the dotmatrix project

Obviously, we’re not going to go to the, uh, you know, superstars and say, “We want a percentage of your…” They’d be like (makes a dumbfounded face)

It must suck to watch your industry fall apart at the seems. Hell, I experienced it in 2001 working in Silicon Alley. Too bad for the music biz that their problem isn’t as simple as the net bubble burst with overzealous investors saturating an immature market.

That’s a correction at worst, not a complete redefinition of industry.

Is the 360 deal the silver bullet? I doubt it. It reads as a way to stop the bleeding, not the necessary organ transplant of the business model. One Golden Goose (record sales) dies, so Flom and company pilfer the remaining geese — that’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, not changing the foundational approach of what it means to be a music label in 2008.

They’re not getting to the heart of the matter.

The music industry’s problem is that too many people can make, find, enjoy, experience and share music without ever needing to step foot in their marketplace. They can sign bands to 360 deals until the cows come home, but the fact of the matter is that we’ve moved away from a world of massive record sales and sold-out stadium shows to a world where free music online leads to well attended, yet cozy venues and small festivals.

We are living a more personalized, fun and affordable music experience.

Of course there will always be superstars, and they’ll demand a higher price point across the board, but marketing teams won’t be the genesis of their popularity moving forward. The web enables decentralized power through the aggregate of individuals — whether the individuals are musicians or fans — so our “chock full of choice” world is now aligning along the edges, not within the artificial heart of where the music industry dictates.

The 360 deal is a short-term play for industry executives to keep making coin, not a long-term solution to evolve their business.

Labels, in the business to serve musicians, need to do more with less because the ratio of revenue delivering superstars to nominally successful acts is becoming a smaller integer as each day passes. Indie labels without aspirations of world dominance can swing that transition because they’ve been working smart, sleek and forward-thinking all along.

How does a major label — with all of its bloated, corporate structure — compete in this dynamic environment?

They don’t.

(via KOAR)

Is this for real?

If it is, this completely redefines the concept of selling out. I know the music industry is in the shitter these days, and of course Kanye West isn’t Anton Newcombe, but still… this is pretty damn crazy.

(originally uploaded by Kaj Bjurman)

Scripps Shoots for “Total Category Dominance”

[…] Brown told me that what she’s really concentrating on over the next few months is an extensive rebuild of Scripps’ backend, particularly the CMS, to bring more Web 2.0 functionality to the networks’ numerous sites. “After eight years of the same CMS, it’s time for a change,” she said.

Users won’t see a difference, but will be able to use the sites differently and in deeper, more engaging ways. Methinks this is an issue many media companies are going to have to address — and invest in — to remain competitive, retain audience and attract advertisers.

Guess what dotmatrix has been busy working on since Spring 2007?

We’re knee deep in defining the information architecture and internal user experience for the aforementioned CMS, juggling the needs of more than 10 discrete design personae and numerous internal and external systems.

If you’re an interaction designer looking for a challenge, ping me.

A big ol’ shout of thanks goes out to Tara for this interview with Austin Hill of Akoha — simply described as “meaningful play” — which touches upon so many cultural aspects of social economics in day-to-day living outside of the realm of social networking.

Like at minute 2:30 in the video; I knew there had to be a reason why I enjoyed investing so much time and resources in building community!

But seriously, what Austin ends up speaking about — average people organizing and affecting change online — is something that Molly discussed with me over lunch this afternoon.

She was absolutely amazed at how Kathy Clark and I were able to make such a positive impact in the meat space with the Save Live Music in Winston-Salem Facebook group, while something as important as the International Civil Rights Museum sits collecting dust after so many years of funding and community support.

I logically argued that the WS situation was simply pointing people to a spot to petition and pressure folks to really do their job, while with the ICRM, money has already been donated, accountability for historical failures have been scarce and the future looks somewhat bleak. Molly instinctively dropped into the world of eros, determined to figure out how to affect the lethargy through online social organization, especially as Greensboro celebrates its 200th birthday over the next few months.

While we both want the museum to become a reality, I found it interesting how the eros and logos in our positions quickly came to the foreground. I usually don’t shrink away from a problem; I try to provide a solution, often creatively tapping into the mechanics of the web. But with this issue, I’ve no idea where to start:

• Funding has been both a blessing and a curse to this project
• Everyone and their mother in town wants to see this project come to fruition
• Yet residents have twice refused to support the project as a bond referendum

What type of a solution can the social economy of a Facebook offer to this type of political conundrum?

