4B-The Michigan Daily - Thursday, October 19, 2006 the b-side 4 I Putting your best Facebook forward A By Jeffrey Bloomer Managing Editor Now that Facebook helpfully coordi- nates every piece of new information you need to know about that girl you hooked up with (you think) at that party last win- ter and friended you the morning after (you accepted - mistake), it's time we simplify something so few people seem to understand: The basic construction of a Facebook profile. This is not subjective. This is science. If we can't read your entire profile in less than five minutes, we're gone. You do not like Thomas Pyncheon or "Pi." And "ran- domness" is not an interest, it's an inabil- ity to express yourself. It's not hopeless. You just need to know where to begin. Step 1. Delete the entire body of your profile. Now. Step 2. Cultivate your interests. This will help you learn one of the basic prin- ciples of the Facebook profile: Everything should be disingenuous. Fronting and dis- honesty are key. Your interests, of which you have three to 12, have a very simple formula: Go to Wikipedia.org. Click "ran- dom article" (on the left). The Kansas City Power Australian Football Club. The Achillobator dinosaur. The number eight. These are your new interests. Step 3. On the favorite art categories: We're not going to tell you what to like (would we do that?), but there are rules. You may not answer more than any two of the four categories. Favorite TV show can't be anything other than a YouTube link or a show no longer on the air. Favorite movies can't have been released in the past three years. I don't want to have heard of any of your favorite music. And if you took AP English, give up on books now. Everyone one group involving an actual person, and will know where they come from. it categorically cannot be a fan club. Step 4. Your picture does not have to be of you, but if it isn't, it should be something that will confuse other people. A picture of a friend. Some obscure piece of art. A rodent. If it is you, you should probably not look like you. AND NEVER, EVER TAKE A PICTURE OF YOURSELF IN A MIRROR. WE CAN SEE THE CAM- ERA AND THE TOWEL BEHIND YOU. That shit is embarrassing. Step 4a. It's not very romantic, but alcohol in your picture does make you look cooler. Get over it. Step 4b. You may have only one photo album, and it may not be tagged. You should have at least a dozen pictures of yourself at any given time. And be merciless if other people tag you - you cannot possibly make it through 177 pictures unscathed. Step 5. Quotes should never be cred- ited, but if they are, it should only be another obscurity. Choose something with no verbs if possible. Step 9. You must have more wall posts than friends. The posts should never dis- cuss anything that will make sense to any- one else other than you and the author. Do not write on your own wall. Step 10. Private profiles are in. Sorry. With age and experience you will learn to use the search engine to find out some- thing about the people whose profiles are locked. Step 11. A note on personal and work info: You should not have very much of it. While you are required to have your real name, phone number and e-mail address at all times (or at least you are now), rela- tionship status, sex, sexual orientation, birthday and hometown are advisable only if you have a particular reason for having them up. Step 12. Don't fall in love with your own profile. Delete it and start over often. (Pictures should never remain for more than 15 days if you aren't in the picture, 30 if you are.) YOU@umich.edu )P as wor d: Facebook is a social utility Facebook is made up of lots of You can use Facebook to: Share information with peo See what's going on withy Look up people around you 4 Step 6. Your "About Me," should, of course, not be about you. Make something up. Quote a long passage about some sort of subterranean creature. Or just don't have one. Step 7. Website and status: You have none. Step 8. Groups. Sigh. Under no circum- stances may you have more than eight. You may not join any group that beginsj with the phrase "I heart ... " or ends with the word "bitch." You may not join groups that exist by virtue of having members. You may not join a group with any more than 100 members. You may be in only Courtesy of Facebook.com, amazon.com CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Your Facebook welcome page, what your status should always look like, not your favorite movie, not your favorite book. View More Photos of Me (32) Read Nlotes by Me Edit My Profile Create a Profile Badge T Status edit Keep your friends updated on your current status. V Michigan Friends 49 friende at Mchiqarn, ke A! Pandora creator Westergren to speak at 'U' PANDORA Continued from page 11B a new song that I like. I think that that is one of the great things in life, and so I wanted to spread that feeling." He also wanted to build a business for profit, he said, but added that "what makes a busi- ness last and makes a business maintain a sense of purpose and coherence is some kind of core to it that has to come from you naturally." Westergren's motive for trav- eling cross-country to talk about Pandora is that it allows him to connect with the people who use the service. Westergren empha- sized that the meetings provide not only insight but inspiration - something hard to come by when most of your time is spent behind cubicle walls. "We meet thousands of real- ly really fanatical music lov- ers," Westergren said. "And in some way it makes real what we're trying to do. It gives us a chance to see how it's impact- ing people, and how important music is to people. It's really energizing." Westergren and the rest of the Pandora team have a con- siderable agenda. Among other things, they plan to discover unknown artists and streamline the discovery of new music. Pandora is above all a pro- motional service. It helps users discover new music they are likely to enjoy by giving users the freedom to design their own radio stations based on songs or artists of their choosing. Pan- dora then matches those choic- es with similar-sounding songs from its database. Westergren's Music Genome Project is at the core of the pro- cess. The project identifies 400 "genes," including "chromatic harmonic structure," "blues influences," "extensive vamp- ing" and "rhythm syncopation." Every song is evaluated based on the presence, absence, degree or manifestation of each gene. Pandora also employs a staff whose full-time job is to listen to and analyze every new song that comes into the database. The process generally takes 20 to 30 minutes, and the website adds 15,000 songs every month. Finally, a user selects a