#tunerfish

[ollieneedhammusic]

Went in tonight in Dublin... Snapped a tuner fish in half?! #baileymcconnell #crystalise #tour #dublin #ireland #tunerfish

[timinwalsall]

In Appreciation of Tuner Fish Lug Locks

It is usually the case that the best new innovations in the world of drumming come from drummers themselves. In the case of Tuner Fish Lug Locks, Skunk Anansie's Mark Richardson in collaboration with Mark Bigwood and Ian Aguado-Bush have tapped into a need which I think every drummer who plays regularly will relate to.

Whether in the studio or on the stage, if you hit hard, and in a particular a spot near a lug, for example rimshots, they are prone to detuning.

The Tuner Fish Lug Locks serve as a handy solution to this issue and could not be more easy to use. Fitting them is easy. The lock is a fish shaped attachment with a star shaped cavity that fits over the tuning rod, so that the “tail” rests against the hoop, locking it in place. 

I was kindly sent some Tuner Fish secure bands and they provide the extra security you need allowing you to wrap the band around the rod and in turn onto the lug ensuring that they stay on. 

I tried a combination of between two or four lug locks on my snare drum as well as a couple each on a rack and floor tom (on my four piece setup). In all cases, I put the Lug Locks nearest to where my stick comes down and strikes the drum as this is where I have commonly had the most issues with detuning.

Of course, you can put them around every lug, top and bottom, of every drum if you so desire, but I have found that just the small number of Tuner Fish I have at my disposal is so invaluable to my drumming. 

Since attaching the Tuner Fish Lug Locks, I have had many hours of fantastic usage with them and have not needed to retune. The Tuner Fish are available in a variety of colours. I went for the Hot Pink Sparkle variety matched with suitable secure bands. 

I'm looking forward to using them in a recording session over the next few days. Having rehearsed and gigged with them, their durable polycarbonate construction is standing up to my hard hitting. I'm also looking forward to purchasing some more so that I can add more to my other toms for my larger setup.

The online 'noise' that the Tuner Fish Lug Locks are getting is indicative of what a fantastic, affordable and essential product they are. If you're serious about your drumming and keeping your drums sounding great for longer, my advice to you is to get some and put them on your drums. You will start reaping the rewards immediately.

Big thanks to Mark, Ian and all at Tuner Fish Lug Locks for making such a brilliant product.

Links:

Click here for a very handy demonstration of the Lug Locks.

[adamdorseyblog]

GetGlue Gets Stuck

Today I got an e-mail from GetGlue announcing their long-awaited iPhone app update. My hope was that this would lead to the GetGlue app finally taking advantage of my iPhone 5's extra screen real estate. My fear was that it would follow in the steps of the recent GetGlue iPad update and gut many of the features that I found useful in the app. ALL OF MY HOPES AND FEARS HAVE COME TRUE, YOU GUYS.

For those who don't know, GetGlue is one of those social check-in apps. You tell GetGlue what you're doing, and it tells you what your friends are doing. Like Foursqaure, but for shut-ins. My first experience with a media check-in app was Tunerfish. I could check-in to the TV and movies I was watching, and I earned little trophies. I did that for a few months, before discovering GetGlue. I used both of them for a while, but ultimately moved to GetGlue because of a couple of extra features it offered:

GetGlue allowed me to check-in to everything: Movies, TV, videogames, Books, Comics, Topics, Celebrities, everything.

GetGlue awarded me stickers instead of trophies, and when I earned enough stickers, they would send me real life versions of those stickers in the mail. I WASN'T WASTING MY LIFE PLAYING VIDEOGAMES, YOU GUYS, I WAS EARNING STICKERS.

Unfortunately, the check-in app space is proving to be less monetarily satisfying for startups than the second-screen space. With the recent updates to their iPad and iPhone apps, GetGlue has eliminated the ability to check-in to everything besides Movies, TV, and Sports. They are now focusing on being your second-screen experience for those three activities. In the past, it appeared as if GetGlue's sole source of revenue was from corporate partnerships for stickers. For example, check-in to the new episode of The Office, get a sticker of some character from The Office, sponsored by NBC.

