Usually if I start the day with a fully charged battery on my iPhone 4, after moderate home use I have at least 20% left by the time I go to bed. Today I decided to let Skype run in the background because I was expecting some calls. The effect: I had 7% battery life remaining at 1:30 PM!

I plugged it in and charged it to 55%, the left it unplugged, untouched with Skype running again. 2 hours later: 25%!

This is a pretty massive problem that renders running Skype in the background basically useless. Is anyone else experiencing this?

I had a discussion about location based, check-in oriented services this morning over breakfast. It reminded me of a missing feature, which if added could make these services much more valuable for everyone involved: automated check-outs.

I've heard arguments for automated check-in, but I've never agreed. I don't think I'd feel comfortable not having control on when I'm getting checked-in. Plus, the list of near venues rarely contains the one I'm actually at, so I'd assume auto check-ins would have an accuracy problem.

That said, it baffles me why no one has introduced auto check-out.

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[UPDATE]: The conversation was so good that Hypebot picked up this article for their blog. The repost is here.

Something weird happened last week. I realized that I no longer want to own music.

I've always loved my music collection. It helps define me. I was one of those people with an abnormally large CD collection, mostly filled with non-major label music that none of my friends had heard of.

I've also always loved technology. When CDs were on the way out and MP3s were on the way in, I quickly digitized all my CDs into MP3s and then gave away my CDs. I still owned all the music, but didn't have the clutter. Giving up the album artwork was tough, but the positives outweighed the negatives. I hate clutter.

My digital music collection has served me well for years. I've been able to load it onto computers, portable music players, and game consoles. We even have two Apple TVs so we can access it in different parts of the house and through high end speakers.

But now, years later, I'm starting to experience a similar feeling as before: my MP3s feel like unnecessary clutter.

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Taken by Elle (@elleluna) with my iPhone 4. Pretty great color for a camera phone.

Yesterday, I announced a ticket giveaway for the New Music Seminar in New York next week. To qualify for the giveaway, users had to either retweet the message or post a comment on the blog.

The response was overwhelming! So much in fact that the New Music Seminar folks gave me more tickets to give away! And they also extended their deadline for 2-for-1 tickets for ArtistData users until today at 6 PM EST! Use code nmsny10.

But let's get to the winners ...

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UPDATE: Due to the overwhelming demand, the New Music Seminar decided two tickets weren't enough. They've doubled it, giving me two more to give away! AND they've extended the 2-for-1 deadline FOR JUST YOU GUYS (use code nmsny10) until Saturday at 6 PM EST!

UPDATE 2: WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Today I wanted to highlight an event happening in NYC next week. It's called the New Music Seminar and it's a gathering of thought leaders and music people with the goal of helping artists understand the new music business. And I have two free tickets to give away!

The New Music Seminar actually has been around for a while, but was reborn last year by Tom Silverman and Dave Lory with a series of one-day conferences in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. They were a huge success, and Tom and Dave have decided to change the format to a three-day event in NYC.

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We recently moved to San Francisco's Mission District and found it's much harder to find a cab in this city than in Chicago. That led to me spending a lot of time over the past two months testing three products that claim to make getting around town a lot easier.

It's been really fascinating and while I expected to have a clear favorite by the end, it turns out they are all useful for different things. And the real killer feature goes far beyond their technology.

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