Damien Mulley

I’m looking for stories of people who switched to VoIP once they had broadband installed. Either getting a new number or transferring over their old landline number. Not looking for those that use Skype. Are there people out there who have done this?

I was very recently given an invite to a social networking site/app based around your musical tastes. It’s called uPlayMe. The install was easy enough, it feels like a java app but it’s actually using the Net 1.1 framework on Windows. No Tom, no Mac version yet but they tell me Mac support is on the way. It’s currently in Alpha. It installed quite quickly, asked a tiny amount of information like age, gender, email and password and that was it.

It scanned just ten songs from my recently played list in iTunes but you can set it for way more. No Winamp support yet but there is support for Windows Media Player. I’ll play around with it more and add more songs and hopefully more people will come along.

uPlayMe was founded by Dan Pelson and Bo Peabody, both of who have been around the Internet block a few times. Amongst other ventures, Dan founded Bolt.com in 1997, one of the social networks around. Bolt is still going. But he’s been a net entrpreneur since 1993. Bo founded Tripod way back in 1992, which he sold to Lycos for $58 million. He’s currently a co-founder and managing general partner of Village Ventures, a fund with more than $250 million under management.

Dan was kind enough to answer some of my questions:

DM: Is there going to be Winamp support?

Yes, Winamp will be available at a future date. The goal is to have every media player and device supported either by us directly or through the APIs. Right now, we offer support for iTunes, but soon we will offer support for Windows Media Player, among others. We will also offer a MAC OS version. The Windows Media Player and Mac OS versions will be available within a month or so

DM(channeling Marc Canter): Will there be open APIs for this?

Yes, the application has been designed to be very modular and offer ease-of-integration with third party applications, whether they’re proprietary video players, wireless (mobile) devices, etc. Our goal is to make it simple for any platform (or website, for that matter) to have their media assets integrated into a uPlayMe profile.

DM: So how will uPlayMe make money?

Right now, uPlayMe is dedicated to building a great product and increasing our user base. Revenue will be driven by standard sponsorships, text-based ads and a bidding system that allows marketers to associate their ads with songs, artists, and genres. In addition, we will offer a promotional system (“Faux-files�) that will allow artists and media companies to generate attention for their media assets by associating with other songs, videos and more.

uPlayMe is still just a wee baby but hopefully it’ll grow and gain more features as the userbase grows. Download it yourself and try it out. Pity there isn’t a blog for the development team so feedback can be given. Til then leave feedback on your own blog. Thanks to Alan for letting me know about this.

TD Expenses for 2005.

Below is a list of expenses claimed by Senators for 2005.

“They’re Amazon. You’re Easons. They have a future. You do not.” Welcome back Richard Delevan.

Ad for BBC World. Map manipulations.

A Getting Things Done Firefox Extension for GMail.

Edward R. Tufte on Information design. If you are into designing anything that people will use to get information, then consider buying his book.

Gerard Manly Hopkins, set to music. I’m a big Hopkins fan so this looks quite interesting:

I am all at once what Christ is, ‘ since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, ‘ patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond.
Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows ‘ flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs ‘ they throng; they glitter in marches.

56% of all Danes are now ready to completely drop their fixed line phones in favor of mobiles.

The 9/11 Commission Report done in graphical novel fomat.

Apparently the below scene from Stormy Weather which features Cab Calloway and Nicholas Brothers was Fred Astaire’s favourite tap dance routine.

Ze Frank gives college advice.

In Irish “long tail” is “eireaball fada”.

Thanks Adam. Thanks Michael.

The life of one BT Engineer.

Edit: Here’s one answer. No.

In my Ice Cream post I noticed the distinct lack of women in the list. I really really don’t read enough blogs of women outside of Ireland apart from the women that write at Crooked Timber. I subscribe to a lot of intelligent Irish women such as Treasa, Sinead, Red Mum, Annette, Suzy, Claire to name but a few but looking at the international blogs I’m subscribed to, I realise it’s totally male dominated apart from 4-5. As a result I’ve now added a few well known and very bright women to my subcription list. I’ve read the sites now and then via (perish the thought) a web browser but now I’m directly subscribed.

So after adding Danah Boyd, Maryam Scoble, Miss Rogue and Denise Howell I’m now subbed to 162 rss sources. Crikey!

I must start adding more arts and culture feeds to the list too.