Tune in now, before the celebrities take over and the haters show up.

Something is happening here, but we don’t know what it is…

The hype has been deafening. The digerati congregated at SXSW and declared Meerkat the new savior. Then it was crippled by Twitter, which announced its own, me-too product, and we’re all sitting at home wondering what all the fuss is about, wondering whether it’s just the new turntable.fm.

You remember turntable.fm, don’t you? The service that ruled the airwaves for three weeks, before it crashed and burned and went out of business. Because the internet is endless fads. Kinda like boy bands. Sites come and they go. And if you’re not busy being born, you’re dying.

That’s what Amazon does so well, reinvent itself, push the envelope. Now they’re all about same day delivery. Whether it be by drone or not. Whereas Google was too stupid to realize mobile was going to disrupt their search monopoly. Just like Apple went from computer to iPod to iPhone to iPad, Google has been unable to have an Act II. Same with Facebook. Well, Facebook bought WhatsApp and now they’re into virtual reality and they’re trying, they’re really trying to imitate Amazon and Apple and gain new traction, and one has to give them credit for it, but my main point is even Facebook may not be forever. And in a culture where everything is evanescent, do I have to pay attention? It won’t be long before Facebook pages are calcified, set in amber, the site will be a ghost town no one goes to, because that’s the nature of the internet, we use and we abandon, can you say Geocities? But for now, all the attention is on Meerkat and Periscope. And I’m not gonna give you a primer. There are no instructions on the internet, just like with video games. You download the app and poke around and experiment and…

You find two naked girls in Westwood broadcasting from their kitchen.

Sex is always first.

Of course, you can pay for a one on one live stream on a cam site, but this isn’t about money, this is about the bleeding edge. And that’s what’s so exciting about Meerkat and Periscope, it’s all brand new.

Like I watched a sunrise in New Zealand. A cove in Australia. Someone making coffee in Amsterdam and a snowy spring in Siberia. Call me a voyeur, we’re all voyeurs, and right now regular people are letting you into their lives, just for the fun of it, and it’s strangely riveting.

They do it for the love. No one wants to be alone anymore. They want hearts and comments and interaction. They’ll perform if you show up and comment.

And who are these people?

Nobodies. Those with time. Who are not reading the newspaper, who listen to the tribal drum and want to participate.

That’s what’s so fascinating about the bleeding edge of the internet. The power fanatics, the government and the wealthy, don’t partake, they’re behind the curve, so busy luxuriating in their status they can’t see that they’re threatened, that everybody’s threatened.

But if something gains traction, the money moves in and the celebrities rule and the rest of us are excluded, left on the sidelines to pay and watch.

Believe me, no one’s gonna want to see nobodies broadcasting in the future. Why?

But now everybody does have his own television station. And we’ll get new stars, with talents we cannot predict.

And isn’t it funny that Facebook is about our permanent record, but Snapchat and Meerkat and Periscope are about impermanence. Experiences have trumped objects and fleeting has replaced lasting. We’re all in future shock. And I’d tell you you could ignore Meerkat and Periscope, but then you’d miss out on the fun. And it is fun to partake in something unformed, that is being developed on the fly.

You signed up for AOL and had no idea you were going to abandon it for the web, hell, you thought AOL WAS the web!

You didn’t know you needed broadband, on your phone no less. LTE enabled Meerkat and Periscope, never forget that. Innovation runs on technological breakthroughs.

And you might Facetime or Skype into a loved one’s life.

But what if you could Periscope into Britney Spears’s life?

Oh, you’ll be able to see Kim Kardashian’s fake life, she shows up wherever money is to be made.

And you’ll see sanitized backstage tours.

And cleaned-up shows.

But right now, you can see a cornucopia of talent that boggles the mind. Stuff you didn’t think you’d watch that you couldn’t even put a name on, but people are doing it.

And the nature of technology is we rarely foresee the uses. Remember when they kept telling us we needed computers to store our recipes? When’s the last time you did that? Did anyone ever do that?

Now I’m watching a cold morning in Krakow. I’ve never been there, looks bleak.

And a fortysomething male in bed in Vegas answering random questions. He likes cheese, he’s a singer.

And a guy doing karaoke in Los Angeles.

Who are these people?

What possessed them?

The desire to participate. To make up the future on the fly.

It’s happening.

Right now.

And we don’t know where it’s going.

And it’s titillating and exciting and you can’t understand by reading about it, just download the apps and play.

