I love Oprah! When Oprah loves something she’s passionate about it and tells anyone who will listen to her.
Last week I was working from home, my usual Thursday routine. I had the TV on in the background (yes I work with the TV on). At 4pm, after watching Ellen DeGeneres dance at the beginning of her show, I changed to The Oprah Show. It was a great show about the documentary Food Inc., and at the end there was a special Amazon offer. I went to Oprah.com in search of the offer, I couldn’t find it, which turned out to be a blessing because what I did find was truly wonderful - Oprah’s favorite new gadget from Amazon, the Amazon Kindle. There’s a great article, "Oprah's Favorite New Gadget",
about all the reasons Oprah loves the Amazon Kindle. My favorite part is Oprah had Jeff Bezos, the Founder and CEO of Amazon, give a Kindle tutorial on her show to her entire studio audience and a group of moms in San Diego. It was fabulous! Doesn’t everyone call the
CEO when they want to know how to use their new gadget?! Check out the article and the video tutorial here, "Take Jeff Bezos Amazon Kindle Class".
I have only one piece of constructive criticism about the tutorial: it would have been better if there was a close up camera shot on the Kindle while Jeff Bezos was demonstrating how to use the features so the audience in the studio and at home could see what he was doing on the device. It appeared some of the audience was having a hard time following along, I think that would have helped them. Of course, this critique is more for the producers than Oprah or Jeff.
Finally, seeing all those women learn how to use the Kindle gave me a thrill as GoGadgetGurl!™, because there was an entire audience of women discussing how to use their new gadget together (yes Oprah gave everyone in the audience a Kindle).
I started this blog to encourage more conversations about our gadgets with each other. I believe the more we share our enthusiasm for - or frustration with - the tech in our lives it empowers us to participate more fully as savvy consumers in the design, development, and production of the next tech gadgets. Hope I don’t sound to preachy…
Knowledge - the ultimate fashion accessory!
GoGadgetGurl!™
Monday, March 29, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Music Magic!?
So, about a month ago I told you about how I was shocked to find out that Shazam is now charging for tags. Ouch! Well after some searching, I discovered that they have a new version of the app for a one time fee of $4.99 that will give you unlimited tags. I can live with that!
Now some of you are probably wondering why I’m making all the fuss – what’s Shazam, and why do I care so much? So, the quick answer: it’s like Google for songs…truly music magic! Shazam “tags” a song you are listening to and tells you who the artist is, the name of the song, and if applicable, the album on which it's released. Now you probably want to know what “tagging” is and how Shazam does it!
First, tagging. In Shazam, tagging is the process for creating a unique identifier for a song. Shazam has a proprietary method for creating these unique identifiers, called tags.
Next, how Shazam does it. They have a database of millions of songs they have already tagged. By taking a 15-20 second recording (they say they really only need 5 seconds) of the song you’re listening to they can create a tag and match it to a song in their database. Impressive? It gets better.
The first version of Shazam was free. It had to be free because if it wasn’t, I would not have bought it. I wouldn’t have believed it could be so accurate if I hadn’t experienced using it first. I got so addicted to it! I was constantly showing it off every time someone asked me, “Hey CJ, what’s your favorite app?” I used it on multiple genres of music: R&B, hip hop, jazz, country, rock, house, etc. - and in multiple listening environments. The most amazing experience was when it accurately tagged the background music playing in a busy TGI Friday’s!
Since I’ve made 2010 the year I adhere to a spending plan (some of you might call this a budget, yet that feels to restrictive so I call it my spending. This has helped a lot!), the idea of a few bucks going on a credit card or coming out of my checking account every month sets off an alarm. If I was going to be asked to pay Shazam $3.99/mo, I’m immediately wandering what app is next? These little incremental charges will add up and potentially become a significant monthly expense. Glad, this isn’t happening yet.
So, I’m willing to pay for Shazam because it works and I love it! And for all you non-iPhone users that have versions for Nokia, Blackberry, and Android.
Knowledge the ultimate fashion accessory,
GoGadgetGurl!™
Now some of you are probably wondering why I’m making all the fuss – what’s Shazam, and why do I care so much? So, the quick answer: it’s like Google for songs…truly music magic! Shazam “tags” a song you are listening to and tells you who the artist is, the name of the song, and if applicable, the album on which it's released. Now you probably want to know what “tagging” is and how Shazam does it!
First, tagging. In Shazam, tagging is the process for creating a unique identifier for a song. Shazam has a proprietary method for creating these unique identifiers, called tags.
Next, how Shazam does it. They have a database of millions of songs they have already tagged. By taking a 15-20 second recording (they say they really only need 5 seconds) of the song you’re listening to they can create a tag and match it to a song in their database. Impressive? It gets better.
The first version of Shazam was free. It had to be free because if it wasn’t, I would not have bought it. I wouldn’t have believed it could be so accurate if I hadn’t experienced using it first. I got so addicted to it! I was constantly showing it off every time someone asked me, “Hey CJ, what’s your favorite app?” I used it on multiple genres of music: R&B, hip hop, jazz, country, rock, house, etc. - and in multiple listening environments. The most amazing experience was when it accurately tagged the background music playing in a busy TGI Friday’s!
Since I’ve made 2010 the year I adhere to a spending plan (some of you might call this a budget, yet that feels to restrictive so I call it my spending. This has helped a lot!), the idea of a few bucks going on a credit card or coming out of my checking account every month sets off an alarm. If I was going to be asked to pay Shazam $3.99/mo, I’m immediately wandering what app is next? These little incremental charges will add up and potentially become a significant monthly expense. Glad, this isn’t happening yet.
So, I’m willing to pay for Shazam because it works and I love it! And for all you non-iPhone users that have versions for Nokia, Blackberry, and Android.
Knowledge the ultimate fashion accessory,
GoGadgetGurl!™
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