Massa-Bidal sells some of his designs on his online store, but these terrific book covers aren't available just yet. Perhaps if we all pester him enough he'll put them up? The Tumblr, Twitter and Flickr ones would look great on my wall. [Retrofuturs via Flickr via SuperPunch via Gearfuse]

Yes, Friendster is prepping for a big ol' relaunch tomorrow, using a brand new logo and a new slogan, "Connecting Smiles." Hoo boy.

Apparently, they're trying to make it more customizable than Facebook. So...like MySpace? Based on the above video, it looks exactly like Facebook, just with customizable skins and backgrounds, like MySpace. Oh, and it's aimed pretty hard at Asians, as Asia is the only place where the Friendster brand has any cachet these days, apparently.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm deleting my Facebook account tonight in anticipation. I hope all my friends will be waiting for me at Friendster! With any luck, they were too lazy to delete their accounts back when Friendster became totally irrelevant years ago. [Friendster via TechCrunch]

He's no stranger to the tech world, having dabbled in some light SMS spamming on an Australian visit last year, and now he's contributed a playlist to MySpace Music, which features tracks from his favourite brudda, Tupac.

MySpace Music has just launched in the UK, 15 months after it debuted in the US, and along with the Papal one's dubious choice of choons, Beyonce, 50 Cent and Nelly Furtado have all chosen songs too, though none claim to share "the aim to reach the heart of good minded people" quite like the Vatican. [MySpace Music via MusicAlly via TechRadar]

Image Credit: RobLisaMeehan

Basically, as you can see in the picture, you will see play buttons alongside different songs when you get search results. If you press play, a popup from MySpace (iLike) or Lala appears, letting you play the full song and giving you buttons to buy it or get more info. You will also have the chance to check out the band on other services/sites, including Pandora, iMeem and Rhapsody. (As you might imagine, there's no mention of iTunes in all of this.)

In essence, Google isn't playing the music at all. It's up to MySpace and Lala to manage the rights of the full-song playback business, and to serve up the content. For more info, check out the YouTube video or Google blog. They say they'll be rolling it out to US Google users over the next day, so be on the lookout. [Google]

Created by Scottish musical collective Found, Cybraphon is basically a collection of mechanical instruments in a box, including some acoustic instruments and a whole lot of junk machinery. It constantly searches the internet and adjusts its "mood" between depressed and ecstatic by such vapid statistics as number of Myspace friends and Facebook invites. Its mood is then demonstrated by the tone of the music it plays, from dirgey melodrama to perky upbeat tones.

It's a really cheeky and fun project, and we're in a unique position here to overflow the Cybraphon's happiness sensors by bombarding its social networking pages with hits. Let's make the cabinet-sized whiner as cheerful as it can possibly be. [Cybraphon]

I think anyone reading this understands that the internet is the new trading post for artists, listeners, critics and salesmen. It's impossible to avoid some of the marketing campaigns carried out on MySpace and YouTube, but mostly music's move to the internet gives listeners more power to develop their own tastes, for better or for worse. You can turn to MP3 stores, recommendation services, internet radio and podcasts, MySpace—and even personal music blogs and forums that'll help you "sample" pirated music. Here's my take on each method of discovery and the relevance it has to listeners:

Recommendation Services

The Pandoras, Rhapsodys and Last.fms of the world are nice, because they do most of the discovery work for you, without pushing some corporate agenda on you behind the scenes (...ahem...Clear Channel). Even better, these services cater their first song selections around your initially revealed tastes, and as you give the software feedback as to what you like and don't like, they continue to refine and improve their artist recommendations. Zune's Mixview also provides a similar service, visually recommending similar artists and songs to those already in your library.

But my problem with a service like this is that you don't necessarily get music that's really new or groundbreaking. Sure, it might be new or exciting to the casual music fan, or just someone who spends all their time listening to these services, but for the true junkie—okay, maybe "music snob"—it's hard to really be wowed by any of these services. We've seen and heard most of it before.

