Since I’ve been in college for almost six months, I’ve obviously lost a great deal of free time that I once had to dedicate to the site. It has made me question what I want to do with the site and think about new directions to take The iLife while maintaining a successful academic and social life. So from here on out, I’m suspending all previous journeys we’ve been undertaking for a new approach- truly great and original content.

I wouldn’t ever want to think about the work any of the writers here at The iLife have done as unoriginal, but in order to really drive the traffic and expand ourselves we need to take up a new, stronger direction. This means much more personal blogging, a slightly adjusted writing style and other smaller changes in the back end. So stay tuned- for real this time. We’ll be back in full force very soon.

As you may have already noticed, things around The iLife have been at a lull for the past few months. That isn’t because we are abandoning the site. The iLife is still here and will be going for a long time. If you don’t believe me, I recently paid our hosting bill . The simple fact is that I am a freshman in college now, as are the three other primary writers for The iLife and college keeps us all very busy. But over the past few weeks, I’ve realized that the site has been grinding to a halt- which isn’t cool.

That is why I am extending, once again, an open invitation to anyone who would like to get out there as a blogger. Even through these months of little posting, we have seen steadily increasing daily traffic. We don’t care how old you are or what platform you use. If you love technology or want to try out blogging, we would like to have you on board! If you have a problem coming up with content or editing your work, there are editors available to help go through your content, and a number of people who can give you tons of ideas of stuff to write about.

But with that said, we aren’t passing the torch on to others. I for one, will start blogging and podcasting with more regularity in the coming days. There are some new writers who are waiting in the wings to make their big debut (hint hint) as well as others who have promised to come back as with some new content. We are all working The iLife back into our hectic schedules for you- because without the growing community we serve, we couldn’t exist.

So if you have any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions OR would like to start writing for us, please contact us or simply email WEBMASTER at THEILIFE dawt COM. We can’t wait to meet some new people and get feedback!

It’s almost hard for me to believe. What started as an idea, forming into an idea supported by a few friends, to a domain name and from there- I can’t even begin to explain how it took off. Last years highlights include attending the 2008 Macworld, WWDC, iPhone 3G launch and various Apple store openings which all really defined the sites culture. We are also expanding in ways beyond just Apple, and are actively trying to bring as many people who appreciate technology to blog. Due to the fact I am now in college along with a number of iLife writers, it makes it hard to keep the site up to speed, especially compared to the professional bloggers. But that is why this site isn’t for news. We are still committed to the site and you should start seeing some new changes coming soon.

With that said, it is time to announce winners of software! To all the users who commented and expressed their views on the site, we all greatly appreciate your continued interest in the site! Users who have commented on the two birthday articles were entered into a drawing and will be receiving emails with the software license they won. Thanks for your participation!

In commemoration of theiLife.com’s first anniversary, developers from Agile Web Solutions have kindly provided us with one free license to their famed 1Password software to give away. For those of you who don’t know what 1Password is, you should check it out. If you browse the internet on your Mac I highly recommend you start using 1Password to save time and protect yourself from the dangers of the internet. Not only does it autofill forms and login windows but it can generate strong passwords and even sync this information securely across computers or to your iPhone or iPod touch! If you’d like to be entered to receive a free copy of 1Password, simply comment below! A big thanks again to Roustem of the 1Password team for allowing this to happen.

And, by the way, happy 250th post everyone!

Today, October 19th marks one year to the day that theiLife.com domain was registered. In the time between October 19th, 2007 and October 28th, 2007 (the first post) was the first creation of blog. This year, to commemorate this time period, we will be giving away all kinds of great stuff to our readers. At the moment, we’re keeping the list of goodies secret, but do note by commenting, on any birthday labeled post, you will be automatically entered into our drawing. Only one entrance per person, however- yes, we will track your email and IP addresses.

So keep on the lookout and feel free to comment on any birthday article for great free stuff anytime starting now until October 28th, 2008!

Things have been quiet here at theiLife.com for the past week- we have to apologize for that! Our writers have been busy doing various other things, from graduating to parties and vacations, the number of articles published this past week has been limited. Have no fear, things are returning to normal very soon. Particularly leading up to the launch of the 3G iPhone, where we will be teaming up with theDigitalLifestyle.tv to provide live video coverage and a liveblog from the line at the 5th Avenue Apple Store in New York City. We are still formulating our exact plans at this time, but when we have finalized them we will certainly let you know.

I started theiLife.com on a whim back in October 2007. I was meaning to start a blog for some time, and during my senior year I finally had enough time to dedicate to the site. I always thought theiLife was going to be a more of a casual blog, where I would post maybe three or four times a week.

This changed one weekend when I called Sidney and asked if he would be interested in helping me code a dynamic video page for theiLife. Of course, he was willing to help out, so we created the videos section; where I uploaded my extensive collection of Apple Commercials. Suddenly I found myself on theiLife blogging more often.

In early December, when I first heard news that Apple was opening its latest flagship store in New York City, I invited Sidney to join me and help report for our theiLife. That weekend, after we posted all our content from the opening, the website got picked up by larger news sources. Finally we started driving real traffic, and from there things have been growing ever since.

It is amazing looking back over the past few months, on how much this website has changed my life, and what we have accomplished in such a little amount of time. I hope as the 200th post that we can all look forward to 200 in the near future. To all the readers and supporters, thank you! Remember, if you would like to contact myself or anyone on theiLife.com staff, check out our contact page.

