MATTHEWGOODONLINE

I am currently sitting in a little bit of paradise in southern Ontario called Niagara-On-The-Lake. Tonight I perform acoustically at the Jackson Triggs winery. It’s been a fun day so far – warm and relaxing. The people here are fantastic and I am looking forward to the show – primarily because I’m going to just drink a lot of Pinot Noir and wing it. I had a hard time deciding what to play, so the set list ended up being 20 or 21 songs long.

By way of another Facebook advert, more single ladies waiting at home, glued to their computers, waiting for lonely men to find them. In this particular case it seems to be four close friends, all of whom are having difficulties finding dates. From what I can tell, all four are employed in the promotions field.

When it comes to live records, or at least those made back in the day when entering a studio afterwards and cleaning it up wasn’t an option, there are always intrigues and little tidbits of information that diehard fans find out and revel in.

Live At Massey Hall is no exception.

As I wrote in a previous entry, the recording is untouched - it is completely live. There was no re-tracking in a studio afterwards. But there is one interesting little turn that will be of interest to fans.

During the choruses of Everything Is Automatic I typically step away from the microphone and let the crowd sing them. On that night, the crowd mics crapped out, producing nothing more than a giant audio blur. Thankfully we were smart enough to record the show the night before in Peterborough, during which I did sing the choruses. Thus, the only alteration on the forthcoming album is that when you hear me sing the choruses of Everything Is Automatic (and just the choruses), the vocal was taken from the show recorded the night before.

There are obviously video clips of the song taken that night that clearly show me stepping away from the microphone, so someone would have figured it out sooner or later. Thus, to claim that the recording is completely taken from the Massey Hall show, and then to have such video clips discovered, would have raised some eyebrows. That would be why I’m writing about it, to inform those that will be purchasing the recording that that bit is still live, just that it was taken from the performance the night before – which is, I must admit, unfortunate, because it would have been cool to have captured the audience singing the choruses.

So there you have it. It’s still purely live, it’s just that the choruses of Everything Is Automatic come from the recording of the show the previous night.

Interesting Album Trivia

I have not heard the recording, nor do I plan on listening to it. I am, as those that know me well will tell you, a perfectionist. And while am I sure it is replete with the sorts of quirks and flaws that always end up being the best parts of live recordings, I just can’t bring myself to listen to it because I would, no doubt, tear it apart.

Seriously, Who Are They Trying to Kid?

You can vote on advertising content on Facebook now. You can label an advert misleading or uninteresting and so forth. That said, and as I mentioned last night, there is no way that the girls in those pictures are single – and if they are, they’re certainly not on the dating website that the pictures are promoting. How do I know this? That’s right, I fucking looked! Busted!

On a related note, I ended up watching You Don’t Mess With The Zoltan last night and if the girls on the beaches of Israel are that hot (and like to unabashedly disco) - I’m moving there.

The new del.icio.us design has been launched and it’s an amazing improvement. The same cannot be said of Facebook, whose new design looks as though it was farmed out to a high school computer class. True, the new tabbing system solves some layout problems, but it’s even more confused now than it was before. While Myspace might look like complete ass, at least they’re consistent.

While I am a steadfast Safari user, while on the topic of social apps I should also mention Flock, which is perhaps the world’s premier browser for integrating social applications. If you haven’t taken it for a spin, I highly suggest downloading it and giving it a whirl.

I thought it best to go through the various social networking applications that I use and clarify the status of each. As many of you know, I am a huge proponent of many social networking applications, especially as they apply to the creation of cohesive online communities. That said; having given some thought to my personal application of them to do with this website and fan participation, here’s a quick rundown on my thoughts regarding each.

Flickr

In my opinion flickr remains the best social networking application out there. True, its primary function is photographic, but unlike other applications it has caused me absolutely zero headaches, which would be why my page has remained unchanged for so long.

In truth, flickr is no different than Facebook. True, it lacks most of Facebook’s annoying interactive features, but at its base it is still an application that allows for the creation of a community and the ability to employ an internal messaging system. It’s design and usability is also beyond reproach.

If you have a flickr page, I have never had a problem adding others as friends. Just ensure that you check out my profile page first.

