

(4) Appropriate Length

If your shows are too short, it will look like nothing could possibly be going on. If your shows are too long, people will get bored part-way through, and probably never return.

Remember, your show is actually two separate events: the live performance and the archived performance.

Viewers may tolerate a long show while it's happening live, but people who check out your archives may be turned off by anything that's longer than 30 or 60 minutes, depending on who you are and what your show is about.

(5) Planned Content

While some web-casters can get away with being spontaneous, as a general rule, improvised shows are vulnerable. You may suddenly not know how to continue, things could fall apart, and you'll look too amateurish, too disorganized. Viewers will get impatient watching you fumble around and grope for some way to fill the time.

At least have a basic outline of what you want to cover. Don't count on viewers providing great questions or comments via the chat panel. When a web-caster relies on audience participation to provide direction for your show, you will probably flounder around and look ridiculous.

If you do react to live chat input, do more than just answer a question with a few sentences. Use the question or comment as a springboard to move to a discussion, but don't ramble on too long.

Have a back up plan if a scheduled guest doesn't show up, or some other aspect fails to come off right. Try to have more options than you think you'll need, just in case.

(6) Varied Content

Treat your fans to unexpected experiences. Have a guest speaker, a live debate or panel discussion, or let some other band perform. Play some public domain or non-copyrighted material in the background or incorporate it in your show.

Dress in unusual outfits or wear a uniform that you wear at your job. Put on a wig or a pair of really far-out sunglasses.

Avoid doing the same things over and over again.

If you're in a band, don't play the same songs every time. And never assume that "band practice" is of any interest to anybody. Live streaming video shows should not be "practice" or "rehearsal", but should be polished performances, unless your band is so famous, people will watch anything.

(7) Delete and Re-do

After a show is presented, saved, and archived, view it immediately. If there are major mistakes, like horrible sound or visuals, delete it and re-do it, even if all your live viewers have left.

A music band that I help did a crap show last Saturday. They left the soundboard audio levels up high from a recording session, and forgot to turn them down for the live show. So the entire 60 minute episode was rotten, unlistenable, unbearably bad.

I suggested they do a quick re-do. They took a break, then jumped back in and did a 17 minute show that was much better.

Think in terms of archives. You don't want people to check out the archived shows and see a terrible show. A short good show is always better than a regular-length crap show.

(8) Audience Interaction

Be sure to interact, as much as possible, with viewers, via the chat panel. This will make your show more interesting, and you'll be considered more friendly and approachable. It's all about connecting with people and sharing your life with them.

(9) Kick and Ban

If your video stream site enables you to kick trolls and filth-talkers off your channel, and ban them from ever visiting again, do it. Don't be shy. Why let some jerk ruin it for everybody?

Female web-casters especially need to exercise this kick and ban functionality.

Some men will stalk these live streaming video channels to find women to prey upoon. They'll "innocently" say things like "I don't see a man around. Are you single? I saw your daughter. It must be tough to be single mom. Living alone can be a drag, huh?" and so on to get the woman to let her guard down and reveal things she should not reveal.

(10) Missed Episode Notification

If for some reason, you must skip a regularly scheduled episode of your show, at least put up a sign in your photo slide show that explains it. Or do a brief show prior to the regular one, in which you personally tell your fans why there's no show coming on the date and time they normally expect it.

(11) Regular Schedule

Commit to a definite time and day for your shows. For example, every Saturday at 5 PM CST. Do not deviate from this, and try not to miss any episodes.

(12) Good Equipment

Don't use the cheapest webcam you can find. I recommend the Logitech UltraVision for HD sound and image.

Try some effects for a bit of fun. Have a friend who knows something about film-making or using a webcam do your video. Vary the angles. Use a bird's eye view by hoisting the webcam up high above the scenes. Put the webcam on the floor and point it up. Try a black and white episode.

+

As a final note, be sure to watch other live streaming video shows, and try to figure out why some shows are far more popular than others. Interact with other webcasters and contribute nice comments to their shows. This can drive traffic to your show, and you may make some good friends of other webcasters, too.

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hype vs marketing

2008-05-12T13:20:00.000-05:00

Is marketing just hype? Or is marketing, in the best sense, something other than bullying, exaggeration, and fluff?

What is hype? What is marketing? What separates them as opposing concepts?

Hype is any form of pushy sales, where the company wants to overpower, overwhelm, and overcome your resistance to purchasing their product right now.

You, as a potential customer, are not important or interesting: it's your wallet they're after. They don't have time to understand your specific problems and needs, they just assume you could use their product, so they try to clobber you with thought clubs. Beat you into submission. Trick you, seduce you, lure you. Force you or dazzle you into buying their product.

Hype, being product-centric, rather than user-centric, uses "we", "us", "our" instead of "you" and "your".

Hype is akin to frenzy, hysteria. It's fluff in higher gear.

Hype is arrogant, egotistical, neurotic. Hype is grasping, craving, obsessing over converting you into a paying customer, then moving on to the next "conquest". As in romance, the conquest is not treated kindly by the pursuer: customer loyalty and repeat purchases are lost by hype.

Hype is hyperbolic, i.e., exaggeration, partial truth, pregnant with undisclosed downsides. It paints an over-excited picture of the miraculous product, and the extreme proclamations and claims are clownishly coy and patently absurd.

Educated, sober, mature customers don't fall for it. Hype offends the right-thinking person. Hype only works like hucksterism, snake oil salesmen, and cult leaders: they prey on the weak and feeble minded, the young and the senile, the paranoid and approval addicts.

Marketing is sober communication of how a product can solve a problem, or enhance the life, or meet some need, for a customer.

Marketing helps the customer decide which model, color, size, style, etc. is right for him or her.

Marketing helps the customer understand his or her own problem better, which is due to a truthful positioning of the company as a leading expert.

No exaggeration. No inflated claims. No sex appeal. No reaching out to baser instincts. No bedazzling with showy gimmicks. No rush to make the sale and move on to the next victim.

Car commercials are idiotic hype, for example, almost without a single exception. Driving at illegal speeds, with no other traffic, and no pedestrians, or cops, around for miles. Or balloons and hot dogs and popcorn, it's a circus, not a car dealership. You get the idea.

Music band promotions are 98% hype. Exaggerated claims of virtuosos, new directions, unheard-of sounds, giant leaps in imagination, trend-setting stylistics, astonishing lyrical gifts, beautiful crooning...and it all sounds mediocre, exactly like, or less than, what came before.

This topic of Hype vs. Marketing was inspired by a Twitter message ("tweet") from @markdavidson:

http://twitter.com/markdavidson/
statuses/808184725

[QUOTE]

My own PR person just told me my passion might be coming across too much like an infomercial. (This is why I retain a PR professional.)

[END QUOTE]

An infomercial is advertising that pretends to be providing information about a skill, industry, need, or how-to topic, but is using the information to trick people into receiving product sales promotions.

Here are my Twitter replies to him:

hype vs. marketing 1

http://twitter.com/vaspersthegrate/
statuses/808185617

@markdavison - Your PR person may be right. Try to be more enthusiastic about your niche or field, not about yourself or your products.

hype vs. marketing 2

http://twitter.com/vaspersthegrate/
statuses/808185108

@markdavidson - For me, it's all about being passionate about ideas, and not about my own products, music, or marketing expertise.

Marketing begins with the customer's needs, problems, or desires. Not with the company, product, or sales pitch.

You start with the actual situation and human reality of the customer. You build a gestalt, a complete vision of what the customer wants to accomplish, then present the product in terms of how it helps the customer in a reliable, economical, efficient, satisfying manner.

Or, as in music and food especially, the instant consumables, you give free samples. Let the product sell itself to those with the required tastes, interests, and needs. Talking about music is boring. Let's hear it and have it. Let your fans hear and have your music, for free, abundantly, and they may do you the favor of distributing it to others, and causing a groundswell of craving for more, at any price. The collector mentality.

If you want to annoy people, use idiotic, self-centered hype.

If you want to help people, use smart, altruistic marketing.

Twitter as social bookmarking

2008-05-10T12:50:00.003-05:00

Twitter is a popular micro-blogging, status update, link archiving, and asynchronous chat communication tool.

It's also, like many Web 2.0 sites, a lively social community. Users share everything from what they had for lunch, or what airport they're stuck in...to profound declarations of revolutionary activism and links to emerging tech tools that are now open to beta testers.

Unlike FarceBook, I mean Facebook, it's remained simple, streamlined, and sleek.

Let's look briefly at using Twitter as a way to keep all your favorite or important links in one convenient location, while enabling others to visit those. Saving a URL to your Favorites or Bookmarks file is private bookmarking. Sharing links with others, in addition to archiving the links for personal use, is called "social bookmarking".

del.icio.us is a popular social bookmarking site. Jason Calacanis once said, on Twitter, that he was going to "blog over at del.icio.us" for a while, exclusively, as an experiment. You can blog on del.icio.us because you can attach comments to the links you post.

But if Twitter is your primary communication channel, why not use it as your social bookmarking application?

You have a Twitter account.

You tweet (send a Twitter message) to your Followers, and if they happen to be on Twitter's rushing river of brevities at that moment, they'll see it "live", in real time. If not, they won't ever read it, unless they consider your tweets so valuable, they click on your Profile and view your past messages.

So, there you are, communicating in 140 character bursts to your Followers. Pithy writing, condensing a complex or frivolous thought to essential wording, this is a marketable skill. Business writing is not easy, and brevity, being concise and short in your communication, is a valuable art. So as you tweet, you're increasingly gain skill in fast, brief communication.

But let's say you're not on Twitter, you're just surfing the web, researching a topic, or looking for something entertaining, a blog post or video or music. When you find something that is so cool or helpful, you wish others could know about it, Twitter the link.

When you share the link with your Twitter community, you must turn a long web address into a short one. You can use TinyURL to accomplish this task. Use your cursor or keyboard command to highlight the URL, go to Edit in your browser chrome and click on Copy, or use Ctrl + C on your keyboard.

http://tinyurl.com/

You have now saved the URL to your browser memory, and can convert it to a shorter web address. Paste that long URL into the text entry box on the TinyURL interface. Once you've shortened the URL, it's ready for your tweet.

To speed up the conversion process, install a TinyURL toolbar button on your browser, so every time you need to convert a URL to short form, you just click on the button. TinyURL then converts the URL of the web page to a shorter code.

SAMPLE Twitter message, in social bookmarking mode:

Free legal mp3s of A Silver Mt. Zion, avant-garde classical art music, at http://tinyurl.com/3t2ch9

That's about 90 characters, well under the 140 limit. But it conveys what the link is, what kind of music, and name of band, with a URL that your Followers can click on to visit the site.

Voila! You've just shared a link. You've also archived it, for your own future personal reference. You may want to print out your tweets, so you have an offline copy of your messages and shared links, for when Twitter is down, or if Twitter ever vanishes.

SIDE NOTE: A blogger once said that TinyURL could be the next Digg or YouTube, perhaps even bigger. TinyURL database contains URLs of web pages that people have gone to the trouble of converting to shorter addresses, so these web pages must be significant. The data mining possibilities are clearly there.

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Sources Quoting Steven Streight

2008-05-09T11:14:00.005-05:00

Steven E. Streight aka Vaspers, web usability analyst, web content creator, and social media specialist, has been quoted in the following books, publications, and blogs:

Naked Conversations:
How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers

by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel (John Wiley & Sons, 2006)

http://tinyurl.com/32hf29

US News & World Report

50 Ways to Improve Your Life:
“Start Your Own Blog”

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/
health/articles/061217/25blog.mind.htm

BusinessWeek Blogspotting “The Importance of Taglines”

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/
blogspotting/archives/2005/05/
the_importance.html

“The blogosphere is not credible?”

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/
blogspotting/archives/2006/07/
the_blogosphere_1.html

Blog Marketing by Jeremy Wright (McGraw-Hill, 2005)

http://tinyurl.com/35gxny

Society for Technical Communication
Usability Interface Newsletter Online

“User Observation Testing: Forms & Procedures”

http://www.stcsig.org/usability/
newsletter/0408-user-observation.html

Better Communication Results (Lee Hopkins)

"The regrettable Amanda Chapel imbroglio"

http://leehopkins.net/2008/07/09/
the-servant-of-chaos-on-the-
regrettable-amanda-chapel-imbroglio/

Jason Calacanis
Entrepreneur in Action at Sequoia Capital, co-founder of Weblogs, Inc., and GM of Netscape.

"Feedback on My Linkbaiting Rules"

http://www.calacanis.com/2007/04/
27/feedback-on-my-link-baiting-rules/

"#2: Vaspers the Grate--a blog I read all the time--also has some really interesting thoughts on linkbaiting." - Jason Calacanis

CEO Blog – Time Leadership
Jim Estill, CEO, Synnex Canada ($3 billion company)

“CEO Blogs and CEO Blogging”

http://www.jimestill.com/2006/
08/ceo-blogs-and-ceo-blogging.html

Doc Searls Weblog (pioneer tech blogger)

“Where 0.1”

http://doc.weblogs.com/
2007/01/20#where01

“All the news that’s fit to annotate”

http://doc.weblogs.com/2005/05/
30#allTheNewsThatsFitToAnnotate

John C. Dvorak

(PC Magazine, CBS MarketWatch, Dvorak Uncensored)

“Wall Street Journal Still in the Dark About Blogs”

http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=1775

Consumer Reports WebWatch

Websites that are pledged to uphold credibility guidelines.

Listed as Streight Site Systems.

http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/
praise-worthy.cfm#s

Evan Williams (EvHead, Blogger, Odeo, Twitter)

"Measuring Blog Impact”

http://evhead.com/2005/
05/measuring-blog-impact.asp

Darren Rowse (Pro Blogger)

”Writing Effective Post Titles”

http://www.problogger.net/archives/
2005/05/25/writing-effective-blog-post-titles

Katherine Stone (Decent Marketing)

"Don’t Worry, Be Crappy?"

http://decentmarketing.typepad.com/
weblog/2005/02/dont_worry_be_c.html

Dave Taylor (Intuitive Life Business Blog)

”What makes a successful blog?”

http://www.intuitive.com/blog/
what_makes_a_successful_blog.html

Satish Talim

(Appliblog: Applied Software & Technology)

”8 ways to decide what to blog about next”

http://personalwebsiteblog.blogspot.com/
2005/05/8-ways-to-decide-what-
to-blog-about.html

Jennifer Rice (What's Your Brand Mantra)

”Not Worthy”

http://brand.blogs.com/mantra/
2005/03/not_worthy.html

Debbie Weil (BlogWrite for CEOs)

”What makes a successful blog?”

http://blogwrite.blogs.com/blogwrite/
2005/02/what_makes_a_su.html

futuristic soundscapes CD

2008-05-08T21:00:00.005-05:00

Str8 SOUNDS
"Futuristic Soundscapes"

FREE mp3s of entire CD at:
The Str8 Sounds on Last.fm

http://www.last.fm/music/
Str8+Sounds/STR8+SOUNDS+
"Futuristic+Soundscapes"
+May+2008

Electro Harmonix Rhythm-12

(1) Wild Animal (2:56)

(2) Art Forum Magazine (6:42)

(3) Synthesizer Modulated by Voice (10:14)

(4) Candy Rain Glow (11:04)

(5) MR-12 Rhythm on Mars [essentialist mix] (6:17)

(6) Soundscape #6: Yamaha MR-10/Casio/Arp (6:58)

(7) Korg MiniPops35/Conn MinOMatic (9:17)

(8) Super Nice Divinity (7:25)

(9) Electro Harmonix Rhythm 12/Farfisa (7:28)

(10) Peptide Pomade (4:35)

Total Entertainment Time = 73:24

Emu Edrum

This album includes virtual simulations of all
these old rhythm machines, and many more.

Korg MiniPops 35

Maestro Rhythm King

MPC the Kit

pure internet music

2008-05-08T13:39:00.007-05:00

What, if it occurred, could we reasonably regard as Pure Internet Music?

Growing weary of my physical sound devices, mechanical tone generators, and manufactured synthesizers -- my Casio, Farfisa, Yamaha, plastic clown organ, plastic shepherds pipe, Marine Band harmonica, and crazy chicken squeak toy -- abandoning these professional concert instruments, I sought what was beyond them.

I relinquished my grip on the real world instruments, though I did continue to add them into the soundpathing to further confuse the issue and add sonic textures or contours to the final mastering process. But they became marginalized, addendum, no longer front and center.

I aggressively hunted down the Instruments That Don't Exist (...but the music does, it's recorded and duplicated on physical CDs!).

I mytho-poetically pursued virtual music instrument simulations, online audio and video studios, and web-enabled beat-mix machines.

My latest music, collected as Str8 Sounds "Futuristic Soundscapes", relies almost entirely on my manipulations and orchestrations of online beat mixes, old synthesizer product demo records (Casio, Arp, Orchestrator).

NOTE: I'll upload the entire "Futuristic Soundscapes" CD to my The Str8 Sounds on Last.fm page later today. You may hear tracks "Super Nice Divinity", "Wild Animal", and "Art Forum Magazine", songs constructed from virtual instruments, rhythm machines, and product demos, at The Str8 Sounds on MySpaceMusic.

I'm also using virtual simulations of retro rhythm machines: Korg MiniPops 35, Electro Harmonix Rhythm 12, Boss DR 55, Electro Harmonix Space Drum, Roland TR 55, Yamaha EM 90, Seeburg Select A Rhythm, MPC the Kit, Seeburg Rhythm Prince, Maestro Rhythm, Conn Min O Matic, Tronix Rhythm Box, Susuki RPM 40, E Mu E Drum, Austin Rhythm Box, Univox MicroRhythmer, graciously and without charge, from a virtual audio museum.

All these unique instrumentations are processed, usually quite heavily, through the virtual effects of the Audacity online music studio. Music videos and art films are produced using a popular online movie editor.

Services, is what they all are, more than merely instruments, museums, or studios.

But it's all online, all free, all democratic and anarchist in their indiscriminate abundance and lack of use restrictions or rules. They are simulations, existing only on the internet, and everybody can use them. It's fun to use them in ways their creators never intended or imagined, btw.

Str8 Sounds Therabusive Noise Carnival officially now is using predominantly non-existent musical instrumentation, having invented many of the presiding techniques in this burgeoning field.

Akin to the Circuit Bender phenomenon, and Net Art experimentations, Unreal Music Fantabulation (encompassing all the recording, production, social networking, and distribution tool associated with music creation and marketing) is the Next Big Thing in both democratic indoctrination and music domination.

Democratic Indoctrination: the universal availability/accessibility of these ultra-post-submodern music tools are heavily seeded fruits of democracy, internet, and the phenomenal rise of individual empowerment for the common person.

Music Domination: you must use these social networking and music distribution tools to promote all types of music, not just electronic, rock, and avant garde. Everybody's surfing the web, with PCs and cell phones, hunting for information, news, bargains, opinions, social interactions, and entertainment. If your band isn't all over the internet, in many different virtual venues, you increasingly don't exist.

Your band needs to be heavily present on:

1. MySpace (music artist account)

2. YouTube (director's account)

3. Last.fm (band account)

4. Twitter (social networking)

5. UstreamTV (live streaming shows)

6. Local music scene websites (like LiveMusicPeoria)

Those are the top six methodologies that I recommend, just to get started in music marketing.

why critics are not always right

2008-05-07T00:34:00.004-05:00

Critics come in many varieties.

In blogocombat, one must ascertain what type of critic is on the offensive against you: a person who wishes to help you, and is not jealous ... versus a troll who just enjoys inflicting hurtful comments on other people.

Some critics offer you helpful hints on how to improve, or how to fulfill their own personal vision of what you ought to be, or how to please their individual tastes. Others attack you out of jealousy and a feeling of inadequacy. They hate how popular and successful you are. Then there are sadistic misanthropes who just love to argue, injure, demoralize, and mock anyone and everyone.

Some critics are smart. Some are stupid. Some are insightful and profound. Some are purely emotional. Some critics are creative colleagues. Some critics are mediocre wankers.

So why would a blogger state that all critics are always right?

Why would you assume that if someone dislikes your work, you must change for them?

Why would you assume that if someone is angry at you, that you caused this anger, and you must appease the critic, make them happy again?

Why assume that every critic has noble intentions and valid perceptions of you? This is a very masochistic and subservient point of view, one that is inappropriate in business, art, and social interactions.

"Let Me Save You $40, Here's How to Be Happy"

[QUOTE]

5. Your Critics Are Always Right

If someone seriously says that you are some way — if they tell you you’re embarrassing to be around, or if they compare you to someone you hate, or if they say you’re not a very nice person, or whatever — then you are that way.

You may not be that way in the core of your being, and you may not want to be that way, and it may be a surprise that you have come off that way, but their perception of you is valid, and you need to accept and deal with that.

What did you do that made them think that was true? Where are they coming from with their experience of you that made it seem accurate? Ask yourself (and them) these questions, and see if you can take it as an opportunity for self-improvement.

Don’t do what most people do, which is to take it as an attack that needs to be responded to with anger and yelling. Then you’re just taking an opportunity to make yourself better and replacing it with an opportunity to hurt a your relationship with them.

Now, of course, you need to be sure they’re serious: something said in the middle of a fight or said flippantly doesn’t really qualify. So you need to be sure they’re serious. But if your critic is serious, then your critic is right.

[END QUOTE]

"If the critic is serious, the critic is right"...? Seriousness is sometimes envy in disguise, and even if it was totally benevolent, a critique is not "right" simply because the critic is serious, sincere, or well-intentioned.

