17 posts from December 2007

A few years ago, my first novel was published. It did pretty well, won an award, was translated and sold around the world; the movie rights were even optioned. Now I want to put it online — no charge, no hook, no catch. My motivation is simple: greed.

- Apocalypse Soon by Jon Evans, The Walrus, September 2007

1. The writers won't win the current strike.

I had grand plans to do a post a day about my favorite 2007 things starting about 2 weeks ago but life got in the way. It's hard to write when grandma's in town and a Felicia returns and you're stuffing your face all the daggone time.

So, here's what I would've gone into more depth about.

Best Albums of 2007

1. Untrue - Burial (Yeah, it creeped on up)
2. Play With The Changes - 4Hero
3. Version - Mark Ronson
4. The Reminder - Feist
5. American Gangster - Jay-Z
6. Kala - M.I.A.
7. Our Earthly Pleasures - Maximo Park
8. Koop Islands - Koop
9. Writer's Block - Peter, Bjorn & John
10. Ear Drum - Talib Kweli
11. Neon Bible - Arcade Fire
12. Introducing... - Joss Stone
13. Under The Black Light - Rilo Kiley
14. The Fragile Army - The Polyphonic Spree
15. The Undisputed Truth - Brother Ali
16. Desire - Pharoahe Monch
17. The Weatherman LP - Evidence
18. Those Things - Miguel Migs
19. Proof of Youth - The Go! Team
20. Volta - Bjork

Best Record Label of 2007 - The Numero Group

Best Hip-Hop Album of 2007 that you probably don't have

Below the Heavens

Blu & Exile

Best Albums of 2007 that didn't come out in 2007

1. Bees + Things + Flowers - Incognito
2. Keep Reachin' Up - Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators
   
3. The Only Thing I Ever Wanted - Psapp
4. Set Yourself On Fire - Stars
5. Best Kept Secrets: The Best of Lam 1996-2004 - Lamb

Best Songs of 2007 (based on actual spins)

1. Innocence - Bjork
2. Black Mirror - Arcade Fire
3. Unlike Me - Kate Havnevik
4. Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You) (featuring Outkast) - UGK
5. Give It To Me (f/ Nelly Furtado & Justin Timberlake) - Timbaland
6. The Show - Talib Kweli & Madlib
7. Don't Act (F/ Freeway) - Skillz
8. I Still Love H.E.R. - Kanye West
9. Ancient Curse - Peter, Bjorn & John
10. Lookin' At Me Sideways - Brother Ali

1. Innocence - Bjork
2. Paper Planes - M.I.A.
   
3. Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You) (featuring Outkast) - UGK
4. I'm A Flirt (Remix ft. T.I & T-Pain) - R.Kelly
5. He Can Only Hold Her - Amy Winehouse
6. 1 2 3 4 - Feist
7. Champion - Kanye West
8. Young Folks - Peter, Bjorn & John
9. Look Inside - 4Hero
10. Roc Boys (And The Winner Is...) - Jay-Z
    

1. Michael Clayton
2. Ratatouille
3. No Country For Old Men
4. Superbad
5. Lars and The Real Girl

1. The Heart of the Game
2. Who Killed The Electric Car?
3. Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing
4. An Unreasonable Man

Best Read of 2007 - The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and The Awakening of a Nation

Best Website of 2007 - Last.fm

Best Website of 2007 to hate to sorta like - Facebook

Best Blog Podcast Vlog Content Site of 2007 - Undercover Black Man

Best New (to me) Content Site of 2007 - Away with Words

Ch-ch-ch-chea FTW, originally uploaded by gwen.

I'm exasperated every time FTW is used as "For The Win." Every Time I see it, I think "Fuck The World!"

Gwen finds proof that I'm not crazy. Everybody else is.

Advice about when and where not to read was once a medical specialty.

Michelle's Consuming Louisville post about her local radio station's UGC photo promotion prompted a pretty impassioned response from me in her comments so I figured the topic deserved a longer treatise from me here. I should be working right now but the Holidays have already captured my brain.

