Over 500 years ago Gutenberg invented the printing press which revolutionised the world, there are now billions of books throughout the world and are reasonably cheap to buy. I’m not a person who thinks that revolutions can’t happen again, but sometimes things just don’t need revolutionising, the book is one of those.

Let’s look at some of the reasons we’re presented with in order to get us to buy an e-book reader;

Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing. – Books are pretty simple to use are they not? you start at the front and work your way to the back (in the west), unless of course it’s one of those ‘Choose your own adventure’ books.

Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. – looks like real paper huh? Imagine that.

Low energy use for a long battery life – I’ve never ever had to charge up a book, ever.

Get a huge choice of eBooks – A book shop has a huge choice of books, Amazon and (my favourite) The Book Depository has a massive choice of books. Even better my local library has thousands of books, and they’ll lend them to me. For Free.

The idea of being able to store hundreds of books on a device isn’t quite the same as storing thousands of music tracks on your portable music player, music is mostly instant gratification and most of us enjoy the ability to skip through thousands of tracks finding something that reflects our ever changing tastes or moods. I don’t know why anyone would want to do the same with a book.

It just doesn’t make sense, If you’re going on holiday throw 2 books in your bag. You don’t have to worry about losing an expensive gadget or getting it wet when someone throws themselves in the pool. I can read a book anywhere, on the bus standing up, on the train without looking like a twat, on the toilet, in the bath. I can lend it to my mate. I can leave it on the bus.

This isn’t to say that electronic books aren’t useful, we have tons of technical manuals at work in PDF format, they are good for looking things up, but they are useless for studying – the simple fact is people don’t like reading from a screen for any length of time.

In a world where it seems we’re sometimes doing things with Tech simply ‘because we can’ this was always bound to happen but I really don’t see the point in reinventing the wheel. If you have an e-book reader I’d be interested to know what drove you to buy it, or if you’re using it much now. Have you burned all your books in a bonfire? Leave a comment.

p.s. local book buyers will no doubt recognise the picture above as The Market Bookshop in Wellington.

The Genius’, as you’d expect aren’t exactly Genius’ just the usual ‘follow-these-steps-if-it-doesn’t-work-we’ll-give-it-to-a-real-engineer-to-fix’ types you get in these sort of places, see PC World for similar thing.   As a self confessed geek what gets me is the sheer arrogance of the ‘Genius’ thing – Stephen Hawking is a genius, the portly bloke who ‘tested’ my Mac was not – regardless of the T-Shirt he was wearing;   “Not all Superheroes wear Capes“.   You could feel the ‘smug’ emanating from that store.

Anyway, after ‘genius‘ tried all the stuff I’d already tried he had to pass it to an engineer to look at – these are kept locked up in a room away from the shop floor, presumably because they don’t fit Apple’s ‘look’.   Two days later they phoned to tell me the motherboard was dead and wanted £730 to repair.  Much to my displeasure my employers didn’t want to pay this or indeed, buy me a new Mac Book Pro.   So I was given a budget and told to find another laptop.

I ended  up getting a nice Acer laptop with pretty decent spec, but it came with Windows Vista – an operating system I’ve managed so far to completely avoid.  Our in-house IT dept sorted ou me a copy of Windows 7 and I have to say I’m very impressed with it.  To date I’ve not had it crash, not had to manually end a non-responding process or throw it against the wall once.  While the keyboard doesn’t light up, the power is not a funky magnet power plug I still like it.

While the music industry still doesn’t really get the internet and continues to dish out threats to ISP’s and court orders to your average person, some in the industry realise that court cases and legal download services might not be the only answer.

Enter Spotify, the music streaming software – an application that allows users to pick from a massive library of music, create and share playlists and discover new music.  Spotify has been launched some European Countries (including the UK) with the backing of lots of Major Record Companies.

The service simply works by installing a itunes like client to your Windows or Mac (Linux though WINE, and Mobile devices are being worked on according to Spotify) and away you go – the only proviso is that you have internet access – tracks are streamed in the Ogg Vorbis q5 format at 160Kb/s – quality is probably better than your average downloaded mp3 (although still miles away from CD Quality).

Available in three modes at the minute, free – ad supported, daily pass (Ad free for 24 hours) and Monthly subscription with no Ad’s whatsoever. At the moment I know of no one who is paying the monthly subscription fee but I would certainly consider it in the future as I imagine Spotify will grow in popularity and have to cover more costs – at this point I expect to hear more Adverts.

I’d also consider paying the daily fee for uninterrupted music at a party – this way people can search and choose whatever music they want to hear, in essence this becomes like a free pub jukebox.

Spotify has really got me thinking about this method of music delivery, with 75% and growing broadband penetration in UK households there are few reasons for people to consider downloading music to play via their home pc, media centre, music hub etc, when we can just stream everything we want – there is also less reason to illegally download tracks, this is a big plus for the record companies which is why I think they will continue to support this type of service.

The only real downside I can see to a streaming music service like Spotify is mobile music – with millions of people owning ipods and similar mp3 players it’s going to be a while before people no longer need permanent audio files on their devices but I think with the fast expansion of mobile broadband, free wifi and HSDPA and it’s faster successors I don’t think the idea of streaming music everywhere is beyond the realms of possibility.