Many hateful people try to coat their venom and vindictive in a scholarly tone, for a fake "authoritarian" pomposity that tries to belittle or diminish what you're doing. Your attempts and efforts make them uncomfortable, because they are reminders of how your so-called critic has failed, or has been to afraid to experiment.

"...their perception of you is valid, and you need to accept and deal with that." ? Says who? What makes someone's perception of another person valid? Don't people have misguided perceptions? Don't we experience errors in perception all the time? What makes a jealous person's opinions, feelings, and perceptions "valid"?

This is the mantra of the battered wife: "He beats me, but I deserve it. I'm a bad person, and I need to be punished and humiliated. It's all my fault. I'm always wrong, and he's always right. I'm lucky to have him. Nobody else will ever want me."

Let's say you're a really nice person who loves to help others. But one person tried to bully you into watching a film he just made, and you have prior commitments. So that person, acting as a self-appointed critic, calls you a "selfish jerk".

Is that critique "valid"?

No, not at all. He's the selfish, domineering manipulator, and you're just a person who has to do something other than what he wants you to do.

What if you're writing poetry, and have a blog devoted to your poems, with lots of nice comments from your fans. A person you know also writes poetry, but is too insecure and sensitive to post her poems on the internet, for she fears "destructive" (honest) critique. Now, what if she criticizes your poems and says you should not post them on your blog, your poems are so horrible.

She says, in her opinion, that your poems are bad, your fans are few and deluded, and it's your vain egotism that is driving you to publish a poetry blog. It's upsetting her, and you must quit.

Would that be a "valid" critique?

Don't we have to do more than just accept any input from any source, as valid feedback?

I'm not saying that only positive feedback is valid. I'm just saying that all critique is not of equal quality, nor is critique a one-dimensional event with no context or history.

Consider the source, as they say. Contemplate why someone is trashing you. Could it be more than cold, scientific, unbiased, impersonal objectivity?

May 2008 artwork 1

2008-05-06T14:32:00.003-05:00

perfection flaw

(digital paint)

woman with hamburger

(acrylic, interior/exterior spray paint,
newsprint collage on 20 lb. /
110 bright computer paper)

we (the) others

(webcam photo w/digital effects)

,efficiency / friendly technology

(interior/exterior spray paint, synthetic flower,
dimensional fabric paint, acrylic,
yellow mustard, wood glue, newsprint,
on 20 lb. /110 bright computer paper)

heightened attention

(digital paint)

josh

(acrylic, interior/exterior spray paint,
dimensional fabric paint,
scented water color markers,
rubber band, Scotch tape, cashew,
toilet paper, sock cloth,
newsprint collage on 20 lb. /
110 bright computer paper)

inner swim

(webcam photo of strobe light,
w/digital effects)

infinite creativity

(acrylic, interior/exterior spray paint,
scented water color markers,
newsprint collage on 20 lb. /
110 bright computer paper)

information act on it now

(acrylic, interior/exterior spray paint,
scented water color markers,
newsprint, on 20 lb. /
110 bright computer paper)

self calming

(digital paint)

death is unreal

(photo w/ digital effects)

eye of space

(acrylic, scented water color markers,
toilet paper, newsprint,
on printed photo)

worldly experience

(acrylic, scented water color markers,
newsprint, transparent plastic,
on 20 lb. / 110 bright computer paper)

voyage one

(digital paint)

||||||||||||

Thanks to Art Forum
and Ubu Web
for the inspiration/infotainment.

||||||||||||

For a LIMITED TIME only...

Listen to STR8 SOUNDS tune:
"Art Forum Magazine"

at

The Str8 Sounds on MySpace Music
http://myspace.com/thestr8sounds

||||||||||||

how to announce a canceled internet TV show episode

2008-05-03T17:02:00.006-05:00

What do you do when your band can't perform their unique live streaming video show, due to conflicting family events? You can't just not do the show, and not explain why. You have to please your fans and respect their cravings. Your fans will be disappointed, some may be angry, or so bored and in need of an easy internet thrill, they move onto some other entertainment, permanently.

Here are some ideas:

(1) Put a "No Show This Saturday 45-4-2008. Sorry. We'll be back next Saturday." message on the site that hosts your show (UstreamTV, JustinTV, KyteTV, etc.) and all your band's blogs and websites.

(2) Get the band together to do a special quickie show, prior to the regularly scheduled show (thus: few fans will be watching it live), but archived so fans can view it when they show up for the regularly scheduled show, as a placeholder fill-in. It will give your fans a little something to chew on, and ensures the perception of continuity of your programming.

(3) Do an explanation video, with just the band leader and a family member, or a friend, or your manager, or whoever you can toss a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon at to do you a fast favor. Be creative. Make even a No Show video announcement as interesting and entertaining as possible.

(4) Record a new music video, of a song you do well and fans like it, and put that up on your streaming video host site, MySpace page, main band website, and blogs. Let that be in lieu of a full show. At least you're giving them a little bit of what you normally do on a larger scale. That might tide them over till the next show.

(5) Link to a special, new, free mp3 download of a tune, or upload some video footage from a recent show, or some new photos of the band.

Now try to dream up your own ideas on what you could do to Keep Your Loyal Fans Happy. That's really the name of the game, right? In business, we say that the most valuable asset of any company is it's customer list. That's true in music marketing, too.

Why let a scheduling conflict ruin things for the fickle web surfer community that loves your innovative show?

By doing SOMETHING rather than NOTHING, your fans and newcomers will be impressed. These little dopey things mean a lot to music lovers, who are abnormally sensitive to slightest details in the music and presentations of bands. It's kind of like how baseball fanatics know all the stats on players and stuff.

SkabTV had to skip an episode.

http://www.ustream.tv/theskabs

Here's what was done to announce it: the SkabTV Crow Take-over mini-episode...

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/390478

priorities for modern music marketing

2008-05-02T14:08:00.011-05:00

Today's music marketing requires a band, or at minimum, their manager, to experiment with emerging forms of digital connectivity: online publicity, social media music communities, and internet music distribution.

Should we abandon the old fashioned "gigs" at real world venues like bars, clubs, birthday parties, and ampitheatres?

Here are the priorities I would suggest for music bands.

Modern Music
Marketing Priorities

Assuming your music is polished, and your band is a coherent unit, ready for mass acceptance and universal fame, proceed with the following actions.

(1) mp3s uploaded, as free full-length downloadable files, to MySpace Music (artist account) and Last.fm

(2) CDs given to friends, family, fellow musicians, music reviewers, music bloggers

(3) mp3s uploaded to net labels and Archive.org

(4) live streaming video show (not band practice, but actual events: a set of songs, a comedy skit, interviews with other bands, guest band performances, discussion of music topics, music news)

(5) band blog: where news, photos, videos, opinion, reviews of other bands and CDs, etc. can provide value to fans

(6) videos uploaded to YouTube, the band's MySpace Music site, the band's blog

(7) photos and poster art uploaded to the band's blog, MySpace Music site, flickr

(8) live performances in real world venues

I put live performances in real world venues last, not to degrade or devalue it, but to emphasize how the online world is rapidly becoming the primary source of news, opinion, and product by and about musicians.

You get more bang for the buck, so to speak, by emphasizing the digital tools of music promotion and distribution.

Quit thinking only in terms of "getting gigs" in real world venues. Stop craving only a "recording contract" from a traditional record label. Look into doing online shows and videos for web surfers. Realize how music fans are spending way more time discovering bands, listening to mp3s, and downloading music...than they are going to "gigs" in bars and arenas.

Real world venues are great. Nothing can replace the experience, the atmospheric electricity of being in a building, in close physical proximity to a band you like, and watching the flesh and blood musicians struggle on stage to entertain you and fulfill their artistic vision.

But...you can reach MORE people FASTER when you use online tools and internet venues.

Let's finish this harangue with a few observations on live presence vs. virtualized action, or, in other words...

Live Real World Venues

vs.

Live Streaming Internet Video

In a live show that occurs in the real world, you reach from 50 to 50,000 people...and, unless you're a really big national or popular local act, only a fraction of them are real fans. Many are just bar clientele who happen to be there when you play, others are attending the show just to get out of the house for a while. Then you have people who know and like your music. They may be the only ones arriving at the show specifically to see you play.

Live streaming video productions are different. People are watching it on their computers because they're curious or they know and like your music. In a bar, if the band is boring, you can at least go get another beer or hit on some attractive barfly. But if your live streaming video show sucks, disappointed fans just click...and POOF. They're gone. It's easy, and nobody gives them a funny look.

In a live show in the real world, your music and performance quickly fades from memory. There is often no recording or archiving of it. It vanishes into thin air. But in live streaming video shows, you can archive and label show for future viewing. It's all there. Forever.

You may want to delete or hide certain shows due to flawed performance, bad sound quality, poor video work, failed skits, or other reasons that make put your band in a bad light. Don't worship your work: critique it and get rid of the crap, even if most of it is substandard. Keep only the real gems, that you're proud of and fans rave about.

You can't do the same old junk every show when you're live streaming a video show. Fans can watch previous episodes for songs, skits, and discussions you've already done. This is the challenge: to keep doing new, unexpected, entertaining things.

This may mean going to thrift stores and buying wigs, masks, crazy hats, and assorted props. It may include doing parodies of rock star celebrities, or arguing political issues, or doing a satire on a recent mainstream news item.

Explore. Experiment. Extract the good, and delete the not so great.

You don't need a lot of cash or equipment. Your soundboard, a webcam, a computer microphone, perhaps an online audio editor like Audacity. That's about it.

Start with making music videos with your webcam or digital camcorder, then uploading the best ones to YouTube. Grab the embed code and put them on your MySpace Music and blog or band website.

Make an abundance of free material available to fans and music lovers.

Free generates Paid.

There is too much music. There are too many bands. Fans cannot make sense of all the options for satisfying their music hunger. Too many bands think that photos, videos, and hype will get them fans. No. You must provide music lovers with ever increasing amounts of free full-length mp3s, to let them hear your sound.

Hearing leads to having and wanting, and fans turn into unpaid buzz generators, promoting your terrific tunes.

Free takes you from Unknown and Unwanted...to Known and Craved.

Once your free product generates buzz, your collector mentality, hard core fans will demand more...at almost any price. For bragging rights mainly, or perhaps: a true love of your music and its message, if you're lucky.

If real life was like Facebook VIDEO

2008-05-01T11:12:00.006-05:00

This brilliant gem is from a Twitter link by @nicolejordan to @stevehall Ad Gabber blog.

"Life Would Be Very Strange If Facebook Interaction Was Real World"

http://www.adgabber.com/video/
video/show?id=546804:Video:94292

What if interactions in the real world were like Facebook?

Vaspers gets 8.3 ranking from Blogged.com

2008-04-29T20:54:00.008-05:00

Here's an email I got this evening from Blogged.com about this blog.

Vaspers 8.3 Rank on Blogged.com

[QUOTE]

Dear Steven E. Streight,

Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.3 score out of 10 in the Technology category of Blogged.com

This is quite an achievement!

http://www.blogged.com/directory/technology/22

We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria:

* Frequency of Updates

* Relevance of Content

* Site Design

* Writing Style

After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 8.3 score.

We've also created Blogged.com score badges with your score prominently displayed. Simply visit your website's summary page on Blogged.com

Click on the "Show this rating on your blog!" link underneath the score and follow the instructions provided.

Please accept my congratulations on a blog well-done!!

Sincerely,

Amy Liu
Marketing

[END QUOTE]

Blogged.com just launched, to much critical acclaim, in February 2008. It didn't take them long to find Vaspers the Grate, probably due to my large followings in multiple social networks.

Mashable had a post on Blogger.com "More Than Just Another Blog Search Tool?"

[QUOTE]

There are a number of blog search tools out there that help you find content across online publications, like technorati, which aim to bring you real-time content on a variety of topics, but Blogged.com is more of a catalog that offers information on the entire blog and its overall content.

[END QUOTE]

Also see:

SEO Chat article on Blogged.com

location based social network danger

2008-04-28T21:21:00.007-05:00

Location-tracking social networks. Location-based blogging. Seems like your pal Vaspers is the single voice speaking out against it. Just wait until a news report makes the danger a mainstream item of outrage.

"You let your daughter sign up for a location-tracking social network?" they ask, astonished. "Why did you let her do such a risky thing?"

I'm deeply distrustful of A Listers and blog pundits who rally to support every new thing, without questioning it. They are irresponsible shills, hyping crap just to be popular, hip, and early adaptor.

Everybody's all hyped up about BrightKite, the new location-based social network. It reminds me of last year's frenzy about Plazes. Plazes automatically displayed your location every time you hooked up with a wifi connection.

Check out how, about a year ago, the CEO of Plazes got busted lying, by his own social network! On TechCrunch "Plazes CEO Busted by His Own Product".

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/03/
plazes-ceo-busted-by-his-own-product/

Location-based blogging, or "presence sensing" social networks, let people know exactly where you are, what you're doing, and who you're with. You may have some control over privacy, but most users act ecstatic about letting everybody know where they're at.

There seems to be a Super Transparency craze, where people have become digital voyeurs and exhibitionists. The ideas of solitude, contemplation, and privacy are becoming antiquated. This is quite dismal, thinking of all the forces and organizations who wish to monitor and control people.

It's not a healthy trend for individuals, but it's good for surveillance.

Predators, stalkers, rapists, kidnappers, and domineering husbands will love it.

Young women and children are endangered by it.

Here are two comments posted at a recent blog post, "What's Up With Friend Location Tracking?" at Social Times blog, trumpeting the glories of location transparency as offered by Loopt:

[QUOTE]

Jonathan Kleiman Says:
March 28th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Microvision is going to come out with sunglasses that will tell you who your friends are in a group of people. It’s years down the road, and it depends on the inevitable integration of GPS into social networking. I don’t mind as long as its easy to turn off when you want to go dark.

It’s pretty amazing actually. To me it really feels to me like an inevitable step in social networking.
theregoesdave Says:
March 28th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I think that location presence is the big evolution that we’ll see in 2008. Hopefully Fire Eagle will provide good support for their API and a developer community will rally around it.

You can actually see my location and latest post or status on my blog or Google gadget. I like to think of it as location-based blogging.
Gaeyia Says:
March 28th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Funny that most social media users/consumers grew up in the “stranger-danger” era. Whenever I encounter new tech like this, my first instinct is to fear the stalker potential (especially as a young female) … but then, inevitably, I become intrigued and my curiosity overrides my concern.

Generally speaking, I feel safe. Almost MORE safe now that I am linked in to a broader network of people. I have to believe that my connection to others provides a new form of protection.

Do you know if there are any stats re: increased/decreased safety due to social networks? I would like to see
vaspers aka steven e. streight Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Location-based social networks are dangerous, especially for women and children. Why on earth would you want just anybody to know where you are all the time?

The advantage to users is nearly non-existent and the advantage to predators, stalkers, enemies is huge.

[END QUOTE]

Now here's some good advice from Loopt on how to be safe while using it. But I doubt that young people will pay much attention. They're caught up in the frenzy, hype, and peer pressure. At least Loopt is trying to keep it safe for users by posting this.

[QUOTE]

Safety Tips

1. Only add friends to Loopt who are really your good friends.

Loopt is a closed network meant to be used with good and trusted friends. Who's a really good friend? Ultimately, that's up to you to decide, but here are a few questions to ask yourself about potential Loopt friends:

* Do you have their phone number?
* Do you know where they live and where they grew up?
* Would you loan them your car?
* Would you give them your keys to feed your dog or water your plants?
* Would you feel comfortable knocking on their door just to say 'hi'?

2. Confirm the phone numbers from your invites.

Always double-check that an invite was sent from your friend's real phone number. If it's a web invite, check that the phone number on the invite matches your friend's number.

3. Know who can find you.

Use your location information responsibly. Loopt is built to let you control when and with whom you share or hide your location. You can always control who can find you, and who can see the location of your journal entries.

You can do this from the web or the mobile app. The icons at the top of the mobile app serve as constant reminders of whether all your friends, some of your friends, or nobody can find you.

On the web, you can check who can find you on the Homepage, My Friends and Settings. If you want more information on how to change your location sharing settings, visit the FAQ.

4. Use your journal responsibly.

Think carefully about whether to share the location of your journal entries with your friends, and remember that your journal entries reflect upon you. Please make sure not to post any offensive content. For details on how to hide your journal location, visit the FAQ.

[END QUOTE]

vaspers interviewed by 49 Media

2008-04-27T02:09:00.011-05:00

This 49 Media interview with Vaspers was conducted quite a while ago, in fact, I can't quite recall what I was wearing at the time. The year was 2005.

Chris Ritke asks me questions about basic blogging, blogology, web sites vs. blogs, deconstruction, blog history, definition of "blog", Internet2 vs. Commodity Internet, the Interplanetary Internet (InterPlaNet), astral blogging, and related topics.

InterPlaNet
http://www.ipnsig.org/

This historic educational event has helped untold multitudes to relinquish their old fashioned ways and embrace the blog revolution. Without a blog, you're nobody. That's the reality of today's world. If it's not digitized and on the internet, it doesn't exist.

some aspects of cult leadership

2008-04-24T13:25:00.007-05:00

Cults fail due to bad marketing practices.

To say that your group has the ONLY truth, the ONLY way, and all others are satanic, or stupid, or invalid...that's bad marketing. No product would sell if presented that way. "This car is the only vehicle that can provide transportation"? "This restaurant has the only good food in the whole world"? See how silly that sounds.

Why should belief systems be any different from any other product?

Cults self-destruct via many avenues. Arrogance blinds the leaders. Since they permit no criticism, they receive no helpful feedback, and they do whatever they want, which eventually backfires.

Recent example: if a cult lets the media film their compound, and there are no toys, no books, no TV or radio, but lots of photos of the cult leader everywhere, that's a huge mistake. That little tour of the cult's facilities just proves that mind control is happening there.

Mind control is excessive influence of one person over another, for the controller's benefit (thought it's usually presented as "helping" the chump). Dominating another person is a sadistic act to begin with, and all subsequent cruelties stem from that original impulse to subjugate someone else. Controlling personalities are everywhere: in families, offices, clubs, romantic relationships, schools.

Bullies take great pleasure in hurting and humiliating others. They are misanthropic: haters of other human beings. Cult leaders, tyrannical husbands, dictators of nations, malicious police officers, slave-driving bosses, and egotistical friends who criticize you, but accept no criticism of themselves -- these personalities are all cut from the same cloth.

It's "command and control": the opposite of debate, exploration, discovery.

This is why the internet, particularly forums and the blogosphere, represents a serious threat to cults, totalitarian regimes, and con artists. People now can investigate, not only companies and products, but also persons and groups, and discover what others have to say them.

Comments that have the most credibility are the ones that seem balanced, rational, not overly emotional, not bitter or hateful, objective, with no ax to grind, specific, and a bit inarticulate. Why "inarticulate"? Because a spontaneous remark, dashed off in a hurry, by a sincere person is often awkwardly worded, whereas a carefully devised statement tends to sound more like PR, advertising, or cult indoctrination.

You teach your children survival skills, right? You teach them how to talk and walk and be polite. You must also teach them how to protect their mind.

Protect their mind! If you capture a person's mind, and dominate all their thoughts, that person no longer has a soul, no longer has a distinct individual existence. Once a person is totally dependent on a group or leader, and will not question them, that person is in a very vulnerable spot. Who knows what they'll be forced to do next?

Blind obedience can result in genocides, group suicides, and other tragedies.

Children must be taught, by their parents, how to detect and resist cults.

Thinking independently begins with being curious. Who wants to be a mere parrot, just repeating what everybody else says? You take something that is said by your mom, dad, pastor, priest, teacher, best friend...and you ask "Is that really so? Could there be more to it? What does the opposition say?"

To surround yourself with people who agree with you is the mark of an insecure person, which is what domineering persons are. "You must hate what I hate, or I'll hate you," is the unspoken, hidden engine driving those who wish to dominate others. "You must love what I love, or at least never speak ill of it. If you don't mirror me, I shall destroy you."

Curiosity is the key. You eventually get sick of having all your opinions and beliefs shoveled into your mind like sludge. You wonder: "Is this really the ONLY valid viewpoint?" You get interested in learning how an opposing view is presented, what it's based on, and if there might be a little kernel of truth in it, something you can learn.

I read once that a form of Buddhist training is to teach young monks every other philosophy and religion first, prior to teaching them any Buddhist ideas. The students are taught, in a non-hostile manner, what other belief systems teach, so they can discuss issues with non-Buddhists in a friendly and educated manner.

Practically every belief system has elements that are either true, or valid, or are counteracting some excess in another belief system.

One can be against war, but sympathize with those who join the Army from a desire to defend and protect their country. That is a noble impulse and should be encouraged. But to think that all wars are "just", all military commands must be obeyed even if they violate the Geneva Convention, and military action is the only or the best solution, this is very lopsided and narrow-minded thinking.

If you can't question a human leader or institution, that entity is authoritarian, totalitarian, and misanthropic.

One of the best things you can do for a child is teach him or her how to be "different", how to question their peers and leaders, how to despise popularity as a way of reinforcing a flimsy self-esteem.

You can find a lot of good information on cults, brainwashing, and indoctrination on the internet.

The Cult Test provides 100 aspects of a cult, with explanations and examples. Here's a sample. It's a bit long of a quote, but the material is well presented and reasoned.

[QUOTE]

1. The guru is always right.

....

In cult after cult, the leader is just the greatest thing.

