{"id":109,"date":"2005-08-02T20:13:54","date_gmt":"2005-08-03T03:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2005\/08\/02\/winnerslosers\/"},"modified":"2005-08-02T20:13:54","modified_gmt":"2005-08-03T03:13:54","slug":"winnerslosers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2005\/08\/02\/winnerslosers\/","title":{"rendered":"Winners\/Losers"},"content":{"rendered":"

WINNERS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

APPLE COMPUTER<\/p>\n

The Mighty Mouse isn’t about placating Mac fans, it’s about convincing
Windows users.\u00c2\u00a0 They lowered the price of iPods, they came out with the Mac Mini,
they’re switching to Intel, if you don’t think Apple’s gonna make a run at
taking over the world, you’re just not paying attention.<\/p>\n

GOOGLE<\/p>\n

You still can’t get a gmail account unless you know somebody.<\/p>\n

It’s this kind of soft launch, inside club marketing the music business USED
to specialize in.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Google Maps and Google Earth debuted in a similar soft launch
fashion and there STILL isn’t a fee\/business model extant.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, there WILL BE,
after users tell everybody how cool the services are.<\/p>\n

Don’t bet on Yahoo.\u00c2\u00a0 Yahoo is an overhyped company that doesn’t understand
the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 Terry Semel can speak to Wall Street, that’s why they believe and
have faith in him and the company.\u00c2\u00a0 But Terry Semel’s vision is positively
old wave.\u00c2\u00a0 Hiring all those Hollywood players.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s like the studios getting
into the video game business, they don’t UNDERSTAND IT!\u00c2\u00a0 The way to make money
on the Net is to be a visionary.\u00c2\u00a0 Terry Semel is a manager.<\/p>\n

CRAIGSLIST<\/p>\n

The anti-Yahoo.<\/p>\n

They don’t want you to register, they’re just there if you need them.<\/p>\n

It’s not about flashing graphics on the Web, it’s about UTILITY!\u00c2\u00a0 While
labels are investing in sites with splash pages and animated effects they’re
missing the point that it’s all about content, and getting that content easily and
quickly.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, many band Websites give away music for free, but finding the
appropriate page and getting there is like swimming through the Sargasso Sea.<\/p>\n

MYSPACE<\/p>\n

It’s reached critical mass.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that Fox now owns it is irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 It
will continue to dominate unless somebody invents a better mousetrap.<\/p>\n

And what’s the secret to MySpace?\u00c2\u00a0 Community.\u00c2\u00a0 Exactly what the labels try to
eviscerate.\u00c2\u00a0 If you prevent trading, you reduce your revenues.<\/p>\n

BLUETOOTH<\/p>\n

The tech writers put it to bed, but having a bluetooth headset for your cell
phone is a badge of honor.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, stating it better, having a wired headset for
your cell phone labels you a technical weenie, when your tech toys define you.
\u00c2\u00a0(If this wasn’t true, people wouldn’t upgrade their cell phones every year.)<\/p>\n

SHOWTIME<\/p>\n

You just don’t know it yet.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the new HBO.\u00c2\u00a0 Start talking about
Mary-Louise Parker’s show NOW if you want to look hip.<\/p>\n

XM<\/p>\n

It’s the business strategy.\u00c2\u00a0 No matter what you say about Internet radio,
nobody’s installing receivers in cars today.\u00c2\u00a0 But, XM-ready autos are rolling off
the line in the MILLIONS!\u00c2\u00a0 And, experiencing their trial free subscriptions
new car owners up for the term, since satellite puts terrestrial to shame.<\/p>\n

Sirius might survive on this same basis.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, XM made a deal with the
Major League and Sirius made a deal with the NFL.\u00c2\u00a0 Sirius had to spend to
survive, but will their spending kill them?<\/p>\n

HIP-HOP<\/p>\n

It was better five years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 It does poorly on the road.\u00c2\u00a0 But, there’s an
honesty, a visceral quality in rap that eludes almost all rock music.\u00c2\u00a0 Could it
be that the rockers grew up in too comfy an existence, and don’t need to make
it to survive?<\/p>\n

VICTORY RECORDS<\/p>\n

Tony Brummel’s a mercurial blowhard.<\/p>\n

But he signs hit acts.<\/p>\n

And now everybody know it.\u00c2\u00a0 His self-hype\/e-mail everybody campaign worked.\u00c2\u00a0
People take him seriously.<\/p>\n

