{"id":4328,"date":"2011-07-02T12:17:21","date_gmt":"2011-07-02T20:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=4328"},"modified":"2011-07-02T12:18:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-02T20:18:00","slug":"in-the-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2011\/07\/02\/in-the-news\/","title":{"rendered":"In The News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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"Open letter to BlackBerry bosses: Senior RIM exec tells all as company crumbles around him"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is positively brilliant work, reminiscent of Peter Paterno’s famous memo when he was head of Hollywood Records.<\/p>\n

The truth hurts, but without it you’re caught in a backslapping backwater that will ultimately go stagnant and won’t support life.<\/p>\n

My favorite part is where the guy tells his bosses to use the competitor’s product.\u00c2\u00a0 If the music industry honchos used Napster back in the day, we’d live in a different universe now.\u00c2\u00a0 Napster may have been mass copyright infringement, but it was the coolest thing to happen in music since the CD.\u00c2\u00a0 Even better, music came back from the dead.\u00c2\u00a0 Songs you’d heard but could never buy were now easily available.\u00c2\u00a0 And talk about the discovery element!<\/p>\n

It’s kind of like Spotify.<\/p>\n

It’s the interface, stupid.\u00c2\u00a0 Spotify’s got the best interface of any streaming music service.\u00c2\u00a0 Allow it to launch for free and you’ve got a chance to build a business charging people for mobile access.\u00c2\u00a0 The future is about the mobile, you do know that, right?<\/p>\n

Usability is key.<\/p>\n

Also important is the philosophy of fewer people doing a better job.\u00c2\u00a0 This is one of Apple’s strengths.\u00c2\u00a0 The more engineers involved, the more bloated and further from completion your software gets.\u00c2\u00a0 Record companies should be lean and mean.\u00c2\u00a0 And not so top-heavy.\u00c2\u00a0 The heads of RIM are being chided for being out of the loop.\u00c2\u00a0 Can you say MUSIC INDUSTRY??\u00c2\u00a0 Lobbying against P2P when the enemy is YouTube!<\/p>\n

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"Justin Timberlake buys share in MySpace"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Just because you’re famous that doesn’t mean you know anything about business.<\/p>\n

That’s the new story.\u00c2\u00a0 Bono, Ashton Kutcher, now Justin Timberlake.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re branching out!\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 They’re wunderkinds!<\/p>\n

Wrong.<\/p>\n

They’ve got famous names making us pay attention.<\/p>\n

If you want to know the future of tech, you’re better off following Jack Dorsey.\u00c2\u00a0 Who?<\/p>\n

Proves the point.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, click RIGHT NOW on this link!!<\/p>\n

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http:\/\/twitgoo.com\/2dv3m1<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sometimes the truth is simple.<\/p>\n

Justin Timberlake has to go back to music.<\/p>\n

Movies come and go.\u00c2\u00a0 Music, when done right, is the essence of life, it’s nonfiction, not fiction.<\/p>\n

But Timberlake cannot go back to music because he just hasn’t got it.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s good-looking and famous and even smart, but musically talented?<\/p>\n

It’s all about JT’s collaborators.<\/p>\n

Music is a long sludge through a vast wasteland where no one is paying attention until you build your chops to the point where you become an overnight success.\u00c2\u00a0 Never equate fame with talent.<\/p>\n

THE VOICE<\/span><\/p>\n

The role of a record company is to shepherd fully developed talent into the marketplace.<\/p>\n

We’ve entered a bizarre era more akin to "The Idolmaker" than "Sgt. Pepper".\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, Bob Marcucci is bigger than George Martin.<\/p>\n

Huh?<\/p>\n

Proves the point.<\/p>\n

The business people, the producer, should be in service of the act’s art, not vice versa.<\/p>\n

An act is not Gumby, a cartoon character flexed and molded to rip off little children in the marketplace.<\/p>\n

So "The Voice" got good ratings.\u00c2\u00a0 So what?<\/p>\n

Listen to the original material sung by the final contestants.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s positively awful.<\/p>\n

Write your own songs.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re gonna be terrible at first, but if you stay at it you’ll have a unique voice that is only you, that people can relate to.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s directly from your heart as opposed to by hacks trying to appeal to the masses but first having to convince you to record their wannabe hits.<\/p>\n

If the "artists" on "The Voice" truly had it they would have made it the first time around.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, they’ve all had experience.\u00c2\u00a0 Even at major labels!<\/p>\n

Don’t confuse fame with artistry.<\/p>\n

Fame may sell product briefly, but artistry remains.<\/p>\n

But it’s hard to be an artist.\u00c2\u00a0 No one’s paying attention.\u00c2\u00a0 And only the creme de la creme gets to make it.<\/p>\n

But is this any different from the NBA?\u00c2\u00a0 Think of all those players in the Final Four who can’t even play in the NBA.\u00c2\u00a0 So why are you sour grapes?<\/p>\n

Can you write, can you play, have you done 1,000 gigs before almost anybody knew who you were, like the Beatles?<\/p>\n

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

"Open letter to BlackBerry bosses: Senior RIM exec tells all as company crumbles around him" This is positively brilliant work, reminiscent of Peter Paterno’s famous memo when he was head of Hollywood Records. The truth hurts, but without it you’re caught in a backslapping backwater that will ultimately go stagnant and won’t support life. My […]<\/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":[2,8,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-technology","category-television"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-17O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328","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=4328"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4330,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328\/revisions\/4330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}