You remember playing, don’t you?

It’s what you did before you worked 24/7 to find out you couldn’t get ahead.

That’s who’s driving Meerkat and Periscope right now. Those outside the system, who have no idea where they’re going, but want to have fun along the way.

Isn’t that life?

I can’t stop playing this.

I discovered it on the Spotify playlist “Top 100 Country Tracks,” which I follow and have synched to my phone and when I’m burned out on the usual suspects I pull it up and see what’s going on in the country world.

And too many of the tracks are me-too.

But then I heard this.

I immediately pulled my phone out of my pocket to see who it was…BROTHERS OSBORNE?

Like in JEFFREY OSBORNE?

No, that’s not country music.

And I don’t know much about country music, I’ve just become inured to it because it’s picked up the flag of rock and roll and is running with it, when everybody who’s still playing that music has descended into narrow, unlistenable niches. So, is Brothers Osborne an old act or a new one? I’m confused. Because, like I said, I know Charlie Rich, but don’t quiz me on George Strait’s first fifty number ones, I’m clueless.

And I’m hooked from the very beginning.

It’s the PICKING!

And the sound. Intimate, without being depressing.

And I’m not sure what the guy is singing about, but his voice is mellifluous if not outstanding and then the song changes, at first it’s like a drive in the country, kind of like Danny O’Keefe’s gem, “Along For The Ride,” and then it switches completely, into a groove that’s more akin to pop than country, rhythmic, but infectious nonetheless. And then back to that ride in the car…

And at this point there’s a lead guitar. And I’m catching the lyric about taking t-shirts off each other, and I’m riding with the track, I’m enjoying it but it’s not a ten, and then that guitar starts to wail, they’re singing intensely, and two and a half minutes in, the track changes completely. You think it’s fading out, you’re enjoying the introspection and then…

A guitar comes in and starts jumping all over the track. Not high and trebly like on the metal cuts.

And then the guy starts picking faster, you’re digging it, but believing it’s going to fade out.

But it doesn’t.

The guy starts wailing.

And you’re waiting for the vocal to come back in, since there’s no fade-out in evidence.

But the cut gets quiet at 4:24 and then there’s an explosion of guitar, and then it’s intense and they’re picking at ten, it’s like an Outlaws track, “Green Grass And High Tides.”

And then it ends.

WHAT WAS THAT?

So I play it again.

And I’ve got that quiet, intimate picking… Is this really the same record?

And then there’s that change, and I’m fully hooked.

And then there’s that guitar wailing and when it ends I’ve got to hear it again and again and AGAIN!

I’m thinking this is closer to the Allman Brothers than country. It hearkens back to the seventies, when the guitar was king. And the guitar hasn’t been king for so long.

But we baby boomers, we remember.

We went to Manny’s, Sam Ash, we lusted after Fenders, we bought amps, we needed to replicate this sound. Hell, scratch a boomer and you’ll find out he’s got a rig in the garage and he practices and he’s got a pickup band and now that his kids are out of the house it’s what he LIVES FOR!

But these people don’t play new music, they just spin the oldies. The classics.

And I’m thinking if only they heard this…

And you should hear this Brothers Osborne track “Stay A Little Longer.”

There’s a demo on Spotify, I’ll include it in the playlist, it’s the same song but not the same record, it doesn’t have the same magic.

That intro picking, that hooks you immediately…it’s absent.

The change works, but despite having wailing at the end, absent the production the demo doesn’t succeed.

And let me reinforce, that wailing at the end of the single, produced version is not show-offy, it’s restrained, which is why you enjoy it so much.

So, even if you think you hate country, if you can appreciate a good guitar solo…

You’ve got to listen to this.

Hang in there. Be sure to ride past the 2:30 mark.

So far, this is not burning up the chart, it’s got some action, but it looks like it’s gonna stall.

Then again, all the legendary tracks from way back when were not hits, they were not made for the chart, but for the listener, who appreciated them. Hell, ” Fillmore East” broke the Allmans, but they didn’t have a hit until AFTER!

So, check this out.

Rhinofy-Stay A Little Longer

Ze Frank is educated and smart.

I’ve never come across that combination in the music business.

No, that’s wrong. There’s Cliff Burnstein, who’s a few credits shy of a Ph.D. in math. What do they say at Q Prime? To do all the superfluous work and allow Cliff time to think, because when Cliff thinks Q Prime makes money.

