Remember Last.FM?

Last.FM had connections with record labels to have been able to do what Spotify does. For a long time they skirted what Spotify did – long before Spotify existed. 

Someone should acquire Last.FM from CBS and do something with it.

It’s amusing that Silicon Valley is so interested in making every behaviour “social” and yet the social aspect of music is actually greatly missed, the one aspect of music that would not require record deals…

Startups have been systematized, mythologized, culturally and socially de-risked; reduced down to formulas and recipes. Yet, there is no enduring formula for creativity and rebellion. When we attempt to factory farm innovation we breed out the very thing we’re trying raise: the creative destruction that stokes and re-stokes the fire of capitalism.

Alex Payne: Letter to a Young Programmer

This whole post is most excellent. See also: World Building in a Crazy World

(via fascinated)

(via fascinated)

Strong Opinions @marksbirch: The Next Big Thing Is Not Innovative

marksbirch:

Now before you excoriate me for bashing Pinterest, Vine, and other mobile, social consumer apps, ask yourself if they are truly innovative? Have they brought new technology to the table? Has the human condition been improved? […] The ideas that are truly innovative are too raw or too bizarre or too challenging or too counter-intuitive. On the surface, they look ugly and unimpressive and down right idiotic. They do not conform to our perceptions of innovative and cool. They are pitched by quacks and weirdos and freaks. They are developed in nondescript labs out of the spotlight and beyond the mainstream. And they are certainly not on TechCrunch and other supposed forums of “disruptive technology”.

MySpace was where you went in the past, WordPress and Movable Type were where people went if they had the patience and writing output to maintain a traditional blog, Facebook was where you went to define yourself by schools and checkboxes, and Tumblr was where you went to make your own identity and express your creativity.
Marco Arment (one of Tumblr’s early developers) in a nice little ode to David Karp and Tumblr, on Tumblr’s history and why he’s hopeful about Yahoo’s acquisition. If you’re still wary about the whole deal, it’s a nice read. (via futurejournalismproject)