MP3 Stores

Sometimes looking for new music to actually buy is a great way to discover new stuff. Whenever I stop through the legendary Amoeba Records in SF to buy actual, real CDs and vinyl, half my stack is full of stuff I'm completely unfamiliar with. The same holds true with MP3 stores.

Whether it's the monoliths like the iTunes and Amazon mp3 stores, or smaller music peddlers like Boomkat, Bleep, Beatport or Juno, most these stores not only let you click through and listen to all the 30-clips you can handle, but they have tons of recommendations in the sidebars, allowing you to explore similar artists and sounds. The only problem with this? If you don't want to buy all these tracks, hunting them down again is a drag. And in the case of some of the more obscure stores, you might not find the songs anywhere else.

Internet Radio and Podcasts
The beautiful thing about radio in its prime was that, top hits and genres-aside, you never knew what you were going to hear at any specific moment. That unpredictability has an addictive quality to it, and internet radio preserves that spirit to a degree. Though not as popular in the era of the iPod, I still tune in to internet radio stations when I'm feeling bored with my music collection.

Two of my personal favorites are KCRW out of LA, which sticks to indie and the non-top-40 pop hits, and Rinse FM out of London, which has a current rotation of DJs spinning Grime, Dubstep, House and whatever other electronic genres are currently bubbling over there. My favorite thing about these two stations are that they put the content above all else—playing music they like, and not necessarily music that will sell. (On perhaps the complete other end of the music spectrum, Wilson recommends similarly free-minded stations WFUV in New York, and KEXP in Seattle.)

The risk you run in your path of discovery, however, is that if your ears are at the mercy of the DJ you're listening to on internet radio, and if you don't like their taste, hard luck.

MySpace and Twitter

This is what I sort of view as the great democratic project in music. The complaint while the internet was in its infancy was that big media and big corporations had too much influence over what music made it, and what didn't. Obviously that's all changed, in large part to MySpace.

As a social media service at large, MySpace is an eyesore and an abomination. But as a place to discover new music, believe it or not, it's an invaluable goldmine. Big artists, small artists, fat artists, skinny artists—hell, your mom—all have the same basic framework at their dispersal to reach the masses when they're using MySpace. Here you can find your favorite established artists sneaking new tracks up on their page, you can find work from newer artists who have no official releases out, or you can stumble upon that completely random, brilliant band of 17-year-olds from Pawnee, Oklahoma throwing out avant-garde acid pop.

But the best part, is that you can click around their grid of friends, who most of the time are other musicians, and you can get lost in musical worlds you didn't know existed. I spent eight hours doing this one night last winter, and found enough new artists and styles that kept me interested for the rest of the year.

On the Twitter side, it's mostly just good for gathering names and news, but the fact that more musicians, writers and other people of interest are using the service to jot down thoughts means you get to see what they're into at any given moment. People ranging from The Root's ?uestlove, to The New Yorker's music writer Sasha Frere-Jones, to Diplo all twitter frequently about the new music they're digging at the time.

The Online Music Media

The big music magazines, like Rolling Stone and The Source, went from influential and respected in their prime for their great taste and writing, to walking punchlines later on for their willingness to make a buck at the cost of content. What this did was open the door for music blogs to jump in and give readers a new place to figure out what's new and good in the world of tunes.

Most of the bigger/more general music blogs (Pitchfork, Stereogum, Gorilla vs Bear) will never be the first ones to break a new artist, but they will be quick to tell you when known artists have new works available or coming out soon. Smaller, niche blogs (The Fader, Xlr8r, Valerie), however, will cultivate their sites like boutiques of taste, and always look for what's next in music, as opposed to what's now.

Filtering through sites like this takes a decent amount of work, however, and is for the dedicated music fan. Lesser enthusiasts need not apply.