"Ultimately you cannot admire the guru, you must worship him."

If you have any doubts about whether the cult worships the guru, just ask a member, "What are the 10 biggest mistakes that the guru made in setting up the organization and formulating its doctrines?" True believers will give you a look of horror and insist that the guru has never made any mistakes... "The very idea is unthinkable."

There is one big disadvantage for the guru when the cult declares that he is perfect -- he has to act that way, and at least do a good job of faking it.

If he is found to be stealing all of the money and screwing all of the girls, it can hurt his believability. A few cults have a clever work-around that spares the cult leader from having to be perfect: Somebody Else, like a dead saint, or an angel, or Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, is the perfect one, and the cult leader merely "channels" the Perfect Master's messages.

In that way, what the leader says is still unquestionably true and unchallengeable, because it comes from a Higher Power, but the cult leader can indulge in all of the pleasures of the flesh himself without creating a contradiction.

After all, he never said that he was perfect, or any more holy than anybody else. He is just more attuned to the Higher Spheres, and able to hear the Voice of a Higher Power... Oh, and of course the received messages will suit the leader's whims.

Suppose, for instance, that there is a cute young woman whom the leader fancies, but she has gotten involved with another male member of the group. Well, suddenly the Angel or Ascended Master is criticizing that other fellow for indulging in base desires, and telling him to knock it off and have nothing to do with women.

Then, when the cult leader jumps on the same young woman, the Ascended Master has no criticism of him... Funny how that works. You can use your own imagination to dream up another dozen similar tricks.

2. You are always wrong.

The individual members of the cult are told that they are inherently small, weak, stupid, ignorant, and sinful. Cult members are routinely criticized, shamed, ridiculed, discounted, diminished, and told in dozens of ways that they are not good enough.

This cult characteristic is sometimes expressed in the infantization of the cult members: They refer to the leader as "Father", while he refers to them as "my children."

Cult members are also told that they are in no way qualified to judge the Guru or his church. Should you disagree with the leader or his cult about anything, see Cult Rule Number One. Having negative emotions about the cult or its leader is a "defect" that needs to be fixed.

A corollary to this rule is the practice of lowering members' self-esteem by a variety of methods: Elders or higher-ranking members will berate the newer members and tell them that their work or their spirituality isn't good enough. Again, the beginners are abused by the guru and his henchmen until they reach the inner circle, at which time they can turn around and do it all to someone else who is just beginning.

It is almost a universal cult characteristic that, in the opinion of the cult leader and other elders, newcomers cannot think correctly. They are too "new", or "unspiritual", and they haven't been members long enough, or they haven't prayed or chanted or meditated long enough, or they haven't been off of drugs and alcohol long enough, or something... It's always something.

Members will criticize themselves and confess all of their sins and faults, sometimes engaging in public self-criticism or confession sessions. This is used by everybody from Maoist Chinese Communist groups to Christian cults. Sometimes other members will attack them and criticize them in "group therapy" sessions, or Synanon games.

Members are taught not to trust their own minds or their own judgement:

Your thinking has been corrupted by sin.

Your judgement is no good.

Your thinking is no good.

Your mind is no good.

You have a criminal mind.

You have an alcoholic mind.

You need a complete make-over.

Your thinking is controlled by your addictions.

Your thinking is controlled by your sexual desires.

Your thinking is controlled by Satan.

You haven't been chanting or meditating or doing yoga long enough to have a clear head.

You haven't been off of drugs and alcohol long enough to have a clear head.

Members are taught not to trust their own motives: Your motives are no good; everything you do is just for yourself. You are selfish, vain, egotistical, self-seeking, and always trying to get your own way. You are just seeking ego-gratification. You are lazy. You are always trying to do things the easier, softer way. You just want to get laid. You just want to get drunk or high. You just want to avoid the hard work of getting right with God. You just want to be happy.

Members are taught not to feel their own feelings.

Steven Hassan wrote

Since mind control depends on creating a new identity within the individual, cult doctrine always requires that a person distrust his own self.

Combatting Cult Mind Control, Steven Hassan, 1988, page 79.

[END QUOTE]

bands with free mp3s on Last.fm

2008-04-08T01:23:00.011-05:00

Bands who are enlightened, generous, and kind. I'm far more likely to buy commercial record store product from a band that I like and that distributes free mp3s of entire songs to fans.

WARNING: Many mp3s "expire" in 24 hours, so if you download some songs, you better burn them to CDs quickly.

Bands with FREE mp3s you can download on Last.fm:

Built To Spill

Archers of Loaf

If Thousands

Up, Bustle and Out

Merzbow

Black Moth Super Rainbow

Love Battery

Yo La Tengo

Thot

Bacanal Intruder

Young Galaxy

Mount Eerie

Ejaculation Death Rattle

Sufjan Stevens

Burning Star Core

Destroyer

Plastikatela

Half Japanese

AIDS Wolf

Sawtooth Grin

Glis

Ayria

XP8

Shearwater

Cap'n Jazz

Jets To Brazil

Fat Tulips

Love Spirals Downwards

Channels

Brighter Death Now

Kultur Shock

The Essex Green

Drive-by Truckers

Ordo Rosarius Equilibrius

Deutsch Nepal

Orchid

Coffin Break

Indian Summer

Castanets

Lint

Chandal

Mad Lee Riot

Moss Icon

Paul Lansky

Luciano Berio

Charles Dodge

Xiu Xiu

Phosphorescent

Frog Eyes

Morton Subotnick

Alvin Curran

Davenport

Xenis Emputae

Terracid

Autechre

Toecutter

Enduser

Asyncdrone

Siblings

Silencio

Sappho

Underwater Radio

The Oslo Deadtrash Project

Stasola

The.Dithering.Effect

Foundation Hope

This Will Destroy You

Gifts from Enola

The Samuel Jackson Five

Joy Wants Eternity

Scraps of Tape

The Tangent

Ellen Fullman

Otomo Yoshihide

Mark Ribot

Art Ensemble of Chicago

Sun Ra

Bardoseneticcube

Illusion of Safety

Straight Up Sound on MySpaceMusic

2008-04-04T12:25:00.004-05:00

As we continue our exploration of modern music marketing for my clients and friends, here's how Straight Up Sound on MySpaceMusic, DJ Weedim, and Selecta Bus'High present themselves to fans.

[QUOTE]

Before forming Straight Up Sound, Dj Weedim and Selecta Bus’High asserted themselves separately on the Hip-Hop and Reggae business. This is their complementarity and their feeling for the musical intermarriage that make them merge in 2000.

Since, they do not stop combining tones US and jamaican, creating quantity of remixes and exclusives tunes. In order to materialize this style being born and to stick to the most near to the musical current event of these two currents, they created in 2005 the Reggae Crunk Movement, point of start of many projects and collaborations (Coolie Buddz, Rasheeda, Shawty Lo etc..)

Their major trumps?

A pointed selection, definitively different of that one is used to listen, and mixs (in live or in mixtape) of a technical quality and creative recognized. They are co-authors of 9 mixtapes Reggae-Crunk exclusives, of 3 street albums, and of a big number of mixes downloadable on Internet.

In parallel, Weedim (who’s the French representative of Oomp Camp) creates the Good Dope Mixtapes, today to the number of 6, realized in partnership with rappers principally from the dirty south and Bus’high the Stone Effect with Jamaican artists.

Since 2007, Weedim works with Joey Starr (the most popular rapper in France) as Beatmaker and Dj.

They participate to different styles of events like pure clubbin Partyz (@ VIP Room with Lil Jon, Bus Palladium with The Beatnuts,Madam, Bains Douches, Nouveau Casino, Triptyque, Divan du Monde, Gibus, La Galerie, Batofar, Espace Nikaia), and to some concerts wid Buju Banton, Anthony B,Junior Kelly, 5TH Element crew, IsraÕl Vibration, Black Uhuru, Jah Mason, Gladiators, Alpha Blondy, Max Romeo, and Big Youth.

In Paris, France, you can discover Dj Weedim the first Saturday of each month at Gibus Club for the famous Get Crunk partys (1200 people) and to the Twenty One sound bar: Dj Weedim, all the Fridays, to the Make it Rain partys, Bus’High all the Saturdays for Dem Freaky Saturdays partys.

If you are not at Paris, you can listen to the Reggae Crunk Shows Radio, every Mondays evenings (8pm to 10pm) on Elephantprint.com/radio.

[END QUOTE]

strategic music listening and marketing on Last.fm

2008-03-26T12:42:00.012-05:00

A secret formula for effective music marketing: use the Recently Listened Tracks, My Radio, My PlayList, Top Artists This Week, and Top Artists Overall to promote your band and bands you like.

Think about it.

On Last.fm, artists mix with fans to an incredible degree, like is done on MySpaceMusic, but in a somewhat convoluted style. This is easy to grasp once you've done the metaphysical math, as I have done. It's not rocket science: people are curious about what other people, especially their peers and idols, are listening to.

The big idea, successfully executed with very few glitches, bugs, or downtime, on Last.fm is you share information on what you like and where to find more of it, and others do the same for you.

Thus a band or musical artist or net label CANNOT ram their crap into everybody's radar screen with amateur drivel like "If you like this band, you'll probably also like my band, the Hermeneutically Sealed Hero Sandwiches. Check it out at this URL: [blah blah blah]".

Every time I read a comment or shout box remark like that, I want to puke. It's a must to avoid. That undisguised self-hype is so 1950s, and nobody tolerates it anymore. Especially in the music, art, and film scenes. Get with it you old-fashioned slackers.

NEVER self-promote on any music social network. That's not what they're there for. It's all about sharing and caring about music. Not selling. Sales is sleazy, everybody knows that. Sales is bullying and marketing is deception. You must believe this, then find a more pure form of helping music lovers find your band.

Sales and advertising are demeaning intrusions, boring profit-machines, unwanted invaders. The only exception might be a low-key, self-deprecating, "marketing as nuisance" type announcement about a brand-new CD or video album DVD. Once. On your own site.

Do NOT use other artist's socnet pages to hype your shit.

Hype your shit on your own site. Period. Even then, do it as a footnote, a P.S., a "we hate advertising", reluctant, no-glam afterthought. Act [and actually BE] annoyed at having to announce a new product, -- especially if people have to lower themselves to actually paying for the shit. Most fans are used to getting FREE music, and will BUY music only when they've downloaded, legally hopefully, tons of material by the artist, prior to shelling out any sympathy cash for dreaded Paid Product.

"FREE music?," you whine like a shriveled miser. "How can the band eat, seduce women, and party -- with no money coming in from record sales?"

You make money with ticket sales for live shows, with special Paid Product that collector mentality fans will crave, with other things that I'm not going to reveal right now, since you're acting so dopey and clueless.

Now wake up you wankers.

Don't give those stupid 0:30 "previews" of your precious shitty music. Give the fans the whole shebang, the whole nine yards, the ENTIRE song.

How petty and full of misgivings is that? To grudgingly give a short excerpt of a song to fans, rather than the whole song? Get up off your genius music and share it, in its entirety, with your fans...or they'll move on to less stingy, less archaic and greedily uptight musical artists.

Now, you're a band and you're on Last.fm, right? Which makes you automatically, simultaneously, a fan. You're not just a band on Last.fm, you're also a fan, because Last.fm, if you allow it, will track your song plays on iTunes.

Okay? So when fans of your music arrive at your Last.fm page, they'll see your glorious junk, plus what music you're listening to, both right now, and in the past. Use this information display to your advantage.

One of the best ways to promote your music is to inflict it on other bands. BUT, BUT, BUT -- the only way to inflict your music on other bands is to give them FREE records, tapes, and CDs of it, or to praise them on their own Shoutbox (or MySpaceMusic comments). Compliment your idols, wait a long time, do it again, and eventually, someday when they're bored and curious, they may listen to a bit of your band's groaning and flapping around on instruments they should NOT be playing.

Once these idolized bands are hooked on your tunes, nice things might happen. Once these guys get it "under their skin", once your music has somehow wormed its way into their memory jukebox, and they like a few seconds of it, you may end up reaching all their fans, as these other bands critique, disrespect, and complain about your music.

Got it? Now do this: compile playlists on your iTunes, NOT with your shit, BUT with the great tunes of other bands. You'll be promoting the other bands, not your own.

(NOTE: I'm a lousy example. My own Last.fm Top Artists list displays something like 400 plays of Str8 Sounds, versus 20 or 30 plays of other bands, but all that happened accidentally, before I knew this Secret Music Marketing Technique, the one I'm sharing with you now.)

Strategic Last.fm Listening, Introductory Principles of:

1. You compile playlists, call them "Killer Kuts" or whatever, of bands you really enjoy, and want to help publicize...but also throw in famous, high-recognition bands, as long as you honestly like them, so people will be able to relate to you. All esoteric tastes is a turn-off, from a marketing viewpoint (not condemning your tastes, just tripping you into a new way to participate in the New Online Music Scene.)

2. Play these playlists ("every little once in a while" -Leadbelly).

3. Fans, when they arrive at your Last.fm page, will see what you're listening to, and be able to click on their names (in most cases), and visit the Last.fm page of those artists.

4. Your own avatar will display on the Last.fm pages of these other artists, perhaps, if you're lucky, as a Top Listener. This may cause those bands you idolize to want to check out your own band, and may contact you about opening for them in their upcoming European Tour and other stuff like that.

5. You indirectly promote your own music, when you strategically listen to other bands that, if a fan of them discovered your music, they might like it. Not that you necessarily sound anything like the bands you admire, but the same attitude or charisma is present. You're saying, "Hey everybody, I dig these bands and songs. It reflects handsomely upon my own music, to be a fan of these cool artists, I hope."

6. Strangers, those you've requested to Add as Friends, have your Recently Listened, Top Artists, etc. to use to evaluate what kind of person you are: classical, jazzy, goth, punk, new wave, mystical, folksy, bluesy, noisey, radical, artistic, experimental, exploratory, grungey, pop, electronic, tribal, afro-beat, ragga jungle, down tempo industrial, pensive ambient, outsider, avant-garde, etc.

7. Thus, you, an unknown purveyor of musical slop, go from Stranger to Friend, based largely on what music you tend to listen to, as displayed on your Last.fm page. This is the chief business of music marketing. There's too much music, and it's too easily available. So, how do you become an item that is known, liked, buzzed about, craved, collected obsessively, asked to contribute to compilations, get invited to group shows, etc.? By giving out tons of FREE music...and making it easy for fans to get to know the real you. That's how.

8. .......

9. .......

10. ......

I had a lot more to say about all this, but I need to make today's new album by Str8 Sounds, as I generally release one new album every day, it takes a couple hours, and I certainly, by all means, must not allow myself to betray the legend I'm building.

Adios until next time.

Your pay pal, Vaspers.

evaluating music social networks

2008-03-22T11:21:00.005-05:00

Music Social Networks?

Only MySpaceMusic and Last.fm, at this point in my investigations, are worth bothering with.

Music social networks, like many Web 2.0 products, are seriously dysfunctional and a waste of time. I have been testing such sites as MOG, iJigg, Pandora, etc. and they all fail miserably. My goal is to find sites where artists can create profiles, upload free dl mp3s and videos, and assemble an online community of fans and peers (other musicians).

I'm currently investigating the music socnets listed on Mashable: "Rock On: 12 of the Best Music Social Networks".

http://mashable.com/2007/
06/22/music-social-networks-2/

Fans seek socnets that cater to their musical tastes, enabling them to discover new songs and bands, and interact with the musicians they like. Artists seek to display and distribute their mp3s, m4as, photos, videos, promo trinkets, and news about upcoming shows and recordings.

It pissed me off yesterday when iJigg kept giving me the idiotic, non-informative "oops!" every time I tried to upload mp3s of my own music to it. "Oops!" is not a legitimate, professional error message, it's a lazy crap coder's cop-out.

JamNow seems okay, and I look forward to setting up some music collaborations there. Want to jam with The Str8 Sounds Therabusive Noise Carnival? Watch this blog for updates on my progress at JamNow.

Str8 Sounds on Last.fm

Last.fm enables you to create separate albums, with CD cover art, and keep adding more tracks to them, if you wish. This means you can make exclusive "online only" digital albums for your fans. Those with obsessive collector mentalities will hunt down every song they can find, and will be delighted to find these "rare" items on the internet.

I'll reserve more commentary on Last.fm for an upcoming Guide to Last.fm Artist Promotions post.

If you're a fan, you may like several music socnets. But artists with Web 2.0 proclivities may want to conserve their time and energy for the cream of the crop, which your pal Vaspers is in the process of determining and revealing.

Music changes everything.

Peace activists need anti-war anthems. Animal rights activists need pro-sentient life jingles. Feminists need anti-patriarchy tunes. Anarchists need pro-freedom music. I'm working on providing such songs to all the groups who are sincerely deconstructing and humiliating the Powers That Pretend To Be, the domination systems propped up by guns and bullshit.

Music is so subversive, many tyrants in history, including Plato's Republic and North Korea, outlaw certain types and content.

Music is the belief system re-orienting artform.

Just remember what the Beatles did to culture, and how the most effective training for children is memorizing songs (like for Stranger Danger programs). Socrates said melodies and lyrics are calming to the mind, like metaphysical lullabyes. Radical militarism kooks sound trumpets and beat on drums to psyche out the enemy and encourage the government-sponsored killers.

tagging your music on Last.fm

2008-03-11T23:31:00.008-05:00

Are you tagging your music effectively? What are the coolest, weirdest, smartest, most unique things you can say about your sound, your aesthetics, your performance style, your genre, your type of music? Be creative, funny, and wild.

It's music, after all. You better take yourself only half-seriously. All music is stupid, but it's also revolutionary and fun. Keeps kids out of trouble. Keeps husbands home. Keeps the bills paid, if you let me help you "monetize it"...which begins with massive amounts of FREE content: mp3s, videos, photos, tee shirts, anything to generate buzz.

FREE = Go from Unknown and Unwanted...to Known and Craved.

Okay? Now: tagging your silly musical output you hope to inflict on innocent fans.

++++++++++++++++++++

Here's what Last.fm tells users about tagging an artist's music.

[QUOTE]

Tag Your Artists, Albums and Tracks

A way of making sure your artists get streamed on the radio and discovered by users is by tagging them. There are buttons to do this on artist, track and album pages, as well as in the Last.fm players themselves. Tags can be genres, moods, personal notes, anything really! Get as many people, to tag as many things, as possible.

[END QUOTE]

Here's what I have tagged my STR8 SOUNDS music with:

STR8 SOUNDS
Last.fm Tags

experimental

punkatronic

trouble-making

grouchy

activist

Loisaida NYC Art Scene 1988

industrial

brooding ambient

ambient sludge

Sludge Farm Records artist

nice

nightmarish

complex sound confusions

assorted sound confusions

sonic bliss

oxycontinental

exotic

dis-oriental

panic-stricken

menacing but in a nice way with good intentions

indescribable

unlistenable

cosmic

comical

electronic

computer

psychosomatica

unendearing

romantic Pepto Bismal

avant garde

art music

Schoenbergian

Subotnickian

Stockhausenian

techno

psychedelic

psychoanalytic

psychotronic

healing crystal tone generators

mind wave

eggular

rubular

musique concrete

hauntology

cut and paste

trivial troubador

troubled lad clang

exalted din throne tunes

din

cacophonical

dreadful

dreary

droll

sub-normal

supernatural

hypertronic

digital synthesis

virtual musical instruments

online beat box

phantom ensemble

shadow trumpets

immaterial orchestra

pseudo musical

music theory violations

auto-mutilating

cybergenic

tribal electronica

xenophonic

ethnomethodologist

pink Freudian

DIY

droopy

failure

dismal failure

Casio

Yamaha

cheesey mall organ

advanced music technology

French knob-twiddling

new age

new wave

light wave

surrealist

therapeutic

massage music

therabusive

millions of years ahead of its time

best taken in extremely small doses

a few seconds of okay music buried in there somewhere

ouch

not my cup of tea

this can't be music

this is not music

why does he call this music?

ultra-modern

modern composer

misunderstood

underappreciated

underwhelming

ridiculous

non-music

anti-music

zzzzzz, huh? what was the question?

unknown

unwanted

non-addictive

easy to dismiss and forget

controversial

provocative

ethereal

mystical

spiritual

flambouyant

unsinkable

triumphant

ear pain

difficult music

an acquired taste

college radio fare

underground

6 feet underground

promoting music on Last.fm

2008-03-11T16:12:00.004-05:00

Last.fm is a good place to do things musically:

1. Discover new bands.

2. Connect with fans who like the music you like.

3. Join in conversations, via Shoutbox, about artists you like.

4. Use the Shoutbox to post messages of appreciation and encouragement to favorite artists.

5. Display your musical tastes (and promote favorite artists), as Last.fm tracks your iTunes plays.

6. Expose your own music to this music-loving community.

7. Get the attention of record labels, venues, sponsors, and industry movers and shakers.

Here's the Last.fm guide to getting your own music promoted effectively. I have rendered in bold large red such text as I wish to emphasize.

[QUOTE]

How to:

Make the Most

of Last.fm

New to Last.fm, or just want to make sure you're doing everything you can to promote your music? This guide should help!

Upload ALL Your Music

Uploading as much music as you can to Last.fm is a great idea, tracks have an equal chance of being played on our streaming radio. T makes your back catalogue just as important as your current release

Make Your Songs Available for Full-length Preview and FREE Download

On Last.fm, your songs will automatically be streamed on the radio and made available for 30-second preview. However, offering tracks for full-length preview or download can give your artists a real promotional boost. Doing this means that your artist will become more visible and more accessible on Last.fm as we promote free content more vigorously than everything else.

