Personal

Take a Shot

Ingo Muschenetz — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 02:07:00 GMT

After a long hiatus, I've placed a collection of travel and personal photos online. There are a few photos of which I'm particuarly proud, including some recent nature shots from the Boulder series. The gallery software I used is part home-grown, part existing utilities and I'll follow up with the details and a download in a later post. Please let me know how you like the galleries, and suggestions for improvement are always welcome.

Marketing to the Complacent

Ingo Muschenetz — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 08:28:00 GMT

I read a story in the New York Times by David Pogue about the two new Google features released this week. In it, he mentions that GMail accounts are now free to all, provided you give GMail your cell phone number. They SMS you a registration code, and this supposedly prevents spammers from signing on.

Handing out my cell phone number this way is especially amusing in light of an NPR story I heard last weekend. It mentioned how marketers are salivating at the prospect of getting cell phone numbers for telemarketing and other purposes, but so far the phone companies have been reticent.

Now it doesn't matter. Advertisers have a convenient avenue to target you via your mobile number. Google specifically says that your mobile number won't be linked with your Google account, unless you want to, but in their paraphrased words there are “so many lovely features and services we can provide you if you give us these extra pieces of information, and remember we won't give it to other people unless you ask us to.”

It also appears that Google can broadcast to all the users in Gmail/GTalk. Not that they would, of course.

As simultaneous provider/harvester of the world's information Google's in a very powerful position. Perhaps a new corporate motto is in order for Google: “Love all, serve all, track all...”

Lascivious Bidies

Ingo Muschenetz — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 06:23:00 GMT

Podcasting is cool. If for no other reason than it's very difficult to be introduced to new music via text. And I was just convinced of how well it works.

By way of Adam Curry's podcast, I heard about the Lascivious Biddies. I was doubly estatic when I heard that they would be performing at the Middle East in Cambridge. Last night I saw them with an old friend from college, Andrew Hughes. Self-described as a combination of jazz, swing and cabaret, they have a fantastic ability to make “old songs sound new and new songs sound old.” Whichever the direction, all of their songs sound very uniquely their own, and Lee Ann Westover has a great voice accompanied by some wonderful musicians in Amanda Monaco, Diedre Rodman and Saskia Lane. You can hear samples of their songs here:

http://www.biddies4ever.com/hear.html

Some favorites are Ask, You Don't Own Me, Famous and the Truck Song. According to Lee Ann, they'll be back in Boston in a few months. I highly recommend them.