Aggrega‘s concept is great: a Pandora for music videos (it also has a photos section that I haven’t tried). Unfortunately, while it’s home page looks inviting, and its playlist page is cleanly laid out, it’s “create channel” algorithm is sorely lacking. Pandora’s algorithm shines, being able to offer very relevant suggestions when you specify an artist name or song title. Aggrega’s not there yet.

For example, I entered two artists from the 1980s as “seeds”. (They were not obscure, but I can’t remember what I used.) Aggrega came back with a ginormous list in two very widely separated columns. It was painful trying to checkmark and scroll down, checkmark and scroll down. This is the first thing that has to be fixed, followed by better relevance. This morning, though, I tried “U2, Elvis Costello”, and it produced a list of about 4 artists, including U2 twice. Not sure what that’s about, and there were no recommendations for additional, similar artists. Except that one that I’d never heard of. Surely there are other artists to recommend. I can think of half a dozen British acts that match Costello’s “angry young man” years.

Yes, I know Aggrega’s in beta, and yes, I really think I could love Aggrega, but not just yet. For now, it’s just flirting with me, teasing me with what could be. For the time being, I can produce a more compact visual content using SplashCast and YouTube, building a complete music video channel in a single player, with auto-forward between videos.

However, if Yahoo and Microsoft are on acquistion sprees, to keep up with Google, here’s my suggestion. One of you pull out your wallet and buy both Aggrega and Pandora, then combine their functionality. Do that, and you’ll have one of the coolest applications online. If these video “channels” can be transferred to a portable video device, even better. And if you merge, like the Friday blogospheric buzz indicated, then you can’t lose. Right?

MindMeister, a web-based mindmapping tool, has finally gone live as of last week. As a hardcore mindmapper, I’m always big on trying out these new tools. Mindmapping is ideal for brainstorming as well as planning, and can be both a business and personal productivity tool.

While MindMeister is nowhere nearly as full-featured as standalone mindmapping apps such as Mindapp, MindManager or ConceptDraw Mindmap, what it does have is collaborative features: sharing of maps, email messaging, and text message alerts via Twitter. Other features include copy/paste between maps and import from MindJet MindManager maps. (There are several new features, but I’m not linking to the page because for some ridiculous reason MindMeister makes you login to see the change list. Instead, here’s the premium features page.)

If you want to check out MindMeister, the free basic version will remain without restriction of features until May 31st. After that, you’ll need to pay to get premium features. Cost is US$4.16/mth (Eur 3.21/m).

Can MindMeister survive against web competitors Bubbl.us and Mindomo? Well, Bubbl.us is a bit lacking in advanced features at present, and Mindomo is far more featured. However, Mindomo doesn’t have have all the same collaborative features (you can share). Of course that may change. At present, Mindomo has the slicker interface, closer in resemblance to standalone mindmapping.

The premium version of Mindomo is listed as Eur 4.99/m, so MindMeister has the cost advantage. For casual mindmappers, either one is more cost effective than spending US$199-$349 for a standalone package. (If you’re really on a budget, try the free Freemind. Both MindMeister and Mindomo can interact with Freemind maps.) With the exception of collaboration features, however, none of the web-based tools are powerful enough for hardcore mindmappers. Not yet anyway, and not for me.

If you want to see MindMeister in action, DemoGirl offers a how-to-use MindMeister screencast.

In addition to Twitter alternatives, the Twitter-based apps and plugins keep coming. Stan Schroeder at Mashable lists 8 Twitter-related plugins for the Firefox browser. Didn’t think Twitter had enough functionality for all these? Many Twitter-based third party apps are either “watchers”, “extenders”, or “posters”. In this list of eight there are some variations I haven’t come across previously.

One is TwittyTunes, which is put out by the same folks who offer the very cool FoxyTunes Firefox extension. With TwittyTunes, anytime you listen to a song or watch a video on iTunes, it’ll post that info to your Twitter stream. Personally, I think that’s a bit much. It’s one thing to use an app like Last.fm or iLike (and the iLike sidebar), which show your recent listens in a couple of ways, and still another to commit your tastes into a stream of tweets. Some people will no doubt consider this as a type of Twitter pollution. Others will like it. It depends on how you Twitter, and what you expect to see in the tweet streams of those Twitterers you follow.

