Boomers Will Like the Interactive RollingStone 500 Greatest Song Issue

In my last blog post, I talked about RollingStone Magazine's interactive issue, which users can download for the iPad through the Zinio app. What sets this magazine apart is the clever way it is designed to take advantage of the interactive features of the iPad. Here's how you get it. First download the free Zinio App from the App store. When you open the Zinio App, you'll find a "store" inside. Inside the store, there is a listing for interactive magazines. Choose the RollingStone 500 Greatest Songs of All Times Issue.

You'll have to give Zinio a credit card number to get this app, but once you download it and pay the $9.99, a  hefty price for an app, you get a magazine chock full of information. There are a couple of feature stories such as this interview with Leiber and Stoller,

and short articles about each of the songs and artists chosen, as well as a way to listen to 30 seconds of each song.

 
The number one designated song in the magazine is  Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan, and next to it are icons for reading about it, listening to 30 seconds of it, and buying it.

In fact, many of the top 500 songs will be familiar to Baby Boomers and come from artists we know and love like the Beatles, John Lennon , The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley and The Beach Boys. The app easy to use and fun to listen to.

What's significant about the magazine is the spirit of discovery that it encourages. You are only wasting 30 seconds of your time if you tap on an unfamiliar song and don't like it, so you keep on tapping. That's when I found out that all hip hop wasn't created equal. Number 51 on the list, right next to The Tracks of My Tears by Smokey Robinson, was The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. I listened to 30 seconds of it and I liked it. If I choose to download it, it will be the first hip hop song ever on my iPod and iPad. And that's exactly what Apple, Zinio, and RollingStone are counting on.

Going through these 500 songs will be a journey of discovery for many of us. If you are like me, you missed some of the songs of the 80s and 90s. By that time I had ventured into Jazz and other venues. But I am open to all kinds of music. So if I find something I like in this journey, I'll probably buy it from the iTunes store, which is conveniently linked to the app. You do have to re-sign in to the iTunes store to purchase the songs, but actually, it's genius. Once again Apple has found a way to part me from my money! I'd definitely like to know how many songs were processed through the iTunes store from people who bought the RollingStone magazine. I'll bet it's impressive!

Download those Magazines Boomers!

If you have an iPad, you may want to download some of the newest e-magazines that were designed just for this platform. Or you can get replicas of current magazines and read them in the iPad's format. Since the iPad is a beautiful venue for looking at pictures, magazine art stands out on the device.

Prior to a recent trip to the West Coast I loaded my iPad with a few e-magazines to see how I would enjoy them. Well, I did enjoy them, but I was unable to enjoy most of them on the airplane! Almost every e-magazine I tried had a downloadable or interactive component. That means that the same thing that keeps these magazines interesting, keeps people from reading them on an airplane where you can't turn on your cellular service during flight!  I learned a real world lesson about how e-magazines work on today's iPad.

As I said in a recent post, I do have a beef with Apple. Magazines need a category of their own in the App store. Not all of the magazines available come up if you plug in the keyword "Magazine" into the search engine. I understand that Apple and magazine publishers are feuding about subscriptions on the iPad. Magazine publishers want to offer them, but Apple just wants people to download each individual issue and pay the price. Maybe that's why Apple is being so user "unfriendly" about magazines on its site.


Anyway, I did manage to download some of the magazines now available and I also downloaded magazines from two what I call "gateway apps": Magcloud and Zinio. Magcloud and Zinio are magazine stands of sorts, and let you download issues, most for a price, although a number of beautiful magazines like some Life Magazine titles are free.

In a very interesting move, Rolling Stone just put out a $9.99 special issue through Zinio on the iPad that includes articles, but also plays 30 seconds of each and every of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."  You can also download the complete songs, for a price, if there is something you want to play on your iPad. I plan to download the magazine, and report back to you next time on how I liked it. Of course, this is a very clever, yet entertaining, way to part people from their money, since once you hear 30 seconds of those songs, you are probably going to buy them if you don't have them.

That being said, some magazine publishers have gone their own way and are issuing individual apps for the iPad. Here is an example of the app for the sample issue of Sports Illustrated and a screen shot of two of its pages, including one that tells you how to navigate through the app. I've also pasted a screen shot from the cover of the Vanity Fair app.

