Found through BoingBoing but with kudos to Eirikso. Amie Street is a cross between a digital music store and social networking site. With a view to encouraging the discovery of new music, all tracks start out free and only go up in price as they become more popular. On top of that, fans are rewarded if songs they recommend become popular. The artists themselves make 70% of song sales and never lose ownership of their work. Just as the icing on the cake too, all the music is in DRM-free MP3 and can be played on any portable player. It’s what you might call a pretty fucking clever idea.

It’s not perfect, gets quite ropey near the end, but very nearly works. The kermit stuff early on seemed to work really well.

God, bloggers do seem to like their awards. Nominations for the 2007 Bloggies, a non-profit project, are now open until 10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (GMT-5) on Wednesday, January 10 (though they actually say Jan. 10 2005, so that might not be 100% accurate). Finalists will then be announced on the 22nd and voting will begin. The categories are actually quite good and there’s even a Best Kept Secret one - though quite how many nominations you can get if you’re that well kept a secret.

Just came across this at Problogger. It’s a new in-video ad solution set to be launched by AdBrite. The ads aren’t intrusive, you get paid by the view(I think) and you can brand the videos with your own logo. The videos can be shared and embedded in other peoples sites/blogs allowing you to earn more if your video goes viral. No mention of exactly what percentage of the ad-share you get but it’s still a very interesting development.

‘Grim, it’s all just so utterly grim,’ Death stared out over the abyss of many furrowed brows. His long, bony fingers tangling and untangling themselves around the cold, gilded railings that bordered the great crevasse.

Those were the first two lines I wrote when, several months ago, myself and Frank first vaunted the idea of writing a children’s picture book inspired by the image above(which in turn was inspired by this cartoon). For a while we discussed the project, and Frank was very keen, but I know absolutely nothing about children’s books. I mean I doubt I even read one when I was a child.

Since then I’ve looked around and found some really nice looking ones - picking up a couple as Christmas presents (seeing as I had to do my own shopping this year). Now there are some really impressive ones, I was particularly taken by the works of Oliver Jeffers, but they are very much about the illustrations. The story is most often simple, a little surreal maybe, told in short easy sentences. That’s not a criticism but it’s just not how I write. Which begs the question (there might be few other issues that prompt this question)- is it really a good idea to write a children’s picture book about Death, the apocalypse, a corpse boy’s struggle to save the world and the life-affirming power of penguins? You just can’t tell that story without using a certain richness in your prose.

I’m thinking, of course, that maybe we’re moving slightly up the age-scale but I don’t want to go too far, it’s still first and foremost a picture book. I just wouldn’t write it as a novel, children’s or otherwise. I’m hoping there’s some sort of precedent because, well, it’s probably going to be difficult enough to sell people on the idea as it stands, without having to argue the toss over the prose style. For my mind, I believe it’s best to introduce children to as full a spectrum of the language as you can, while their minds are still at their most inqusitive. It won’t be too long before they’re too embarrassed to ask the meaning of a word.