Quick thoughts on the music selection in Yahoo! Music Engine

Jeremy has a vibrant discussion going over at his blog about his experience with Yahoo! Music Engine, specifically the synchronization feature he recently used. (And there’s some discussion in the comments about the system requirements, but I’ll leave that to Jeremy’s blog for now.) Now that I’m working at Yahoo! and I’m using Windows again, I decided to give YME a shot.

High Fidelity First, I’ll admit — I can be a wee bit of a music snob, and I’ve committed quite a few of the base sins that music snobs commit (especially the sub-species of indie rock music snobs). I briefly DJ’ed at a station with barely enough broadcast wattage to get to the station’s parking lot, yet I took my 2-5am slot very seriously. When I ran a small music venue in college, I probably sneered with contempt as I turned down a bad local metal band who begged to play on an unbooked Tuesday night. And, of course, I’ve turned against obscure bands that have gotten popular because they are actually good. When I watch High Fidelity, too many of the “top 5 list” debates bring back very specific memories. When I’m at a party at a stranger’s house, I could care less about secretly peeking in the medicine cabinet — but I’m not above a quick scan of the spines of someone’s CD collection. (Despite all of the above, I have miraculously managed to avoid a vinyl obsession. When you’re engaged in a conversation with a fellow music snob and you assert that a truly obscure band sounds better on vinyl, time to recalibrate that music obsession).

That being said, I’ve found a lot of indie rock music-snob-worthy stuff on YME: Yo La Tengo, Built to Spill, Guided by Voices, Big Star, Calexico, Sonic Youth, Flaming Lips, Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill. . . after a few days, I keep finding more stuff I like. I’m very impressed with the diversity.

In reality, I’m not that much of a music snob — on a recent out-of-town trip to a bachelor party with a bunch of equally discriminate music fans, I played a CD that I had labeled “Classic Rock Mix.” This one CD was my own distillation of The Eagles’ Greatest Hits and Steve Miller Band’s Greatest Hits into one rockin’ CD without the songs that I perceived as filler in the two larger works. After a brief period of indie-rocker indignation, the criticism subsided and there was nothing but appreciative toe-tapping and head bobbing. If “Jet Airliner” and “Take It Easy” don’t move you on one of those perfect summer days when everything is just right, then you’re simply not human.

Site to watch: ProgrammableWeb.com

I just subscribed to the ProgrammableWeb.com blog, described by the site’s creator (John Musser) here:

So what’s the point of this site? Although still euphemistically ‘in beta’, the goal is to create a home page for Web 2.0 developers. Content to include news, reviews, comparisons, and examples. Formal APIs, unofficial APIs, and accidental APIs are all fair game. Anything ‘programmatic’ that’s publicly accessible online from sources including Amazon, Google, eBay, Microsoft, del.icio.us, Feedster, UPS, EVDB, WeatherBug, indeed, Blogger and others. [Hey John, don’t forget Yahoo! Actually, John does list Yahoo’s APIs here. – CD]

Why? Because going From Web Page to Web Platform is a big deal. It’s immature and a bit ill-defined but full of potential. To particpate as developers requires understanding, and to do that means to know what the parts are and how they work.

Another way to look at this site is from its genesis: frustration. I wanted to get the ‘big picture’ view of web apis. So I picked-up what books I could find (like Iverson). Pretty good start. But not enough. Then where? Everywhere. Despite what seems like an infinite number of social/web2.0 blogs, sites and businesses, I still couldn’t find the ‘go-to’ place I wanted.

Although it’s in the early stages, the site looks promising and I agree with John that the web-as-platform is a HUGE deal (why else would I leave my CTO gig to take a job at Yahoo! with the word “platform” in the title?) I actually met John when I was at InfoWorld since he used to be involved in the NY CTO Club that I wrote about and visited regularly. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on his site.

The brutal efficiency of LinkedIn

David Berlind’s recent discussion of the merits of LinkedIn versus other services like Plaxo (David thinks LinkedIn is “winning” — and I agree) inspired me to surface a recent experience I had with LinkedIn that illustrates the importance of old-fashioned offline personal relationships — not just the direct personal relationships you are explictly aware of, but the implicit networks that are created by the associations you specify in an online profile. When this kind of information is laid bare and made easily searchable in the context of defined relationships, the brutal efficiency with which personal and professional networks can be navigated by connections outside of your first-degree network can be breathtaking.

In my particular case, I was contacted by someone who shared a trusted mutual connection with me who just happened to be interviewing someone who I had worked with in the past. I’m not even sure if this person is even on LinkedIn. I wasn’t this person’s boss, and I would have never been offered as an actual reference on a resume, but the person who contacted me for a reference noted that we worked for the same company and wanted to know my thoughts. Unfortunately, my comments weren’t positive. I just couldn’t give a positive reference without feeling like I was compromising myself and the trust of our mutual connection (this was kind of an extreme case — not much of a gray area on this one, which is rare in a world where I think almost anyone deserves a second chance and the benefit of the doubt).

Like your parents probably told you (or at least should have), reputation is your most important asset, and what people think about you can make or break opportunities in life. No technology will ever change that — but services like LinkedIn can be a mercilessly efficient means for a bad rep to follow you.