Stuart Dredge

Pain in the back-end

Life was easier in the days when I just had to write words, but was it more rewarding?

I realised the other day that I frequently spend as much time fiddling about with my stories in various publishing back-ends as I do actually writing them. Even a simple ten-minute press release write-up can involve a further ten minutes of digging through sites for links, inserting said links, resizing and uploading pics, setting categories... And that's without mentioning the follow-up promo tasks on big stories.

Sometimes it's hard not to wish I (or rather the sites I write for) had someone to Do This Stuff For Me. Imagine how many stories I could do a day...

But most of the time I realise this is just what you have to do nowadays - part of the skillset of an online journalist. There are thousands of bloggers to whom it's second nature who'd do it if I got arsey... Although some of the tasks listed above can be a bit of a grind when there's another story to move onto, nailing a story with all of these elements and seeing it go live does feel rewarding.

As long as the back-end is working properly, of course, and doesn't fall over losing all those (hopefully) well-crafted words that kickstarted the process. Buy that's another post...

Bebot - Robot Synth proves the power of word-of-mouth

If you've got an iPhone or iPod touch, go and download Bebot - Robot Synth now. Right away. It costs £1.19, and is the funnest (to borrow Apple's lingo) musical iPhone application yet. The demo video embedded below shows why, but basically it's a synthesizer music-making app, except the fully-tweakable synth sounds are personalised by a cute cartoon robot. It's fab.

I'm in the Music Ally office today, and it's just been brought to a standstill by the app, as people gathered round for a go. They're all off to buy it now. Well, those who have an iPhone anyway. And it just showed the word-of-mouth buzz that can build around a cool iPhone application - even (or perhaps especially) those without any real use.

Distant Shore is another example - an app where you wander up and down a virtual beach reading messages in bottles written by other real people, and sending your own messages off in return. It's another cheap, fun app that's building a big buzz - not just through in-person demos, but on Twitter as well (in fact, Twitter is how I found out about both of these).

It's been suggested that iPhone owners are natural show-offs - any opportunity they get to whip out their handset and demo something cool, they'll take. I'm fitting that pattern so far... But it's good news for independent developers coming up with interesting, innovative and unique apps that might not have found a mass audience before.

Is the Kindle 2 a gadget too far?

Amazon announced its Kindle 2 e-book reader yesterday, and it's been getting rave reactions from all the major tech sites. Slimmer, nicer screen, basic web browsing and MP3 capabilities, and more books and newspapers. Oh, and Stephen King.

The geek in me really wants one. And if it was being sold in the UK, I might have had an Apple moment last night and stumped up for one there and then. Thankfully, Amazon is keeping it US-only for the moment, so I've got a bit of time to check my bank balance and wrestle with my  inner spendaholic.

I love gadgets, and I read a lot of books, so it should be an obvious purchase when it does eventually cross to this side of the Atlantic, right? Yet I can't help wondering if its a gadget too far. I already walk around carrying an iPhone, a BlackBerry, an Eee PC and a PSP (hopefully muggers in my area aren't voracious blog-readers) - would the Kindle replace any of those?

No. Well, not unless it gets a decent port of Football Manager Handheld, anyway.

As tempting as the Kindle sounds, I can't help thinking that I'm happy reading stuff via my RSS feeds on iPhone and the Eee PC, and that dog-eared charity-shop paperbacks will continue to see me well for any physical book-reading needs.

And yet... That Apple-like spur-of-the-moment purchase may still happen, depending on the Kindle 2's price in the UK and whether I can convince myself that someone will pay me more money to write about it than it costs, thus making it a sound investment (this logic tends to apply to any gadget I'm dribbling over).

If this thing is really going to do for literature what the iPod has done for music, it would be nice to be in early - or at least as early as us Brits are able to. Better try to get some more work in before they announce the UK launch...

Saving the music industry: one album at a time

Don't worry, this post won't be as pompous as the title makes it sound. But I have been buying albums - four in the past four days - which is strange to think, given that I spend half my professional life writing about the problems the music industry is having getting people to pay for recorded music.

Only one of them was a CD - the Hot Leg album, ordered from Amazon. The other three were all digital purchases from iTunes, and were impulse buys to varying degrees.

I bought the Franz Ferdinand album from iTunes on my PC after reading an interview with the band, then grabbed the Lily Allen album (also on PC) this morning after hearing The Fear again on the radio.

And then while in the Music Ally office today, Juan played me a riff from the album by The Answer, and I bought that on the spot through my iPhone.

Well, it was a GREAT riff.

And it's made me realise that actually, technology has progressed to the point where buying an album - for me - is an impulse purchase, just as it was in the days when I had to walk past Virgin Megastore on the way to work. A few clicks, or taps in the case of the iPhone, and there it is.

Without really noticing it, I've almost lost the need to own physical copies, and kicked the fear of my iTunes downloads not working on any other device ever. Even if that's still (a bit) true.

It's quite a thought. But I'm just as pleased about the fact that I'm really excited, for different reasons, about hearing all four albums. I was starting to worry that I was jaded - either through 'nobody new is as good as my old favourites' old-fartedness, or by the sheer availability of music online.

When you can listen to anything you want whenever you want, do you stop getting excited about it? Thankfully not.

Anyway, that's my week's home-office listening sorted. Impressions so far? The Lily album is ace - smart, interesting and proper pop music. The Franz album is going to take a bit more listening, but has the makings of a grower. Hot Leg just puts a smile on your face, even if the odd novelty bit does grate. And I'm shocked it's taken me this long to find The Answer, given their blend of the Black Crowes, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. A wonderful idea indeed.

Hopefully that's not too pompous - I'm not that good at writing about music itself, rather than about the business or technology around it. Anyway, this post marks A New Start for this blog - I'm determined to write something every day about something, rather than just lists of links to stuff I've written, or apologies for not posting for months.