Andrew Dubber has just written the most concise, brilliant post about why you should give away your music online for free (or more correctly, why you shouldn’t be scared of giving away your music for free). Of course, this applies to almost any creative works, whether it’s music, writing, video etc etc.
Read it here. I’ll certainly be pointing people in its direction constantly for the forseeable future….
The end of 2008 came with a whole load of personal and professional challenges for me, and I was very glad of the time off over Christmas and the New Year. But now I’m very keen to get stuck back into 2009 and believe it will be the best year yet, for many reasons. I’ll expand on my thoughts another time, but in the meantime here’s an extract from a letter written to Tim Ferriss by his mentor. Inspiring reading from his latest blog post…
While many are wringing their hands, I recall the 1970s when we were suffering from an oil shock causing long lines at gas stations, rationing, and 55 MPH speed limits on Federal highways, a recession, very little venture capital ($50 million per year into VC firms), and, what President Jimmy Carter (wearing a sweater while addressing the Nation on TV because he had turned down the heat in the White House) called a “malaise”. It was during those times that two kids without any real college education, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, started companies that did pretty well. Opportunities abound in bad times as well as good times. In fact, the opportunities are often greater when the conventional wisdom is that everything is going into the toilet.
Well…we’re nearing the end of another great year, and, despite what we read about the outlook for 2009, we can look forward to a New Year filled with opportunities as well as stimulating challenges.
Now’s the time, folks!
Chris Anderson‘s 2006 Long Tail theory states that because the web provides unlimited availability of vast amounts of niche and specialist music/films/books/whatever that there will be perpetual sales for the relevant artists, authors and creators of this content. But in an update to their recent findings, the PRS-MCPS Alliance (the UK’s music royalty collection organisation) has announced that only 173,000 of the 1.23 million albums available online actually made a single sale last year. In other words 85 percent didn’t sell even one copy. This is in addition to their recent announcement that 10 million of the 13 million individual tracks available online didn’t find a single buyer. Anderson is stoutly defending his economic model of the new web-based landscape, but who knows what further data is out there to strengthen or weaken is argument?
Is the Long Tail a dead theory already? Is one year’s data in just one sector enough to kill it off? Or should we see the theory as along term economic model that will take time to develop? Or do we just accept that the web makes those producing niche content a little easier to find – a slightly healthier short tail…?
pic credit: novelr.com
Chris Anderson‘s 2006 Long Tail theory states that because the web provides unlimited availability of vast amounts of niche and specialist music/films/books/whatever that there will be perpetual sales for the relevant artists, authors and creators of this content. But in an update to their recent findings, the PRS-MCPS Alliance (the UK’s music royalty collection organisation) has announced that only 173,000 of the 1.23 million albums available online actually made a single sale last year. In other words 85 percent didn’t sell even one copy. This is in addition to their recent announcement that 10 million of the 13 million individual tracks available online didn’t find a single buyer. Anderson is stoutly defending his economic model of the new web-based landscape, but who knows what further data is out there to strengthen or weaken is argument?
Is the Long Tail a dead theory already? Is one year’s data in just one sector enough to kill it off? Or should we see the theory as along term economic model that will take time to develop? Or do we just accept that the web makes those producing niche content a little easier to find – a slightly healthier short tail…?
pic credit: novelr.com
Seth Godin wrote this on his blog recently:
More than ever, there’s a clear relationship between how new something is and how much it costs to discover that news.
You can check your email twice a day pretty easily. Once every fifteen minutes has a disruption cost. Pinging it with your pocketphone every sixty seconds is an extremely expensive lifestyle/productivity choice.
Sure, go ahead, stay hyper-current, but realize it’s not free.
As a piece of information it’s stayed with me, as I see this as a problem for me. And several other creative entrepreneurs that I’ve asked. I’m very guilty of checking my email, RSS reader, blog comments etc on a very regular basis as I hate to think I’m “behind the curve” and not up to date with the freshest, most interesting ideas and conversations. The reality is that in the vast majority of cases it won’t matter if I’m a few hours/days/weeks slower than some.
For someone dealing in stocks and shares they need to pay a premium price for up-to-the-second data. But I deal in “ideas”, creativity, and other nebulous stuff like that.
The impact on my productivity of working like this is that I don’t spend enough solid chunks of time doing whatever’s at the top of my list. It’s like the theory I’ve talked about recently that our lives and minds are far too fragmented. In times past our days were split into just three or four sections (plough, hunt, gather, eat etc). But today we’re required to do 100′s of things an hour (check email, read article, make drink, check email, send text, write email, send email, check RSS, read article). Does anyone ever get anything done?
I know my most productive hours are those straight after a meeting when I’m enthused and have an action list to do.
I intend to write more on the big gap between the huge amounts of technology now ever-present in our minds, and our ability to deal with them effectively. But for now, I’ve got go check my email in case something incredibly exciting has arrived…
p.s. Anyone seen this? Looks very good.
Seth Godin wrote this on his blog recently:
More than ever, there’s a clear relationship between how new something is and how much it costs to discover that news.
You can check your email twice a day pretty easily. Once every fifteen minutes has a disruption cost. Pinging it with your pocketphone every sixty seconds is an extremely expensive lifestyle/productivity choice.
Sure, go ahead, stay hyper-current, but realize it’s not free.
