Is It Ever Okay to Pirate Music?: Say I were to pirate music, for example, to rip from Limewire the latest tracks of a musician I just heard playing at a bar. Perhaps his name is Wax Tailor. If I do not pirate the music, I am likely not going to buy his albums. However, by ripping the music (illegally), I come to like it and I tell 10 friends about it. Maybe I play it at a party. Maybe I blog about it. Maybe I attend a concert. Aren’t these outcomes all worth the artist letting me have access to his music free?
Being an Entrepreneur in Brooklyn: I have been living in Brooklyn now for about two months. My living situation is great, but I think both my current roommate and I are in a sort of quarter-life funk. The life of an entrepreneur is a real pendulum of emotions: major highs, major lows. Right now we’re in a sort of waiting mode, while we finish out one project and get under way with another. I’m anxious.
Facebook Beacon: It’s bullshit. Terms and conditions for a website should not exonerate a company from everything, and I feel like this is Facebook’s ultimate, inevitable excuse. Spying and non-disclosure of purchase information trafficking is a complete invasion of privacy: if you create a public website ‘open to all’ – it should be governed at least partially by public laws. The internet needs an equivalent to the SEC to regulate public websites. Facebook is public, Dopplr is private.
Design: I am enjoying design more and more. Maybe it’s a sign of maturity. The most recent issue of Fast Company features an ingenious product: tacks that do not leave holes. I find people who innovate on boring things inspirational.
Favorite Flannel Shirt: It sustained a major rip in the elbow and I’m afraid it’s going to have to go. I have had the shirt at least 8 years. Would it be weird if I kept it in storage, though I will never wear it again?
SocialCast: Nice new website and great concept. Unfortunately, it’s a dated technology platform already. Silos. Ugh.
California: Gearing up for my first trip to Cali in a couple weeks
Interactive Confusion: Why are online marketing and advertising agencies so confusing in nomenclature? Are there agencies of record for digital? Yes or No?
Holiday Season 2007: I think about myself at age 27 and I think I’m at a transitional stage in the whole consumerism thing. I own all the essentials (computer, clothes, etc). However, until I buy property, get married or have a kid I’m not going to enter the next level of consumerism. No new products excite me. For now I have everything I need. Someone needs to create a killer brand or product for my transitional demographic.