Winnipeg Free Press - September 29th
IF you are suffering from social-media fatigue, chances are the announcements made last week by Facebook and Google aren’t going to make it easier. Facebook made a splashy announcement about their revamped social-networking service, which will now include an extensive online timeline (the story of your life ), a real-time ticker, a Twitter-like subscription function for people you don’t know personally and a focus on social sharing and social discovery of music (from services like Spotify, not currently available in Canada), movies (Netflix) and other activities like cooking, reading or watching TV. Facebook has already rolled out some of the new features, but the main changes should be active before Oct 1. Perhaps overlooked during all the attention paid to Mark Zuckerberg and the world’s largest social network was Facebook’s newest competitor, Google+, which is now out of beta with no invitation needed to join. During the initial private beta rollout, over 20 million users signed up to use the service. Google+ has a lot of the features social-networking users have grown accustomed to, but it also includes some unique stuff like Hangouts (video chats with multiple people), Sparks (to help you discover things you are interested in) and Circles to help you compartmentalize your online sharing. If you haven’t given Google+ a shot yet, now is as good as any time to sign up and see how many of your friends have migrated to the recently launched service. CAN’T get enough of AMC’s zombie apocalypse thriller The Walking Dead? The network has recently announced a 30-minute talk show that will debut Oct. 16, following the encore presentation of Dead’s season première. Host of The Nerdist Chris Hardwick will lead the post-episode discussion with actors, writers and viewers of the show. “As an enormous fan of both The Walking Dead comic and television show, I pretty much begged for this job,” Hardwick said. “Dissecting the moves of Rick Grimes and the remaining survivors after every episode is something I would be doing with my friends anyway, so the fact that AMC is actually paying to do so is a bonus.” OKLAHOMA City’s psychedelic rockers the Flaming Lips have never done things the traditional way. From recording and releasing Zaireeka, a four-CD set intended to be played simultaneously, to writing and starring in a film calledChristmas on Mars to releasing flashdrives with MP3s encased in skulls made of gummi candy, the Lips always seem to be more interested in pleasing themselves than worrying about the mechanics of the music industry. Their latest self-indulgent collectible is a six-hour song that, according to posts on eBay, was only sold for one day at Jackpot Records in Portland, Ore., but may turn up on the band’s online store in the future. Along with the lengthy I Found a Star on the Ground, the package includes a “Strobo Trip” toy that should help set the mood if you were one of the few collectors to get one of the physical packages. Luckily for diehard fans, Slow Nerve Action has uploaded the sprawling track to Soundcloud.
Google + Now Available Without Invite
Walking Dead Talk Show Announced
Listen to The Flaming Lips’ Six-Hour Song
