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2006 - My Top 5 Albums

I am haven't seen much new music that grabbed my attention lately, so I am going to continue to revisit my collection and find my top albums from a given year. Generally, I choose my top 5 based on three criteria: 1) No. of songs that I would want to hear again; 2) No. of standout songs; and 3) exploration of new sounds and potential future influence on other bands.

2006 is a pretty good year for indie music. While indie pop is going strong with Belle & Sebastian and Regina Spektor and indie rock is getting solid contributions from young bands like The Futureheads and Band of Horses (not too mention honorable mentions TV On The Radio), we are starting to see the electro movement come to the forefront of the scene with Hot Chip offering up two of the best songs of the decade!

My Top 5

5. Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit

If you like listen to some poppy music on a lovely sunny day this is your soundtrack. Seems like Belle and Sebastian have been around forever, but their pop music always sounds fresh. Please put away your Britney and put this on. You will thank me.

4. The Futureheads - News and Tributes

I don't think this album got the credit it deserved when it released. A British indie rock band with a angular, brit pop sound, The Futureheads' News and Tributes is a surprisingly great listen. It may stand a bit back in the pack because their is no standout track, but it is filled with solid songs (maybe more than any other album on this list).

3. Band of Horses - Everything All the Time

Music for the open plains where you can lounge in your own thoughts. Beautiful indie rock album led by the stellar songs, "The First Song" and "The Funeral". This first album helped them carve out their distinct niche in the indie rock scene.

2. Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope

This album brought Regina Spektor some mainstream success, but while borrowing from pop and rock influences her songs keep her unique style. No album on this list starts out as strongly as Begin to Hope with "Fidelity", "Better", "Samson", and "On the Radio" commanding the listeners attention with their grace and beauty; but that is just the start...

1. Hot Chip - The Warning

A little electronic soul to end the countdown. While this album may not have the most songs I would want to listen to repeatedly, it probably has two of the greatest songs of the year (and among the best songs of this decade), "Over and Over" and "And I was a Boy From School". Absolutely brilliant.

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Top 5 Small Business Questions & Answers of the Week @WhenBusiness

Question #1

Question: How do I promote my business when I have limited amount of money ?
What ways have you advertised/promoted your business with minimal money. So far I have done the following :-

• Google Ads
• Face Book Ads
• Linked In Groups
• Face Book Groups
• Email Collegues/Friends

I am probably impatient as want people to know about my business now. Also I feel a bit embarassed about sending info on groups about my business.

Answer:

This is one of my favorite new business questions to answer and am planning on doing a full series of blog posts on building a brand and community. And obviously, I have a bit of work to do myself for this Q&A site, but wanted to make sure all the kinks are worked out before I go commando and push this whenbusiness.com to the bones.

Start thinking about your brand in a niche saturation context and what value your content/conversation can bring to the niche.

Obviously you've already started attacking some of the larger social networks, which is a great first step, but now you need to take a step back and do a little market research finding who maintains the heartbeat of the conversation and influence in your niche.

