LinkArtist Multimedia Blog

One of my MySpace friends just asked me why I think MySpace sucks. I always thought that it was something that is self-evident and obvious, but the comment made me wonder if I should be clearer about what exactly it is that I don’t like about MySpace.

I guess the reason I don’t like it is for a number of reasons:

1. It isn’t Wordpress.

This was the first reason I never really blogged here, because, well, I have been blogging for 10 years. I originally made manual html diary pages, moved to Blogger and then to Wordpress. And I have no inclination to change it because Wordpress is, well, fantastic.

Why on earth would I step backwards onto MySpace when I already run my own blog on my own domain? These things are not terribly difficult to set up, and, if you have a few bucks to pay a designer (like me), you can have a very cheap solution with your own branding that is much more flexible and has more income potential.

2. It is a programmatic dog’s breakfast

Not only is MySpace “down” more than it should be, the proprietary CSS & mishmashed programming is a nightmare.

The lengths I had to go to just to customise my MySpace to look even moderately tasteful was a whole lot more effort and time than I would EVER spend on a site. You’re just lucky I was bored one day and I need to network.

I am motivated to redesign my MySpace because it is a front for my business and I am a developer. I know what I am doing and it made me want to stab my eyes out with the nearest blunt object. Several times.

3. The interface is counter-intuitive and annoying

In terms of an interface design, it is, well, nothing short of frustrating. Of course, intuitive design and navigation is something that is subjective, but nothing fills me with rage more than skinning a MySpace profile.

All it takes is for one person’s giant glitter graphic to totally screw up your layout. And in an already frustrating navigation, and the often-ridiculously-overcustomised profiles, it very quickly becomes a web user’s brain kryptonite.

4. MySpace is full of Emos and famewhores.

Well, that kinda speaks for itself.

5. Even when a musician or artist has thousands of friends, nobody ever buys anything or even clicks.

It does make me wonder exactly what the point of MySpace is, when I receive so many automated “Add Me” requests and spam comments. Even for the musicians profiles that I have done and added affiliate links or whatever, nobody ever clicks anything.

My position on MySpace for musicians is “don’t bother”. Sure, put a veneer up with some msuic and pictures, but you can have a much better web presence by putting a blog up on your OWN site, with your OWN online mp3 store, and your OWN blog, with fans that will make the effort to visit you.

Whats more, there is no way of tracking your visitors, which, in web marketing, is a crucial part of getting maximum exposure to the maximum number of people.

6. Bulletins are ridiculously overused and abused.

I think that Bulletins should be a premium service that is used purely for broadcasting newsletter-type things, NOT memes about your top 10 favourite types of zip lock bags and to OMG-FORWARD-IT-ON-TO-EVERYONE-OR-YOULLDIE!!!1111!!!.

ITS CALLED A BLOG, PEOPLE! That’s why its there. The Bulletin should be used with discretion.

7. As long as MySpace exists, artists will not be empowered or truly embracing the internet.

I know that it is tempting to call MySpace a revolution for musicians. I actually don’t believe that it is. Besides the massive audience that MySpace attracts (and yes, in marketing speak, sure, its attractive for artists), there really isn’t much that MySpace can do that is any different to anything else.

There will always be a difference between the fly-night fans and your core audience. I believe that MySpace does nothing but encourage people to collect the former.

What musicians need, for income, is loyal fans that will buy their stuff, or pay a subscription for extra privileges.

Investing a couple of thousand bucks in a decent online community will get you further in the long run than MySpace ever will, because the MySpace folks are all about getting themselves exposed and are all about viral marketing.

Sure, it can work, and I am not saying that MySpace is necessarily *bad*, but at the same time, I think artists need to focus less on it and put their energies where it should be — on the communities they HAVE rather than the communities they seek.

All of these ideas are a part of the whole LinkArtist approach to creating a musicians online presence, and it varies from person to person, artist to artist.

8. Stupid Glitter graphics & bots.

Again, something that is obvious. They are annoying as hell.

9. MySpace originally reserved the right to use your content.

The Billy Bragg fiasco has gone some way to remedy this, but there is something to be said about Intellectual Property rights whenever you use a proprietary means of publishing on the web.

For a musician, all they have is their music. For a writer, all they have is their written work And for an individual (even though it may seem that people are willing to sign away anything in the name of fame these days), all you have is your public image.

I know that MySpace did go some way to remedy the situation, and this is from last year, but still, people should ALWAYS BE AWARE of what you are agreeing to on these sites:

“By displaying or publishing (”posting”) any Content, messages, text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, profiles, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, “Content”) on or through the Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com, a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute such Content on and through the Services.”

This means that MySpace could use ANY part of your profile in any capacity, without having to compensate you.

Nice, huh?

There is nothing inherently wrong with MySpace as an idea, or even as a tool on the web. But I do hope that I can encourage artists to break as free from MySpace as possible and spend a few bucks to get it set up right the first time.

It is a necessary evil of sorts, heck, I have a profile and network with it. But at least be aware that there are alternatives that make for a much more positive environment to interact and promote yourself or your business.

I bought Vista the other day purely on impulse. I was in Dick Smith looking for a mouse for Mina’s computer (shut up — yes, she has her own computer) and the pretty display and $180 pricetag beckoned with new shininess. I nursed it for a few days before finally installing it, and I have to say, I am actually very pleasantly surprised.

