When SoundScan debuted — about ten years ago — it radically changed the top 40 genre, as its rankings are based on sales. The CDDB could therefore be the Bizzaro version of SoundScan as it records how often an album is played. The differences are subtle — as you can see by comparing the resulting Digital Top Ten list with the Billboard 200 — but important.

Unfortunately, I doubt it will have much effect on the music industry.

CANOE’s homepage has a new look. The text is crisp, the layout relatively clean, but the pseudo-isometric style of the left navigation is…interesting. To paraphrase what a few other former employees said about it, “it’s not bad, I’m just not sure if I like yet.” Usability tests, though, suggest that CANOE continues to do a good thing by using the headline-plus-summary way of presenting online news.

No matter how I feel, I am surprised the style sheet even displays, given all the validation errors in it.