1. Find the top 25-50 bloggers in the niche and engage in meaningful (important!) conversation. Have something intelligent to say in replying to their blog posts. Your intelligence is your key to driving traffic back to your site. Have you ever read an intelligent reply in a blog post and followed their name back to their website? This is exactly the type of behavior you're wanting to encourage. You may not get google juice from backlinks to your site because of "nofollow" attributes on most blogs, but you'll get something more important, a visitor. Being one of the first to respond to large blogs, like techcrunch.com for example is a meaningful thing, and free to do. Technorati.com actually just re-launched and has a top 100 blogs, and which you can use to find those blogs that belong to your niche.
2. Aside from the mega social networks, there are literally hundreds of other social networks and message boards that you can newbies like you can leverage and is easier to have a voice because there is much less noise. Sites like Ning.com, have hundreds of networks for every niche imaginable. This is a perfect place to join and again engaging in conversation, and make a little noise at first, and more noise later as you gain a noticeable persona on the network. These social networks and forums, are really the key in establishing your brand.
3. Creating a blog and/or podcast, gives you the opportunity to continue engaging your audience with what you've learned about the current social conversation in your niche. This also gives you a direct voice in casting your opinion for your audience and then becoming an influencing presence within the niche yourself. When doing a blog, you can reply to another blog's post and leverage automatic pingbacks or trackbacks on meaningful topics. This is also an important way to establish relationships because these authority bloggers will now know who you are. They will see what you've written about their blog post. And you'll be listed on their authority blog site, waiting for their readers to find your title of the blog post interesting. If doing a podcast, ensure to do or use a transcription service. This is an extremely important way of getting a lot of free content written and works tremendously well with search engines (SEO). Don't worry too much about that audience at first, doing a podcast is difficult, for me anyway. Getting the equipment and production level right, is a difficult process. Just start out small, and if you need guidance on podcasting, i have a ton of resources. Have unique and meaningful titles, have a look at CopyBlogger.com for a series of tips, tricks and trends on what is working for blog copy.
4. Now that you have blogging and/or a podcast, make sure that you try to use aggregation services for your best material, digg.com, alltop.com, reddit.com, 9rules.com, etc.
5. Find available directories to put your business online. Places like technorati.com allow you post content yourself back to your site. Techcrunch.com has Crunchbase.com which is a directory of startup businesses. Then do all of the typical other directory sites, DMOZ.org, etc.
6. USE Posterous.com, and Tumblr.com even if your blog is on another platform, posterous allows you to quickly and easily create a synergistic brand concept, where now you're influencing the conversation on a whole bunch of platforms. Just by emailing a Posterous account they support many other social tools and networks, Twitter.com, Youtube.com, Facebook.com, Vimeo.com, Flickr.com, WordPress.com and Blogger.com blogs and more. You post once, and you post everywhere, social saturation, social saturation, social saturation.

7. This last one is my personal favorite, help people and the favor will be returned tenfold. Create tutorials or how-to's on your niche's subject matter helping people out, and they'll realize that you are a valuable resource to them. Then google tutorial aggregation sites for your niche. There are like 30 prominent players..

   Gonna say it again, Social Media Market Saturation!!! Hrmm, wonder if i can coin that term. Get out there, it's all FREE and yours for the taking. Say that out loud! It's FREE marketing, and you'll be smarter at the end of it all to boot!

Question #2

Question: Business Books for Beginners

I want to know some books on business for beginners?

Answer:

These are my favorite business books, and really have formed many of my viewpoints on business, marketing, and entrepreneurship.

1. The Art Of War, by Sun Tzu Know your enemy(competition), be as close to their heartbeat as possible. This is technically not a business book, but if you ever want to succeed in any competition, be it life, war, or in business, this is the book to turn to.

2. Crush It, How to cash in on your Passion, by Gary Veynurchuck I know it just came out, but it's a great book, and definitely worth it's weight in gold. Gary Vey*ner*chuck, of winelibrarytv.com fame, likens this new period of internet as the Printing Press incarnate, and that it will have a huge shift on global business that we are barely beginning to see come to fruition. He argues that anyone can use their passion monetize it in today's internet with a limited budget. The book has many new social methods in building a personal brand.

3. Purple Cow, Tranform your Business by being Remarkable by Seth Godin Seth is awesome, and his blog and books are a must read. Realize that your only as good as your product/service, and if it's not remarkable, then you will not succeed. You can find some of his talks online as well, his TED talk was great, and so was the one at Google.

4. Predictably Irrational, By Dan Ariely A must read for anyone selling a product/service and needing to figure out price points. When it comes to decision making, in general, people are easily manipulated, while the people maintain that they are always making the wiser decisions.

5. How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie An oldie, but a goodie. You'll be amazed at how easy it is to have people/clients on your side by just listening, genuinely caring, and being human.

6. Built to Last, by Jim Collins Business visionary Jim Collins has really passionate ideas about leadership in the enterprise.

7. The Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Law Just because I haven't finished this book doesn't mean it's not valuable. It serves as a fantastic laymen legal resource I pickup constantly.