As a piece of information it’s stayed with me, as I see this as a problem for me. And several other creative entrepreneurs that I’ve asked. I’m very guilty of checking my email, RSS reader, blog comments etc on a very regular basis as I hate to think I’m “behind the curve” and not up to date with the freshest, most interesting ideas and conversations. The reality is that in the vast majority of cases it won’t matter if I’m a few hours/days/weeks slower than some.
For someone dealing in stocks and shares they need to pay a premium price for up-to-the-second data. But I deal in “ideas”, creativity, and other nebulous stuff like that.
The impact on my productivity of working like this is that I don’t spend enough solid chunks of time doing whatever’s at the top of my list. It’s like the theory I’ve talked about recently that our lives and minds are far too fragmented. In times past our days were split into just three or four sections (plough, hunt, gather, eat etc). But today we’re required to do 100′s of things an hour (check email, read article, make drink, check email, send text, write email, send email, check RSS, read article). Does anyone ever get anything done?
I know my most productive hours are those straight after a meeting when I’m enthused and have an action list to do.
I intend to write more on the big gap between the huge amounts of technology now ever-present in our minds, and our ability to deal with them effectively. But for now, I’ve got go check my email in case something incredibly exciting has arrived…
p.s. Anyone seen this? Looks very good.
This had a bit of a profound effect on me when I read it for the first time last night.
“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give”.
Sir Winston Churchill
British politician
1874 – 1965
And then I saw this card this morning on the windowsill outside my flats. Obviously left by one of my fellow tenants.
This had a bit of a profound effect on me when I read it for the first time last night.
“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give”.
Sir Winston Churchill
British politician
1874 – 1965
And then I saw this card this morning on the windowsill outside my flats. Obviously left by one of my fellow tenants.
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I love taking photos, and I’ve got a very decent compact camera that I used to take with me everywhere. But it hardly ever leaves the house now. Why? Because my mobile phone takes photos like this over Sunday breakfast in a cafe:
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Don’t get me wrong. The camera on my phone is very limited, and can’t compete with the sort of pics I take with my “proper” camera:
But in 99 percent of cases it’s more than good enough to record a moment in time. It got me wondering about technological convergence, and how portable items such as cameras and phones are slowly and steadily merging into one thing. My first digital camera (circa 2000) wouldn’t have been able to take a picture as good as that one at the top. But my phone now has GPS, web and email facilities too. All of which I use on a regular basis. I even subscribe to podcasts on it too, which I download via my home network using the phone’s wifi capabilities. So, where will it end?
I pondered this as I ran across the clifftops of Penarth before dawn this morning (not a regular occurrence – I couldn’t sleep). I watched the sleepy, blinking lights of England across the channel and wondered about the tankers in the shipping lanes. How would they benefit from convergence? Nothing sprung to mind, but then I know absolutely nothing about shipping. I realised that convergence is driven by portability. It’s about making stuff smaller, and reducing the amount of items to save our overwhelmed pockets and bags. Tankers, by their very nature, have plenty of space aboard. I suppose it’s not such an issue….
My phone is smaller than a pack of cards, but in most cases it means I don’t have to carry a laptop, camera, satnav, gaming console, radio etc.
As I mentioned recently we live in incredible times. And we’re seeing the world change right in front of our eyes. My good friend John Rostron pointed this out yesterday, as he wrote about the slow, inevitable decline of CD sales. Technology is moving very, very quickly. We are literally watching the world change day by day. It’s a fascinating time to be alive!
Oh, and big thanks to Mr Rostron (who’s also co-organiser of the Swn festival) for my brilliant Swn t-shirt. It’s a doozie, and a Howies one, too. I really must remember to pay him!
I love taking photos, and I’ve got a very decent compact camera that I used to take with me everywhere. But it hardly ever leaves the house now. Why? Because my mobile phone takes photos like this over Sunday breakfast in a cafe:
Don’t get me wrong. The camera on my phone is very limited, and can’t compete with the sort of pics I take with my “proper” camera:
But in 99 percent of cases it’s more than good enough to record a moment in time. It got me wondering about technological convergence, and how portable items such as cameras and phones are slowly and steadily merging into one thing. My first digital camera (circa 2000) wouldn’t have been able to take a picture as good as that one at the top. But my phone now has GPS, web and email facilities too. All of which I use on a regular basis. I even subscribe to podcasts on it too, which I download via my home network using the phone’s wifi capabilities. So, where will it end?
I pondered this as I ran across the clifftops of Penarth before dawn this morning (not a regular occurrence – I couldn’t sleep). I watched the sleepy, blinking lights of England across the channel and wondered about the tankers in the shipping lanes. How would they benefit from convergence? Nothing sprung to mind, but then I know absolutely nothing about shipping. I realised that convergence is driven by portability. It’s about making stuff smaller, and reducing the amount of items to save our overwhelmed pockets and bags. Tankers, by their very nature, have plenty of space aboard. I suppose it’s not such an issue….
My phone is smaller than a pack of cards, but in most cases it means I don’t have to carry a laptop, camera, satnav, gaming console, radio etc.
As I mentioned recently we live in incredible times. And we’re seeing the world change right in front of our eyes. My good friend John Rostron pointed this out yesterday, as he wrote about the slow, inevitable decline of CD sales. Technology is moving very, very quickly. We are literally watching the world change day by day. It’s a fascinating time to be alive!
Oh, and big thanks to Mr Rostron (who’s also co-organiser of the Swn festival) for my brilliant Swn t-shirt. It’s a doozie, and a Howies one, too. I really must remember to pay him!