sta- tion, and Pandora uses an algo- rithm to match songs according to their "genetic" similarities and streams them live. At any point during the stream, the user may pro- vide feedback in the form of a "thumbs up," which tells the algorithm to play more songs like this, or a "thumbs down," which signals the program to avoid similar songs. Users are encouraged to submit com- ments, complaints and requests for missing music directly to the Pandora team via e-mail. "Our core policy is to respond DAILY ARTS. WHY DON'T YOU PUSH US A LITTLE MORE. individually to each e-mail," Westergren said. But Pandora certainly has its shortcomings, like its lim- ited scope and availability. The service is only legally available in the United States because of its webcasting license's con- straints, although the team is working on acquiring licenses from more artists to improve its stock. In addition, the project cannot accommodate classical music and contains very little interna- tional music. These categories would each require different frameworks for song analysis, which are not yet developed. Other problems include the lim- ited number of songs users can skip per hour and the inability to fast-forward or rewind. Many would look at a 10- month-old company with an established user base of more than 3.5 million and growing with dollar signs in their eyes. Pandora, for example, provides links to iTunes and Amazon, where users can purchase the song currently playing. This feature has driven a huge num- ber of sales to those companies. "We sell a buttload of music," said Westergren. He said 40 percent of Pandora users have been buying more music since they began using the service. More importantly, the trend is continuing. As the base contin- ues to grow, so will the music sales originated by Pandora. On another business front, Pandora has provided an invalu- able service to struggling musi- cians by helping them forgo the cost associated with marketing an album after recording and producing it. "I came to Pandora with the perspective of somebody who has struggled for a lot of years to make a living at music," Westergren said. "(I want to) solve that problem faced by every (musician) who's out there struggling away." As such, Pandora not only accepts but encourages the tonight submission of original mate- rial by its users. The beauty is that the quality, not popular- ity, determines acceptance into the database and users' playl- ists. Granted, that assessment is ultimately a subjective one, and, because of the 15,000 new- song limit per month, not all submissions make the cut (only about a third do). With many of the traditional roadblocks to sharing music out of the way, Pandora has emerged as a level for musical artists and a largely unexplored universe for music appreciators. With the flood of new music originating from studios and basements alike, the best addi- tion to the database is the "album that some hobbyist sends to us that they've obvi- ously just burned on a CD-ROM and written the track titles on the cover in indelible ink - that's the best stuff," Wester- gren said. "There's no way on Earth you're going to hear that anywhere else." David Enders Public Lecture Friday, October 20, 3:30PM Angell Hall, Aud B WHAT I LEARNED AT UM - AND WHAT I DIDN'T David Enders, the author of this year's freshman book, Baghdad Bulletin, went to Baghdad to start an English-language news weekly in May 2003. On a shoestring budget and with an incredibly young staff, the Baghdad Bulletin published through the summer of 2003 until the dangers got too great and the funding ran out. David's book is a record of his experiences during that adventure. David will talk about how his UM undergrad experience prepared him (and didn't) for his work as a freelance journalist, how his parents reacted (or how he thought they did), and what has happened since. Bands battle for top spot and award contract worth $1 mil. By Kimberly Chou Associate Arts Editor Most Battle of the Bands competitions end up exercises of teenage rockstar futility, how- ever promising they may seem in entertainment potential if not always talent. It's the mysterious combination of badly miked community center auditoriums and last-minute bassists - that hast- ily slapped together cover of "Wish You Were Here" never quite turns out as planned. Canada-based record label Bodog Entertain- ment Group offers aspiring musicians a flashier stage for their classic-rock noodling with The Battle to End All Battles, the company's inaugu- ral national battle of the bands. Starting with the first round of competition late this summer, the company has organized a series of musical showdowns in 17 markets around the country, including Detroit. St. Andrew's Hall hosts round two for the area Sunday and Mon- day; the date and location for "city finals," before the winners convene at L.A.'s Wiltern Theater around New Year's for the cumulative grand finale, is yet to be determined. The competition has a decidedly bellicose theme: the upcoming semi-finals are dubbed "In the Trenches" and the following round isn't just "city finals," but "City Wide Warfare." "We're looking to get the final shows aired nationally," said Rob Spinelli, a public relations representative for Bodog. The most recent press release reveals that music network Fuse struck a deal with the company to air the last 11 shows leading up to the finals in a reality show format. Bodog says they are offering the "largest prize in battle of the bands history:" a $1 million contract with the label, which will go toward recording, publicity and other endeavors supporting the art- ists' debut Bodog release. So far, Battle to End All Battles has attracted 7,000 bands nationwide and over 100,000 people have registered to vote online. Winners will be chosen via online and text message voting. 4 "This year we're just trying to figure out the best way to do this," Spinelli said. "We are a Canadian record label (looking for) the best pos- sible way to find the next big band in America." Bodog has even created BodogMusic.com, a website geared toward band-and-fan networking and promotion, similar to Myspace.com's music i pages or GarageBand.com, The entertainment group isn't exactly the most prestigious: its most famous clientele are rock chick Bif Naked and Warren G (a rapper better known as Dr. Dre's brother). But Bodog's attempt to find The Next Big Thing in America is certainly ambitious. Canada's not exactly known for producing legends of the quintessential American craft rock'n'roll - exceptions like Neil Young certainly hit it out of the park, but Bryan Adams? - but maybe Bodog's search stateside will discover make good on its premise.