A few music sites you've probably heard of, but may not have taken advantage of:

1. Last.fm

Last.fm is my most recently-discovered, and current favorite, social networking site. My last.fm profile can be found here. On my profile, you can see everything from my most-played artists of the past seven days, the Beatles and Pendulum, to my most-played artist of all time, Fall Out Boy. Friends can also connect on last.fm and see what each other are listening to and have listened to. You can connect to a friend's or other user's library and listen to their music, or browse through artists and genres and listen to songs that way. Last.fm is a great way to expose yourself to new artists and styles of music that you may like. It is also an interesting catalogue of your own and your friends' music-listening habits. For example, I learned that I need to lay off of Fall Out Boy for a while, because 3,000+ plays is far too many. And I learned that a few of my friends, Catie Vernon and Jordan Fish, have great taste in music and I should listen to their suggestions more often. [As I often find myself listening to their libraries when I am at a loss for a song to play.] Last.fm is a great site for discovering new music and connecting with friends who have similar tastes.

2. Blip.fm

Blip.fm is another site I had heard of for a while, but only just discovered and started using. My blip.fm profile is connected to my Twitter, and whenever I "blip" a new song, it posts as a tweet. To blip a song, you merely search the title and artist, add your own comments, and a link is posted to liste to the song. Blip.fm allows you to "be a DJ" and broadcast your favorite songs for all of your Twitter followers and Blip friends to hear. You can select one song, or create and entire stream of music for listeners to play. Friends can follow your blips, and you can give "props" when you like music that another person has played. I also have my blips set to update on my Facebook, so that my friends can see what I'm listening to and be exposed to new music.

3. Strike Gently

Strike Gently is a pop culture gossip, news, and downloading site that I have often heard about and just recently looked into. SG is famous for their internet drama, as the website often offends both generic pop-punk bands and other music news sites. It's raw, brutal, and occasionally X-rated, so some may take offense... but I prefer to just laugh. Movies and television shows can also be streamed from the Strike Gently site, and many SG posts include links to download songs, albums, movies, or music videos, of course with a disclaimer which explains that such downloads are for promotional purposes only and should be deleted within 24 hours. I've found everything from the newly-leaked Lady Gaga album to a stream of New Moon on this site. I've also discovered new bands such as Ghostland Observatory. It's an interesting website which really enforces the idea of "try before you buy."

My new Twitter-based obsession: Twistori

I've fallen in love with a new Twitter application, Twistori. It will appeal to avid readers of Postsecret and FMyLife.com, but every user's experience is different, and you have the option to control which type of statement you see. Twistori is a collection of Twitter updates with key words in them: I love, I hate, I think, I believe, I feel, or I wish. The user visits the site, clicks on whichever key words they want to read about, and Twitter updates begin to scroll across the screen.

Perhaps you're in a bad mood and you want to see what people hate. If you click on "I hate," you could see anything from, "I hate when sleep doesn't fix everything." to "Completely digging the Lolla lineup, but... oh how I hate huge crowds of drunk assholes. At least I only live 2 blocks from the 'venue.'" Or if you've just fallen in love and you want to see what others love, you could read "Watching Tom and Jerry. I love. that. cartoon." or something deeper, "I love learning shit in class. FACT: US citizens have NO constitutional right to privacy...news to me!"

The Twistori website is well-done, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing. I could definitely spend a large segment of my time reading through these groupings of updates. The only problem is that if I want to know more about a person... there is no option to direct me to his or her Twitter page. Theoretically I could remember the phrase and go type it into Twitter search, but that defeats the purpose of anonymity which made such sites (Postsecret, FMyLife, Twistori) successful. We all want to relate to someone, but if we know too much, statements are no longer generic and the connection is gone.

Oprah = Fail Whale?

The Twitterverse is chirping lately with talk about Oprah and the number (estimates range from 300,000 to 1.5 million) of users she brought onto Twitter when she signed up for the service and publicized it on live television. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said that by later this week he will have the exact number of users who signed up thanks to Oprah, but it is abundantly clear that she made an impact. Not only is Twitter once again constantly over capacity and full of fail whales, but Oprah, #Oprah, and #herebeforeoprah have all been trending topics lately.