And I will open this with a caveat - while what I'm going to discuss is informed by my work at the mouse nothing I'm going to say is specific to any of our current, past, or future projects.

For the purposes of this conversation, let's consider UGC this - copy, images, and video created and submitted by website guests who do not have a formal relationship, state of employment, or contract with said website or it's parent company.

Professionally generated content in this conversation is material sold to or produced in partnership with a website or it's parent company. It can also be content that passes the "professional" smell test and/or has it's own brand. UGC content is 99% of what gets posted to youtube. The other 1% like Epic-fu and Tiki Bar TV is PGC.

Understand this about Traditional Entertainment Mainstream Media Companies and UGC promotions: for them, user-generated content is almost never about the content.

Let me write that again: for them, user-generated content is almost never about the content.

MSM gets much more value from professionally generated content. It's extendable, distributable, licensable, and has tried and true copyright agreements around it. In the online space, professionally generated content is thought of the same way. Professional content makers that are selling their existing products or producing in partnership with MSM websites bring with them their own cache - built-in audience, expertise in the online content model, and the level of creativity and "professionalism" that is the equivalent of their television or movie content creation counterparts.

So, what does MSM get out of user-generated content promotions? If they are smart, they are getting what good UGC models provide - a dedicated and invested audience, increased page views, increased time spent on the site, a committed community to market to and sell advertising against, and, lastly, interesting enough content that passive users like to see (although probably not pay for). MSM is not looking for professional work to come in from professionals through UGC promotions and, in fact, have to protect themselves against those kinds of submissions in their disclaimers and terms of use.

A fan or hobbyist wants to participate. A professional wants to get paid. UGC is for that first audience and explicitly not for the second.

Also, realize that in the online space, it's cheaper to get professional content, particularly copy and photos. UGC promotions/applications are expensive to create and manage. Professionally generated content has set costs. I can buy one photo from a pro for what? $50, $500, $5000? How much does it cost me to sort through and manage complicated usage rights for 5,000 user-submitted photos? 50,000? 500,000? And for how long?

If I'm MSM and I want pro content, I'll hire a pro. It's quicker, costs less, and doesn't come with huge legal hurdles.

Understand this as a person who creates content, you don't get to be both. You either are an amateur or you're a pro. If you're a pro, copyright your material, protect your intellectual and creative property, determine your own rules about distribution. I post my pictures to flickr under a creative commons license that pretty much marks me as a hobbyist. You can take my pictures and do what you will with them as long as I get credited. If, at some point in my life, I decide to become a professional, I would change my license and probably limit the amount of work I have available online for free. I'd understand, though, that my material from before I considered myself a pro, is probably open season.

I don't post my writing anywhere without a prior agreement about that work. I don't consider writing a hobby. I've been paid for my writing, hired for my writing, speak about my writing. It's professional work. I give it to you for free here. I'd fight it's appearance elsewhere tooth and nail if I thought it was without permission (this gets a little hinky with RSS feeds but that's for another day).

As I said on Michelle's post, don't look for a MSM company or website to protect your rights. They are far too busy (and scared) protecting their own.

I miss television. But the web makes it all better. Via a tweet by calinative, I present Yarg Y'Cam:

Archangel

Burial

if it's the reclusive life that Burial seeks, he might just be his own worst enemy, because his new album, Untrue, bests Burial's fans' wildest hopes for the followup. Burial was a worthy, sometimes thrilling record-- an impressive debut-- but it sometimes lost focus, particularly when it attempted to carve out something closer to "proper," clubwise dubstep. But Untrue maintains the style and the vibe of the first album and yet does it better. It's a deeper album-- richer, more complex, more enveloping. The irony is that almost nothing has changed. Burial still makes his beats (at least, so he claims) with relatively lo-fi audio editing software, eschewing the comfort of sequencers and MIDI clocks. His string sounds, which on Burial let many a critic to call his music "cinematic," sound as unabashedly canned as they did last time, and his manipulated vocals-- warped, time-stretched, pitch-corrected-- are just as unabashedly emotive.

