Today, Smule announced the latest and most ambitious of their iPhone/iPod Touch-based instrument apps, Leaf Trombone: World Stage. Leaf Trombone improves upon the shortcomings of Ocarina in a number of areas (like adding tutorials), and throws in a very ambitious online judgment area called World Stage.

The way Leaf Trombone is controlled is quite different from Ocarina. Instead of a recorder-like set of holes to cover, you are presented with a slider (a leaf) on the right and an octave controller on the left. Tick-marks along the leaf indicate major notes. Playing is as simple as tapping or sliding along the leaf to produce a sound. Holding one of the two triangles will, of course, shift the notes up or down an octave. There is also a setting to turn on breath control, in case you want to emulate a real trombone a little more closely.

The instrument encourages you to produce a real melody. To that end there is a tutorial mode you can engage to watch a rendition of any of the songs from the game library or new compositions from other Leaf Trombone contributors. Both while watching or playing a song, a Dance Dance Revolution-style scrolling display of leaves indicates the notes to be played for the upcoming 10 seconds or so. By dutifully following the leaves as they touch the tick marks, songs can quickly be mastered.

World Stage

After some practice, you may want to conduct a performance on the World Stage. This is a special mode where the software connects to the Smule game server and lets you play for a panel of 3 judges. Before you can do that, though, you first have to judge a performance or two. After registration, you indicate your willingness to judge and the server assigns you plus two other judges to a performance. During the performance, you can choose an animated emoticon to indicate how you think the solo is going. You can also type in a short message either during or after the performance. Once it is finished, you assign a numerical rating and you will get leaves which allow you to then perform.

Once you have some leaves, you can choose a song and play a song to be judged. Your performance will be rated, and then stored under the World Stage ID that you created, and assigned a star rating. As more people find and rate your solo, the number of stars that you get may go up or down. Also, as you perform more songs that are rated highly, your overall ranking on the global ladder will rise.

Finally, there are a number of unlockable achievements you can work toward both for performing and judging that should keep you challenged for many hours to get them all.

Minor Quibbles

There are a couple of minor points we can't help but touch on. First, we unfortunately have to agree with Techcrunch and wonder why the trombone is the only instrument sound that's offered. It would be nice to be able to choose a different instrument sound perhaps, to make our recitals unique. Second, we think the slider could support more advanced polyphony, perhaps limited to two or three notes maximum, in order for people who have already mastered the single-note songs to still find a challenge on the World Stage.

Overall, Leaf Trombone: World Stage (iTunes link) hits all the right notes in terms of an instrument application that is fun, easy to pick up and with incentives to keep playing with the challenging World Stage. The graphics are unique without being distracting, and the World Stage area has a great 3D globe that indicates where other judges and performers are in the world. Listening to other performances and judging went very smoothly. Especially for the introductory price of a single dollar, we can easily recommend this fun application.

The app also makes good use of the iPhone's and iPod touch's multi-touch screen and allows you to erase part of your drawings with a two-finger gesture, while shaking the screen deletes the complete message. You can also 'like' messages, which will then be passed on to more users, or mark them as inappropriate.

Not Quite Random: Bach, Schumann, Wagner

As Smule's CEO Jeff Smith pointed out to us, the 'music' created by Zephyr is not quite random. If you listen carefully, you will find both the opening from Wagner's "Tannhauser" and the progression from Claude Debussy's "Clair de lune," as well as progressions from Bach and Schumann in the app.

A Secular Winter App

Of course, we couldn't help but think that Smule's plan was to release this app before the holidays and that it was delayed by Apple's App Store review process, but Smule's CEO Jeff Smith assured us that even though Apple shut down for the holidays, it was always Smule's plan to release Zephyr as a "secular winter application after the holiday blitz."

Now, the creators of the app are offering $1000 US to each of the 10 best Ocarina players in the world as part of the "This Contest Blows" contest.

Striking a chord similar to that of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, the Ocarina contest is using YouTube as the place to gather the contest entrants. To participate, simply record a video of yourself showing off your Ocarina chops. Then, upload your inimitable Ocarina stylings to YouTube as a response to the "This Contest Blows" video, or post it in the "This Contest Blows" group.

Not sure you can even play a song on Ocarina? Don't worry. There's even sheet music for Ocarina, now.

Entries will be judged on a variety of factors, including number of ratings, average number of stars, and number of views. All submissions must be received by January 10, 2009.

Good luck! Here's hoping all those hours you've wiled away on Ocarina pay off.

Well 'own' is too strong a word, but I do know I'll be paying much more attention to Apple this year than last. With iTunes and the recently video-enabled iPod, Apple is in a strong position to lead the way in delivering microchunked entertainment media over the Web to consumers. I expect all the main players (e.g. MS, Yahoo, Goog, AOL) to increase their presence in rich media in 2006 though, including releasing Internet-connected media devices a la Apple.

Update: Chris Garrett left a great comment that is worth highlighting: "If they release the expected media center mac mini they would also have a strong basis to develop a suite of rich media applications, hopefully incraesing the visual offerings of iTunes and maybe even expending it into a platform for streaming TV. They could develop this into a form of subscription TV, free of ads. If this happens we might start to see specialist channels becoming more conspicuous and possibly the rise of Indie Television."

