Comcast’s iPad App
Uh-oh. You’ve now got a reason to buy an iPad.
Watch this video. RIGHT NOW!
If you build it, people will find a way to make it useful.
The iPad is dumb. It’s the apps that make it smart. But so far, we haven’t found an app that demands purchase of the device. Today, we’ve got one.
What does this mean?
Buy Apple stock. This is a game-changer. No other company has got this product and despite having a MacBook and an iPhone or iPod Touch, suddenly you need an iPad.
This is what happens when we seed development. This is what happens when we include instead of exclude.
The music business is based on exclusion. The majors controlled distribution and kept third parties out. Not only musicians, but business innovators. Business innovation is still in the doldrums in music because the rights holders just won’t license. Spotify on the iPhone is just as cool as this Comcast app, but almost no one’s seen it. Hell, the Spotify desktop app is almost as cool as the Comcast app and almost no one’s seen that either, certainly not in America. Last week, the Spotify software asked my permission to do an upgrade. I clicked, it imported all the MP3s on my hard drive, which I normally played via iTunes, and also allowed me to hook up with my Facebook friends and share playlists.
And in this case, on Spotify, you can play your friends’ playlists instantly. You don’t have to buy them like on iTunes, there is no wall. As a matter of fact, it’s open!
Music is falling even further behind.
Even TV quality is better. While people have been racing to flat screens to watch HD, they’ve been avoiding the stereo shop to listen on earbuds. We can’t even find a compelling reason to get people to listen to good sound. That’s like being unable to get people turned on by Pamela Anderson or Jennifer Aniston or Rob Pattinson or Johnny Depp. What we’re selling in the music industry is the dumpy persona with bad skin, telling everybody he or she is great. Huh? Don’t you think great sound quality sells music? OF COURSE IT DOES!
This video makes me so excited I’d drive straight to the store and buy an iPad today, if I had Comcast. Unfortunately, I’ve got Time Warner, which is like getting your music from the major labels via CDs, over-compressed, tinny-sounding CDs.
Still, this is the wave of the future.
Oh, what a great era we live in. Where innovation and excitement is around every corner.
Steve Jobs built a platform. Controlling it so tightly, he allowed creation of apps that work, seamlessly. And greater minds than Steve are figuring out ways to create iPad apps that not only satisfy the public, but drive iPad sales.
In the music world, we deny tools, we keep people out. But technology is about BRINGING PEOPLE IN!Â
