www.santana.com
Santana
www.santana.com
There’s no use escaping one of the most ubiquitous
musicians alive today, whether he’s playing on MTV, the radio
or sweeping an awards night. Carlos Santana is everywhere, and now
he’s on the world wide web. At www.santana.com, you can find
practically everything having to do with Santana. You can search to
see where and when Santana is touring, get biographies on the band
members and get updated news on his albums, as well as personal
life. It’s easy to sign up for the Santana fan club too, with
an online registration form. One great feature of the Web site is a
complete discography that has a listing of every album Santana has
made or been a part of, in addition to his special projects and
concerts. It is also possible to learn about Santana’s
philanthropic efforts, organizations he supports and his own
charitable foundation through the site. Also featured is a large
collection of downloadable and streaming songs and video excerpts
from concerts and albums throughout the guitarist’s career.
Furthermore, die-hard fans can peruse the online store, where they
can purchase slightly overpriced T-shirts, music albums, books,
jewelry and even percussion instruments with a few movements of the
finger. Technology has even brought an AOL Instant Messenger-type
program called “Cahoots” to this Web site, which allows
people to send instant messages, read and post messages and even
talk in real time to each other after downloading the free program.
Santana.com is easily navigable and has a good site design that
refrains from attacking with too many visuals. Obviously, a
high-powered musician like Santana can afford to have a
good-looking, well-designed Web site. The links are easy to follow
and it isn’t hard to find sought out information. Parts of
the site, such as news and biographies, are even in Spanish, German
and French. There is content on this site for the casual listener,
as well as the devoted Santana fan. Whether one wants any
information on Santana’s musical career, band or just desires
to hear “Maria, Maria” or “Smooth” for the
billionth time on-demand, Santana.com is the right place to go.
Chris Young Rating: 8
Music Match
www.musicmatch.com
With the advent of downloadable music, college students and
music lovers everywhere have built up their online music libraries
to mammoth proportions. Now, however, MusicMatch, Inc. introduces
another way to simplify online listening with the creation of the
world’s first all-in-one digital music jukebox. MusicMatch is
unique as it personalizes the online listening experience. With a
database of over 100,000 popular songs, users can download music as
well as discover new music with easy-to-use tools such as the Music
Library and an integrated Music Guide. They can also organize their
music and customize playlists based on genre, listening patterns,
artist or mood as well as have access to a continual source of new
music. Furthermore, the site features a MusicMatch Radio unlike
other current Internet radio applications as it
“learns” from the musical tastes of the user. The more
someone listens to a specific band or artist, the more the
MusicMatch Radio streams music within the same genre or with a
similar sound to the user. The site also offers music fans the
ability to create and share their own Internet radio stations with
others through e-mail, claiming to be the first personal MP3 radio
service. Music lovers can customize their radio stations in four
ways, such as through the default, My Station, in which a playlist
is created for the user based on his or her listening habits.
Besides this feature, the site also simplifies the process of
making CDs, allowing users to record their own CDs from their
current collections. The free, downloadable software is available
in the latest 6.0 version at the company’s web site,
MusicMatch.com. However, for a fee of $19.99, music lovers can also
upgrade to the MusicMatch Jukebox Plus version. The advantages of
the Plus version include the ability to print CD case inserts with
the album art and track titles, as well as changing the
listener’s desktop wallpaper according to the album cover
featured in the Jukebox media window. Musicmatch.com is versatile
and convenient, offering a wide variety of music and a number of
options to not only organize a huge store of music, but also to
personalize it according to the listener’s tastes. The
company itself, MusicMatch, Inc. is dedicated to developing music
personalization technology. Because it offers a number of ways to
customize the listening experience all from one place, it’s
one of the best sites for online listening.
Kristen Lara Rating: 7
Check The Grid
www.checkthegrid.com
With a constant large selection of cookie-cutter action flicks,
ponderous dramas and over-hyped blockbusters, the sheer number of
mediocre movies sometimes discourages movie fanatics from venturing
to the theater marquee. Take heart, however. With the number of
online Web sites dedicated to movies, the process of selecting a
film to watch has been made easily. From critic reviews to
showtimes, Web listings are good resources. But there are so many
of them, one may need to use a critic site (or several) to narrow
down the selection, then plug in another site just to find where
it’s playing. With checkthegrid.com, though, the ordeal gets
much easier. The main draw of this Web site is that it takes a
number of critics’ ratings of movies and compiles them into a
convenient grid, saving the time of referencing them separately.
The grid lays out a list of movies and displays along side them
traffic lights signaling the critics’ review of each one.
This way it is easy to see how a given movie sizes up by checking
the color of the traffic light: green, yellow, and red.
Checkthegrid.com also links theatre showtimes to the movies, and
rates movies out on video. The critics featured, who include Roger
Ebert, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Entertainment Weekly,
also all have their own Web sites, and checkthegrid.com links their
critiques to the grid for easy reference. Users can also register
with the site to access more features; for instance, one can post
their own personal opinions and ratings of movies. Choosing from a
list of 10 additional critics and seeing what other users have said
about a particular movie are other options given to registered
users. The biggest flaw with the site is that most critics
don’t rate movies on a green/yellow/red system, making their
ratings rather ambiguous. Many use a 1-10 rating, thumbs up/down,
and some don’t even use one. So, how does checkthegrid.com
provide a traffic signal system for critics who rate movies in some
other fashion? They use their own opinion. Hence, in actuality
viewers are basing their opinions by looking at a distilled opinion
of an opinion. The site’s authors even admit, “Our
classification system is imprecise and by no means the final word.
We recognize that certain reviews are vague, and in most cases
we’ll default to a “˜yellow color.'” But,
this shortcoming can be overlooked by the fact that the site is so
easy to use. By capitalizing on what other Web sites have to offer,
checkthegrid.com is a good resource in one’s quest to stop
wasting time and money on watching those B-grade movies.
Chris Young Rating: 8