Paul Holmes

Top 7 Decades of Recorded Music

Posted by Paul Holmes in music on December 31st, 2009

What was your favourite decade for recorded music? I have ranked the last 7 based on my highly biased and unscientific methodology.

#7 – The 1990’s – This was the absolute worst decade of recorded music. While there was some innovation in R&B and hip-hop (and the angst of grunge saved us from the agony of pop), it was mostly a lost decade trying desparately to shake off the overly perky 80’s.

#6 – The 1970’s – Most good music from this decade really belonged to another decade. The good rock and roll belonged to the 1960’s, and the good pop belonged to the 1980’s. The rest gets lost under the cuff of your bell-bottoms.

#5 – The ’00’s – Maybe we’ll feel differently in a few years, but with the exception of “modern rock” (the new name for grunge/punk/alternative), the music was mediocre at best. The pop got stupider, the rap got poppier, and R&B went down the auto-tune toilet (and the videos for all three slid from sexy to slutty to low rate porno).

#4 – The 1940’s – Music of the war period and post-war was amazing, especially considering the crap everyone went through. I credit this decade as the “real” dawn of recorded music because the radio was so widely used during the war (no doubt to feel a bit more connected to home), and returning home afterwards, the habit never died.

#3 – The 1950’s – Out of an amazing country music scene springs “Rock ‘N Roll”. Not just the fad that would never die, but easily the single greatest musical innovation of the century.

#2 – The 1980’s – The high point of popular culture brought the high point of popular music. Acts like Michael Jackson, Cindy Lauper, Genesis and Madonna will live on in legends for centuries. Against the backdrop of imminent nuclear war and rising crime, the music got strangely happy. Pop acts pushed the outer boundaries of music, along with ever bigger hair and ever brighter colours. To be certain, there was a lot of crap recorded in this decade – but that didn’t matter, because music meant so much to us despite being fun, familiar and frivolous.

#1 – The 1960’s – While the 1950’s produced some great music, it still largely stuck to the formula. The cultural revolution that was the 1960’s also reshaped the music. No decade before or since has seen as much experimentation and innovation as this. Even wholesome acts from the 50’s (like the Beatles) found their true voice in the 60’s. No act was immune to the Vietnam War and the fundamental social changes happening to America. It all came to an apex at Woodstock, and promptly went to music hell the very next year.

There was great music prior to the 1940’s. Mozart, Beethoven, the 1920’s, and more, but I felt the 1940’s was really the start of the “modern era of recorded music.” Do you disagree?

1960s, 1980s, decades, music

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Top 10 Social Media

Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, business, personal, social media on December 1st, 2009

I have written various articles on social media in the past, and a few people have asked what my favourites are. The following list is not “the best”, nor specifically “the best for application X”, rather my favourites – those I enjoy using or gain specific benefit for using.

10. Ning’s (like Your Canada)
Ning is a really cool product that allows you to launch your own social networks around specific themes. Your Canada is an example of one I launched to add a social component to our popular Your Canada website.

9. FriendFeed
Everyone was getting excited about FriendFeed, the ultimate social media collaborator. It’s a cool tool because it let’s you tie all your social media activities into one stream. It can be a bit overwhelming though, so I find myself using it sparingly these days.

8. YouTube
Anonymity is still the name of the game on YouTube. As a result, you get poorly spelled and otherwise idiotic comments on videos all the time. This is too bad, given that it otherwise is the best place for exposure, and the tools to connect people socially are actually pretty good. The social aspects of video are still developing, and I suspect a number of other sites may take the lead in “social video” while Google focuses YouTube more on commercializing what they have (and doing this primarily by pushing sponsored videos, vs. an advertising model). Some to watch include Vimeo, DailyMotion, 12seconds.tv, Ustream.tv, blip.tv, and about a few dozen others.

7. Flickr
Yahoo! has one product that kicks ass and totally owns it’s vertical, and that is Flickr. Flickr is the best social medium for sharing photos/images. Picasa is Google’s alternative, and it is OK. A few others are Photobucket and Flixya, but they are a long way from successful at this point.