Upload Your Videos, Make them Embeddable

You can find videos everywhere on Last.fm, they make your artist page more interesting and are recommended on user's dashboards. If you also make them available for embedding, you might find that users spread them for you, on their blogs, websites and other social networks.

Listen to (and Scrobble) Your Artist’s Music

Making sure your artist is being scrobbled is a good first step towards making an impact on Last.fm. Make your music available for full-length preview, then ask your fans to download the Last.fm software and listen to your artist’s music. Certain features on Last.fm work better when you have reached a certain amount of listeners, so this is important.

Make Your Artist profile Rock

Make sure you upload artist images and album images as well as write a bio for your artist. This way if someone ends up on your profile they won't be confronted with an empty page, and may well have a listen.

Tag Your Artists, Albums and Tracks

A way of making sure your artists get streamed on the radio and discovered by users is by tagging them. There are buttons to do this on artist, track and album pages, as well as in the Last.fm players themselves. Tags can be genres, moods, personal notes, anything really! Get as many people, to tag as many things, as possible.

Spread the Word

Let your fans know that they can embed your music in their own sites or blogs, they can then help promote your artist not just on Last.fm itself, but also across the entire web, whilst enjoying immediate access to your newest content!

Treat Yourself to a Boost

Purchase a Powerplay campaign, this can kick start the whole process of getting a first small listener base, and will only target users who are likely to enjoy your music. You can do this here; http://musicmanager.last.fm/promotion/powerplay/

[END QUOTE]

the HOW of innovation

2008-03-08T09:11:00.004-06:00

Today, on Twitter, for we Twitter addicts are always "on" it, like being "on" a drug or a vacation from reality, my pal @carterlusher pointed to a blog post or podcast or streaming seminar, on the "how" of innovation.

www.twitter.com/vaspersthegrate

That sparked my brain.

Before visiting the site and consuming their informaton about the "how" of innovation, I burst forth the froth of the cream of my best thoughts on the subject. For the benefit of my tiny, rapidly diminshing, demoralized blog readers, I now graciously bestow my boring Twittered insights on the HOW of innovation.

On Twitter, you get a maximum of 140 characters per message, so you must be awkwardly, or majestically, concise, pithy, to the point. You sacrifice a little accuracy for the sake of instant clarity. Please excuse all such hyperbole as you may find it in my humble tweets.

[QUOTE]

The "how" of innovation: dare to be different, despise conformity, rock the boat, shock the sheep, investigate the underground, subcultures.

4 minutes ago from web

@carterlusher - Avoid all anti-innovation: radio music, TV shows, ads, best-sellers. Treasure art, literature, philosophy, eccentricity.

6 minutes ago from web in reply to carterlusher

@carterlusher - The "how" of innovation is best seen in Edison. He was workaholic visionary. Work plus Vision. Obsession with goal, bravery.

8 minutes ago from web in reply to carterlusher

@carterlusher - The "how" of innovation: think upside down, question all authority and rules, break rules, study other geniuses, work hard.

10 minutes ago from web in reply to carterlusher

@carterlusher - The "how" of innovation: compulsive overachiever insomnia, hatred of mediocrity, touch heart of actual user needs and goals.

11 minutes ago from web in reply to carterlusher

[END QUOTE]

Top Friends on MySpaceMusic

2008-03-05T23:01:00.008-06:00

Your band is on MySpaceMusic, you've uploaded 6 songs to the mp3 player, and you've sent out a lot of Friends Requests.

You're thrilled to see some of your long-time favorite bands accept you as a friend. You're even getting direct, personal comments and private messages from musicians you've admired from afar.

So, you've got a lot of Friends and your online fan/peer community is growing by leaps and bounds. You spend a lot of time sending out Friends Requests and it's paying off. But how should you display these friends?

Here are 10 tips on ...

How To Display Your
MySpaceMusic
"TOP FRIENDS"

(1) Always display the maximum number of Friends, up to the limit of Top 40.

(2) Put your closest allies, favorite bands, and biggest influences at the top.

(3) Include bands everyone's heard of, like Beastie Boys, Beck, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, early in your display, so people can see that your band is not totally obscure and unknown. You'll gain some credibility by association, especially if these artists post comments on your page.

(4) New struggling bands should be displayed, to help them gain popularity and exposure to their music.

(5) Displaying mostly non-musical individuals and fans is not a good idea. It makes it look like other bands, your peers, don't care much for you. A favorite artist, like Warhol, or writer, like Proust might be okay. But use your Top Friends display as a way to communicate what kind of music you like, what your tastes and influences are.

(6) If your band has multiple MySpaceMusic pages, like for each album, or for specific products or shows, try to vary the bands that are displayed in those pages. Don't just repeat the same Top Friends of the original page.

(7) Check your New Friends and juggle the Top Friends display around to accomodate those important artists that have recently Friended you. Once you get beyond 40 Friends, this will mean dropping some artists off your Top Friends display, but they will remain in your All Friends list.

(8) Give special preference to artists who miraculously take time from their BUSY performing, recording, and partying schedules to post a comment on your page, or send you a private message. Push their avatars up higher in your Top Friends display.

(9) Fuss with your Top Friends display often, juggling the avatars around, making the display look nice. One thing you can do is put the vertically long avatars on the right and left sides of the 4 avatar rows, so the rows look more balanced.

(10) Look at how your musical mentors and heroes handle their Top Friends displays. You may discover some new artists, and you may get some ideas on Top Friends display strategy.

MySpaceMusic marketing comment strategy

2008-03-02T21:20:00.011-06:00

Your band is on MySpace, in the artist space called MySpaceMusic.

You've uploaded your content: mp3s, photos, CD cover art, lyrics, videos, external mp3 players, links to your website, blog, and Last.fm page.

You've sent Friend Requests to all the bands you can recall as being an influence and inspiration. You've checked out their Top Friends, and sent Friend Requests to some of them.

Now what?

Well, here is where we cross over from artist productivity to the realm of blogocombat, (I am burdened with being the King of Blogocombat, according to Google. Just take a moment to Google that word and see what happens).

Now it's time to interact as a good member of the MySpaceMusic artist and fan community. Careful with that axe Eugene! Here's where you could blow the whole deal and become a despised and shunned idiot.

The worst thing you can do is start posting self-serving comments, links to commercial products, and ads announcing your upcoming gigs and CD release dates.

You will sound like a greedy jerk doing that.

Especially if you use big splashy bullshit posters and sales hype.

Slow down maestro.

First you need to study other band pages and notice the various types of SPAM COMMENTS that are out there. These spammers will teach what NOT to do. Learn your lesson well. Notice how many spammers are pushing ringtones, visitor trackers, online dating services, and other crap.

Notice how many comments say nothing about the artist, whose page they're a guest on, and go straight into what they're trying in vain to promote or sell.

"Check out my new song I uploaded today! Please post a comment and let me know what you think!""

"Come to our show at the Pylon Plaza next Thursday and say hello!"

"New video posted on my page today, and it ROCKS!!!!!

Need I go any further in this swamp of unpersuasive sewage?

STOP being a jackass, and go mingle in the MySpaceMusic party in the correct and more effective way. What way is that? In the same way you'd act and speak if you were in that musician's home.

Here are some suggestions on how to post comments strategically, in keeping with more enlightened socialist-anarchist marketing principles.

COMMENT STRATEGY:

1. Tell the artist what your favorite songs or CDs or videos are by them -- and why you favor them so much.

2. Tell the artist how you discovered them.

3. Tell the artist briefly about an experience you've had at one of their concerts.

4. Ask the artist an intelligent question, one that shows your deep familiarity with their music, philosophy, personal interests, or history.

5. Say something funny, clever, inspiring, or bizarre.

6. Post an NON-promotional image, like some weird photo, a surreal artwork, or a poster you made that PROMOTES THEM instead of your stupid band.

7. Offer to do something nice for the artist.

8. Reveal something cool that other fans probably don't know about the artist.

9. Alert the artist to a site that's bootlegging their music, videos, or photos.

10. Tell the artist about your most recent purchases of their work.

11. Simply ask how they're doing or remind them of how much you love their music.

12. Ask them to upload more songs if their player contains less than 6.

13. Inform them of a problem with something on their MySpaceMusic page.

14. Tell the artist how their music makes you feel.

15. Tell the artist about how you played their music real loud outside as you worked in the garage.

16. Tell the artist how you promote their work via Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Facebook, Ning, and other social network (socnet) sites.

17. Tell the artist about something you know they'd probably like: a film, other band, restaurant, art gallery, etc.

18. Tell the artist about something you're band is doing, ONLY if you can relate it somehow to being inspired or jealous of something the artist has done.

There.

That should give you a few good topics to post comments about a music band's MySpaceMusic page. You as a musical artist need to know how to interact with other bands -- the ones you have admired many years, and new phenomena of spectacular promise. I hope this little essay has given you a better direction to follow than the vain psycho-capitalist marketing folly so often encountered on MySpaceMusic.

HOT FINDS

Lies Vexus

Librarians

Times New Viking

Battles

Purple Wheelchair

Heavygrinder

Sacred Harp

Amps for Christ

Magical Forest

Rainbow Kandicaine

Alec Empire

Chino (a brave "Free Tibet" rapper)

Black Orphan

True Primes

Monsters are waiting

Friends With You

Apes

Str8 Sounds in New Musical Express UK

2008-02-29T09:40:00.014-06:00

Click here to see Rock and Role Model History in the making! --

Str8 Sounds on NME

http://www.nme.com/video/search/str8sounds

Click here to see the

NME 2008 Award Winners

http://www.nme.com/news/nme-awards/34797

May I help you with your music marketing? If I work really hard for a few seconds, maybe I can make your band as successful as mine is being.

Read on wayfaring pilgrim of sonic explorations...

Step up, player, to the NME: New Musical Express. That and October magazine and Art Forum magazine, plus some theory of Jacques Derrida and a few micro-novels by Maurice Blanchot, are all you basically need to be as hip and cool as you know you really ought to be. Shame on you for giving up, and in, so easily!

Lucky for you, we at Sludge Farm Records, are here and there -- in everybody's hair!!! -- and have come to repair.

NME (New Musical Express) is the Rolling Stone magazine of the UK. All the Brits go ape over it. The hippest and most talented new rock musicians are showcased there.

Str8 Sounds and Sludge Farm Records, my new music marketing company, are proud to be featured in the NME Awards 2008 video index. They did a pretty good job of displaying some of my better videos up front in their online display of my horrible, miserable music-visual assaults.

[QUOTE]

Free music videos from NME.com!

Watch the latest video interviews, gig and concert videos, track by track album guides, backstage and behind the scenes footage, tour diaries from all your favourite bands and the best music videos from YouTube.

From locations across the world and from NME's very own video studio in London.

[END QUOTE]

Str8 Sounds on NME

http://www.nme.com/video/search/str8sounds

NME is way more prestigious in music circles than the American rag Rolling Stone. Talk about a great way to kick off my new music marketing company! This is what you hope will happen once you've been in business many years, not right off the bat! LOL

New STR8 SOUNDS song on MySpaceMusic: "Song Against Me"

Alec Empire live in Warsaw VIDEO

2008-02-29T08:17:00.007-06:00

I can't stop watching this video, the Logitech computer speakers with sub-woofer is cranked up to maximum volume. It appears to be a finely crafted collage of a few live songs by Alec Empire, of Atari Teenage Riot, from a very recent Warsaw gig. He has a finesse that's quite charming, and the light show is very simple but effective. It's an exciting thing Alec is sharing with us here.

Alec Empire is the genius anarchist musician from the astonishing Atari Teenage Riot. His solo work is fascinating, reminds me of late Iggy Pop and The Fall with hard electronics.

My new Simple Definition of "Anarchy"

Alec Empire with Hellish Vortex
Live in Warsaw

Alec Empire Live in Warsaw Feb 08

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Revenge of the Skabs photo shoot

2008-02-28T23:23:00.020-06:00

Here are some photos I took tonight, plus a couple other odds and ends, for my buddies, The Skabs (Peoria).

The new Skabs album, "Revenge of the Skabs", recorded at Chocolate Ladyland Studio by Jeff Gregory, on Black and Blue Records, is about them crawling back from the dead, to haunt the punk rock scene.

"Revenge of the Skabs" will be a CD album and a film that I will be shooting, producing, and promoting for them.

Back from the dead? Yeah. See, the Skabs were formed by Gabby Skab, after Bloody Mess & the Skabs imploded and fractured and nightmared. Bloody formed new band Bloody Mess & the Transfusions. The Skabs is the residue of original drummer Gabby and original guitarist Slappy.

That image above is the logo I made for them from some altered zombie action figure dolls I found in the cellar of Zeller Mental Asylum (1903 - 1972) in Bartonville, Illinois.

I actually did NOT take the photos below, but I fiddled with them graphically a bit.

Above is the actual poster of the infamous, controversial, mind-boggling show at the German-American Society Hall, Peoria, IL in 1992, I think was the year.

Bloody Mess and I had to meet with the Lieutenant of the Vice Squad in a secret police bunker after the show. Some redneck conservative bullies got the shit kicked out of them by some gay punk bikers, and the sissy boys tried to sue me and Bloody, since we were the ones who signed the contract for the hall. The fighting in the mosh pit happened during slam dancing, but the violence was not the fault of the music.

I began my performance with a radio tape announcing warplanes going to Iraq, the first stupid bombing raid of the first Persian Gulf War, aka the Hailburton/Oil Baron War.

Jeffrey John is the guy who made the Microwave UFOs create a website and blog for The Skabs. He didn't charge them anything, all the work was free. Did you realize that UFOs are easily enslaved? He makes them pesky flying saucers do all kinds of free stuff for us.

Lovely Chelsea Darling, international punk fashion princess, is a good friend and ally of The Skabs.

lotus of the true law, revisited

2008-02-20T17:35:00.004-06:00

This description of 1200 monks, at the beginning of the Lotus of the True Law, a Buddhist Mahayana text of special fortuity, could apply to any true spiritual sojourners:

"...all of them Arhats, stainless, free from depravity, self-controlled, thoroughly emancipated in thought and knowledge, of noble breed, (like unto) great elephants, having done their task, done their duty, acquitted their charge, reached the goal; in whom the ties which bound them to existence were wholly destroyed, whose minds were thoroughly emancipated by perfect knowledge, who had reached the utmost perfection in subduing all their thoughts; who were possessed of the transcendent faculties; eminent disciples..."

And this is what all true believers endeavor to achieve, until the voice within is clear and the inner light is brightening all the nooks and crannies. Dissipating the gloom of many kotis of creatures, releasing them from sadistic misanthropic conditioning by domination system planners.

The highly esteemed and treasured Lotus of the True Law contains many beautiful passages for enlightening the mind and re-orienting the soul.

creative profiles on MySpaceMusic marketing

2008-02-18T16:32:00.009-06:00

When you fill out the Profile data on your MySpaceMusic page, do you tell the facts about your band, in a dry book report fashion? Or do you spice it up, and say something funny, unexpected, or bizarre?

You must decide if your music is mainstream (generic) or avant garde (innovative).

If your music is for the nihilist normals out there, you should probably play it straight and give a brief factual history. New fans may appreciate a recitation of all your awards and venues played.

However, if your music is designed for the underground, techno, anti-rock star, DIY, art-damaged outsider, free jazz, improvisational classical, or punk scene, you should probably be more creative in how you present your band.

Some bands have interesting histories, with members creating side bands and split-off groups. But new (and obscure) bands that don't have any gory or astonishing backgrounds can be more playful with their descriptions.

Here are some examples of creative profile information (About, Sounds Like, etc.) on MySpaceMusic.

Beck

INFLUENCES...

athletics

SOUNDS LIKE...

men

This Heat

ABOUT...

1976-1982

.....more biography to come.....

"this heat was formed from the collective desire of its individual members
not to be in other peoples groups"

"This Heat, the first record,
(The Blue and Yellow ) was a landmark release.
It tore up the book and laid new rules
for band composition and performance.
The music was without precedent;
the musicians uncompromising;
the recordings hammeringly intense
and the sound deep, radical, and rich.
This was music stripped back to the bone but never simplified.
And over time it has also proved itself prescient;
there are musical innovations here
that anticipate genres that would take
another 15 years to reappear."

Beautiful Traps

ABOUT...

For booking or if you want a copy of the pretty cd pictured below: beautifultraps [at] gmail [dot] com

You can also stream and download the entire record right here, but you'll have to rationalize mp3's accession to the throne in a way that is completely different from your blind acceptance of cassette tape's triumph over vinyl records.

Brian Reichert and The Thomas Jefferson Airplane

ABOUT...

Dear Everyone, I'm sorry, I can't write to each of you individually, but our family counselor said it was important to get this letter out to everyone as quickly as possible. It's sad that we have to send a message like this. We realize that almost all of you who gave money to Little Jay gave it in good faith, but please, DO NOT loan Jay Junior any more money. Jay Junior wasn't trying to take advantage of anyone. He just wanted to be certain that he was getting enough foods from the Meat Group. The meat that can be returned, will be. The meat that has already gone bad, Jay Junior will pay for out of his own pocket. All of your money will be returned.

Sincerely, Viv

Rainbow Kandicaine

Bringing you back soundscapes from her numerous trips to various galaxies and alternate dimensions, Rainbow Kandicaine is a channel for an innovative new sound: "psychedelic kandy-kore with a dark goa twist." On the 13th day of January 1988, a Capricorn with a Scorpio Moon & Libra Ascendent named Jackie was born to a loving family in Rochester, NY. Growing up with goals to become a fine artist, it wasn't until the summer of 2005 that she began to realize her abilities as a musician. Starting off small, using garageband, she began to develop her sound and expand her repertoire. In early 2007, she adopted the name Rainbow Kandicaine and began spreading her good vibes to the masses. Now, releasing the harmonies from deep within her soul, a different new psychedelic landscape arises with each track, creating an abstract atmosphere within the listeners' psyche. Take a trippy kaleidoscope trip to a foreign land in your mind with Rainbow Kandicaine!!!!

Stephen Malkmus (ex-Pavement)

ABOUT...

Real Emotional Trash, the new album from Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

“I am not a present to be opened up and parceled out again,” our man insists on “Gardenia,” track seven on his new album. Ha! That’s what you think, pal. From the day nigh two decades ago when the first scratchy sounds of Pavement floated in the ether above Stockton (crown jewel of California’s Central Valley, the sprawling breadbasket that neither the North or the South have claimed in California’s ongoing “two states” culture war; just providing some historical context that will be useful a few sentences later), the music of Stephen Malkmus has been the gift that keeps on keepin’ on.

Did SM not offer the eternal promise of “perfect sound forever”? Was this sly appropriation of a digital age boast for Pavement’s low-bandwidth treble-kicks not a prescient example of that “irony” thing everybody talked about in the ‘90s? Can we then conclude that that by invoking “paralyzed dreams forever” on this album Malkmus foretells some sort of bad moon on the rise?

Hell, I don’t know, and I’m the omniscient narrator of this artist bio. But I will point out that much of Real Emotional Trash, his fourth "solo" LP (this one credited with The Jicks, like his second, Pig Lib), is decidedly low-down and heavy. It could hardly be otherwise with monster drummer Janet Weiss now a full-fledged Jick, alongside bassist Joanna Bolme and guitar/keyboardist Mike Clark.

Meanwhile, Malkmus the guitar hero is on full display here. “Dragonfly Pie,” “Baltimore,” and the title track are alchemic combinations of intricate composition and unfettered jam. Whoa, did I actually type the phrase “unfettered jam”? Scratch that. (Did I actually say “scratch that”? It’s a good thing I'm anonymous as well as omniscient.)

Malkmus’ genius is that he knows exactly when to fetter. These songs may sprawl like the Central Valley (told you), they may spread out like a jet’s flame, but when they reach that last tract house they gracefully spread their wings and head for the unclaimed land beyond. Indeed, although Malkmus makes the Pacific Northwest his home, this feels like a “California” album. Check out how “Real Emotional Trash” begins as a modern-day “Tonight’s the Night,” before evolving into a road trip from the Mexican border to Marin, in the tradition of Pavement’s “Unfair.” And dig those Allman Bros. leads (really!).

Elsewhere, “We Can’t Help You” channels the Band’s “The Weight,” tapping that same vein of late-night melancholia and early-morning lucidity. “Cold Son” sounds like a cruise down the Ventura Highway. And if another song released this year makes you smile as much as “Gardenia,” I have a rare Crust Brothers bootleg with your name on it. While I cannot get with the song’s insistence that its singer is not a “present,” I can sympathize with one line: “don’t want to damn you with the faintest praise.” That’s what it feels like to write about this record, tossing around those historical comparisons, making you read about it when you could be listening to it. So listen, already.

Times New Viking

SOUNDS LIKE...

Breath in: snuff a line speed, a half hour jump on your cheap amplifiers, salad yet once a half hour with you yet cheaper guitar against the wall. Write eleven popliedjes, lay the emphasis on cryptic and forget everything your song teacher you ever learned has. Seek your neighbor girl on and tell her that your musics will make. Lay her emphatically from that she must not try to sing. Stick, now that you it really are, also just your tongue between her lips till you certainly are that they that rather has not. Give her then you eleven popliedjes and (optioneel) a guitar. Question her these eleven popliedjes with you together to not to sing, expect of it surplus. Mess what with the buttons on the amplifier, let the hamster of your neighbor girl also once over the strings run, sign the head of the father of your neighbor girl on the skins of a Bears Smit drumstel, call her feather ten-year-old little brother and lay from that its father him really real hatred. Breath out: and voila, Yourself Summoned. Sounds good? Sounds in it really yet better. Blessed with a delicious dose ADHD-spontaneity and a fine nose for popmelodieën know Tim New Viking on Summoned Yourself a particular charming pot borrow-fi garagepop down to dump. A kind of contemporary version of The Shaggs, but then without the implicit family tie. More a neighbor boy-neighbor girl tie thus.

