Today I was awarded the Robert M Montgomery Outstanding Young Alumnus Award from Illinois Wesleyan University. I was presented the award at the annual alumni lunch at the Shirk Center on the IWU campus. The other award winners and I were also announced at halftime at the Titan homecoming football game with the rest of the homecoming court. Yesterday I taught the “Back to School” class “Connecting Fans with Bands” where I outlined my progression from IWU student to VP at Atlantic and how we use design and technology to promote our artists. Overall, it was an amazing experience and I’m extremely honored to be recognized from a university that has given me so much.

Read more about the events on WJBC.com.

Rather than describe the list for you, here Billboard’s own synopsis:

Billboard’s Twitter 140: It’s not about how many followers. It’s not about the quantity of tweets/retweets. It’s about quality. Personality. Excellent linkage. These people are followed by those who work the smartest. Whether it’s about copyright, “Entourage,” social commerce, the cloud(s), rap radio, Nashville, technology or just techno, these are 140 of the best and brightest music industry characters on Twitter.

You can follow me on twitter here.

Or follow the full list here.

Read the full story on Billboard.biz.

Today, Greg Sandoval wrote an article on CNET about how Atlantic Records and our new Atlanticrecords.com strategy. The article focuses our use of the Atlantic archives, the relaunch of the AtlanticRecords.com website and how that site integrates with Facebook to customize the fan experience.

Check out the full CNET article here.

But something has happened in the last few years.

Bing is an interesting look into search. And I was REALLY interested in the possibilities of the Kin, especially the online timeline of activities, and the Kinect is amazing. Then Windows Phone 7 was released a few weeks ago and I may need to reassess everything I thought I knew about Microsoft.

Windows Phone 7

What I Love

The Interface

The interface is beautiful. Easily the prettiest OS I’ve ever seen. It’s very minimal, the typography is great (something I never thought I would say about a mobile OS) and it doesn’t look ANYTHING like an iPhone. I’m sure people will see this both as a positive and a negative, but honestly, with all the iPhone clones out there it’s refreshing to see something different.

The start screen

The phone lock screen shows your next calendar appointment, unread emails, time and date – a great step towards delivering on the promise of you getting your life back from your device. I actually find myself opening my phone less as I have a better snapshot of what is going on.

The buttons

I’ve always believed the iPhone has too few buttons. There are some cases when reduction becomes oversimplification. I think most Android phones get a little button happy, but the WP7 gets it just right. It has a hardware back and a search button (I now miss their presence on my iPhone) as well as a hardware camera button. The iPhone has always been handicapped when trying to capture spontaneous actions, but the Windows Phone can fire off a shot even when locked.

Services

Bing search works well and is customized to search the feature in the phone you are currently using. The built in voice search is very accurate, assuming you aren’t in a loud room – I attempted to use it in a bar and the results were hilarious. I love the idea of Zune pass, and think a music subscription built into a phone could be huge, but right now it only works on a PC. Bing maps aren’t quite as useful as google maps (and I miss the subway stations being tagged by train) but the integrated nearby features with ratings are really great. And while the Xbox features are still early stage, this has the potential to be a game changer.

Facebook Integration

Facebook is integrated deep into the OS. Your Facebook pics appear next to your other photos in your library, and you can share photos you take to Facebook with one click. Your address book and Facebook friends mesh seamlessly, and your Facebook friends feed is available with your contacts. You can also add your Facebook friends to your start screen and bookmark their profiles for easy access.

Undecided

There are a few aspects of the phone I can’t totally get behind. These are not all bad, and in some cases are partially great, but have some aspect that doesn’t quite live up to expectations.

Start Screen

On the iPhone you can scan multiple screens to the right, and on Android you have a combination of multiple screens as well as a list of apps. The Windows Phone has one LONG screen for all of your favorites and a list of apps. Those are the only options. You can’t group items together, and as your list gets longer it gets hard to manage quickly. The tiles are large enough for it to be easy to stop on the app you are scanning for, but it’s less than ideal.

Animations

Personally I think the animations in the OS are tasteful and add to the beauty of the interface. I think this today. It’s easy for me to imagine a time when they become repetitive and some early adopters are already complaining about animation fatigue.

Email

I love the ability to see unread, flagged and urgent emails. Deleting emails is incredibly easy and this is the only phone I’ve seen that supports Hotmail. Exchange support is top notch. But there are some big downsides. The phone is hard to type on (more on this later) and all of your inboxes are completely separate. Not just segregated within a single mail app, but totally separate apps, and checking emails from multiple accounts can be arduous.

What I Don’t like

The Browser

The other side of the coin to relying on Microsoft platforms is having to use their awful browser, Internet Explorer. And to top it off it’s IE7, which was originally released 4 years ago. Let that one sink in. One of the most sophisticated internet devices on the planet is running a four year old browser. You often end up being redirected to wap versions of websites, not even to a proper mobile version. And not only does it not support Flash, but it doesn’t even support Microsoft’s multimedia platform Silverlight.