6. Digg
The DiggBar has revolutionized Digg (much to the chagrin of the ol’ skool Diggers). I use it all the time, and am a bit of a Diggaholic now. It’s a great tool for sharing interesting stuff you find on the web. It also has some great integration tools to very easily share “Dugg” stuff on Facebook and Twitter. I use Digg every single day.

5. Instant Messaging
Three years ago this was number one (followed by blogging and online forums). Three years ago, I did 100% of my instant messaging using MSN Messenger. Two years ago, 80% was MSN and 20% was GoogleTalk. Today, 50% is Facebook, 30% is GoogleTalk and 20% is MSN. As always, ICQ and AIM are 0%. Instant messaging is still a great way to get ahold of people in a hurry.

4. Blogging
I love to blog. I have at least 5 blogs I update regularly, and I love posting comments to other people’s blogs (which is what makes it a social medium). I also love WordPress; I am a total convert to the platform. I even organized a WordCamp in Victoria a few weeks ago, which was tonnes of fun.

3. Facebook
I was a Facebook holdout for ages, but have grown to like it. I like it because almost everyone I know is there. The platform itself is annoying sometimes, and frustrating at others, but they have the critical mass, so it remains a tool I continue to use, even if I use it despite itself.

2. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is great for business. At a recent presentation I gave at the University of Victoria to all of their business students, I asked several hundred students how many of them were on Facebook, and almost every hand went up. I then asked how many were on LinkedIn, and about 5 hands went up (I think a few of those hands were faculty, too). This is ashame. LinkedIn is a great tool for business, but also for career building. The guy sitting next to you in class today might be CEO of some big corporation in 10 years. Stay in touch and add them to your network on LinkedIn. I’m not sure if I got through to them or not.

LinkedIn is easy, passive and a great way to introduce people. It’s sort of like a virtual business mixer, but doesn’t require you to smile and dress nicely.

1. Twitter
Even people who love Twitter make fun of it. Twitter is an amazing tool for connecting with people and getting a message out. Through the power of the retweet, your potential network is huge. That conference I organized back in #4 above – I used Twitter as the primary medium through which to promote it, and over 100 local (and international) people showed up. Not too shabby for something people love to make fun of.

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I’ll review my list every once in awhile as my tastes change. It’ll be interesting to look back in the future and see what has changed.

I can already say that “FriendFeed” used to be much higher up the list, and I expect there is a good chance Google Wave and Foursquare will appear here in the next year or two. The influence of mobile and video (and mobile video) should introduce a few new angles to the equation, too.

A few others that I use that didn’t make the top list are Plaxo (11), Yelp (12), Identi.ca (13), Vimeo (14), Meetup (15), SlideShare (16), MySpace (17), and StumbleUpon (18). I have profiles on a few others, but don’t use them much.

I’m always happy to connect with people I know on any of these networks, see my social media links in the right column to link to my profile, or visit my Contact page.

blogging, digg, facebook, flickr, friendfeed, instant messaging, linkedin, ning, social media, twitter, youtube

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Dammit LinkedIn, I’m a college dropout!

Posted by Paul Holmes in business, humour, internet, personal, social media on November 20th, 2009

My LinkedIn profile is 85% complete. It has been since I first signed up, and probably will be in 5 years. Why? Because I have not included my education. Here’s my recent correspondence with LinkedIn:

I do not wish to include education in my profile. I am a self-employed college dropout, and it is not relevant.

Yet LinkedIn does not allow an option for “include none”, and insists my profile remains only 85% complete. I find this really annoying, and would appreciate the option to include no education component in my profile.

Is my life incomplete according to LinkedIn because I have been largely educated within the University of Life?

Here is the response:

Dear Paul,

Thank you for contacting LinkedIn Customer Support.

And I want to apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.

Unfortunately, this option cannot be changed at this time, I will sent your information to our research and development team for future consideration.

[...]

We appreciate your commitment to making LinkedIn a stronger community!

