Fuck Bill Nguyen.  This guy deserves to DIE!

My inbox is sacred.  But in the last ten minutes I’ve gotten six e-mails from people at lala, or members, who knows who the fuck they are, they’re listed as "lalacrew", telling me they’ve got CDs to trade and to SIGN UP!

Did this asshole never read Seth Godin?  That’s it’s now about PERMISSION MARKETING???  Bill and all his robots can sink into the ocean as far as I’m concerned.  You want to e-mail me personally, respond, ask me a question?  I’m all for it.  You want to send me unsolicited form e-mail then you deserve to DIE!  You’re a spammer.  It’s shit like this that makes me support the major labels.  Just another young asshole techie who thinks he owns the music, not having invested a dime in its production.  Really, where does Bill get off.  Selling used CDs and trying to make it look like he’s a savior when he pays no royalties (legal in this case) and covers it all up by saying he’s donating to musician foundations.  This ain’t the Grateful Dead, lala.com is not run by hippies, it’s run by cold calculating asshole businessmen. The ANTITHESIS of what the music USED to represent and still does on some indie level…

Go fuck up in your sandbox, and leave my inbox alone.  If I want to trade CDs on lala.com I’ll sign up and do it MYSELF!  The more you reach out to me, the more I insure I run from your product and tell EVERYBODY what a jerk you are and that they should run too.  This is how the major labels got in trouble.  By ABUSING their audience instead of trying to be in cahoots with them.  It’s adversarial as opposed to together.  And I’ve got no tolerance for people who are not friends of mine.

Not that I was gonna write ANY of the above when I got back to my room in the Sheraton, but I’m worried that this asshole gave my e-mail address to all 400,000 lala members and my inbox will be dead forever.  That’s the kind of sick games these techies play.  That’s why you lose all that time to spam.  Major labels not playing by the rules?  Techies who never went on a date until they were in their twenties know no limits in trying to fuck over those who they believe fucked over THEM!

I’m really pissed.  Because if you met this guy Bill Nguyen, you’d know he’s not from this planet.  If he does shit, if he’s not a robot, what comes out doesn’t stink.  He’s saving the world, as he gets richer and richer.  FUCK OFF AND DIE!

It’s still coming in.  From the same asshole AGAIN!  Two from this guy Ryan Self.  Hey, why don’t YOU e-mail him.  His e-mail address is: _________.  This works BOTH WAYS!  I already sent this guy an e-mail to stop, but he sent ANOTHER ONE!  Identical to the first.  Kind of like with spammers, you answer their e-mail and you’re SPAMMED FOREVER!

Anyway, I WAS planning to write to tell you about this morning’s session, which was very good.  Because halfway through the man from Domino, John Dyer, started to speak.

This is a business of people, not math.

And the people have been squeezed out.

This English guy talked about working with Sigur Ros.  And how they WANTED to market themselves, but if they did, it would alienate their audience.  And speaking of audiences, he talked about crossing the chasm, getting from the early adopters to a more general audience, how you had to do something to goose it.  But it had to be a long gradual plan, not an all out attack, like the major labels usually employ.

But what was most fascinating was when he spoke of his trip to Korea.  Where he experienced a virtual world, via their extremely high speed network.  People were paying to have virtual parties in their virtual living rooms.  They were BUYING virtual t-shirts!

And lest you believe that it’s only in Asia, John told us about his son being a member of Club Penguin.  For three dollars a month, his kid can play in the virtual world as much as he wants.  Where every Friday they make new merch available, which you can buy with points you’ve accumulated during the week.  And sometimes they run out, and sometimes you can’t get into the hip rooms, and his son is addicted, but he believes it’s better than having the kid out in the street.

And then John spoke of owning a record shop.  And having his customers complain that there were two shitty bonus tracks on a collectors’ single.  Why include them if they weren’t good enough THE FIRST TIME AROUND!  The acts believe the customer wants more cardboard, more info, but the consumer/fan only wants GOOD INFO/STUFF!

And with the Arctic Monkeys it was about gaining an identity, through the comedic elements of their show.  Spreading the word about WHAT THEY WERE ABOUT!  Whereas with another act, it was about INTERACTING with the fans, talking with them on the message boards.  Not every band should utilize the same plan.

And there’s not enough talking on the INSIDE either.

John released a mashup album, cut in Belgium and then imported to avoid legal issues, and entitled it "Volume 2", even though there was no Volume 1, so fans would come back to shops and ASK for Volume 1, thus triggering phone calls from the shops to the distributor and ultimately John, fostering a DIALOGUE!

And Erin Kinghorn, from Nettwerk, she said it took eighteen impressions to make an impact, more than double what it USED to be.

And there was conversation about video games, and music’s inclusion therein.

And I noticed, whenever anybody spoke about the penumbra, the virtual worlds, videogames and computers, there was a gleam in their eye that was ABSENT when speaking of music.

Music is a second class citizen.  It’s our fault.

Three new lala e-mails.

Including a response from a person I told not to send me anymore e-mail.

This is it.  From a DIFFERENT e-mail address:

From: dave@interactcd.com

Your article is factually incorrect. We’re just inviting you to come experience lala for yourself so you can report on it accurately.

Have a nice day.

Now if this ain’t a cult, I don’t know what is.

Sound like Scientology to you???  You just don’t get it.  But we’re nice smiling people.  Come investigate us, we’ll be friendly, you’ll like us, you’ll want to join.