I’d tell you to replicate his strategy, but Tony’s sui generis.<\/p>\n

MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL<\/p>\n

Not classically beautiful, but radiates mischief and intelligence, a unique
combination.<\/p>\n

This is how our rock stars used to be.\u00c2\u00a0 Making choices on creativity, not box
office.<\/p>\n

KELEFA SANNEH<\/p>\n

America’s best rock critic.\u00c2\u00a0 At least working in major media.<\/p>\n

Sanneh is knowledgeable, he cares and is easily able to say something sucks,
even if conventional wisdom says it doesn’t.<\/p>\n

You don’t need to read him.\u00c2\u00a0 But you should.<\/p>\n

NIC HARCOURT<\/p>\n

Is it that he’s not beautiful?\u00c2\u00a0 Or is it that he’s the only hero the boomers
have got.\u00c2\u00a0 Anybody else with this much press would be experiencing a backlash.
\u00c2\u00a0But Mr. Harcourt’s star keeps rising.\u00c2\u00a0 And now that he’s podcasting,
including full tunes, LIVE PERFORMANCES, before just about anybody else, he’s just
that much cooler.\u00c2\u00a0 Check iTunes’ podcast chart.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s at number 11 as I write.\u00c2\u00a0
Tell me you don’t want to listen to him interview Ry Cooder.\u00c2\u00a0 You know Nic
will be knowledgeable, he’ll respect Ry, and the interview will be done on an
intellectual plane that doesn’t insult the intelligence of the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 THIS is
the new paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 Assuming your audience brings something to the picture,
that everybody isn’t fucking ignorant.\u00c2\u00a0 (Hello, Hollywood, can you hear me
calling?)<\/p>\n

PRO TOOLS<\/p>\n

Puts the means of production in the hands of the proletariat.<\/p>\n

SCOTT STAPP<\/p>\n

You hate him, but Creed was the biggest rock band of the last decade.\u00c2\u00a0 People
are waiting for his next record.\u00c2\u00a0 If it’s decent, it will be a monster.<\/p>\n

BRITISH POLICE<\/p>\n

How come they can find the London bombing perps in weeks and Osama Bin Laden,
the mastermind of 9\/11, is still at large?<\/p>\n

_________________________________________<\/p>\n

LOSERS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

NAPSTER<\/p>\n

On the way to extinction, just like the previous company that used this name.<\/p>\n

It’s the economics.<\/p>\n

They only added 25,000 subscribers in this, their first fiscal quarter.\u00c2\u00a0 A
decrease from 86,000 the quarter before, after the publicity push.\u00c2\u00a0 The company
has enough cash, at the present burn rate, to make it to the end of 2006.\u00c2\u00a0 And
then PFFTTT!<\/p>\n

People don’t want subscription rental.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll tell the record companies what
they tell us.\u00c2\u00a0 You can hype a product, but at the end of the day the people
judge.\u00c2\u00a0 The people want to own.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/business\/investing\/personalfinance\/chi-050731001<\/a>
0jul31,1,5953393.story?coll=chi-businessyourmoney-hed<\/p>\n

SONY<\/p>\n

Don’t mistake the success of their flash-players in Japan for a trend.\u00c2\u00a0
Bottom line…there’s no iTunes Music Store there.\u00c2\u00a0 When the iTunes Music Store
opens, Sony will be crushed.<\/p>\n

THE FIRM<\/p>\n

It’s all about the movies.<\/p>\n

How long until the Yorns pick up their ball and go home.\u00c2\u00a0 Or demote Kwatinetz
and run the operation themselves.<\/p>\n

The company had its moment, and it past.\u00c2\u00a0 A manager’s power is commensurate
with the success of his acts.\u00c2\u00a0 And the Firm’s acts hit a cold streak, if they
didn’t leave all together.<\/p>\n

It’s an old Hollywood story.\u00c2\u00a0 Too much too soon.<\/p>\n

In other words, just because you’re rolling in dough today, don’t SPEND IT!<\/p>\n

Or, as Allen Toussaint would have put it…\u00c2\u00a0 The same dudes you abused on
your way up, you might meet up, on your way down.<\/p>\n

PLAYS FOR SURE<\/p>\n

Only Microsoft could spend a ton of money hyping a slogan to absolutely zero
effect.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what Apple’s BUILT UPON, playing for sure.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s part of its
DNA.\u00c2\u00a0 Microsoft’s DNA contains greedy ineptitude, which results in consumer
frustration.<\/p>\n

