One of my favourite bands at the moment, as proved by my last.fm profile are ‘The Cribs.’  It’s kind of hard to describe their music or fit it into a specific genre but whatever magic they created in the past, they’re adding to it by introducing Sir Johnny Marr to the line-up.

I’ve deliberately stayed away from their new music because I want to be able to enjoy it when I have the free time.  I’ll link ye anyways in case ye can’t wait.  There is the first single, Cheat On Me (youtube)  & We Were Aborted (youtube).  The new album is titled ‘Ignore the Ignorant’ and set to be released on September 7th 2009.  The Cribs also play Dublin on September 21st and I really hope to be able to go as I want to see Marr before I die (I saw the other good Smith last year.)  More information on the gig at ticketmaster here.  See other tour dates on The Cribs homepage here.

Enter Buzzword; enter everyone jumping on the bandwagon,  Enter Twitter. The Maccabees don’t really get it (sorry, too commercial), Calvin Harris is a tad annoying and the Futureheads absolutely rock at it (all members of the band post and not focused on selling their music.)  The Cribs could also be a bit less commerical but I’m not bothered ‘cos I love them so much. >.<

The Cribs seem to have really grasped the concept of user generated media/content, or else some smart person at iLike (their software developer) convinced them this was the way to go.  Either way The Cribs loyal fan base are doing alot of promotional work for them (and alot of them probably don’t know they are.)

Like Skittles before them, this application features a “Twitter and Fan Wall” which displays:

• All of the band’s tweets from their official Twitter account.
• A Twitter search going for the string “The Cribs” which shows all mentions of the band in the Twittoverse.
• A fan wall which displays photos that their fans have taken and messages from them.

Imagine a non Cribs fan stumbling upon this application and seeing what a dedicated fan base they have and after taking a look at some of their videos.  What are the chances they’ll click the little banner  at the bottom to download the song from iTunes? Well, alot higher than if the application weren’t there.  This handy little application is building up a nice little fan network for the group.

And what about being indie?

Well… there’s no major record label here chucking money into music videos and 100ft statues of The Cribs floating down the Thames.  Also, since iTunes killed the record shop star, it’s only apt that The Cribs provide a link to iTunes.  If Twitter had been around in the time of The Smiths, I’m sure this is a route they would have chosen.  Be Safe.

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Emoji icons are popular in Japanese mobile phones so Apple built them into the iPhone for over there and left out all us westerners.  A few crafty buggers found out ways to unlock all of this, (with jailbreak or no jailbreak) and a few crafty beggers have decided to charge to unlock these awesome emoticons.  Don’t Pay!

This is the method which unlocked me: http://limitededitioniphone.com/emoji-activate-on-221-and-30-free/ (to the author: not worthy, not worthy.)  No menacing, bricking, jailbreaking, teabagging etc.

These can add a bit of colour to texting other buddies with iPhones or IM’ing them.

Over the summer I’ve been working on a project to finish my masters, concerning social media.  If you asked me to define social media off the top of my head or from personal experience I would have said Digg or Twitter but wouldn’t have known why as such.  I searched and I searched for academic literature concerning social media but there’s very little so I had to go to every academic’s nightmare i.e. Wikipedia.  Who better than to cite for a definition of social media than one of the leaders in the area?

Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. Social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content; it’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal, political and business use. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

So this got me to thinking about what social media means to me.  It all boils down to the fact that it’s a replacement for traditional media i.e. TV, newspapers & radio.  For some people it’s complementary to these things but realistically why wait for your favorite music video to come on The Box when you find it in a second on YouTube?  Also, why wait to watch what corporations deem news on TV when you can find out what genuinely reflects the topics on the masses mind i.e. Twitter or Digg?

The only time social media can be a pain in the arse is the age old problem of spam which affects all the major platforms.  There can also be a situation of being a bit too involved like myself and suffering major withdrawal symptoms after being away from the internet for a huge period of time like 4 hours.  Also, the fact that web 2.0 gives a voice to everyone is a bit offputting because some people just shouldn’t be allowed to talk :P.

The thing which struck me as being unusual though is how business are suckers for this.  It’s clearly a recessionary thing, i.e. the internet is viral, everyone is on it and we’re talking cents about getting our products and services out there and this thing called Twitter will do the work for us. eh no…..  The fact of the matter is it’s web 2.0, IT’S MADE TO BE EASY.  YOU’RE NOT COMPUTER PROGRAMMING OR DOING ANYTHING WHICH REQUIRES MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES INVESTIGATION OR A QUICK GOOGLE SEARCH. I’m sorry.  Perhaps, the true masterminds and genius’ behind it all are not the Zuckerbergs, Roses or the coders but the ones that charge money for stating the obvious.  They go into business and tell them what Twitter is & what Wordpress is and charge a significant amount for doing so.  Twitter & Facebook will save you money and attract more customers but the price you pay for quick shot consultancy will nearly match the money you save. Rant over.

Moral of the post = Social Media is here, my mother (58) uses it and so do YOU.