Apple’s popular iTunes Music Store edged out three traditional music retailers during the July through September time frame to leap into the number seven spot of top U.S. music retailers — and it’s likely to displace more stores by the end of the year, according to the NPD Group Inc., a market research company.
The iTunes Music Store beat . . .In spite of Erasmus' warning, over the years I've come across numerous definitions of "worship" that have caused me think about worship more biblically.
Wired magazine has an article about a potential competitor to the iPod.
"Consumer electronics manufacturer Neuros Audio is tapping the open-source community to convert its upcoming portable media player from iPod road kill into a contender. This could be a stroke of genius. Open-source Linux has taken on Microsoft's dominant Windows operating system, and Mozilla has challenged the ubiquitous Internet Explorer web browser. In the same way, open source would seem suited to breaking Apple Computer's digital music stranglehold."
The firmware code for the Neuros Audio player is here. They have assembled the majority of the player, but have left the interface to be developed and modified by open source.
It seems unlikely that an upstart brand will be able to take on the iPod even with a great interface but this is a great experiment and could serve as an example as to what open source can achieve.
J.D. Lasica has written a well researched and important contribution to the the debate about what our digital society will look like in Darknet: Hollywood's war against the digital generation
His treatise is that there needs to be a very different model by which all content is distributed, shared and how this is more an opportunity rather than a threat for the old guard of big media. If only they could see it.
There is a strong resonancy between Darknet and Communities Dominate Brands. Although starting from very different worlds, we have arrived at similar conclusions - though Lasica has shown the clear demarcation lines in the US, between big business who want to retain the status quo and customers who as Ed Richards of OfCom describes as having experienced A gentle, gradual, evolving, historic act of liberation. via technology.
History has shown, once you have stormed the Bastille, you don't go back to your day jobs.
And the empowered consumer is not going to give the bastille back - and why should they? As we all know, all media in the US was built out of a desire to drive mass consumption via mass media. This is no longer the case, as we and Lasica have amply demonstrated.
Traditional companies are fighting this situation like days die, gasping for every last ray of light. And Lasica describes this many times over, cataloguing how hard the music and film industries have strong-armed the legal system, the FCC, and Government into an effort to snub out, file sharing, peer-to-peer networks, inventive and collaborative technologies and attempting to coerce the consumer electronics industry to lock down its products, to protect its own interests.
This has resulted in "cyberspace speakeasies and high tech Cotton Clubs of the Darknet."
Lasica argues
the overall trend is toward greater engagement. We are becoming more selective in our program choices, more vocal about the kinds of entertainment and information coming into our homes, and less willing to lend our eyeballs to a single entity to engage us for an entire evening.
Poor America, is all I can say. It seems even your rights to share home movies is a bone of contention with the media moguls. And their reach stretches across the Atlantic as one coder discovered to his cost. In his foreword Howard Rheingold mentions the efforts of big media attempts to lock down the internet and limit the ability of ordinary people to produce cultural works that threaten to compete with media conglomerates
At least we have the BBC - who have already understood what it will take to successfully survive in the digital age . And when one combines Darknet with Robery McChesneys book The problem with the Media It looks like a US civil war is being fought between the old analogue media world and the people that want more control over their media choices. I will imagine this will only intensify over the coming years.
Lasica says:
A lot of kids feel they're being gouged by big coprorations.And of course big media see it very differently.
But what I really like about Darknet is Lasica's efforts to proscribe a world that could work for everybody. And I am all for signing up for that. Because ultimately that's the point - of envisioning a world, a new future, that benefits the many people. More access, a better distribution of the profits and revenues for all. Of course there are going to be some that really don't like that idea. Shame.
When you think it through, folksonomies like flickr.com or wickipedia , the underground file sharing masses like waste , blogs, iPTV, Skype, the people that run radio for their local communities, freenet spell the end for mass media as we know it.
Lasica reminds us that when Napster was shut down 57 million people were using the people-powered music swapping site. That is almost the entire population of England. Are all these people criminals? Or does this saying something fundamental about the relationship between big business and its customers?
It represented the first public wave of a media revolution that is continuing today.
And as the Economist said on 2 April of this year
Many firms do not yet seem aware of the revolutionary implications of newly empowered consumers. Only those firms ready and able to serve these new customers will survive.That what our book is about, and how better to engage with them.