It was mostly written in a late night moment of jest, but I do wonder how many others fall into a category like mine. Is Bill Gates on LinkedIn? OK, Bill Gates has been a bit more successful than me, but he’s had a few years headstart.

For those who don’t know me terribly well and aren’t already bored by this post, I’ll fill in some of the mundane details of my life.

As a teenager, I was very interested in computers, and would often stay up very late working on them. I wasn’t interested in games, but communications. One of the first things I did with my new 80286 computer and 1200 baud modem was open my own bulletin board system (BBS), which allowed people to dial my computer up from their computer, using the phone line, and post messages, download files (ironically, usually games), chat (when I was around), and send private messages.

Before the Internet came into popular use, my BBS was a node of FidoNet, a global network that operated across phone lines around the world (my address was 1:340/36).

I also found high school exceptionally boring, so much so that I barely graduated. They’d always enroll me in special classes for smart kids (or smart asses, in my case), but I’m fairly certain I never once applied myself. I had a C- in English 12, due primarily to the fact that classes began at 7:45am, so I missed about a third of them.

After high school I took an operations job with a medical software company and worked my way up the ladder there. I quit after a few years to take Political Science and History in college (I even took an English placement test, which ironically allowed me to skip the first English composition class, despite almost failing English 12). I went for one semester, but was given an opportunity to go back to my previous employer. The offer was for far more than what I might have earned with a PoliSci degree, so I dropped college and went back to work.

In 2000, I made a strategic exit from that company to start my own web company, and have been doing that ever since.

Let me be clear: I am not anti-education. Far from it, I am an enthusiastic supporter! I am often invited as a guest speaker for business students, and often work with people in my community to support the local University. I have a tonne of respect for anybody with an MBA, a Masters Degree, or a Doctorate – they clearly have a hell of a lot more patience than me!

So when people ask about my alma mater, life experience is my response.

BBS, Bill Gates, College Dropout, Education, FidoNet, History, linkedin, Political Science

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WordCamp Victoria 2009 – Domain Name Acquisition

Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet on November 15th, 2009

I gave a presentation at WordCamp Victoria 2009 on Domain Name Acquisition. I rambled a bit, but people seemed to find it useful. If you love .BIZ domain names, I apologize in advance (I don’t).

Thanks to Robin Heppell for recording and sending the video!

One major correction, SEDO doesn’t have 100,000 domain names for sale, they have 11.5 million. Whoops, sorry SEDO!

Here are some of the websites I refer to in the video:

Our Canadian Web Hosting and domain name registration company, dotcanuck Web Services.

Pick up an expired .CA domain name at our BulkDomain.ca website.

ICANN is the agency that essentially runs the Internet, at least controlling the assignment of all the names and numbers.

Remember: Registrants pay registrars to put their domain names in the registry.

As mentioned, SEDO has domain name auctions and sales.

SnapNames is another expired domain name and auction website.

CircleID is a fabulous domain industry resource; some very prominent contributors from within the industry, more often from the “registrar” side.

Sphinn is a “digg-style” site for Internet marketing that has a lot of current and informative information on domain names, mostly from the “domainer” point of view (people who register multiple domain names, most often for the purpose of reselling them later, are commonly called “domainers”).

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Death of the Handshake

Posted by Paul Holmes in health on November 3rd, 2009

Shaken hands with somebody you’ve met recently? I have.

But I seem to be doing it a whole lot less than I used to. Every time you touch the hand opposite, your mind zooms in on the hands, and you see the germs jumping ship from one hand to the other, in anticipatory glee. Until the next time you walk by a sink or one of those little sanitizer dispensers, you can feel a heavy weight holding your hand away from your eyes, nose, face, or anything else.

When somebody doesn’t extend a hand to shake yours, you also do not, and nobody is offended.

The world is changing, and with it one of the most common customs in our society. Just as the shared chalice is disappearing, perhaps once and for all, from Church services, I think the handshake is soon to follow.

Being one of those people who watch in absolute disgust as men leave the washroom without washing their hands, I won’t miss it one bit.

The question is: What do we do now?

What is the new handshake?