Want to learn to play the guitar on your phone? SplashPlay, available via the Android Market, allows you to download songs, add chords and share with others through the SplashPlay website.

With a very slick interface, this type of application makes learning a fun, flexible and a rewarding experience. I certainly could have used this type of performance support tool when I use to play bass in a band and totally forget my part!

SplashPlay , Keith Sturch, Andreas Ipp, Friedger Müffke and Ronan Schwarz

www.splashplay.mobi

Learn to play the guitar on your phone. Download your favourite songs, add chords and share with others through the SplashPlay website. With optionally available hardware, chords appear also on the real instrument.

eLearning is a term that is applied to a wide range of content delivery. Some are page turner “click here to continue” modules, some are interactive simulations and others are well crafted rap songs, such as “Design Coding” performed by rapper Poetic Prophet, aka SEO Rapper, which can be found on the YouTube channel m0serious TV, in the How to Style category.

But can Robert Mager dance to it…

With a running total of 324,979 views, the Design Coding video is an example of a new school of eLearning design, which thinks outside of the box and takes the “B” out of boring and it turns it into “beat”, as in 4/4 time signature.  The content is well scripted and covers the basics of web design in 3 minutes, 22 seconds, all executed in a body movin’ tune that your younger sister and even your grandfather can dance (or code) to. When is the last time you had a web design course in less than five minutes that you can rock out to with your iPod?

Other SEO rapper videos (songs) include Link Building 101 and Social Media Addiction. Here is an excerpt and embedded video of Design Coding:

Call to action to increase the temptation
use appealing graphics they create motivation
if you have animation
use with moderation

…describe your doctype so the browser can relate
make sure you do it great or it won’t validate
check in all browsers, I do it directly
gotta make sure that it renders correctly
some use IE, some others use Flock
some use AOL, I use Firefox

This iPhone band video brings electronica to a whole new level, which should make Brian Eno proud. Touch screen + mobile devices are obvious creative extensions for learning, art and music.

Just as the synthesizer did not push “real” instruments out of the picture, “iBand” instruments will find their place and compliment the scene, whether performing on stage. or mixing in an airport. Of course, I am sure neo-Kraftwerk artists like Danger and Daft Punk will have fun with the novelty for a little while.

This is an amazing way to musically connect with people, with so many applications for education and entertainment. I just signed up, and am ready to play…I mean try out.

eJamming makes software that enables people to practice music together 1000 miles apart. The idea is to let musicians practice together even when they can’t get together physically, or to let students and teachers work together remotely.

read more | digg story

Here are a few (social web) highlights from NY Times Best Ideas of 2007.

MOB JURISPRUDENCE – New Zealand Police uses a wiki.

When the New Zealand police force said they were open to suggestions about how to rewrite national policing laws, they meant it. In September, they posted the 1958 Police Act online and invited Kiwis and non-Kiwis alike to visit the site and type in their own revisions to the law — extending the concept of “Wiki”-style collaborative writing from encyclopedias to democracy.

“The idea was to take something that’s inherently dry and intellectual” like law reform, explains Superintendent Hamish McCardle, who is in charge of the review, “and transfer it to something that’s cool and innovative” — like Web 2.0.

By making the Wiki open to anyone who cared to participate, the police force hoped to make it easy for international law and policing experts to weigh in, as well as those one million or so New Zealand citizens living abroad.

…despite the novelty of the Wiki process, …plenty of old-fashioned checks and balances are in place. The Wiki follows a traditional review process and will culminate in a document that will advise, rather than mandate, Parliament in its decisions regarding the Police Act.

The Radiohead Payment Model – Radiohead, without any pre-release promotions in place, allowed users to name their own price (if any) to download their new album.

The value of music is what the listener will pay. But as of Oct. 10, it became a viable business model. That was the day Radiohead made its seventh studio album, “In Rainbows,” available for download online. Customers were invited to pay whatever they wished. Clicking on the question mark on the Radiohead site led to a screen that read, “It’s up to you.” Clicking on that led to another message: “No, really. It’s up to you.” According to early estimates, 1.2 million downloaded the record in the first two days, earning the band somewhere between $1 million and $5 million.

Wikiscanning – Virgil Griffith’s Wikiscanner can unmask Wikipedia vandals.

When Virgil Griffith, a 24-year-old hacker, heard reports that Congressional staff members had been caught altering Wikipedia for the benefit of their boss, he got to thinking of all the other kinds of spin occurring on the site. After all, the very elements that make Wikipedia popular — its egalitarian, participatory spirit, mutative nature and easy anonymity — make the online encyclopedia all too vulnerable to manipulation by unscrupulous contributors.

But what if those contributors’ identities could be traced? Griffith created a computer program to unmask Wikipedia vandals. Here’s how it works: When anonymous editors visit Wikipedia, they leave a public record of their computer’s I.P. address.

The YouTube (Accidental) Audition – Web platforms enabling unknown talent to rise.

…it was notable this year when the director Chris Robinson featured a largely unknown kid named Samgoma Edwards in the rapper Jay-Z’s latest video. Back in 2004, Edwards, who was then 11, began a collection of homemade music videos for Jay-Z songs with the help of an older brother and a friend. The series, which they called “Young Hov Project” and posted on YouTube, featured Edwards as Jay-Z — a no-brainer role for a young man who looked so much like the rapper. The videos soon went viral and won Edwards and his partners many fans, including Robinson.

Zygotic Social Networking - Not really sure what to think of this one (yet) and it likely falls into the web 3.0 bucket…DNA social networking.

