The Big Picture |
- Constant Creation
- Book Review: In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
- 10 Sunday Reads
- Mossberg, Swisher Discuss Mobile with Charlie Rose
| Posted: 28 Apr 2013 12:00 PM PDT Here today, gone tomorrow. That’s the modern paradigm. When what you want to do is stay in the public eye, in people’s minds, you don’t want to be forgotten. That is why the album format is working against you. 1. If you’re making an album-length statement, a story, a concept, go for it. But twelve tracks strung together is not a concept. 2. If you’re an itinerant musician and you want something to sell at shows, a CD fits the bill. But you could always assemble ten or twelve songs into a CD for this purpose. There’s just too much information. And no matter how big a story you’ve got, you can be trumped by somebody else or just plowed under by the detritus coming down the pike. Your album is in the rearview mirror only moments after it’s been released. Look at the top of the SoundScan chart, it’s new product all the time. Illustrating that that’s what the public wants, new stuff! And you keep peddling the old! Don’t blame the old men at the labels. They’re beholden to the artists. Just like the artists are responsible for ticket fees, they’re responsible for the inane album format. Because they’ve got no vision. Toting out their long-playing favorites, from “Sgt. Pepper” to “Dark Side Of The Moon,” they say they’re just following in a long tradition. I’m saying they’re just making music a second-class citizen, by being so lost in the past. You’ve got to create constantly now. That’s they only way you can stay in the public eye! Radio is Las Vegas. A few people get lucky, a few win the jackpot. But most don’t. Hone your track with its twelve writers, spoon-feed it to radio, be part of the dying game. Or release music constantly in order to maintain your presence in your audience’s brain. Look at the public. Used to be mail came once a day. You got it when you arrived home. Then, you could only check e-mail with a wired connection. Now, you go to dinner and everybody’s on their phone, constantly. They just cannot stand being disconnected. But that’s what you are. Disconnected from your audience. They’re not tweeting about your latest release, because it was MONTHS AGO! It’s almost like you’re making a movie. You know, something that plays in the theatre for a week or two, and just when word of mouth gets you interested, it’s gone! But let’s forget about the movie business, which is challenged so greatly and doesn’t realize it. Let’s focus on music. The number one thing a fan wants is more music by his favorite act. But rather than deliver said music, today’s bands put out an album and then lay low for a few years, while their functionaries try to convince everybody who doesn’t care that they should. Forget about the new audience, focus on the old. The old will sell you to the new. If you satiate them. And the way you do this is via new music. But it’s not only music. It’s connection. You think you’re gaining traction by hanging with the program director? IDIOT! You’re better off answering e-mail, responding on Facebook, making news on Twitter. There’s no thrill like getting a Twitter response from your hero. You tell everybody you know. Virality is rampant. But the old farts would rather get a story about a tour in the newspaper. Forget the newspaper, that’s where news goes to die, it’s there last. News is for today, tomorrow is for brand new news. And perfection is history. How do we know? Because Reese Witherspoon acted out in Georgia and we all knew in hours, if not minutes. She’s too stupid to come out and say, HEY, I WAS DRUNK! But actors are phonies and musicians are real. Cop to the facts. State the truth. That’s what bonds you to your fans. You’ve got the ability to connect directly, but you keep complaining the new way is not like the old way and you just can’t get paid. I’ve got news for you, it’s gonna get worse. There’s gonna be nowhere to buy a CD. And the world is gonna go to streaming. And people are gonna cherry-pick their favorites. And there’s nothing you can do about it other than make phenomenal music, which your album is not, there hasn’t been an album playable throughout since Cat Stevens became Yusuf Islam. Oh, you get the point. There’s a giant disconnect! It’s not the media’s job to keep you in the public eye, it’s yours! They call it the NEWSPAPER, and despite my complaint that so much of what’s inside is old, it’s not old by months, that’s right, they don’t call it the OLDPAPER, so the odds of them writing about your album months after release are essentially nil. We live in a direct to consumer society. Amazon knows it. Google knows it. Apple knows it. But somehow musicians don’t know it. They want someone else to do the work for them. They don’t want to take risks, they don’t want to fail, they don’t want to try new ways. The new way is you bond to your fan. If he or she doesn’t think you’re living in their house, you’re doing it wrong.
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| Book Review: In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives Posted: 28 Apr 2013 07:00 AM PDT
In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives Levy, who had done a few way early and quite complementary articles on Google (before anyone knew who they were) was granted “unprecedented access to the company” and it shows in his quite revelatory book about how how Google became the company it is today. The key to Google's success in all of their businesses, according to Levy, is the engineering mind-set and adoption of such Internet values as speed, openness, experimentation, and risk taking. I was tempted to accuse Levy of fawning over the company, but he is pretty brutal on how Google stumbled so badly in China as well as in social networking, He writes with a deep understanding of engineering and software — which works terrifically well in this book. That technology savvy is what was noticeably missing from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. If you are curious as to how things operate in the Googleplex, this books gives you the details.
Reviews: “An instructive primer on how the minds behind the world’s most influential internet company function.” “[Steven Levy] spent much of the past three years playing anthropologist at one of the Internet’s most interesting villages and set of inhabitants — the Googleplex and the tribue of Googlers who inhabit it. . . . A deep dive into Google’s culture, history and technology.” “The wizards of Silicon Valley often hype their hardware/software breakthroughs as ‘magical’ for the products’ ability to pull off dazzling stunts in the blink of an eye. And true to the magicians’ code, these tech talents rarely let mere mortals peer behind the curtains. . . . That’s what makes Levy’s just-out tome so valuable.” —Jonathan Takiff, The Philadelphia Daily News “The most comprehensive, intelligent and readable analysis of Google to date. Levy is particularly good on how those behind Google think and work…What’s more, his lucid introductions to Google’s core technologies – the search engine and the company’s data centres – are written in non-geek English and are rich with anecdotes and analysis… In The Plex teems with original insight into Google’s most controversial affairs.” “Steven Levy’s new account [of Google], In the Plex, is the most authoritative to date and in many ways the most entertaining.” "Dense, driven examination of the pioneering search engine that changed the face of the Internet. . . The author was afforded an opportunity to observe the company's operations, development, culture and advertising model from within the infrastructure for two years with full managerial cooperation. From there, he performed hundreds of interviews with past and current employees and discovered the type of 'creative disorganization' that can either make or break a business.. . Outstanding reportage delivered in the upbeat, informative fashion for which Levy is well known."  |
| Posted: 28 Apr 2013 04:45 AM PDT Good Sunday morning, here are some interesting reads to start off the last day of your weekend:
What’s for brunch this morning?
Earnings Beat Rate by Sector  |
| Mossberg, Swisher Discuss Mobile with Charlie Rose Posted: 28 Apr 2013 03:00 AM PDT Charlie Rose: Wall Street Journal technology columnists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher discuss the annual All Things Digital conference and the future of mobile technology. All Things Digital’s Mossberg, Swisher on Mobile  |
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