"and it is why real innovation always comes from small companies that don’t have a predetermined mindset, or monopoly profits to protect"

Ten years ago I would be railing against the Microsoft/Yahoo merger. This was before the ascent of Google. This was before the Internet trumped the OS.

Remember the browser wars? Do you even know what browser you’re employing? Are you arguing what’s best, Safari, Firefox, Camino..? Or are you concentrating more on your profile at match.com. It’s kind of like knowing how to fix your car… Automobiles don’t break like they used to. And neither do computers. Those skills you acquired, they’re useless and irrelevant.

The money is now in advertising, attached to online search. And this impacts not only Microsoft and Google, but Viacom and CBS and the rest of the television networks. They’ve employed an advertising model for half a century. Is it history? Are people even going to watch broadcast television shows on their flat panels or are they going to pull them when they want them on the Internet? The writers are asking that question, that’s why they’re striking.

Microsoft has been caught flat-footed. Playing the wrong game. They dominate the OS world and the office applications world, but those are not growth industries. And it looks like office apps may move to the Web.

The music business will be fine. People will create music and infrastructure will exist to monetize that music. It just won’t look like the system we have now. How will it look? Ask those small, nimble companies starting out, who aren’t worried about protecting their infrastructure. To a jam band building an audience on the road, mechanical royalties are irrelevant. The act might sell product, but never make a deal with Marty Bandier. The statutory rate might be irrelevant to them. They might be more interested in creating their own version of StubHub, to resell tickets to their own concerts. And once they create a viable business model, everybody will follow them. Just like when the Beatles created a viable album market, the market followed in their footsteps. Hell, there was more money in selling a collection of tunes than one or two, even if the one or two were perceived by the old guard as to be more palatable, more friendly to radio, more memorable and pricier on an aliquot basis!

You’ve got to throw out the rule book. Microsoft can’t get Google to cease and desist. Can’t get it to stop selling ads. And however much copyrightholders might decry search engines, there’s a whole business of search optimization! While some people are trying to keep their content off Google, others see its value and want to go higher in the rankings! Think about it. Would you rather stay out of the game and protect your rights, or dabble in the new world, where everybody’s going?

It’s just that the old wavers get press. Sometimes their precepts aren’t even wrong. Songwriters should be paid. And recorded music should be paid for too. But how, and for what price and in what form? These are the questions that the established players refuse to ask. And the longer they stay stuck in their ways, the more opportunities there are for new players to steal the business from them.

Microsoft didn’t even know the money was in search, didn’t even cross their radar. Yahoo either. But Google discovered the formula and got such a head start that the other two might combine just to survive! Furthermore, the public is with Google. Its share of search constantly goes up. Because it’s accurate and fast. Furthermore, it’s free! Isn’t it interesting that the most valuable Net company gives away its core product and makes the money on ancillaries!

I’m not saying music should be free. I am saying we need to start with a clean piece of paper. Stop blaming people and try to come up with solutions. Those in the business are so hung up on the value of music that listening to their own mantra they can’t see the public agrees! It’s just that the valuation is different! Maybe it’s a per month fee. Maybe it’s a package.

I don’t agree with everything said here, but read it as stimulation:

Better Than Free

This guy is thinking. This is the kind of guy Doug Morris should be meeting with. Paul McGuinness shouldn’t insult this west coast hippy, but invite him to lunch, pay him for his ideas!

The west coast hippys Mr. McGuinness speaks of are not focused on stealing music. That’s not their primary thought. They want information disseminated. And they want to make money. And unlike too many in the entertainment business, they’re educated and intelligent and thrive on new ideas.

If you’re married to the past, you’re missing the future.

Complete quote/context for the starting excerpt:

"Today, Microsoft lacks both the weaponry and the nimbleness to compete with Google. Its operating system monopoly gives it no advantages in this battle. People can use Microsoft’s operating system and browser to get to the Internet – and to Google – or they can use Apple’s. It truly doesn’t matter. Meanwhile, with every new Internet fad, like the current frenzy over social networking, Microsoft is invariably caught flat-footed and has to race to just get a foot in the game. But that’s always the way it is when companies get big – and it is why real innovation always comes from small companies that don’t have a predetermined mind-set, or monopoly profits to protect."