When People Were Shorter and Lived Near the Water

ABOUT... (excerpt)

When People Were Shorter and Lived Near the Water, the Brooklyn, New York gaggle of merry pranksters fronted by double singers Kim M. Rancourt and Joey DeFilipps, is devoted to conceptual covers of material from outside sources. Depending on one's point of view, the work can be viewed as deconstructing the originals, partying with them or pummeling unsuspecting songs into submission. They sound like punch-drunk travelers who've taken a wrong turn and wandered into a quiet seacoast village, but, undaunted, come rolling out of their bus into the town square and begin singing songs of their homeland. But what seem, on first exposure, to be wildly exuberant first-take performances, are when called for actually smart arrangements. And dumb arrangements when they're called for. These workmen use the right tool for the job....

Caroliner Rainbow Bluembiegh Treason of the Abyss

(NOTE: Cottypearile of Caroliner sent me a message stating the full name of the band is now Caroliner Rainbow Wire Thin Sheep Baking Exhibit. I think their name changes with every new release, but I'm in the midst of verifying this fact right now as we speak.)

SOUNDS LIKE...

The 1800s

BAND MEMBERS...

-Applehead back pack -American Nail Umbrella -Banjo Lump -The Barn Attic Dullard -The Battling Pigllist -Berims -Berjums -Bingo Marvin -Big Mouth Driesuhen -Both Oars -Brazen and Meticulous Pintle -Brown Tools -B'sau Sau -BulkCue -Bullerma -Bullup -Buytime -Buttercup Lesson -Chance Century -Chapel Rimmer -Chloras (or Chlora) -Chicken Climber -Christo B. Panim -Chimney Pinch -Clam'd -Claytonia -Cottypearile -Country Thumcake -Croakalypse -Croq Braids -Crap Hat Carson -Cudskin -Daydostuffice -Darrieny Diddle O -Dirt Sheet Sue -Doey Bulch -Dobersores -Doxie Goodpatty -Elk Possum -Fawn Brodye -The Felt Pelt -The Four Armed Sheriff From Greenway -The Flying Sluicebox -Gripplea -Gris Welled -Groat Pulp -Grub Caliber -Gumfry Bullcue -Gumfry Pumple Possession -Hack Hack -Ma and Pa Hair Ointment -Harpfart -Herding Pounds -Horsemetia -Horsepimp -Hocrag -Horse Pump -Hotel Crisp Reads -Hug Leg Lesy -The Hundred-Mile Banner Man -The Indian Tongue Wink -Jib Lipprint -The Knowledge Breadboxer -Koy Coy -Lake Shore Pelt -Leaf Pants -Leatherlip Luke -Letter From The Heart Of The Spitstorm -Log Mooner -The Luminous Lump -Log Groom -Loud Amen Cushion -Lousy Stinking Stanley -Mangerugg -Mold Certificate -Mittens Samdrags -M.L. Drinurne -The Mole Certificate -Mosie -Old Ben Spayed -Peoplepies -Piddlestick Guillotine -Pinkboy -Pin Cusser -PudGeist -Pulpy -Puppy Who Wounds -Rarespit -Regurgitotems -Rim and Dot Raisers -Roopy de Rupert -Rungs -Rim and Dot Raisers -Shithouse Papermaid -Silence Eater -Silverbean -Silver Stump -Sink Me Augustus -Slobberhouse Sock -Soakmadill -Sore Pony Lore -Spider Compass -Squire Marvin -Stan Cakes -Swearing Tar -Testecott -Temperance of the Flies -Threadhold -The Three Padded Brain -Thunder Sun Dung -Timber Amplifier -Tip The Scales My Wayne -Tisco Van -Top Knot Tom -Toothless And Twenty Four -Trusted Knuckleman -The Wells of Wallyton, VA. -Vests of Skin -Welcome To The Last Day On Earth -The Western Hand Builder -Woodpatty -William Silverstumps -Yacopper Neckashower -Yeast Scroll

comments and spam in MySpaceMusic

2008-02-14T04:43:00.005-06:00

MySpaceMusic is the networking community you need to be on if you're a musician, song writer, rock photographer, record label, net label, or any business serving the music industry.

You begin your community building by Friending other bands you like. Be sure to include local bands and venues. In Peoria, for example, it's smart to Friend the Peoria Pizza Works, The Meeting Place, Peoria Shows, and LiveMusicPeoria.

Friend all your favorite groups and musicians. Why? Because, if they accept your Friend Request, you are allowed "in". That means: you can post comments on their page and they can do so on yours. In other words, you suddenly have an effective way to communicate with them.

When you post a comment, say something nice and specific. Not just "Love your music, been a fan for years." That's too vague and generic. Say instead "Love your Rip It Off CD." or "I bought your first 3 albums as a teen back in the 1980s. Saw you in concert in Chicago, and it was me and my wife's first date."

Imagine the band reading your comment, and saying "Wow. That's cool." Maybe they'll quote your comment to their friends and record label executives. If you recently read a quote by them in Rolling Stone, comment on that. Think of some way to stand out and get noticed by the band.

If you get a lot of spam comments, you may want to use moderation with delayed posting. That means each comment has to be approved by you before it gets posted. If you don't have a big spam problem, you can just manually delete any spam that sneaks in.

If the band posted an image in your comment area, you can return the favor and put some cool art image in their comment area. The most welcome images are ones that are non-promotional, just abstract or weird. Images announcing new mp3s or CDs for sale or shows? These are generally not appreciated. You may even be scolded with "Use your own page for self-promotions, not my page."

When you get a Friend Request on MySpaceMusic, be very careful.

Spammers abound, and you don't want comment spammers loading your comment area with their links and images. Spam comments may link to malicious sites that will put spyware, viruses, Trojans or other malware on your computer and network.

Always click on the band or person's name and visit their page, before clicking Accept. Take a look around. After a while, you'll get a sense of what's a real band and what's a fake, meaning a page set up for spamming, that pretends to be a fan or a band.

There is one particular spammer on MySpaceMusic who uses a different name, but the page is always the same. You'll see a girl with a laptop, and the caption reads something like "Click link below to view my private sexy photos. They may be too hot for some to handle."

Microwave Windows is another spammer on MySpaceMusic.

When you visit some band sites on MySpaceMusic, you'll notice a lot of spam comments, full of links to stuff being sold, or big images containing hype for products, like ringtones or visitor trackers, often with Tom's face on it, in a pitiful attempt to look legitimate.

Pay attention to these spammers, what kind of fake avatars they use, what their names are. Often the avatar will be a guy playing a guitar, to simulate being a musician.

If a band has a lot of spam in their comments, it's probably because it's a fan site that's not monitored, or the band fails to check their page regularly, or the band members don't understand what comment spam is and how to avoid and delete it.

Remember: spam is not just annoying, it can also be very dangerous. Spam links may go to malicious sites that attach damaging code to your computer.

For example, there is malicious code that turns your computer into a "zombie" in a "botnet".

SANS Botnet whitepaper

http://www.sans.org/reading_room/
whitepapers/malicious/1299.php

It's called a zombie because it's doing things as if in a trance, without you being aware of it. Botnet means a network of robotic computers, all obeying the spam master.

In other words, your computer becomes transformed into a subservient machine that launches spam and virus attacks on other people.

Here's a botnet definition from SearchSecurity.

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/
sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci1030284,00.html

[QUOTE]

A botnet (also known as a zombie army) is a number of Internet computers that, although their owners are unaware of it, have been set up to forward transmissions (including spam or viruses) to other computers on the Internet.

Any such computer is referred to as a zombie - in effect, a computer "robot" or "bot" that serves the wishes of some master spam or virus originator. Most computers compromised in this way are home-based. According to a report from Russian-based Kaspersky Labs, botnets -- not spam, viruses, or worms -- currently pose the biggest threat to the Internet. A report from Symantec came to a similar conclusion.

Computers that are coopted to serve in a zombie army are often those whose owners fail to provide effective firewalls and other safeguards. An increasing number of home users have high speed connections for computers that may be inadequately protected.

A zombie or bot is often created through an Internet port that has been left open and through which a small Trojan horse program can be left for future activation. At a certain time, the zombie army "controller" can unleash the effects of the army by sending a single command, possibly from an Internet Relay Channel (IRC) site.

The computers that form a botnet can be programmed to redirect transmissions to a specific computer, such as a Web site that can be closed down by having to handle too much traffic - a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack - or, in the case of spam distribution, to many computers.

The motivation for a zombie master who creates a DDoS attack may be to cripple a competitor. The motivation for a zombie master sending spam is in the money to be made. Both of them rely on unprotected computers that can be turned into zombies.

[END QUOTE]

Keep these principles in mind, and you should have a very productive time interacting, promoting, and sharing with others on MySpaceMusic.

The Str8 Sounds

don't open Valentine ecards

2008-02-13T11:35:00.007-06:00

FBI Valentine Storm Worm Warning

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/
pressrel08/stormworm021208.htm

The FBI is warning us: DO NOT OPEN any Valentine's Day ecards. Or you may get a Storm Worm or other malware that will damage your computer or your company's network, turning them into zombie slaves for a malicious spammer botnet.

Ecards are cards that are "sent" via email, though you normally have to click on a link to visit a site to see the personal message "on" on the "card". This opens you up to computer viruses, spyware, or multi-payload Trojans.

If you must be old fashioned and use email, please disable HTML in your email client, and don't open any emails or attachments from strangers.

[QUOTE]

If you unexpectedly receive a Valentine’s Day e-card, be careful. It may not be from a secret admirer, but instead might contain the Storm Worm virus.

With the holiday approaching, be on the lookout for spam e-mails spreading the Storm Worm malicious software (malware). The e-mail directs the recipient to click on a link to retrieve the electronic greeting card (e-card).

Once the user clicks on the link, malware is downloaded to the Internet-connected device [PC, laptop, etc.] and causes it to become infected and part of the Storm Worm botnet. A botnet is a network of compromised machines under the control of a single user. Botnets are typically set up to facilitate criminal activity such as spam e-mail, identity theft, denial of service attacks, and spreading malware to other machines on the Internet.

[END QUOTE]

vampire blogs are back again

2008-02-12T18:27:00.000-06:00

Have you ever encountered a vampire blog ?

I mean the kind that sucks content out of your blog and spits into theirs, usually with no credit or link to you? This is plagiarism and content theft. You can't stop it, but you can foil it and mess with their heads really bad.

Here's how it happens.

Your blog is registered with Technorati. To find out what other blogs are linking to you, you and your readers can click on the Technorati link. Suddenly, at the Technorati site, you see weird blogs linking to you.

The blogs have low authority, and are obviously just RSS feeders. They are set up to automatically pull content from random blogs on a specific topic. The purpose of these vampire blogs is to draw visitors to their site, using your keyword-rich content, in hopes that the deceived visitors will click on some freaking ads!

I will give you a link to a vampire blog, but don't click on anything. It might attach spyware or viruses to your computer. Just look, don't touch anything!

Here you go: Online Music.

Why is this creepy, crappy website a Vampire Blog?

Because it has stolen my content, "7 tips on MySpaceMusic marketing", and plopped it into their blog. They are calling the author of my post "Zack Miller", rather than me. That's okay though. I have a way to deal with this.

I am going to do something that will cause them some problems.

materialist misconceptions of fortune

2008-02-12T03:34:00.000-06:00

Fortune. Fortunate. What comes to your mind when you hear these words?

Money? Physical possessions acting as status symbols? Then you're a mammonist, materialist, a money-worshipper / thing-accumulator. You are outward-directed, superficial, and entranced by the fleeting shadows of the klesas and aggregates.

Good health? Peace? Joy? Friendship? Self-fulfillment? Then you're an immaterialist, one who values intangibles, an advanced metaphysical being.

"Hey, Vaspers, if you're so smart, which we cannot deny, how come you don't live in Trump Towers?" a gentle reader recently asked me.

Do you think smart people all live in places like Trump Towers?

Do you think that the money a person has is a reliable determinant of the value of advice a person gives? Would you seek counsel from a slick talker in a $5,000 suit driving a Bentley, rather than a sincere and altruistic expert in khakis and a sweater, who rides a bicycle to work to stay in shape?

Sure, we don't seek experts in soup kitchens and cardboard shacks. But I also don't seek them in Trump Towers.

Those who exploit the downtrodden often like to make a vain show of their vehicles and homes, their gold and silver. Then let their material possessions be their security blankets, as immaterialists dive inside and touch the pulse of creation.

When Sean Hannity bragged insecurely about driving a Cadillac Escalade, as though that proved his ideology was more correct than Combs', I felt real sorry for Sean. Con artists also boast of their penthouses and fancy dames...until the law catches up to them.

Gambling casinos, prescription painkillers, and investment scams is how God takes money away from bad rich people, while making sure the poor devout (in deed, not doctrine) have every need met, and more.

Anyone who leans on the material realm for status, satisfaction, and serenity is sorely misguided. Because of this affliction, I'm afraid some might turn their noses up at my modest requirements.

No, I don't live in Trump Towers.

But remember the con artists who are financially successful at ripping people off. They like to live in such dwellings, for the ostentatious display and lavish lifestyle temporarily covers over the dying embers of guilt in their impoverished hearts.

Having all your real needs met, an ample supply of items geared to self-fulfillment endeavors (in my case, it's music and film), and a growing community of online and physical world friends.

These are the enduring and truly valuable fruits of correct living and proper ideology.

7 tips on MySpaceMusic marketing

2008-02-11T18:36:00.000-06:00

MySpaceMusic is where you need to be if you're a musician or have a band.

This is the primary networking and promotional website for all kinds of music and music-related products, like record labels, DJs, etc. You can jump in ignorantly, make a fool of yourself, and alienate all your potential mentors and fans, or you can be smart.

Here are 7 tips on how to successfully market your music on MySpaceMusic.

(1) Avatar: MySpaceMusicSelect an image that conveys what style your music is, and add your band name to it.

Rock bands can show an electric guitar, folk bands an acoustic guitar, jazz bands a saxophone, blues bands a harmonica, techno bands a synthesizer. Or, more abstractly, an electronic band might use a science fiction image, while a country band might use a farm house.

Add your name or band name to the image, for quicker recognition, and for those sites that use background colors that obliterate the text (in this case, the name that appears right on top of your avatar.)

(2) Download Speed: Keep your MySpaceMusic page simple and fast downloading.

When a page takes over 10 seconds to load, I bail out and move on to another band. Keep your images optimized for web display, which means a small file size and a small display size. This is not an art gallery.

People arrive at your page to listen your music, and maybe learn a little about you -- but not to view huge splashy artwork that often makes no sense. Clutter is always bad for any website.

Display a few show posters announcing where you have performed recently. Show some CD covers or other associated artwork. But don't go crazy with all the big boring posters.

(3) Music Player: 6 songs (max. allowed), automatic play your best song, enable downloads, comments, and lyrics.

You surely have 6 songs you can share with the fans, right? The maximum number of songs you can put on a MySpaceMusic player is 6, so fill it up.

If I have to explain, again, why you must enable free downloads of your music, I'm going to go nuts. Free produces paid.

Unless you're a famous musician, you need tons of exposure. Free music downloads will get your music out there, in iPods and burned to CDs. Hook them with the free songs, so they'll come back and want more, at any reasonable price. Appeal to the collector mentality fans.

Automatic playing of music on a website sucks...unless it's MySpaceMusic. This is the one exception that I know of: fans expect a band's page to automatically play music. They may be zipping through band pages, and if they don't hear any music coming from your page, that means they have to click Play. But they'll probably just click to the next band.

A music player that doesn't automatically play a song---seems----dead.

Configure your music player to play your best song, not a randomized selection from your 6 song playlist. That way every new visitor will hear your best song, and your total hits for that best song will accumulate rapidly.

Create a special image for each song in your music player, or show the cover of the CD that the song is found on. The title of the song should be worked into the image.

(4) Bio/About: If your band has a history that fans will find interesting, provide it. If not, be silly.

It's boring to read lengthy press release type hype. Keep your Bio/About brief and be comical about it if you can. An anti-bio can work in music marketing, not being rude, but enigmatic, playful, or offbeat.

My critically unacclaimed "Winning Through Self-Loathing" methodology works here as it does everywhere: put yourself down, be confusing, deride and demote yourself, think Dethronement at all times.

Librarians band provides a good example of this, read the disparaging remarks they quote as negative testimonials in their About Librarians section.

[QUOTE]

Is this a joke? Imagine Gary Numan fronting Les Savy Fav. These guys did, and still it didn’t put them off making this plodding, lifeless bore.

-Harp Magazine

I listened to this while eating my dinner of eating pizza and drinking root beer. All I heard was some really annoying guitar.

-Dagger

[END QUOTE]

(5) Changing Songs: Should you juggle your songs around, changing the order, or replacing songs?

This is an unresolved question. I honestly am not sure about this.

I have changed my songs, deleting and adding and changing their order, and this may be a good strategy. If you have created some new songs, by all means put them up there, but leave one or two classics and let them accumulate hits long-term. That's my best advice for now.

I have added a Ning player to my page, so this provides my fans with around 50 extra songs to play and download free. I have never seen anyone else do this, although I see a lot of SnoCap paid download widgets. I'm opposed to paid mp3 downloads, for strategic reasons, so I don't use these widgets.

(6) Friends Requests: Find similar bands, avoid the spammer requests.

Don't automatically accept any Friends Requests. Go to their page and see if they're a real band, or just a spammer using a musical name and avatar to trick you. MySpaceMusic spam often consists of shitty ringtone ads, dating service ads, and such.

You can Edit Comments, so delete the spam comments, or, if you get a lot of spam, configure your settings so all comments are moderated and need approval prior to posting them.

Go to the MySpaceMusic pages of bands you like, or bands that are similar to your music. Click on Add as Friend, and also check out their Friends, many of whom may be similar to your music. You may discover some cool bands who are Friends of a band you already like.

(7) Posting Comments: Be careful! Use restraint!

Some bands disable HTML so you can't post any images or ads on their comments area.

Others allow cool abstract or surreal art, but no self-promotional ads or links.

Basic rule of thumb: if a band posted an image on your comments area, you can probably post an image on theirs. But for crying out loud, don't post huge sprawling images. What's the point? That's a stupid attempt to get attention.

Get attention by saying nice, specific things about the band. Tell them how long you've been a fan, which album or song is your favorite, how they have influenced or inspired you, things like that.

Don't say stupid hype stuff like "I added a new song. Check out my player!" or "Watch my new video and let me know what you think!" That type of comment just makes you look opportunistic and pathetic.

Don't use the other bands' MySpaceMusic pages to promote your music. Just post a nice remark or question or praise, and let that carry the weight of promotion. If your comment is intelligent and interesting, they and their fans may visit your page.

TECHNICAL PROBLEMS:

MySpaceMusic has down times, when the music player doesn't play, which often coincides with the profile editor acting screwy.

I've deleted about 5 photos tonight, vainly trying to eliminate some broken image code that renders as text. For some reason, when I delete an image, some of the code remains, which looks stupid. I'll have to wait until it's not so buggy, and try it again.

LEADING AUTHORITY:

Google "myspacemusic marketing" and this post you're reading right now comes up first. In the top 20 search results, you'll see about 8 or 12 posts by Vaspers or Str8 Sounds. I am the leading authority on both "blogocombat" and "myspacemusic marketing", according to Google.

The Str8 Sounds

guide to online trolls

2008-02-11T10:04:00.000-06:00

Jen Christensen has a post about Cyber Bullying on her blog.

http://newsanchormom.blogspot.com/
2008/02/cyber-bullying.html

One commenter, Girl Bleeder, said she avoids the whole issue by not allowing her child to have a MySpace account. I posted my opinion on Jen's and Girl Bleeder's blogs.

(EDIT UPDATE: Jen apparently deleted Girl Bleeder's comment, and Girl Bleeder deleted my comment on her blog, in which I challenged two of her statements in the comment that was deleted. Confused? Welcome to the fast paced rough and tumble world of blogocombat!)

The gist of my comment is that parents must research and teach their children how to deal with cyber-bullies, also known as trolls: cowards who try to stir up trouble on a blog or other online forum.

Cyber-bullies and trolls are misanthropes. They hate people, especially those people who disagree with them.

They're trying to hurt others in a sadistic manner, by posting hateful comments. They also, and many bloggers forget this vital aspect, are trying to use your blog as a free advertising billboard for their crazy ideas and stupid ideologies.

Eventually your child is going to have a blog, so you might as well help them learn how to prevent comment spam, how to make good wholesome friends online, and how to deal with cyber-bullies.

The best explanation of the various types of cyber-bully/troll attacks is the Matrix Guide to Online Trolls.

http://forums.station.sony.com/
mxo/posts/list.m?topic_id=12200012985

This issue of cyber-bullies, online stalkers, and trolls is a life or death topic, for there have been children who committed suicide due to extreme, relentless cyber bullying.

