Roundup
THE APPLE NUMBERS
How long do you keep a cell phone? Two years at most.
That’s why Apple stock is going to go through the roof.
I thought it was properly priced or overvalued, I told a friend not to buy any more at these prices. But what made me think different was Jason Schwartz’s analysis on thestreet.com:
"The fact that this company’s hottest product is an iPhone that needs to be replaced every 18 to 24 months is a fact that not many analysts have noticed."
Schwarz: Forget Microsoft, Apple’s market cap certainly will end up crushing Exxon’s
Whew. Think about that! That’s like the record companies upgrading sound quality every two years so that people have to buy the same product all over again, or blowing out MP3s because we’re going to streaming services. And the ultimate goal is recurring income!
Apple sold 8.75 million iPhones this past quarter, compared with 3.79 a year ago. As for the iPod? Sales were down 1%, but revenue was up as buyers switched to the more expensive Touch. Which is like getting people to buy more expensive CDs while the market is moving to digital.
So, what we need are artists, who develop and build. The artist is the hardware, the iPhone/iPod, and the ticket sales and merch are the data plan. Don’t forget most apps are free. Then again, now you can monetize within the app.
Is Jobs limiting the iPhone by restricting the tools developers can use and making it porn free, or by controlling everything has he got the winning formula? Unclear. But the whole world is watching. The leak of the iPhone 4G by Gizmodo is a bigger story than the leak of any music. Maybe because Apple is even purer than Jay-Z.
What kind of fucked up world do we live in where the Black Eyed Peas are beholden to the man, tied in with every corporation known to man, and a computer company is pure? Think about that…
And people believe in Apple, they buy the Peas, but they don’t believe in them, and that’s a big difference.
Then again, in tech you’re only as good as your last product. Which is why, rather than continuing to tour on the old ones, rest their laurels on Windows and Office like Microsoft, Apple is releasing and updating product like crazy, trying to not only ride the wave, but paddle out in front of the next set.
iPAD/KINDLE
This article is SO good I want you to stop reading this and immediately click through and read it.
I could argue with the conclusion, and the editor ultimately made it unclear whether Amazon was benign or the enemy, but I was riveted.
I culled too many quotes to ultimately insert them here, but I’ll just leave you with one:
"Bookstores return about forty per cent of the hardcovers they buy; this accounts for $5.20 per book."
Holy shit, this is a business model? Where profit is a dollar?
Really, read this!
INSIDE THE BIZARRE WORLD OF REALITY TV NIGHTCLUB APPEARANCES
And you wonder why they don’t book live music.
But forget the club owner’s viewpoint, would you rather see a wannabe musical act or a reality TV star in the flesh? The former is a whore who cloaks himself in music to obscure the truth, the latter is more honest, the reality TV star truly is a whore! I’m gonna do anything to be famous and then cash-in!
DEVO
This is SO well done.
Under the aegis of asking for help, they’re getting you to listen to the songs. But funny how they’ve only got snippets, like call-out research, if only they let you stream the entire song.
Meanwhile, Devo was always about conception, being more than the songs. The Web is built for them. Their time has returned.
