Just curious to see…
what this looks like on Google+

Wheeee!

As I was reading it, I considered adding a comment to provide corrections and contrasting opinions, but then reconsidered, since it’s just not worth my effort to crime-fight every time someone is wrong on the Internet.  Furthermore, as I realized just moments later, I couldn’t have sounded off on the piece even if I wanted to… since this author had decided not to accept comments for posting.

First, let me acknowledge up front this is absolutely within this blogger’s rights.  And surely there are a number of understandable reasons they might have made such a choice:

• It can get tiring cleaning up comment spam.
• Commenters can be annoying, poorly behaved, and sometimes downright abusive, and dealing with these jerks is even less fun than dealing with spammers.
• Welcoming input from users (even the “good” ones) essentially results in the creation of an (oft-time-consuming) obligation to engage with the community of commenters, or risk being branded aloof, detached, etc.

I recently tried the service, and my reaction was extremely visceral and embarrassingly rude when I communicate it frankly:  I wanted to run away screaming.  Clutter, disarray, low signal-to-noise ratio, and no perceivable utility.  Aaaaagh!

And yet, I know that this service has engendered fierce love, including from many of my friends and colleagues.  I imagine the creators of this service have put a ton of thought and effort into it, and additionally, the numbers don’t lie; from everything I can tell, this service is hot.

Well, amongst women at least.  From what I’ve read and from my admittedly cursory glance at both the content and the apparent gender of commenters, the vast (and I mean, really vast) majority of its users are female.  And I’m, well, certainly not part of that demographic, so perhaps my distaste shouldn’t be a surprise, right?

And yet… what does it mean?  What’s going on here?

1. Why is this service — seemingly unlike so much of the rest of the online world — skewing so heavily female?  Does it merely reflect an initial majority-female seeding (gender network effect) or something more interestingly sociological in nature?
2. Is this bad?  Well, that, too, could be looked at in a number of ways.  Bad for traffic and revenues? (losing out on a good part of our human species)  Bad for society somehow?  
3. And does this situation reflect something larger regarding a clear dichotomy of male and female interests?  Or is this interest-independent, and instead reflecting ingrained and powerful perceptions of preference (e.g., lots of guys might be interested in visual sharing/pinning, but decide not to participate because they feel that it’s too “girly” and they’d be ostracized by men or unwelcome by women)?

But still, something wasn’t right.  The New Year had come, but contrary to my hopes, I still lacked certainty, focus, clarity.

Luckily, however, I was prepared.  I know not everything can be bought, but in the supermarket the day before, I had come across an intriguing item.

Clarifying shampoo!

Applied to the head, I reasoned, this was bound to help… and at least unlikely to dull anything.

I lathered, rinsed, even repeated.  But seemingly to no avail.

Then it hit me.  Maybe I had to sleep on it!

Alas, nothing was clarified, though I concede some additional fogginess might have resulted from the non-soapy ingestions the night before.

But of course… how could I forget?!  Clarifying my life and goals wouldn’t happen overnight.  From countless sources, I had learned that this sort of thing takes thyme!

But alas, I couldn’t find thyme.  It seemed I had so little thyme in my life, and certainly never enough thyme to share.

So for this year, I resolve to try a clean, new recipe for life.  I’ve come to grips that clarity doesn’t come in a bottle, and thyme must be cultivated, not just found.

My resolution, however, will remain at 1920×1200.

United has Economy Plus.  Delta has recently unveiled Economy Comfort (does this suggest that the other seats in that cabin are Economy Discomfort, or is that just my take? :p).  Virgin America calls their slightly-nicer economy seating Main Cabin Select.  Many international airlines refer to their upgraded economy section as Premium Economy.

Maybe the airlines perceive this disparate naming, this differentiation, to be a positive thing for their branding.  But I think this is awful for consumers.

Right now, if you, dear flyer, want to book a ticket online, you can use a myriad of fine online services to select from Economy, Business, or First Class tickets.  But note there’s no option for selecting the tier in between Economy and Business!