Think Secret has more on this: "Apple is planning to unveil a robust new content distribution system in January at Macworld Expo alongside its revamped media-savvy Mac mini, Think Secret has learned. The new content system and related media deals, which will include feature-length content, expanded television offerings, and more, will further cement Apple's increasing lead in digital media delivery.

A year ago I set myself a goal to convert my hard work on Read/WriteWeb into real-world success, particularly career wise. The fact I was able to quit my day job in August and then earn a living as a self-employed Web Consultant -- I think that means I achieved that goal. Plus I visited America, a place I've long dreamed about, for the first time in October and met many of the people I'd gotten to know via blogging. At the start of 2005, Read/WriteWeb had around 500 RSS subscribers. Just before the xmas holidays I'd reached a shade under 8,000. Not quite the level of growth Techcrunch has enjoyed, but not too shabby ;-)

Since this is a personal post and all but the first 500 of my subscribers has by now tuned out ;-)... let me take this opportunity to thank some people. Marc Canter was the first person to give me ongoing work. Marc's the first at a lot of things, so keep an eye out for DLAs and Broadband Mechanics in '06. Susan Mernit has given me a lot of interesting work this year, which has kept me on my toes and sharpened my skillset. I've also done work for Rojo, Nooked, Aqute Research, ZDNet (blogging), New Zealand National Library, Idealog, O'Reilly Media. Also a huge thanks to R/WW's sponsors this year.

In 2005 I met a number of amazing bloggers in person. Too many to mention, so I won't even try to list them all! But a special shout-out to my Web 2.0 Workgroup co-founders Mike Arrington and Frederico Oliveira. Also I owe a big thanks to Havi Hoffman and Elizabeth Osder from Yahoo, who introduced me to the good people of Yahoo and showed me around the campus in October. Finally I must mention the spicy noodles dinner with Mike, Fred, Gabe and the one and only Dave Winer. An evening to remember.

2006 Plans

More travel beckons in 2006. I'm coming to Seattle at the end of January for Microsoft Search Champs. Also Ben Barren is trying to entice me across to Melbourne, to help him kick-start online media in Australia. So it'll be interesting to see how it all pans out career and life wise next year.

I'm planning to ramp up Read/WriteWeb in 2006, focusing on the intersection of Web technology and media. I really want to make R/WW a thoroughly professional site, where you can come to get the latest news and views relating to Web-based media. Just as one year ago I was excited by the possibilities of Web 2.0 (the Web as platform), now I'm excited by what I expect will be a huge year in 2006 for digital media. It's building on the Web as platform, taking it to the next level.

I like to be one step ahead of trends, so expect big things from Read/WriteWeb next year. Happy new year everybody!

Nov. 3, 2005: FolderShare 
Nov. 3, 2005: media-streams.com AG 
Aug. 30, 2005: Teleo Inc. 
Jul. 20, 2005: FrontBridge Technologies 
Mar. 10, 2005: Groove Networks Inc. 
Feb. 8, 2005: Sybari Software Inc. 
December 16, 2004: GIANT Company Software 
April 26, 2004: ActiveViews 
April 30, 2003: PlaceWare 
Feb. 19, 2003: Connectix

The crucial one there was Groove, which Microsoft acquired on March 2005. It seems to have acted as a catalyst for their 'software as a service' strategy - Groove CEO and now Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie has been a leading light in that. Microsoft's acquisitions history suggests they strip off the technologies and human assets from their acquisitions and put them into Microsoft products. Not dissimilar to what Yahoo and Google do nowadays too.

I'd say Yahoo's key acquisitions over the past few years have been Overture (search), Oddpost (email), Ludicorp/Flickr (social software street cred). You can definitely see a pattern to all of Yahoo's purchases, because they usually get eventually re-branded and folded into the Yahoo business as part of their wide and deep product line. Overture products for instance are now Yahoo! Search products. Oddpost has morphed into Yahoo's Gmail competitor, the new-look AJAX-driven Yahoo! Mail. And Flickr's presence is being felt across the board, in products such as My Web 2.0 and Yahoo 360.

Google is a bit harder to figure out, because as Adam Rifkin noted a couple of months ago, Google tends to buy "small, creative, engineering-driven teams with no-bullshit cultures and interesting products and/or innovative technologies". Maybe the difference comes down to semiotics, as Ben Barren wrote:

"Yahoo's M+A semiotics read : fun, jagged, dangerous in the same way a rollercoast ride is; delicious, flickr, konfabulator (sadly renamed) Google's scrip semiotics are more complex, obtuse, asexual + asynchronous : Android, Akwan, Urchin, Keyhole."

Whatever the outcome of all these acquisitions, expect more to come in 2006. Already people are talking about a Microsoft/Newsgator deal, Yahoo/Netflix, Yahoo/CNET, Yahoo/TiVo. And what about Google/Feedburner? (a shock pick suggested to me by one of my correspondents).