Other option is the ability to have a closed system that downloads the tracks to a device that can only be played with the right credentials – then at least you could have music where there is no net access, a Car perhaps.

While there is much more to be be explored and developed in this area Spotify are certainly heading in the right direct and maybe just, maybe it’s enough to convince the record companies to stop dipping their toes in the water and get right in.

I have some invites left for Spotify if you would like one.

The site has gone live tonight because John and Tanja are attending the Morning Advertiser Great British Pub awards as the Crown Inn is up for two awards. Next year I’d like to nominate the site for Best pub website – looking at last years winner I’m sure we can beat it – especially if we utilise the wordpress back end to it’s full potential with regular blogs from John, pictures and features etc.

There is still some tweaking to do with the site but I’m pretty happy with it.

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(click for biggie)

twitter.com/bigdaddymerk

No need to rub it in!

Update: Whoaaaa. Hang on. Don’t mistake this for a ‘I wish I had a bird’ post. I was merely pointing out how Facebook loves your information so much it can direct adverts like the one about at an almost infinite number of social groups with ease. That’s kinda scary.

Update II: Isn’t that Jessica Alba? I’m sure she’s not single and in my area!

I’m finding it rather amusing to read back through them – one thing I’ve noticed is that I do seem to get drunk quite a lot! Here is the 2 months worth of status updates to illustrate my pointl (most recent first)

• Merk lives on fascination.
• Merk has a dirty hangover.
• Merk blah.
• Merk loves si, and his aids.
• Merk quite likes boys. Especially boys birthdays cards. Don Simon is king.
• Merk might wear a stripey shirt out, what a surprise.
• Merk hello.
• Merk watching downloaded U.S. tv – naughty me!
• Merk thanks you all for your birthday wishes, ta.
• Merk is having his tea.
• Merk cannot wait to go home.
• Merk thinks Bevo is a spoon – enjoy A&E matey!
• Merk wished he’d booked the day off.
• Merk is eating doughnuts for breakfast.
• Merk is addicted to Coca-Cola.
• Merk hates people with ideas above their station.
• Merk is enjoying his last few days in his ‘mid-twenties’.
• Merk looking forward to going to the seaside.
• Merk is going out.
• Merk is complex.
• Merk thinks not drinking makes him ill.
• Merk feels a bit better.
• Merk feels poorly.
• Merk is .
• Merk is indulging in one of his guilty pleasures…..no, not that!
• Merk is chilled.
• Merk is laughing at someone.
  10:48am
  April 15
• Merk is tired, Doesn’t like waking up early.
  10:12pm
• Merk is sick of the rain.
• Merk is writing lists.
• Merk is booooooored.
• Merk got to work on time, for the first time in about 6 months!
• Merk is bored.
• Merk wants some goldfish.
• Merk fucking loves Capri-Sun.
• Merk blah.
• Merk just heard a tune that instantly took him back to happy happy times as a kid, I’m going to sleep smiling now! .
• Merk wants to go on a road trip somewhere.
• Merk is mmmmm.
• Merk is cooking.
• Merk STILL doesn’t like rude people.
• Merk doesn’t like rude people.
• Merk is ill.
• Merk is a little bit drunk.
• Merk has no style.
• Merk loves Laura Tobin.
• Merk is mellow.
• Merk is contemplating getting a little bit drunkified….for a change.
• Merk is wondering what to spend his winnings on!
• Merk at home, on a friday night?
• Merk needs some sleep.
• Merk Likes sleeep.
• Merk is pathetic.
• Merk wants to be a muskerhound.
• Merk is fed up of birds shitting on his car.
• Merk is going home.
• Merk is eating Jaffa Cakes – hehehehe.
• Merk hello.
• Merk hates City types.
• Merk Is on a choo choo train.
• Merk house alarm code is 4593.
• Merk ‘s bank Pin is 2316.
• Merk has had a great night reminiscing.
• Merk is going for a pint.
• Merk is READING (a book).
• Merk want’s his hour back.
• Merk cant believe the weekend is over already.
• Merk is booooo.
• Merk is praying Everton can get a win today.
• Merk is sleeping.
• Merk is in a strange sense of mind – not quite drunk but not quite hammered. hmmmm.
• Merk is off out for food, drinks and much merriment.
• Merk baby soft skin, make of that what you will.
• Merk is all about the weekend baby!
• Merk is laughing.
• Merk hates people with disco knee.
• Merk has a little bit of an export head.
• Merk is disappointed.
• Merk wants the summer to hurry up.
• Merk hates jo whiley.
• Merk doesn’t understand why people have ‘baby on board’ signs in their car – If I can help it I’m not going to run in the back of you baby on board or not!
• Merk hates people who walk around the supermarket wearing bluetooth headsets!
• Merk just read the gas meter….could life get any more exciting than that?
• Merk wonders why people think going on national telly to deal with family issues is a good idea?
• Merk thinks this weekends excessive boozing has hit his immune system….cough splutter cough.
• Merk is so glad to be back at work, honest.
• Merk is impressed with the new Elbow album.
• Merk is bored.
• Merk is happy after a great Easter weekend.
• Merk doesn’t know whether to go out or not.
• Merk is yawning.
• Merk bybufytftrrfersws5fg8iumoij.
• Merk is looking forward to beers tonight.
• Merk is hello.
• Merk is broken.
• Merk is tired.
• Merk is thnking about lunch at the beacon or go shopping for food?
• Merk is confused he has no hangover.
• Merk was nearly called George.
• Merk thinks Heather Mills is a money grabbing bitch.
• Merk isn’t too cool for school.
• Merk wants to go to a Murder Mystery and a Medieval Banquet.
• Merk is angry with a certain customer.
• Merk hates horses.
• Merk wants to go to a Murder Mystery and a Medieval Banquet.
• Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk.
• Merk likes Dr Pepper.
• Merk is writing an angry letter to the council.
• Merk is alreet, thanks for asking.
• Merk is looking forward to his sleep.
• Merk is so fucking tired.
• Merk has gone all open source.
• Merk is going to kick the shit out of his computer very soon.
• Merk blah.
• Merk hasn’t driven his car for days.
• Merk is happy and honoured.
• Merk is listening to classic Stevie Wonder.
• Merk is happy.
• Merk is worrying that he drinks too much.
• Merk is lost.
• Merk likes beers with friends.
• Merk is going out….again.
• Merk says Hi. ‘Hi’.
• Merk loves something…
• Merk loves something….probably.
• Merk doesn’t like socks.
• Merk is bored…of life.
• Merk is a bit miserable.
• Merk had an ace thai curry.
• Merk pissed off the day is going so slow.
• Merk is grrr.
• Merk made his computer go bang.
• Merk cooked an ace salad.
• Merk pricing up new motherboard, cpu and ram – whoops!
• Merk has just killed his pc.
• Merk is tired.
• Merk is going home.
  5:28pm
• Merk is bored.
• Merk can’t believe he got mocked for buying shoes from Clarks.
• Merk is laughing at his works silly rules.
• Merk cant sleep.
• Merk is sleepy.
• Merk is never drinking Brandy again.
• Merk feels wrong.
• Merk hurts.
• Merk loves rave piano.
• Merk is having a chilled/geekery afternoon.
• Merk has bought shoes – ten minutes. I love living in town!
• Merk has gone to buy shoes!
• Merk needs some new shoes.
• Merk is beer’s constant if anything goes wrong!
• Merk doesn’t know what chasing pavements means.
• Merk wants a Mercedes CLK Coupé but doesn’t appear to have 30 grand to spare.
• Merk is.
• Merk wonders what the fuck the BBC have done to their homepage.
• Merk is laughing now he’s knows it was just an earthquake!
• Merk is laughing know he’s knows it was just an earthquake!
• Merk is merk, merkio, merkster, bigdaddymerk or plain old Mart.

