It’s been some time now since I found myself the subject of a wide variety of  commentary about a situation in which I was part of  a brief, expletive-laden outburst on Twitter. Much to my chagrin, if you Google my name you can figure out what I’m talking about.

I am conscious that addressing this now may not be in my best interest, but after some long thought, I have declined to speak a little bit about what happened. As someone that works in the newspaper industry, one that I truly love being a part of, and ever-so mindful of how keeping quiet could affect my career in this business, I felt that I should at least offer my perspective on what happened. (more…)

Ask any music-lover what albums they’d bring to a deserted island and be prepared to experience an onslaught of varied sonic opinions and genres. Ask any music-lover what music they could hear in the desert and be prepared to be disappointed.

Okay, maybe “being disappointed” is a bit too harsh – lovers of Arabic and Indian music are in for a treat here in Abu Dhabi – but for an expat who grew up with fond memories of breathing in Beatles on vinyl, wearing up several dozen Walkman’s, CD players and MP3 gadgets and a brief stint in a band (I sang; don’t ask), the music scene here is hard to swallow.

There’s roughly a half-dozen English-language radio stations here – Virgin Radio, Dubai One, Dubai 92 etc. – on the dial. None of them offer any of the indie, classic or less-mainstream rock music I grew up on and subsequently, wish to continue seeking out. I don’t know if DJs truly like this or whether they’re forced to play this but instead, we are greeted to the latest Top 40 mainstream pop hits – mostly Britney/Akon-styled fluff. If there are any songs with what I call ” distorted guitars”, they’re likely to fall under the Nickelback or Daughtery. Far from what you’d classify as an enjoyable listening experience, eh?

Indeed, there are some saving graces – several bars inside hotels offer cover bands  performing “today’s hits and yesterday’s classic” but most are profoundly comical. I often joke that any cover band I see often had dreams of “making it” one day and now are relegated to playing other people’s songs for bemused expats. This is, of course, if you can find a venue that isn’t blasting inane dance-electronica beeps and bloops over a ear-bleeding obnoxiously loud volume. Find me a place here that features mashups, remixes, and new releases – while mixing in some old favourites – without relying on techno to draw the crowds and I’ll go tomorrow.

There was also the recent Womad music festival which I admit I had a great time at, largely in part to Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant headlining the event. Coldplay also performed at Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace, but being not much of a fan, I didn’t attend. The same could have been said for Bon Jovi, who played here sometime last year. I also missed the Desert Rock Festival in March, an event which hosted the likes of Motorhead and Opeth, but it felt kinda short on some audible talent. An Al Jazeera documentary on Middle Eastern metal can be found on Youtube here and here.

So, instead of being spoiled by a various cacophony of tunes literally at my Toronto doorsteps, I find myself plugging in my iPhone to my car radio to listen to downloaded tunes and letting myself become surprised whenever a a cover band plays something decent. But I still haven’t come across some indie, punk, metal or hard rock in this area – even a tinge or two would be a welcome relief.

Maybe I haven’t found it yet – there’s many rocks around here in which I have yet to look under. And therein lies an opportunity for such like-minded folks to organize and publicize the heck out of these events. The UAE shouldn’t be a place that only fosters fluffly, mindless pop music – only genres should be allowed to bloom as well.

There’s a great article on ReadWriteWeb discussing how one of Facebook’s main rivals is, in fact the Mozilla Firefox browser. I’d recommend that you click the link to get the entire context of the article but it cites Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang’s  The Future of the Social Web report to summarize its main point:

“… in a bid to extend the reach of its new browser, Chrome, we expect Google to build OpenID and its associated friend connections into the browser; look for Firefox and eventually Internet Explorer to copy this feature. Facebook and MySpace will also likely build a way for users to surf the Web within the Facebook experience, retaining the social functionality. These connections won’t be perfect, but they’ll allow social networks to colonize communities and other parts of the Web, extending their experience out to other sites through the shared ID. As a result, in two years, portable identities will become a ubiquitous part of the online experience as they reach maturity.”

Interesting, no? Now, in the ongoing attempt to throw more ideas at the Newspaper Industry Survival (NIS) wall, I’m just going to put this out there – if Firefox or Internet Explorer web browsers will be able to help bridge social connections in their own communities, what’s stopping newspapers such as the Globe and Mail or The New York Times from doing the same? (more…)

The following column was originally published in The National in the Business section, May 1, 2009:

Apple’s iPhone may be popular with consumers, but for software developers it has been a dream come true.

Nine months after Apple began to sell applications to iPhone and iPod Touch users through its iTunes App Store, the company announced that it surpassed the one billion download mark last week.

While it is unlikely the 13-year-old from a small town in Connecticut, who has been announced as the lucky billionth downloader, fully appreciates the significance of the honour, the accomplishment confirms what many -analysts have been saying for the past few years: the mobile phone market has made the device the computing platform of the future. (more…)