Cuil is the new search engine with the crap name. (Pronounced Cool, yes that’s terrible)

1. Test your product before launch. You need the bloggers and first adopters on board so its a good idea if they actually appear when they search for themselves. If Chris Brogan searches for Chris Brogan and he doesn’t show up, well that’s just bad isn’t it. You only get one shot at it so you better impress.

2. Do anything and everything to avoid being seen as going up directly against an established player. Even if you have lots of ex Google folks involved don’t position yourself as an alternative to Google. We all like Google’s search engine, its simple and it works and we are comfortable with it. Instead, find a niche and fill a void that will draw me in. Get me to start using you for some special reason and then show me all the ways you are better than Google. Be a Trojan Horse.

3. Find a good name. Its important. If people don’t want to say it, or don’t understand the cryptic spelling they are less likely to talk about it and try it.

Ive used macs to make music forever. They have revolutionized the way we record and release, and freed musicians to think about songs rather than programing. I have loved watching the development of the hardware and the software through the different incarnations. The new album Wake Up and Say Goodbye coming on sept 23rd was recorded entirely on a Macbook pro and and mixed and mastered on a Mac tower using Logic 8.

Think of this photo the next time you are thinking about the future of your business and how you want to engage the future. Where are you putting your resources and who are you talking to?

Photo: Sunday New York Times Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?

Shai Agassi’s blog, The Long Tailpipe is a really great read. If you are interested in a future model for the electric car scaled to the mass its worth taking a look at. Shai’s model is being implemented by Israel and if it works could be a model for the rest of us. You can get up to speed with Thomas Friedman’s piece on The Long Tailpipe in the New York Times.

if you are in montreal this coming week, we will be playing a show at their new flagship store downtown. its FREE so come early. we are on at 7pm on tuesday the 29th! (for those of you that dont know, im a big apple freak, and have been using macs for music and writing since…well the beginning:)

I’ve been reading Chris Guillebeau’s blog lately, he’s an interesting guy.

So there has been a lot of chatter about racism in the bloggisphere. It centers around Loren Feldman’s video “TechNiggas“. Verizon immediately pulled their deal with his company 1938 Media (big surprise), and lots of bloggers started talking. You can see more background at Mashable. Is the video racist? If Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle had done it? Then probably not. Do you have to be of the ethnicity to joke about it? Maybe. I’m half Asian and half white, part Buddhist, part Jew, part the force so I have lots of material to pull from. I’m old enough that I remember when there were no minorities on TV or in advertising. We take it for granted now but the Benetton commercials that put the races together in ads were revolutionary. “Look mom I’m on TV!”

Mike Arrington wrote about it. Chris Brogan wrote about the dark side of the web. And then Chris Penn wrote a really good piece saying that the dark side of social media is that we no longer have to listen to ideas and people that we don’t already agree with. And that where i want to pick it up.

Chris Anderson’s theory of The Long Tail is usually used it relation to marketing. The head is where the hits are, the long tail where the rest of the market lives and the web allows us to capitalize on the tail like never before. This concept has been challenged recently in the Harvard Business Review and defended and clarified by Seth Godin and Kevin Kelly. (Kevin’s insights about aggregators and creators at the end of the tail are really great.)

I think The Long Tail also works with social ideas. We have the mass ideas at the head and then a very long tail of niche ideas. Because the web and search allows us to find exactly what we want, when we want it, it becomes very easy to migrate to social groups populated by people that think the same things we do. Similarly much of the mass media has fragmented into a series of niches. Media isn’t pushed to us anymore and for the most part we pull what we want. It’s easy to be insulated from different ideas. I choose my magazines from 500 on the shelf. I pick the one that ‘thinks’ like me, not the one that shows opposing points of view. I pick my television from endless cable stations that are ever more specific. And on the web this process is amplified. The web is niche to the tenth degree and thats why we love it. Because it allows us to connect to like minded people. I am drawn to the things and groups that support what i already think.

As we move down the tail the ideas become more and more extreme. I can find a group online that will reinforce any set of ideas, no matter how fringe, crazy or evil. Want pedophiles, you got it. Nazis, its there. You name it, it exists on the web and you can find a niche that will help support and prop up your ideas, no matter how looney.

I love the web for the community it allows me to be apart of but that cuts both ways. The niches of the Long Tail allow us to sit in our comfort zone and not listen to different points of view.

So here are a few questions.
Do you think Feldman’s video is racist?
How do you think the long tail of ideas will develop?
Will it lead us to understanding or division?

So lets talk about this. Is there a difference between ads, mashups and covers?

I consider the web that I live in to be a community. Here and at davidusher.com its me typing. I’m the one posting on my wall, responding to your comments, twittering, putting up those lowfi recordings of my songs at 3 in the morning. I am not a corporation, I am a person banging away at the keys just like everybody else. Maybe this is naive but when Daniel walks around the neighbourhood (which he has targeted) with a sign that says if you love David come see me, it just feels strange to me. I’m standing right there.

When Facebook launched Beacon their ad program that put Facebook users photos and names in product ads without their permission there was such a massive outcry that Facebook had to do a huge pull back and make the program out in rather than opt out. People hated having no say about how they were positioned next to products they hadn’t agreed to endorse. Well I feel the same way. I would feel the same way if my name was put in a “Your 40, loose weight” ad. And I think you would too.

Batman, mashups and covers.

Warner Brothers does not live on my street. They are corporation but… that’s not the point.
I have always felt there was a difference between mashups, covers and ads. The lines are thin here but i think they revolve around creativity. I have always loved mashups and covers. Youtube Black Black Heart you’ll find hundreds of different anime mashups of the song. Youtube David Usher covers and you’ll find lots of people covering my songs. Many of these I’ve posted on my site at one time or another. There is a creative element to them where they take something from the web and reinvent it. And its that creative element that makes it different to me. Its a small difference, but that’s just how i feel about it.

Social networking and the online community has only been around for a few years and we are all learning how it works (myself included).

Well, thoughts?…and lets talk like people that are at the same table. (more ideas, less yelling)

Thanks for the great discussion on the last post. (85 comments) Its amazing to have such a spirited debate on this blog and i know that music make everyone passionate. But it got me thinking. When does passion turn into aggression? Whats the line. I want the debate here to be passionate but i also want it to be thoughtful. I appreciate strong opinions but also think there is to much yelling in the world and not enough balanced thoughtful conversation. John Stewart was right when he went on Crossfire and said what they were doing was hurting America. I love the passion, hate the aggression.

What do you think?