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MySpace's Broken Email Unsubscribe Link

October 24, 2011 by Mike 7 Comments

A Public Service Announcement for MySpace: Please make sure your email unsubscribe links are working.

I wouldn’t normally waste my time on such a boring post, but I’ve got a minute to kill, so hey. MySpace occasionally sends email notifications alerting me every time someone sends me a message. (But the email NEVER tells you what the message is, which is incredibly annoying. 99% of the time, it’s just a band using software to boost its friend base. I no longer bother reading messages.)

So today, fed up, I finally decided to turn notifications off, and clicked on the link in the email titled:

“To turn off notifications, update your account settings.“

However, doing so takes you to a page that says:

Oops! Something went wrong…

Sorry but something may have gone wrong with our system or the page you have requested is currently not available. If you have mistyped the address then please try again. Otherwise go explore everything else we’ve got — music, movies, games, celebrities, and more.

I guess something has “gone wrong with their system.” Those wily coyotes will stop at nothing to make sure they can continue emailing you, ay? But you can’t be too hard on poor ol’ MySpace…steering a ship with a skeleton crew can’t be an easy task. Ah well.

So, when was the last time YOU visited YOUR MySpace profile? Or any, for that matter?

Occupy Wall Street Protest Jams

October 12, 2011 by Mike 2 Comments

There’s nothing like a good ol’ fashioned protest to out the Muse in everyone.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is pretty impressive, growing from a mere 1,000 protesters in New York City to 15,000, plus thousands more in cities in over 25 different countries. Cardboard boxes, pepper spray, celebrity visits, union participation, arrests, Reddit support, and lobbyist nightmares are all part of the story, and good stories inspire songs, some good, some bad.

Here are a couple Occupy Wall Street protest ditties circulating YouTube currently, answering the question WWBDD (What Would Bob Dylan Do). Sort of. What do you think? Inspired and provocative or bandwagon-jumping and opportunistic?

“Occupy Wall Street” by Jeremy Gilchrist

This guy’s got a nice voice, and seems a little more serious about the issues…

[Read more…]

Facebook and Free Music

September 8, 2011 by Mike 5 Comments

Call me old-fashioned, but I still listen to music in one of three ways: 1) on my iPhone, 2) with Pandora, and 3) on an FM car radio. That’s it. XM Radio, RDIO, Spotify, Last.fm, Google Music, and MOG have thus far eluded my attention, though I have accounts in all services (except MOG, I believe). I may try Spotify, due to multiple positive reviews from friends.

Will Facebook be offering a music service? Probably not, as it’s more likely that music services will offer an App within Facebook users can use. (There’s a difference.) Facebook’s strategy is still to become the world’s leading platform utility for the sharing of media. In any case, it does look like some kind of free streaming model may be offered in the near future, via a number of partners.

Will consumers use a music service through Facebook? That’s hard to answer, but my gut instinct tells me mass adoption is unlikely. The most successful consumer products and platforms often integrate some combination of 1) ultra-simplicity in usability and design, and 2) some element of “wow” factor that’s new and unique. Integrating a great user experience like Spotify into Facebook risks cluttering and complicating it. It also places template-driven restrictions on design that can lessen the likelihood of a “wow” experience. Why not just use the ‘native’ version of the service?

I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I am saying it’s going to be quite a challenge solving both problems above. Music service developers will need Facebook guidance and flexibility to create a well-integrated experience, or the offerings may fall flat. That’ll be challenging, as the Facebook Profile, Wall, News pages are already cluttered with quite a few actionable modules and calls-to-action.

Further, if multiple music platforms are launching simultaneously, how differentiated can they really be? All said, I’m excited to see where everything lands.

What do you think — will music services sink or swim in Facebook?

How to Add the Google +1 Button to WordPress With the Digg Digg Plugin

July 15, 2011 by Mike 3 Comments

I was delighted today to learn that my favorite social sharing WordPress plugin, Digg Digg, recently added the Google +1 Button to the long list of buttons it already supports. It took me about 20 seconds to turn on. Eazy fo’ sheezy.

Not only does Digg Digg enable a huge variety of share buttons, including Google +1, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc, it’s also incredibly customizable, letting you pick the type, size, pages, and placement of buttons throughout your site. Perfect for lazy-but-anal folks like me.

So how do you add the Google +1 button to WordPress? Here’s what I did, though there are plenty of customizable options in Digg Digg, as well as plenty of other plugins that attempt to offer similar functionality:

In your WordPress dashboard, under “Plugins”, click on “Add New”.
Do a search for “Digg Digg”. Download and install the plugin.
Click on “Enable Normal Display”.
Select “Horizontal” to display the Google share button (and other share buttons) horizontally. (Selecting “vertical” will stack them, which can add a lot of white space under your posts.)
Select the page types you want the share the button in. (Might as well select all of ’em.)
In the next question, include “All”, exclude nothing. (I’m not quite sure what that does, and I don’t particularly care.)
Check the box that let’s Digg Digg modify your post excerpt. (Recommended.)
Now the fun part. “Turn on” the Google share button (and others you’d like to use) by selecting an “integration type” for it. (I chose “before_content” for the Facebook, Twitter, and Google +1 buttons.)
Pick a button size for each. (I went with “compact” for each, and “compact 20px” for the Google button.)
Leave everything else, and click on “Save Changes”.

That’s it. You’re now part of the hip “early adopter” crowd that’s using Google +1. (Well, actually, you’re a little late. Google +1 is already on more widespread that Twitter’s Tweet button.) You can get pretty fancy with Digg Digg, and play with it’s “floating” functionality, or dive under the hood for deep customization. Enjoy.

Get a Beta Account for LoopPort's Royalty Free Sample Service

July 7, 2011 by Mike 10 Comments

Loopport is a new company — currently in private beta — entering the royalty free audio sample space, but with a professional subscription spin. In a nutshell, DJs, musicians, bands, and producers will pay a monthly fee (though I’m not sure what that fee will be) to have unlimited access to an ever-renewing library of professional-quality royalty free samples, loops, effects, and patches.

Courtesy of Loopport, the first 100 GarageSpin readers who click here and use beta code “loopport09” will get a free private beta account.

I wandered through the service myself the other day, and made a few observations:

The audio quality of the samples and loops is quite good, especially compared to the many royalty free audio download sites currently in market.
The samples and loops are offered in every file format available, and should be compatible with every DAW (Logic, ProTools, Cakewalk, Garageband, you name it).
Samples are organized ito “Bitpaks“, which are awesome. You can download all the samples in a Bitpak loop, or just specific instruments. (For example, you like the symbol sound, but hate the bass drum? No worries, just download the cymbol.)
The service is hosted in the “cloud”, and the promised quick download times are indeed pretty quick.
What will the subscription fee be? I’m not yet sure…
There isn’t a ton of content on the site, yet, but it’s early, and the plan to add more fairly frequently. Love the idea of not being stuck with a stack of sample CDs you never use.
The site itself, visually, could be improved. But I suppose it’s purpose is to please the ear, and not the eye, so that’s a lesser issue.

Anyway, if you check it out, share your thoughts — what do you think? Did any particular samples or service features impress you?