American Madness

By now you must be familiar with services like iTunes or one of its many competitors trying to suck you dry of your hard earned cash.

Well, now there is a new player in the game: Spiral Frog. Similar in some aspects to iTunes it allows you to download music and videos over the internet from singers and groups you have actually heard of. A bit smaller then the iTunes library with only 800,000 songs available (meaning you won’t be able to find everything you are looking for) there still remains a nice selection, even of new music, such as Amy Winehouse.

So, we’ve covered the similarities to iTunes, now some differences- first (and this is the big one) it is absolutely and totally free! Yup, no credit card needed, no money asked for, kind of nice. Oh, also you don’t need any special software to start downloading, it is not exclusive to any software (though you do need an internet plug-in to make sure it all works). All kind of nice, there is, however, a catch: This service (like too many other services available on the internet today) is only for folks with PCs. Got a Mac? Well, you’re out of luck. In fact Spiral Frog strikes out against Apple- Won’t work on a Mac, can’t use the music in iTunes and, last, but not least, the songs won’t play on an iPod. (more…)

AmericanMadness Exclusive!

A fight broke out today between two men at Apple’s 5th avenue store that left one man bloodied on the floor and resulted in the other being tossed into the street.

This exclusive is courtesy of crack American Madness stringer Matt Friedlander who was present at the scene where he too was waiting for a chance to play with the newly released iPhone, which some are calling “the Jesus phone,” a gadget as eagerly anticipated as…well…nothing has ever been this anticipated.

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So, I was trying to keep the posts this week to a minimum. It being a holiday week, I figure a bunch of folks are just phoning it in, but with so many things just jumping out at me, some of these just write themselves.

This past weekend Reverend Billy, from the Church of Stop Shopping was arrested at the Critical Mass bike ride that ended at Union Square…

Wait for it…

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So many things to comment on in this picture. Let’s not start with the obvious AK-47 or ask which generation the iPod is, or even ask which tribe she is from (Mursi tribe in Southern Ethiopia). Instead let us focus on the real questions here: Is she using a Apple or PC to load her iPod? Does she buy music from iTunes, upload from CDs or illegally download it?

(Photo from iLounge)