It seems MySpace is still very much in catch-up mode, as its latest offering does not really offer up anything close to the scene-changer that MySpace so desperately needs. I remember the older MySpace Player quite fondly - with its animated EQ bars and customisable colours; since then we have seen Spotify, Soundcloud, Tomahawk, Last.fm and even YouTube stealing a march on MySpace’s former lead in the online music promo sector.

As a Music Player, it probably owes most to Spotify - in terms of its overall look and feel / usability, and recommended similar artists, playlists and ’radio’ functions. Spotify though is much further ahead with all its really clever apps and integrations.

With Justin Timberlake’s involvement in MySpace, I had high hopes that they would do something radical to try to take a leading stake in the music industry again. This Music Player is just an also-ran though, it really does not do anything better than what’s already out there, and there’s no cool function or even tiny detail touch which makes you sit up and take notice.

I’m not saying that MySpace is wholly doomed yet, but they have to do a lot better than this to make themselves relevant and worthy of our attentions once more. In the past I used to check in regularly with MySpace to listen to various artists’ latest tracks - particularly new and up-and-coming artists. Nowadays, most artists make use of Tumblr or just upload a static image to YouTube to accompany their latest promo singles. I do regular record reviews, and the number of artists who use MySpace as a primary resource is dwindling fast, these days, music artists are more likely to lead on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. It used to be the case that new music artists broke though on MySpace - a la Lily Allen, nowdays though it’s YouTube a la Justin Bieber!

I have always said that for MySpace to succeed, they need to focus on the music-discoverability angle, which now has been largely taken over by sites like Last.fm and even Spotify, as I mentioned previously. MySpace has to come to market with something cleverer and slicker than what already exists - they need to be moving ahead, not toeing the line. If you compare the MySpace Music Player to Tomahawk for instance, MySpace is several steps off the pace, even though its presentation is more elegant. I have already

I’ve been playing around with the Tomahawk Social Media Player desktop app for about a week now - since brother Markus introduced me to it - it exists in both PC and Mac flavours, with the latter being slightly more seamless an experience at the moment. This is definitely NOT a replacement for Spotify, more of a useful addition to it - as the largest library of quality music media comes from Spotify itself (requires Premium account).

Out of the box, Tomahawk does not do much more than play back files you already have on your desktop or network. To really get it working, you need to configure a number of ’Resolvers’ which include the following:

• YouTube
• Soundcloud
• Last.fm (Requires Last.fm Account)
• Grooveshark (Requires Premium Grooveshark Account)
• Jamendo
• 4Shared
• Official.fm
• Ex.fm
• Dilandau.eu
• Ampache (Requires Ampache Server Account)
• Spotify (Requires Premium Account,as well as specially downloaded extension from Tomahawk site)

For Spotify Premium account holders (Windows Users) you need to download a separate Spotify Resolver from the Tomahawk site. All these Resolvers are only semi-official, so chances are some of them could get blocked at some stage in the future, but essentially the system allows you to search by all these resources and play back the various sound files on the Tomahawk Player.

It’s currently a little clunky and unrefined in its user experience and does certain things more awkwardly than one would have deemed necessary. There are separate searches for instance for ’Super Collection’ (Online Resources) and ’My Collection’ (Your own local or networked music files) - why these are not combined into a single uber search is kind of strange. Also, the Search results themselves are no way near as clear and concise as those on Spotify. In many ways, this seems very much a beta release - when compared to the slick experience of Spotify and new online apps like Pinterest.

There’s nothing particularly genius about the search either - as it does not retrieve all those oddly named YouTube files which you can find yourself on YouTube. Some of the results are bizarre ’near matches’ which appear midway through the results listsings rather than at the bottom - they should really be arranged by some sort of ’suitability’ algorithm.

So in short, the interface and

The Old Traffic Light Error Screen (as per screencap below) has been in Affino for nearly a decade - and quite frankly is well passed its sell-by date.

When we first saw Twitter’s Fail Whale, we were a little envious of the simplicity of that error screen, and resolved to do something similar for Affino at some stage in the near future. Of course whales being held airborne by small fluttering birds is hardly relevant to Affino territory - so it took us a wee while to come up with our own visual to represent things being somewhat out of kilter.

I will leave it up to you good viewers to interpret the visual, obviously there are some balls, an elephant and a mouse involved! We sincerely hope you don’t see too much of the above screen, but if you do happen to view it, hopefully you will be ever so slightly amused / bemused by the visual composition.

This screen will be appearing in a forthcoming release - perhaps even this current forthcoming release - Brucie Bonus for first person to call it in.

Creative minds now have a ’Twitter’-like format of their own in the superb Moodboards / Pinboards utility which is ’Pinterest’. At the very top level it has similarities to Twitter - but instead of posting 140 character monologues and updates - or largely retweeting everyone else’s content. For Pinterest you ’Pin’ images to Topic-designated ’Boards’ by way of a Bookmarking button which you enable on your browser. Obviously a minority pin all the fantastic images, and the majority re-purpose and re-appropriate them via ’Repinning’. You can subscribe to the various Pinterest Users and their boards, much like you would ’Follow’ a Twitter account, although there is a little more granularity here on the topic level.

