kortina
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Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | Tweetwow. that is a hot one
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | Tweetthats a good list, here are mine http://tinyurl.com/7nq2nf
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetWhen I taught, one of the senior elective courses was a course simply entitled 'Humanities.' The instructor would not allow any form of 'is' in the student's papers. Every student claimed that despite hating the experience, they became stronger writers. I wonder if it's simply an issue of continuing to compound your definition of brevity.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | Tweetthis is an AWESOME video! all 10 minutes of it. and, bruce doesn't like playing with his socks down, we learn.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetGlad you enjoyed the vid. Andy Weissman sent it to me, I think. The first
time I saw this, I watched it about 10 times in a row.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | Tweet"The problem is that I won't go to a live performance if I only know one or
two songs."--it seems the singles industry is at odds with music touring
biz. I never thought about that before. Thanks for the sharing your insight.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetMy friends and I recently had this discussion. We are big fans of the music album, and have less respect for the contrived single. In my opinion, each genre of music should be looked at separately. For example, hip-hop and pop are singles-driven, due in large part to the music charts. For some reason, rock bands take more pride in putting out a great album in its entirety. Perhaps it is because rock does not have the same mass appeal, and so the hope of a hot single is never there to begin with. Or perhaps it is because rock is more rebellious, and thus refuses to be influenced by the charts. I speak only about music in the U.S. Other countries, such as England, have different market forces.
There is no doubt that the greatest connection you can have with a band is to go to a live performance. The problem is that I won't go to a live performance if I only know one or two songs. Maybe I'm an exception. I need to either love many songs or go on the advice of a friend who's music taste I trust.
Alas, we must hope that the album is here to stay.
For a work of art, listen to Cut Copy's "In Ghost Colours" from beginning to end without pause.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | Tweetfantastic post - i'll try to make that the last adjective I use for a while
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetWow, one step ahead of me. Thanks!
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetAnil,
bitly ubiqity plugin at http://labs.kortina.net/ubiquity-kortina.html
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetTalking about bit.ly and ubiquity, is there a ubiquity plugin for bit.ly that can quickly shorten URLs?
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | Tweethaha. "Devote more time to girls" ....Love it!
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | Tweetbrilliant.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | Tweet"Unfortunately, I won’t buy any of your music."
I wrote such a rash statement to express an obsolete business model for record labels. I certainly do pay for music in all the cases listed by Kortina below. However, I feel like the way people consume music nowadays is significantly different from the way they used to. And thanks to companies like seeqpod, napster and iTunes, major & independent record labels need to revolutionize the way they do business. The ones that don't are long gone. It's safe to say Live Nation will be one of the big players in music going forward. They own all the venues, and they've got Madonna (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21324512/)!
Over the past few weeks, I've been thinking about how itunes dominates music sales. From my understanding, that's just a loss leader for them. But still, I firmly believe that there are ways for artists to make money without only having to rely on ticket sales. Kortina and I have been discussing this and have come up with a way to capitalize on the impulse or convenience driven consumer...I'll save those thoughts for another discussion.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetWell, just by reading his comment, you might think that. But I know for a fact that Iqram has money Stevie Wonder albums.
In fact, I spent prolly $200 on the Complete Stevie Wonder, DRM-ed, from iTunes. I knew I wanted all the Stevie Wonder stuff, and I didn't want to waste *time* on Bittorrent hunting down all of Stevie's stuff and I didn't want to miss anything.
So I think from this example we can actually extract two reasons to pay for music: (1) convenience / opportunity cost -- at the right price point, it's not worth my time to steal music (2) fanaticism -- I love Stevie and am happy to pay for his music
Now, the number of people willing to pay for music for either (1) or (2) is much smaller than the number of people who will pay $10-$20 for the album when paying this amount of money is the only way to get it, but the days when record companies can force people to pay these amounts of money are gone.
There are much more interesting cases than (1) and (2) where people pay for music. For example, (3) I paid $20 to see a Guns N' Roses cover band live. If you stop and think about that one, it's quite amazing--these guys make a profession out of sheer entertainment and a love for music, playing someone else's tunes. I actually think cover bands can be some of the best live music you can see, because more often than not the guys on stage are just playing for the love of the music. I want to be around people playing music out of love! I'll pay for that.
(4) I frequently pay $1-$2 to hear a song on jukeboxes at bars. I myself complain all the time that the $.99 price point for a song on iTunes is too high, yet have no problem paying $1 *for a single listen* at a bar. Same reason I'll pay $15 for a glass of scotch at a bar knowing I can get a bottle at home for $45. Music, like drinking, is an activity which has a much higher value in social context than in an isolated setting.