I’m guessing this is because the airlines could raise a fuss if the booking sites lumped this all under “Premium Economy.”  Perhaps there are also logistical challenges, too; I’m not sure if the fare data shared by the airlines includes straightforward info on premium economy fares, since — for example — Economy Plus seating isn’t sold directly, but is instead an add-on or premier-flyer upgrade of sorts.

*  *  *

But dangit, I’d like to be able to easily compare across airlines and book a more comfortable flight, and I sure as heck can’t justify paying business class fares!  Airlines would likely get more money from me and others if they let me compare and book premium economy fares on flight aggregator sites.  Now… how can we convince them to do so?

PressPlay, Yahoo! Music Unlimited, Napster (the legal version), Real Music, Virgin Digital Music, MusicMatch, Mog, Rdio, Spotify and others I’ve likely forgotten for better or worse.  I’ve tried ‘em all.  And I’m not even counting the music lockers, the music purchasing sites, the music radio sites…

In some cases, I’ve fallen in love, or at least deep like.  But then comes the inevitable breakups; they keep my money, they keep my subscription tracks, and well, that’s fine… that’s the deal.  We had our good times, honest!

You know what just kills me, though?  They also keep my playlists.  They don’t let me have custody of that library of artists and albums and songs I so lovingly put together and oft-categorized over the last months or even years.  All my ratings?  POOF!  Not even a CSV dump, dear old flames?  No, apparently not.

This doesn’t just make me sad about my prior “relationship,” it makes me more wary of getting into new ones.  Put more plainly, I believe the lack of portability of our playlists and related personal music data is hurting adoption of music subscriptions.

But wait, Adam, do you really think the plethora of non-geeks in the world are worried about this? Aren’t they flocking to Spotify, at least not yet worried about what happens when they want to move their library and playlists to another service?

Frankly, most folks probably aren’t worried.  But the online music community — of bloggers, API developers and users, etc. — most likely is significantly discouraged.

*  *  *

Let’s look at a couple of specific examples of how the lack of music portability hurts music online for everyone:

1. I want to curate a “best of a cappella” blog, legally showcasing great tracks to encourage discovery and purchases (with money going to the artist!).

• To do this, I have to link to or — better yet — embed the tracks.  Let’s say I used imeem embed codes back before imeem went to that great big jukebox in the sky (and I’m not talking about cloud services).  Today, not only would all those links/embeds be broken, there’d be no easy way for me to switch them to working links on another service; it’s not like Blogger (or most blogging systems) offer grep, and there aren’t any consistent music identifiers anyway letting me link a song on one service to a song on another service.
• Maybe I’d be luckier and choose to point links to Spotify, a fine service that’s still alive and kicking.  But hey… not everyone has the Spotify app installed.  Worse, the Spotify service isn’t even available in most countries in the world!  So for that majority of people, the links would be practically useless (and certainly frustrating).

1. Unique music locator codes, at least per track.  Imagine if music://owtgia42 or music://moxy-fruvous-king-of-spain7 linked to a unique track globally… and clicking on that would open up a web-based or client-side music service of the user’s choice!

• Bloggers wouldn’t have to worry about link-rot.  
• Users would be empowered to listen to music via services they like (and that are supported in their region!)

Changes in global intellectual property laws to enable track snippet-streaming (e.g., 30 seconds) of songs even in the absence of artist/label permissions.  It’s difficult to imagine how this could possibly harm music sales (“Gee, I don’t need to buy that song anymore; I’ve got the first 30 seconds of it!”), and opening this up would enable not-for-profit organizations to set up servers for supplying music samples.  WikiMusica?  This’d likely help existing commercial music services, too, freeing them from having to negotiate permissions and payment structures for simply streaming song samples. Not to mention it’d allow bloggers to select and post their own 30 second track samples without worrying about legal ramifications.

