So earlier this week Bettin hooked you up with the must have mixer, now let me show you where to get your music. If you are going to be pumping out tracks on a killer sound system you need tracks that are up to the task. For this there is only one solution - Beatport, they offer you two main options for track download, MP3’s encoded at 320kbs or WAV’s which are the direct masters from the label.  Compare that to the 128kbs offered by Itunes and there is no comparison if you are going to be broadcasting your music from a club system. There is no better sound quality available online at the moment.

In addition to offering better quality downloads all of their files come in a straight format so you don’t have to worry about idiotic DRM restrictions.

Finally beatport offers many exclusive tracks that you will have trouble finding elsewhere, yes Itunes does a great job with the commercial dance tracks and remixes but if you really want the latest in House, Trance and Techno and your sound quality matters Beat Port is really your only option.

Check it out and get mixing Beatport

So I have accumulated a few gift cards and certificates to Amazon, and I need to use them.  To make things even more interesting, I also have to pick a “productivity tool” as a welcome gift for joining a group.  I’d like to hear some advice on what I should pickup with my virtual wealth.  Let me break the task down into 2 parts.

Group 1 can include multiple items, but totals around $100.

Group 2 can be 1 item with a price less than $600 and needs to be a “productivity tool”.

I think “productivity tool” includes virtually any electronic item, since I was told that iPods were a popular choice.  I was hoping for an Xbox 360 “productivity bundle”, but Amazon appears to be out of stock still.  So go forth, browse Amazon, and post ideas!

Browsing the web and I found a fun website with some cool facts.  The 15 Best Skylines in the World list Luigi Di Serio’s top picks with fun facts about buildings and great photos.  I think this gives me a great list to start my list of “Cities I need to visit”.  I haven’t gone anywhere besides New York (#4) and Seattle (#15), but Schlosser just got back from Tokyo (#5), Castle went to Toronto (#7) to watch a F1 car race, and Hooper just went to Shanghai (#3).  I love cool cities, so I am going to start making my list.  Look back here in about a week or two for my list!  I totally want to visit Hong Kong and Shanghai, so a trip to China might be in order for me.

iLounge is reporting that Numark, who makes various DJ equipment like mixers and turntables, will debut the updated iDJ2 iPod mixer.  The original iDJ had several major flaws which have been fixed.  It has pitch control which would allow you to beat match perfectly.  I don’t know if they fixed the issue with cued listening, so your cued channel is in the headphones while the other channel is pumping up the crowd.  Now with only one iPods required you can play two tracks simultaneously, record the mix back to the iPod, and use external hard drives that can attach via USB.  Hopefully they keep the price around $300, since the original iDJ was $250, which would bring the casual home party DJ market right to Numark’s doorstep with cash in hand.  I look forward to stopping at Guitar Center to play with one of these in the coming month.

Source: Engadget, iLounge

Scoble has a very interesting post on why myspace is successful.Secrets of Myspace

Among the reasons, get influential’s using your product, let your customers guide your actions, innovate quickly and frequently and finally make start up easy and friendly. While these all seem pretty basic, it is amazing how many companies either don’t buy into this thinking or simply loose this focus along the way. I would add one additional item to this list, and that is market creatively. In some ways myspace is the anti apple, their site is UGLY, however it has a massive following. By allowing for easy creation, easy sharing of music and the addictive addition of friends myspace has created a powerful network. For them the question is where do you go from here, how do you continue the growth while remaining hip and cool, something that is often not possible.

For the rest of us Scoble’s post is a good reminder of how important customer focus is, it is amazing how simple it sounds but listening to your customers really is a great path for success. One question facing much of the internet industry is how do you balance customer requests against monetization. I think the answer lies in changing the advertising game, for all the talk internet advertising has changed very little since it first blew up in 1996. I challenge all of the major online companies, MSN, Google, Yahoo, and who ever else to truly create innovation in advertising, then and only then do I think we will solve the challenge of Customer Focus v Advertising Focus online.  What about you? Any ideas for how to improve internet advertising?

I’ve been reading Thomas Friedman’s newest book, The World is Flat, for the last several months (sorry, Tom, I think you might make the same point a few too man times in a row to make it a quick read).  In it he describes the differences (of which there are many) between two retailing giants - Wal-Mart and Costco.  Of the points he makes, the one that struck me as the most interesting was the drastic difference in employee benefits.  Friedman writes:

“Wal-Mart spent about $1.3 billion of its $256 billion in revenue in 2003 on employee healthcare, to insure about 537,000 people, or about 45 percent of its work force.  Wal-Mart’s biggest competitor, though, Costco Wholesale, insured 96 percent of its eligible full-time and part-time employees.” (Friedman, p. 214)

No, that isn’t a misprint, you read it right - Costco’s health insurance plan covers 113% more of its employee base than does Wal-Mart’s. 

So which one of these two companies is the Wall Street darling?  You guessed it, Wal-Mart.  Because Wal-Mart is nearly 2x as profitable as Costco, Wall Street sees Wal-Mart as the better company.  Where the CEO of Costco is consistently berated by Wall Street for paying his people too much and thus not controling his costs as tightly, Wal-Mart is seen as a hyper-efficient, streamlined machine.  But is this drastic difference in Wall Street opinion warrented?  Should Wal-Mart be seen as such a Wall Street darling?

