Posts Tagged ‘technology’

Don’t Need [Insert Name of Musician]’s Stuff

Now that I’ve made the leap from being someone who has to have my own physical copy of a book to someone who doesn’t have a physical copy at all, it’s making me rethink what else I really need to own. When I buy a book and read it once, it’s no longer going to be propped up on a shelf, taking up room, collecting dust, from apartment-to-apartment, never to be read again. This is a waste I’m glad to no longer have building up (with the exception of art/photography books), especially since there is nothing inherently special about the way most books are made. If you’re buying a paperback book, the text got sent to a factory, mass-produced on equal-sized sheets of paper, passed on from warehouse to warehouse until it ends up for a relatively short amount of time in your hands.

This got me thinking about what it means to be a fan of someone like Bjork. She is constantly releasing special edition CDs and box sets and DVDs and various combination of them of all her music. Her last studio album, Volta, was released on May 7, 2007, and it had a CD, special edition CD, double vinyl, and four singles. Next month she is releasing more stuff based on the tour and music videos from this album, something with its own brand and unique artwork called Voltaic, coming in five different physical configurations of two CDs and two DVDs.

One could say that the ultimate Bjork fan would own EVERYTHING that Bjork releases, including stuff only released in other countries (sometimes the Japanese editions have songs not found in the U.S. or European editions). At Amazon.com’s “Artist Store” for Bjork, there are 161 items in the U.S. alone!

It’s true that a lot of thought and creativity went into the design of the booklets and packages that accompany them, and I appreciate the artistic value of those things on their own, but they again end up being something that I hold in my hands for a very limited amount of time and then put away. I would rather see it once or twice at an art gallery that many people can visit, and see some interesting features on her site. I did actually go to an art gallery in Queens where she made sculptures and drawings for Volta, and screened the first video from the album in 3D, and that experience meant more to me than owning anything.

Ultimately I like Bjork for her music, not her stuff, which is perfectly enjoyable in digital form inside my iPhone and computer.

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Find Companies

My boyfriend and I have talked about my job (web developer) allowing me to work almost anywhere, while his job (handbag/accessories designer) pretty much limits him to working in New York and (maybe) Los Angeles. Recently I found out that Amazon.com’s headquartes are located in Seattle, and started wondering what other technology companies might be in that city. After talking about this with a co-worker, I found a great way, through LinkedIn, of getting a list of the top companies within any specific industry located in a specific city.

  1. Log into LinkedIn and click on the ‘Companies’ link at the top
  2. Leave the ‘Company Name or Keyword’ field blank and select ‘Located in or near:’ from the ‘Location’ drop-down menu.
  3. Put in any zip code for the city you want to find companies in, like 98104 for Seattle. There’s a ‘Look Up’ link that lets you search for them (or just Google for it).
  4. Check ‘Only company headquarters’ (so you don’t end up getting retail stores if you’re searching in an industry that has them…)
  5. Click on the ‘Show more…’ and select an industry from the drop-down menu (like ‘Internet’ if you’re trying to get a listing with a company like Amazon).
  6. Press the ‘Search Companies’ button.

Voila! Searching for Internet companies in a Seattle zip code, with only the headquarters, gave me a list with Amazon.com at the top and other major sites like Classmates.com, Disney’s Internet Group, and Drugstore.com. I’m not 100% sure how these sources are sorted, besides the first set of them being companies that have employees that I’m connected to somehow.

On the right you can refine these even further by entering keywords (although that can narrow it down too much… Amazon.com doesn’t show up with “books” as a keyword, but does if I type “bookstore”…), the size of the company, related industries, and only companies that are currently hiring.

This is definitely better than a blind search on Google with city names and words related to your industry, or business directories which don’t let you filter the listings in any meaningful way.

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