*  *  *

• What would happen if the person clicking on the link had no installed web or client resources to play the song?  Or if they lived in a region in which they were not allowed to access and play that particular track? (that situation in itself seems silly to me — the whole balkanized rights stuff — but I digress, and that’s certainly a hefty fish to fry)
• How could artists — concerned about how others experience their music — be ensured that listeners’ experiences would be positive ones? (e.g., high quality, authentic tracks)
• What would be the reaction from artists and the music industry when people chose to have music:// on their system be parsed by P2P services, garnering them perfectly matched but not-paid-for tunes?
• What different things would have to support a music:// option?  Probably browsers, operating systems, others?
• Would the music services even embrace this?  One might cynically argue that they have an economic incentive to perpetuate lock-in vs. supporting portability, particularly when their competitors are not offering portability.  But I’d argue that universally setting playlists and libraries free would jump-start citizen-music-sharing and in the end, greatly swell the numbers of people paying for online subscription services.

And for the changes in global intellectual property… well, that’d be such a gargantuan task, certainly, that I’m not sure it’s even something to attempt tackling in my lifetime.  While “30 second snippets are good for listeners, musicians, and the entire music ecosystem” sounds sensible to me, “sensible” does not always take precedence in the world of law.  Believe me, as someone with a law degree, I know this more painfully than most .

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!  Please sound off (ha!) in the comments

Okay, so that isn’t entirely relevant to this post, but now that I have your attention…

Question:  Why shouldn’t you put people on pedestals?
Answer:  Because inevitably, someone’s gonna fall, and you’ll both get hurt.  In another striking similarity, the whole situation is just painful for all involved.

Chapter 1

I’m on an online dating site (yeah, yeah, get over it, you’ve likely been there, too).  One day I came across a profile of an attractive, deeply interesting, clearly talented singer-songwriter who seemed to be either a professional or semi-professional musician.  Wow!  As a pianist/composer myself, I generally connect well with and am very much interested in female musicians… and this one lives nearby me, too!  In the back of my mind, I was thinking… hmm, there’s something oddly familiar about this woman, but no matter.  People often say I look familiar, too; ‘sthe way of the world.  And the Bay Area is a surprisingly insular, small place in many ways, complete with highly overlapping Friend circles.

Pushing beyond any self-doubting and/or procrastinatory tendencies, I wrote her a friendly message, mentioning that I’m a (admittedly mostly lapsed) musician, that I enjoy going to music performances, and I’d love to catch a show of hers sometime, yadda yadda.  Then I hit send.

Of course, it was immediately after that that the nagging familiarity and curiosity got the better of me.  A few Google / Google Image searches later… kablam!  Holy crap, not only is she a famous artist, but I’ve attended her performances before.  Rightly or wrongly (almost certainly the latter with the benefit of hindsight) I felt like a total dolt, and wrote a quick followup message saying as much.  ”OMG, can’t believe I didn’t recognize you” blah blah blah, “so embarrassed!” blah blah blah.

She never wrote back.  Gee, that’s a surprise.  Who likes being put up on a pedestal, raise your hand!  No, no, not who loves the idea of being placed on a pedestal, but rather… who is already on one who isn’t damn sick and tired of the nervousness, the (in)sincere adulation, the awkward conversations, and so on?  I’m going to bet… not a soul.

*  *  *

Chapter 2

Once again, in hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have gone out dancing that night.  Sure, it’s convenient — just a mile from work, and a 10 minute drive home from there.  Sure, it’s like that TV sitcom bar Cheers, where everybody knows my name and is (usually, I hope!) glad I came.  And yeah, admittedly I’ve found that — even when I’m in a pretty rotten mood — I’m better off lindy hopping than staying home and sulking.

But this night was different, I suppose.  I was cranky, klutzy, and generally a touch on the asshole side of sarcastic.

I decided to sit out a few songs and just take in the fun music, wait for a song I was guaranteed to gel with, etc.   Immediately to my left turned out to be some warm, good smelling pizza that was not mine.  This made me even more cranky, and perfectly primed to be a jerk when the owner of said food returned to claim her edible booty.  Yeah, she looked like a regular… couldn’t place the name, but I know I’d seen her before, probably danced with her.  Why not give her some crap?

