{"id":2569,"date":"2010-01-16T08:50:57","date_gmt":"2010-01-16T16:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=2569"},"modified":"2010-01-16T10:27:58","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T18:27:58","slug":"the-future-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/16\/the-future-5\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future"},"content":{"rendered":"
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"According to a source familiar with his thinking, Jobs has recognized that ‘mobile ads suck’ and that improving that situation will make Apple even harder to beat."<\/p>\n

BusinessWeek -"Apple vs. Google"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Aren’t ads supposed to suck?<\/p>\n

Google survives, quite nicely, on providing targeted ads.\u00c2\u00a0 You may not click on them, but enough people do that Microsoft decided to invest zillions in a futile effort to compete (Bing’s market share of search just declined.)<\/p>\n

But on a smart phone, where it’s frustratingly difficult to use the search function, what are the odds someone is going to click on the ads strung alongside the desired results, especially when the typeface is almost too small for anybody to read.<\/p>\n

No, to survive, somehow you’ve got to put the ads inside the apps.\u00c2\u00a0 And make those ads desirable to the surfer.<\/p>\n

The Google Nexus One may have gotten a lot of media play, but sales suck.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, prognosticators believe the Android platform will ultimately triumph, because Google is indomitable and the WinTel strategy is always best…license to others, swarm and defeat.<\/p>\n

But the Android phone allows only a tiny number of apps to be installed.\u00c2\u00a0 And there’s no vetting process, that’s one of the reasons that apps are kept separate in their tiny space, so as not to taint the rest of the phone’s memory, supposedly loaded with media that Google makes it almost impossible to transfer from your desktop to your phone.<\/p>\n

Usability…\u00c2\u00a0 On the Nexus One, it sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 Syncing with Outlook is bad enough, but you install music via drag and drop?\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t that die with the Rio?<\/p>\n

But that’s all secondary to delivering ads on smart phones.\u00c2\u00a0 Developers have to be able to make money, if not, they won’t create the apps that Apple touts, three billion of which have already been downloaded.<\/p>\n

And what has this got to do with music?<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/p>\n

And what has this got to do with iPods?<\/p>\n

Very little.<\/p>\n

The smart phone is killing the iPod.\u00c2\u00a0 But Apple had to do this, to prepare for the future.\u00c2\u00a0 And the company has to create viable advertising on the iPhone in order to continue to grow.<\/p>\n

Contrast this with the record labels.\u00c2\u00a0 Continuing to bank on the CD, so busy protecting what they’ve got that they can’t create what will help them survive in the future.<\/p>\n

The future…\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a vast unknown.\u00c2\u00a0 But you’ve got to enter it if you want to survive.\u00c2\u00a0 Or plan on cashing out soon, because the future arrives ever faster these days.<\/p>\n

For all the innovation touted by the major labels, 360 deals, Vevo, where is the quantum leap, that makes people pay attention, that rains revenue? Seemingly every iPhone app is cooler than Vevo.\u00c2\u00a0 And Vevo’s supposed to be the future?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the labels are fighting with Apple when the Cupertino company could give a shit.\u00c2\u00a0 Music doesn’t drive iPhones, it’s an afterthought, apps drive iPhone revenue…the labels just lost all their leverage.\u00c2\u00a0 This is like content companies fighting ISPs and electronic manufacturers in Washington, D.C.\u00c2\u00a0 Who does the most billing?\u00c2\u00a0 Who can afford the best lobbyists?\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to see when you can’t win and develop a new strategy.<\/p>\n

The future of the music business is the development of new ways to get the public closer and more involved with music and the people who make it. Apple’s fans will seemingly buy anything and everything the company makes.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the paradigm the music business invented, but has forgone.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only does nobody want yesterday’s Top Forty artist’s music, nobody wants U2’s new album.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, the band can tour in extremely large venues, but what’s the long term play, other than squeezing more money out of Live Nation?\u00c2\u00a0 The YouTube simulcast was a step forward, but in order to make us truly care, we’ve got to feel closer to the band, Bono has to stop pontificating in the "New York Times" and be available for feedback on the Internet.<\/p>\n

Yes, we want to be able to reach our artists.<\/p>\n

And seemingly every artist with traction wants to throw off the major label constraints and try new things.\u00c2\u00a0 Nine Inch Nails is giving away a DVD of footage created by fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, the majors don’t even want the fans to shoot video!<\/p>\n

Apple is moving forward.\u00c2\u00a0 Read this "BusinessWeek" story.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s positively scary.\u00c2\u00a0 Jobs & company are playing on a plane that most can’t even see.\u00c2\u00a0 But we’re gonna get there.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you want our revenue in the future, you’ve got to set up for years down the line right now.<\/p>\n

Insanely great products.<\/p>\n

We know what insanely great music is.\u00c2\u00a0 We know what insanely great promotions are.\u00c2\u00a0 Leverage these.\u00c2\u00a0 Build loyalty.\u00c2\u00a0 Bond users to you and super-serve them, field all complaints, sell people what they don’t even know they want and never ever tell them they’re wrong, be such a bright, shining star that they have no choice but to follow you.<\/p>\n

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

"According to a source familiar with his thinking, Jobs has recognized that ‘mobile ads suck’ and that improving that situation will make Apple even harder to beat." BusinessWeek -"Apple vs. Google" Aren’t ads supposed to suck? Google survives, quite nicely, on providing targeted ads.\u00c2\u00a0 You may not click on them, but enough people do that […]<\/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":[4,2,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2569","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-Fr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569","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=2569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2571,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569\/revisions\/2571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}