Going Viral

 I think that going into the Menagerie project we were all anticipating different outcomes. Some people wanted it to be a place for writers to collaborate and work together, to share ideas and use each others' ideas for new works of art. Some people wanted it to be social, a place where writers and creators could really discuss what they liked. Some people wanted it to be somewhere to come and browse the submissions and vote for what they liked best. Me? I wanted all of these things. But I really wanted it to be a hit.

What I realized really quickly was that it is really hard for things to go viral. You can't force something into popularity. It's like in middle school when you try so hard to get in with the cool kids that they just make fun of you for it. I really pushed this site on some of my friends. I even pushed it in one of my classes. And that's a big deal for me. I don't talk in classes.

One of the first viral videos I saw was the OK GO music video for "Here It Goes Again." It was released in 2006 (yes, I was a little behind the times when I was 16) and everyone was obsessed with it. Somethings I did learn about going viral though I gained from my own little intuition and what I've heard from other people:

• Accessibility - if you can't find the site, how are you supposed to share it?!
• Interest - sites like youtube, facebook, and twitter really have something to interest everyone. 
• Production span - I couldn't think of a better way to say this. Our site didn't stand a chance of going viral with submissions posted on it.

Part of me still has hope for our tiny site. If we can just get more submissions. Maybe 50 more? 100 more? What will it take?! What are we doing wrong?! Nothing. There are a ton of things on the internet. I don't even want to venture a guess. So the chances of going viral are kind of slim. But if we generate some interest, get some people excited, then I'll feel like our mission has been accomplished.

Just Way Too Monopolized (Part 2)

Apple has a monopoly on the music industry as it is right now. At least that's the way it appears. With everything that they have their fingers in though, it's really not that surpriseing to assume or hard to assume. Josh posted this comic back in September about the state of the music industry. With the mass amounts of apple products it is just easiest to fall into what I like to call the itunes funk.

Itunes has been my pal for a long time. We go way back. Then I discovered playlist.com. I abandoned it when the website just looked outdated and songs were deleted from the playlists I made. Then I moved on to Pandora. A hecka lot of fun but I was bummed that I couldn't really choose the songs I was going to listen to. Now I really only use Pandora when I'm doing something else and need some music in the background. Then Spotify entered my life. It was a glorious love affair. It really stole my sister's heart though. I wanted better recommendations though and missed some features of Pandora. I have now become what we call a "fickle mistress."

A fickle mistress flits around from one thing to another and can never make up her mind. I still like itunes because all of the music I own is in that one central location. But I like Spotify because I can add songs that I don't have to playlists that I already do have. The downside? Spotify is a little mean. Certain artists refuse to have their music available on Spotify because they don't get enough of a cut from it. Songza is great because it makes playlists based on the time of day and what you're doing and it has a great interaction aspect. But it can get a little too long tail for me sometimes. Noisetrade is fun because you can discover totally new artists. But there's not a super good way to sort through the artists and it's completely hit and miss. Topblip and Reverb Nation kind of have the same problem as Noisetrade.

Here's what I want. I want all my music in one place. I want recommendations based on what I've listened to. And I want these recommendations to actually be good recommendations. I want the artist to get a good cut of what I'm paying. In fact, I want to get it straight from them if at all possible. I want to hear new artists but I want to hear the popular ones sometimes too. I want my music player to get inside my head and know what I want and when I want it. I want a cloned version of myself whose job is strictly to identify my mood and what I'm doing and give me a soundtrack based on all that. Is that really to much to ask?!

Just Way Too Mainstream

I'm pretty sure that the first CD I ever got was NSYNC's No Strings Attached for my 10th birthday. I felt so cool. I finally had my own CD that I could play on my new portable CD player (with anti-skip technology, mind you). It was such a step up from that silly little tape player Walkman I had before. Psh. Lame sauce. I used my CD player religiously until for my 15th birthday I got an ipod. It was a 4th generation. Oh man, I felt slick as snot with that sucker.



I had this ipod for a good four years until I turned it on one day and it literally made a sad face at me. I figured it was about time for me to get a new ipod when people kept telling me that mine looked like a brick. But they were right. That thing barely fit in my pocket! And thus was Mario born. A sleeker ipod with a color display and it could even play music videos and movies. Oh golly, was I in heaven. That ipod has lasted my entire college career.

So where am I going with this? I jumped on the Apple bandwagon with everyone else back in the day. My brother-in-law worked for the BYU Bookstore so I got a pretty decent deal on my ipod. And everyone knew that they were the most top notch, high quality mp3 players. They still are pretty darn good. But also expensive. I've thought about updating my technology but I just can't afford it. It would be useful to have an ipad or a nook or even an ipod touch but they're just not in my price range. What's the point of having cool gadgets advertised to me if I can't even buy them?!

It wasn't until recently that I realized that there are other products out there. Just like when you discover that malt-o meals off brand fruit loops are just as tasty as the real thing, there are actually some really great products out there. You just have to look for them. True, they may not last as long. Yes, you might seem like a dweeb for having the random mp3 player that no one has heard of. But what's the harm in looking. So far I have yet to find some really swell technology that I could justify buying and afford but I'm searching. Next to come... why iTunes is the jock of the music industry and Spotify is the druggy hiding out in the bathroom.