1. Apple

iPhone 4S is a smash, holding back the Android tide, but as great as the numbers are, you miss Steve. Individuals matter. It was hard to get excited about their education presentation and it’s hard to be optimistic about the future. One man can make all the difference.

But they could maintain their momentum, they could continue to matter, but I wouldn’t bet on it. No one replaced John Lennon after he was shot and even though the Beatles had already broken up, once Ronnie Van Zant was gone, Skynyrd was never the same.

As for the Kindle Fire, ignore it. A flawed device that in no way impinges on the iPad. Expect more for less as the iPad matures, as was done with the iPod. The iPod dominated for its entire useful run (now over as a result of the iPhone), right now the iPhone and iPad don’t dominate. They’re very profitable, but they don’t own the sphere. They could, but it’s all about pricing.

2. Google

Owns search the way Apple owned the portable music player sphere with the iPod. The only way to beat Google is to wait for conventional search to fade, that’s how Microsoft got beaten, not by a better OS or better productivity apps, but by new Internet offerings, from Google to Facebook to handsets.

Search throws off so much cash that Google can lumber into other spheres and wreak havoc. Android is riddled with security issues, but the fact that it’s free allows for inroads.

Don’t compete with Google on search. Microsoft did this with Bing and lost billions. Google is good enough. Until the next product comes along.

3. Amazon

Despite the negative statements above re the Kindle Fire, Bezos knows that you invest or die. If you play to Wall Street, you’re already history. Ignore yesterday’s reaction to the numbers, Amazon is only gaining in dominance. They’ve got the secret weapon of Amazon Prime and authors are wondering why they’re giving up the lion’s share of their revenue to publishers and are making deals directly with Amazon. Amazon may not have the cachet of Apple, but it’s incredibly disruptive, just check out its cloud offerings, which aren’t sexy but power so many websites. As for the coming need to pay tax…I’d rather buy from Amazon anyway. The product comes right to your door and the customer service is great. They lean over backwards re returns whereas brick and mortar makes you feel guilty for bringing something back.

4. Facebook

It’s all about convincing other companies to sell on Facebook. People hate advertising, so initiatives there are flawed. Furthermore, the social graph is overrated, people will burn out on knowing everything about everybody. But if it’s where you go to get the information you used to get on Google and it’s easy to buy there too, Facebook has a way out.

5. YouTube

Yes, it’s part of Google, but it deserves its own ranking because of its move into channels. The problem with conventional media companies is they don’t want online access, or, if they do, they want it windowed after other more profitable exploitation schemes. But this isn’t a problem if you’re producing on YouTube, you’re already in the online game. This is a very long term play, but it just might win.

Read this "New Yorker" article to open your eyes:

Streaming Dreams

6. "New York Times"

In a world of cutbacks, almost no one does any reporting, that is the NYT’s backbone. NYT could own news online if it were only more aggressive. Fox might be a news channel, but there’s very little reporting. As for local news…forget about it.

Whether it be video or text, right wing or left, we have a lot of bloviators and very few organizations with feet on the ground.

If the NYT could reimagine itself, stop being a newspaper and start being a news outlet, stop worrying about people stealing content and start making deals to power the news on all websites, the way Google made inroads in search, it could dominate and end up being investigated for antitrust.

But no one there is thinking that big.

It’s what you don’t know, what you don’t see that kills you.

7. Ticketmaster

It’s one of the foremost e-commerce sites, traffic is incredible.

But Ticketmaster missed out on the Amazon lesson, it’s thinking too small.

Remember when Amazon just sold books?

With this amount of traffic, Ticketmaster should expand into selling items beyond tickets and dispensing all kinds of information.

You can’t think small when you’re an e-commerce company.

Ticketmaster has to own the ticketing sphere and build upon it.

8. Samsung

Has no web presence, but rules in television and is neck and neck with Apple in phone production and is even challenging in the tablet sphere. Could it be that fast broadband and government support helped Samsung grow whereas in America the government tries to hold development back?

9. Craigslist

It’s not sexy, it gets very little press, but it killed newspaper classified advertising and it owns its sphere. If it were a public company grazing for profits you’d read about it in the news every day. Is Craig Newmark one of a kind? Someone who’s about the service as opposed to the money?

Let’s hope not.

10. Verizon

He who controls distribution wins. FiOS may be built out, but now the company is offering bundles with cable companies. It’s eating AT&T’s lunch. The real play is in wireless. Verizon’s got the cash and it’s spending it. It owns plenty of spectrum too. Verizon may be too big for its britches, but if you’re in the U.S. and you’re on a competing network, you’re ignorant. Verizon is so far ahead in LTE it’s a joke. You want fast access everywhere. Verizon delivers this best.

Once again, it’s all about investment. Verizon spent billions, the record labels cut back. If you’re not willing to spend, if you’re not willing to risk the wrath of Wall Street, you’re going to have a very brief run.

In today’s marketplace it’s about owning the sphere. You’ve got to spend to achieve this.

TOAST

Yahoo: There is no comeback. It farmed out search, without e-mail, it would collapse. And Gmail is so much better than Yahoo mail, never mind AOL mail, because Google keeps investing, Yahoo is pulling back. As for the content…is there anything on Yahoo that’s must see?