Apps and Marketplace

I hate to bash on this too much as it’s a new platform, and there is limitless potential here for games, but the app store is small, confusion and the apps in it (even from major brands) are of questionable quality. There are also a TON of preinstalled AT&T apps bringing you the same dirty feeling from when you first boot up a new PC to your phone. Carriers have too much control over these devices, from apps to gross branding on the actual device, and we’ve all seen how this one ends.

Syncing and Connecting

There are some real ups and downs here. Apple has gone predominately with an iTunes based syncing method, while Google is all cloud. There are obvious pros and cons to both but the WP7 fits poorly in the middle. Calendars and email sync nicely to the cloud, but content has to be synced using PC only software. It seems like Microsoft is stuck between being an entertainment device, and a window into the cloud, but accomplished neither.

Input

Input is another huge blow to the phone. The on screen keyboard is one of the worst I’ve used. The buttons are too small and it often makes mistakes that other devices would catch. Inserting the cursor into text is great when you get used to it, but with no copy and paste it’s really handicapped. Also, the four way swipe paradigm that all the apps use can easily be confused if you swipe too quickly. The screen accidentally swipes to the right about 10% of the time if I swipe up too quickly. Hopefully most of these issues are software based and are not some shortcoming in the hardware of the phone.

The Details

Does anyone know what “pin to start” means? I realized it after a few seconds, but the start paradigm doesn’t exist anywhere else on the device except in this menu. Some of the interfaces go beyond minimal and begin to feel unfinished as you dig deeper into the device. The grey, black and white start to feel too much like wireframes and not enough like finished interfaces. Clicking “home” always takes you to the first tile, so managing a long list becomes tedious. There is no sharing of video. As far as I can tell, the only way to get videos off the phone is by plugging it directly into a PC.

Conclusions

While this is one of the best V1 devices I’ve seen, there are times where it is very clear it’s a new platform. It’s different, some might even say experimental, but I wonder how much becomes novelty over time. All in all I think this is a solid platform, with the only unforgivable flaw being the browser. I find myself enjoying using my phone again, but would never be able to switch permanently until Firefox/Opera/Chrome appear in the Marketplace. If you are in the market for a new smartphone, especially if you are a PC user, this could be a hit for you. It’s stylish, different, yet user friendly. It feels less like a phone, and more like a portal into the social web. It’s great seeing Microsoft taking a stance against their competitors and I think long term, this platform has all the right underpinnings to be a huge success.

First off, I’ve been promoted to the Vice President of Direct to Fan Creative and Technology at Atlantic Records. I’m managing a team of ten project managers, designers, product developers and programmers who design all of our fan facing technology for Atlantic and our artists, as well as research and development into emerging tech.

Last week I was at the MSUM College Art Symposium in Moorhead/Fargo and gave five sessions over the course of three days to area college students. On Monday I gave a lecture on practical tips for designers looking for their first job. Tuesday I gave a three hour presentation on emerging technologies and trends, a hands on workshop on creating mood boards for web design, and presented my own work to the symposium at large. Wednesday I gave a lecture on website planning covering sample contracts, wire-framing techniques and advice on dealing with reviews and real world clients.

After landing back in NYC on Wednesday night I awoke early Thursday morning to hop on a bus out to Queens to help build a playground with the non-profit KaBoom!. It was a great day full of putting together slides, hauling pieces of the equipment around, painting trim while up on the roof and getting to help with a mural inside the school to brighten up the hallway for the kids who attend.

And finally, tomorrow (Sunday) I’m hopping on a plane to L.A. to head to Adobe’s MAX conference. Monday and Tuesday I’ll be cramming my head full of knowledge and preparing for my panel on Wednesday morning. Hope to see some familiar faces there.

An extremely rewarding ten days, although I’m already ready to be home again. Reach out if you’ll be in L.A.

Eric

In addition to this, we are part of a concept video on the OSP homepage. The first video in the carousel titled “Fun with Friends” includes a conceptual mockup of what our AIR Application Fanbase could look like in the future. It’s just a concept at this point, but is fun to see. The folks at Adobe did an amazing job putting this together.

Check it out.

Check out the Fast Company Article.

Read about our new partnership with MTV.

Dear Eric,

The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st.

In appreciation of your support over the last five years, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple’s iTunes Store. If you purchased and downloaded mp3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library.

Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request). Gift cards can be redeemed on Lala until May 31st.

Click here or visit Lala.com/support for more information, or to view Lala’s Terms of Service.

Thank you.

Lala

It’s a sad day for music fans but it’s nice to see Apple is doing the right thing and giving consumers iTunes store credits equal to the amount they spent on web songs. Personally I hope to see another incarnation of Lala’s technology soon, as I have almost entirely given up listening to music in iTunes. It looks like my Rhapsody subscription will have to tide me over until Apple tells us what the future holds.

Check out the full article here.