Two interesting e-mails reached my inbox this week. One was a simple request for cash ($30 was the suggested contribution) from the folks at Wikipedia. The other was a link (see below) that offers a spirited defense of Spotify.

How could anyone who uses Wikipedia as a research tool sit on the sidelines during their yearly fund raiser? Can you remember spending time in the library armed with index cards, trying to sort through the morass formally known as the Dewey Decimal System? Ah, yes, the pain is coming back, you’re deeply grateful to the eggheads who developed the web, and are flushed with warm feelings for Wikipedia.

Sure, the information can be provided by anyone, including non-academics, and it’s important to verify what you read, but isn’t it great to know that if you want to know something about, say, the Dewey Decimal System, you can blow the virtual dust off of Wikipedia and discover everything there is to know regarding Melvil Dewey, the guy who developed this classification system? Yes, you say! So loosen up the purse strings, send an e mail to donatewikimedia.org and throw a few shekels in the pot.

Spotify has been vilified by tons of people. The main charge-that artists are screwed out of a just return on their emotional, financial and artistic efforts-is beyond the scope of this blog. All I can say is that after trying the free service for several months I signed up for the $10/month plan to make sure artists were receiving something from me. Honestly, if Spotify held a holiday fund raiser where all the money raised went directly to artists I’d throw a few bucks in that pot as well.

I love Spotify. Every time I hear about an artist who’s new to me, or pick up the Times and read about someone I hadn’t thought about in awhile (the synth pioneer, Laurie Spiegel, about a week ago, for example) I fire up Spotify. Even if it’s only a track or two, I almost always get pointed towards some music I can listen to immediately. Fantastic! Listen to what David Macias, the president of a Nashville label services company, Thirty Tigers, has to say about Spotify, and don’t hesitate to weigh in yourself at some point!

http://hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/11/clearing-up-spotify-payment-confusion.html