On the other hand, Twitbin and Tweetbar simply take Twitter functionality and encapsulate it into the sidebar of Firefox. Download Squad describes Twitbin in more detail.

Want Twitter on the go? Check out their new mobile interface. Word is that a number of existing web services sites have started implementing functionality similar to Twitter. No doubt mobile Twitter clones are next.

Reopening Pandora’s Music Box
Pandora, one of the best online music recommendation engines out there, recently had to cut off their international users, leaving access only to the US, Canada and the UK. But there are still ways to access Pandora, using proxy servers. Proxies also anonymize your net surfing. Frantic Industries and Digital  shows you how to get Pandora. [via Lifehacker].

Pandora Alternatives
Digital Alchemist also offers some suggestions for listening to Pandora outside the coverage area, and offers some Pandora alternatives. Last.fm is on the list, but there are rumors of them being bought out by Viacom. This might actually save Last.fm, since the capital for royalty payments will be available. Of course, the independent radio station always has a mighty struggle, whether over the airwaves or online.

Audio and Video Are Hot
No kidding, I’m stating the obvious. paidContent reports that VideoEgg received US$3.5M and iAmplify received US$6M. Thing is, with such cheap hosting services available, if you have a rich media website idea, get it implemented now, before the new tech bubble bursts like some people are saying (namely me – between 2009-2011).

Okay, maybe you don’t think that a blogger needs to build a brand. But in light of the response that the infographic on the You’re Brand One? post received, it’s evident that branding is important for some bloggers. That is, if you plan to either earn a living from your blog professionally or indirectly. (Darren Rowse has a great post about making money because of your blog.) In which case branding is a necessity, be it a cool, memorable brand name, an infographic, or even just a picture of you.

If you want to blog professionally, even if just to promote your consulting or other services, I highly recommend getting a domain name with your name in it, or some variation. Set up a blog and make that your brand, to promote all your online and offline activities. You may even want to use a blog name that isn’t your name. Remember that you have to compete with websites plus 70 million blogs. Or is it 15 million? Who knows. Fact is, you need to stand out, and there are many aspects to building a popular site (promotion, content, posts, etc.), but branding yourself is the glue that ties it all together.

For me, I want to be the geeky diagram/ screencast guy. Hence my brand “Internet UltraGeek”. But here’s something to consider: I didn’t bother registering internetultrageek.com because I don’t like the way it looks. This should be a factor when you decide on a brand name. For example, noted web designer Chris Pearson uses Pearsonified, which I think is great. It’s more than his name, it’s a brand. Be creative when you set up your “brand” blog. And you don’t have to post every day. Each post should be well thought out and relevant to your brand. Once a week is probably sufficient.

If you need some branding pointers, NameWire, a blog about product naming, has a post on personal branding, with links to other relevant articles including, yes, my own. Though have a look at the rest of the blog and you’ll realize how much thought goes into naming a product or service. Or at least, how much effort should go in.

Last.fm Music Popularity Graphic
Lee Byron has created some fascinating infographics based on comprehensive Last.fm user data. He uses algorithms to generate the graphics, then produces posters as tall as 6′ 3″. [via Information Aesthetics] If Viacom buys Last.fm, they should buy some of these posters for the lobby of their headquarters, hopefully to remind them to keep Last.fm grassroots.

More Newspaper Layoffs
Editor and Publisher has at least four posts talking about layoffs in the publishing biz. That’s just this week alone.

Public Domain Sounds
Need ringtones for your cell phone or VoIP software? Check out Public Domain Sounds. [via 21Talks] I haven’t listened to any of these, but it seems that you can probably use them for audio or video podcasts as well. They have an interesting presentation and even use a tag cloud to show what categories hold the most samples. If you like what’s there, you can subscribe to any of several RSS feeds.