"Sampling"

The Somali method is for the most hardcore of the hardcore. People who don't want to wait for the media to tell them what's what, and would rather just "sample" it for themselves, hit the internet hard and heavy for albums that leak weeks, sometimes months, ahead of their release.

"Sampling" these albums is not for the faint of heart. It takes a general sense of music knowledge, music news, ability to follow the right websites and some technical know how. Bittorrent (and once upon a time, Oink...RIP) is a hotbed for many music leaks as they hit, but since it's tough to mask your IP address if you're not in a private community, it's easier to "sample" the same album using RapidShare, MegaUpload or Mediafire. (In case you're wondering, avoid RapidShare at all costs, use Mediafire whenever possible...you'll save like 5 years of your life).

Generally the best place to "sample" these links to new album leaks are in the threads music-related forums. This could be a forum for an artist, a record label, a genre, or just music in general, but people always start an upload thread full of links for you to troll.

There are also blogs and sites that keep track of the latest leaks. Bolachas Gratis is probably the most famous of the bunch, famously hopping from blog service to blog service, finding a new home to post links to albums for you to "sample." Nodata.tv aims to do something similar, while there's another site, Did It Leak, that just lists albums it's seen floating around the internet. They even have a Twitter feed.

These days, once you have an album title, its as simple as visiting Google Blog Search, MAYBE typing an album name in the search bar in quotes, and MAYBE adding a 2009 and "+rar" or "+zip" to the search string (NO IDEA what those mean!). Search around for a few bit blogs that may have a link, and bam—new music to "sample".

This is undoubtedly the best method for pure discovery, because it lets you chase down the latest and greatest in music without being tainted by anyone else's opinion or tastes. But it also requires an obsessive, nerdish approach to music fandom that may have ramifications on your social life. Not to mention a total disregard for the economics of the music business, and for the needs of artists to be remunerated for their work. So, you know, proceed with caution.

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

UPDATE: Autoplaying video tossed after the jump. Sorry about that.

[cracked]

We asked Beth, his mom, what happened, exactly, and here's what she had to say about what went down.

My 13 year old managed to break the vacuum....thinking it would release him from that duty. He also has a list of other chores that were TYPED up for him to do Friday afternoon....one thing on the list was done...mind you these are simple things...empty the trash, clean your room, etc. Then I go thru the cookies on his computer and find out he has been checking out porn sites. Now there is a password so he can't even get on and his my-space page has a picture of snoopy on it now. Apparently I'm the meanest mom in the world, were his words.

I'm a single mom. I can't let them walk over me or I might never get up.

The score is now Beth - 1, her kid - 0. If you want to increase that score for Beth, go ahead and pick up a slightly used Xbox 360 for $250 and all of his games for $15 each, with bitterness from a 13-year-old coming along with them free of charge. [UPDATE: You guys killed Craigslist! Check out the new auction on eBay]

Sure, there have always been the badge-wearing nerds at the back of the forensics lab who knew how to "Google" things and check the "e-mail" of bigger, dumber cops. But now other officers are wising up, according to an AP story. Homicide detectives and beat cops are going online and just poking around, and the dumbasses who think they won't get caught by blabbing on their public pages are, well, getting totally nailed.

In one recent example, a detective in Newark, N.J., tracked the alleged killers of three college students by mining MySpace pages maintained by the suspects and their friends. In another, pictures and prose posted online by the killer of Taylor Behl, a 17-year-old Virginia college freshman, connected him to the victim and ended up revealing where her body was stashed.

