Insanely great products a handful of times a year.<\/p>\n
Imagine if Apple introduced a product no one wanted.\u00c2\u00a0 Something lame.\u00c2\u00a0 And held a press conference every other week to trumpet its features.<\/p>\n
Then you’d have the music business.<\/p>\n
What’s the lifespan of excitement on a laptop?<\/p>\n
Certainly not a year.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe nine months at most. Which is why Apple updates them before they get long in the tooth.\u00c2\u00a0 To drive excitement.\u00c2\u00a0 To drive desire.<\/p>\n
Want a new iPod?<\/p>\n
You know there’s going to be a new lineup in September.<\/p>\n
Just like you know there’s going to be a new iPhone in June.<\/p>\n
Just like you know once every twenty four months or so, Steve Jobs is going to blow our minds with a whole new category.<\/p>\n
In between these announcements?\u00c2\u00a0 A dearth of information.<\/p>\n
Well, not exactly, the minions online are constantly debating what’s in the future, the same way we used to get excited about the coming albums of our favorite artists.<\/p>\n
Instead, we now see these releases trumpeted in advance in magazines and newspapers.\u00c2\u00a0 Singles are leaked.\u00c2\u00a0 And when they stiff, new tracks are proffered.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, an album comes out, with more music than anybody wants to listen to.\u00c2\u00a0 And we’re supposed to play this same damn album for two or three years until there’s a new one, while the act goes on the road and cleans up.\u00c2\u00a0 Huh?<\/p>\n
First thing Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple a decade ago was trim the product line, to make it comprehensible.<\/p>\n
Time for you to do the same thing.\u00c2\u00a0 Only release great stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 Until you’re in such demand that people want the other stuff. And don’t hype the other stuff the same way you do the great stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe you sneak out the "album tracks" unannounced on your Website, for fans only.\u00c2\u00a0 And, I hate to scare you, but album tracks are for fans only anymore anyway.<\/p>\n
And either make yourself totally available or cloak yourself in secrecy.\u00c2\u00a0 The latter works, especially if you’re a happening\/in demand act.\u00c2\u00a0 No one foresaw the "In Rainbows" promotion.\u00c2\u00a0 That was its genius, not the name your own price feature.\u00c2\u00a0 How suddenly, there was a Website, and not that much more.\u00c2\u00a0 The band didn’t give interviews, the public went crazy and built the story.<\/p>\n
Steve Jobs is bigger than any rock star.\u00c2\u00a0 Not because he’s better one on one, but because he seems to hover above us. Delivering what we don’t even know we want, but makes us so happy.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the Beatles with "Sgt. Pepper".<\/p>\n
We laugh at Lady GaGa because she substitutes outfits for charisma.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the gooey center we’re interested in, not the wrapping.\u00c2\u00a0 The twenty first century is not about flash, but substance.\u00c2\u00a0 If you want to last.<\/p>\n
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Insanely great products a handful of times a year. Imagine if Apple introduced a product no one wanted.\u00c2\u00a0 Something lame.\u00c2\u00a0 And held a press conference every other week to trumpet its features. Then you’d have the music business. What’s the lifespan of excitement on a laptop? Certainly not a year.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe nine months at most. […]<\/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":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Ex","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513","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=2513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}