Monica Yoo

technology. science. marketing.

Music Makes My World Go ‘Round…

Music plays a large role in my daily life. Therefore I want to share a few things that I’ve been fortunate to come across.

I present to you, 3 internet radio sites!

Pandora.com – This is a site I’m sure many of you already know about. It creates playlists based on similar musical characteristics of the song or artist you select. It’s nice because it’ll play songs from various artists – sometimes with new artists that you’ll probably end up having a growing interest for.

Last.fm – Similar, but different from Pandora, Last.fm allows the user to share and promote artists. Registered users can subscribe to other users to hear their taste in music. Fun way to explore new, different and upcoming musicians.

Musicovery.com – Of the three internet radio stations, this one has to be my favorite! This nifty application selects songs from a wide variety of genres (or the ones you specifically pick) based on a mood matrix. If you’re in the mood for something slow paced but with a positive melody, click in the positive and calm quadrant.

Give each of them a try! They’re all unique and come in handy in different situations.

Facebook’s Texts Have Gotten Out of Hand

I’m surprised that the issue of cell phone users with recycled phone numbers being inundated with text messages sent from the Facebook website has only just recently surfaced. I can vividly remember when Facebook launched its new profile text message updating feature because I had a couple of friends who were all over it. Every so often (more like every half an hour), someone’s phone would beep or ring, notifying them of the new wall post by Jane or that Bob just had poked him. It seemed like a good idea at first to have Facebook readily available no matter where you were (and I guess it still is if you’re into that), but only if you’re keeping up with your account. Knowing the nature of young internet users, I had a feeling that this text messaging service would get out of hand. Why? Well, there are many reasons:

  • Facebook users LOVE to write on each other’s wall and update their profiles (almost obsessively)
  • There are approximately 60 million Facebook users
  • It’s always fun to try out a new feature

When you have millions of teenager wall-posting fiends constantly making edits to their own profiles, as well as their friends’, at all hours of the day (I’m guessing peak hours would be anywhere from 4 PM – 2 AM), imagine how many text messages are being sent out in a day? week? a month? That’s a lot of texts. I don’t know what percentage of Facebook users actually have their online account and phone synced, regardless, a lot of texts are flying out. 1% of the 60 million users is even a pretty big number.

It’s good to know that Facebook will be regulating and monitoring their phone number database a little more closely now. It would really be annoying to receive random Facebook updates about people you don’t know and then NOT have the ability to make them stop. Not sure if this is possible, but it would be neat if the Facebook website could detect a phone number being recycled and when it does, have the messaging feature automatically disable. There are other methods I’m sure, but those are my two cents.

Internet Access on Flights – It’s Almost Here!

Internet access on plane rides! Is anyone as excited about this as I am?

I have been patiently waiting for the time to come where I could look forward to opening up my laptop to do something productive on the plane (besides catching up on reading and naps). With the internet universally available while you’re on the ground through wi-fi, cell phones/smart phones and wireless cards for your laptop, it’s a huge takeaway when you board the plane and can’t compulsively check your email. Yes, it’s temporary, but an inconvenience when you want to catch up on some work or do something to entertain yourself while you sit in idle stillness. No readily available internet access is like stepping into the 1990s.

JetBlue Airways will be offering email and instant messaging on one of their planes next Tuesday – FOR FREE. They have acknowledged that the service is still in its testing phases, but it’s a great way to build awareness momentum. I, as well as the rest of the loyal internet-using population will be more inclined to purchase a JetBlue ticket over another just to try out the new service. Although I’m not entirely sure what JetBlue’s strategy is here, my gut feeling tells me that their intentions of providing these new features is to lure the young adult audience, as well as the tech-savvy. Email checking and instant messaging on an air flight? Those two features will provide more than enough entertainment and “productivity.” It’s genius. It’s important to note that JetBlue is not providing a full range of internet access, just email and instant messaging. Anything more would require much more bandwidth that they could handle for now.

However, the next wave of internet services on airplanes will be coming in the following months by American Airlines, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines. The downside to their internet options is that they will be charging the service at approximately $10 a flight. Not entirely that bad if you really need or want it – especially if you think of it as a convenience cost.

I’m curious to find out how each airline plans on promoting and representing each of their internet services in the future. I’ll definitely be keeping up with this.

Where’s YOUR Natuba?

It’s not uncommon for everyone to have their own blog, youtube, myspace, flickr and facebook accounts – if anything, it’s very normal. However, have you noticed that these different sites were created to help you and your friends keep track of each other,  but it’s gotten to a point where it’s nearly impossible to do so? Yeah – there are just too many online accounts! Let’s say the average internet user has 5 online accounts and you have 5 friends (although I’m sure you have significantly greater friend pool than that). That’s already 25 different pages you have to regularly check to see if any updates have been made. CRAZY! So, what’s the solution?

Natuba! It’s a website that will compile and aggregate all the updates from your myspace, flickr, rss feeds, youtube and other online accounts all onto one page. That way, rather than giving out 20 or so different URLs to your friends, you can give them one single link. Voila! Simple. Not only will this save you the hassle of typing each link out, it’ll also save you from that feeling of hesitation when you’re faced with the temptation of signing up for a new account. 🙂

I had a ton of invites to give away, but they’re updating the site and will reopen soon. Once I get a hold of more invites, I’ll be sure to write another updated post!

Pownce Doesn’t Really Pounce

I had a conversation with my friend about Pownce and we both agreed that it kinda pseudo sucks, although I think his dislike for the website was a little stronger than mine. =p Basically it came down to this – he was sending me messages or doing something on the site and I wasn’t aware of it until he confronted me about it days later. Doh! This actually relates to one of my previous posts about interactivity! Pownce is great because it allows you to interact amongst your friends and do a variety of different things. HOWEVER, what’s the point if people won’t know about what kind of activities are occurring when the user won’t know about it until the next time they log on (which could be NEVER)? By that time it’s too late! Geez… I wonder if the people at Pownce intentionally left the notification alerts out, assuming that when a lot of people were to use it that inboxes would be bombarded with emails. Whether or not that was the case, they’re still beta and only people with invites are able to use it – I doubt people will have THAT much email. In the mean time, they should probably add some kind of activity alert system integrated into the site. I’m someone who actually likes Pownce – at least enough to write about it, and even I don’t feel like I have any incentive to login to the site.

OH WELL…

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