Advice to aspiring bloggers often sounds like the advice commencement speakers invariably give to graduating high school seniors:  ”follow your passion and sucess will follow.” Anyone who has ever started a blog knows that trite aphorisms and simplistic content formulas like the “80/20″ rule don’t replace hard work and constant attention to quality.

Abbey Simmons and Josh Lovseth started the hyper-local Sound on the Sound music blog in 2006 and over the last five years, there work has come to define several exciting aspects of a burgeoning Seattle music scene.   Sound on the Sound was one of the first publications to draw national attention to Seattle’s “Ballard Avenue” roots/folk revival and bands like The Head and the Heart and Drew Grow and the Pastor’s Wives. Through hard work and seeing lots and lots of live music,  Abbey and Josh have taken their passion for music and turned it into a highly influential cultural voice in Seattle and beyond.

Recently FTM had a chance to sit down with Abbey and have her give us a history of her work at Sound on the Sound and a behind the scenes look at music blogging in general.

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Eli Pariser, author of “The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You” is on a book tour and made a stop at the KUOW 94.1 studios in Seattle on Tuesday.

According to the former Moveon.org chief, web services like Facebook, Google and Yahoo! News aim to personalize content and maximize the likelihood of the user clicking on sponsored displayed links. On KUOW’s The Conversation with Ross Reynolds, Pariser talked about what troubles him about these practices.  His main concern is that the practice of steering viewers to specific content is not transparent. This is what Pariser calls the “The Filter Bubble,” which he fears can increase polarization and limit engagement across ideological lines. While convenient for individual users, this is not always in the best interest of the public as a whole. As he explained in the New York Times editorial on May 23, 2011, Pariser sees this filtering of news and information as a direct threat to democracy because it limits exposure to content with differing viewpoints and increases content that already jives with users’ typical behavior and preferences. Read more…

It is a jungle out there in mobile communications. The mobile application markets are particularly chaotic. How do you know which Sudoku app is right for you when there are literally thousands of Sudoku apps out there? Thousands on each mobile platform: iOS, Android, Windows Mobile 7. Thousands.

With every seemingly insurmountable online/mobile/content challenge that has emerged over the last two decades, smart entrepreneurs have recognized a corresponding opportunity. Google? Google emerged out of a need to sift through and evaluate the deluge of internet content developed during Web 1.0.

AppStoreHQ homepage

In mobile applications this is where market research, filtering technology and social networking come in. Instead of an anonymous algorithm, researchers are turning to your social networks for inspiration–finding out what works from people in your network that you trust. It seems like a natural and healthy progression. In an age when consumers are increasingly leery of advertising and have many channels to turn to in avoiding commercials, these consumers are also increasingly connected to each other.

This is the third article in a series exploring social network trends in online commerce and how some Seattle companies are navigating the landscape. Read more…

E-commerce in the (social) networked environment is different from e-commerce in the past. We are all familiar with being bombarded with commercial messages, through online video commercials, banner ads and pop up windows.   We have learned to avoid, deflect and tune out most of these marketing strategies.

Increasingly, If we are looking for something, we will shop around, consult user reviews and ask friends for advice. More and more these conversations are happening online and marketers are angling to be a part of these discussions. This is the second article in a series exploring social network trends in online commerce and how some Northwest companies are navigating and even changing the new landscape.

The ancient method of people making recommendations to each other for products and services using word of mouth is suddenly the hottest advertising strategy on the Internet. Facebook and other social media networks are giant marketing tools. But so far, most consumers have lacked a way to buy products or services without leaving the site. For the founders of aptly named DIY Media in Seattle, this conundrum seemed like a great business opportunity.

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Consumers are increasingly skeptical of traditional advertising, more likely to trust peers for product recommendations and completely networked – and as the digital natives move out of the dorms and into the business world, this trend is only going to get stronger. What is the impact of these networked consumers on the marketing landscape?

E-commerce grows up. Social is the new currency.  Established companies adapt to a new reality, and new companies have surfaced in the wake of social media – entirely to capitalize on social network marketing.

This is the first article in a series exploring social network trends in online commerce and how some Seattle companies are navigating the landscape.

It is interesting to note that some of the most successful new technologies don’t actually invent anything new: peer-to-peer advertising is in fact the oldest variety around. It precedes any mass medium. New technologies, however, make peer-to-peer recommendations more efficient, faster and with a broader footprint than the cave-man version.

According to Kathy Savitt, CEO of Seattle based Lockerz, 73 percent of “Generation Z,”–those born after 1992–purchase products based on recommendations from friends. Lockerz is a member-based web community that rewards users for listening to music, watching videos, answering questions and sharing photos. They base their whole business model on peer-to-peer social networking and “word of mouth” marketing strategies. Read more…

In a previous post, I wrote about some driving trends in the Arabic speaking media world and I wrote about a cloud-based publishing platform. This post moves closer to the end-user by focusing on new e-reader technologies as well as online retail.

Last month at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, I met Anish Chandran, the operations leader for the WINK (“without ink”) e-reader and associated publishing ecosystem. Anish and the WINK team were demonstrating the WINK e-reader, the WINKstore iPad app, and other digital publishing solutions. While WINK’s applications launched in the Indian market, the team was exhibiting in the e-zone as part of a larger effort at wider distribution in the Middle East and North Africa.

Bangalore, India based EC Media International launched WINK in 2009 to deliver “a cost effective electronic book reader plus digital content in English and all Indian languages.” Since launch, the WINK digital media ecosystem has expanded beyond the e-reader to include both iPad and Android apps and the WINKstore.  The WINKstore is an electronic book site, which currently counts over 350,000 titles in English and the 15 official Indian languages. The latest WINK initiative is MagsOnWINK, a digital magazine publishing platform and client-side application for e-readers and tablets. MagsOnWINK will integrate over 150 Indian newspapers and magazines by the middle of this year.  The MagsOnWINK application is one of several free downloads from the WINKstore. MagsOnWink also distributes via Apple’s App Store. Read more…

There was a lot of clamor in digital music world last week as Amazon unveiled their new Cloud Player. Industry experts labeled it as a move to increase pressure on competitors such as Apple and Google, which are rumored to be releasing similar digital locker products later on this year.

Launched last Tuesday, Amazon’s Cloud Player gives users the ability to listen to their music collection anywhere they have an Internet connection, either via a Web app that’s compatible with all major browsers or an Android app. Amazon trumped Google by creating the first digital locker of it’s kind on Google’s own Android operating system. That’s no small accomplishment, although that makes you think Google is likely planning something even better.

Naturally, all of this is drawing staunch criticism from major record companies who aren’t happy with the Seattle company’s decision not to secure music licenses from labels and publishers before releasing its service. Read more…