In my opinion, Wall Street is missing something very important.  They are holding Wal-Mart on a pedestal for the coporate policy of pushing the health benefits of 55% of its employees on the U.S. tax payers.  Ironically, this “government subsidy” looks the same to me as the type that France and the E.U. give Airbus, which Wall Street calls anti-competitive.  Apparently the Aerospace Industry traders don’t talk to the Retail Industry traders.

So this brings us back to my original question - What is the purpose of business?  In my opinion, it should be two-fold: to create jobs where employees are compensated well enough to be self-sufficient AND to generate returns for investors.  I can guarentee that the average Costco employee is a significantly better consumer (and thus more positive impact on the economy) than the average Wal-Mart employee.  It is my belief that the “value” of a company is actually understated (or overstated) by P/E multiples and Market Caps alone.  I think we need to add some other variables to the equation - ones having to do with the social benefit (or decay) of a company and the secondary and tertiary effects that it creates (i.e. employing quality consumers vs. draining the MedicAID budget).  If we could account for these variables in a suscint way, maybe Wall Street would rethink its stance towards the worlds two largest retailers.

So I love my new cable box that I got last Fall via my cable provider, Millenium Digital Media. It gives me roughly 9 channels of HD included and I could add-on another 6 not exciting channels (the only good one is ESPN HD and I don’t want to pay extra $10/mo just for that).  I currently use DVI for video and the digital audio output.  It works great, except for the occasional drop in audio, which I attribute to my Kenwood stereo for being a fairly cheap surround sound setup which gets confused by the 5.1 digital audio changes from show to show.  My HD DVR box is also a Motorola box with dual tuners, which allows me to record 2 shows and watch a recorded show at the same time.  The software isn’t great, but it works for the most part.  It gets hung on trying to watch deleted shows and currently MDM is having problems with the NBC HD broadcast, which is mighty annoying.

I was browsing the web and saw a post by Alex Scoble who hates his Comcast DVR and referenced Scott Hanselman who also didn’t like his DVR.  I know Castle and Schlosser have a Comcast box from the Seattle area with the Microsoft software, but I haven’t looked at the back of theirs from a hardware perspective.  I know it has dual-tuners, but not sure about HDMI or DVI.  It seems to be way faster than the old OS, and still faster than Tivo and my MDM box.  Guys, want to chime in on your feedback on the device?

I prefer this box to my Tivo (use for basic analog tv) since I think Tivo is behind on the technology front.  Requiring a phone line or ethernet, no cable HD box, and no dual-tuner.  I pay an extra $10/mo for the DVR, and I didn’t have to buy the hardware.  I won’t be moving to a Tivo unless they step up to play with the big boys at Motorola and Microsoft.  Some partnerships with local cable companies would really help them out instead of being an independant provider.

Most people don’t live where they work, at least that’s what I would think.  Some people work across the lake, some work in different states, some work only blocks away.  People have to commute to work, and they use various modes of transportation.  Plane, train, automobile, bus, motorcycle or even a bicycle.  I live about 7 blocks away from work, so my commute is pretty much non-existant, and I don’t have too many options besides the 2 feet attached to me.  (It’s up a big hill so a bicycle isn’t really worth the effort).  Depending on costs of time, money, and effort people choose a specific method.  I am writing this post via Cingular’s HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) network (coverage map) or their EDGE network, and I have already accomplished 3 work related tasks, checked in with my girlfriend, and checked out some news.  It is so great that I think this changes my needs!  I NEED to have this kind of internet access if I ever need to commute to work.

Seattle’s Sounder offers 802.11b/g wireless, but just not on the trains that go to Tacoma yet, but I hope they will do it very soon.  The pilot beta program also has 5 buses that go from Redmond to Seattle on Route 545 that has been running since December.  The Wi-Fi is currently free, and I hope that it stays that way when they continue the program.  If they were smart and wanted to charge, they should offer a commuter rate that ties into your monthly pass.  Anyway, I think this would make a lot of people re-examine their use of automobiles.  I can now work, or play, instead of fighting traffic and have gained time back!

 Anyone know of other cities with commuter sponsored Wi-Fi access points?

This week Red Bull purchased the Metrostars of Major League Soccer and changed their name to Redbull New York. Red Bull is well known for their creative marketing, which includes air races, sky diving, F1, Nascar, Raves and now soccer. While certainly not the first company to self brand a sports team, this is one of the first in the US and the first in the media capital of the world. The question is will fans embrace the new team or will they see this as corporate marketing gone too far? For my money Red Bull is a fantastic brand, that certainly follows through on its events, crazy ideas and marketing plans. If that energy extents to the soccer team then I am sure it will eventually a smashing success, I still can’t seem my self cheering Lets go Redbull, here we go redbull…some how it just doesn’t seem right.

Red Bull New York

I just got back after a week spent with the MSN team in Tokyo, this was my first trip to Japan and all I can say is WOW! Tokyo is like no place I have ever been before, talk about density, the city seems to simply extend forever, and when I say city I mean skyscrapers stretching as far as the eye can see. Given the density a couple of things really stood out to me:

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