Talk of the cool factor 

You hear talk about the cool factor and Zune's potential viability against the iPod. If Microsoft could be satisfied with just getting a minority chunk of the market, I think there's a big enough group of people who go for anti-cool as cool to make the business profitable. I've even heard one of my son's friends say he'll use anything but an iPod, just because its too ubiquitous.

Trouble is Microsoft seems to buy in to the Jack Welch rule that a business must be #1 or #2 in a market or forget about it. I don't think the world necessarily has to work that way anymore. I mean, you don't hear Welch getting quoted like you used to, do you? (It could be that I'm just not listening.)

First impressions of and random notes on Yahoo Music Jukebox 

Seems to be working well with my little Sandisk player so far.

Many things I click on require upgrading to a paid service; annoying.

Radio stations are interesting, but I wish I could get the 20 years ago station without paying for it. On the free stations you have to listen to commercials. I wouldn't mind listening to one when I open a station, but not between songs. Especially not when they're all announced by Wink Martindale.

I'm new to music recommendation systems. What will the recommendation engine do with my rating of four stars for Chicago, the artist, but one star for "If You Leave Me Now," the song? Or four stars for "The Gambler" but only two for the rest of Kenny Rogers?

Why would the podcast plugin be a separate download? I know. It's the music bias you see all over the place when it comes to mp3 files.

Is this portal new? Where's Yahoo's PR and buzz machine. (Or have my sources become too narrow?)

The last Gillmor Gang episode it shows is from early July.

Table vs. Jetski 

Paul Montgomery is messing around with an idea for a slideshow that advances at certain points in an .mp3 file. Underneath, an OPML file tells it when to change the view and what to show from the web.

Seems like Kosso was thinking about something like this a while back.

Neat, simple idea. I can see using such a tool for my after-a-conference archive and discussion place. You'd play the audio file from the conference session and show web pages or examples or pictures all the while.

He's looking for reaction and people to help.