Books in the Cloud?

Reading E-Books Rewrite Bookselling in today’s Wall Street Journal got me thinking about how much the manner in which I consume media has changed of late.

Several months ago I cancelled all of my cable movie channels and re-activated my NetFlix account; I stream the movies more often watching via DVD.  Similarly, I also recently started using Rhapsody (love it!), a fantastic alternative to downloading and storing music -- and worrying about secure back-ups to protect my investment. I also cancelled my Sirius-XM account because my iPhone is a far more useful and flexible alternative (especially with the Rhapsody app.)

So a great deal of the media I consume lives in the Cloud, where I can access it via a variety of devices.  Is there a similar model on the horizon for the publishing industry?

While I often read newspaper and magazine articles on my iPhone, the idea of reading a book on that device never appealed to me. But the iPad offers an excellent book-reading experience, so much so that I doubt that I'll purchase another paper book (with the exception of library sales and the occasional irresistible remainder bargain.)

But rather than having to download and store digital copies of books, I'd love to see a model similar to Rhapsody or NetFlix, where I pay for 24/7, any-device access to the e-books I want to read.

Audible, the digital audiobook company, has a  sort of hybrid model. The audiobooks I've purchased are permanently stored on the site, where they can be streamed to my computer. The downside is that if I want to listen on my iPhone I have to download the file and then upload to my device. But unlike content I purchase from iTunes, if any of my Audible purchases are accidentally deleted, I can download another copy from the site. (An Audible iPhone app that allows me to stream titles in my library seems like a no-brainer, no?)

(At least as far as music is concerned, Apple's purchase of Lala may signal a move to a cloud-based model that will go head-to-head with Rhapsody. Time will tell.)
Audible also offers monthly membership deals that allow users to download a predetermined number of titles each month.

So as the new breed of ebook stores comes online, I hope someone offers a model similar to NetFlix, Rhapsody, and Audible.

 

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Cross posted to Bob Rhubart’s Blog and Smallification

Top 100s by Year by Bing

As iPhone music apps go, Top 100s by Year by Bing is pretty damn cool, especially if you’re a pop music fan of certain age. But after combing through some of the year-by-year lists, I have questions about the source of the data.

For the year 1962,  the BillBoard Top 100 list has many songs in common with the Bing list. But focusing on the top ten, there are significant differences…

Bing	Billboard
Green Onions -- Booker T and the MGs Bring It On Home To Me -- Sam Cooke You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me -- The Miracles The Loco-Motion -- Little Eva Sherry -- Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons I Can’t Stop Loving You -- Ray Charles Up On The Roof -- The Drifters Twist and Shout -- The Isley Brothers These Arms of Mine -- Otis Reading Do You Love Me -- The Contours	Roses Are Red (My Love) -- Bobby Vinton I Can't Stop Loving You -- Ray Charles Let's Twist Again -- Chubby Checker Stranger On The Shore -- Mr. Acker Bilk The Stripper -- David Rose Johnny Angel -- Shelley Fabares The Loco-Motion -- Little Eva Breaking Up Is Hard to Do -- Neil Sedaka Mashed Potato Time -- Dee Dee Sharp Soldier Boy -- Shirelles

For my money, the Bing list, being heavy on classic R&B, is far more listenable. But what’s the source of the data? And there are other issues that have me very suspicious of the Bing data.

For instance, the Bing app lists The Beatles “Love Me Do” at #15 for 1962. But according to Wikipedia, the Beatles are nowhere men on the ‘62 US charts; that song wasn’t released here until April 1964.  “Love Me Do” did show up on the UK charts in ‘62, but according to Wikipedia, it peaked at #17.

There are other issues. The Bing app lists Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou” at #65 for 1963. According to Wikipedia, that song peaked on the Billboard Pop Singles chart for 1963 at #29.  Another issue is that the Bing app plays a live version of the song that I strongly suspect is from Orbison’s Black and White Night set from 1988. If I’m looking at the chart for ‘63, I want the version of the song that made it to that chart.

Yes, the Bing Top 100s app is free  -- for now, at least. And regardless of the data source it’s very cool to have access, however limited, to this amazing archive of pop hits. But I wish the people behind the app would share information on the source of the charts, and take pains to insure that the version of the song the app plays is the same version that hit the charts.

On the other side of the fence, I’ll take issue with some of the negative comments about the Bing ads that play periodically as you listen to the tunes. The app is free, fer cryin’ out loud,  and while you can’t control the playlist, you get to listen to the entire track for each song, rather than a sample. What’s not to like?

For me, this app takes me back to the days when I first heard these songs, over the radio, on AM not FM, and with commercials. Didn’t bug me then, doesn’t bug me now.