RIM: There is no comeback. Sell now, forget about it. You’ll see people using BlackBerries in the future the day everybody buys a cassette Walkman.

Sony: Is it a content company or a media company or neither?

Neither. Samsung owns TV. Movie studios are all about glamor and little profit and we all know the value of record companies… Furthermore, games are moving online, Nintendo took a hit and Sony is next.

Microsoft: It’s a long slow death. Windows doesn’t die overnight, but there’s no growth on the horizon. It was always a not invented here corporation, and without a visionary, in today’s world, you’re history.

Groupon/Living Social: It’s all bad once the heat wears off. Merchants get ripped off and users are schnorrers who don’t come back and there’s a whole segment of people embarrassed to use coupons. A fad.

Best Buy: I could beat up on them, but everyone else already has. Why waste the time to overpay at a place where the help is ignorant? Their share is being eaten by Amazon and there’s no new product on the horizon that will save them.

MySpace: Never coming back. Do you believe Plaxo can have a renaissance?

Neil Young’s Music Rescue Mission (Video)

Protecting their business model of having people pay exorbitant amounts to attend their conferences, Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher and their D: Dive Into Media conference refuse to post the entire Neil Young interview online. One wonders if they too have been paying attention to what has happened in the past ten years. If they posted complete videos would it enhance their brand or destroy it? Would people refuse to pay or would they be clamoring to get inside?

I’d argue the latter. Protecting their business model, they’re stifling the brand. They’ve got a blue chip roster of interviewees, and they’d be surprised how many punters are interested in hearing them pontificate, not only hoity-toity business executives.

In case your e-mail has been down, yesterday Neil Young was interviewed at the D: Dive Into Media conference. And he made news. Talking about the lousy quality of music. Not the songs themselves, but the bits that render the sound.

This has been a pet peeve of not only oldsters, but almost everybody who makes music. But there was no traction on this front until yesterday.

That’s the power of online.

Neil Young speaks and suddenly my inbox is filled up. This is the viral sensation all newbies are looking for. And we’re immune to hype, but if there’s something we want to see, we’ll dig deep, we’ll spend an hour watching, isn’t that the Apple paradigm, the same day availability of nerdy presentations that it turns out many people are interested in that ultimately sell more product?

Neil gets it right. We’ve got good listening devices, but the underlying product is crap.

He says that piracy is the new radio. He knows more about it than Bob Pittman, who keeps on trumpeting that we’re addicted to Clear Channel when the company’s radio stations are almost as hated as Ticketmaster.

He seems to oversimplify the album thing. But I believe his ultimate message is if you want to make a long-form statement, like "Sgt. Pepper" or "Greendale", you should be able to and still can. As to whether a company can insist people buy it that way…I think piracy has eviscerated that model.

And he even takes a swing at Beats headphones. Saying they boost the bass, but…

And speaking of Beats, for all the hype Jimmy and Dre have gotten very little traction on their underlying message, that sound counts, the headphones are fashion items. Sure, they’re better than buds, and that’s good, but who’s talking about what you hear through them?

What we need most is a national broadband policy akin to South Korea’s, with lightning fast connections that allow us to download and stream at high quality. But I don’t see the content companies lobbying for this. Because it would enable more piracy!

But it would also enable a higher quality of sound, which would pay myriad benefits. Hell, you’ll have to buy a good system just to hear it!

So Neil Young was in the right place at the right time and as a result of modern technology, the message spread. He’s been talking about high quality sound forever, but there was never any traction.

This is the power of celebrity, this is the power of thinking, this is the power of online.

Watch the video.

Re-Springsteen Tickets

Bruce wouldn’t go to all-in pricing, he didn’t want to appear to be charging more than $100 for a ticket. So, you end up being mad at Ticketmaster, but those fees don’t go to the ticketing company, they’re promoter and building profit.

And let’s be clear, Bruce is no worse than so many of the major acts. But when you’re a superstar and you’re known for honesty, you’re a lightning rod, all these issues come down to you.

Bruce should take a stand. Bruce should be an agent for change.

But he’s afraid.

Of looking greedy.

But the end result is all that money goes to scalpers and fans have to buy tickets on the "black market".

All that money should go to Bruce, he deserves it. So, the whole arena should be paperless. Or tickets should be scaled.

Bruce could have been a leader here…

From: Gary Dell’Abate
To: Bob Lefsetz
Subject: Springsteen

You should do a piece on the Springsteen tour.
I am on an e-mail chain with about 50 fans.
Not one of them could score a ticket through the web.
It looks like the scalpers won this round.

From: Bob Lefsetz
To: Gary Dell’Abate

This is very complicated.  Been on the phone with many of the players at length.

1. Paperless

They sold the Loge, the inner bowl around the floor, paperless where they could to prove to Cuomo that anti-paperless laws are ridiculous.

2. Springsteen insisted on selling the floor GA at a low price. He was told there would be chaos, but he didn’t want to raise the price.

Ultimately, this is Springsteen’s fault.

Springsteen shows either have to be totally paperless or scaled as to the true price.

But now Bruce gets to look like a man of the people whereas in reality he doesn’t care about the people.

_________________________

(Note: Did you hear Little Steven on Howard Stern today? So interesting when a fan interviews you, someone knowledgeable whom you trust.)