When I was reading through reviews at the app store, some subscribers to Glamour's free iPad app were  disappointed that once they downloaded the app, they had to pay for the actual e-magazine. And some subscribers to the print version were upset they they were being asked to pay twice for the same information.

If you do decide to give downloading magazines a try, let me know what you think both about the e-magazines you've read and what you think about the issues brought up by reviewers. If you have a subscription to the print magazine, should you have to pay for the iPad version?

Some music applications Boomers might like--Pandora, Slacker and Shazam

A lot of my boomer friends like the fact that they can listen to music on their iPhones and don't have to carry a separate music player. Most people know the ins and outs of ordering music through the iTunes store. However, there are a few interesting music apps out there that some of my friends seem to like, and I am going to give them a try. Frankly, many of them are not "New."  However, I don't think the authors of these apps thought that boomers would be their audience. I beg to disagree. If you don't have an iPhone, many of these apps are available for other smart phones, the iPod Touch, and also can be found on the companies' websites.

The first app I tried is Pandora, an Internet Radio application that lets you listen to music you know you like and finds music that is similar to that music. In this way you can find artists or albums you might not have known existed or music you've forgotten about. Pandora made Time Magazine's Best Apps of 2009 list.

The app has a pretty cool history. According to the website How Stuff Works:

Pandora relies on a Music Genome that consists of 400 musical attributescovering the qualities of melody, harmony, rhythm, form, composition and lyrics. It's a project that began in January 2000 and took 30 experts in music theory five years to complete. The Genome is based on an intricate analysis by actual humans (about 20 to 30 minutes per four-minute song) of the music of 10,000 artists from the past 100 years. The analysis of new music continues every day since Pandora's online launch in August 2005.

Pandora is available on the web at www.pandora.com or can be downloaded to your iPhone for free. When you open up the app on your iPhone you are asked to register. If you've already created an account online, the app uses that information for you. To create an Internet Radio station, just type in the name of an artist, album, or song you like. I typed in Chicago, the name of the band I loved in the 1960s. At first Pandora only played me recordings by Chicago, which I enjoyed. After a few songs, the application branched out and played me a few familiar songs by the Police and Billy Joel. That was OK, I like them both, and thought they were a welcome change. It seemed uncanny that the application could figure me out so quickly.

Here is the screen that shows the "Radio Stations" I have selected.  As it is playing, Pandora shows you the cover of the album that includes the song to which you are listening.

Another Free Internet Radio option is called Slacker. If you tell Slacker you want to find music like that created and sung by Paul McCartney, it won't play any McCartney for you. Instead it will find artists with similar styles.  Slacker tries to make connections between the artists you like and artists in a similar time period. And if you'd rather listen to music that has been preselected, Slacker offers professionally programmed stations.

The screen above is the first screen that you'll come to after you register. If you hit the Find Music button, you'll be asked to put in an artist or group's name. As you begin to type, Slacker predicts what you are looking for. I put in Paul McCartney and was given the option of Paul with the Beatles or just Paul. I selected the one I wanted.

After putting in Paul McCartney, I was surprised to find the iPhone playing Ramble On by Led Zeppelin. However,  it was actually quite a good choice, and I hadn't realized I liked this music. Slacker, it turns out, is the lazy person's way of finding other music you may like.

A fun application that many Generation Xers know is called Shazam, and I think it could be a useful boomer tool, especially as we experience a few senior moments.   Here's how Shazam works. You are listening to your favorite radio station, and you wonder "what's that song?" Perhaps you've missed the DJ's introduction. Or you are sitting at home watching a car commercial with a catchy tune and you want to know what song the people in the ad are bopping to.

Download Shazam onto your iPhone. Press the tab that says "Tag Now" and let the device "listen" to the song you are trying to identify. In very short order, the application comes up with the name of the tune, the artist singing it, the album name, genre and label. You can actually tap on the album information and buy it through the iTunes store.

A major disadvantage: The free application limits the number of times monthly you can "tag" a tune. This is too bad, because this application is addicting. Boomer's who use it will realize they can assist their memories pleasurably using this app.  Shazam charges $4.99 for the complete version and has angered many iPhone users by this recent change. In the newest version of Shazam, you can also check to see if an artist is on tour and buy tickets!

So boomers, when you are getting tired of your iTunes library and can't think of anything to add to it, check out these three iPhone apps.