David Byrne: Music’s Tipping Point in 2012

March 17, 2007

The NYT has a fascinating account of David Byrne’s presentation at SXSW titled “Record Companies: Who Needs Them?”, predicting 2012 as a tipping point for the labels:That year will be the “tipping point,” much like the mid-to-late ’80s when CDs overtook cassette sales. Once download sales became the norm, Byrne said, it will allow manufacturing and distribution costs to approach zero. “That is a fact,” he said.He said at that point, record labels will be faced with a sort of choice — to ramp up marketing services to use music as a loss leader for tours and merchandise revenue, or aim only for international stars of the ilk of Britney Spears.The tour angle was covered recently by Chris Anderson in a post titled “Give away the music and sell the show” – the economics of touring v. music distribution, if you don’t know the analysis, are startling.

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The Problem with Online Advertising

March 17, 2007

Folks have had some legitimate critiques of Jeremy’s assumptions, but the point is uncontested – in an online ad world, it ain’t easy getting green.If I’m reading Scott right his point is that the long tail can’t really scale in this way because it’s comparatively untargeted: “Compared to other media, online publishers are pretty much giving it away…. I think one of the real problems for online media is low ad rates because online advertising doesn’t yield the same kind of engagement with a brand or the same kind of action as other media; regardless of how well targeted it happens to be…. And frankly, I can’t remember a single online ad now, off the top of my head (correction – I do remember the steamy video ads that Arianna Huffington ran on the Huffington Post some months ago as a trial)…. Not just because they know how to advertise on TV (as my marketing-guru friend and co-meshie Stuart has observed), but also because they want the herd back, passively drooling for burgers and coke, rooted in front of the screen.In the stampede of media online, I’m just not sure where that leaves your garden variety revenue model.

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The laws of physics do not apply to me

March 17, 2007

Hat tip to Mathew for posting the weekend giggle.

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The Plame Game

March 17, 2007

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Congress; between Plame-gate and Gonezalez, this isn’t mere immolation, this is shooting fish in a barrel.

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When Bubble 2.0 Ends, How Bad Will it Be?

March 17, 2007

This is perhaps just jitters in the wake of the U.S. real estate market’s recent troubles, and recent wobbles in global stock markets, but in any event one can’t really argue with the idea that there’s been a certain frothiness to tech in the past few years…. Will there be bodies, and if so, how many swamps will they fill?Henry Blodget – yes, that Henry Blodget – recently wrote about what’s next in the context of how a recession in the market might affect Web 2.0…. Exit valuations are lower this time around generally because more exits are early, pre-financing, and not via IPO; Oh, and of course they’re not being fuelled by complete insanity and utter disregard for the rules of financial gravity, all egged on by ‘professional analysts’, as they were in 1.0. They’re technology / team acquisitions rich enough to allow the team to do well without the uncertainty of building the business to the next stage, with help from outside money.Investors will get impatient for start-ups to develop businesses instead of “products” and “communities.”The growth rate of online advertising will slow dramatically.

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No, Google Should Buy Freshbooks

March 16, 2007

But I’d like to see Google buy Freshbooks instead. And not just because Mike is a friend and a co-meshie who would doubtless shower his mesh buddies with extravagant gifts if it happened. But also because Freshbooks is a superb app with a growing base, more in the spirit of what Google buys, and is soon to be moving into accounting, too. And if Google moved quickly, they might be able to get it for under $400 million or so.

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About Risk

March 16, 2007

Via Bruce Schneier, an excellent essay in Time by Jeffrey Kluger on the nature of risk in everyday life.

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Socializr Launches; Looks Ordinary

March 16, 2007

Socializr launches today – it’s in gamma only (whatever that means these days), but still my first impression of at least the design was that it was very 2002. And I still don’t really see how this is anything other than Evite 0.5.

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Twitter – Just Not That Into You

March 16, 2007

But finally, at least, we seem to be moving from the mildly inane to the mildly sensible…. From the WSJ today: “I probably started removing people the first week,” said Ryan Irelan, 31, a Web developer in Raleigh, N.C., who began using Twitter last year. “This constant dinging of updates,” he added, “it really just became totally overwhelming. I don’t see how anyone could get anything done.”

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Supreme Court Upholds Election Night Reporting Ban

March 15, 2007

“The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld a legal ban on reporting early vote results on federal election nights in regions of the country where the polls are still open.”

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mesh ’07 Video Contest – We Want to be in Pictures

March 15, 2007

We’ve just announced a video contest for mesh ’07 – head over to the blog to learn more.

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Viacom v. YouTube – the Rearview Mirror

March 14, 2007

It’s more than a little amusing to see the backtracking – or reinvention, more accurately – in the ‘tropolis that’s happened since the lawsuit was announced…. Is being right, or having the ‘popular’ opinion really more important than having an honestly-held point of view?… What I’d like to know now is where have all the slam-dunk legal opinions on YouTube’s so-called immunity gone? Denise summarizes the prevailing view now in some of the reported comments, and the only folks pleading a slam-dunk now work for Google.

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