{"id":1378,"date":"2008-10-01T16:49:19","date_gmt":"2008-10-02T00:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2008\/10\/01\/bits-bytes\/"},"modified":"2008-10-19T06:23:28","modified_gmt":"2008-10-19T14:23:28","slug":"bits-bytes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2008\/10\/01\/bits-bytes\/","title":{"rendered":"Bits & Bytes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s Trent\/NIN Story<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
NIN Edition of Tap Tap Revenge Brings Licensed Content To Apple’s App Store<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately, Tap Tap Revenge is cooler and more addictive than anything the major labels are purveying.\u00c2\u00a0 Trent knows this, but Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine do not.\u00c2\u00a0 Trent says yes. The major label act calls his manager who calls his lawyer who calls his label and his publisher and it’s gridlock, nothing happens, everybody from the older generation fearful of sacrificing a buck is left out.<\/p>\n

MySpace Music<\/span><\/p>\n

Content is not king, distribution is.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what gave the major labels their power.\u00c2\u00a0 They could get the records in the store and get paid for them too!\u00c2\u00a0 But with anybody able to get their stuff on iTunes, the labels needed another monopoly.\u00c2\u00a0 Hence, MySpace Music.<\/p>\n

MySpace Music is just as fucked up as the original MySpace site.\u00c2\u00a0 With a user interface so complicated and so unintuitive that you bounce right off of it, to another site, the same way a meteorite bounces off the Earth’s atmosphere.<\/p>\n

But it’s worse.\u00c2\u00a0 I got the AOL click of death.\u00c2\u00a0 Remember the days of dialup, when we had to keep clicking to tell AOL we were still on and shouldn’t be disconnected?\u00c2\u00a0 MySpace Music has this same feature.\u00c2\u00a0 It wouldn’t keep playing the song I wanted unless I clicked and said I was still in front of the computer.\u00c2\u00a0 No roaming around the house, no going to the bathroom, you must listen to your music in one place and be prepared to tell the service you’re still here, even if you’re deeply into writing or another site.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, they’re trying to avoid click fraud, but isn’t that how the labels got in trouble to begin with?\u00c2\u00a0 By worrying so much how they could get ripped off that their solutions failed?<\/p>\n

I hope MySpace Music fails.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it fucks the indies in the ass.\u00c2\u00a0 They weren’t asked to join, to reap in the revenue…it’s like working on the plantation.\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, free downloadability has been eviscerated.\u00c2\u00a0 If you WANT to give away your music, you can’t.\u00c2\u00a0 A step backward in MySpace world.<\/p>\n

The ads cheapen the product to the point where the site has no soul.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s only about the money.\u00c2\u00a0 MySpace?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t that a scam two guys cooked up and Rupert Murdoch purchased to make a ton of bread?\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to think of the consumer first, the bread second.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to make the audience believe it’s the number one consideration.\u00c2\u00a0 It hasn’t been this way in major labelville for eons, and it still isn’t.<\/p>\n

Albums<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you want to placate a small coterie of fans or branch out to reach untold millions?\u00c2\u00a0 Albums are for fans, singles are for millions.<\/p>\n

You get to make your choice.\u00c2\u00a0 Neither one is bad.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s nigh near impossible to have both.<\/p>\n

A fan can’t get enough of his favorite.\u00c2\u00a0 He’ll steal the album online, buy the CD and go to the show.\u00c2\u00a0 And, even drag potential converts to the show.<\/p>\n

Singles buyers are not fans.\u00c2\u00a0 They just want something to play.\u00c2\u00a0 Usually, something else is more important to them.\u00c2\u00a0 Like video games or sports.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, more than ever, casual buyers, singles buyers rule.\u00c2\u00a0 They haven’t got time to surf endlessly for product, never mind listen to it.\u00c2\u00a0 They want to be told what to listen to.\u00c2\u00a0 And they only want the hit.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t want to delve deeper.<\/p>\n

So, if you’re looking for mass appeal, only release singles.\u00c2\u00a0 A steady stream of INCREDIBLE product.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe the casual masses will believe you’re more than the tracks, which has occurred with Nickelback.<\/p>\n

If you’re an album seller, know that your audience wants more product.\u00c2\u00a0 Release outtakes, live tracks and instead of putting out an eighty minute opus every four years, split it in half and deliver an album every two years.\u00c2\u00a0 Better yet, every single year.\u00c2\u00a0 Even better, release music every other MONTH!\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t overload the fan.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of money in fandom.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about going deep instead of wide.<\/p>\n

But don’t think your mediocre album without a killer single is going to spawn a hit, turn casual users into fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Know who you are.<\/p>\n

Apple Stock<\/span><\/p>\n

The only person who’s been consistently right is Gene Munster, analyst for Piper Jaffray.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s maintaining a Buy rating and a target price of $250 a share. <\/p>\n

\n
Apple still better positioned than most, firm says<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Furthermore, it was just announced that Apple laptops accounted for 20 per cent of retail sales during July and August:<\/p>\n

\n
US consumers flock to Mac laptops<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the stock meltdown was panic selling by the uninformed.<\/p>\n

What else are people uninformed about?<\/p>\n

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

Today’s Trent\/NIN Story NIN Edition of Tap Tap Revenge Brings Licensed Content To Apple’s App Store Unfortunately, Tap Tap Revenge is cooler and more addictive than anything the major labels are purveying.\u00c2\u00a0 Trent knows this, but Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine do not.\u00c2\u00a0 Trent says yes. The major label act calls his manager who calls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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":[4,2,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-music-business","category-online"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-me","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378","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=1378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}