Lulu and Music
It has nothing to do with this column, but I can't help reflecting on it: there are things going on in the world today that even my favorite futurist novelists could never have dreamed up!
Take Lulu. Please.
Maybe they should have called it Women in a Snit or something. Whatever, it doesn't reflect the best in my fellow females.
Oh, I admit there have been times when the idea of venting my spleen on a bad boyfriend in public would have been appealing. I'm hopeful that I would never have actually done it. But the creators of Lulu decided it was a great idea: the free, female-friendly social networking app lets women anonymously review men who are their Facebook friends.
According to an article in The New York Times, "On Lulu, women can rate men in categories — ex-boyfriend, crush, together, hooked-up, friend or relative — with a multiple-choice quiz. Women, their gender verified by their Facebook logins, add pink hashtags to a man’s profile ranging from the good (#KinkyInTheRightWays) to the bad (#NeverSleepsOver) to the ugly (#PornEducated). The hashtags are used to calculate a score generated by Lulu, ranging from 1 to 10, that appears under the man’s profile picture. (The company’s spokeswoman declined to explain the ratings algorithm.) Men can add hashtags, which appear in blue, but these are not factored into their overall score."
To use this tool of revenge, download the app to your smart phone. Now, with the promise of anonymity, you can search for men in your Facebook friend list, and see how they rate, or deliver ratings yourself.
I wasn't surprised to find that most of the men I knew had no ratings - the app is really for young women in the high volume dating segment.
The designers of the app insist their purpose was as much friendly as fiendish, as they wanted to promote the good guys as well as trash the bad ones. Alexandra Chong, the founder, says the idea developed as a bunch of friends concluded, one drink-inspired brunchtime, that they needed a "Guygle," or a place they could go to find out if the guy they were dating was worth the time.
Fortunately for men, some of whom have been appalled at comments left about them (let's face it, when you're good and mad at someone, if you can call them 50 times on re-dial, you can load them up with 50 negative comments, too), they can request to have their profiles removed from the app.
One good thing I can say about it is - if I ever do get that annoyed with a male friend, I can always threaten to "Lulu" him!
On to a happier subject: music! I've considered many music discovery and sharing sites in this column, but here's a new idea: feed.fm. It's a way to stream music without the expense.
"We provide a legal streaming solution for websites, games, and app developers to enhance their products with popular music to drive consumer engagement, retention, and revenues. We take care of the billing, licensing, compliance, and reporting to the copyright holders ensuring that our clients meet the legal requirements and allowing them to focus on building an awesome product."
So, rather than buy canned production music to provide background for a game or a website, you can select from a playlist of current tunes that you think bespeak your brand.
Like many other music curation sites, you can select your own songs, or you can find a "dj" whose compilation works for your purposes. Billing is according to what you use and for what purpose. You can offer a player and allow visitors to listen or not, skip a track, like a track - even buy a track. And you get complete analytics, which helps you see what works for you, and what doesn't. Maybe you'll even learn something about your brand perception that's news - and actionable.
And how do I tie these two subjects together? I've always thought there was a pop psych book to be written scanning and assessing a person's bookshelves and music lists. So, maybe there's a way to create a curation site for investigating (and analyzing) your Facebook friends' (and sharing with members of the opposite sex) books and music? A thought to be pondered.
Take Lulu. Please.
Maybe they should have called it Women in a Snit or something. Whatever, it doesn't reflect the best in my fellow females.
Oh, I admit there have been times when the idea of venting my spleen on a bad boyfriend in public would have been appealing. I'm hopeful that I would never have actually done it. But the creators of Lulu decided it was a great idea: the free, female-friendly social networking app lets women anonymously review men who are their Facebook friends.
According to an article in The New York Times, "On Lulu, women can rate men in categories — ex-boyfriend, crush, together, hooked-up, friend or relative — with a multiple-choice quiz. Women, their gender verified by their Facebook logins, add pink hashtags to a man’s profile ranging from the good (#KinkyInTheRightWays) to the bad (#NeverSleepsOver) to the ugly (#PornEducated). The hashtags are used to calculate a score generated by Lulu, ranging from 1 to 10, that appears under the man’s profile picture. (The company’s spokeswoman declined to explain the ratings algorithm.) Men can add hashtags, which appear in blue, but these are not factored into their overall score."
To use this tool of revenge, download the app to your smart phone. Now, with the promise of anonymity, you can search for men in your Facebook friend list, and see how they rate, or deliver ratings yourself.
I wasn't surprised to find that most of the men I knew had no ratings - the app is really for young women in the high volume dating segment.
The designers of the app insist their purpose was as much friendly as fiendish, as they wanted to promote the good guys as well as trash the bad ones. Alexandra Chong, the founder, says the idea developed as a bunch of friends concluded, one drink-inspired brunchtime, that they needed a "Guygle," or a place they could go to find out if the guy they were dating was worth the time.
Fortunately for men, some of whom have been appalled at comments left about them (let's face it, when you're good and mad at someone, if you can call them 50 times on re-dial, you can load them up with 50 negative comments, too), they can request to have their profiles removed from the app.
One good thing I can say about it is - if I ever do get that annoyed with a male friend, I can always threaten to "Lulu" him!
On to a happier subject: music! I've considered many music discovery and sharing sites in this column, but here's a new idea: feed.fm. It's a way to stream music without the expense.
"We provide a legal streaming solution for websites, games, and app developers to enhance their products with popular music to drive consumer engagement, retention, and revenues. We take care of the billing, licensing, compliance, and reporting to the copyright holders ensuring that our clients meet the legal requirements and allowing them to focus on building an awesome product."
So, rather than buy canned production music to provide background for a game or a website, you can select from a playlist of current tunes that you think bespeak your brand.
Like many other music curation sites, you can select your own songs, or you can find a "dj" whose compilation works for your purposes. Billing is according to what you use and for what purpose. You can offer a player and allow visitors to listen or not, skip a track, like a track - even buy a track. And you get complete analytics, which helps you see what works for you, and what doesn't. Maybe you'll even learn something about your brand perception that's news - and actionable.
And how do I tie these two subjects together? I've always thought there was a pop psych book to be written scanning and assessing a person's bookshelves and music lists. So, maybe there's a way to create a curation site for investigating (and analyzing) your Facebook friends' (and sharing with members of the opposite sex) books and music? A thought to be pondered.
Comments