October 2007

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of ARGs and music

October 31, 2007 in marketing by George | No comments

Too long of a rabbit-hole to go down to explain Alternative Reality Games (ARGs) at this point, but it’s a concept you need to begin familiarizing yourself with.

So far they’ve primarily been used for movies and TV shows (Lost, for example). There’s one emerging for the new Batman movie here. For the past week, when you visited the site, you were greeted by a Jack-o-lantern slowly flickering away and decaying. At midnight (get it, Halloween), the candle went out, and was replaced by the message you see on the site now. Hunting around on the site leads you to an exhortation to take pictures and send them in — this participation is a crucial element of ARGs.

I bring this up not because I care that much about the new Batman movie (though I kind of do), but because I firmly believe that the methodology being used in ARGs will be how savvy marketers begin promoting music in this new Rainbow age.

My money is on, Billy O’Connell, the brilliant manager for Throwing Muses to lead the way.

OT: Yeah…this seems about right

October 30, 2007 in Off Topic by George | No comments

airport security
(Doesn’t the above picture make you feel “headache gray”)

I recently mentioned my frustration at how uncivilized travel has become, but this pretty much seals it.

The items that are confiscated — you know, dangerous things like my Kiehl’s gel and little girls’ batons — while one attempts to get through the security gauntlet on the way to the travel compartment — are ending up being sold on eBay.

With this type of entrepreneurial zeal, we’ll doubtless be seeing many innovations in airport security in the near future.

[via Daring Fireball]

Thomas Edison Quotes

October 29, 2007 in Productivity by George | No comments

edison

I didn’t fail ten thousand times. I successfully eliminated, ten thousand times, materials and combinations which wouldn’t work.

I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others.

I am more of a sponge than an inventor. I absorb ideas from every source. My principal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant but misdirected ideas of others.

Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the one thing that he can’t afford to lose.

I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it.

I have more respect for the fellow with a single idea who gets there than for the fellow with a thousand ideas who does nothing.

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

[Via 37 Signals]

Paste magazine adopts the “Radiohead” approach

October 29, 2007 in music business by George | No comments

paste

Just got an email from my old pal Jay Sweet over at the excellent Paste Magazine.

Seems they’re taking a similar approach with their magazine to the much-heralded Radiohead name-your-own-price gambit for In Rainbows.

So, go ahead – click here – and give ‘em what you think it’s worth (gotta give ‘em at least a buck – damnable transaction fees).

I’m certain you won’t be disappointed.

Critical Metrics

October 28, 2007 in music business, tech by George | No comments

Critical Metrics is a very interesting (if unfortunately named) site focused on dealing with a problem I’ve been wrestling with forever; basically that the algorithms that iLike and last.fm and amazon, et al. use sort of suck.

BusinessWeek’s story on CM puts it this way:

Current CM competition, like iLike and Last.fm, are dominated by what Anuff terms “social metrics”: They mostly point out what other music the fans of your favorite band dig. “I don’t think they’re garbage,” says Anuff, but “I don’t believe [social metrics] have the same level of authority” as critics’ opinions. For this reason, he says, they do a poor job of solving “the programming problem every single purveyor has: How do you turn anyone on to new music?”

This is the holy grail for music in some respects, and I’m frustrated that it’s taking so damn long to figure it out. I think CM brings us a step closer.

[found via my favorite new blog, fistfulayen]

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