I’d argue for a focused set of decoupled applications, rather than a new unified platform. iTunes has bloated beyond practicality. The App store doesn’t work well for users or developers. Here’s where I think the future of these applications lies.
ipod
On Broken Music Discovery and the Fragmentation of Music Libraries
Following up (finally) on a tweet-storm from March about music discovery and libraries now.
I miss old school mp3 blogs. Music discovery feels broken now that it’s fragmented across so many services. Soundcloud, Spotify, iTunes…
— Sarah K Moir (@smorewithface) March 23, 2015
I used to subscribe to lots of MP3 blogs. I had lots of free time in high school, and listened fervently to the local college radio station (as I’ve mentioned before, in an autobiography through musical devices.) Music discovery is now fragmented across services—SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, the now-defunct Rdio, and even 8tracks)—it’s both harder and easier to find new music. The wizardry of Shazam, too, means getting to find out what song is playing in the bar, store, or on the radio so you can buy it or find it later online.
Autobiography through (Musical) Devices (Part Rogue)
Inspired in part by Cyborgology’s Autobiography through Devices series
Autobiography Through Devices (Part 1)
Autobiography Through Devices (Part 2)
I grew up surrounded by music. Dancing wildly in the living room to REM’s Don’t Go Back to Rockville and Rusted Root’s Ecstasy with my siblings as we were toddlers remain fond childhood memories of mine. As I grew older I kept listening to my parents’ music, including an entrenched eighties phase, and as I left Junior High, I owned a Train tape, a Cat Stevens Classics CD, and Motion City Soundtrack’s first album, I Am The Movie, among others. I shied away from the popular music of my peers in Junior High, and avoided Alkaline Trio, System of a Down, and Blink 182 (this was a mistake, I might add).