mdoeff.com

"Despite calls for the whisper-folk pair to make Øye's house and techno background more apparent, Declaration of Dependence doubles down on hushed Scandinavian understatement. No drums, unless you count slapped fretboards or squeaking fingers: just two voices, two acoustic guitars, and occasional cello, viola, or one-finger piano plinks. Along with sharper songwriting focus, this go-for-broke softness makes for the most durable, rewarding Kings of Convenience album yet– a Pink Moon to past efforts' Five Leaves Left. Barring a last-minute José González surprise, it's also probably the best new full-length of its style you'll hear this year."

It seems like such a simple and whimsical service. You just checkin to places via your phone. But the data that it creates and the way it is published out to your social graph is powerful.

"…listening to customers is not intrinsically good. As always, the key is to synthesize the customer feedback with the company’s unique vision. But that’s often used as an excuse to ignore customers outright. I know I was guilty of this many times. It’s all-too-easy to convince yourself that customers will want whatever your latest brainstorm is. And it’s so much more pleasant to just go build it, foist it on the community, and cross your fingers. It sure beats confronting reality, right?"

"Google Social Search is rolling out, a new service from Google that allows you to easily find material written by people you know and trust."

"Why does the world need two thousand photos of the same band on the same stage, all taken from a slightly different angle. That kind of 360 degree imagery might have been useful on the day Kennedy was shot – not least because it would have kept Oliver Stone quiet – but for a Weezer gig? And what’s the point of checking in on Foursquare at a ticketed event that no one else can get into. You might as well tweet “I’m a dick” and be done with it."

New Twitter search powered by Bing

Includes demo of new Twitter search powered by Bing about half-way through the video.

Pretty slick implementation of people tagging in Flickr

"In a stunning one-two punch, Microsoft will announce separate nonexclusive deals today with both Facebook and Twitter to integrate their real-time feed of status updates into the Bing search service." << BOOM , looks like Twitter all of a sudden has a revenue stream

According to sources, Microsoft (MSFT) digital head Qi Lu will announce the deal onstage in a few hours at the Web 2.0 Summit.

Productivity tips from Marc Andressen

Video from Web 2.0 Summit. Requires registration.

"A combination of friend-finder, city guide and competitive bar game, Foursquare lets users “check in” with a cellphone at a bar, restaurant or art gallery. That alerts their friends to their current location so they can drop by and say hello."

The idea of selling monthly subscriptions to a vast catalog of online music has met with only limited success. That isn’t stopping a new batch of entrepreneurs from trying to make it work.

Trending topics within your network, not all of Twitter. Need to try this out.