8. Bootstraping your Business, Start and Grow a Successful Company with Almost No Money If you've followed my posts, I'm a fan of shoestring budgets, and this is huge reason why. Founder of RightNow, an entrepreneur built a world class business from Montana with virtually no money.

There, that should keep you busy! Good luck.

Question #3

Question #4

Question #5

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2005 - My Top 5 Albums

I am digging into the past to find my top 5 albums of a given year. 2005 was another good year for indie music. Animal Collective's new album shows they are entering their creative peak and Gnarls Barkley brings R&B sound to indie music. This is a list of the albums I found to be the most compelling listens.

5. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere

Gnarls Barkley's R&B influence brings a refreshing sound to indie music. Songs on the album are either hit or miss for me, but when they hit it is memorable. See Crazy for the album high point.

4. The National - Alligator

Straight-forward rock music by incredible songwriters. Numerous memorable lines and moments in their songs.

3. Metric - Live It Out

One of those albums that after my first listen I thought it was OK, but got exponentially better with each additional listen. I still find myself returning to listen to this album on occasion.  

2. Coldplay - X & Y

To my chagrin, I am going mainstream for a top album, but I have to give credit where its due. This may not be classic album in the sense that it brought rock music in new directions, but it does what it does very well. 8 of the 13 songs are just solid rock songs.

1. Animal Collective - Feels

This is the album where you can tell they are pulling all of their previous experimentation together to create some incredibly compelling songs. It may not have as many great songs as XY, but the incredible new sounds of songs like Grass and The Purple Bottle make Feels my top album of the year!

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2004 - My Top 5 Albums

I am digging into the past to find my top 5 albums of a given year. 2004 was a great year for indie music. It was also a year that a number of bands (Animal Collective and Of Montreal) released some music that hinted at some great albums to come. This is a list of the albums I found to be the most compelling listens.

5. Libertines - Libertines

This was a tough one. Art Brut and the Killers had great debut albums, but I keep coming back to this album. The self-titled album was produced by Mick Jones of The Clash and you can definitely hear his influence.  The band was quickly destroyed by strong personalities and drugs, but not before they release this statement record. It makes the case that all other British rock groups are pretenders. 

4. Interpol - Antics

Yes, they sound a lot like Joy Division, but is that a bad thing? While their previous album may have their best song, this album is their best album; solid start to finish.

3. Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand

Angular dance music makes a comeback after a 2 decade absence. So many great songs on this album.

2. TV On The Radio - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

An incredible pastiche of sounds integrated into a compelling rock album. Songs Dreams and Staring at the Sun among the best songs of the decade.

1. Arcade Fire - Funeral

I have never heard an album of songs that translate the emotion of catharsis so well. Music that is driven by the spirit that will completely pull in the listener from the first notes of the first song.

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Dream Garage - top 5

Every petrolhead has a top 5 dream garage.

Mine changes a fair amount but I think this will probably the final 5 I would get.  Normally, I would say the list needs:

1. Everyday city car
2. 4x4
3. Saloon Car
4. Sports Car
5. Supercar

So with that in mind here is my top 5:

1. Original Fiat 500 - small, perfectly formed, Italian car. Pioneering.

2. Mercedes Benz G55 - it's a beast 500bhp is something that was designed 30 years ago yet hasn't been improved!

3. Maserati Quattroporte - charming but flawed car, no-one hates you if you drive one of these (mainly because most of the time it's broken down on the side of the road)

4. Jaguar xk120 - British sport cars and their best (well, not best, it was pretty rubbish compared to the xk140) 2 seats, massive long bonnet...

5. Ferrari 365 GTB4 Daytona - I don't know why I love it I just do.  It's not very pretty, but is just so very, very cool

To be honest, I could easily add another 10 cars to this list but that defeats the point slightly so what do you think?  What would your top 5 be?

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Facebook erobert die Welt von Allan Jenkins

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Die Türkei als Land mit der drittgrößten Nutzerzahl ist schon etwas überraschend, und dass fast die Hälfte der Isländer Facebook nutzt muss man sich aus Mainstream-Media-Sicht mal richtig klar machen.