My blog, Vaspers the Grate, contains many posts on blogocombat, how to handle online debates, which is the broader catergory that cyber bullying falls into. Read, learn, and teach your children well.

martin kippenberger: more art is better than less

2008-02-10T21:19:00.000-06:00

Less really is less, not more. More is better than less, because there's more of it.

This seems to be the ideology of avant garde artist provocateur Marting Kippenberger, whose selected musical output ("Martin Kippenberger's Greatest Hits") is now available on Ubu Web.

http://www.ubu.com/sound/kippenberger.html

"Psychobuildings"
http://www.postmedia.net/
kippenberger/psychobuildings.htm

Here are some juicy quotes from "Albert Oehlen Speaks About Martin Kippenberger" on Postmedia.

MARTIN KIPPENBERGER (1953 - 2007)

"He's an extremely good businessman but his business is making art. He doesn't make it as business, business for him is to make as much as possible. And money as much as possible too, but it doesn't have the logic of making money it has the logic of making art. This logic is making more is better than making less."

My way of saying this is that I believe and live Infinite Creativity. The prolific artist is better than the slow, low-productivity artist, most of whom are approval addicts who fear putting very much work "out there" for criticism and debate. More is more and better. The more you produce, the better your chance that something will resonate with others. The less you produce, the fewer items you have to choose from.

Making a lot of something quickly...well, that's what corporations want from workers anyway, right? Same with the consumer. If they love your music, for example, they'll demand more, and you need to accommodate them and lavish it outward to meet their craven, misguided needs.

"He doesn't think that life is art and everything he puts out is good. He really works on it but he works so extremely much that it looks like everything is art. His selection process is 100 times greater than other people's. He can do it because that's what he's doing all day long, he's collecting all day long."

I relate to this. I spend almost all my waking hours working on music, art, or blogs. I don't want to stop making music, promoting it, creating CD art and posters, and listening to music and anti-music from my peers on MySpaceMusic, a network that enables me to converse casually with accomplished bands who might be able to enjoy (doubtful!) or even help (why should they though?) my own music.

"Very often, Kippenberger makes an exhibition just as a reason to make an invitation card or poster."

Again, I have created a CD of music, primarily to accompany the CD art, rather than the art serving the sounds.

"The important thing about Kippenberger is that his attentions are two lines, parallel lines.

The one thing is that he is trying to entertain people and trying to shock people, all his work is that.

He wants to really invent and with every piece to make something new and to be real avant-garde. All day long and with all of his heart he really does believe in nothing else but in art. He doesn't define it, his father was an artist, he is an artist and his friends are artists.

I think he never asked himself why because he has no choice, he is an artist. He's very, I wouldn't say naive, but it's absolutely clear, there's no question about it. Other artists maybe ask themselves if art is finished or they are finished. He never asks himself that.

As a motive for modem art he thought that social life could be motive enough...."

The artist in any field, from music and painting to mothering and welding, loves what they do so much, they don't care who complains enviously, or who mocks their style and devotion. They keep smiling, casting cares to the wind, and pumping out tons and tons of words, colors, sounds, shapes, and sensations.

Praise merely seems like stating the obvious.

Condemnation is just a fart in the wind.

The true artist doesn't create for the approval of others. Nor does he do it to piss anyone off. He does it because it feels good to create and he feels compelled to outdo his past creations.

"Kippenberger is never in danger of looking for a theory about his doings. He never thinks about what he's doing there — he's thinking about how to do it better or stronger or more."

Better. Stronger. More.

That's a great tagline slogan for any business or artist.

If you make high quality, entertaining, effective products/works, your hardcore cultish fans and customers will be insatiable. Even when you run out of imagination and start repeating yourself, there will be collector mentality types who can never get enough.

contacting and befriending famous people

2008-02-06T23:54:00.000-06:00

I enjoy contributing usability analysis, socnet marketing, and web content tips to various CEOs, business publications, and universities. When a magazine publishes your article, or a blog publishes an article about you with a link to your blog, you are providing intellectual property to them.

You want to spread your ideas and your reputation to the people who care and are major influencers.

Tom Peters is the #1 management guru.

In respect of that fact, I buy and devour his books. He is a radical Business As Bizarre pundit that most of the giant corporations love to hire and listen to. I posted some nice comments on his blog, had an email conversation with his office, and suddenly Tom mails me a free copy of his book Talent.

This is how it works in the blogosphere today.

I give just one example, for I promised The Tinbasher "no more name dropping". But see, I have so many names to drop, and they all like me! Aren't you happy to know that? Happy for me, I mean?

My point is that we are in an ideological swamp that's upside down and inside out...when we're online. The rules and norms are all topsy turvy. You get rich by sharing freely and giving things away. You make money by avoiding ads and commercials, replacing them with infotainment, inspiration, and controversy.

Information of all kinds are mostly free. Much music is free and legally downloadable. Same with open source software, CMS, and many web technology tools like Twitter, Ning, and YouTube.

Behold: in a distinctly non-capitalistic manner, much of my information and practice are derived from freely distributed professional essays and manifestos. I will now mention just a few of these sources.

My web usability friends at Microsoft have given me insights on how to conduct usability tests on APIs (application program interface) for software products. My pals at SourceForge discussion lists freely help me understand how to use my free Audacity online music recording and production studio.

Through MySpaceMusic, I'm making personal contact with actual musicians and bands that I've admired from afar for many years. I don't mean just a Friend Acceptance and an avatar to display in your Top 40 display.

I mean real, intimate conversations with avant garde composers, art rock bands, and experimental music geniuses. We compare ideas, compliment each other, discuss collaborations, invite each other to appear on streaming event webcasts and live performances, and purchase CDs from each other.

In just 30 days, I acquired over 2,700 profile views (people checking out my music page) and 1,000 fans of my music, mostly other musicians, indie record labels, and bands. Where else can a relatively obscure, underground band like The Str8 Sounds attract so many thousands in a single month?

Each of these bands had to Accept my Friend Request, and in doing so, they can visit my page and my music automatically plays when they arrive, so my music and lyrics must have appealed in some small and pathetic way to these poor misguided seekers of something to listen to besides the antiquated radio. Musicians hunger for new music by others just as much as fans do!

I have also received over 150 comments directly posted by these musicians I admire. So the interaction and community building of MySpaceMusic is truly remarkable and fast-spreading.

Prior to the blogosphere, you had almost no luck contacting and conversing with famous musicians, artists, and entrepreneurs. Now I am on personal terms with about 50% of my gurus, mentors, and role models of the past, in a variety of fields.

This is truly exciting, and it's not me alone with the power to perform this cyber-philic auto-magical feat. Anyone can do it. It's the first phase of universal compu-telepathy.

7 keys to successful blogging

2008-02-06T10:34:00.002-06:00

Don't let anybody tell you that blogging is a burden. While business blogging can involve a lot of work, it can also be fulfilling.

Here are two blogs by clients, and they're having fun as they benefit their readers: News Anchor Mom and Naturally Yours.

7 keys to successful blogging:

1. A goal for your blog.

Why are you blogging?

To educate? inspire? argue? stir controversy? provoke dissent? provide a new view? attract new clients? inform customers? announce news items and special deals? interact with fans? drive traffic to an ecommerce website? meet others who share your interests?

2. An intended and gradually assembled online community or audience.

You can't sit around waiting for them to arrive. Go become known on high traffic blogs relevant to your topic, by posting comments on them. Smart contributions to their conversations can cause others to check out your blog.

3. A sincere passion for a topic or activity.

This is the leading motivation, but you also need to incorporate the other core values of blogging: Transparency, Authenticity, Integrity, Honesty, Individuality, Audacity, Interactivity, and Creativity.

4. A love of self-expression, sharing, and occasional, sometimes heated, debate.

To express self is to share your feelings, insights, experience, and talents with others. To express truth is to share your insights and experiences with others.

Either way, you're eventually going to rock a boat that doesn't want to admit it's sinking. You're going to meet opposition to some idea or opinion or work of art or photo you display on your blog. Somebody's going to not like your video or your music. Some will have no need for your product or expertise.

So what? Keep at it, for the future of steadfast blogging is bright indeed!

5. A zeal to provide benefit: to help, instruct or entertain others.

This includes reading, and posting comments at, other blogs -- not just posting articles on your own blog.

6. A strong will to triumph

Including a tough mental hide that can take the trolling arrows that greet all pioneers and innovators. Many new bloggers quit because they don't like negative comments. Use comment moderation to filter out abusive trolls and spam comments.

Posting comments that are critical of you is a good idea, especially if you reply in a kind and receptive manner, when appropriate. Take the moral high ground. Don't be nasty in return.

7. The gift of stubborn and indomitable persistence.

Which means you don't quit blogging just because of destructive critique, lack of comments, or a lack of traffic and links.

deeper secrets of blogocombat 2

2008-02-06T06:02:00.000-06:00

As we examine the Deeper Secrets of Blogocombat, we must pause to reflect on lurkers. People who read your blog, but never post a comment are called "lurkers". This is not a derogatory term. Lurkers can be your strongest allies.

Lurker allies are happy to see you accomplish something, and are amused when trolls falsely accuse you. Lurkers may not interact with your blog, but they support you, perhaps in offline venues or on their own blog.

I often receive emails from lurkers who are very dear friends and colleagues. "I've been visiting clandestinely..." they'll say. They observe any debate or attacks with a big smile on their face, knowing you better than the flamers and anonymous trolls do. They've seen you crush trolls on TechCrunch or Twitter, so the whole affair is a source of great entertainment to them.

Lurkers represent about 99% of all web users. Less than 2% of those who visit websites ever contribute any content to the web, like a comment on your blog. There are many reasons why someone would not post comments.

Never blame yourself for a slow down or lack of comments.

Most people are too busy to post a comment. Others are shy. Some think they have nothing to add to the conversation, you're handling it so well. Many web users are not comfortable debating online, for the whole world to see. They're afraid of appearing stupid, saying something that's easy for bullies to attack, and may also be afraid of drawing trolls to their own blog.

Just keep being yourself and accommodating the suspected or known needs of your audience. How can you know the needs of your readers? Well, ha ha, comments from them is a big help. Also emails. But you can also research the users of your products, the fans of your type of music, or the actual visitors to your blog.

Check your site stats. Look at the referral logs. What websites are people coming from when they arrive at your blog? Go to those sites. Post comments at those other blogs that are the stepping stones to your own.

When I first started blogging, Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress, in a private email to me (did I mention that all the A Listers love me?), said the biggest key to blogging success is interacting with others in the blogosphere, your fellow bloggers.

What are the needs of your actual or intended readers?

Blog about things they need to know about or enjoy learning about. Share your secrets and proven methods of doing whatever you do. You blog, hopefully, not just to "express" yourself, but to also benefit others.

Benefit your lurkers, interact quickly and politely with your comment posters (but not the anonymous ones, whose comments you must delete and never publish), and visit the blogs from which your traffic is coming.

Many bloggers focus too much on what they have to say. You won't build traffic that way. You must also devote time and effort reading and posting comments on relevant or friendly blogs. Your most important writing is what you contribute to the conversation at other blogs, not your own posts.

By contributing free user-generated content to other blogs, you will gain a reputation of being a good neighbor in the rough and tumble world of the blogosphere. But if you just feel like lurking, that's good too. You're providing hits to their visitor counter!

deeper secrets of blogocombat 1

2008-02-05T22:31:00.000-06:00

Some people create.

Others wish they could create, but cannot, and may decide to criticize instead. Your attackers are your backers. Destructive criticism is the best kind to encourage. You must do and say certain things to attract the right type of adversary.

People who have tried and failed, and given up completely, are the best reviewers of your productions. They are full of envy and hate, which combine to fuel a splendid spew. The venom they unleash against you will provide you with the ultimate test: "What's the worst thing a jealous opponent could say about this?"

Often, this negative assessment is slow in coming. But once it arrives, as the adversary gathers the gusto to let off some steam against you, you then behold the beautiful view: the ugly side of their anger unveils a minor glitch you can abruptly correct, or a tiny flaw you can joyfully fix.

You must learn to ignore all praise and concentrate instead upon the heroic attempts of your foes in their valiant and super-manly efforts to hurt, mock, and discourage you.

Only insecure people wish for applause and good reviews in the media. These wretches are known in psychiatric circles as selfless patients and approval addicts. True creatives just keep producing, some good, some bad, always moving forward, making mistakes and unveiling masterpieces, like my techno songs.

The true artist and technician share this glaring pinnacle: the heights of greatness are achieved by stepping on the mouthy heads of your enemies, and NOT by leapfrogging from friend to friend.

You get nowhere basking in complimentary remarks and constructive criticism that softens and adulterates the painful truth about the barely visible blemish in your self-portraiture, or the unnoticed weakness of a small, nearly insignificant element of your total spearheading of new truth and action.

If you've never been trolled, flamed, or comment spammed, you're no blogger. You live in an imaginary Disneyland where everybody's nice and tolerant and happy to see others succeed.

The real world is full of monsters-in-training who triangulate their own demise. But we must lure them to us and use them to get an honorable, hatefully honest rebuke and dismissal. This is how we gain renewed combat energy and social light, and this is how we use our enemy's spite and loathing to polish our circular saws and sublime swordings.

-(+)-

Sources Quoting Steven Streight

2008-02-05T11:59:00.000-06:00

I am a web technology professional.

I was a direct marketing copywriter and marketing consultant from 1978 to 1999. During that time, I held positions as account representative, copywriter, senior copywriter, and PR/Copy Director.

I have held staff positions at Grey Advertising (NYC), Scholastic Inc., Garden Way Manufacturing (Troy-Bilt), Wall Street Transcript Corporation, Peoria Journal Star Publications, and Ruppman Marketing Technologies (now Affina).

Accomplishments include: a 9 page ad in Organic Gardening that, in just one month, sold $1 million worth of Troy-Bilt tillers for Garden Way Manufacturing ... and a direct mail promotion for General Motors, mailed to unreceptive owners of competing automobiles, that successfully converted a large number of Ford vehicle owners to GM vehicle owners.

Clients and accounts have included:

- U.S. Department of Defense (Military Nursing Program)

- General Motors

- American Express

- Caterpillar Inc.

- Doubleday Book Club

- Pepsi

- American Banker

- Money Manager Previews

- Diplomatic World Bulletin

- Chemical Bank

- Governor Mario Cuomo's Loaned Executive Program

- Ensemble for Viennese Music

- U.S. Mint.

I switched over to ecommerce and web analysis in 2000. I now specialize in:

- Digital Branding

- Online Music Marketing

- Social Media Marketing

- Web Usability Analysis

- Web Content Writing

- CEO Blogging

- Ecommerce Applications

SOURCES QUOTING ME

Steven E. Streight aka Vaspers, web analyst and content writer, has been quoted in the following books, publications, and blogs:

Naked Conversations:
How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers

by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel (John Wiley & Sons, 2006)

http://tinyurl.com/32hf29

Shel Israel
Global Neighborhoods

"Vaspers Pulls Some Quotes"
http://redcouch.typepad.com/

weblog/2006/01/vaspers_pulls_s.html

Iowa State University
Technical Communications Eserver Library
http://tc.eserver.org/tc.lasso?
c1=author&-op=cn&cat=steven+streight

US News & World Report

50 Ways to Improve Your Life:
“Start Your Own Blog”

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/
health/articles/061217/25blog.mind.htm

BusinessWeek Blogspotting
“The Importance of Taglines”

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/
blogspotting/archives/2005/05/
the_importance.html

BusinessWeek Blogspotting
“The blogosphere is not credible?”

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/
blogspotting/archives/2006/07/
the_blogosphere_1.html

InterBusiness Issues / Peoria Magazines (Nov. 2007)
"Business Blogs as Marketing Tools"

http://www.peoriamagazines.com/ibi/
2007/nov/business-blogs-marketing-tools

InterBusiness Issues / Peoria Magazines (Oct. 2007)
"Social Networking Tips for Business"

http://www.peoriamagazines.com/ibi
/2007/oct/social-networking-tips-for-businesses

Blog Marketing by Jeremy Wright (McGraw-Hill, 2005)

http://tinyurl.com/35gxny

Society for Technical Communication
Usability Interface Newsletter Online

“User Observation Testing: Forms & Procedures”

http://www.stcsig.org/usability/
newsletter/0408-user-observation.html

Jason Calacanis
Entrepreneur in Action at Sequoia Capital, co-founder of Weblogs, Inc., and GM of Netscape.

"Feedback on My Linkbaiting Rules"

http://www.calacanis.com/2007/04/
27/feedback-on-my-link-baiting-rules/

"#2: Vaspers the Grate--a blog I read all the time--also has some really interesting thoughts on linkbaiting." - Jason Calacanis

CEO Blog – Time Leadership
Jim Estill, CEO, Synnex Canada ($3 billion company)

“CEO Blogs and CEO Blogging”

http://www.jimestill.com/2006/
08/ceo-blogs-and-ceo-blogging.html

Doc Searls Weblog (pioneer tech blogger)

“Where 0.1”

http://doc.weblogs.com/
2007/01/20#where01

“All the news that’s fit to annotate”

http://doc.weblogs.com/2005/05/
30#allTheNewsThatsFitToAnnotate

John C. Dvorak

(PC Magazine, CBS MarketWatch, Dvorak Uncensored)

“Wall Street Journal Still in the Dark About Blogs”

http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=1775

Consumer Reports WebWatch

Websites that are pledged to uphold credibility guidelines.

Listed as Streight Site Systems.

http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/
praise-worthy.cfm#s

Evan Williams (EvHead, Blogger, Odeo, Twitter)

"Measuring Blog Impact”

http://evhead.com/2005/
05/measuring-blog-impact.asp

Darren Rowse (Pro Blogger)

”Writing Effective Post Titles”

http://www.problogger.net/archives/
2005/05/25/writing-effective-blog-post-titles

Nubby Twiglet: Art-Official Intelligence

"Silliness, Taglines, and a Mini-Vacation..."
http://nubbytwiglet.com/blog/?p=133

Kami Huyse
Communication Overtones

"Blogging Metric: Professional Growth"

http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/2006/
01/blogging-metric-professional-growth.html

Katherine Stone (Decent Marketing)

"Don’t Worry, Be Crappy?"

http://decentmarketing.typepad.com/
weblog/2005/02/dont_worry_be_c.html

Dave Taylor (Intuitive Life Business Blog)

”What makes a successful blog?”

http://www.intuitive.com/blog/
what_makes_a_successful_blog.html

Satish Talim

(Appliblog: Applied Software & Technology)

”8 ways to decide what to blog about next”

http://personalwebsiteblog.blogspot.com/
2005/05/8-ways-to-decide-what-
to-blog-about.html

Jennifer Rice (What's Your Brand Mantra)

”Not Worthy”

http://brand.blogs.com/mantra/
2005/03/not_worthy.html

T. David
Make You Go Hmmm

"The FTC and somebody please give me something positive to write about Sony"

http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20061213/4045/

Liam Cassidy, Owner, LICAS Digital
Software + You

"Vaspers the Grate"

http://blog.licasdigital.com/
2007/04/vaspers_the_gra.html

Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Leveraged Word
Sphinn: Internet Marketing News and Discussion Forums

"Vaspers the Grate on Learning Social Media Culture"

http://sphinn.com/story/6483

Debbie Weil (BlogWrite for CEOs)

”What makes a successful blog?”

http://blogwrite.blogs.com/blogwrite/
2005/02/what_makes_a_su.html

Blog Personality Parade

2008-02-04T19:04:00.000-06:00

Guy Kawasaki tweeted something on Twitter today that sparked my brain. I was looking for a topic to blog about, and I dreaded doing yet another rant on how the blogosphere does have values, ethics, and standards for being effective and trustworthy.

His request was: "Please send me your list of 'big personalities' who have blogs. Eg, Scoble, Winer, Godin, Cuban, Calacanis, etc."

Here is my quickly formulated list of blog personalities on parade: the ones I particularly like and from which I learn a lot.

This is an especially significant action for me to take. See, I've been absent from the mainline blogosphere for about a year, all wrapped up in Twitter/Pownce/Jaiku, and most recently, MySpaceMusic. I mean, I have continued to blog here, but have reduced to near zero my reading of other blogs and posting comments on them.

So I'm reaching back into my early days of blogging about 6 years ago, and revisiting my beloved mentors, colleagues, and allies.

Please don't feel slighted if I didn't mention your blog, I can't list every single blog I've ever read and been impressed by. Not in this post anyway.

If I forgot you, just write an angry belittling post about my ignorant negligence and link to me. Then I'll go to your post and apologize and people will think they've witnessed some rough and tumble blogocombat. Cheap entertainment, eh?

Here are some of the most distinct and interesting "blog personalities" that I enjoy, most are well known, a few are more obscure.

Blog Personality Parade

Seth Godin
sethgodin.typepad.com

Laura Ries
ries.typepad.com

Paul Woodhouse
www.butlersheetmetal.com/
tinbasherblog

Robert Scoble
www.scobleizer.com

Doc Searls
doc.weblogs.com

Joel Spolsky
www.joelonsoftware.com

Heather Green
www.businessweek.com/
the_thread/blogspotting

Shel Israel
redcouch.typepad.com/weblog

Roblimo Miller
www.roblimo.com

Dave Weinberger
hyperorg.com

John Hagel III
edgeperspectives.typepad.com

CK
www.ck-blog.com

Liz Strauss
www.successful-blog.com

Richard Edelman
www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog

Jason Calacanis
www.calacanis.com

Ivan Pope
blog.ivanpope.com

Loren Feldman
www.1938media.com

Jim Estill
www.jimestill.com

John Battelle
battellemedia.com

Steve Hall
www.adrants.com

Jeffrey Zeldman
www.zeldman.com

Evan Williams
www.evhead.com

Dean Esmay
www.deanesmay.com

John Maeda
weblogs.media.mit.edu/SIMPLICITY

Hugh McLeod
www.gapingvoid.com

Guy Kawasaki
blog.guykawasaki.com

Debbie Weil
www.BlogWriteForCEOs.com

Bill Dennis
peoriapundit.com/blogpeoria

Jen Christensen
www.newsanchormom.com

real estate and mortgage blogs

2008-01-31T16:50:00.000-06:00

Sub prime corporate crime. The mortgage meltdown. Housing lending crisis. It's a bleak and confusing scene, this real estate and mortgage industry, right now.

