culture

MA Recordings is a one-man show. Todd Garfinkle is MA Recordings' sole producer, recording and editing engineer. He also handles the label's art direction, which is spectacular. MA is a trans-cultural jazz and classical label, and Garfinkle has been crisscrossing the globe recording music since 1988.

Garfinkle always tries to record in large, acoustically interesting classical concert halls, churches and galleries. "MA" is a Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character which means "space" or "interval," and Garfinkle believes these acoustic spaces are an intrinsic part of the not only the sound, but also … Read more

I was all ready to highlight what seemed like a very insightful comment on this blog by a co-founder of the advertising company CultureFish Media on the merits of Baidu, China's leading search engine. But then I remembered Rick at CNET Asia had asked readers for reasons to love Baidu. Lo and behold, the same comment appeared there under the name of a different CultureFish exec (and prominent blogger).

This wouldn't bother me at all, except that the comment includes personal reflection, such as this passage that appears verbatim in both posts: "Maybe I will get more … Read more

Steve Rubel wonders if "the Interruption Economy sacks prosperity:" "Conventional wisdom says that technology -- and nowadays the Internet -- will always continue to advance and bring with it productivity gains and prosperity. That's certainly been the case for years. However, historically there are pauses. After the benefits of the Industrial Revolution were fully realized it took awhile for the next big era to begin. I wonder if we're about to enter a similar lull now that the Information Age is arguably almost 30 years old." Rubel demands "we need new tools for … Read more

NEW YORK--When it comes to a strategy for galvanizing young voters in the hours before the "Super Tuesday" primaries, a coalition of big-media outlets chose to throw an online and offline dialogue with candidates. A group of tech-friendly 20-somethings in New York decided the best way to organize young supporters of Democratic candidate Barack Obama would be to invite them to a massive dance party.

Over the past week, invitations created through Facebook and Evite flew around the inboxes of many plugged-in young New Yorkers: an appropriate donation to Obama for America would give them access to an … Read more

When you look at the cultural differences between Microsoft and Yahoo, you don't need to look much further than a floor plan.

Microsoft has been a company of offices, where workers toil individually at their piece of a collective project. Yahoo, by contrast is a Silicon Valley archetype where workers sit in cubicles and tend to work collaboratively.

The folks in Redmond are known for being hard-charging and competitive, both internally and externally. Yahoo, meanwhile, tends to be more collaborative, sometimes to the point of inefficiency.

There are philosophical differences as well. Yahoo has been a huge proponent of … Read more

The open-source, DRM-free video platform called Miro (download for Windows and Mac) has just released an upgrade with two small but useful improvements. A new search feature lets you search all available sites simultaneously, and torrent support has been greatly improved.

… Read more

MTV Networks announced Tuesday that it will distribute its video content across the Web through deals with a number of social-media sites and video portals: GoFish, Veoh, MeeVee, and Imeem. Through this initiative, users of the video sites will be able to view both short- and long-form content provided by MTV Network as well as embed them on blogs and social-networking sites.

The partnerships will start to go live over the next few weeks; representatives from Imeem, for example, said that MTV Networks video content will appear on the social network, which focuses on ad-supported streaming media, in February.

MTV … Read more

No, it's not Daft Punk, but the robot-suit-clad techno heroes' influence is evident in the choices of artists for MySpace.com's second concert tour.

The tour, produced by concert powerhouse Live Nation, is slated to take place in March in a number of U.S. and Canadian cities. Headlining the tour will be French electronic duo Justice. Joining that act on select nights will be a combination of the electronic and hip-hop acts Diplo, DJ Medhi, Chromeo, Busy P, and Fancy.

The first show will kick off on March 3 in Austin, Texas, and will hit a total … Read more

Isn't it interesting how trends are made? "One of the things I like about trends is that they seem so easy -- Blue is the color of 2008! GenY likes health food!" observes Stacey Gillar. Coupling the disparate ("Chic Trash"), pushing an already extreme concept to the extreme ("Radical Transparency"), or simply announcing the advent of something "new" ("Nouvelle Vague," "Nouveau Niche," etc.) are some of the flourishing categories. Or you simply repackage an old concept.

"RenGen," short for Renaissance Generation and the title of … Read more