Considering that content is still limited to an artist's page, this content sharing isn't completely open ended, even within the smallish confines of the MySpace network. Nonetheless, it's a progressive move by Sony, a company that is usually tighter with their media than a [fill in perverted orifice of choice belonging to religious position of preference]. How deals like this will tie in with rumors of Sony's upcoming distribution plan, however, are unknown. [japantoday]

According to the unconfirmed rumblings, Facebook is working on expanding their interface. Musical artists will now have special pages with integrated widgets for promoting band events. The upcoming iTunes widget will allow users to sample and even eventually buy music through Facebook (in support beyond the current iLike software). iPod owners who use Facebook will surely take glee in this new integration, but honestly, many of us avoid MySpace like the plague because it's full of a bunch of losers with crappy bands. Now all those losers with crappy bands are going to set up pages on Facebook, find their way into our networks and infiltrate our clean social networking. Not that we're paranoid or anything. [paidContent via macworld]

T-MOBILE USA AND DANGER INTRODUCE MYSPACE MOBILE FOR T-MOBILE SIDEKICK

Always-On MySpace Mobile Platform Enables Real-Time Updates and a Custom
User Interface for the T-Mobile Sidekick

BELLEVUE, WASH./ PALO ALTO, CALIF./ LOS ANGELES—Sept. 20, 2007—T-Mobile USA, Inc., Danger, Inc., and MySpace, the country's most trafficked Web site, today announced a highly integrated MySpace Mobile experience for the T-Mobile® Sidekick®. The announcement marks the first partnership between MySpace with T-Mobile and Danger.

"Sidekick users are often the hub of their circle of friends, and MySpace is the No. 1 Web site our users visit on their device," said Jeff Hopper, vice president of marketing at T-Mobile USA. "We've worked closely with MySpace and Danger to create a powerful MySpace Mobile experience that is uniquely tailored for the T-Mobile Sidekick. We think MySpace and Sidekick users are going to love having complete control over their MySpace universe right from the palm of their hand."

The MySpace Mobile software is tightly integrated with the T-Mobile Sidekick hardware, user interface, and all the applications on the device. The new MySpace Mobile for the T-Mobile Sidekick is designed to optimize the delivery of data to each user and preserve the features that MySpace users love on the PC. All aspects of the MySpace Mobile experience are tailored so users can simply navigate on the T-Mobile Sidekick screen and enjoy fast access to T-Mobile's robust wireless network.

"Innovating on our mobile platform is one of the most important initiatives for us," said Amit Kapur, vice president of business development for MySpace. "Given the high degree of MySpace and Sidekick usage overlap, we know our users will be thrilled to have this optimized experience."

MySpace Mobile for the T-Mobile Sidekick features include:

Customized User Interface (UI)
The new service has pertinent information including new messages, friend requests and comments located in one easy-to-navigate home screen. To use other aspects of the service, users simply navigate through the four main sections of the application: Home, MyMail, Blog, and Search. The Sidekick's directional pad allows users to jump easily from each activity without waiting for a page to load.

Real-time Updates
MySpace Mobile users can stay signed in to MySpace even when they are on the go with their T-Mobile Sidekick. Real-time features include:
Profile editing, which allows users to edit their MySpace profile directly from the MySpace application, quickly and easily, wherever they are. Profile updates are immediately reflected on the MySpace Web site.
Optimized photo management, which empowers users to — with the click of a button — upload photos with captions from their T-Mobile Sidekick photo galleries, directly to MySpace.
Full-featured MySpace messaging, including push content and notifications powered by the Danger service. The service automatically pushes content, such as new friend requests or new messages, to the end user, meaning that users are notified of new MySpace activity even when they are using other T-Mobile Sidekick applications. This changes the interaction paradigm from request/ response (as it is via the browser today) to real-time, push messaging.
The application will provide "Online Now" status for a user's friends who are online, further advancing the "always-on" model.
Users can read, reply to or post comments to the profiles and photos of friends, as well as read and reply to comments on their own profiles.

Iconic Sidekick design
Customers consider the T-Mobile Sidekick a social lifeline and a messaging powerhouse thanks to intuitive features such as a large color screen, full QWERTY keyboard, and a host of communications capabilities including instant messaging and Web browsing.

