Mixcloud: Re-thinking Radio - One Million Streams Old

Mixcloud: Re-thinking Radio - One Million Streams Old: "Mixcloud is a website dedicated to streaming music. The main difference is that they focus on radio content as opposed to individual singles. Put simply, in their words, Mixcloud 'helps connect radio content to listeners more effectively'. By hosting radio shows, podcasts and DJ mixes in the 'cloud' (without software or storage), the audio is available to listen to on-demand and instantly, whereas podcasts require downloading to a hard drive. Uploaded audio is therefore referred to as... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]"

Twin Peaks still marks the summit of TV soundtracks

Twin Peaks still marks the summit of TV soundtracks: "

Twenty years after it was first released, Angelo Badalamenti's score for David Lynch's series has lost none of its eerie majesty

In even the greatest TV shows, music is often just decoration for the story. It's there to add colour and amplify (or in the case of really bad acting, signpost) emotion. But in Twin Peaks, finally available on DVD in the UK this week, the music isn't simply reflective – it has a creepy agency all of its own.

The soundtrack is made up of a handful of themes composed by Angelo Badalamenti. His music for the opening credits initially seems saccharine and sentimental, but is actually fitting for the mood of the show. Like many of Lynch's films, it's an old-fashioned story of good and evil, stemming from a core of sentimentality that has corroded.

This initial theme, like all the music, is also sensitive to Lynch's vision of Twin Peaks as somewhere both contemporary (with modern guns and tape recorders) and oddly vintage (with 50s fashions). Badalamenti evokes Douglas Sirk melodrama with soaring strings, as Lynch does with his romantic plots, but tempers it with modern instrumentation, just as Lynch does by conjuring a sense of metaphysical terror. So a saxophone wails over power chords, while violins sound against deathless synths.

The use of singers is inspired, from overdubbing Julee Cruise so heavily that her scenes teeter on the edge of dreams, to Just You, the eerily accurate pastiche of a 50s ballad sung by the beautiful trio of teenage protagonists, and the nerve-shredding minimalism of Jimmy Scott performing Sycamore Trees. Lynch continues to explore the transformative power of song in later work, such as the Spanish version of Roy Orbison's Crying in Mulholland Drive, or the euphoric Nina Simone performance at the end of Inland Empire.

But the soundtrack's real triumph is Laura Palmer's Theme. Beginning with four brooding synth notes (later sampled by Moby on Go), a piano swells into teary-eyed romance, before slowly tumbling down into the original motif. This theme recurs throughout the soundtrack, providing an overall structure for the show, of light emerging from darkness only to be engulfed again. For the condemned characters of Twin Peaks, the music is not merely a decorative hood, it's the scaffold from which they're hanged.

• Television
• David Lynch

Ben Beaumont-Thomas

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Former Sony Music boss launches IMHO social content player

Former Sony Music boss launches IMHO social content player: "

Social what? IMHO is an application offering a mix of music, games and social networking features, launched by former Sony Music chairman Don Ienner. It offers 150 online radio stations, music content from The Orchard, and 900 games from RealNetworks.

The idea is that users watch and share music, video and other content, while buying the virtual IMHO Dollars currency – although they can also earn it by watching ads or interacting with friends. These dollars can then be spent on virtual items to customise their avatar.

Music services Nutsie and OurStage are promoting the launch, and the press release includes the terms “bleeding-edge”, “monetization”, “marquis catalog” and “next generation of cloud platforms”. Which is nice.

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Big Pharma still looking for the “social” cure

Big Pharma still looking for the “social” cure: "

Should drug makers be required to disclose up-front all the potential harmful side effects of new medications within a single, 140-character Tweet? And what about guidance on how to set up a Facebook fan page of some new HIV drug?

It’s amazing to think that regulators in the U.S. and Europe still haven’t figured out how Big Pharma can use social media to engage with potential patients, not to mention the friends and families of those afflicted with serious medical conditions. All too often, niche online medical forums are the first place people turn to learn more about new treatments when confronted with a confounding new malady. And still, regulators are forcing drug makers to remain on the periphery, forbidding most kinds of interaction with the public. To be sure, many of the world’s largest drug makers monitor healthcare social media forums to better understand how their customers or potential customers feel about certain types of treatment, but it’s just that: listening. Most forms of engagement are still verboten.

Under this backdrop, the Food and Drug Administration in America has convened hearings and is seeking input from the industry to determine rules of engagement. It’s been a slow process, indeed.

As Ad Age , the citing trade association Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America wants the FDA to speed up the decision-making process. It quotes the PhRMA as saying:

“At a time when more than half of adults first turn to the internet to find health information, the extraordinary volume of dangerous and inaccurate information about medicines on the web makes the FDA’s leadership on this topic all the more essential.”

It’s not just drug makers that want some guidance. Doctors too want clearance to use social media channels to start talking about novel new treatments. In a strongly worded post last November, Joel Selzer, the co-founder of the physicians online network Ozmosis issues a call to action demanding the regulators resolve this matter.

With thousands of physicians actively using social media every day to access and share medical information (see Rohit Bhargava’s post on “How Doctors Are Using Social Media“, one would expect pharmaceutical and medical device firms to salivate at the engagement possibilities…While holding the public hearings was a great step forward, the FDA needs to augment its social media expertise and it needs to do so quickly.

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ENIGMATICA

ENIGMATICA: " 'Enigmatica acts as an experimental platform in the combination of light, sound and space.' for more information visit kitwebster via todayandtomorrow click vimeo.

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BBC News linking policy

BBC News linking policy: "

This is just a quick post to invite you to head over to The Editors blog at BBC News.

Why? Because Steve Herrmann is asking for your views on how BBC News links to other websites:

The BBC Strategy Review recently unveiled by director general Mark Thompson set as one of its goals a major increase in outbound links from the BBC website - a doubling of the number of 'click-throughs' to external sites from 10 million to 20 million a month by 2013... Elsewhere, there has been a detailed debate, specifically about how we link to articles in scientific journals. If you want to catch up with that, it's been taking place at Ben Goldacre's tumblelog and in Paul Bradshaw's post at the Online Journalism Blog... So for various reasons it feels like high time to take stock.

So, please do join in.

Nick Reynolds is Social Media Executive, BBC Online, BBC FM&T

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I'm mad at everyone

I'm mad at everyone: "

No, not you. Not anyone in particular, actually.

I'm angry at the idea of 'everyone' and what they want and what they say.

Everyone says you should do your site and your online presence a certain way.

Everyone is upset at what you did.

Everyone is frustrated at the slow pace government is getting this done.

Everyone knows you should listen to your customers and do what they say.

Everyone knows that our school is wasting money.

Everyone says you need to go to a 'good' college.

You get the idea. That everyone.

The one that's almost always wrong.

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