Could it be a good time to check out some blogs in this topic area?

I was doing some research for a client, and thought you'd like seeing a list of real estate and mortgage blogs. I don't know how good they are, but they might shed some light on a few things for you, and they seemed like good examples of people blogging in this realm.

Carol's Mortgage Blog
http://carolmortgage.blogspot.com

Inman Blog
http://blog.inman.com/

The Mortgage Skinny
http://www.themortgageskinny.com

Mike's Mortgage Minute
http://www.patagoniafinance.com/mikesmortgageminute.html

Curbed
http://curbed.com/

Rotten Lying Sleazy Realtors
http://rottenlyingsleazyrealtors.com/

Sound Bite Blog
http://soundbiteblog.com

Rain City Guide
http://www.raincityguide.com/

Mortgage Matters
http://www.bankrate.com/nytmarket/news/mortgages/mortgage_update.asp

HOME STAGING, Rants and Ravings
http://realestaging.blogspot.com/

The Mortgage Porter
http://www.mortgageporter.com/

360 Digest
http://www.360digest.com/

The Mortgage Reports
http://www.themortgagereports.com/

Smart Mortgage Advice
http://smartmortgageadvice.wordpress.com/

WSJ Real Estate Journal
http://www.realestatejournal.com/

Real Estate Undressed
http://www.realestateundressed.com/

Let me know what you think. Thanks.

blogocombat vs. email combat

2008-01-25T12:09:00.000-06:00

Many times a century, I have tons of people, well, several people, two or three at least, who ask me:

"What's up Vaspers? Why don't you engage in angry email exchanges with those who oppose your ideology or aesthetic theories?"

You can debate people on your own blog, and if the argument seems to go on too long, without adding anything to the core topics of your blog, you can just Delete the entire conversation, like it never happened. There's nothing "sacred" about a blog post or comment. You don't need some obsessive "record" of what you said, and what a troll said, anyway.

Remember: trolls use your blog as a preaching pulpit, to advance their ideas or feelings. Their anonymous comments relieve them, they assume, of any accountability for their statements. Hit and run. Post a comment, then run away like a little sissy boy.

If you don't respond directly to their flames, they'll get really frustrated, and might start sending you emails. That's exactly what you want to lure them into doing, but more on this later. First, you have to understand it's not about winning or losing an argument. It's about the trolls need to attack others, so as to feel better about their own unfortunate suffering and self-inflicted miseries.

Trolls aren't trying to win an argument. They're just bored. Trolls find it fun, and un-threatening to them, to flame other people online, anonymously. Trolls never have their own blog, because they're approval addicts who can't handle any critique of their ideology or tastes.

So forget about winning and losing debates.

Focus, instead, on how their silly comments either do or do not contribute to the core conversation. If other blog readers can benefit from reading the volleys and parries, fine. If it's just the childish remarks of a player-hater, you may decide to force the troll to find some other safe, non-threatening forum for them to *anonymously* express themselves in.

Email is different.

Email can be Forwarded to a troll's employer and that usually ends the whole battle. That's why I advise you to lure them into emailing you. One way to do this is to post their flaming remarks, but not respond to them personally, even when you know who they really are. Just post their comments for a while, and aside from one or two brief statements, avoid getting tangled in long explanations or clarifications.

Here's why the email trap is so effective. If you can get them to email you, especially at your work email address, you'll gain a serious advantage.

Employers frown upon employees, even in their private off-hours time, stalking people in emails, and making insipid accusations, obviously trying to stir up trouble. It's generally not tolerated, and can be grounds for reprimands, demotion, and even termination of employment. Neat, huh?

See? Email combat is too problematic. Angry email exchanges often backfire, and you see your "private" email messages plastered all over the place, and there's nothing you can do about it. Because email is NOT a private communication channel, as some mistakenly believe.

Corporations routinely monitor and read employee emails, so if you send one to someone where they work, you've done a double screw-up. Never answer any emails from trolls who are trying to pick or continue fights. Just speak, if you wish, in general terms about the troll's stalking patterns.

There is a blogospheric forensics that can identify who posted a comment on your blog, but email forensics are even easier. The sender often uses a real email address that can be traced to their business or home address.

Thus, if you avoid email combat, you will not have such problems. Do your discussions on your personal blog, which is under your editorial control. If the cowardly anonymous trolls bitch about "deleting posts" and "losing" an argument, let them.

They're just angry that they don't have your blog to use anymore as their timid little forum. Pray for your enemies and do good to those who can't figure out how to push your buttons or guilt-trip you, for their little troll-mongering lives are not so perfect or exciting, eh? LOL

in Dell hell: blogs and bad buzz

2008-01-25T09:44:00.001-06:00

I subscribe to comments for some blog posts. Here's a comment recently posted on my old Twitter buddy Aaron Brazell's Technosailor blog. The post is "From Hell to Heaven", in which Dell is praised for doing some good PR moves.

Notice how raw, authentic, and frustrated the customer is. Can your business afford to have negative buzz in the blogosphere, which is rapidly becoming the P2P (peer-to-peer), i.e., non-commercial arena of inquiry, opinion, and shopping advice.

Your customers still listen to word of mouth, and they still check the Yellow Pages. But more and more are turning to online forums, micro-blog chat channels (Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, etc.), and blogs for user reports and customer reviews, debates, and complaints.

People are getting pretty good at discerning false WOM (word of mouth), incentivized comments, and company spokespersons pretending to be real, honest customers raving about a product.

Does your company offend customers as this person claims was done?

[QUOTE]

I bought a Dell today and the hard drive failed on the first boot up. Called there tech support and got a person that only gave canned responces. After 30 min. on the phone the guy tell me he could not help me and gave me another number to call . I called and they said it was maybe the hard drive. I needed to buy a hard drive and have it there when the tech got to my home.

I told them I just bought the Dell to hours ago many times. After repeating myself 5 times they said I need to return it to Best Buy were I bought it and go right to the geek squad desk for repair.

Hell I bought a new machine and you would think it would at least boot one time.

After that I got on there chat and was told more or less the same thing. I told the chat guy it was their problem and not Best Buy's. I was told that Best Buys told me about a contract between the two about tech support.

My only comment was, and I repeated myself, was I bought a Dell new and they need to replace it or come to my h!ouse and fix it free, since I would have to drive over a hundred miles for repair......

Tim from Ohio
In Dell Hell

[END QUOTE]

THE SOLUTION? ...

Not counteracting the negative publicity with some "viral" campaign about how great your prices, quality, and service are.

RATHER: Change the reality of how crappy you treat people, become benevolent and truly care. Prove your corporate fluff hype PR -- and practice what you insolently preach.

Treat customers right, and the blogosphere will sing your praises.

Treat them poorly, and you'll have only yourself to blame for the decline in business, due to trash-talking pajama-clad New Super Bloggers. You know, the kind that have many blogs and many chat channels and many large audiences in a variety of niches and modes.

How to get better results from your website

2008-01-22T14:11:00.000-06:00

NOTE: Do not be shocked, you worthless trolls, if you see me post a "substantial post" here, while I'm at the office, during [gasp!!!!] Work Hours.

This is simply a quick Copy and Paste job.

I wrote this for my employer's News on his website, and now I throw it up on my "personal" blog, that I "play with", at unexpected hours.

A website should be a living, dynamic, interactive entity. Not a static object that sits there as a mere "web presence".

"Should"? We mean: this is what your customers are demanding. People want all the information they need to solve a problem, or choose a product to enjoy.

What visual impact does your current website have? Does it scream "amateur"? Or sing "classy!" ... ?

Does it look abandoned, dated, half-hearted? Are the colors nice? Is the design professional? Or does it look childish, confused, uncool?

Does everything work? Have you tried clicking all the links lately? What are your traffic and content stats looking like? How many songs are in your mp3 player? Could you add more? How about video? Audio podcasts?

Are your competitors, just a click or two away, doing better with their website than you are? We can help.

It's getting tougher out there, you know. Many businesses are looking to cut expenses and make everything more productive.

A website is no exception. It should work hard too. It's like an employee, an online representitive, a digital salesperson who is promoting your business all year round.

You better make sure you're telling the whole story of (1) what their problem is (2) why you understand it well (3) why your product/service is the best solution for [customer type: moms, busy executives, musicians, or whoever it is that buys your merchandise.] and (4) why they need to buy your product right now, while they're thinking about it.

You must also have a website that meets all the needs of your customers: downloads, uploads, PDFs, PowerPoint slides, white papers, detailed contact form, photo gallery, product comparison charts, model selection guide, whatever they need to make an educated, thus appropriate and pleasing, choice.

You also need traffic at your website.

We tell our website clients to do certain things to boost search engine rankings and drive more qualified, high-conversion traffic to their ecommerce or corporate websites.

One of the hot tips we give out is: update your content frequently, with naturally occurring keywords.

Probably the #1 thing to do to improve your website results is to give it a fresh graphic design with increased functionality and better navigation / usability.

The #2 best improvement to your website would be to start adding fresh content to it, on a more regular or frequent basis.

How can anybody get excited about your company, if your website is antiquated, the same old thing, no sign of life or activity? No new photos, no new press releases, no news, nothing.

Let's polish up your website and make it work harder for your business.

Add fresh content: photos, press releases, news items, testimonials, tutorials, how-to tips, anecdotes, industry developments, improved techniques or materials, and how your company is implementing them -- and what they mean for your customers.

You tell a better story, and show a better product, on your website, and you'll be way ahead of your competitors.

blogs and anonymous bullies

2008-01-19T12:54:00.000-06:00

Cowards love blogs, because they think they can verbally attack someone, and get away with it. All they have to do is submit a comment form, wait for moderation to filter out spambots, and voila! A hopefully hurtful comment! On the worldwide web!

"Now everybody will see my clever, injurious remark, and join my side, in hating this rotten blogger!" they naively assume, since they don't understand debate or the web or computers.

They think they've made a strategic strike at the heart of some pajama clad Starbucks blogger. Or some poverty-stricken geek lurking in a basement, eating cold pizza and burying posts on Digg.

Anonymous bullies think a person's blog is a vulnerability they can exploit, like computer viruses that attempt to take advantage of enterprise system holes and home user PCs. But what is really vulnerable is the bully's stupidity, now on display for the world to see.

They are too cowardly to start a blog and be on the receiving end of negative, harsh comments. They can't take, what in their mind is, "such abuse". Just words typed into the digital effluvium, that's all any post or comment or email is. Evaporating as it appears, jejune and demurraged into infinite desuetude.

Still, they post an angry comment, then run away. They call you a "liberal" or a "tree hugger", then they dash off to play darts in some dive where they strut around like some Luddite tough guy. Real bad ass, eh?

"Hiding behind a computer" is a common accusation made by the invisible, anonymous bullies. It's probably the stupidest remark of all trolling, since we are Becoming Vivid, not hiding, not invisible, not cowering in a corner. We Are Transparency Itself, the new model of authenticity and power. Watch out: we might Dan Ratherize you.

Anonymous trolling is easy. It takes no brains, no courage, no patriotism.

Just jealousy of someone who is heavily present all over the internet. Just envy and bitterness, plus a big glob of hatred for those who think differently. Who think independently of "authority", "leadership", and the World Trade Organization (WTO) as they push us into a North American Union and destroy the sovereignty of the United States of America.

I specialize in what I call "blogocombat". I don't refer to violence or brutality, but an aggressive force of reason and metaphysical insight that smashes the frozen rhetoric of zealous zombies.

Though I was born in the world's most secret and secretive U.S. Army fort, which is Ft. Knox, Kentucky, and brought into this world by a colonel, I have grave misgivings about our Eternal War exploits, and how we never want to leave a country once we've bombed (on false pretenses and lies) and occcupied it.

Though I was raised in a military family, nobody should actually enjoy or relish any kind of combat. Online discussion, even heated debate is always good. Trash talking and needling each other is excellant. I learn more from negative remarks, that are based on logic, than flattering praise, no matter how genuine and correct it is.

Ever hear cowards say, "Well, if you mean *constructive* criticism, then I agree with you."

Listen: NO. I do NOT mean "constructive criticism", which cowards define as evaluations that are gentle, happy, nice, soft, sensitive, all that wishy washy shit that immature individuals cling to.

No, to hell with "constructive criticism".

I prefer to hear your most vile, hateful, ugly attack, so long as I'm the only target, and you refrain from hate speech directed at:

gays, blacks, women, animals, insects, labor unions, environmentalists, radicals, activists, anarchists, liberals, socialists, Freudian analysts, poat-Freudian analysts, linguists, musicians, tennis players, computer technicians, hair stylists, librarians, business magazine publishers, usability analysts, taxi drivers, waiters, waitresses, film makers, poets, deconstructionists, cigarette smokers, punk rockers, tattooed people, people with several heads, people who can fly just by thinking about it, people who eat food that you're not familiar with, persons with disabilities, house pets, wildlife creatures, interstellar lifeforms, advanced alien intelligences, robots, any kind of mechanical device, machines, servo-mechanisms, tech gadgets, organic farmers, motorcycle club members, carpenters, university professors, roofers, carpet cutters, fabric designers, pastry chefs, foot villagers, garbage disposal workers, abstract expressionists, computer programmers, IT department heads, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Catholics, Jains, Hindus, Seiks, Whirling Dervishes, Swedenborgians, and other persons and groups who are not "you", or are not in "your group".

Thank you!

blogging, Foucault, thinking

2008-01-18T14:37:00.000-06:00

Blogging is a special form of thinking...but thinking is not necessarily what you think it is.

According to Michael Foucault, in "Polemics, Politics, and Problematizations, an interview conducted by Paul Rabinow in 1984, thought is the mental ability to detach self from action, to critique your own behavior.

This stepping back, lurching aside, swerving from parallels, discoincidence, non-congruence, is thought. Thought is rebellion against tradition, habit, status quo. Thought questions the unquestioned. Thought persecutes counter-productive nonsense and detrimental whim.

Blogging is a type of thought, a jagged glance that cuts its way into topics, a piercing lance stabbing into the meat of controversy and confrontation.

Michael Foucault explained this concept of "thought" as a "problematizing force", an energy that transforms the familiar into an unknown, the common into the extraordinary, the dull into the bizarre.

[QUOTE]

For a long time, I have been trying to see if it would be possible to describe the history of thought as distinct both from the history of ideas (by which I mean the analysis of systems of representation) and from the history of mentalities (by which I mean the analysis of attitudes and types of action [schémas de comportement]).

It seemed to me there was one element that was capable of describing the history of thought—this was what one could call the problems or, more exactly, problematizations.

What distinguishes thought is that it is something quite different from the set of representations that underlies a certain behavior; it is also quite different from the domain of attitudes that can determine this behavior.

Thought is not what inhabits a certain conduct and gives it its meaning; rather, it is what allows one to step back from this way of acting or reacting, to present it to oneself as an object of thought and to question it as to its meaning, its conditions, and its goals.

Thought is freedom in relation to what one does, the motion by which one detaches from it, establishes it as an object, and reflects on it as a problem.

To say that the study of thought is the analysis of a freedom does not mean one is dealing with a formal system that has reference only to itself.

Actually, for a domain of action, a behavior, to enter the field of thought, it is necessary for a certain number of factors to have made it uncertain, to have made it lose its familiarity, or to have provoked a certain number of difficulties around it.

These elements result from social, economic, or political processes. But here, their only role is that of instigation. They can exist and perform their action for a very long time, before there is effective problematization by thought.

And when thought intervenes, it doesn’t assume a unique form that is the direct result or the necessary expression of these difficulties; it is an original or specific response—often taking many forms, sometimes even contradictory in its different aspects—to these difficulties, which are defined for it by a situation or a context, and which hold true as a possible question.

To one single set of difficulties, several responses can be made. And most of the time different responses actually are proposed. But what must be understood is what makes them simultaneously possible: it is the point in which their simultaneity is rooted; it is the soil that can nourish them all in their diversity and sometimes in spite of their contradictions.

To the different difficulties encountered by the practice regarding mental illness in the eighteen century, diverse solutions were proposed: Tuke’s and Pinel’s are examples.

In the same way, a whole group of solutions was proposed for the difficulties encountered in the second half of the eighteenth century by penal practice. Or again, to take a very remote example, the diverse schools of philosophy of the Hellenistic period proposed different solutions to the difficulties of traditional sexual ethics.

But the work of a history of thought would be to rediscover at the root of these diverse solutions the general form of problematization that has made them possible—even in their very opposition; or what has made possible the transformation of the difficulties and obstacles of a practice into a general problem for which one proposes diverse practical solutions.

It is problematization that responds to these difficulties, but by doing something quite other than expressing them or manifesting them: in connection with them, it develops the conditions in which possible responses can be given; it defines the elements that will constitute what the different solutions attempt to respond to.

This development of a given into a question, this transformation of a group of obstacles and difficulties into problems to which the diverse solutions will attempt to produce a response, this is what constitutes the point of problematization and the specific work of thought.

It is clear how far one is from an analysis in terms of deconstruction (any confusion between these two methods would be unwise).

Rather, it is a question of a movement of critical analysis in which one tries to see how the different solutions to a problem have been constructed; but also how these different solutions result from a specific form of problematization.

And it then appears that any new solution which might be added to the others would arise from current problematization, modifying only several of the postulates or principles on which one bases the responses that one gives.

The work of philosophical and historical reflection is put back into the field of the work of thought only on condition that one clearly grasps problematization not as an arrangement of representations, but as a work of thought.

[END QUOTE]

This seems to be blogging at its best, a refined form of Foucaultian thinking:

radically analyzing power structures, subtle dominations, war, politics, web design, progress, democracy, violence, environmental policies, technology, blogosphere, family, belief systems, self.

To understand self as a series of problems, and not unmodifiable habit cluster, is to be enlightened. From that spot of light, we blog.

While I like much of Foucault, and I read his Madness and Civilization book long ago, it bugs me when he says:

[QUOTE]

It is clear how far one is from an analysis in terms of deconstruction (any confusion between these two methods would be unwise).

[UNQUOTE]

And then Foucault proceeds to describe a methodology that is indeed similar in all respects to a Jacques Derrida treatment, i.e., a full-blown deconstructive analysis.

It's funny how a thinker can disavow a contemporary while at the same time using tools that this disavowed other, this peer and co-laborer instigated.

blogs, web stats, and KPIs

2008-01-18T09:17:00.000-06:00

Today, let's look quit being so corny. I suggest we roll up our sleeves and look briefly at blogs, site statistics, and key performance indicators (KPIs). This will be a quick introduction, perfect for new bloggers, to the role and methodology of blog evaluation.

Your happiness with your blog, in spite of anonymous flamers and jealous trolls (who envy you because you have the courage to speak your mind and distribute your radical thoughts all over the world via the internet), is the greatest factor in judging a blog.

But let's go beyond your own satisfaction, and look at how a blog is to be analyzed.

First, your blog must not only please you and your boss (if you're a corporate blogger). It must meet the needs of your audience or customers. If you suspect they would like some sort of video, or at least links to video, on your blog, you had better figure out a way to deliver it.

YouTube and webcams are extremely popular.

People want a human presence on your website, and that probably means photos, audio podcasts, and/or video. Experiment. Fail. Learn. Get smarter and more popular than your competitors by exploring the many options available for blogs and conventional websites today.

Your blog's mission statement should be: to understand and serve the needs of my readers. Period. Oh, well, okay. A little bit of self-absorbed or marketing-oriented blather and parading around...but please, not too much!

Sure, you have to accomplish something for your employer or your own business or whatever. Can't we do this, while keeping audience needs the top priority? You'll have more qualified traffic, more apt to click on relevant ads and actually convert to sales.

With a foundation of (1) blog mission AND (2) audience satisfaction factors...let's proceed right to the heart of blog performance and evaluation.

When you start a new blog, always add tracking and link code for a web stats tool, like SiteMeter, GoStats, and Google Analytics. These tools will give you mission-critical, course-correcting information on how your blog is doing.

Remember though: the #1 criteria of blog evaluation is self-reflexive. How blogging impacts you, your life, your skills in thinking, debating, conflict resolution, writing, and research. That's the main thing, the primary result of blogging.

After that comes the joy of self-expression, a well-turned phrase, a blogocombat triumph, and the acquisition of an online community of shared interests. Still later comes the so-called ROI (Return on Investment), which is really, since blog design, functionality, and hosting can be totally free, your ROT (Return on Time).

Blogs are cheap. Your big, uncomfortable, burdensome investment is the time you spend tweaking, posting, revising, commenting, and moderating your blog. Not to mention reading and posting comments on other blogs, which is the #1 key to generating loyal, relevant traffic to your blog.

What web stats are the most important?

It depends on your goals for the blog, but what I look at are the Top Content, Referring Sites, Locations, and Daily Visitors.