 
Pipes Badges are damn cool mechanisms for presenting custom feeds of data on your blog, though I have to admit — even being a web guy myself — that the user input field nomenclature can be confusing as hell at times.

For example: In the video, the prompt field for the User input > textinput defaults with “textinput” so Paul changes it to read, “enter keyword:”

My question: Does that change actually affect the output results (read: does the user need to have implicit knowledge of commands) or is Paul simply providing a metadata wrapper for the saved Pipe in order to provide context for future usability?

When I used Pipes in the past it seemed like I ran into these types of usability questions pretty often, which probably means that more explicit nomenclature or structuring of the widgets would help. You know, like be super clear about what each field means or if, as in our example, a field is simply metadata, then shift the addition of metadata to the end of the workflow; make it a part of the save process itself.

I realize that developers use Pipes, but obviously content creators are target users as well.

Big props to my buddy Paul Donnelly at Yahoo! Pipes, who was a killer Front-End Engineer in my User Experience team at Ameritrade back in the day.

Rock star!

(originally uploaded by Ben Brown)

Bob Lefsetz: SXSW

Can an unsigned band get noticed? And, do we even bother to use that term anymore, “unsigned”. Do you want to get signed?

I mean what are the chances that the cognoscenti are going to care about your band when R.E.M. and even Van Morrison are shilling for attention. Oh, it makes you feel good, to rent a U-Haul, sleep four to a room and perform a set no one cares about. The same way it makes you feel good to send a CD to me! It’s amazing what people will do to make themselves feel good, make them believe they’re making progress.

[…]

Don’t worry about the short term money. If your music is good, if you play well live, the money will come. But sending me a CD or schlepping your equipment to SXSW isn’t going to make your music any better. If it’s good, put it on the Web, energize your fans, they’ll spread the word. But you probably suck and are looking for the easy way out. And crying that you just can’t make any money. Boofuckinghoo.

As much as I dig Lefsetz’s perspective on the realities of the music business, this no skin-having, binary, pessimistic position he pins on musicians trying to make a living while gaining exposure is BULLSHIT.

If You Love Music, Then Love The Music

Yes, Bob, you’re right about the labels. We get it. We know it through and through — signing on the dotted line doesn’t mean shit anymore. But only a fucking lawyer, one who NEVER MADE A DIME creating or building something born in their soul, would shit on such people who send him a CD for a listen.

You can’t have it both ways, Bob. If you’re so fucking into the music, if life is all about the music…

You know, the music, man
The thing that reaches into your heart
Past the Boss suit and fake tan
And sets your soul on restart

…then you must take CDs being sent to you as a SIGN that people want to connect with you because they think your taste in music MEANS SOMETHING. Quite possibly, they’re so caught up in the possibilities of this decentralized world that you so often rant about that they view YOU as a beacon of light, an avenue for advice or even exposure on some level.

Don’t sing the merits of music being at the soul of everything, reveal in detail the type of music that speaks to you and then SHIT on artists who expose their sound to you.

The people who feel like they’re MAKING PROGRESS when they post their music to the internet in an attempt to build community are probably the same type of people who would send music to an industry visionary they feel a connection with.

This attitude you’re conveying is as guarded and old school as any crap dropped by the head of a major label. That’s not too surprising since your blog is as closed of an experience as MTV proper, but I gotta say, man, the last few lines of your post are fucking reprehensible.

Should A Band Not Try To Make A Living?

There are probably acts that fit such a description to a tee — I’m referring to Lefsetz’s reference of weak acts looking to cut corners and then bitch about not making money — but such a gross generalization of PEOPLE shines a light on him that isn’t even becoming of a fucking DEFENSE LAWYER.

“Don’t worry about short-term money” has no relevance WHATSOEVER to an artist’s conception of “short-term money.” Lefsetz is talking to musicians about compensation with a label’s definition of ROI in his mouth.

$35k a year to pay the rent, eat decently and fill up the gas tank is “short-term money” to a vast majority of musicians. What do you call that, Bob?

If musicians need to build community in this world driven by the internet — that is your position, right? — then why SHIT on people who travel across the country to a music festival to expose their craft to a new audience WHO HAS ACCESS TO THE SAME INTERNET?