Hmm…

I’m not saying I don’t know a lot of intelligent people in the music business. But they’re street smart. They know how to intimidate, negotiate. Theorize? That’s absent. Which is why music’s lunch has been eaten by tech. And speaking of tech victories, the big story in today’s financial world is the “Forbes” cover story on Chris Sacca, the investor billionaire. You should read it. Chris has never given press access before. And this article proves why. Because you don’t look totally positive. Chris has made some choices and behaved in ways that I would not have chosen to. But he’s made the money. And that’s the only scorecard people seem to keep these days. And by those standards, Chris is winning.

And it’s not only money, unlike the Wall Street titans at Goldman Sachs, Chris has invested in companies you love and use. At least some of you. Like Uber, Twitter and Kickstarter. Chris is building things. Got to give him kudos for that.

But back to Ze.

Ze went to Brown.

But then he was a musician.

And I could delineate all of his history, but the point is Ze made it via his creativity, his art, which puts him in the same wheelhouse as musicians.

Only Ze was on the cutting edge.

Talk to anybody in social media. They all know Ze. Primarily for his 2006 web series “the show with ze frank.” Early adopters win. If they continue to stay the course. If you’re planning on being a YouTube star today, forget it. Same deal with imitating Katy Perry or Miley Cyrus. You’re too far behind the curve. You’ve got to catch the NEXT wave.

So now Ze runs BuzzFeed Motion Pictures.

I get it, I get it, you HATE BuzzFeed! All that listicle crap. But they’re two separate entities. Not all BuzzFeed Motion Pictures live on the BuzzFeed site.

Anyway, two years ago there were 2 people working there.

Now there are 170.

So you walk inside and everybody’s happy and there’s a lot going on.

This is contrary to the record label, where you see a sea of empty desks and everybody’s depressed.

First you see the intern stations. PAID interns, that is. 30% graduate to fellowships. And then some become full time BuzzFeeders.

And what do full time BuzzFeeders do?

MAKE MOVIES!

Think about that. They’re creating. With very little supervision. They have to meet the metrics, which they can see on a personal dashboard, but responsibility lies with them.

Everybody in music is shirking responsibility.

But music is cheap to make.

And now movies are too.

Ze commented on the fall of cable TV.

Are you watching this? It’s kind of like digital photography. We heard about it for a decade and then it happened overnight. We heard about internet delivery of television programs and in the last two weeks, it’s arrived.

And what do people want to see?

That’s BuzzFeed’s mission. To capture eyeballs. And to replace the cable TV producers.

Ze thinks their model stinks. Thinks the music labels’ model stinks. Wherein you throw a ton of money at the wall and hope something sticks to pay for it all.

Ze believes you’ve got to pay as you go. Everything’s got to win.

And what do you win with?

Ze thinks long form story, the cable television you’re addicted to, may be history as much as the Russian novel.

The key is to create content people can identify with, see themselves in, that they can access at any time. Length, story? Irrelevant.

Mmm… Sounds like the music business, right? Where the creators want to make albums and the consumers want singles. And now we’re entering this ridiculous era of exclusives, with Beats and Tidal. Once we start Balkanizing content, we’re lost. But don’t tell that to the greedy acts and labels, who don’t comprehend the landscape and just want to line their pockets. The public HATES exclusives, they either tune out or steal.

So Ze’s mission is to get people to BuzzFeed films. To not reinvent the wheel every time. To get people inured to, addicted to, their content. He’s got people working on this mission. He just doesn’t want to open doors and let everyone else in, he wants to plant a flag the consumer rallies around.

Meanwhile, they keep expanding.

They decided they wanted to crack the foreign market. They started making clips. And then someone stumbled upon making clips of foreigners eating American food and vice versa. Bingo, success!

Where is the risk in music?

Not there. Tracks are honed to the point of irrelevance. New is anathema. It’s usually the same old thing over and over again.

But don’t tell this to the inner circle.

That’s what’s wrong with music. You work in it or you live for it and you have no perspective…that the average person has tuned out, because it’s incomprehensible or not good enough.

BuzzFeed is going for everyone.

Everybody makes about a clip a week.

They’re building inventory.

You know their work, even if you don’t know it’s theirs. Like that clip comparing women’s bodies over the ages, that’s one of theirs.

They got a $50 million infusion from Andreessen Horowitz.

When did anybody last put this kind of money in music?

They don’t, because it doesn’t scale. It’s not made for everyone. And people are closed off to reinventing the wheel.

