For those of you who aren’t yet familiar with Alltop, think of it as a public rss feed of sorts, or a “virtual magazine rack” with all the best reads of the web laid out at your disposal. It’s pretty cool. Peep this visual to get a better idea of how it works.

I was aimlessly roaming about the web earlier today when, whadda you know, I stumbled across the freshly redesigned website of one of my favorite hip hop record labels in the game, Stones Throw Records. They’ve implemented a new three column layout as well as an online store, and I must say, things looks super clean!

If there’s one thing that I have to give Stones Throw major props on, aside from the music of course, it’s their kick ass branding and design efforts. From album cover art to fashion to promo merchandise, they just get things right (take a look at this latest project). There aren’t too many record labels left out there that still put a great deal of focus on those areas, you know.

All in all, the Stones Throw site is one of the more well designed, not to mention personal/connected/accessible hip hop record label sites around. And this new redesign just took it to another level. The only thing missing from their site at this point (they already have messageboard, behind the scenes/user submitted picture gallery, and podcast)? Artists’ blogs, or at the very least a general label blog. Hop to it, guys!

Interesting feature in the New York Times on Macrumors.com founder and senior editor, Arnold Kim, and his decision to stop practicing medicine and pursue blogging full time. The kicker: his popular blog now nets him a hefty six figure income (the same amount he made as a doctor):

Stepping away from medicine felt somewhat strange, he admits. Dr. Kim was bringing home a six-figure income as a doctor, but he recognized that blogging was becoming more lucrative. He says the site also yields a six-figure income for him.

About three years ago, through a combination of Google text advertising, banner ads and commissions on product sales, MacRumors started turning a substantial profit. While Apple is obviously not an advertiser, other technology-oriented companies are, including Verizon, the online audio-book store Audible.com and the information technology products company CDW.

Still, he hesitated to make it a full-time job because he enjoyed medicine — and he had invested almost $200,000 in his education. But he finally concluded that “on paper, it was an easy decision.”

Just goes to show you that content (plus traffic) is king!

(via NYT)

Then said ghost blogger is doing a pretty half assed job over on Kanye Universecity. That’s my short response to this whole situation.

If Kanye really is doing all the blogging himself, then he should definitely be commended on his efforts. The guy is an international celebrity, with a demanding schedule, and somehow he still finds the time to deliver several blog updates a day–you gotta respect that. However, if it’s all the work of a ghost blogger within his camp (which he denies), then it’s all pretty pathetic. Not because it’s false advertisement, but because I’d expect higher posting quality from such a person. I mean, assuming that a ghost blogger’s schedule wouldn’t be nearly as demanding as Kanye’s, I’d like to think that he/she would have a little more time on his/her hands to compose a bit more than just the one sentence, picture heavy, “oh look cool” type posts that we often see on Kanye’s blog (again, if it’s Kanye himself, he gets a pass, considering his hectic, stadium status schedule and all).

One last thing, and this is something that I’d like to explore further in a future post, I can’t understand why celebrity hip-hop blogs & fan sites feel the need to follow in the footsteps of existing hip-hop news and gossip blogs. Instead of sticking to the exclusive, behind the scenes content that you’d expect from an artist’s blog, many dish out the same news and gossip that can be found on hundreds of other hip-hop sites around the web. So disappointing, so disconnected.

I didn’t get around to sharing this bit of news last week, but Gureala was recently added to the 2008 edition of A Blog List. The list, compiled by Stefano Ricci of the Italian cool hunting blog ELMANCO in conjunction with Fubiz (France), is a global directory of the best design, graphics, fashion, advertising and new technologies blogs on the web. Major shout out to Stefano and Fubiz for the recognition! Just when I’m thinking that no one’s out there paying attention to what’s going on here on the site, I receive news like this in my inbox!

Gureala’s amongst good company, with a few of my favorite blogs and giants of the tech/cool hunting game also making appearances on the list: Kanye, Engadget, Jean Snow and Hypebeast to name a few. There are tons of great blogs to be discovered on the list, so do yourself a favor and explore the thing in its entirety!

[H/T: Unfogged]

The magazine’s entire archives–complete with articles, covers, photos and video footage–will go live on the web later this week. And its all free!

On Thursday, the magazine will introduce the Vault, a free site within SI.com that contains all the words Sports Illustrated has ever published and many of the images, along with video and other material, in a searchable database.

The Vault’s search engine lets a reader search by athlete, coach, team, sport, decade and year. Want to see every Sports Illustrated cover with Magic Johnson, or all the articles that mentioned him in 1986? Easy.

The site also allows a reader to see high-resolution images of old issues of the magazine as it appeared in physical form, including ads, using a mouse to “turn” pages. Jeff Price, president of SI Digital, said, “We’re confident that there’s nothing else like this.”

This is a huge leap forward for SI, and a move that I certainly hope will inspire other mags and newspapers with an online presence (since most seem to be comfortable with their current lo-fi, text-only archives).

For the sake of wishful thinking, two publications that I’d love to see implement this sort of feature on their sites: Vibe and The Source. Imagine that!

In the meantime, have a look this massive archives of SI covers.

[via NY Times ]

There’s communal blogging, and then there’s communal blogging.

The NY Times chops it up with a group of young bloggers that live and blog from their D.C. crib known as “The Flophouse”.

Peep: Washington Doesn’t Sleep Here

Given the fact that music and MySpace go hand-in-hand these days, it should come as no surprise that the insanely popular social networking site is now looking to launch its very own online music service. As part of a joint venture that would include the record industry’s ‘big four’ (Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, EMI Group, and Sony BMG Music Entertainment ), the music service, currently dubbed ‘MySpace Music’, would not only allow users to purchase music through the site, but also listen to copyrighted music for free (a featured which will be suppported by ad revenue). Peep:

The new proposal isn’t fully fleshed out, but people familiar with the plan said it is likely to include both free, streaming music and paid MP3 downloads, which can be played on virtually any portable device, including Apple Inc.’s popular iPod.

The streaming service would be supported by revenue from advertising sales, which would be split with the labels, these people said. MySpace executives have also discussed the possibility of selling merchandise like T-shirts through the service, and of running a paid subscription service that would let users play rented music on some specially configured portable devices, though probably not on iPods, these people said.

First Hulu, now this…I see you News Corp!

[via WSJ]