The pivoting to a second-screen app appears to allow GetGlue to receive revenue not just from sponsored stickers, but from sponsored posts in the feed. MONEY MONEY MONEY, YOU GUYS.

I've been at a startup when they realized that there was no more growth in the previous revenue-model, and that a pivot was necessary. I've had to wake up to the facebook comments and customer service e-mails and internet petitions from passionate long-time users demanding that the company stop turning its back on the people who helped build them. It's a hard thing to stand your ground in that situation, it's hard to not second guess everything, and I do not envy the hardworking crew at GetGlue.

That said, today I am on the other side. I am a passionate, long-time user of GetGlue. I haven't watched a TV show, watched a movie, played a videogame, listened to a podcast, or read a comic in the past two years without pulling out my iPhone and "checking in." I've checked-in on GetGlue 3,244 times. That's 3,244 times that I was starting to do something else, but thought, "OH, WAIT, I BETTER CHECK-IN." And it sucks to be a part of the userbase that is no longer what a company is going after. It sucks to be lumped into the acceptable loss as the company pursues new revenue streams.

And two years later--3,244 check-ins later--the things I like about GetGlue, the reasons I keep using it, aren't the things they have ever been pursuing. I like the idea that I'm keeping track of how I spend my time. I like that somewhere there is a pile of data of the media I've consumed over the past two years. My own personal Nielson box. I wish that GetGlue had done more to surface that data in interesting ways for me. Last week I put in a videogame that I had been stuck in for the past two years. I knew it had been a while since I played it. As the disc spun up the game, I pulled out my iPhone and checked-in. GetGlue informed me that it had been 364 days since my last check-in, 364 days since I had last tried (and failed) to beat the boss I was stuck on. I loved seeing that data. It enriched my experience. Instead of telling me about what my friends were doing or recommending what it thought I would like based on past things I've liked, GetGlue took a moment to tell me a little bit about me. If I had any programming background, I'd love to dig into their API and see what else I could find out about myself, based on my thousands of check-ins.

Tomorrow I turn 32. I'm an old man. I can't handle this second-screen stuff. My multi-tasking skills are just not up to it. And for those events where I do want a second-screen experience (Superbowl, award shows, breaking news), then that second-screen experience is Twitter on my iPad. No other app or social network is gonna steal that crown for me in the foreseeable future.

I don't know what comes next for GetGlue. I don't know if they will cave to the outcry of their current core users and add back in the features they've removed. I don't know if they'll double-down on the second screen experience and build something that is more interesting than their first iteration. But today I'm going to start looking at the check-in space again. I'm going to open up Tunerfish and see how that app has changed in the last couple of years. I'm going to see how the IMDB check-in stuff works. Maybe I'll play with Yahoo's IntoNow a little bit more. And yeah, maybe I'll keep checking in to GetGlue because I've done it for so long. But the fact that I'm now looking at my other options for the first time since discovering GetGlue is bad for them. I hope the audience they gain from this pivot balances out what they lose from their longterm users.

If GetGlue is interested in continuing to pursue the check-in space in some way, and they're looking for a talented, experienced Product Manager to help shepherd pursuing that, then they should drop me an e-mail.

[socialplacement]

Comcast unleashes social TV app plans

Comcast is planning to add social TV features to their program guides which will be staples for a second screen experience. They have been testing out a new social TV experience, Xcalibu, in Augusta, Georgia, with Tunerfish (acquired by Comcast in 2008) playing a key role in the development.  The app will be powered by Facebook with a recommendation engine and 'friends trends' component.  Other features include seeing trending shows in the viewer's city, viewers receiving notifications when their friends are watching particular shows, as well as being able to win rewards for recommending shows to their friends.  Comcast wants to integrate loads of second screen features into the first-screen experience and patent what they believe is to become basic staples of the second-screen experience. 

Beyond the fact that Comcast apparently intends to integrate many second-screen features into the first-screen experience, it’s interesting to note that it wants to patent what will become basic staples of TV viewing experiences in years to come. After all, the social TV land grab includes technology patents, as well.

[rfawal]

Why we watch TV.

Another WatchParty pseudo-competitor launched yesterday. Big cable company trying to be a hip startup. Doesn't matter. They don't know what WatchParty knows. TV viewers just like to have fun. See you at the Party.