Moby Offers his Music for Free

Message from Moby:

hi,
i'll keep this brief.
this portion of moby.com, 'film music', is for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short.
to use the site you log in(or on?) and are then given a password.
you can then listen to the available music and download whatever you want to use in your film or video or short.
the music is free as long as it's being used in a non-commercial or non-profit film, video, or short.
if you want to use it in a commercial film or short then you can apply for an easy license, with any money that's generated being given to the humane society.
i hope that you find what you're looking for,
moby

We applauded this decision by Moby and look forward to speaking with him about helping him offer his music and support his charitable causes.

Arcade Fire Interactive Video

I went to high school with Win Butler of Arcade fire and today I stumbled across this cool interactive video that they put out for Neon Bible which was released earlier this year. Director Vincent Morisset and producers Jean-Luc Della Montagna and Nú Films hatched this interactive music video for Arcade Fire. Click around on the page with your mouse and watch what you can do. It's not over the top or too overly complicated, but it is an engaging sidshow to the great music (if that is your taste), and a impressive example of the marriage of interactive digital content with a refined sensibility.

Review over at KillerStartups

I got an email yesterday from Gonzalo Arzuaga that we were reviewed over at Killerstartups.

"We wanted to let you know your company got reviewed in our blog KillerStartups.com.

There's only two ways for your startup to make it to our blog:
1) Any of our registered readers submitted it
2) Our editorial team found your company through our daily scan of the 'Top 100' blogs that write about Internet and technology.

You can read the review about your company here.

Regards,

Gonzalo Arzuaga
Co-founder – KillerStartups, Inc.
http://www.KillerStartups.com

Thanks for the shout out and if you do check it out, please vote for us by clicking on the "Killers" icon on the left hand side of the blog Title.

Some Cutcaster Coverage

Over at Museum of Modern Betas (MoMB), they have highlighted our site. YEEHAW. Since we are still in alpha and they are reporting on sites in beta we might have jumped the gun a bit but thanks to them for posting about us. To learn more about the site, check out our about us page.

Fotolog’s $90 Million Acquisition by Hi-Media Completed

Hi-Media, operator of one of Europe’s largest ad networks and micro-payment services, completed its acquisition today of Fotolog. It only took a few months and a few large legal bills I bet. The French Internet company had previously announced the deal last August but it is completed as of now.

Fotolog CEO John Borthwick is moving on to his incubator/investment fund Betaworks.

Breaking News

Corbis on the verge of Profitability. CEO Gary Shenk mused "I have the moment planned when I can send Bill Gates the first dollar." Bravoooo.

And in other news, Corbis laid off 3/4 of its staff today to get there.

Corbis offers Bloggers Ads with Corbis Images embedded in them ;-)

Corbis, Mr. Billy Gate's stock photography house, will allow users to download images for their blogs from its website free of charge. Butttttt.....

And there is always a but in these things. The catch is that each photo which is downloaded will either include an ad overlay on part of the image, or embedded advertising that pops up when a Web user runs a cursor over the picture. Each photo that is downloaded will also come with an embedded banner advertisement beneath the photo. The service will allow people with blogs to add copyrighted images legally, said CEO Gary Shenk at the Reuters Media Summit in NYC on Tuesday. The service is in beta testing right now.

Audience vs. Content

Which is more important? When building a website that is supported by both a strong community audience and a diverse body of content, what element do you need first to get growth going and then what do you need over time to keep it going?

Do you need quality content first to attract the audiences and build community or do you need the audiences to attract the better content and content creators? Which one should lead? Which one is more important?

This will then lead to a discussion on the "hub and spoke" distribution model and the "call and response" model that we will talk about in future blogposts. Discuss.

Free Photoshop Plugins & Filters

Hope some of these freebies can help you out. Take a look and let us know which ones you think are the best.

8bf Plugins - Here you get FREE AAA 8bf PLUGINS for PhotoFilter Studio and other photo editors. Windows only

Amphisoft - Free plug-in filters for Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Fireworks, Photoshop Elements, JASC and
Corel PaintShop Pro, PhotoPaint and other image editors for Windows.

Cybia Plug-In Filters - Check this freeware filters pack out which includes 6 filters

DCFilters - They have large selection of filters including ones for bricks, edger etc..

Deep Paint 2.0 - This site offers a realistic painting experience for digital artists and graphic professionals. Very cool site

Des Filtres - You have to be a French speaker but there looks to be over 100 filters that are free.

Digital ArtShop - Large number of filters and plugins for you.

Flaming Pear - This is a link to the download page. The page includes filters and plugins, including Creative Pack, Mr.Contrast, Hue and Cry, LunarCell, Flood, Cool Designer Plugins, Solar Cell, Flexify, Photography Pack, Polymerge, Glitterato, India Ink, Tesselation, Patterns, Free Plugins, and more.

Free Photoshop Plugins - This site has a few free Photoshop plugins

GraphicXtras - A number of plugins for Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, and other programs.

GoPog - Filters include Mono Renditionizer, Variable Blurrinator, Mono Renditionizer, Lab Overlayer, and more.

Harry’s Filters - Harry’s Filters is a free Photoshop-compatible plugin. It has up to 69 different image effects.

Little Ink Spot - Include chalkoholic for a chalk effect on your photos

Luce - Light effects.

Mehdi Plugins - Free Photoshop plugins include Absolute Color Blots, Contrast Balance, Color MegaMix, and more

MV’s Plugins - A number of Photoshop compatible plugins

Photoshop Filters Factory - Around 400 free Photoshop filters.

Photoshop Scripts Plugins - For all you Spanish speakers here is your site with freeware filters.

Photo-Plugins - These seem to be high quality Photoshop plugins including these plugins

Richard Roseman - Worth checking out.

Vector Plugins - Need to pull out your Japanese for this page but the plugins are still usable if you speak English.

Let us know which ones you like and we should include.

TV Guide announces Online Video Awards winners

TV Guide announced the winners in 18 categories for its inaugural Online Video Awards. Is it me or are a lot of the winners of this year Online Video Awards dominated by large networks?
Even among the nominees, many of the major broadcast and cable networks were represented along with other entertainment sites including Funnyordie (my favorite is Pearl the landlord which if you haven't seen you must), SuperDeluxe and YouTube. The winners were chosen by fans on TVGuide with over 1.75 million votes cast, and by TV Guide editors. I'm not sure how their votes were weighted.

Congrats to all the winners!