Finally I quote Jonathan Taplin, a proponenet of on-demand media, who told a senate committee in 2002:
Our country has a choice of two visions of what our media culture might look like. One might be five hundred channels (owned by six corporations) and nothing on. The other might allow consumers easy on-demand access to a world of unique artistry of such power and grace as would melt the heartQ: What's a record company? A: An organisation whose survival depends on suing those who are potentially its best customers.
This opening statement from a recent John Naughton piece Striking a bum note brought a wry grin to my face thinking about one of my favourite sayings - that companies are from Mars and customers are from Venus.
And so I thought that in fact there was a part 2 follow up from yesterday's post.
As Naughton says adding rocket fuel to what we say in our book
Scarcely a week goes by without some salivating music industry executive detailing the latest batch of lawsuits launched against file-sharing teenagers.In an interesting variation on this litigious theme, Candy Chan, an American parent of one of these errant youngsters, refused to settle on behalf of her 13-year-old-daughter, Brittany. When she announced this plan of action, however, the record companies decided to go after the kid directly.
But in order to do this they had to find a way of neutralising mummy. So they petitioned the court to push Mrs Chan aside and appoint a legal guardian in her place.
Truly, you couldn't make this stuff up. The whole saga of music downloading is set to become a business school case study on the lengths to which an industry will go to defend a business model that technology has rendered obsolete.
There is a Darwinism that springs to mind here that my good friend Tomi Ahonen taught me.
That it is not the strongest or the most intelligent that survive, but those most adpated to change
The music industry demonstrates a mindset based on analogue mass control - rather than understanding that these digital natives of the music file sharing world are in fact their route to greater profits and revenues.
Naughton asks, and I imagine at this point he is looking up to the heavens
Why has the industry not spotted the potential of the net as a heaven-sent way of distributing its product and increasing its profitability? Why have artists such as Metallica supported record labels in their untenable stance, instead of realising that the net offers them a way of increasing their royalties? And why has society tolerated the ludicrous stance on intellectual property implicit in the music industry's actions?
Why indeed? And lets not forget mobile
As Tomi will tell you there are 40 million mobile phones in the world that have MP3 players, whilst direct sales of music to mobile (real songs, not ring tones) amounts to $400 M.
As the mobile internet develops the opportunities for new services and business models distribution and two way flows of information and content, will grow.
Still if your company is still wanting to live on Mars then, perhaps a gentle reminder form the Economist from April 2 2005, will help.
Only those firms able to serve (newly empowered consumers) will survive.
So its back to Darwin. and Shoshana Zuboff
These individuals are seeking new consumption choices that can redefine commerce. The new individuals want to make a difference, they want to be heard, and each wants to matter.
Then there is the Artic Monkeys who went from nowhere to number 1 in the UK music charts
Here Naughton drives his point home about how in his view the litigious record industry is not thinking about its customers on venus
Finally, what of the plea (sometimes made by record company executives) that if they didn't exist, who would find, nurture and market musical talent? Who would spot emerging stars, publicise their work, arrange live gigs, get them played on radio stations, photographed by magazines?Until last week, this argument appeared to have some validity. And then a Sheffield band called Arctic Monkeys burst onto the scene, and blew even that rationale out of the water. Their debut track, 'I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor' jumped straight to the top of the UK singles charts. Yet until very recently, they didn't have a record company. How come?
Well, from the outset, Arctic Monkeys have made brilliant use of the net, distributing free MP3s from their site and encouraging fans to pass them on. The result: sell-out live gigs, a growing buzz and the number one spot in the charts.
Well bugger me, its so obvious it hurts. And the Go Team were also credited by pitchforkmedia.com by building their fan base via the blogosphere.
Then lets look at this recent intiative Artists First which is designed to allow fans to get mp3 files from individual bands websites to mobile.
Naughton finally asks
So can someone please remind me: what are record companies for? Answers on a stamped, addressed plastic disc.
I would also suggest reading another post we made entitled Into the darknet which expands the thinking and debate on how legacy media companies are trying to halt the inoxerable march of digitally connected communities and their use of media content
With Director of Community Outreach at Doxas.com, Dave Speers