Which is why you’d rather work at BuzzFeed Motion Pictures. Where you get to put your hands on the wheel. Where you’re the master of your own domain. Where you can become a star.

“How Super Angel Chris Sacca Made Billions, Burned Bridges And Crafted The Best Seed Portfolio Ever”

“Women’s Ideal Body Types Throughout History”

BuzzFeedVideo YouTube channel

1. CHECK YOUR GRAMMAR

No one’s going to take you seriously if you use “there” instead of “their” or “your” instead of “you’re.” Maybe you should write your missives in Word first, where there’s a grammar checker. Or maybe run your prospective words by your mother, since you want her to be proud of you. I’d say to get a review by your significant other, but I’ve yet to find a hater with a spouse.

2. SPELLCHECK

This is built into so many of today’s programs, especially e-mail. How much effort does it take to scroll up to the menu and give it a go?

Then again, you’re probably hating from your smartphone, and you don’t want to risk waiting and having your anger subside. Otherwise you won’t have the desired effect of pissing off your target. Hating must be done right away, when you’re irate, when it’s still the most important thing in the world. However, those worth hating judge you by your spelling mistakes. They’re evidence of education. And if you haven’t got any, the target will not take you seriously.

3. SCRUB SEARCH ENGINES

The problem with today’s world is everybody is identifiable, researchable. Especially in this challenged economy where everybody is looking for a job and posts his curriculum vitae on LinkedIn. You don’t want the recipient of your hatred to know you don’t have a job, or a bad one. You’re embarrassed about your situation enough! So hire a reputation company to get rid of stuff you don’t want people to see. As for victims checking out your resume… You might think you’ve won, but the truth is victims like to laugh too!

4. DON’T HATE IN YOUR FIELD/BACKYARD

Otherwise it just evidences jealousy.

If you’re in music, hate in sports or TV. Because if you hate in your preferred area it just shows that you’re frustrated, you believe that the recipient has your job. Then again, haters hate because they don’t know how to climb the business ladder, wherein social skills are key to advancement. However, this is not just a hater problem. With so few good jobs available, the populace is defeated. So, for this we must have sympathy for the hater.

5. CONTENT PEOPLE!

A reasoned argument has impact. Assuming the hate reaches the target, and you must assume this, being the head of a military operation with many strikes, you never know when you’ll succeed, don’t just say STOP, or YOU’RE A JERK! That stuff works on the schoolyard, when it’s accompanied by physical intimidation and social status. But not online. Then again, you’re lucky you have online as your sandbox, because haters tend to be wimpy loners who’ve found this one way to vent their anger that their lives are not working out. So, if you’re hating on someone, delineate your complaint thoroughly. Point out not only the mistake, but the path of correction. This is your true mission, helping others. Why else would someone reach down in the pit and rescue you from your misery, acknowledge you and give you a job, if you’re not helpful?

6. PUNCH UP, NOT DOWN

Only hate on those higher up the food chain than yourself. Nothing undercuts your status more than posing as popular and successful and then hating someone you keep saying is beneath you. It makes you look small and petty. Which is why when someone receives hate e-mail from an attorney or public figure, that contains no analysis (see #5 above), it changes the recipient’s viewpoint of the hater. I’ll give you the opposite example. Obama is President, that’s why he does not hate, there’s no one above him. He just experiences the vitriol and smiles. Whereas Republican Congresspeople and Fox News excoriate him, because they want his job.

7. ANONYMITY

Shows cowardice. It radiates fear. If you’re not willing to put your name to your hate your hate will not be taken seriously.

8. CABAL

Some haters have friends, who they rally to pile on. Is the lone gunman more powerful than the army? It’s debatable. But if you enlist your minions have a goal. And make sure you can win. Because if you rally everybody and don’t get the desired response, which is usually a response at all, then you’ll have a hard time getting everybody to hate together in the future.

9. SOCIAL NETWORKS

Twitter is on to your game. It’s banning hate accounts based on phone number. How many phone numbers do you have? Not many, therefore you won’t be able to keep creating new accounts for strategic attacks. Which is why you’re best off hating in your own name.

10. TAKE HATING SERIOUSLY

One hate mail is dismissible. Could have been a missend, meant for someone else, and will be ignored. Then again, so much hate is ignored. Which is why you must send hundreds of e-mails even if you get no response. Because hating is the most important thing to you. If you stop hating, the terrorists win.