iTunes contribution (09/14/06)

I think in our times of mass everything and overpopulated everything else it is easy to feel insignificant, minute and inconsequential. Our voice seems to never get heard. I have to believe that this is a significant draw to online publishing/blogging. To think that your ruminations, your exactions, your convictions are available to people around the World, I think that's very appealing. And if you think that people don't read random stuff, well, how about this story.
Four years ago I began writing food and film reviews for a local magazine back home in Orange County. I had that gig for one year until I decided to move to Los Angeles at which point I relinquished my responsibilities. In that time I wrote a total of twelve pieces, all of which I have posted as blogs. Matter of fact, I believe them to be the first twelve blogs I posted on MySpace. And I'm proud of a few of them. I really enjoyed that experience.
And one time, oh about two or three months ago, I ran into a good friend of mine who still lives back home and she told me that she had been wanting to check out a certain sushi place but wanted to look up a review first. She types in the name and the very first hit is my article. Although, she didn’t see my name until she had finished it and decided to patronize Samurai Sushi.
I took a lot of pleasure in that story because while I was writing those food and film reviews I got little in the way of feedback. Sure I’d run into a few friends or their parents who had known me since kindergarten, but by and large those who didn’t know me personally didn’t know what I looked like.
So to think that I actually painted a tasty enough picture as to motivate someone to dine at the establishment, that felt good. My review had fulfilled it’s purpose. And funny enough, the hit that came up was from a live journal account I had started and then abandon soon after I began to freebase MySpace. It wasn’t even from the actual magazine or the magazine’s webpage. And so this lonely little posting out in the ether (or inter) was stumbled upon like a piece of space debris’ chance encounter with a spaceship. BUT, what I’m really writing about has a much broader impact.
About three months ago I wrote Apple about a programming suggestion I had for iTunes. I have an extensive amount of music on my computer. It’s easily the largest space taker on my hard drive. I’ve had to buy an external because of it. And because of this mass of files, it can become wearisome to navigate my albums, file by file, like sifting through grains of sand.
So I thought to myself, how do I browse through my albums in the real world? Why is that so much more enjoyable? Well, all of my cds are in large 200 disc folders. And I have them displayed with the booklet and the cd underneath. So I can just flip through and browse BY COVER ART.
So this what I told Apple; I told them that it would be so much more enjoyable to browse my music collection by cover art, as I do in the real world. And what do you think is the major difference in the iTunes 7 update? Yep. You can browse by cover art two different ways. Perhaps they were already working on the idea, perhaps they were toying with the idea, but I like to think that someone passed MY idea on, an idea from some dude who is insignificant, minute and inconsequential.

I am responsible for a much more enjoyable perusal of your music collection. And this affects people around the world in a small way. Isn’t that neat.