I’ll use this app a lot this summer, with my iPhone or Touch plugged into a set of speakers on my patio, sipping cool adult beverages and thinking back to an era that remains unsurpassed in pop music history.

 

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Defining Freedom

The Rise Of Republican Nihilism | The New Republic

This fascinating article by Jonathan Chait includes lovely bit:

"In the right-wing mind, the world we live in at any given moment can be described as the free market, the American way of life, perhaps not a perfect world but a cherished and fundamentally free one. The next advance of liberalism will always bring socialism, tyranny, a crushing burden on industry, and other horrors. The previous liberal advances that they or their predecessors greeted with such hysteria are eventually incorporated into the landscape of the free American way of life."

Wish I'd said that.

Amazing Avatar Lives Up to the Hype

How good is Avatar? So good that I managed to sit through the entire experience (three hours, factoring in the previews of coming attractions)  without visiting the men's room.  For a man of a certain age, that's really something.  I can't think of a movie I've seen since passing the half-century mark nearly six years ago that wasn't interrupted by at least one hurried trip to the john. 

The hype around Avatar has, of course, been incredible.  As my daughter Amy recently posted on Facebook, "You can't sneeze lately without someone handing you an Avatar tissue." But the film more than lives up to the hype, and delivers a movie-going experience that's unlike any I've had in a lifetime of movie-going.

My previous and only other 3-D movie experience was the 1983 turkey Jaws 3-D, the most memorable part of which was turning around in my seat to see rows of movie-goers in those ridiculous white cardboard 3-D glasses.  (The new ones are far less silly, looking a bit like retro Ray-Ban knock-offs.

While it's true that Avatar's storyline offers few surprises, the movie  is nevertheless wildly entertaining. The visual experience is so stunning that I spent most of the film with my face frozen in a astonished grin. I've seen SFX spectaculars before; this is something entirely different. The combination of the 3-D technology, incredibly detailed computer-generated effects, and Cameron's "performance capture" system all but eliminates the "virtual" from virtual reality.

The overall experience was so compelling that any thought of giving in to the urgent need to pee was out of the question.

Speaking of questions, I have one: In the film, the Na'vi characters have three fingers and a thumb on each hand, while character Jake Sully's Na'vi Avatar appears to have a more human four fingers and thumb arrangement. What's up with that?

Weekend Report: ‘Avatar’ Soars in Debut - Box Office Mojo
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American Car Culture is Humming Along

In his Wonderland column in today's Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger accuses the Obama administration's efforts to increase automobile fuel economy standards and drive the transition to alternative energy sources of killing an important element of American culture:

When Barack Obama announced that the government will use its fist to wave onto the highways of America cars that get 39 miles to a gallon of liquefied switch grass or something, he said, "Everybody wins."

Everybody? What country has he been living in? This marks the end of the internal combustion engine as we knew it, and it is the way Americans have defined, designed and literally driven much of the nation's culture for as long as anyone can remember. Car culture is America's culture.

As the various song lyrics Henninger cites in his column illustrate, there's no question that cool, fast cars loom large in the American psyche. But Henninger grossly underestimates both the depth of the American affection for the automobile and American ingenuity if he thinks that increased fuel economy or a shift to something other than decomposed dinosaurs as an energy source will kill car culture.  In fact, his prediction is already wrong.

As evidence, consider the National Electric Drag Racing Association,  an organization dedicacted to promoting public awareness of electric vehicle (EV) performance and encouraging advances in electric vehicle technology. 

John "PlasmaBoy" Wayland,  a NEDRA member, regularly blows the doors off gas-burning muscle cars with his White Zombie, an electric-powered 1972 Dastun.

 

Bill Dubé, another NEDRA member, is the owner and designer of the KillaCycle, the 174-mph electric motorcycle that holds the NEDRA record as the world's fastest electric vehicle.

 

For sheer, street-legal automotive cool, there's the Tesla Roadster from Tesla Motors. With prices starting at around $100k it may be a bit out of range for most of us, but that doesn't disqualify it as an object of automotive lust.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For something a little closer to economic reality for most of us, GM just announced today that is has begun building the first pre-production versions of the Chevy Volt.

 

Aptera, a newcomer to the auto industry, offers electric and hybrid vehicles with dramatically futuristic lines that are likely to inspire drooling in 21st century car nuts.

 

So Daniel Henninger is just plain wrong. American car culture is still very much alive. What's under the hood will bear little resemblance to earlier incarnations, and the muscle car rumble will be replaced with a steady hum, but based on what I see, cool cars, and cool car lovers, will be a part of American culture for a very long time. 

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