In October, two companies started social-networking Web sites based not on friendship, business connections or dating desires but on cheek-swab DNA tests. Participants fill out their genetic profile and link up with strangers who share DNA markers. Users can upload baby pictures and home videos, compare family trees and e-mail distant cousins to find out what life is like in the old country.

GeneTree.com and Ancestry.com’s new DNA Ancestry project both begin with a $100 to $200 DNA test. Once in the system, users participate in online DNA matchmaking games.

read more | digg story

This is very cool to see. Radiohead throws in an experimental DRM and record label free delivery and artists like Trent Reznor & Saul Williams are building on this game changing concept, which will ripple and eventually cause waves in the music industry. How / will record labels become SMART and adapt their business paradigm? This applies to all industries, OPEN up or CLOSE down.

The time has come! Pre-order emails for Saul Williams’ THE INEVITABLE RISE AND LIBERATION OF NIGGYTARDUST, produced by Trent Reznor, have been distributed. The album is available for free at 192kbps bitrate or 320kps/lossless if you put forward some cash. Please support this artist and label/DRM-free distribution!

read more | digg story

Radiohead announces that they will release their new album, In Rainbows, exclusively as a DRM-free MP3 download from inrainbows.com on October 10, 2007. Besides NOT distributing promotional copies, they are giving the consumer the ability to pay whatever they want for the downloads, including FREE.

This is a very interesting move on Radiohead’s part. The recording industry has long been struggling with reality of IF/WHY/HOW to update their business model. The book Wikinomics says “Smart companies are encouraging, rather than fighting, the heaving growth of massive online communities…” The record industry can still thrive, it just needs to adapt and modify its business model to embrace the social evolutionary embrace of technology.

There will be no advances, promotional copies, digital streams, media sites, etc. of RADIOHEAD’s In Rainbows.

Everyone in the world will be getting the music at the same time: Oct. 10. That includes us. We don’t have anything to play anyone in the nine days until the record is available. Everyone at nasty has put his or her order in and just to clarify: you are not being asked to pay for a promo (as some have inquired). you can pay nothing or as much or as little as you want.

There will be no promotional copies of the discbox either, as each discbox is being made to order. Sorry.

Have you seen the Geico Caveman’s Crib site? It allows the user to explore the private rooms of a modern day caveman bachelor pad. This non-linear exploration includes multiple rooms, media devices, and other flash stickiness. They have even managed to incorporate the iPhone right on time. I love the way it was produced. It utilizes interactive multimedia and includes awesome video and graphics.

This virtual landing pad is at the tail end of successfully produced viral TV commercials, which easily found their way to YouTube and is part of the gradual shift from TV programming to an demand everything. Who cares what Geico sells…I wouldn’t be shocked if this story evolves to be an actual web series, or even movie. Daniel Baldwin has my vote for lead or supporting character.

Where do I begin…when a friend of mine first spun a Danielson record, Alpha, for me back in 1998, I was taken in the first two seconds of hearing the mixture of xylophone, drums, acoustic guitar, synth keys and falsetto voice with layered backing vocals. It was bizarre and somewhat dissonant. A few friends in the room found it offensive. I thought it was perfect. It was DIY art, folk, punk and catchy in a Frank Black (Pixies) meets the Mamas and the Papas kind of way.

Daniel Smith originally started writing and recording songs with his brothers, sisters and friend for a senior thesis at Rutgers University, which has evolved to include international tours, a video documentary, seven full length albums, a handful of singles and his own line of clogs.

Why I love the Danielson Famile

The Danielson Famile combines well thought out visual art with conceptual music and they put on stellar shows. I was lucky enough to catch them in DC and NYC.

Their live shows have been known to include two synchronous drummers, kid instruments, banjos, thumping synth organ, crazy-strummed guitar (as if Daniel is possessed), matching nurse uniforms with their names stitched on, wizard costumes and a nine-foot tall fruit tree. They have also been joined on stage with alumni art rockers Jad Fair and Sufjan Stevens, who use to be their tour mate.

Check out their video for “Did I Step On Your Trumpet”, which was done all in one take, high school play style. In a world full of quick cut editing, they take a “less is more” approach, step back and let you enjoy a well planned and executed performance. Thank you Danielson Famile for keeping the art alive! My challenge to you is to cover Pink Floyd’s album The Wall.

Have you seen the Gnarls Barkley (stellar) performance of “Crazy” on Mtv awards, with the band decked out in Star Wars gear, which included Chewbacca on the drums. It made me reflect on Henry Jenkins‘ book, Convergence Culture, which included the phenomena of George Lucas and the fandome embrace of the Star Wars mythology.

“The widespread circulation of Star Wars-related commodities has placed resources into the hands of a generation of emerging filmmakers in their teens…and now they are determined to remake it on their own terms.

The mass marketing of Star Wars inadvertently provided many of the resources needed to support these productions. Star Wars is, in many ways, the prime example of media convergence at work. Lucas’s decision to defer salary for the first Star Wars film in favor of maintaining a share of ancillary profits has been widely cited as a turning point in the emergence of this new strategy of media production and distribution.” – Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: New York University, 2006.

The video (see below) also inspired me to create my own version (see below), which includes a sock puppet, Star Wars figures and Sesame Street characters. I am not sure why I chose Sesame Street…probably because my son is currently really into Elmo. I used my wife’s sock and it only took me one take to capture the lead character…very professional I thought. Also, please look out for the cameo appearance of the Yoda Pez dispenser. See both below and enjoy!

Gnarls Barkley – Crazy (Star Wars style)

Mark Chrisman channeling Socco the Sock Puppet