I know that the Slashdot and Whirlpool geeks will talk about performance issues and the driver and compatibility issues that are inevitable with a brand new OS - but these guys are also anti-Microsoft, Linux lovers, who, despite making a very good operating system cannot make things pretty or usable to save their lives. Yes. There, I said it. Geeks cannot design for shit.

I also have to say that I have often been drawn to OSX and a pretty G5 Mac lately, what with all the widgets and the dock and the pretty window effects and, well, the ability of Apple to design an interface doesn’t really need to be mentioned here because we all know that Windows users are not worthy of a person in cargo pants that can afford a $15,000 PC.

Until now.

I guess when you have a long and laboured history with Microsoft, and you have read all the “meh” reviews on the usual geek sites, it is no wonder that I was skeptical. And when I first installed Vista, I had a problem with my RAID Controller and Firefox. The RAID Controller problem was my own — Vista was looking for drivers for a piece of hardware that I had forgotten was in there-and-I-swear-that-all-I-did-last-time-was-just-put-mainboard-driver-disk-in… in short, it was my own fault. The only drivers I had to actually install were my printer drivers. More on hardware in a minute though.

I do have to say that my initial thoughts about my impulse-purchased Vista Upgrade came to fruition when I went to open the box. I couldn’t work out how to open the bloody thing, and I remember uttering under my breath that I hope Vista is more user friendly than the damn packaging. It was kinda a nice experience though, being my first legitimate copy of Windows since….Windows 98. Yes, bad Téa… but it certainly made me feel all self righteous and legal I have to say. I put the disk in and I was greeted with something very pretty. Noice.

Installation was piss easy. Just make sure you have everything plugged in and off you go. Wait about half an hour and its done.

The funny thing about this whole experience was that when I actually loaded Vista for the first time, I actually did say “Wow”. Either my brain is hardwired to clever advertising campaigns or this is actually a very nice OS. And as much as it pains me to say it about a Microsoft product - it is most certainly the latter.

And the funny thing is, that you can see all the funny things that Microsoft have so obviously ripped off, like the tabbed browsing in IE7, the Window Effects and the…umm… Gadgets (no, I did NOT say Widgets. I said GADGETS! hee!), but they have actually implemented them in a way that you can actually forgive them for a moment for being the soulless copycat cunts that they are.

I am impressed by how Vista has handled all my hardware. It even recognised my graphics tablet right off the bat and my $18 Strathfield webcam. The only thing I needed to actually install was my Canon printer, and that was a breeze.
I am also impressed with the way that multimedia has been handled by Vista. We have a Wireless Media Player that streams my torrented TV sho-err I mean “home movies” to our big screen TV, and it has handled all of these things pretty seamlessly. After downloading Windows Media Player 11 and hating it, I can now see the bigger picture and it most definitely fits with the whole Vista experience.
I had to turn off the User Protection stuff because it was driving me bonkers and broke Firefox (yes Shandar love, I WORKED IT OUT AND CAN FIX YOUR PC! Aren’t I a genius?), but when I disabled that, MSN Messenger (of all things) decided it didn’t want to play. At the time of writing I have not put my Adobe Creative Suite or Macromedia Suite on it - but I don’t envisage any major problems.

So is it worth the upgrade? I will actually say yes with a BUT. The BUT being that you need to be confident that you have enough RAM and Processing Power to make it all pretty-like. I won’t really know how it compares to XP performance wise until I have loaded it with all the crap that normally slows my PC down (Photoshop, Flash, Video Editing, Music software etc…). I haven’t benchmarked it, haven’t looked under the hood, but boy, is it slick.

I know that in the Open Source fanboi world it doesn’t count for much (which is why Linux will never be mainstream), but for someone like me, who can easily stare at a screen for 16 hours a day, aesthetics and usability DO MATTER. And Vista has this.

Besides, its shiny. Its new. Its an opportunity for me to dodge work and play around. And who can complain about that?

For those people that have been having trouble with accessing this site using Internet Explorer, I apologise. It didn’t like my plugin for the absolutely beautiful Flash headings that I had installed, so thanks a-fucking-lot Microsoft.

Anyway, if you’ve been using IE, welcome back. Sure, IE6 sucks, but IE7 has to be better, right? Because its got, like TABBED BROWSING and everyfink! No. IE still sucks arse and if you can, get Firefox.

But, alas, after many attempts to repair the problem and still keep my beloved Flash titles, no can do. Remember what I gave up for you as you read my blog and I hope you appreciate it. Because now the headlines look ugly

Ah well.

Welcome back nonetheless.

I apologise for this bit of ultra-nerd gushing, but I can barely contain my excitement.

I may be a little late to jump on the bandwagon, but I have recently discovered a great little (well not so little, actually extremely powerful) development application called Ruby on Rails.

It is open source, it is extremely powerful, and can create complex web applications easily and can turn months of development into weeks, maybe even days, depending on what you want to do with it.

I have been going through the Lynda.com (another fantabulous site that is well worth the $25US a month subscription) tutorials on Ruby on Rails development and I have to say — this is the sort of thing that is making the new web so exciting for developers. I am currently more of a PHP and Actionscript/Flash developer, but I think I might try and start incorporating Ruby on Rails a bit more. I cannot rave about this enough. These development frameworks really are on the cutting edge, and I cannot wait to see where it takes us.

I might even start experimenting with some web apps in the future… in fact I think ROR may be the exact thing I am looking for for my LinkArtistCMS. Very, very exciting.