Jen Robinson dot FM

“ When a striker is fouled in the penalty area, he doesn’t stop as long as he still has control of the ball; it’s only when he’s beaten that he turns to appeal to the ref.

Paul Graham on the death of Hollywood and SOPA

I take a less contentious tone on disrupting the entertainment industry, but Paul makes a good point.

January 13

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Listen With, Turntable.FM, Listen Along.. oh my!

Well said, brother.

Also - WHAT!? Listen along, pals: http://ex.fm/labs/listen-along/jen

My $.02: “Listen with friends” is a function I long for, but Facebook’s implementation is a non-starter for me. Not to be anti-social, but there’s almost nothing less appealing than making myself available on chat to the unqualified pool of high school classmates, people I’ve met at parties, past and current coworkers, relatives, friends of friends, etc. that are my Facebook friends. No chance.

I’ve had a hard time with Turntable.FM. I’ve had some fun with it and think there is a ton of opportunity in this space, but between the load issues and crashing iPhone app, I’ve shied away. I look forward to someone doing this right.

dankantor:

Yesterday Facebook got into the “Listen With” game by announcing a new feature that allows people to click a button and listen to what their friends are listening to along with them. I haven’t tried it yet but it does look pretty nice.

Of course, as soon as they announced it, everyone cried “they are stealing from Turntable.fm”. Techcrunch even ran a followup post where Billy Chasen the founder of Turntable.fm said he was flattered Facebook was copying them.

Here’s the thing: Facebook is not copying Turntable. Not only are the features pretty different, but the idea of listening with friends is as old as, I don’t know, say, music.

As listening moved online, one of the promises of that was the idea that we could now network our stereos and listen to music with other people regardless of physical location. I’ll argue that no one has nailed it yet but clearly we are getting close. I believe the way to do it right is to study how, why and when people listen to music and then shape these tools to support that behavior. We (exfm) have some interesting ideas around how to do this, but are not ready to roll anything substantial out yet. Judging from the comments on those TC posts, it looks like there are a bunch of sites out there trying as well.

So to sum up, no Facebook is not copying Turntable.fm. Listening with friends online is a pretty old idea (see my 2004 grad school project Awaire). A bunch of sites are also doing this (see Tomahawk). And in my opinion nobody has gotten it right yet. Oh and if you really want to Listen With in exfm, ok fine, you can do that right here.

December 14

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Meme mixing on vcmemes.

December 9

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“ Macondo was already a fearful whirlwind of dust and rubble being spun about by the wrath of the biblical hurricane when Aureliano skipped eleven pages so as not to lose time with facts he knew only too well, and he began to decipher the instant that he was living, deciphering it as he lived it, prophesying himself in the act of deciphering the last page of the parchments, as if he were looking into a speaking mirror. Then he skipped again to anticipate the predictions and ascertain the date and circumstances of his death. Before reading the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Just finished reading. Wow.

December 7

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(Source: theashkaari, via motherjones)

Business school 101.

teachingliteracy:world-shaker: thedailywhat: Endless Origami

(via underpaidgenius)

November 8

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Sam and I rode motorcycles from SF down Highway 1 through Big Sur to Paso Robles this weekend. Rebecca and Sam’s wife drove the gear truck down to meet us for the weekend. It was an unreal experience. It had been a while since I rode a big bike and we did some really technical riding along Skyline Blvd, so I spent a lot of the first day being freaked out. But once we settled in, it was the ride of a lifetime. More photos here.

Sam’s brother is a hot shot winemaker, so we got the family treatment and spit-on-the-floor barrel-tasting experience in Paso. It’s a nice way to travel if you have the in.

Next up: San Diego to Cabo. Life is good, folks.

October 28

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