iTunes’ 10 billionth song downloader
Louie Sulcer, a 71 year-old country fan from Woodstock purchased the 10 billionth iTunes download. The song in question was Johnny Cash’s Guess Things Happen That Way.
http://short.ie/itunesbillion

Cringeworthy overbranding at DJ battle
Who thought that getting DJs participating in a DJ battle to play atop giant McDonalds burger boxes was a good idea?
http://short.ie/overbrand

My City vs Your City
Using Last.FM data, this site shows you the most popular artists in head-to-head between two global cities of your choice.
My City Vs Your City

“How do I login to Facebook?”
Proof if it were needed that there are plenty of stupid people on the internet. I’d wager these are the same people who leave the wealth of dumb Youtube comments.
Read about the RedWriteWeb Facebook confusion.

1. Dictionary.com – a complete English dictionary and thesaurus downloaded to your phone (free).
2. Wikipanion – searches Wikipedia in a faster time than the official app (free).
3. iCensus – Search the National Archive of Ireland’s 1911 Census from your phone (€2.99).
Movie Genie – For those times when you need to know where you recognise an actor from, you need this IMDB client (€1.59).
4. eBuddy – Instant message facility which can connect to MSN, Yahoo, Gmail and Facebook. Available for free and in a pro version with extra features (€2.39).
5. Ireland Rail/ Dublin Buster – Essential travelling apps with realtime route and arrival information (€1.59/ free).
6. Entertain Me! – Comprehensive nationwide listings guide from Entertainment.ie (free).
7. Georgina Campbell’s Ireland Guide – Find a good place to eat anywhere in Ireland. This app gets your current location and shows you info and reviews of the best restaurants and café in the area (free).
8. Skype – Essential mobile version of Skype gives your iPhone a cheaper way of making international calls and sending texts while abroad (free).
9. Remote – Use your iPhone to control iTunes on your computer (free).
10. Eirtext – Use your allocated O2, Vodafone, Meteor or Three online texts through your phone (free). The pro version allows international texting and scheduling (€2.99).
11. iGmail - If you don’t use iPhone’s native Mail app, this super-fast Gmail one is for you (free).
12. Bloom – Brian Eno’s musical instrument/composing program/piece of art enables anyone to create musical patterns and melodies by just touching the screen (€2.99)
13. Tweetie 2 – The most fully-featured Twitter app available. Features multiple accounts, image and video sharing, instant loading and lots more (€2.39).
14. Boxcar – The only thing that most Twitter apps don’t do can be fulfilled by Boxcar which sends you push alerts when you get a reply or a message. Also works with Facebook and email (free).
15. Facebook – Update and check your social profile anywhere (free).
16. WifiTrak – Helps you find free and open Wi-Fi hotspots no matter where you are in the world (€0.79).
17. The Secret of Monkey Island – Play the classic Lucasarts PC game on your phone in both updated and classic versions. Get the nostalgia flowing (€2.99)
18. Scrabble – Addictive iPhone version of the classic board game. Play against friends over Wi-Fi too (€2.99)
19. Shazam – One of those apps that makes people want an iPhone. Shazam listens to a song playing from a stereo or radio and within seconds, can tell you what the song is as well as discography and purchase information (Free).

I jest but music technology enthusiast Paul Lamere is attempting to do just that. Imagine each artist – from Abba to ZZ Top had a number associated with them to indicate how cool the artist currently is. Lamere’s ‘Coolness Index’ could be used for example, in playlists so that your iTunes shuffle won’t play anything deemed ‘uncool’ like Nickelback or Miley Cyrus in between Bon Iver and Blur at a party.

One of Lamere’s sources was the social music networking site like Last.FM which recently published a list of songs and artists which users had deleted from their libraries the most. ‘The Most Unwanted Chart’ included Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl’, Lady Gaga’s ‘Pokerface’ and songs from Britney and Rihanna.

He also search for artists on Last.FM tagged with ‘Guilty Pleasure’ which identifies music people are embarrassed to listen to. The most common cross section of both lists resulted in Avril Lavigne, Britney, Katy Perry, Nelly Furtado, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers. Mostly female. It seems there’s a lot more uncomfortable males listening to these acts than you’d imagine.

In other news, music blog aggregator The Hype Machine recently discovered that artists and their label reps were attempting to boost their own placings in the site’s popular charts through fake accounts and repeated listens. Anthony, the site owner then published the list of 40 or so artists who had attempted such cheap hacks and it included artists like Master Shortie, Weekend Warriors, Burns, Princess Superstar and Star Guitar. None are very popular artists but now they are not cool either..

While it currently makes little sense to charge more for music in times of recession and in a time when a LOT of people get their music illegally, Apple has also said that more tracks will be available at the €0.69 than €1.29 in the long-term and tracks are now sensibly DRM-free, meaning you can play them on any computer or device without restriction.

ITunes customer satisfaction is not the only thing that Apple have to worry about though. In reaction to the news, Amazon UK has slashed the price of the majority of their top-selling songs on their MP3 Store (not available in Ireland at the moment) in order to grab a larger market share from Apple. Amazon are now selling Lady Gaga’s ‘Pokerface’ for just £0.29 compared to iTunes’ UK price of £0.99. The store also offers bargain albums for £3 and a bargain section.

While the digital music big guns battle it out, Spotify – the streaming music site continues its ascent with the news that it has agreed commercial terms with the UK representative body PRS ensuring that songwriters, publishers and composers would be fairly paid for streamed plays, succeeding (for now) where Youtube could not.

Meanwhile spare a thought for the artist in all this. Calvin Harris (who subsequently hit the UK number one top slot) bemoaned the price cuts on Twitter when he saw his track ‘I’m Not Alone’ for sale at Tesco’s download store for £0.57 – “That track took me 2 years! 57p! 2 years! 57p! No wonder music’s on it’s arse x”.