Bits & Bytes
Today’s Trent/NIN Story
Unfortunately, Tap Tap Revenge is cooler and more addictive than anything the major labels are purveying. Trent knows this, but Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine do not. Trent says yes. The major label act calls his manager who calls his lawyer who calls his label and his publisher and it’s gridlock, nothing happens, everybody from the older generation fearful of sacrificing a buck is left out.
MySpace Music
Content is not king, distribution is. That’s what gave the major labels their power. They could get the records in the store and get paid for them too! But with anybody able to get their stuff on iTunes, the labels needed another monopoly. Hence, MySpace Music.
MySpace Music is just as fucked up as the original MySpace site. With a user interface so complicated and so unintuitive that you bounce right off of it, to another site, the same way a meteorite bounces off the Earth’s atmosphere.
But it’s worse. I got the AOL click of death. Remember the days of dialup, when we had to keep clicking to tell AOL we were still on and shouldn’t be disconnected? MySpace Music has this same feature. It wouldn’t keep playing the song I wanted unless I clicked and said I was still in front of the computer. No roaming around the house, no going to the bathroom, you must listen to your music in one place and be prepared to tell the service you’re still here, even if you’re deeply into writing or another site. Sure, they’re trying to avoid click fraud, but isn’t that how the labels got in trouble to begin with? By worrying so much how they could get ripped off that their solutions failed?
I hope MySpace Music fails. Because it fucks the indies in the ass. They weren’t asked to join, to reap in the revenue…it’s like working on the plantation. Furthermore, free downloadability has been eviscerated. If you WANT to give away your music, you can’t. A step backward in MySpace world.
The ads cheapen the product to the point where the site has no soul. It’s only about the money. MySpace? Isn’t that a scam two guys cooked up and Rupert Murdoch purchased to make a ton of bread? You’ve got to think of the consumer first, the bread second. You’ve got to make the audience believe it’s the number one consideration. It hasn’t been this way in major labelville for eons, and it still isn’t.
Albums
Do you want to placate a small coterie of fans or branch out to reach untold millions? Albums are for fans, singles are for millions.
You get to make your choice. Neither one is bad. But it’s nigh near impossible to have both.
A fan can’t get enough of his favorite. He’ll steal the album online, buy the CD and go to the show. And, even drag potential converts to the show.
Singles buyers are not fans. They just want something to play. Usually, something else is more important to them. Like video games or sports. Now, more than ever, casual buyers, singles buyers rule. They haven’t got time to surf endlessly for product, never mind listen to it. They want to be told what to listen to. And they only want the hit. They don’t want to delve deeper.
So, if you’re looking for mass appeal, only release singles. A steady stream of INCREDIBLE product. Maybe the casual masses will believe you’re more than the tracks, which has occurred with Nickelback.
If you’re an album seller, know that your audience wants more product. Release outtakes, live tracks and instead of putting out an eighty minute opus every four years, split it in half and deliver an album every two years. Better yet, every single year. Even better, release music every other MONTH! You can’t overload the fan.
There’s a lot of money in fandom. It’s about going deep instead of wide.
But don’t think your mediocre album without a killer single is going to spawn a hit, turn casual users into fans. Know who you are.
Apple Stock
The only person who’s been consistently right is Gene Munster, analyst for Piper Jaffray. He’s maintaining a Buy rating and a target price of $250 a share.
Furthermore, it was just announced that Apple laptops accounted for 20 per cent of retail sales during July and August:
In other words, the stock meltdown was panic selling by the uninformed.
What else are people uninformed about?