Oprah Winfrey (@oprah) had more than 35,000 followers before she even sent her first tweet. By the end of day one, she had gained more than 300,000 additional followers. She also inspired the creation of HereBeforeOprah.com, a site which allows users to enter a screenname and see if said user was on Twitter before Oprah. I'm not entirely sure why this is neccessary... I guess it just instills a bit of notoriety and allows the "original users" (similar to original gangsters) to feel good about themselves. I won't deny that I felt a bit impressive when I searched my name and saw the result-- "@smaloy was here before @oprah."

Twitter is at that awkward social media stage between niche and mass popularity when new users are flooding the system and original users are getting irritated with the popularity and changes (including rumblings of advertisements) that are happening to the system. While Oprah may have sped up the process, I'm certain that Twitter would have breached the gap into universal popularity in the near future, regardless. Twitter is one of my personal favorite websites, but like Xanga, Myspace, and Facebook before it, it is just another social media site that begins with niche popularity, becomes the next big trend, and eventually goes back to intermittent use when something new comes along.

Check out a screenshot of @Oprah's recent tweets:


Photo of Oprah learning Twitter via www.nytimes.com.
Screenshot of Oprah's tweets via twitter.com/oprah.

Update: Apparently Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter, read my blog. That or this tweet is a coincidence... Yeah, it's probably the latter.

Have you missed me? I've been getting ready to ZooLoo! And I'm ready. Are you?

Although this blog is definitely not a "This is my life. Aren't you so interested?" sort of blog, I decided to post something letting everyone know what I've been up to lately... because it's exciting!

I'm a Twitter frequenter. It's a bit of an obsession... but everyone already knows that. I've recently started following the #printern hashtag, and I saw a post for an internship in Scottsdale, AZ with a soon-to-be-launched website: ZooLoo.

I looked into the job and it basically looked amazing. The application was unique, but in my world, fairly typical. I had to submit a resume... and an application video. Just like I did for Warped Tour. Well apparently second time is the charm, because my video was infinitely better, and I felt much more confident about it. While some of the applicants went the route of creative, commercial-esque videos, I chose to just talk about myself and let my personality show. I've gotten better at talking to a camera, and I felt like this video was a good reflection of my personality. I also worked to create a buzz about ZooLoo, and when they put the interns up to a viral vote, I worked to create a buzz about me and ZooLoo! Apparently something I did worked, because I made it to the second round of the intern contest.

I'm really excited about this whole thing. While I don't yet know exactly what ZooLoo is... all my research leads me to believe I will like it. And I definitely think that I could fit into the world of the ZooLoo company. So be sure to check out ZooLoo, check out the other applicants and contest details on the ZooLoo blog, and help me to spread the ZooLoo word! Promote what I'm sure will be an awesome website, and help me out by posting blog entries, twittering about ZooLoo, joining my Facebook group, and just doing anything you see fit!

You guys are the greatest, and I'm so excited about the community I've been able to mobilize these past few days. I can't wait to see it grow, and I hope I can also help to grow the ZooLoo community this summer!

Jon Stewart shakes his fist at Twitter...

I'm addicted to Twitter... and this video entertained me.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Twitter Frenzy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Twitter... I miss you!

Twitter hasn't been working since last night... what happened? I miss it. Yes, I know how pathetic I sound.

Weekly Recommendations

I'm going to start a thing called "Weekly Recommendations" where I make a list of cool things I've discovered which I think everyone should check out.

First on my list is the blog that gave me the idea to make this list...

--MartinSays.com


Second and third are social networking sites which I have recently become obsessed with.

--Twitter



--FriendsOrEnemies


My last recommendation for the day is an accessory which was shown to me by the lovely Gabriel Saporta of Cobra Starship.

--Jac Vanek bracelets


My personal favorite bracelets are Ruthless, Guilty, Trainwreck, and Legit. Which ones do you like best?

That's all for now.