Update: In more geekery related news Google indexed this post for Laura Tobin in about 3 minutes – that’s freaked my chicken.

Update II: Hmmm it’s climbed the index already – now fifth in the list!

Update III: Laura Tobin is a Weather Presenter on News 24!

The latest announcement is that the Conservative party are going to spend Half a Million pounds targeting ‘online friends’; In an echo of Radiohead’s recent album launch, there will be no fixed charge for becoming a Conservative supporter on Facebook, MySpace, iVillage or Bebo.

WHAT? The party wants people to pay to effectively become a ‘fan’ (in Facebook terms) of the Tory Party? That’s right, George Osborne says; “People can pay as little or as much as they want to”, which is nice of him but prey tell what do I get for my generous donation?

…regular updates on party activity and invitations to take part in social action projects in their area..

and that, says Mr Osborne is ground breaking in UK Politics. I’m inclined to agree, asking people to cough up (as much or as little as you want) to get a couple of emails a week is a joke, no one is going to take them up on this especially given that these online ‘friends’ will not be able to vote in leadership elections or any of the other activities open to a full party member.

According to the report Labour and the Lib Dems already do an online supporters network and do not even consider asking for a donation until you want to become a member. Social networking sites are just that however they are fast becoming a mass marketing tool for anyone who has enough money to line the pockets of News Corp or Facebook inc.

The reason Myspace lost millions of regular visitors to Facebook was because of Facebook’s ease of use and minimal intrusion from people trying to sell you stuff, this puts punters off. We don’t expect services for free so can live with ads but users do not want to be bombarded with targeted marketing every time they log in to see what their friends are up to. Of course facebook is going the way of myspace by becoming more and more difficult to use because of it’s applications platform.

Which brings me back to the Tories spending £500,000 on this form of marketing; I’m not aware of how much money the Conservative party has to piss up the wall trying to get new supporters but I’m willing to bet the uptake vie Myspace, Facebook and the like isn’t going to make a great return on their investment. I don’t know who’s idea this was, but they certainly haven’t spoken to anyone who uses these sites on a regular basis.

I’m all for political parties to engage supporters and prospective supporters via the web, but stop trying to be my Cool Dad. Please.

If it’s not broke don’t fix it, sometimes you can be too web 2.0 for your own good.