Me:  ”Hey, you bring enough for everyone?”
Her:  ”Uh?”
Me:  ”Clearly not.  Well, fine, you’ll just owe me a dance later then.”

Let me interrupt this to emphatically note to all aspiring & current social dancers that the above is…
- Not a good pickup line
- Not an appropriate way to fill your dance card
- Not even remotely amusing

As I said, I was cranky, and clearly in a non-witty frame of mind.

Her:  ”Oh!  Sure.  But I have promised this dance [to person she's pointing to].  May I dance with you later?”
Me:  ”Of course, as long as you wash your hands after eating the pizza first”
(Even then, the realization hit me that I was by this point indubitably being an ass)

Surprisingly and undeservedly, she caught me later and asked me to dance.  Just a few moments in… whoa… look at that styling!!!   Okay, dammit, think… think… where do I know her from?  And why on earth did I stubbornly bypass the standard mutual-introduction ritual at the beginning of this dance? (probably because I was too embarrassed to risk an, “Adam!  We’ve danced for the last eighteen weeks and you’ve forgotten my name again?!”)

By this point, I was definitely realizing that something was amiss.  Okay, somethings, plural.
- She was far from the beginner I initially mistook her for.
- My dancing was getting worse, not better throughout the course of the evening and sadly in particular throughout the course of this seemingly very long song.
- I didn’t know if she was actually bored, but I sure wasn’t taking advantage of any of her amazing creativity, and if I were her, I’d have been bored stiff.

At the end of the dance, I finally asked her for her name.  And then it was all I could do to avoid literally slapping my forehead.  As it turns out (yeah, I’m sure this is a shocker), she’s not only a highly experienced lindy hopper, but an internationally renowned one.

I know now that that glimmer of recognition was likely from watching many of the dance videos she’s in online, including ones from major competitions she’s aced.

I started to profusely apologize, but then caught myself.  I’d be even more of an asshole, I quickly and surprisingly realized, if I was super-nice to her now that I figured out she was a “celebrity” of sorts.

And indeed, my remaining shred of smart intuition at that moment served me well.  We chatted for a bit after the dance, and she even filled me on where she was dancing next and didn’t seem in the least bit offended by my unwitty growliness.

If anything, she was perhaps delighted that — for once — someone didn’t recognize her on the dance floor,  someone was asking her to dance without knowing of her status and fame.  She might even have been pleasantly amused that someone was being a tad jerky rather than obsequious in a first meeting with her.

*  *  *


Epilogue

Was this entire blog post simply an excuse to post two random not-keenly-connected AdamAnecdotes?  Possibly.  I wouldn’t put it past me.

But I instead prefer to think of these as humorous-but-cautionary tales, with handy directives and really good morals.  Namely…   Do not put people on a pedestal.  Everyone craves genuine connection, and it’s hard to connect when you’re down here and they’re up there.  And everyone is a multi-faceted human being, much more than the sum of their [movies / competition wins / etc], and they’re probably fed up with always having people chat them up about the obvious “famous” stuff, especially when they just feel like unwinding and being, well, a regular person.

Obvious?  Sure.  But just wait until you’re face to face with Justin Bieber Vanna White 42 Cent Alan Smythie and see if you aren’t reflexively inclined to dumbly blurt out, “I loved you in…”

Just say no.  Practice ahead of time.  You never know when you, too, will end up on a surprise allegorical date with a supermodel!

P.S. – You can probably piece together the identify of these two famous women.  Please, for the love of dog, be kind and don’t mention either of their names in the comments.  I’m embarrassed enough as it is, and there’s no need to make them embarrassed, too.  Thanks

I will, however, still try to post more long-form stuff on this blog from time to time.  With that said… if you’re craving AdamWritings, why not dip through my blog’s archives for a bit (check out the labels on the lef)?  There are, if I dare say so myself, some oldies but goodies .

• Hmm, the comments are delightfully civil and informative!
• Can I count on one hand the number of postal items I receive quarterly — perhaps even yearly — that I actually want?  Why, yes, I probably can!
• What would happen if the U.S. Postal Service delivered only three days per week (say, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday)?