-Pitchfork Record Review (8.4/10), 11.13.07

I've only had this album for a week so I'm not ready to call it "Album of the Year" but it just might be. It's haunted me since the day I bought it (8.99 in the Amazon mp3 store, also available on eMusic) and I find my mind constantly returning to its complicated rhythms. Right now, it falls as #3 on my 2007 album chart.

It's just that good. When listening to this track, I want to sing along. I randomly break out in dance. I head nod. I listen intently. I listen casually. I listen all the time.

I haven't sat with the album enough to form a compelling review and maybe I'll get to that later. For now, I just want you to enjoy as I am.

Ghost Hardware

Burial

Top Artists

1		Björk	559
2		Jay-Z	509
3		Common	440
4		NPR	438
5		Madlib	365
6		Talib Kweli	350
7		Little Brother	345
8		Sufjan Stevens	312
9		Mary J. Blige	276
10		J Dilla aka jay dee	273
11		De La Soul	271
12		Incognito	264
12		Jay Dee	264
14		Zero 7	256
15		Murs	237
16		Miguel Migs	227
17		Evidence	225
18		Oh No	216
19		The Arcade Fire	211
20		Joss Stone	210
21		Justin Timberlake	209

*plus 1 because I don't really count NPR as a music spin.

Top Tracks

1		Björk – Innocence	50
2		The Arcade Fire – Black Mirror	42
2		Kate Havnevik – Unlike me	42
4		UGK – International Players Anthem (f/ Outkast)	38
5		Incognito – Always There	37
5		José González – All You Deliver	37
7		Justin Timberlake – My Love (ft TI)	34
7		DangerDoom – Vats of Urine	34
7		Bonde do Role – Melo do Tobaco (Paul Devro Sweet Mango Mix)	34
7		Timbaland – Give It To Me (f/ Nelly Furtado & Justin Timberlake)	34
11		Mary J. Blige – Free (Interlude)	33
12		Zero 7 – Crosses	32
12		AYA – 45 Parade Place	32
12		The Foreign Exchange – Foreign Exchange End Theme	32
12		Incognito – Raise	32
16		Dilated Peoples – Back Again	31
16		Talib Kweli & Madlib – The Show	31
16		Sleater-Kinney – Modern Girl	31
19		J-Love – Return Of The Theodore Unit (f/ Ghostface, Sean Wiggs and Trife Da God)	30
19		Björk – Aeroplane	30
19		Terry Callier – Just As Long As We're In Love	30
19		The Foreign Exchange – Be Alright	30
19		Madlib – Tape Hiss (Dirty)	30

Top Albums

1		J Dilla aka jay dee – Donuts	272
2		Incognito – Bees + Things + Flowers	198
3		Jay Dee – Ruff Draft	157
4		The Arcade Fire – Neon Bible	149
4		4hero – Play With The Changes	149
6		Robin Thicke – The Evolution of Robin Thicke	127
7		Brother Ali – The Undisputed Truth	122
8		Jaylib – Champion Sound	119
9		DangerDoom – The Mouse And The Mask	118
10		The Foreign Exchange – Connected	110
10		Björk – Volta	110
12		Common – Be	104
12		Mark Ronson – Version	104
14		Sia – Colour the Small One	90
14		Sufjan Stevens – Illinois	90
16		José González – Veneer	84
17		Mary J. Blige – My Life	83
18		Common – Like Water for Chocolate	81
19		Björk – Vespertine Live	80
20		Mary J. Blige – Love & Life	79

*note - just like last year, I'm not so sure about the albums list although it looks more accurate. That said, half the albums in my critical top albums list are no where to be found on the full chart despite what I know about my listening habits the second  half of this year.

More in depth discussions begin in the morning.