I just got back from Burbank.\u00c2\u00a0 I was moving along swimmingly until I hit Westwood.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m reminded of why I stay home so much.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, why go anywhere when the world is right here in front of me, on my 23" HD screen?\u00c2\u00a0 I can fire up the Web and go anywhere, INSTANTLY!\u00c2\u00a0 The real world is positively pedestrian.<\/p>\n
And when I got back to my house I extracted the mail from the slot and found the new issue of the "New Yorker", uncharacteristically thick, with a perfect binding.\u00c2\u00a0 Slipping through the pages to the table of contents I ultimately learned that this was the INNOVATORS Issue.\u00c2\u00a0 That means tech in my book, so I started to scan the articles.\u00c2\u00a0 And bingo, halfway down the list, I saw Ken Auletta’s "Annals Of Communications, Critical Mass, The great arbiter of consumer technology."\u00c2\u00a0 Could it be that the foremost media writer was writing about the number one tech writer, Walt Mossberg?\u00c2\u00a0 I flipped to page 104 and found out YES!<\/p>\n
Now I’m sitting on 132 unread e-mail messages (sorry if I haven’t gotten back to you), and have a whole host of other chores and commitments, but I couldn’t unglue my ass from the pot, I had to read this story about Walter Mossberg.<\/p>\n
This is the experience I used to have with "Rolling Stone".\u00c2\u00a0 In college I cleared the decks the day the magazine arrived, I spent hours reading it from cover to cover.\u00c2\u00a0 Now I can read the WHOLE THING in one brief bathroom respite.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I used to like the news, but what intrigued me most in "Rolling Stone" was the stars, what they had to say.\u00c2\u00a0 Who gives a shit what today’s musicians have to say.\u00c2\u00a0 You know it’s pre-calculated to sell their music, and their music is not that good.\u00c2\u00a0 I need someone I can believe in, like Walt Mossberg.<\/p>\n
And seeing this article in the "New Yorker" was like seeing a non-chart topping favorite in "Rolling Stone" back in the day.\u00c2\u00a0 There was an ANOINTMENT!\u00c2\u00a0 Other people felt like I did.\u00c2\u00a0 I wasn’t alone.<\/p>\n
I read Mossberg’s columns in the "Wall Street Journal" every Wednesday and Friday.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I was running late earlier today because I was reading his buying guide on digital cameras, even though I just got a Canon from Felice over the holiday.\u00c2\u00a0 You see I need to know, I need to keep abreast, I need to be an EXPERT!\u00c2\u00a0 The same way I could tell you about recording studios all over the world from studying album covers.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m a fan.\u00c2\u00a0 And when I got e-mail from Walt I won’t say it was just like getting e-mail from David Gilmour, but it was CLOSE!<\/p>\n
Now maybe you’re not tech-savvy, maybe you just don’t care, maybe you’re like Jim Baker, who doesn’t even use a cell phone.\u00c2\u00a0 But you’ll find some of the content in Auletta’s article VERY interesting.<\/p>\n
The day the iPhone was introduced, engadget.com had more traffic than the "New York Times"’ Website.<\/p>\n
Let me state it to you this way.\u00c2\u00a0 I was in Whistler, and I got an e-mail from David Carr, the "New York Times" media writer.\u00c2\u00a0 He wanted my take on the future of MTV.\u00c2\u00a0 I took 15 minutes out of my ski day, at roaming rates, to talk to Mr. Carr, who assured me that what I was telling him was brilliant and insightful.<\/p>\n
But I didn’t appear in the article.<\/p>\n
Oh, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was disappointed.\u00c2\u00a0 But after thinking about it, I realized…maybe I reach the target demo better than HE does.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean one’s goal USED to be to get in the "New York Times", but now it doesn’t make your career.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, put another way, you don’t have to be in the "Times" to MAKE IT!<\/p>\n
Patrick Goldstein quoted me extensively in his "Big Picture" column on the front page of the "Los Angeles Times" Calendar section last week.\u00c2\u00a0 I got one -email referencing the mention.\u00c2\u00a0 But yesterday, I made the MacDailyNews, and not only did I get e-mail, I got PHONE CALLS!<\/p>\n
This is a dramatic change in the landscape.\u00c2\u00a0 It appears although the mainstream media says it’s the arbiter, oftentimes, it’s not.\u00c2\u00a0 People are getting their information elsewhere, from the Web.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I realized many people I know no longer GET the "Los Angeles Times", even though they live in the city!<\/p>\n
