Jesus was a rapper edition. An Easter Sunday special collaborative playlist.

Open in Spotify

1. For Pete’s Sake – Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth
2. Down and Out – Cam’ron, Kanye West
3. Oh My God (remix) – A Tribe Called Quest
4. Ghetto Gospel – 2Pac
5. Gangsta’s Paradise – Coolio
6. Someone’s Second Kiss – RJD2
7. Ya Mama – The Pharcyde
8. Build Ya Skillz – KRS-One
9. Speak Ya Clout – Gang Starr, Jeru The Damaja
10. Survival of the Fittest – Mobb Deep
11. Protect Ya Neck – Wu-Tang Clan
12. Keep it Movin’ – Leaders of the New School

“Spotify, the super new (and free!) music service, has joined forces with MTV and The Body Shop to showcase ‘The Play Safe Playlists’ in support of our Yes Yes Yes (to safe sex) campaign.”

I’ve done a Spotify playlist for MTV’s Yes Yes Yes campaign.

Check it out

This Sunday Brunch is a bad mutha– shut your mouth!

You know the deal, it’s a collaborative playlist, so you can add a song but if it doesn’t fit the same tone and mood it gets pimp-slapped off the mothership.

Open in Spotify

1. Theme from Shaft – Isaac Hayes
2. Pass the Peas – The J.B.’s
3. Black Connection – Camp Lo
4. Get Down On It – Kool & The Gang
5. Do That Stuff – Parliament
6. Jive Turkey – Ohio Players
7. Love Hangover – Diana Ross
8. Freddie’s Dead – Curtis Mayfield
9. Bop Gun – Ice Cube & George Clinton
10. Flashlight – Parliament
11. Player’s Ball (reprise) – OutKast

A collaborative playlist on Spotify. Add more tracks, but try to listen and stay in the same theme and genre.  This week it’s late 90’s rock that reminds me of California.

Open in Spotify

1. Santeria – Sublime
2. Santa Monica – Everclear
3. Pacific Coast Party – Smash Mouth
4. Every Morning – Sugar Ray
5. Devil’s Haircut – Beck
6. Jumper – Third Eye Blind
7. Drinking in L.A. – Bran Van 3000
8. All Mixed Up – 311
9. Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) – The Offspring
10. Lump – The Presidents of the United States

Bonus– 11. In the Meantime – Spacehog

(That last track doesn’t quite fit, but I had a helluva time remembering the name of it, so it’s going in)

– Update —-

Here are the community contributed tracks:

12. Beer – Reel Big Fish
13. Spiderwebs – No Doubt
14. Wish You Well – Bernard Fanning
15. What’s My Again Again? – Blink-182
16. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) – Green Day
17. Detachable Penis – King Missile
18. Start Choppin’ – Dinosaur Jr.
19. Going to California – Fuel
20. My Name is Jonas – Weezer
21. Scooby Snacks – Fun Lovin’ Criminals
22. Undone – The Sweater Song – Weezer

Read my article on Mashable

Twitter has been testing out a new design. Apparently they are running A/B trials, restricting the design rollout to only some users.

Here’s an overview of the changes:

New navigation

In the global nav, they’ve added a dropdown list of top trends. Also, profile and settings links have moved next to the profile picture.

Trends dropdown

Top trends are listed as links leading to the search results page for that keyword.

Search results

The search results page has changed to include more information about users, which shows that Twitter is increasingly looking to enable discovery of new people to follow. Something that has been a labour of love in the past. They’ve added two new modules on the right hand side:

Matching users

Users real names or Twitter usernames are matched against the search query.

Featured user

It’s unclear what algorithm is driving the featured user. Possibly the same mechanic behind the “suggested users” feature seen upon registration.

A collaborative playlist on Spotify. Add more tracks, but try to listen and stay in the same theme and genre.

Open in Spotify

1. Underdog (Save me) – Turin Brakes
2. They’ll Soon Discover – The Shins
3. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Part 1 – The Flaming Lips
4. LA – Elliott Smith
5. Long Shot – Aimee Mann
6. Books from Boxes – Maxïmo Park
7. Sway – The Kooks
8. Dry the Rain – The Beta Band

I wrote an essay for the online magazine AGIT8 – a journal of technology and social change.

Read it here: The Future of Information Architecture

image courtesy of vikavalter.com, (c) 2007 All Rights Reserved.

[reposted from a comment submitted to a Telegraph article, Twittering is for Twits]

Twitter has an image problem.

This is clear from this article, where Bryony [Gordon] voices many of the common misconceptions about the service.

People think it is about *broadcasting* your life’s minutiae.

Not true. Twitter is about *listening* to what other people have to say, and, when appropriate, joining in the conversation.

For an online journalist to say she ignores Twitter, is a bit like a political journalist saying she has no time to listen to what the MPs are ‘blathering on about’ in Parliament.

It’s conversation, plain and simple. You can participate, or you can plug your ears and let people talk around you instead of with you.

I’d been thinking about doing this, and after watching Clay Shirky’s inspiring talk — it cinched the idea.

No watching television (or downloaded shows) all month for me.

I’ll try to download anything I don’t want to miss — to watch in June.

Let’s see if I can make better use of my cognitive surplus!