Your blog's key performance indicators (KPI) will be based on the strategy of your blog model and the results you wish to see. A blog is basically a livingroom where you talk to friends about shared interests.

That alone can drive traffic to your associated ecommerce or corporate site, if you link to it.

Blogs can generate good will and enable you to present your company or industry's side of a controversial issue that's making headlines in the news, for example. There are many intangible, unmeasurable, but entirely real and vital benefits of business and personal blogging.

Ads are put on blogs, but there is a danger of appearing to be delivering content just to drive traffic to ads. Too many ads will convey a less professional tone, and to excess will drive people away from a website.

Top Content -- Which posts are most popular with your readers. You might be shocked. Make a sidebar display of Most Popular Posts, linking to your top 10 or 20, and watch those posts skyrocket in traffic. People like seeing what other people thought was good or interesting. Make sure you have permanent, placed ads in those posts, if you "monetize" your blog, which I don't.

Referring Sites ("referrals") -- What websites people came from to land on your blog. Go post comments at those referring blogs, and watch traffic soar from that already hot spot.

Locations -- What countries people live in, who came to your blog. International flavor is easy on the internet. Again, you will probably be shocked at what countries are looking at your blog.

Daily Visitors -- Mine goes up when I post comments at other blogs, and down when I spend too much time on Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, MySpaceMusic, and other addictive sites.

Another element of analysis is Average Time Spent on your blog. But that must be clearly understood. Please take a moment to read "A Word About Averages".

At first, if you have a lot of posts, people will spend maybe 3 to 6 minutes on your blog, checking out your audio, photos, About Me page, video, previous posts, and reader comments.

But as time goes on, your regular loyal fans will spend less time, bringing down the average, as they simply read today's post, and skip the rest, which is already familiar to them.

To Be Continued.....

Stay tuned! Thanks. Email me any questions you have, or post a comment.

My famous Banana Taco, best of both worlds.

Twitter vs. MySpaceMusic

2008-01-17T05:59:00.000-06:00

Since I deleted my Twitter account, vast realms of time have appeared unto me, not entirely unlike some sempiternal, mystical vision. The hours and effort I used to pour into Twitter, is now being poured into MySpaceMusic.

I feel that my time spent in MySpaceMusic is more productive, no offense meant, than the large amounts of time I spent hammering out random barbs, links, and insights in Twitter. I'm, I'd guess one might say, happier, if that makes any sense in such a messed up world and nation.

While many technical people were in my Twitter friends community, and I shared and learned much, it's a lot more fun and productive, for me as a musician, to be on MySpaceMusic. I am discovering many new bands, and hearing much that pleases or inspires me.

On Twitter, I had common ground with my approximately 700 Followers who subscribed to my messages, but that ground was always fluctuating, common on this point, in conflict on another. We traded opinions, political feelings (I say "feelings" instead of "ideas", because all politics and government is unnatural and irrational), musical tastes, mp3 finds, video recommendations, software news, and such, only about 5% of the communications were relevant to me.

Of course, only 5% of my messages were relevant to my audience, depending on what their interests were at any given moment. So I'm not disrespecting any of my loyal and enthusiastic Followers. It's fun being a cult leader.

Seriously though, Twitter, even with a carefully assembled Follower community, is mostly shotgun. You scatter your random thoughts, strong beliefs, and discombobulating questions to an audience, and, due to the rushing river of brevities that flows at high velocity, the persons who could benefit, or help you most, may not be "on Twitter" to catch you message in real-time.

If you've used Twitter, or any other micro-blogging, status update, socnet application, you don't need me to elaborate on all the pros and cons.

It can be addictive, time-consuming, and conducive to emotional outbursts, that can be cause remorse and self-loathing later on. Everybody spills their guts in short 140 character blasts, and the ease and simplicity of it makes it verge on being stream of consciousness in a clinical, psychoanalytic sense: the deeper, censored self leaks out, quite a bit.

I saw myself tangle with Confederate flag worshippers, Business-As-Enronishly-Usual weirdos, North Korean sex vamp trolls (the Amanda Chapel hoax), and Paid Opinions Are Valid opportunists, and many others.

I also started, or strengthened, relationships with some of the brightest minds in the business:

Evelyn Rodriguez,
BL Ochman,
Liz Strauss,
Valeria Maltoni,
Guy Kawasaki,
Seth Godin,
Eric Rice
GeoSteph
Ann Miller (AnnOhio)
NewMediaJim (Jim Long, NBC)
Matt Searles (electronic musician)

(I'll add more as I check my Jaiku re-stream for all the names, and I will list most of you, eventually.)

I miss all you folks, bitterly, in fact. I resent the fact that I felt I needed to make a move. But I'm obsessive sometimes, and I decided, if I was going to be obsessive about my participation in a social network, I needed to get a lot more bang for my buck.

I also was moving more heavily into the music side of my work.

Rather than debate web technology and political topics, I decided to promote my music. This is a positive development. Yet, I'm losing. I'm losing my constant contact with marketing professionals and software innovators.

Perhaps I can resurrect this by way of Pownce and Jaiku, getting back into those communities, which I abandoned in favor of Twitter. For now, I'm updating here in Vaspers and also on my music page, which I hype too much.

;^)

get smarter, look younger, with the yellow diet

2008-01-15T19:31:00.000-06:00

The Yellow Diet is making me healthier, smarter, and more likeable. Thanks to my lieutenants who cater to my every need, for bringing this astonishing, revolutionary healing system to my attention. I saw it in the Other Thans newsletter, but I unfortunately, due to a sore neck from over-computing, forgot to implement the methods they commanded us to adopt.

I started the systematic yellowization of all nutritional input on January 10, 2008. That's the same day I started my new Str8 Sounds Therabusive Noise Carnival site on MySpaceMusic.

Within 5 days, I have acquired 236 profile views, hundreds of hits on my videos, and over 160 Friends, mostly my professional peers, other musical artists I mean, including many of the bands I have admired for many years.

That's quite an accomplishment for a new band site that nobody, on MySpaceMusic that is, had ever heard of before.

I attribute this significantly rapid rise in popularity to The Yellow Diet more than to my musical talents, if I actually have any, which is a matter of heated debate on one or two blogs, or will be soon if all goes well.

Have you join the Other Thans yet? If you've been receiving their secret newsletter, you already know all about the miracles that are occurring for average people who commit to The Yellow Diet.

During the initiation ritual that forms the base of one's devotion to The Yellow Diet, I was impressed with all the many food items they said were available in a naturally occuring yellow color (foods that've been artificially colored yellow are strictly forbidden).

Today's lovely yellow dinner consisted of one corn muffin, one Bit o' Honey candy, a banana taco, and a small handful of popcorn. I had lemonade to drink (not shown in picture).

They explained that spectrum lab analysis establishes the presence of certain enzymes and coagulatives in yellow foods and beverages that intensify the complexity and speed of your mental processing of information and insight. This yellowification of diet quickly makes you you vastly superior metaphysically to full color palette eaters.

Here's proof of the age reversal rays emanating saffronly from the yellow foods.

That top picture, up at the top of this post, where I look all old and everything, was taken when I started The Yellow Diet, on January 10, like I already said. Why do you force me to keep explaining everything over and over again to you?

Anyway, in the photo below, certainly speaking: I look like I'm 28 again, eh? But the photo below was taken tomorrow!!!

MySpaceMusic bands with FREE mp3 downloads

2008-01-14T20:48:00.000-06:00

Most bands provide music you can listen to on a player, but few allow fans to download and save their songs. It's the old fashioned "charge for every fart the artist produces" mentality.

Here are some that abstain from such archaic, self-defeating, anti-promotional protectionism.

These bands know that free music is the key to getting new fans, blogospheric buzz, and customer loyalty. Free music hooks them, then they may be willing to pay for unfree music later, if they develop a craving for your sounds and a collector's mentality.

To search for any band, just go to MySpaceMusic, type in the names, click the dropdown menu to "Music", click on Search, and voila~!

The Kick Me's (several tracks across different album sites: start here, then scroll down to their Friends, for their sites.)

Monks from Mars

Telepathik Friend

Magical Forest

Lazy Magnet

The Spirit Cabinet

No Picasso

Free Diamonds

Mike Bruno Nighty-Night Ghost Choir

Sailboat!

music marketing with MySpaceMusic

2008-01-14T03:10:00.000-06:00

So many interesting bands, even Panic Rock, Chimp Rock, and Surrealist Artrock!

Bromp Treb aka Fat Worm of Error aka Anthropophagous Rex?

Perhaps the most obscure, bizarre, and creative band that ever arose out of Massachusetts! Millions of young musicians are probably attempting to imitate them, right now, as we speak! Get your FREE Bromp Treb and ilk mp3s!

Above: The Skabs video and rehearsal studio. Guitar player is like lightning on them strings!

Promote your band with: (1) free song downloads (2) free videos (3) free photos (4) ... and words (if absolutely necessary). Like I've said many times before, give fans stuff to listen to and watch. Music lovers usually don't like to read a lot, especially when it's generic, typical, boring hype.

Blogging is communication.

If you feel you have something to say, say it. If you don't, try quoting someone else, and adding your unique commentary on it. Find something to discuss, in the blogosphere, or in a book. It could be a new angle of your own on a familiar topic, or your contrarian opinion on a current controversy.

Advertising and marketing were about you being what the corporations wanted you to be: a consumer eternally devoted to their products. Just shut up and listen to the message. Don't bother telling us anything -- we only want to hear how many products you want to buy today.

Blogging is the polar opposite.

As a blogger, you praise or trash a product, based on YOU, not them.

You say what you think about the product. The loving adorational accolades may gush out of you like a choir boy singing Amazing Grace for the first time. Or the angry venom may pour from your post like so much liquid lava out of a volcano that got out of the wrong side of the bed, with bad bed hair to boot.

Since I like various types of music, I often post about bands I've discovered, especially and almost exclusively, if they provide a lot of free mp3s and videos for fans to watch, save to an iTunes playlist, burn to CD, hand out to friends, and thereby distribute the music for increased buzz and popularity.

It's fun to post photos of CD covers and live performances of the music bands you like. By adding links to their websites or MySpace pages, you help them. You might even receive a comment on your blog, or an email, from a band member.

Right now, I'm having second thoughts about MySpace. I actually like the MySpaceMusic platform. It's working quite well, as I test it and use it to promote my free music. By adding bands that I like, and have influenced me, I communicate my musical tastes to the world. And I help promote these bands and musicians.

When I select the "Top 10 Friends" to display in The Str8 Sounds MySpaceMusic home page, my goal is to show respect to major influences, and to enhance my own reputation by showing off the cool artists that may actually have visited my site, and consequently added me as their Friend, based on my sounds.

That "Top 10 Friends" list is very important for the marketing of your own music, as I've just explained. I currently (1-14-2008) display Beastie Boys, partly due to the widespread name recognition, and partly due to my love of their aesthetic, comedy music, and their new instrumental album "The Mix-Up".

I have a problem with the 6 song limit on the MySpaceMusic player. I want my fans to have tons of free music. So I added my Ning mp3 player (at New Reformed Insane Blog Media Network) to my "Sounds Like" module.

Result: fans can listen to, and download, 6 Str8 Sounds songs on the MySpaceMusic player, plus another 43 songs on the Ning player, for a current total of 49 songs!

MySpaceMusic player has a great feature though: it accepts both mp3 and the new mp4 (m4a) audio files of iTunes ("Convert Selection to AAC"), while Ning does not.

So, I'm looking for a good audio file converter, to convert the m4as to mp3s, which I can then upload to my Ning player.

Anyway, then I added a MySpaceMusic slide show of Str8 Sounds and Vaspers-related art, CD covers, show posters, promos, etc. above the Ning music player. I did this so people have something to watch while they listen to the wretched, tortured tunes.

I carefully arrange my images so as to communicate a subtle marketing message: Str8 Sounds is prolific, active, triumphant. Str8 Sounds is something people like. Str8 Sounds has professional products. Str8 Sounds is nice entertainment for both the unwashed masses and the squeaky clean elites!

Music videos are also being uploaded.

Bromp Treb vs. The Mountain Emult (2:24)

Warnings:

(1) Don't junk up your MySpaceMusic site with huge, long scrolling photos that are also so wide, the break the browser window, requiring it to create a horizontal scroll bar.

(2) Don't put so much on in that it takes forever to download.

(3) Don't use background colors or images that make your site difficult, if not impossible, to read.

Try my product? It's, as usual, FREE.

More tips will be coming soon.

arrow of truth in blogging

2008-01-13T18:14:00.000-06:00

There is an Arrow of Truth in blogging. Let me tell you very slowly and meticulously about one tiny part of it.

An elite ethnomethodologist's dream is rapidly coming true in the blogosphere.

Heck, the simple act of reading this makes you a part of it, whether you like it or not. By reading and especially by transcending mere lurking and being a big boy or girl and POSTING COMMENTS, from rancid outrage to divine benedictions, you become a rebel against the Domination Systems that include the mainstream media, military establishment, and Enronish corporate culture (WTO).

By reading, commenting, quoting, and linking to blogs, you are slapping the joystick out of the hands of corporate planners. You sink your teeth into the premium steak of mistaken identities playing full field with amazonic grace.

Sinister outcreepings, moving sideways down the lane, hope to sneak and fit in, but their anonymous/pseudonymic gestures only blind them further to the revolution shaking under their feet and especially: over their heads.

Approval addicts don't last long in the rough and tumble world of the blogs o' fear. You must be a man of iron or a woman of steel to brave the blows, to launch a blog and watch it sail the sometimes stormy seas like a holy pirate on steroid stews.

You watch the turbulent debates, how trained professionals regress to infantile stages of development, citing long passages of law or medicine or software design, only to bash each other's brains out in introductory and closing remarks.

"I referenced the document I was quoting. Must I now read it aloud to you? Are you capable of thinking outside the propaganda you've been brainwashed by?" is the kind of professionalist blogocombat I used to just dream about, but rarely encounter.

Welcome to the blogos fear: intelligensia slurs, highly educated insult-stabbing, and country club ball-crunching. And it's all happening IN "THE BLOGS" (as the MSM callously calls us).

To referee and mediate a bloodbath blogocombat scene is pure joy in conflict resolution theory and sensitivity tweaking. I heartily applaud all bloggers who keep blogging, in the face of traffic dearths, troll invasions, blogocombat kill zones, and ads not clicking.

You, blogger, you persevere through obscurity, misunderstanding, and typer's cramp.

Ha ha ha.

Sorry. Not laughing at you, per se. I'm in stitches with chuckling from the thought of those who use blog comments to attack blogs, blogging, "hiding behind a computer" (actually, the reverse is true: we are vividly transparent and public THROUGH or VIA the computer!), blogospheric reality, blogger triumphalism, and such things of that nature.

web sites are for customers, not just companies

2008-01-11T15:51:00.002-06:00

"I don't need a website. Word of mouth is what brings in most of my business."

This is not a customer-oriented attitude. It's the old fashioned "we" mentality of Web 1.0 and Business As Usual, which often results in Business As Over.

Websites are for customers, not just companies. What your company wants to achieve with a website is only half of the strategy. You must also focus on what users, customers, fans need and want.

"All we want to do is provide some online information about our company."

This is a waste of time. Nobody cares about your company. People care about their problems and desires. If your company and website don't make the solutions and fulfillments front and center, you'll lose tons of business. Caring competitors are just a few clicks away on the web.

Your website shouldn't be about you.

Nor should it be about your company, your miracle products, your great customer service, competitive prices, and superior quality. Nobody is persuaded by corporate fluff and vague bragging anymore.

Your website should be about specific customer needs, interests, and behaviors. When you look at your website do you see yourself? Then it's an online vanity mirror. But if you look at your website and see solutions to problems, fulfillments of needs, or enhancements of a lifestyle, then you're on the right track.

Let's take a specific type of business as an example: music.

Music websites are among the worst.

Most of them still don't get it. Nobody goes to a music band site to read a pile of hype about how great the musicians are and how terrific their music is.

Music lovers go to musician websites to (1) hear and download music (2) to see photos of the band (3) to watch music videos (4) to discover where they're playing in upcoming months (4) to learn about and buy products.

Lengthy descriptions work for books, but not bands.

Yet many musician sites are (1) ugly (2) unreadable due to poor design (3) dysfunctional (e.g., mp3s that have expired and no longer work) and (4) don't let fans hear or download their music.

How about your site?

Do you really know what customers and fans want to do at your website or blog? Do you provide the information, photos, video, audio, and other features that make visiting your site a satisfying experience?

Or do you just use your website for your own limited purposes?

Is it a good idea to ignore customer needs? To not care what competitors are doing for customers on their sites? To think the website can be just a "presence" on the web, rather than a service to users?

When was the last time a "web presence" ever sold you anything? Probably never. A website must be more than just a thing that sits there with your logo, product list, phone number, and address on it.

What is your website doing for your audience?

Websites can be warm, inviting, personally-fulfilling experiences. In what ways could your website be more useful, delightful, and memorable?

Twitter avatars for peas revolutionists

2007-12-21T11:46:00.000-06:00

I'm slapping together Twitter peas avatars for those who choose to align with We Refuse to Appease Cancer, in solidarity with Susan Reynolds, as Robert Scoble has recently blogged.

Like the "Talk Like a Pirate Day" at Twitter, this meme has spread rapidly and pervasively. A real lesson for viralosity managers of brand combat.

Here, in this post, I will park some Twitter peas avatars, for Save As pick-up.

Spock removed these photos from my profile

2007-12-18T13:54:00.000-06:00

Spock is a people search site. I just uploaded these two photos to my profile page. Actually, they're digital artwork that I created myself.

Within less than an hour, I got an email from Spock.

[QUOTE]

Spock users have flagged and deleted a picture which you contributed to Steven Streight's search result. Flagging and deletion occurs for a number of reasons. Sometimes it is because information is factually incorrect, sometimes it is because contributions are inappropriate.

For more information please visit our community guidelines here:

http://www.spock.com/
do/pages/community_guidelines

[END QUOTE]

That's the entire email message.

Do you see anything wrong with these images? Offensive? Flagged?

Why would they remove them?

Worse, the email contains no link to a Contact Us If You Think a Mistake Was Made. This is an ill-considered, poorly managed flagging/removal policy.

Plus: you get a limited number images you can upload, and there's no way to delete any images once uploaded. You can't change your mind, delete an image, and replace it with another image.

Check out all my Vaspers photos on Spock.

http://www.spock.com/
Steven-Streight-IbvEH1NN6/pictures

blogs of passion and information

2007-12-14T09:03:00.000-06:00

Blogs, by the precedents set by early pioneers like Tim Berners-Lee, Mark Andreessen, Dave Winer, Doc Searls, Jorn Barger, and Rebecca Blood, are about passion.

Pioneer bloggers were enthusiastic about computers and technology.

Then personal opinions about a variety of issues emerged. Next thing you know, blogs are blabbering about what was eaten for lunch and an astonishing variety of narcissistic navel-gazing.

Even when the blog is boring, self-centered, and drivelous, it's still a revolutionary act. Each blog represents the rise of individual voice, the first time in human history that the average person could publish content to a worldwide audience.

Naturally Yours is a good example of a passionate, informative blog.

I sold the blog to Roger Hutchinson, General Manager, and he delegated the blogging duties to his most passionate and computer-savvy employee, Matt Kowal.

This is exactly how a blog strategy can work for many companies. Often the CEO, Owner, or Manager doesn't have the time, interest, or enthusiasm to maintain a blog and post regularly. At the same time, they're convinced that a blog could be a good communication channel with customers, or a way to drive traffic to a store or ecommerce site. In that case, they should delegate the duties.

What's really nice is that Matt blogs about topics of interest to himself that he thinks might help others, he responds to comments (often in new posts, rather than in comments), and he works a photographic image into nearly every single post, for visual interest.

Matt, the official blogger of Naturally Yours, pulls no punches. He has an axe to grind against the problematic "medical model", mainstream health institutions, and the pharmaceutical industry.

I share his concerns, but not all his opinions. What's great is how he shares his expertise and experiments, in a transparent and honest manner. Your company should be so fortunate to have a deeply devoted product enthusiast and aggressive, controversial opinionator.

top priority in blogging

2007-12-06T14:04:00.000-06:00

What's the most important thing to keep in mind when blogging?

Your top priority should be Provide Value.

Information value. Entertainment value. Infotainment value. You are either expressing yourself narcissistically, with no concern about the impact on, or reactions of, readers. Or you're trying to benefit an audience, in some way.

You've already decided what your blog is about. You've determined what your expertise, art, skill, talent, interest, hobby, passion is.

You may have even some idea of how you would like readers to respond to your blog: post comments, email suggestions, vote on sidebar poll, submit nominations for an honor, download your music mp3s, view your digital art, or perform some other interactive, participatory behavior.

Don't focus on what you want your readers to do, think, or feel.

Too often, we get pre-occupied with behaviors we want our message recipients to manifest, for us, for our goals, for our ego. Instead, shift your emphasis and your creativity on what might benefit your audience, on their own terms, not yours.

Concentrate on what you can provide, on the content and presentation of text, photo, audio, video, etc., that will benefit your readers. Is it what they requested, need, crave, like, prefer? Is it presented as effectively and professionally as it deserves?

Inspire. Inform. Instruct. Warn. Scold. Joke. Amuse. Shock. Entertain. Reveal. Encourage. Provoke. Confront. Challenge. Elevate. Improve. Transform. Astonish. Delight.

Do that for your audience, whatever they have told you they need, or whatever you feel you do best, or whatever is most timely and relevant to them.