These are just a few cases for paid music I can pull off the top of my head. The paid music industry isn't gone, it just needs radical change.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetSo if I read Igram correctly, there is NO circumstance that we he pay for music? What are the implications of that?
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetInteresting. It seems like singles were popular before the album. I've heard stories about James Brown releasing tracks right from a rehearsal session. I do agree that since it seems like the average consumer has a lower attention span, the single is becoming more popular. Nonetheless, in my opinion, it's the artist and the live performance that gets me hooked. I don't think musicians will release less because it's all about the single. I also doubt that artists will stop creating albums. Therefore, with a little more effort, you can dig deep and connect with any musician. I just think fans will become more loyal to better artists, which for me, is a good thing for the music industry. Engage me at a concert; sing like Stevie Wonder; make me move at your concert - and I'll pay $50 bucks to see you every time you're in my neighborhood. If you're really good, I'll even travel to see you. Unfortunately, I'm won't buy any of your music.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetGood stuff. Going to repost a quote from your comment as a new entry.
I've heard the example of James Brown as a singles vs. albums guy--I wonder
if that's why I'm not a hardcore James Brown fan. I love his songs when I
hear them, but I don't have a single James Brown track on my iTunes. Is that
because he doesn't have any killer albums? I wonder.Also, I wonder about fans becoming loyal to better artists. I could see fans
either getting more loyal to the best artists or becoming even more fickle
and having no loyalty. Supply of catchy singles is basically infinite
because it's so easy to produce them--for someone who doesn't go to live
shows, I could see them just using singles for a week and throwing them
away, without ever getting attached to a single artist. Loyalty I guess will
come down to good live performances, as you say.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetGreat point, Greg.
"Sunk costs refers to the amount of previous resource investment/allocation you have put behind a decision in the past and recognizing that it should not affect your ability to ascertain the true opportunity cost. In other words, do not let intertia affect your objectivity when allocating resources." -- this is excellent, and non-obvious.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetYou and Vince bring up some great real world examples of opportunity cost as a device not only for financial decisions, but any decisions regarding the allocation of fixed resources (money, time, emotions, relationships, etc.). Both of you overlooked one aspect of this that is a crucial part of the decision making process - the idea of sunk costs. Sunk costs refers to the amount of previous resource investment/allocation you have put behind a decision in the past and recognizing that it should not affect your ability to ascertain the true opportunity cost. In other words, do not let intertia affect your objectivity when allocating resources. The current auto industry crisis is arguably a good example. Many have invested their careers, billions of dollars, years of R&D, etc. into the idea that General Motors is "too big to fail," all of which add up to the sunk costs. However, the back bone of opportunity cost is on ROI - return on investment (money,time,any resource) - hence, throwing good money at something that is doomed for failure anyway is a bad use of resources, in this case, taxpayer dollars. Collective intertia has affected the ability to be rational in the face of opportunity cost decisions.
Just my $.02. A very timely discussion indeed.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetHi.... these don't have anything, AFAIR, to do with the command line.
But, I'm not saying you're wrong. As it turns out, I AM a command line wiz! :-)
Regards.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetThese are fun. A quality find offering some Sunday morning fun. I'll post some insights on my tumblr later.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetGreat point
--
andrew kortina / 646.912.4010 [via mobile]
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | TweetIn principle I agree with this, but I think there's a counterpoint to be made. My observation, both of myself and of others, is that we are decreasingly storing specific data in our memories, relying on Google and other web resources to do it for us.
But if you'll accept a silly analogy, and if our cognitive ability is analogous to CPU and our in-brain memory to RAM, we're essentially choosing to store everything offsite, which introduces a meaningful amount of extra I/O overhead. Secondly, much of the important mental work of inference and of conceptualization can't take place without specific reference data immediately available. If I can't draw to relevant specific instances of ideas or events, it's hard for me to really respond to inbound ideas or stimuli. Ultimately, I may know *know* I have to go google something important and connected to something that's happening around me in real time. If it's something I know and recall I can respond, otherwise I cannot.
So I think that sure, Google expands the playing field in terms of our ability to access specific data and larger sets, and I think it decreases the value of individual extraordinary recall in favor of more useful skills, but there's an 80/20 rule at play here.
Reply | Original | Permalink | Share | Tweetbit.ly is actually already using Open Calais to extract entities from every
HTML page in our database. You can view the extracted data on the info pages
( http://bit.ly/whyBitly+ ) to get an idea of the kinds of human/SE readable
urls that would be possible. Simply page title would probably work better
than Calais entities, however. KISS.