Time’s Top 100 Influential People
Don’t know how you feel, but there are some scary people in the Leaders & Revolutionaries section of Time’s Top 100 list. Apparently, though, the list is based on public voting, so go figure. But man am I happy that SNL’s Tina Fey is on the list. Intelligence is sexy, and so is that fine-line scar on her cheek. If you want to see a compact list, check Editor and Publisher. Stephen Colbert didn’t make it this year, but there are a few web celebrities on the list. [NOTE: I had this written last night, but Minic beat me to posting with his Time 100 roundup.]

Related post: Borat, Justin, Rosie, 93 others more influential than Bush

Some people consider 2008 Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama to be the most “wired” candidate in either major political party. That is, he has utilized online social networks and even streaming video channels to his advantage – showing that he’s hip and understands a younger generation. He even has a MySpace page profile that had 160,000 “friends”. An Obama supporter has been running it for nearly three years, with the blessing of the Senator’s campaign team. They suddenly decided, though, that they were uncomfortable with an “outsider” running the page, which of course represents Obama’s viewpoints, etc.

The campaign team wanted control of the profile page, and the supporter, Joe Anthony, a paralegal, was fine with that, though he wanted nearly $50K in total fees to do so, which the Senator’s team said no to. Big mistake. At $50,000 of effort put in by Anthony to build 160,000 friends, each “friend”, and no doubt supporter of Obama, cost only about thirty cents. The stink that ensued caused Myspace to step in and decide that the Senator’s team could have control and Joe Anthony could take the contact info. All 160,000 friends. So what if it was supposed to be volunteer work?

Does this translate into 160,000 lost future votes? Maybe. Maybe less, maybe more. Who can know? The fact is, there are now only just over 21K friends. Obviously, it was a monstrously stupid move for the campaign team of a seemingly well-loved, charismatic candidate who has been a historic figure and may continue to be. Someone on the campaign team should be fired. It’s not like the campaign money isn’t there. But even more to the point, Anthony obviously was a good buffer and did a tremendous job building goodwill for the Senator.

Will the MySpace page be the same with the official campaign team running it? I doubt it. However, the Senator phoned Anthony to offer his apologies and try to win back his vote. Had the campaign team invited Anthony to be part of their team, everyone would be way ahead.

Don’t feel like giving out your email address? How about a URL that anonymizes your email address? Contactify apparently does that, and uses a CAPTCHA to reduce spam. If you have your own blog on a self-hosted domain, however, I’m sure  you can find a free form plugin. In fact, anyone that works online should really consider buying their own “FirstnameLastname.com”, or close variation, and using that on a Moo card. Now set up a contact form on your personal site’s “contact me”, “about”, or “services” page. Then anyone who needs to get hold of you can just use the contact form. What could be simpler? You don’t even need business cards in this case. If you don’t want to go to the trouble, then Contactify is a (supposedly) nice alternative. Of course, if you are ultra popular, you may get too much email disrupting your workflow. In which case, you may need to use an extreme email message classification system.

No Pandora for you, like Seinfeld’s “Soup Nazi” character might say. At least, not if you are an international user. That supposedly means anyone outside the United States will be prevented from using the service, due to a certain federal statute. This is of course due to net radio royalty issues. Last.fm is apparently being purchased by Viacom. I’ve not heard anything regarding Pandora.

This is very disappointing news as for a long-time music fan like myself, I’ve never come across anything quite as cool/ brilliant in its recommendation functionality. However, despite being in Canada, my IP address sometimes shows as being in the US. This might explain while I can still see the site as of this writing. Oddly, I didn’t receive any email from Pandora, though I have received newsletters in the past.

SplashCast, my favorite slideshow/web broadcast tool to date, just released a new version featuring brand new features on Monday. The foremost among them are MyPodcastNetwork, which is a podcast directory, and support for other RSS feeds that include ‘standard media enclosures” (ie., audio and images).

SplashCast already supports RSS feeds from Flickr and YouTube, but now they expanded their range. Unfortunately, because of the way Yahoo Pipes builds output feeds, I cannot take my custom Yahoo /Twitter /Flickr mashups and send them to SplashCast.

These new features have unfortunately raised some concern over how the enclosures from RSS feeds are or are not being handled on SplashCast’s servers, and whether originating sources are being credited or not. If you look at the bottom left of each frame for the “i” in a circle, click on it and you’ll see accreditation for media content, including links when available.