Underground Media: Reloaded

In the beginning, there was Old Napster . It was 1999, broadband was new, and music-swapping had just EXPLODED onto the scene via a peer-to-peer application invented by a college student who coined it's name based on his kinky hair (don't get me started). Those were the good ole days. Search for a song, click on it, download, and listen. If your online life began after 2001, this music model should still sound familiar? It is identical to iTunes. Except that your wallet ends up $0.99 lighter for each click these days. But clearly with the popularity of iTunes and other online music stores, this is how the public wants to consume music. Think for a moment if iTunes had come to market in 1998, BEFORE Napster? In any case, it did not. And instead of innovating, the music industry branded it's customers as thieves and shut down Old Napster in the summer of 2001. But this was not the end of Napster. The brand name was so strong that it re-emerged a few years ago as a...

In my neverending quest to find great music on the internet, I ended up moving beyond the simple streaming services. Not that I have anything against the staple of internet radio. In fact, as I've said before, I'm an avid listener of stations like smoothbeats.com and beatbasement.com . But sometimes I want to hear music that fits my mood. A playlist that goes beyond embracing a certain genre, and maybe goes two or three sub-genres deep. Usually that would mean firing up my own music collection. That is, until I discovered a site called Last.fm a few years ago. Their famed audioscrobbler is actually a computer algorithm that gathers info on the music you like, and matches it up with music it "thinks" you should like. I was addicted for a while until I figured out that the scrobbling game had some competition around town. I'll break a few of the major players down for you. Last.fm Ah, the apple of my eye. Last.fm was my *first* music recommendation site...

And I mean YOU, all you Blackberry Storm haters! No it is NOT the iPhone, so quit talking about how it's NOT LIKE the iPhone. Yes, some crappy review phones were released into the wilderness. That does suck. But I have used ACTUAL consumer units and I have not experienced the much talked about lag. I LOVE the click when you type or intentionally open an app. How tough is that concept to understand??? Touching highlights or selects, clicking opens or executes. And after using both the iPhone and the Storm, I have to tell you that my typing was 1000% more accurate on the Storm! The iPhone is a toy that some people are trying to convince themselves is a business productivity tool. The Storm is a business phone with some eye candy on top. Feature comparisons are stupid as the target audiences for each phone are different. And for the record, I think the Storm is WAY cool. (Couldn't you tell from my tone?)

So there I was, standing at the very center of the Obama celebratory hurricane at a club called Sugar Hill in Atlanta's Underground. A couple of friends and I were crowded around a table, drinking cold light beer, talking about the electoral math, and watching Wolf Blitzer on a 300ft projection screen, along with about 150 other people. As the moment approached, you could feel the electricity in the air. When CNN would break for commercial, Earth Wind and Fire would crank through the speakers around us. Everyone was talking at once, sharing their personal stories about the significance of this election with complete strangers. It was awe-inspiring and beautiful. And as I tried to live-blog the event on my Palm Centro's TEENY TINY KEYBOARD, all I could think was, "I'm going to choke the life out of that Sprint rep for not getting me my demo Blackberry!!!" Needless to say, my blog entry was limited to a few emotional phrases, tersely typed using my frickin...

Sounds ominous, right? Well, it should. Most tech shootouts do more harm than good to the consumer. Anybody remember Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD? Lasting for over two years, this Hi-Def DVD format face-off split the entertainment content community and left consumers standing on the sidelines scratching their heads. And Blu-ray's eventual victory earlier this year surely tasted of ashes. They were left with either angry customers who had spent hundreds on HD-DVD boxes and its respective media, or hopelessly confused customers who still didn't know that simply owning a Play Station 3 had put them in the winners' circle . What does that mean for the looming Mobile Phone slug-fest? More of the same consumer confusion. Perhaps I should explain. Recently, in a test market, smart-phone owners were asked about the capabilities of their phones and how they used them. It was determined that, although the smart-phone owners confidently claimed to use 100% of their phones' features...

Well folks, I have finally decided on a new smartphone. But first, I'll expand a little on my quest. It began with the En-V, LG's Frankenstein monster of a cellphone. Candybar scheme on the outside, flippy full-keyboard and widescreen goodness on the inside. And for a few bucks more, I got the GPS add-on. Life was good for a while, but over time I began to discover what I really *wanted* out of a cellphone. Surprisingly, the voice/phone part was really a small part of it. I wanted a full qwerty keyboard for texting and IM, a decent camera, a good picture viewer, and a decent web browser so I could connect with Google mobile and view things like my calendar and email. Most of all, I needed a more robust platform so I could later add on programs depending on how my needs changed. What I needed was a smartphone. As replacing the En-V was not an emergency, I took my time shopping around. Even though I was with Verizon, I was willing to break the deal and jump to another car...