A Giant Bid That Shows How Tired the Giant Is

Last night I caught Vampire Weekend on the Letterman show. They were awful.

It used to be important to be first, to be on the cutting edge, to KNOW! And those who knew weren’t so interested in letting the hoi polloi in on their newfound favorites, but they laughed when the mainstream finally caught on. There was a clear division between who and what was hip, and the unwashed masses.

Then, in the late MTV era, the mainstream and the hip merged. We all watched the same shows, we all reveled in the economic run-up of the late twentieth century.

Then the Internet era hit.

We’re on media overload. No one can keep up. Everybody’s an expert in their own little niche. Still, there are those who sit on high, mostly baby boomers and fortysomethings, divining what is hip, what is cool. Only this time, they want to let you know how cool they are. They want to TELL YOU!

Used to be it took years for a band to reach public consciousness. Now it might take a month. From insiders to the casual listener, within that period of time, we can all know. Because of modern communication methods. Furthermore, there’s no screening process, no winnowing of the wheat from the chaff. Everything can be served up right now. It doesn’t have to break through because of its essence, the hype can deliver a ray of light to almost anything. And when you take a look at this something…too often you’re disappointed.

Used to be I didn’t want to feel out of the loop. I had to be on it. But that doesn’t make any difference anymore. Oh, I might be interested in the news, Microsoft’s hostile offer for Yahoo, but when it comes to art, everything’s fresh when I find it. Whether it be today or two years from now. Still, there are people dunning me for not being on it, not being in the know. Didn’t I get the memo?

Like a baby boomer rock critic yesterday. Chiding me for only picking up on "Raising Sand" this week. Well, that’s not exactly true. I was aware the album was coming out long before it was released. Heard some songs I didn’t love on the radio before the album hit the store. Even had a disc copy. I didn’t want to spend the time digesting the record, not based on what I’d heard already. But, eventually Sirius served up a track and I found it. When I was ready. That was fine for me. But not for the prognosticators of cool. I was behind the curve.

I could turn this into a pissing contest. And speak of what I’m following, what I’m up to the minute on. But that’s not the point. The point is we’re all following our own muse, our own interest, with 300 TV channels and an endless Web, never mind video games, cell phones…

I feel self-satisfied that I didn’t fall for the Vampire Weekend hype. I laugh at those who’ve been trumpeting the act, like it’s the second coming. THIS IS IT? You’re spending all your time working THIS?

Yes, the trendmongers need something to hype, to make themselves feel good. The rest of the world tunes in, for a brief moment, and then tunes out. Sure, an occasional work is great and sustains, but almost nothing does.

It’s like the movie business. Films are here for a weekend or two, then gone. You remember who you went to the theatre with, maybe even what you ate, but not the flick. And those flicks you do remember seem to start off off the radar and grow slowly, like "Juno". The cognoscenti weren’t on "Juno". The newspapers weren’t saying to watch for the opening weekend gross. Small movies can’t make it. But this one did. The AUDIENCE BUILT IT!

So those of you trying to generate buzz, trying to be first and superior, that game is done. We’re just looking for SOMETHING good. We don’t care if we’re first or last, we just want fulfillment.

Kind of like that anti-Tipping Point screed making the rounds. Used to be that trends were started by individuals and grown from the center. But now there is no center. If you believe there’s a center, you’re missing the point. There are a thousand points of light. Growing slowly. Will they all merge into a homogeneous whole? Maybe. Maybe not. And, if not, that doesn’t mean the work is substandard, just not ubiquitous.

At this point in time, if I’m being worked, if all the hipsters are hyping me on something, I’m turned off. It’s like I’m from Missouri, the SHOW ME state. I end up laughing at you.

Like this ridiculous Obama video with will.i.am that a zillion people have e-mailed me in the past twelve hours. What the fuck do I care. I can pull a ton of Obama info myself, whether it be from TV, the Web or the "New Yorker". I’ve got options. I don’t need famous people cramming their opinion down my throat. Kind of like the celebs at the Kodak Theatre for the Democratic debate. How did they get the good seats? Isn’t this what’s wrong with America, a divide between the winners and losers?

