Technology and media writer from Manchester, UK
As Zee's post yesterday revealed, I'm now (along with Brad McCarty) a Managing Editor at The Next Web - a role I'm obviously pretty excited about. With Zee heading off to San Francisco as our CEO, I'll be heading up day-to-day operations during European daytime hours, with Brad doing the same in US hours.
Congratulations also to Matt Brian and Matthew Panzarino, our new News Editors, and Courtney Boyd Myers, who is now Features Editor.
With all this, and a few other interesting bits and pieces I'm involved in, 2012 should be a fun year!
Today I bought some music on vinyl for the first time in at least five years, probably closer to ten.
I stopped buying vinyl because CDs, and then digital files, were infinitely more convenient to play on a computer, MP3 player or phone - the only ways I've wanted to listen to music over the past decade. My Last.fm account has a lot to do with that - being able to log and share my music taste reaps so many benefits in terms of new music discovery that I like to obsessively log every single song I choose to listen to.
In fact, I discovered my favourite band, The Fiery Furnaces, via Last.fm and I've since bought just about everything released by the band and its two members - brother and sister Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger. So, it's no surprise that my first vinyl purchase in a decade is Cut It Out, a vinyl-only solo album by Matthew Friedberger.
Cut It Out is the fourth of six releases from Friedberger this year that will only be available on good old fashioned 12 inch plastic. I resisted buying the previous three - a subscription to the US-produced series was simply too expensive, and I figured that the individual albums would eventually be available digitally, even if I had to wait a year or too.
Then recently, I stumbled upon one of the vinyl-only tracks on YouTube and realised I'd been a bad fan - I'd missed out on multiple albums worth of material from a brilliant artist who (when I met him at a Fiery Furnaces gig a couple of years ago) had told me that further solo albums were on the cards - the least i could do was buy them.. I contacted Thrill Jockey, the US label releasing the series, to check - would it be released digitally in the future?
Thrill Jockey's David Halstead replied to the negative:
Unfortunately, no. The subscription (or trying to get each individual record in the shops over there) is the only way to get the music. That was intentional to preserve the special aspect of the collection."
So, having missed albums 1 to 3, I've bought number 4 on import from my local record shop. I've no idea how I'll listen to it (I imagine that a USB turntable is a purchase in my future at some point, so I can get the music into the format I want it in), but something struck me as I handed over the money to pay for the album:
As much as I love Matthew Friedberger's music and want to pay for it to help support him financially, isn't it incredibly arrogant to release an album on vinyl only?
The idea of listening to music on a record player alone at home or in a small group of friends isn't just old fashioned - it's positively obsolete. These days I want to be able to listen to my music wherever I am, to share what I listen to on my Last.fm profile or via Facebook's new social music features - listening without the flexibility and social dimension that digital formats provide is at odds with what music is today.
Sure it keeps the music special, but six albums' worth of music so special that only a few thousand people will ever own it? That's the musical artist equivalent of being Amish.
I'll still buy albums number 5 and 6 of course (1 to 3 are sold out) but I'll do it through gritted teeth. The music may be great, but to ignore the advantages of the 21st Century just to to 'keep something special' just irks me.
This week I spoke at Media Evolution's conference in Malmö, Sweden about the future of media formats.
I also posted video interviews with Flattr, Ovelin and a member of the team behind MIT's folding CityCar over on The Next Web.
Just arrived in the post from BBC Radio Wales is this recording of my appearance on Good Morning Wales last week, in which I discussed LulzSec disbanding... and found myself comparing them to the Sex Pistols. I'm pretty impressed by the quality, seeing as it was being done over Skype.
Interview about Lulzsec, BBC Radio Wales - 27-06-2011 by MartinBryant
The BBC World Service invited me on to Newshour today to discuss the apparent disbanding of hacking group LulzSec.
Interview about LulzSec - BBC World Service Newshour - 260611 by MartinBryant
During my current holiday in Japan, I visited the village of Toya Onsen. This beautiful spa resort, on the banks of Lake Toya, has been ravaged by volcanic eruptions more than once and the remarkable scars are there for all to see.
Given the recent disasters in the country, this is another reminder of just how fragile Japan is.
What did I get up to in the opening months of 2011? Well, this:
February saw me head over to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where (among other things) I explored Google's rather fantastic stand and rode on its slide...
I also helped out at Movement, a social media surgery event for musicians in Manchester, giving advice on moving on from Myspace to newer tools. The next one's on 19 April, so sign up if you want to come along.
In March I went along to a Sky News preview event for its iPad app. With about 30 seconds' notice I interviewed Political Editor Adam Boulton. The lack of notice led meant I couldn't prepare any hardball questions for him, but next time he's getting a grilling :)
I also helped out with Manchester Twestival (not as much as I'd have liked to if I'd have had more free time, to be honest). The event raised £1850 for local charity Wood Street Mission.
Then just this week, I stepped in to cover the Techonomy3 conference in Tel Aviv, Israel. I wrote up a full report over at The Next Web, but it was great to experience another side of the country from the conflict depicted regularly on the news. I found an exciting, inspiring community of technology entrepreneurs doing great work.
Speaking of which, I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet of late about the lack of high-profile technology startups in Manchester. My recent post about it at The Next Web stirred up some interesting debate both on and off the site, and that's something I hope will continue over the coming months.
