Archive for October 2006

On Collecting Vinyl LP Records

Posted by Jeb
Oct
27
2006

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Filed Under: Everything Else

“Sunshine of Doom” by Everything, Now! has been one of my favorite albums since I first heard it about 2 years ago, it used to be posted for free download on their website, so when I heard it was coming out on St Ides (a Secretly Canadian imprint), I was eager to pick up a couple copies. St. Ides’ thing is to take some jackets from records that didn’t sell, turn them inside out, hand decorate them and do a limited (usually 300) run of seminal releases on vinyl.

For years I sold records professionally on eBay and one of the most desirable items out there are rare Psych records. There is a rabid international following for American Psychedilic music, even recent vinyl releases by bands like the Flaming Lips and Ween can triple in value within a year of release. Rare Psych records from the 60s and 70s can be worth 1000s. The better the music and the smaller the release create gold in a record collection. Forget about stocks and bonds, you should be buying records.

This Everything, Now! release has all the earmarks of a $1000 record 20 years from now (assuming there is still an economy) plus you will get to enjoy it’s incredible content along the way. Although the album occasionally careens out of control and there are a few whiffs of the Flaming Lips, “Sunshine of Doom” is a fully produced concept record with complex and melodic songs and weaving themes of apocalypse, Christians, sex, politics, war, family, drugs and love. It makes me excited about music again, everytime I hear this record. They are that kind of band.

I realize this may sound a little cold and against the vibe of the music but I think it’s cool that a band can create something of increasing value, I think it validates their efforts. Money is just an abstraction of value, like applause so we are applauding a band when we are willing to pay more. I once had a local guy who was a jazz vibes legend demand that I give him back “his” record that I had posted on eBay. He thought he at least deserved a cut since he made the music. I asked him if he thought Paul McCartney should demand a cut from every Beatles record on eBay. He didn’t get the point. He was so greedy and short sighted that he completely missed that fact that he was the only one who had the right to re-issue it and make a killing!

You can get the “Sunshine of Doom” LP in Indianapolis at Luna and Indy CD and Vinyl. I’m not a financial adviser and I am not affiliated with the release, label or stores.

Why Your Business Needs A MySpace Account

Posted by Jeb
Oct
17
2006

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Filed Under: Everything Else

Most people think of My Space as a place for teenagers and bands to create often silly or annoying pages that can border on offensive. But it is increasingly a home to people from all walks of life, old and young. Also, it is the best place on the web to find consumers.

We recommend that a company create a profile on My Space and start friending those you know and then later start doing searches, My Space offers very detailed demographics for searches, to find people who might be interested in being your “friend”.

If your business is a nightclub it can post specials and events using the Calendar and Bulletin features. If your business is a restaurant you can post your menu and let your
“friends” know about upcoming specials and give them coupons to print out and bring in. Almost every business would benefit from creating and maintaining a My Space account.

We create and maintain several My Space accounts for our clients. Contact us and we can have you up and running on My Space in no time with 100s of “friends”.

Flash- what is it and why it can be bad for business.

Posted by Jeb
Oct
1
2006

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Filed Under: Design SEO

A website that is designed in Flash, which is essentially an online interactive movie, is virtually invisible to search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Just as a search engine can’t see the words in an image, it can’t see the text in a Flash website. So it is left with the title, url and meta tags to know how to index the site. The result is often a website which doesn’t show up well for relevant searches.

A better use for Flash is as an element in an HTML coded website. Whether it is a music or video player, navigation or some graphic animation, Flash is best used as an embedded object in an HTML page. This way the content of your site is readable to search engines which will greatly improve your ranking for relevant searches.

There are situations where building a site in Flash is the right choice. Artists and designers will find its flexibilty useful for demonstrating their work. Also destination or “buzz” sites where users are being directed to the site, thereby circumventing search engines, can use Flash effectively.

As many businesses are learning a good ranking in major search engines can be as valuable as a large Yellow Pages listing. So whether you are re-building or cleaning up your site make sure you are considering how search engines will see your website. We can help getting your site properly coded for search engines even if we aren’t doing the web design.