And reading this "New Yorker" article you’ll be touched by Walt’s credibility.\u00c2\u00a0 Sprint and Samsung come to him with a new phone and he basically tells them it sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t do that in the music business, every record is GREAT!\u00c2\u00a0 When I tell people their records suck, oftentimes they attack me personally, I just don’t get it.\u00c2\u00a0 THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU SEND IT TO ME IN THE FIRST PLACE!<\/p>\n
These are the new heroes, the truth-tellers.\u00c2\u00a0 Not the cogs in the old machine.<\/p>\n
And Mr. Mossberg’s goal?\u00c2\u00a0 To make technology easier to use for the common folk.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I want it so easy to use that my mother doesn’t call me for help!<\/p>\n
And there’s a reference to an era in the eighties when Mossberg receded from his friends.\u00c2\u00a0 When confronted,\u00c2\u00a0 he said he was MESMERIZED BY COMPUTERS!\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, it’s great to know I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE!\u00c2\u00a0 There was more stimulation in my MacPlus than almost all of the conversation in the music business, never mind the world at large.<\/p>\n
And at the end of the article, there’s a focus on Peter Rojas, and the site he oversees, the aforementioned engadget.com.<\/p>\n
Now this is important, so I’m gonna quote it:<\/p>\n
\n"With the reviews he wrote for publications, Rojas says, ‘you kind of had to water it down and assume the audience didn’t really care about what you write about and you had to "hook" them into the article.\u00c2\u00a0 What I realized about blogging is you’re not going to read a blog about gadgets unless you’re really interested in gadgets.\u00c2\u00a0 I assume that our readers know that Sprint and Verizon are CDMA networks, and that T-Mobile and A.T.&T.\/Cingular are GSM networks.’ And by ‘writing up,’ he adds, ‘the higher we aim the more it grows, because the audience responds to that.’"<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
What Rojas is saying here is you’ve got to respect your audience.\u00c2\u00a0 That it’s not about broadcasting, but speaking to those who know and CARE!<\/p>\n
I’ll give you an example.\u00c2\u00a0 On Sirius, late last Monday afternoon, the day after Coachella ended, I heard some nitwit tell me that there was a big festival in the desert, no inside information, just speaking to the lowest common denominator.\u00c2\u00a0 The people listening to this alternative station KNOW about Coachella.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve read about it all over the Web, maybe they even watched the Webcast.\u00c2\u00a0 By not acknowledging the audience’s sophistication, people’s knowledge, you offend them.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is what Top Forty did to excess.<\/p>\n
Or when a big label gets an act on TV to repeat the same story that was all over the Web…\u00c2\u00a0 The core audience has tuned in to hear MORE about their favorite, and now they’re turned OFF!<\/p>\n
Play it safe, and you alienate your fan.<\/p>\n
And not everybody is interested in engadget, and not everybody should be interested in your band.\u00c2\u00a0 But, as you can see from engadget’s hits exceeding those of the "Times", PLENTY OF PEOPLE DO CARE!<\/p>\n
So, we’ve got niches.\u00c2\u00a0 With mutual respect.<\/p>\n
Leave that respect out, and you’ve got no core audience.<\/p>\n
Describes the mainstream music business to a T, wouldn’t you say?<\/p>\n
I feel like it’s 1969 all over again.\u00c2\u00a0 When nobody else I knew had heard of "Rolling Stone", when my parents’ generation pooh-poohed rock music, when it got little coverage in the mainstream press.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt the vibe, I could feel the pulse.\u00c2\u00a0 And Woodstock showed that I was not alone.<\/p>\n
This tech revolution is no joke.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not just about kids stealing music P2P, it’s much more than that.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got to do with exhibition, and eyeballs and relationships.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got to do with elements that those at traditional media companies are COMPLETELY UNFAMILIAR WITH!<\/p>\n
Which is why upstarts will have such power in the future, and probably rule the music business.<\/p>\n
Young ‘uns know the difference between GSM and CDMA.\u00c2\u00a0 They know Motorola is done, they laugh at you if you’re carrying a Razr.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re clued in.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s so exciting.\u00c2\u00a0 Come with me, JUMP IN!<\/p>\n
You can read the complete "New Yorker" Mossberg article at: <\/p>\n
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