The top down world is coming to an end. The individual, if not quite as powerful as the self-styled famous, is just as important. People have tools to make art, and a smorgasbord of entertainment options. You must penetrate their temples trepidatiously. You must use permission marketing. You must reward them. You must not bang them over the head and make them feel inferior. You must knock on their door and ask them if they have the time. And you must be selling something more than momentary, or they’re not interested. Oh, they’ll look at a train-wreck, but avert their eyes to a new distraction very quickly.

We’ve been living with a class of professional, holier-than-thou trendsetters, who believe they determine what is cool. Cool is not so important anymore. Attention is king. And the longer you can keep someone’s attention, the more you’re going to win in the twenty first century.

Vampire Weekend’s album might be better than their live show. But last night on Letterman, I just saw more white boys playing thin rock. I laughed to myself, wondering why everybody was wasting so much time on this evanescent act. I switched the channel.

Roadie Hero
Finally, a video game for the unsung heroes.

I agreed to do this story in the "Washington Post".

I turned down the "L.A. Weekly".  I just about said yes, then I read one of the guy’s articles while feasting on a tostada in Burbank and lost my appetite.  It was snarky!

When you submit yourself to others, you’re at their mercy.  And they’re never one hundred percent positive.  They can’t be, it seems to be the journalistic code.  They’ll comment on your appearance, even if they don’t twist your words, you’ll read and wince.  It’s their ego on the line too.  A rock star might be worth millions, but he’s an equal when speaking to a reporter.  Maybe less.

But this guy said he didn’t want to do an expose.  That he was genuinely interested in getting my story out there.  But did it make any difference?  Did my audience read the "Washington Post"?  Used to be that that was the only way to get the story out there, by playing with the major league gatekeepers.  I figured I’d get a ton of hits on my site, a hundred or two subscribers, most of whom would desert me once they got a taste of my act.  Then again, it was the "Washington Post".  I’d be lying if I said my ego wasn’t stroked a bit.  So, after about four months of back and forth, I said yes.

Then came the logistics.

The "Washington Post" commissioned an army.  There was the photo editor who had freelancers on the west coast…  When could we do it?

Well, I’m not going to let them come to my house.  I don’t want people seeing my true life.  But outside, the light fades.  And I’ve been traveling, and hunting up some real money.  But this photographer…he called me on my cell.  And I almost always pick up my cell.  Because I give almost nobody the number.  I agreed to come to his apartment, this afternoon, after my shrink appointment, at 3.

Where my doctor ended up raising my rate.  Oh, I agreed to pay.  I live frugally.  I’ve saved just about every dollar I’ve earned.  But I had a bad year, I lost almost ninety percent of my income.  Through no fault of my own.  They laid off just about everybody I worked with at Rhino, and they sold my hours at KLSX to a psychic, for a glorified infomercial.  But the increase threw me off guard a bit.  Whenever I’ve flown on hopes and dreams, I’ve fallen flat on my face.

I ended up finding a parking space not far from the photographer’s abode.

I was less worried about how I was going to look than what the reporter was going to write, so I let him drive the shoot.  But while we were setting up, I engaged him in conversation.  I love to hear people’s stories.

He’s a news photographer.  That’s his beat.  He doesn’t fantasize about art, he loves the adrenaline of this fast-moving world.  He shot McCain last night, and then the Democratic debate.  He’s slammed through Tuesday, the election.

And a bereted gentleman emerged from the apartment next door.  A sporadically working music video director.  He helped hold the giant reflector, to generate light in the late afternoon.

And we’re talking about the program, about life, about getting ahead.  I’m living in an alternative universe.  Not the one of business, but art.  These guys weren’t solely in it for the money.  They weren’t at 9 to 5 jobs.  I realized…I was a lot closer to them than the people minting dollars.  The photographer told me he loved what he did, and that got him through.

And after the video director asked the photographer if he could help him with his connections, I got back in my car and while driving up Pacific Avenue I heard "More Than This".

It was fun for a while…