Musical matters to cheer the soul…

I admit to feeling a bit down when I got home from a reasonably pleasant day in the office last night. Not only had my car self-destructed at the end of my road, causing me to have to push it for 5 minutes to my house at the end of a long day, but then my internet connection decided to start playing up.

Still, two stories did brighten my evening considerably.

Bono enjoying a holiday

Bono enjoying a holiday

Brian Solis has a great write-up of what in reality is fairly inconsequential to the world at large – but fairly important to someone who protects his image and uses his fame to promote good causes. I do love the way the original Mail article tries hard to align his charity work with the scandal of being around teenagers, one of whom lists being a fashion party organiser as her occupation.

Riffworld

Riffworld

On a less scandously, and brighter note, when I wrote about the music industry recently (Behind the music, and ‘Why record companies are really screwed‘), I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on Riffworks. Fortunately there’s a good post about it on the Wikinomics blog by Anthony D Williams, which has a great quote about the free downloadable recording and software,  the Riffworld collaboration tool, and how it means guitarists can find ways to play together without having to advertise locally and carry their gear around in an old car or van.

Pepsi – the taste of the web 2.0 generation?

Although I’d already heard about the new logo, I picked up on Pepsi’s more social activites via Edelman Digital’s Steve Rubel, who is working with them, and having joined up, saw some early commentary from Chris Brogan.

Chris talked about How corporations should view comment polices, and I agree that offensive content needs to be filtered unless there is an age restriction on the community. And also that off topic comments and conversations can detract in a single room (I’d recommend having on-topic rooms, and a general one where possible). After managing and moderating forums including those on www.motorcyclenews.com for about 7 years, I’m fairly well versed in polite emails about offensive behaviour and swiftly editing posts on legal and good taste grounds!

There is pre-moderation on comments – a little annoying for speed of response on a microblogging, lifestreaming, conversation service – and even more annoying when the Pepsi team have finished for the day and comments are left hanging. (Note to Pepsi team – the other side of the world is still awake! Maybe find a Pepsi employee in another timezone to help?)

But it will be interesting to see the response to a couple of comments I’ve made about Pepsi’s Terms and Conditions. (I had an acknowledgement from Pepsi’s John Karpf, so it’ll be interesting to see what evolves.) At the top of the Friendfeed Pepsi Cooler room, there’s a hyperlink to ‘a few notes from our lawyers’. Which links to the Pepsi.com Privacy Policy.

Hmmmm

While I acknowledge the need for Terms and Conditions, and stating the standards for a community are necessary, I could have sworn Friendfeed has it’s own Terms of Service, and doesn’t need Pepsi essentially annexing a room! I’m hoping they find another way to express the principles of the room they wish to encourage in a way which doesn’t seem quite so much like our caffeinated overlords have arrived!

But fair play to them, I’d ignored the new logo, and become fairly loyal to Coke due to the cokezone loyalty promotion, (I’m a sucker for free Xbox games!), yet the prospect of a Friendfeed room has made me take a bit of an interest in what they’re up to at Pepsi. I’ll let you know what comes out of the vending machine at work when I go for a drink!

Catching up on the world of microblogging

It’s late in the evening, but the site appears to be running properly again. So here’s some quick links while I try and catch up:

Scott Rosenberg has an interesting post looking at whether Twitter could be improved as a link sharing tool in a way that could improve on social bookmarking site Delicious.

Nick O’Neil looks at the Future of Twitter: The Public Conversation Backbone, laying out some of the opportunities for the company/application.

Everything Twitter has spotted a new Windows client with advertising, Tweetybot.

David Krug has a suitable response to warnings that terrorists could utilise Twitter.

Leslie Madsen Brooks has a great post collating museums using Twitter.

And Twitterholics appears to have gone into overdrive over the last few days with Twitter applications. Some I’ve covered, but there are some new ones in the mix.

Testing plugin problems…

I think I may have found the culprit!