It’s not just pictures though, but videos also which can be ’Pinned’ to boards. You simply navigate to a web page, hit your browser ’Pin It’ button and select which image you wish to ’harvest’. Pinterest then does some very clever embedding to slot said image or video reference onto one of your ’Boards’.

When you start up your account - you are presented with 5 empty generic boards which you can start to fill up with original or repinned content - you can of course change the Topic / Subject matter for your Boards at any time, and you can even allow collaborations with colleagues, family members and friends - so you can pin collectively.

The uses of Pinterest are manifold - back in my Advertising days, we would have killed for this - for use as a Creative Moodboard. But it is so much more - a visual swatch or shopping list, a kind of ideas mindmap in purely picture form - oh yes - you can ’Like’ and ’Comment’ on each others ’Pins’ too. There is also a retail solution of sorts called ’Gifts’ which lists Pins (Pictures) with Prices - and then obviously links through to the relevant source eCommerce Catalogue Items.

It’s taken me a wee while to build up my 7 Boards and 160 Pins - although I have nothing on Charmaine Zoe - with her 450 Boards and 77930 Pins - including the ’Colour - Green’ moodboard pictured above.

Of course this App / Site / Utility is just in its infancy, and I can see lots more clever applications of this evolving - with further granular control

Strange times for pop singers these days - Michael, Amy and Whitney all succumbed to substance abuse in one way or another - regardless of their enormous talents, resources and success. This is for sure an ongoing lesson in the dangers of substance abuse - it seems all too common a problem - especially in the USA where celebrities so easily (and I suppose inadvertently) self-medicate themselves to death, as was also the case with Brittany Murphy. Whitney apparently drowned in her hotel bath, supposedly passing out - after taking a mixed cocktail of Lorazepam, Valium and Xanax, washed down with Champagne.

As a pop artist, she did not quite reach the lofty heights of the Pop Power Trinity (Madonna, Michael and Prince), but she surpassed all when it came to the power and reach of her voice. In my opinion, there can be no doubt that she was the finest voice of her generation. Such a clean, clear, pure tone, without any need for the Mariah Carey-esque flourishes and embellishments. Way before Adele came along, Whitney was able to project the most intense, spine-tingling emotion with her amazing voice.

I was both saddened and exhilarated when I first listened to her most recent and last album. The ravages of her substance abuse had caught up with her and damaged beyond repair her wonderful vocal chords. Instead we had a more throaty, almost rasping at times, breathy delivery which made up in raw emotion what it lost in brilliance of tone and clarity.

Of all her albums, this one was the most affecting for me - it was laced with heartfelt emotion, as if she were giving it all in one big final effort. One track in particular continues to send shivers down my spine every time I hear it, and its lyrics make for a fitting epitaph for Whitney:

Nothin’ But Love

Here I sit by my window
Thinking ’bout all the things I’ve been through
There were times when I never
Thought I would get to where I got to
Had some angels to guide me
Some who just violated my love
Now this is my chance to say
Ain’t got nothing but love

For my family that raised me (shout out, shout out)
And my teachers that done praised me (shout out, shout out)
To anyone who tried to hate on me (shout out, shout out)
Even the ones who tried to break me
Even the ones who tried to take me down

There’s been haters since this world’s been going ’round
(Nothing but love)
Why’d they take a

Warner Bros started off this stupidity by increasing their initial 28 day retail to rental window to 56 days. Now Disney is considering a 28-day rental window of its own. On the same day that the Bridesmaids movie announces record online rentals / on-demand views - approaching 5 million views in four months.

Do these movie studios not realise that the majority of people now watch rentals, and ongoingly, fewer and fewer DVDs and even movie downloads will be sold - as for most people, seeing a movie once is enough. The occasional film comes along where repeated viewing is enjoyable - but this is typically an exception, as once you’ve seen ’The Usual Suspects’ the twist does not have the same impact the second time around.

I’m still very much a mixed-media man - consuming both digital and traditional format media - I still buy vinyl for DJ’ing, but for daily listening - which happens to involve my iMac or iPhone - I’m finding it more instantly gratifying and convenient to buy downloads vs CDs - I really only buy CDs now when what I want is not available as a download, or else there’s additional material contained in CD format - oh, one more thing - some CD’s are still cheaper than their download equivalents, so where it makes best sense really, but increasingly with a preference for digital (no waiting around).

For movies and television though, my 27" PC / iMac is now my regular TV, and I use a mix of terrestrial on-demand services (iPlayer, ITV Player etc.), Netflix and iTunes to satisfy my viewing needs. I also buy a smattering of DVDs- such as recent TV series, as they are far more expensive on iTunes (for a lower quality) and too recent for Netflix. Which brings me onto Netflix - which is undoubtedly a really great system, but somewhat worryingly has introduced hardly any new material since I signed on a month ago. As Betamax vs VHS has shown, as well as the various console wars, it’s the system with the best / most content that wins out, not necessarily the best quality of experience.

A long time ago I coined a phrase for this current generation of youth - ’The Now Generation’ as in they never had to save up or wait for anything, nor do they want to. In marketing you always have a limited window of opportunity - based on a customer’s proclivity and propensity to consume a particular