Facebook

I’ll not deny that I think Facebook neat. It is, in truth, simply a much better and well thought out version of Mysapce in many ways. But despite those positives that it offers, it also has a great deal of negatives.

The first is the recent decision to have users go online to see which of their friends is online. Thus, if you have thousands of friends, the vast majority of which you don’t actually know, you’re commonly bombarded by chat messages when you do go online. This places me in a very awkward position, as I feel it rude not to respond. At the same time, I simply cannot conduct chat conversations every time I am online with dozens of people simultaneously. Therefore, I commonly have to ignore people that are messaging me and that can cast me in a negative light to some.

Second, and this has become quite a serious problem, I have been fielding friend requests from people that have created fake accounts that then message me asking questions regarding my personal life. There have been a few problems with regards to online groups as well, so I wanted to make a statement about them.

Lastly, because I have employed Facebook as a fan oriented social networking application, I have never been able to use it to simply stay in touch with friends and family – which is what most people use it for. Thus, given the problems that I’ve had with it in the past, I’ve decided to use my Facebook page for personal reasons only. Again, I would kindly ask those that will be removed as friends in the days ahead to please take no offense. As many of you are aware, fans still have access to membership here at the website and on my flickr page, which I think is more than ample. You can also join my del.icio.us network as well.

I realize that my Facebook page was a great place to view photos from shows and video. In the weeks ahead we’ll add a link on the website to the flickr group that was created some time ago. If you have a flickr account you’re more than welcome to post photos and video to it.

Myspace

For some bizarre reason completely unknown to me, Myspace is somehow still alive. I have absolutely no idea why given its horrid functionality and absolutely abhorrent layout. Obviously the application’s most popular feature remains its audio features, which is probably the reason why it has survived this long, and is the only reason why I still have a page. In the future we’ll continue to update the audio content, but truth be told we pay little attention to the page’s other content.

del.icio.us

Of all the social networking applications that I use, deli.icio.us is, without question, my favorite. Obviously there are a whole host of similar applications out there, such as Digg and Technorati, but I have always preferred del.icio.us to all of them. I routinely update my bookmarks; so if you’re interested in joining my network, please feel free to do so.

A few months ago I talked about Megan Meier, a young girl who encountered abuse from a classmate’s mother via MySpace. That abuse eventually led to Megan committing suicide, and sparked a whole series of internet debates about where the fault for something like that lies and how accountable social networks should be for the actions of their users.

Today Facebook announced that they will be implementing over 40 safeguards to help protect its users from sexual predators and online cyberbullying:

Facebook, the world’s second-largest social networking Web site, will add more than 40 safeguards to protect young users from sexual predators and cyberbullies, attorneys general from several states said Thursday.

Facebook and officials in 49 states and the District of Columbia agree to safeguards to protect young users.

The changes include banning convicted sex offenders from the site, limiting older users’ ability to search online for subscribers under 18 and building a task force seeking ways to better verify users’ ages and identities.

“The agreement marks another watershed step toward social networking safety, protecting kids from online predators and inappropriate content,” said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who announced the agreement Thursday with his counterparts in several other states.

Obviously I think that’s a huge step forward for the internet, especially since both Facebook and MySpace have agreed to adopt the guidelines set out in the agreement. And while it’s impossible to protect everyone from harm on these networks, I definitely think it’s a move in the right direction.

A lot of people have been emailing me lately about missing the ability to check the old Facebook page for updates, primarily through the application that Duane built. Being that I’m about to go on tour, and it’s something that might come in handy in that respect, I’ve quickly thrown up a new one.

I came across this newspaper article yesterday, so I thought I would share it.

Four Lebanese university students have been jailed for a week for making crude remarks on the Facebook social networking site about the singing talents of a woman they met at a party, media reports said on Thursday.

Local newspapers reported that the students — all male — were ordered to be detained on January 10 after the young woman’s father objected to the authorities in the eastern town of Zahle.

The four were charged with slander and “violating public morality” and were ordered to be held in preventive detention despite objections by human rights groups.(AFP)

Moral of the story: watch what you say cause it might land you in jail.

