Twitter and other things I really needed
February 7, 2008, 2:20 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized, Web | Tags: , ,

It’s a thing we do when we succumb to new web2.0 services. The cool, the useless, the fun, the might-turn-out-to-become-interesting-at-some-point applications, tools, communities. The places where everyone says they don’t want to, don’t need go, but where in the end, everyone turns out to be. What we do is, we apologise. We look for excuses. We’re casual. Just checking. Because we kept receiving all those emails and invitations from friends. Because we got annoyed. Wanted to know what all the fuzz was about. Because we got tricked into it. And now we know. Actually, we forgot we already looked into it some time when it was still in private beta. Yes, it’s pretty cool, somehow, I guess. For some people. Not so much for me. With time, and all. I just stopped going there when the community grew too large, you know? God, if they haven’t deleted my account already, I wouldn’t remember my password if Rupert came and crawled up my arse to social network my intestins. My profile is so not up to date anyway, last time I checked them all was, what, 1999.

mixtape.jpg

All I’m really trying to tell you here is that I’ve got a new one. I’m twittering now. I’ve submitted myself to what was called the most useless, time consuming {but somehow interesting} service yet invented on Mashable. I’ve tried it before and now I’m trying it again and I have to say: Twitter does fill a gap.

It’s the gap between blogging and chatting. It’s what you do when you want to say things that are not important or interesting enough to write a whole post about, but matter enough to be read by more than one person. All in all, it fullfills the need to express yourself to a lot of people, quickly, effortlessly. It’s the extension of mood updates, the better alternative to posting comments everywhere. One way or another, it’s an ego thing.

It’s interesting to see that many posts on Twitter can be categorised into either chatting or blogging. Many, many posts seem to be lines taken from a chat, incomprehensible to most other readers. Other writers truly become writers – each post is a quote, a micro blog entry, carefully composed, posted to be read.

Back to web2.0 services. The thing is, it never ends. Immediately after my first post, a digital tsunami of other needs welled up in my chest. I wanted a desktop Twitter feed and a widget for my blog, which wasn’t supported by bad, bad WordPress and I discovered Twittervision. I thought it would be nice to have Twittervision as an active desktop background, which turned out only to be supported by IE. Which in itself is unsettling on so many levels I can’t describe. At least not here. Maybe on Twitter.



Visual Complexity
February 5, 2008, 9:54 pm
Filed under: Art, Music, Web | Tags: , ,

I adore Visual Complexity. It is a pseudo-scientific project that combines statistics, algorithms, graphic design and information architecture to produce visual representations of complex relations and networks.

Right.

For example, the first image underneath represents an overview of the many, many recorded covers of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” in relation to the original versions of the band – still a fairly simple information cluster. The second graphic shows all songs listened to on social music software last.fm during a period of 18 months. Colours, thickness of lines and font size all have their specific meaning.

Visual Complexity makes bare information and slick design meet. The product, for all its uselessness, is mysteriously exciting to look at.

Visual Complexity

… Not just for nerds!



Just Concerts
February 3, 2008, 7:05 pm
Filed under: Music, Web | Tags: , ,

One of the websites I’ve been most thankful finding for in the past few weeks is justconcerts.com. The man behind the smart URL is the radiostation CBC Radio 3, which focusses on indie bands, both established and new, from Canada. I’ve already discovered more than one interesting band in their new-and-unsigned-bands podcasts. Not only that, the lists of live concerts and sessions on various locations over the country include performances by Feist, Apostle of Hustle, Death Cab For Cutie, Interpol, Do Make Say Think, Four Tet… – and that’s only the section from A-F. A live version of Mogwai’s “You Don’t Know Jesus” gave me the chills today. Justconcerts.com seems an absurdly complete catalogue of the temporary Canadian indie scene and proves that cities like Montréal and Toronto are true talent breeding grounds. But we knew that already. As Malajube sang:

Montréal es tellement froid / … / J’m’inspire du pire / Pour m’enrichir / … / Tu gardes le rythme tu m’mets en transe.

justconcerts1.jpg