My Slate Column on Why Streaming Rocks

"Last week Slate published my latest column -- which is an ode to streaming, that mostly-neglected way of getting digital music. I tried out the streaming service Rhapsody, and discovered that quite to my surprise, it rocked madly. With 500,000 songs instantly at my beck and call, for $10 a month, it suddenly became really easy to explore new artists -- something that is incredibly expensive if you do it by buying CDs, and incredibly slow if you do it by using Kazaa. Most interestingly, I discovered that I didn't really care that much about not "owning" the songs; I was willing to trade enormous access to a massive library in exchange for not actually having them, physically, on my hard drive. That's partly because, as I noted, ownership these days isn't actually ownership...." [collision detection]

From Clive's article, The Internet Jukebox:

"Using a streaming service such as Rhapsody also allows you to opt out of the AAC vs. WMA war, a face-off that is queasily reminiscent of the fight between Betamax and VHS. You probably remember the sad fate of the losers who bought Beta movies. The downloading services are forcing you to similarly gamble about which music format will win. Right now, because of iPod and iTunes, AAC looks pretty solid. But what happens if WMA triumphs, iPods die out, and the only music players available in 2014 won't play the thousands of songs you legally bought at iTunes? (Or vice versa.)....

Besides, put on your Jules Verne cap. Think about what it'll be like when wireless companies finally roll out broadband networks nationwide and streaming is possible out in the streets. Imagine subscribing to something like Rhapsody on a mobile device that lets you access any song, anywhere, instantly. What will you think of your iPod and its 1,000 songs then?" [Slate]

I wholeheartedly agree with Clive, and I've been meaning to write more about this for a while. I listen to Rhapsody almost exclusively at work, and I don't miss the ownership aspect at all, a fact about which I am quite torn. On the one hand, the instant gratification is so worth it, and I love having the ability to listen to such a wide variety of music. On the other hand, I worry that I'm helping bring about a subscription-based entertainment future in which no one really owns our culture anymore, except the people charging me to access it.

And of course, my biggest fear of all is that there is room for libraries in that future.

"Tara at Research Buzz mentions a few more universities and libraries that are trying out RSS.

UC Berkeley, the University of Arizona, and The Minnesota Public Library. Those Minnesotans really have their RSS and blogging shoes on. Good for them." [Library Stuff]

Steven's been on a real roll while I was gone, so I hope you're reading Library Stuff daily!

Washington Post and Baltimore Sun RSS Feeds

"Having the Post is great, but check out the list from the Sun. Very cool. And the Times has added a feed just for politics. (I'm trying to keep track of all of the newspaper feeds I find here.)

So is there any reason why next fall we shouldn't give our kids their ID numbers, their network passwords, and their login info to their Bloglines account prepopulated with world, national, and local news, the latest sports and weather, and a few choice fun feeds for kids to follow?" [Weblogg-ed News]

Precisely! An excellent role for librarians in any type of library....

Active Résumés

"Alf Eaton writes today:

I think the MP3 blogs (which are essentially annotated playlists) might well be taking the middle ground in the P2P vs music industry wars - I hope that the record industry will begin to see the value in what these grassroots enthusiasts are doing to promote their music. On the other hand, a large part of making these playlists under current laws involves turning your back on the major labels and concentrating on the music libre, the 'free music', the stuff that wants to be shared. Those artists that make their tracks freely available online are the ones that will benefit most from the collaborative filtering and recommendation networks that are being set up. [Hublog]

Let's extend that remark: Any professional whose work is visible on the Net will become part of the conversation that establishes reputation and creates opportunity. The blog is an active résumé that enables you to participate -- by proxy -- in that conversation....

Here's the bottom line. What Alf calls "collaborative filtering and recommendation networks" will rival -- and my guess is, largely supplant -- conventional marketing and promotion. But if those networks can't find you, they won't be able to help you." [Jon's Radio]

Interesting when thought of in the context of libraries. It's exactly why our services - especially our online catalogs - need to be open and exposed. Exhibit A: LibraryLookup.

Startup Offers Text Message Q&A Service

"Colly Myers, founding CEO of Symbian, has launched a new startup in the UK, called issuebits.com, offering a search engine-style service to answer any question by text message, reports ElectricNews.net.

UK mobile users can try it out by texting their question to short code 63336. and "within (6) minutes they will get a text answer".

issuebits.com says it has patented Natural Language Processing algorithms as well as real human researchers. The service goes live on Orange and Vodafone networks in the UK on Thursday with the others to follow." [textually.org]

Coming to a future near you: answering reference questions and searching the library's catalog via text messaging.