What if no one was paying attention.<\/p>\n
In today’s "New York Times", Bono opines that ISPs should monitor their traffic, that creators need to be compensated for the distribution of their works.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got no problem with the underlying concept, that artists should be paid.\u00c2\u00a0 Nor do I think that ISPs should necessarily get off scot-free.\u00c2\u00a0 But what’s most interesting to me is no one cares what Bono has to say.<\/p>\n
Aged news.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what the "Daily Show" called the "New York Times".\u00c2\u00a0 Reading today’s newspapers I got the curious feeling that I knew everything already.\u00c2\u00a0 As for those articles that extolled returning to the past, I’d debate them, but it would be pointless.\u00c2\u00a0 Oldsters are under the illusion that they can steer, that they can determine outcomes.\u00c2\u00a0 What we’ve learned so far in the twenty first century is we follow the public.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than rant and rave at injustice, better to go online and try to figure out where it’s all going.<\/p>\n
The problem with Bono’s precept is despite their protestations, the major labels no longer have a lock on distribution.\u00c2\u00a0 Their power is limited.\u00c2\u00a0 Most music is attached to no corporation, no one has power over the rights other than the creator.\u00c2\u00a0 And the creator is doing everything in his power to get his message out to potential fans.<\/p>\n
It’s no longer the songwriter bitching at the publisher owned by the multinational that his songs are being stolen.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s now a college student, even a high school student, creating a song and instantly giving it away online, angling for some traction.<\/p>\n
And getting a story about his production in the newspaper probably won’t help him.\u00c2\u00a0 Because his audience doesn’t read the newspaper!<\/p>\n
There’s almost nothing to read in the L.A. "Times", truly, the paper’s so thin as to be a facsimile of a good Website, twenty four hours behind the times.\u00c2\u00a0 And the "New York Times" is so beholden to its style, and the movers and shakers of the New York scene, that it’s a debate amongst people who think they’ve got power but don’t.<\/p>\n
Old media is killing itself.\u00c2\u00a0 By insisting the way it’s always been done is the way it should be.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the lesson that eludes Bono.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about protecting the old media monopolies, it’s about them adjusting to the new landscape, in order to survive.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s a bigger threat, the ability to make an HD movie at home or theft on the Web?\u00c2\u00a0 I’d say the former.\u00c2\u00a0 Because we’ve learned in the twenty first century that he who grows up outside the system, a system that has very few opportunities for entry, will end up wanting to play by himself.\u00c2\u00a0 MySpace sold out to Fox and is almost dead.\u00c2\u00a0 Facebook is independent and thriving.\u00c2\u00a0 The behemoth most feared is Google, not Viacom.<\/p>\n
And old media and old people don’t understand that we no longer pay attention to that which does not interest us.\u00c2\u00a0 What Randy Phillips and the L.A. "Times" don’t understand is we don’t have to listen to "Empire State Of Mind" if we don’t want to. That’s the most interesting angle, not the limited penetration of the single.\u00c2\u00a0 Ubiquity is a thing of the past.\u00c2\u00a0 And just like those who watch Fox News don’t watch MSNBC, and vice versa, those who like Lady GaGa don’t give a shit about the Brooklyn scene.\u00c2\u00a0 We no longer live in an homogenous society, with a common lingua franca, rather we’re all heading to the hills in a different direction, in search of that which appeals exactly to us.<\/p>\n
We live in a Tower of Babel society.\u00c2\u00a0 Which cannot be fathomed by a music industry that believed in the silo of MTV exposure.\u00c2\u00a0 And whereas every cable system has a limited number of channels, the Internet is inherently unlimited.<\/p>\n
So the rules have completely changed.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s less about marketing than quality.\u00c2\u00a0 If Bono wanted to get traction today, rather than rant in the "New York Times", he’d do what he does best, cut a record with his band.\u00c2\u00a0 Something so good that the new avenues of distribution would pick it up and drive people to U2.\u00c2\u00a0 Where you monetize in the food chain is an interesting question, but not as interesting as the death of the old paradigm, one of scarcity, with the public chomping like lemmings upon that which is fed to them.<\/p>\n
Distribution has been flattened.\u00c2\u00a0 Anybody can play.\u00c2\u00a0 In news, music, movies, political opinion, you name it.\u00c2\u00a0 Either try to establish a dominant distribution platform, or focus purely on content.<\/p>\n
Good luck dominating in distribution if you’re an oldster.\u00c2\u00a0 Ever notice that the Web is ruled by youngsters, developing better plumbing and sites?<\/p>\n
And if you focus on content, know that your Armani suit and your friends mean nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the final product, now more than ever.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t matter how much you spend, it’s whether the audience is titillated\/thrilled\/informed\/riveted.\u00c2\u00a0 And this is only going to get worse.<\/p>\n
Sure, there are going to be winners and losers.\u00c2\u00a0 But dominance is a thing of the past.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like the TV networks have lost market share to cable outlets, stars’ careers are being cut down to size by the plethora of alternatives.\u00c2\u00a0 Mariah Carey’s album stiffed because we weren’t forced to hear it.\u00c2\u00a0 We weren’t tuned into MTV and we don’t listen to the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the exact opposite of the Tommy Mottola paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 Your customer is no longer the intermediary, the radio station, the newspaper, the TV network, but the fan.<\/p>\n
Isn’t it curious that radio, newspapers and TV are in trouble, whereas Google is laughing all the way to the bank?\u00c2\u00a0 Play in Google world.\u00c2\u00a0 With a product that serves the customer first.\u00c2\u00a0 Google triumphed not by corralling surfers, by forcing them to use the search engine, but by delivering the results people wanted.<\/p>\n
The way to success is to win the hearts and minds of the customer and build from there.\u00c2\u00a0 Anything else is just a waste of time.<\/p>\n
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What if no one was paying attention. In today’s "New York Times", Bono opines that ISPs should monitor their traffic, that creators need to be compensated for the distribution of their works.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got no problem with the underlying concept, that artists should be paid.\u00c2\u00a0 Nor do I think that ISPs should necessarily get off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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":[2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-the-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Et","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2509"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2511,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions\/2511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}