I came across this article the other day, and found it particularly distressing given the prevalence of online social websites such as Facebook and MySpace these days:

Megan Meier thought she had made a new friend in cyberspace when a cute teenage boy named Josh contacted her on MySpace and began exchanging messages with her.

Megan, a 13-year-old who suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder, corresponded with Josh for more than a month before he abruptly ended their friendship, telling her he had heard she was cruel.

The next day Megan committed suicide. Her family learned later that Josh never actually existed; he was created by members of a neighborhood family that included a former friend of Megan’s.

What’s exceedingly cruel is that the fake account was created not just by a girl at Megan’s school, but was also created in conjunction with that girl’s mother. The reason for creating it, according to that mother was because “she wanted to gain Megan’s confidence to know what Megan was saying about her own child online.”

While still inexcusable, given my own experiences in elementary school, I can at least understand kids saying mean things to each other. But it’s hard for me to fathom how any parent could deliberately attack someone else’s child by repeatedly sending horrible messages to them:

Someone using Josh’s account was sending cruel messages. Then, Megan called her mother, saying electronic bulletins were being posted about her, saying things like, “Megan Meier is a slut. Megan Meier is fat.”

The final straw for Megan, according to her parents, was a message she received from Josh:

Her father said he found a message the next day from Josh, which he said law enforcement authorities have not been able to retrieve. It told the girl she was a bad person and the world would be better without her, he has said.

While I do not have any children of my own, I have a nine year old niece back home that means the world to me. She has spent her whole life surrounded by close friends and relatives who love her to pieces. She goes out of her way to help others, and smiles at everything she possibly can in this world. To think that in a few years she will probably be on a few of these social websites, potentially dealing with situations like this is an absolutely sickening thought that has lately been causing me a great deal of stress. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be a parent, to be constantly trying to protect your child from harm, only to know that there’s a limit to the protection that they can ultimately provide.

Megan’s death was tragic, but was it unavoidable? Where does the responsibility ultimately lie for her protection? Her parents sound like they loved her, and tried to find a balance between protection and her being involved with social activities such as online communities. And yet this still this happened. Should these social websites take a more active role in protecting children?

How many emails a day are governments filtering, looking for keywords about terrorism and who knows what else? We balk at these measures because they invade our privacy, and are outside of our control. But surely on a website where membership is voluntary there should be allowances for filtering emails or whatever else can be done to protect these children from these types of cruelty. I mean seriously, shouldn’t emails containing the word “slut” in a 13 year old girl’s inbox trigger something or someone?

When the dust settles from what happened to Megan, I really hope that some of the social networks will step up and propose measures to limit this from happening. If I was a parent, I would definitely think twice about letting my kids anywhere near these websites today.

As the release of Hospital Music approaches, there are a few updates that are of note.

The US iTunes Store is now carrying a few new back-catalogue titles, as well as those that have always been available - the two US versions of Beautiful Midnight. US iTunes patrons are now able to purchase In A Coma, White Light Rock & Roll Review, and Avalanche.

iTunes USA is currently in the process of designing an Matthew Good artist page as well, which will most likely become active when Hospital Music is released on the 31st of this month. It’s also important for those in the US to remember that ‘Born Losers’ will be the Single Of The Week on the iTunes US Store as of the 31st, and is a completely free download. They will also be offering Hospital Music for $7.99 as well.

The website stream of the record will be removed from the site on the 30th.

Born Losers will be added to the Audio/Video section of the site.

The Hospital Music Facebook application will also be updated. If you don’t yet have it, you can get it here.

Like the pages that exist for past releases, Hospital Music will have its own page, complete with lyrics, notes, and links to various places that it can be purchased online.

If you want to order Hospital Music in advance of the release, refer to the following…

The official Matthew Good Online Store (international shipping).

* Autographed copies of the record are sold out.

Amazon Canada.

Amazon US.

Amazon UK.

I have a question regarding Facebook that perhaps someone can help me with. As you know, the first menu item is “photos of you”. I currently have 356, and not one of them did I actually post myself. Added to this, anyone can comment on them, even in a completely derogatory manner. Basically I’m wondering why you don’t have control over that aspect of your page? If people want to tag photos, that’s fine, but why do they show up on my page as “my photos”?