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5 cosas qe me cagan y me ponen en bitch mode.

1. La gente qe vende discos en el metro.
Los odio. asi odio total super cabron. me caga qe ni puedes ir platicando o leyendo o meditando de tu vida por qe esta un cabron al lado tuyo con su pinche ampli en tu oreja vendiendo la recopilacion de exitos de ana gabriel o mamadas asi. fuck you forever mil.

2. Los pinches nacos qe te dicen cosas.
O sea, de verdad. A poco piensan qe mi ego subirá por qe un pinche ñero albañilesco me diga guapa o cosas así? o sea, for real? NO. Nunca. No va a pasar. Como chingados se atreven!!!! ash.

3. La gente super sorder.
Hay tres tipos de sorders qe me cagan: los qe te llaman para saludarte y armar plan y luego se sordean, los qe se desaparecen cuando tienen novia o novio (y qe aparte sabes qe vendran a contarte sus penas cuando los manden a la chingada) , y los qe se excusan diciendo qe tu tampoco les llamas.
Sorder tipo 1: no hagas planes ni llames si no piensas hacer las cosas.
Sorder tipo 2: bros before hoes! y viceversa.
Sorder tipo 3: guess what? el teléfono funciona de ambos lados. tu también puedes marcar.

4. Los cambios de planes a ultima hora.
El clasico: wey te veo a las 5, bueno mejor a las 6, sabes qe? mejor mañana por qe hoy no puedo. CHINGAS A TU MADRE. ¿Acaso crees qe tengo todo mi dia disponible y qe lo mejor qe puedo hacer con mi tiempo es esperar a qe te decidas qe hacer de tu vida? NO.

5. Zapatos nuevos.
Bueno, realmente no me cagan los zapatos nuevos, lo qe me caga es qe siempre siempre siempre no importa qe tipo de zapato sea, me van a sacar tres mil ampollas hasta qe los amolde y me qeden bien. Es una relación de amor-odio la verdad.

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No Effort Required

So I got an e-mail saying I made the top-5 on the leaderboard for trendsta.com. I guess I should feel honored, but at the same time, I signed up for trendsta 2 or 3 days ago...really? Doesn't seem too trendy if I'm considered top trendsta.

 Still a fledgeling, I presume.

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5 cosas qe hacen mi vida mas simple y feliz.

1. La pasta.
Me gusta cocinar pero luego no tengo tiempo o me gana la weba o así. Pero la pasta siempre es super chida, rápida, barata y practica. Aparte la puedo cocer toda un dia y guardarla en ziplocs. yesss!

2. El formato PDF.
Esta bien chido poder traer cosas como documentos, cv, portafolio, imágenes, vectores, formularios en tu memoria y saber qe vas a poder abrir el archivo en cualquier lado sin problemas. Aparte esta super chido qe puedes guardar tus vectores en pdf y se puedan volver a editar después.

3. La cinta doble cara.
Todos los diseñadores y estudiantes de diseño aman la cinta doble cara. Esta bien practica y te evita el desmadre de andar haciendo rollitos la cinta scotch. Yo la uso para muchas cosas, desde pegar cosas de la escuela hasta subirle la bastilla a un vestido cuando no tengo tiempo de coser.

4. El mousse depilador.
AMO este producto. La verdad odio tener qe rasurarme las piernas con cuchilla por qe siempre tengo prisas y luego termino cortándome. Y con el mousse es super fácil. Te lo pones, te esperas 10 minutos (y en ese tiempo de peinas o te maquillas) y ya después te enjuagas y ya.

5. Delineador liquido Eye Shadow Transformer de Too Faced.
Este fue uno de mis descubrimientos mas importantes en el área de cosméticos de Liverpool. Yo amo los delineadores líquidos. Se ven mas bonitos y duran mas que los otros, pero es un problema tener qe comprar como 5 por que qieres diferentes colores. Lo chido del de Too Faced es que es transparente y convierte cualquier sombra en delineador liquido waterproof. Traducción: me puedo delinear con mis sombras ochenteras y traer los ojos de color rosa casi fosforescente.

Y pues ya.

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