Today was quite an exciting day. From being first in line and waiting outside for 19 hours to the actual keynote and proceeding events, it was a great way to kick of WWDC 2008. We saw over 34,000 unique hits slightly before, during and after the Keynote- which makes a total of about 50,000 unique visitors today. Our servers held up fine, the AJAX Liveblog was much improved from Macworld version and the SMS updater/Twitter integration preformed wonderfully (as did Twitter, more or less). Before we call it a night, Here is a summary of today, some in pictures, some in videos and some in text. Remember to stick with theiLife.com for continuing coverage of WWDC 2008 via our Liveblog and Twitter throughout this week! If you would like to request anything or meet up, please contact us!

Articles:
First in Line (Mac|Life)
Apple introduces 3G iPhone (theiLife)
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Preview (theiLife)
Apple Introduces MobileMe (theiLife)

Videos:
Entering the Keynote
Walking Around After the Keynote
Questions Following the Keynote
iJustine Keynote Sleepover (featuring Sidney in first place)

Pictures:
Sidney’s WWDC Flickr Set

Sidney has just relayed back a confirmation that he is indeed, first at line for the 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference keynote line. Sidney began the line for the Keynote after registering and gaining permission from Apple to do so, of course. He attached the picture above of his waiting area, which is the same place we waited for the Macworld 2008 keynote, until the split the two lines up. To stay up-to-date with the latest information from theiLife and WWDC, follow our liveblog at live.theilife.com. You can additionally follow us on Twitter (theiLife) or sign up for urgent updates delivered to your cell phone here. Lots more photos and video to come.

More photos after the jump!

As the week is drawing to a close, and with WWDC starting on Monday, things are really coming down to the wire. Yesterday, the SMS Updater went live, and if you haven’t already, please sign yourself up! Today the liveblog is up at its final resting location. You can now access the liveblog at live.theilife.com. Bookmark this address now for our live coverage beginning on Monday! Remember to stay tuned for the latest updates here at theiLife.com!

TheiLife.com is proud to formally announce that we will be liveblogging from the WWDC 2008 Keynote. This time around, we have refined our AJAX app from Macworld to be less server heavy so we can serve more users. The AJAX updater is still being tweaked, so it should be available by the end of the week. However, the SMS Updater is now live, so if you want to sign up to be updated with the latest urgent updates from the Keynote via SMS (expect about 10-20 messages), click here or the big shiny button below. Stay tuned for the latest information about WWDC here at theiLife.com.

MacRumors
AppleInsider

Sidney San Martin online at Macworld 2008 for theiLife.

This year, over 5000 developers are attending WWDC and Apple has announced that for the first time ever that they have sold out of tickets. As usual, Steve Jobs will be kicking off the conference with a Keynote, taking place on Monday June 9th. We at theiLife.com are proud to announce that Sidney San Martin, theiLife regular, will be in attendance. This means coverage similar to Macworld 2008- which included videos, pictures, liveblogging (from the Keynote and Expo) as well as regular blog coverage. Regarding the liveblogging there will be more details coming soon- we are not sure if it will be AJAX based, due to the heavy load it puts on our servers. Stay tuned for more details coming soon, and certinally if you would like to offer any suggestions, please contact us or leave a comment below!

I had the pleasure of seeing a lecture at Columbia University by Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora.com and current Chief Strategy Officer. Pandora.com started in January of 2000 as The Music Genome Project, in an effort to characterize all music by attributing hundreds of musical ‘genes’ to songs. These include things like type of vocalist, guitar sound, rhythm structures, etc. A typical rock song has around 150 ‘genes’, while jazz songs mainly have upwards of 350 tags associated with them. Pandora.com was created to use this system and an additional algorithm to provide its users with a personal radio station.

Basically, a radio station is created when a user searches for a certain song or artist, and Pandora cues up a playlist that is made up of songs that match the musical ‘genes’ of the original query. Then, every time a song comes up, a user has options to give it a thumbs up or thumbs down to tell the algorithm whether he/she wants to listen to the song or songs like it. This type of recommendation system has done the company well, with over 7 million users and over $22 million in venture capital and debt financing. Also according to Compete.com, Pandora has increased the total number of people visiting their website by 126.2%. The lecture was primarily about the business tactics of the company, and how they struggled and fought to finally make it profitable(for two years most employees didn’t even work for a salary). It solidified my ideas that traditional radio and satellite are both dead. My reasoning after the jump!

1. Terrestrial Radio Sucks. I stopped listening to the radio years ago, because simply there was nothing even close to what I liked. I’ve been finding music ever since through MySpace, word-of-mouth, and surfing the web. Everyone I talk to seems to be tired of traditional radio. As Tim said, it is estimated that only about 40,000 different songs have ever been played on conventional radio.

2. Satellite Radio Is Dead. I asked Tim why they never thought of using satellite technology to distribute their radio because of its wide coverage band. He replied that it’s simply a bandwidth issue: satellites can only handle up to 120-150 simultaneous data streams, while Pandora serves up about 90,000 individual ones every day. It’s further proof that satellite radio has no expandability.

3. The Future Is Interactive and Personalized. Saul Williams says it best when he describes a “Nike air force fleet, custom made, unique”(check it). With manufacturing so cheap, everything can be customized, and when it’s software, it’s even easier. Radio is one of the only things besides perhaps soda bottles and TV sets that isn’t customized these days.

So what’s the future for Pandora? From answering some of my questions about adding last.fm type functionalities and music videos, it seems there isn’t too much changing at Pandora for the time being. I asked if they were considering changing the Pandora recommendation scheme to include possible scrobbling functionality in order to create a better and more accurate musical profile, and Tim replied they were very comfortable with the ‘thumbs-up and thumbs-down’ approach. While disappointing for me, I think Pandora is on its way to becoming a very powerful player both on the web and in people’s ears.