The MySpace Mobile service is made possible on the T-Mobile Sidekick through two components. The first component is the client software, being made available for download in a staged rollout to the T-Mobile Sidekick user base throughout the next several weeks. The second component is the service that powers the application. Danger has created a private interconnection to MySpace, whereby each user can access all of his or her account data and interact with friends in real time.

"The first phase of Danger's product evolution focused on providing a rich mobile messaging experience, as part of the overall Internet offering," said Henry R. (Hank) Nothhaft, CEO and Chairman of Danger, Inc. "The new MySpace Mobile for Sidekick showcases the next stage of our evolution, tapping directly into compelling Web-based content and real-time information services and delivering them in an uncompromised fashion to mobile consumers."

This week, T-Mobile will begin a multi-week rollout of the new application to T-Mobile Sidekick users. T-Mobile customers can access and subscribe to the service through the Download Catalog. The new service will be available to all Sidekick iD and Sidekick 3 users by the end of October. For more information about the T-Mobile Sidekick, please visit HYPERLINK "http://www.sidekick.com"www.sidekick.com.

A-Space is a social community ala Facebook that includes blogs, searchable databases and collectively editable content. Except it's classified. Because just as if the government's information on the real whereabouts of the world's terrorists was leaked to the public, it would be equally damning to know which agents were "at work," who was interested in "random play," and just how many members of our CIA have Dawson's Creek listed as a favorite TV show. It's all for our own protection, trust me. [yahoonews]

In non–YouTube news, the new MySpace Mobile 2 app is available on the Ocean now. It's much better than the old app, and actually lets you Photocast by publishing pics to your bulletin so your MySpace buddies can see. Great for up-to-date vacation pics for your co-workers to get jealous at.

Helio

Sidekick 3 and Sidekick iD users will be able to grab it, and the Sidekick Slide (a.k.a. Zante) will get this installed by default. – Jason Chen

T-Mobile FAQ Page [T-Mobile via Boy Genius Report via Crunchgear]

Good riddance, I say. I'm sure the types of people who would dick around on MySpace for two hours in a store aren't the types of people who would actually, you know, buy anything, and Apple has no responsibility to provide free Web access to the general mouth-breathing population. Just don't block Gmail, OK guys? I'll be quick, I promise. –Adam Frucci

Think Secret [via Crave]

According to Reuters, the service will be a combination of Google News and Digg, both aggregating the most popular news stories around the Web and adding "a social element to traditional news consumption by giving readers the ability to determine what becomes the top news on MySpace." In other words, in spite of there being 25 categories and 300 subcategories, it still might end up "all K-Fed, all the time." If it does, you have only the kids to blame.

Something is definitely going on. Follow the jump to see what happened when visited news.myspace.com.

By a not terribly wild guess, we determined that the URL of the new site will be news.myspace.com. This morning, the following dialog box confirmed our guess:

Keep checking that URL, because the MySpace News beta may start today. Just remember, News Corp. didn't make its name by giving people the news; it made it by selling ads. The more you participate in MySpace, the more exciting you will be to advertisers. That, according to the story, is Murdoch's main motivation. If you don't think you're being targeted, pay attention to the word "target" in the following quote:

"Many advertisers have expressed interest in the service, which allows them to target the MySpace community in a more direct way," Brian Norgard, co-founder of Newroo, a company purchased by News Corp. last year, which created MySpace News' technology, said in an interview.

Go ahead, it's okay to sell your soul. All we ask is that you vote for a Gizmodo story or three each and every time you're on MySpace News. Thanks in advance. – Wilson Rothman

MySpace to test news service to boost ad revenue [Reuters]

The content? Well, it's going to have TV clips from NBC and Fox, plus films from their respective movie studios. You'll be able to watch ad-supported shows like 24 and Heroes for free, and they're working on more deals with Sony and Time Warner to supply shows and clips. Sounds like we've finally got someone to stand up with GooTube in a non-theoretical way. – Jason Chen

Squawk on the Street [CNBC]

Thanks Ray!