Great, unknown acts all over the world play their hearts out live, upload music to Last.fm, Amie Street, iLike and/or MySpace and still struggle to pay their rent. New connections and avenues of exposure in the meat space matter JUST AS MUCH in this brave new world of interconnectedness, ESPECIALLY for bands with a great sound.

SXSW isn’t about the back room dealings of major label A&R folks anymore. Do you realize how many bloggers converge on SXSW each year? How is getting a gig at SXSW these days not in line with your approach to building community online around the music?

Bands have always juggled their local and regional touring strategies with long-distance gig opportunities. In these days that decision is even more relevant to building a diverse following online. They’re working whatever channels they can find, particularly ones that expose them to people who publish intra-day, like yourself, and that’s a problem for you to watch or participate in?

WTF?

UPDATE: Bob’s blog minion moderates trackbacks, so this post isn’t appearing on his SXSW post. None of my past posts referring Bob’s letters had a problem getting through the moderation queue. I guess they only make it through when people agree with him.

So much for understanding online communities.

(shot by Joi)

I’m betting this scene was one of those “wish I was there” moments.

How about a caption contest? Here’s my best shot:

Lessig: You have absolutely no clue how to properly research a thesis and position it within the context of a world bent on taking what is available through the advancement of technology. Millions of people stand on the balls of their feet each day to reach a counter on which our culture leave bits of data dangling for use, whether on purpose or not, and all you can say is that I “laud the appropriation of intellectual property.”

All I have ever espoused for is that our society curbs the availability of “illegal” intellectual property by simultaneous expanding the choice in copyright and the ease in which both creative people and corporations alike can assign such options.

Keen: Heh… he said “balls.”

Feel free to leave your attempt in the comments.

Seriously, folks, we’re two years into this crap that Keen floats as intellectual discourse. Can we please just call a spade a spade (or call an opportunist an opportunist) and move on?

Free download and order options.

(originally uploaded by l0ckergn0me)

Calacanis just dropped a post on his blog that’s chock-full of tips on how to save money with a start-up. Most of them are bean counting strategies to save a buck that make perfect sense, but toward the middle of his list, Calacanis drops straight into oxymoronic territory:

[…]

10. Buy your hardest working folks computers for home. If you have folks who are willing to work an extra hour a day a week you should get them a computer for home. Once you get to three hours of work a week from home you’re at 150 hours a year and that’s a no brainer. Invest in equipment *if* the person is a workaholic.

11. Fire people who are not workaholics… come on folks, this is startup life, it’s not a game. Go work at the post office or Starbucks if you want balance in your life. For realz.

[…]

So does that make all Mahalo employees workaholics by default? Even the student, work from home parents or normal folk “expert” guides that Calacanis likes to pimp that he has working for him?

Let me back up.

Five months ago I wrote a piece about Mahalo and in conclusion made a point about the editorial scalability issues they faced with the current business model:

[…] For shits and giggles, say that Mahalo succeeds in creating result pages for the top 25,000 search queries from Google and Yahoo!. Then what? How many “expert” monkeys are needed to not only scale to meet the demand of the ever shifting zeitgeist, but to maintain pre-existing hand-linked search result pages? […]

To which Calacanis responded:

[…] Also, our team is not a bunch of “monkeys,” they are hard working, real people who are trying to make a living by help people find quality information on the web. These are good people doing good work and I would ask that you have some respect for them and their effort. We’ve got students, work from home parents, and normal folk trying to make a little extra money to take care of their kids a little bit better building Mahalo search result pages. Try to have a little decency. […]

While that strawman response made one little tear run slowly down my cheek, the question now running rampant through my head is: How exactly can Calacanis pimp “real people” as the core team of Mahalo and then demand his “real people” employees to be workaholics?

As commenter #76 on the TechCrunch post puts it:

I spoke to their CTO through a common contact for a product job and he said they just hired a new one so they won’t need another one for a few more months… phew dodged a bullet… with this kind of shit even if it’s half true I’d be gone in 10 days… yeah I’ll work 60 hour week for a company that is make real products and treats me well… but not for some shit SEO wikipedia wannabe clown company

Carry on JC.

Tag your flickr picture with “hopeactchange” and join the party.

Fun stuff, but I’m patiently waiting for the McCain version of this 2.0 remix — the directions will probably be to tag your flickr pictures with “noyoucant.”

(via Joho)