YawnLog

YawnLog, by far the cutest startup I’ve had the chance to review, helps you quickly set up an account and monitor your sleep – how many hours you slept the past week, you even have to make up for lost sleep if you stay up late on Saturdays… You can rate your sleep – and then compare it to how others in your area did or just observe how final exams take a toll on your rest. And it sure is a cool pickup line: “Hey Dear, did you see my YawnLog yesterday? That was hell of a party.”

And the guys behind YawnLog sure do have a sense of humor – the whole press release is written in that official lingo with spiced phrases like ‘after a breakneck 24 hours development, YawnLog was released’ or [launched to] ‘an assembled audience at the annual SleepDex ‘09 conference.’

Greg Marra, founder and CEO of YawnLog, was inspired to create the product by his own study habits. “As a college student,” he explained during questions at the public launch of the site, “I find myself frequently staying up late . . . . I wanted a way to collect informatics on my own sleep habits so I could better learn how stress affects my sleep schedule.” He figured if he could make use of a tool for monitoring his sleep, others could as well.

Here’s a screenshot of my stats:

Get in touch with your sheep and sleep at YawnLog.

RadioBeta

RadioBeta allows you to listen to radio stations around the globe, create your playlists, all with a easy to use, intuitive design. The site is public and free to listen to, you don’t even need an account. If you ever wondered what the French are listening to, now’s your chance to find out. There’s not much you can say about this service other than its great, free and not many people know about it. The founders are pretty big on electronic music, so you might want to take a look at their blog, which is filled with music recommendations and videos from concerts all around the world. Check it out at RadioBeta.

Here’s a screenshot:

Jinni

It’s no magic but it works like nothing else. If you’re a movie buff like me – you always wanted an easy way to browse movies and get recommendations based on what you like. Jinni does just that, with a Google style search engine interface.

Although it is in private beta, you can sign up for an invite on the homepage. You need to create a profile for best results, but that should take you more than 10 minutes; then you’re free to search for movies and get awesome recommendations based on your tastes and previously watched movies.

It meshes information from around the web, bringing reviews, ratings, complete information about cast and set, pictures and video. You can rate the movie and choose whether or not you want to see more like that one.

And as a nice bonus – if you invite your friends to the service you get a chance to win a brand new iPod Touch. You can’t beat that!

In this article we’re going to take a closer look at the service, deconstructing its features and weaknesses. Plus, for those not lucky enough to live in one of the officially accepted countries, we describe a simple way to circumvent the protection and gain immediate access.

The Selection: Is it enough?

The current music selection will not impress a hard-core audiophile, or fans of Britney Spears – but it certainly will satisfy the needs of most casual listeners and even the more pretentious ears of an indie-lover; Spotify features bands such as Decemberists, The National, Atlas Sound, CSS, The Shins, Feist and many others.

Nobody is arguing that the current song count is significantly lower than the catalogs of any major seller – the fact that it is completely free is what’s so compelling about this service.

Initially, I was deeply worried about bitrate quality, which thankfully is 192kbpps, and interruptions, but none happened. The team notes on the blog:

However, we want to make sure that everyone who uses Spotify gets the same fast, uninterrupted experience so providing a stable service is our priority. If growth happens too fast and it starts affecting quality we may have to re-instate the invitation system, hopefully this won’t happen. –UK launch of the service

It’s notable that for 9,99 pounds/month you can get the premium service – ad-free listening – and some cool extras such as pre-release songs and concert tickets:

Mikael Wiehe, sogwriter and driving force of Hoola Bandoola Band, has another solo album, Sånger från en inställd skiljsmässa, which is now available for pre-listen.

[…]and get to be one of the first to hear the new Morrissey album. –From Spotify blog

They’ve signed deals with all the major labels(EMI, Universal, AMG), and adding more music at a fast pace:

We’re currently adding about 10,000 tracks a day from our current deals. – from the Spotify blog

The application: Simplicity in its purest form

You’ll be impressed with the sheer simplicity of the Spotify desktop application – and its similarities to iTunes, Songbird or Banshee. It clocks in at a mere 2,4 MB download.

Although is incredibly small – it has all the basics covered: playlists as easy as drag and drop, an very easy to use Radio feature, saved searches, easy navigation and search.

The Radio feature is a killer one: with two clicks you can find the right music for a romantic evening, peaceful reading, or just going back in time to rediscover old classics.

Another utility I found for Spotify is quickly previewing songs – recommended from friends or iTunes’ Genius – full length quality preview of the whole album before deciding if I want it or not.

Conclusion

If you’re going to ask, I’m going to tell you that I hate not having control over my data, be it music, photos or documents, but you can’t help noticing that everything is slowly moving away to the cloud – which ultimately might be better, or worse.

If there’s something I’m not quite sure about it’s this bit of information posted on their website:

We ’ve got a far greater range of targeting than you’ll find in offline or even most digital media – starting with demographic, location and mood. Of course, detailed tracking and reporting comes as a given.

I don’t like being tracked – unless it’s Last.fm – and I certainly don’t like that they don’t mention it prominently during signup.

Spotify is a must-have in my book and definitely worth watching in the future. That being said, you should visit spotify.com/en/get-started/ and sign up. If you’re not living in one of the accepted countries, use a proxy that supports SSL and maps your location to the UK or Sweden. It’s easy to set up a proxy in Firefox using the Options menu:

Don’t forget to share in the comments your take on Spotify and other cool services(and music) you’ve discovered in this space.