1

Felice’s Samsung has the best picture I’ve ever seen on an LCD TV.

For those keeping score at home, its model number is: LN46A650 (although Felice paid $65 less). When you fire up an HD channel you swear you could reach your hand right into the scene. There’s a visceal reality that titillates one’s soul. It’s like living in a sci-fi flick. One in which our filmed entertainment and reality merge.

I could go on how we don’t have an equivalent music experience, that even vinyl is not this good, but what strikes me most is that Samsung is a Korean company. Twenty years ago, if you went to someone’s house and they had Korean gear, you laughed. Now it’s the best. Like Korea’s broadband infrastructure, that allows you to download movies in less than a minute!

Mainstream media covers every move of the Sony Corporation like it’s 1978. When their recorded music company is crippled, they missed out on the hand-held MP3 player market and the PS3 is still not as successful as the vastly cheaper and easier to use Wii. This raises the question, why are we paying attention to Universal Music, the old players in the sphere, won’t new upstarts usurp these companies’ power?

2

Last week I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.

Actually, no. I saw a ton of political stickers on the back of a Hyundai.

Remember when Hyundai was a joke? Cheap, but junk? When they used carburetion when even Chevrolet had switched to fuel injection? How could Hyundai compete?

By improving its product and offering a better warranty. This warranty got people to take a chance. America likes a guarantee, it doesn’t contemplate the issuing company going bankrupt, citizens believe that the government will rescue them, make things right, even though this is often untrue. And although Kia had problems, Hyundai prospered. To the point where completely reasonable people now buy their automobiles. Women are proud of their Santa Fes. Businessmen purchase Sonatas and drive them with their heads held high. Hyundai is now moving upscale, challenging Acura and the low-lying fruit of Infiniti and Lexus. Customers now trust the company. And everybody still wants a deal.

3

Even though the baby boomers grew up laughing that something was made in Japan, even though they know those Nikes are manufactured in China, they believe that the brands of yore still rule. Sony doesn’t rule. To the point where it missed the flat panel market completely and had to go into business with the far ahead in the game Samsung for production of glass.

How much of common wisdom is just plain wrong? Is revolution percolating while baby boomers are investing in old paradigms? Microsoft has been eclipsed by Google. Aren’t we just an inch away from new players taking over the music business?