NEWSPAPERS<\/p>\n

They’re already history, you just don’t know it yet.<\/p>\n

They lost car ads.\u00c2\u00a0 They lost personal ads.\u00c2\u00a0 They overpay for content.\u00c2\u00a0 Their
vision of the future is not based on investment, but cutting back to maintain
a rate of return.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like watching Polaroid.\u00c2\u00a0 A company that was a
household name whose moniker has lost almost all meaning.<\/p>\n

MERCEDES-BENZ<\/p>\n

Never going to recover from their quality crisis.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve ceded dominance to
BMW.<\/p>\n

Bottom line.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t throw all the bells and whistles in to impress somebody,
just make something that WORKS!\u00c2\u00a0 There are more full-featured music jukeboxes
than iTunes, but none so elegant and so utilitarian.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t even need to
read the instructions.<\/p>\n

MUSIC ON CELL PHONES<\/p>\n

Killed by the providers. Who want to charge an exorbitant price per track and
want no interoperability.\u00c2\u00a0 Eliminate utility and you eliminate profits.<\/p>\n

CARSON DALY<\/p>\n

Have no identity and you have no longevity.\u00c2\u00a0 If you don’t make an impression,
if people don’t hate you or love you, your career’s in trouble.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s
what’s wrong with today’s artists, they’re so bland, being so nice to everybody,
that the public can’t identify.<\/p>\n

RED<\/p>\n

What happens when accountants run record companies.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t about the
bottom line, it was about breaking the acts Columbia and Epic couldn’t and flying
up new bands, like Los Lonely Boys, that the major companies couldn’t sign.<\/p>\n

Which is why Universal is the most successful record company.<\/p>\n

Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine don’t have MBAs, but they know music.<\/p>\n

KROQ<\/p>\n

You must innovate to stay alive.\u00c2\u00a0 The formula is so stale that the ratings
have finally fallen.<\/p>\n

DVD<\/p>\n

It’s not about the competing HD disc standards, it’s about Internet delivery.
\u00c2\u00a0THIS is what Apple’s going to deliver.\u00c2\u00a0 In the so-called "Year of HD".<\/p>\n

JUDITH REGAN<\/p>\n

A self-promoting huckster whose success is based on jumping into the gutter
and languishing there.\u00c2\u00a0 Only in America, where money triumphs over everything,
is this woman respected.<\/p>\n

LIVE JOURNAL<\/p>\n

So yesterday.\u00c2\u00a0 Made irrelevant by MySpace.<\/p>\n

MOVIES<\/p>\n

The business seems to have forgotten it’s all about story.\u00c2\u00a0 Not look, not
special effects, not even stars.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why pay cable has stolen its thunder.<\/p>\n

MUSICIANSHIP<\/p>\n

People assume a machine can do it.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though it can’t.<\/p>\n

T-MOBILE<\/p>\n

They may have Catherine Zeta-Jones, but they’ve got no 3G infrastructure.\u00c2\u00a0
Without heavy capital investment, not presently on the boards, they’re doomed.<\/p>\n

WEED<\/p>\n

If it aint’ genuine P2P, it ain’t worth a shit.<\/p>\n

CREATIVE COMMONS<\/p>\n

Confusing band-aid solutions don’t work.<\/p>\n

BECK<\/p>\n

If a reunion with the Dust Brothers isn’t successful, what alternatives are
left?<\/p>\n

A marginal artist.<\/p>\n

ELECTRONIC ARTS<\/p>\n

The underground days of video games are over.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all about the economics.\u00c2\u00a0
Which are tough when licensing fees are expensive, so few titles connect and
those that do don’t sell forever.\u00c2\u00a0 No longer a Wall Street darling, just
another company, in a maturing industry.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY<\/p>\n

So let me get this straight.\u00c2\u00a0 We spend all this money in Iraq, all those
people die, they kick us out and the country becomes aligned with Iran, as a
totalitarian, or close to it state?<\/p>\n

If you don’t believe this is the way this plays out, you don’t remember
Vietnam.\u00c2\u00a0 And you’re not paying attention.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WINNERS: APPLE COMPUTER The Mighty Mouse isn’t about placating Mac fans, it’s about convincing Windows users.\u00c2\u00a0 They lowered the price of iPods, they came out with the Mac Mini, they’re switching to Intel, if you don’t think Apple’s gonna make a run at taking over the world, you’re just not paying attention. GOOGLE You still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-1L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}