Alex Jones: Web Technologist, Barbecue Acolyte, Information Junkie, Austinite

The Beatles, Radiohead and Our Musical Tastes

Michelle has posted a great wrap up of Tim Westergren’s speech at Pandora’s Get Together here in Austin. Pandora sent me a number of reminders about the event, but I chose not to go, which is a shame because it sounds like it was fun.

Michelle’s post reminds me of the Ultimate Music Recommendation Smackdown panel I attended the last day of SXSWi ‘07, which added a lot of interesting pieces to my understanding of music consumption on the Net as well as how the comparisons and matches are made. The most interesting takeaway from that panel was the fact that four of the five services (Pandora, Last.Fm, iLike and I believe Bryght (site may be down)) had to add filters to their systems after discovering that their services were recommending The Beatles and Radiohead for almost every other song or artist. “We see you like Hank Williams, we think you would like Creep from Radiohead”.

That’s pretty damn interesting if you think about it. People are naturally ranking Radiohead at a level of interest as high, or higher as The Beatles by their natural listening habits. Some of this should be attributed to the average age of people using their services, which I assume skews to the younger side, but that’s still a major point when you think about the popularity of the two bands, and the legacy of Radiohead.

The other interesting point I took away from that point of the conversation is the fact that in order for those two connections to be made listeners included the two artists amongst a wide variety of bands and genres. A quick view of my own listening habits and those of many of my friends provides some reinforcement, but I can’t wait to see the types of connections being formed world-wide. It would be amazing to have a “map” or some other form of visual analytics of these musical connections.

Thanks for sharing the experience Michelle!

Posted in Music, Technology & Tagged: austin, Music, South by Southwest

Recent Links: February 13 to February 20

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Ignorance & Confidence

Kruger and Dunning noted a number of previous studies which tend to suggest that in skills as diverse as reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis, “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” (as Charles Darwin put it). They hypothesized that with a typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree,

1. Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
2. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
3. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
4. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

Dunning-Kruger effect - Wikipedia

This explains a lot.

Hat tip to Tim Walker for mentioning the effect.

Posted in General & Tagged: culture, humanity, knowledge, science, social, sociology

Recent Links: February 06 to February 13

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I’m Not My Parents

Without dismissing the accomplishments of her folks (her father was dead before she was 2), [Frances Bean] Cobain advises, “People need to wait until I’ve done something valid with my life.”

Frances Bean Cobain: ‘I’m Not My Parents’ at People.com

That’s a refreshing change from the normal rock and roll / Hollywood scene. Is it possible that the daughter of Curt Cobain and Courtney Love somehow managed to develop into a normal person? That would reinforce my beliefs that humanity can and does improve, despite evidence to the contrary.

I really liked Curt Cobain, so this isn’t a knock on him, but he died when she was two, so his direct influence on her life pales in comparison to the influence of his legacy. The very act of struggling out from under that shadow, not to mention growing up under the influence of Courtney Love is impressive on many levels.

Posted in General & Tagged: courtney love, culture, curt cobain, hole, hollywood, humanity, media, nirvana

Spec Work, Pixish, Design Contests and Unicorns

Adam Howell sums up my thoughts on Pixish quite succinctly. Sure, the concept sounds great at first, as noted on the Pixish site, the community is set up as “a way to engage creative people online to submit, judge, and source amazing images.” Nice until you dig into it, just a little bit, and realize that a set of designers are all working on the same project, only one of whom will get paid. Even worse, “paid” may be a prize that is worth far less than they should have been paid.

Choices

Now, there’s a part of me that believes that it’s up to individual designers to decide to participate in something for which they may not be paid. But, in this case, as has been noted many times over, spec work weakens the profession, promoting the inexpensive option over a quality piece. Clients will view the talent pool as relatively equal, opting for a crap shoot instead of finding the right match for their needs. We do have an obligation to keep our industry strong.

For Those Starting Out

Some believe that this is a great opportunity for budding designers to build a portfolio, but as Adam notes, “We’ve got, you know, the web. Blogs. Youtube. digg/reddit/lots of other lowercase social sites. There are no longer just three ways to showcase your talent — there are three bajillion. And if you aren’t getting noticed, sorry, you either aren’t trying hard enough or you suck.”

Harsh? Yes.

True? You bet’cha.

So, do design contests have any real value? I think so. Competitions oriented towards students and amateurs to help them fill out a portfolio are great, as are contests that may benefit a non-profit, as long as the results of the contests isn’t used as a business deliverable, much less as a part of branding. That a disservice to the client who deserves nothing but the best representation of their brand and services; and it’s a disservice to the designer who should be properly compensated for their efforts.

Value

In this same vein of respect for the designer and the clients, I had a conversation recently with someone who had worked in marketing at a large tech company and was not willing to pay a designer the going rate (actually the lower end of the spectrum) for a Web project. This potential client told me that were he to interview someone who designed a site like Apple.com, he would automatically consider them out of his league. So, even though he respected and acknowledged their skills, he wouldn’t try to find a way to harness those skills, that designer would be set aside because they were too good. Anyone who wasn’t at that tier were then lumped together, as they couldn’t impress him, which means that they were charging too much.

He’s chasing a unicorn: quality and experience on the cheap.

Oh, and this is for a project that he is passionate about, and will represent him to the world. He seemed like a perfectly nice guy, but what does this say about the image he will project?

What does it say about the designers and clients using Pixish?

Quick Note

Derek Powazek has given a lot to the Web community, and I have benefited from his work in the past, so while I have a lot of respect for him, that respect doesn’t change the fact that I disagree with the concept of Pixish.

Posted in Design, Design & UI & Tagged: business, Design, marketing, web design

Recent Links: February 07 to February 10

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Politics and Open Source

Whurley has created a poll to gather feedback on the question of who would be an ideal candidate for those of us who rely upon and value source software. As he says, “Assume for a moment that a knowledge of open source is prerequisite (or integral) in solving issues like patent reform. Who would you vote for? In other words, who would be the best candidate for the open source community?” I should have posted this sooner, but I’ve been distracted.

opensville

A quick note, Whurley picked the top candidates from each party, prior to Mitt Romney dropping out.

Posted in Law & Government, Technology & Tagged: development, open source, politics

Recent Links: February 04 to February 07

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Refresh Austin Party at SXSW

We just kicked out the announcement, Refresh Austin will be co-hosting a kickass party with Phizzpop at South by Southwest Interactive. This will be the major party on Monday evening (March 10^th), so I highly recommend you add the event to your Upcoming calendar, and let your friends know so they can come join us for free drinks, cool technology and great company.

See you there!

Posted in South by Southwest & Tagged: South by Southwest, sxsw2008