Me: “Would you like yogurt and figs for breakfast?”
The Boy: “Yeah. Yogurt and figs. And a liiiitle bit of chocolate ice cream.”
Why own content?
I’ve seen quite a few discussions lately about the Spotify online music service. A few people said they didn’t get it; they wanted to own their music, not rent it. I saw a similar comment about the Amazon Kindle e-reader. That person was concerned that Amazon could take the content back at any time; he wanted to own it.
Why?
I’m not talking about people who like the experience of holding an actual book. I get that. Or audiophiles who get all squishy at the smell of a freshly-unwrapped vinyl LP. I mean, why do you care about actually owning the content?
For one thing, you don’t in fact “own” the content; the artist or author does. You’re just buying the delivery medium.
I listen to all my music through iTunes, XM Radio or the web “just trying out Spotify”. I have around 500 albums and I haven’t had a functioning turntable in at least a decade. My CDs are in the drawers of my son’s dresser. “We’ll have to move those as soon as he discovers them or I predict they will turn into a thousand shiny projectiles.”
I don’t want to own content. I don’t even really want to store content. I just want it available when I want to access it.
I love using Kindle on my iPad. It syncs to my iPhone which means I always have the book I’m reading with me. There are some books I’ve re-read several times “Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, for one”, but looking at my Kindle library now, I’ll tell you there aren’t more than one or two titles on there that I have any desire to “archive.”
For TV and movies, even fewer. Remember that Qwest commercial from about ten years ago? A haggard looking man checks in to a dusty motel and asks the bored teenage clerk if they have any in-room entertainment. She says something like, “We have every movie ever made, available at any time, day or night.”
Yeah, that’s what I want.
When I found out that Spotify let you stream whole albums for free, I thought, “Yep, that’s it. I’m done.” My favorite albums of all time are London Calling by The Clash, I Just Can’t Stop It by The Beat and Kind of Blue by Miles Davis “yes, I went to college in the ’80s”. I listen to them maybe twice a year, if I’m honest. Why do I need to buy them and hold them, if I can go online and listen to them whenever I want?
Yes, there’s lots of obscure music out there you won’t find online, and things do go out of print and disappear, but if you’re worried about that, I already covered you in my squishy LP-opener category.
I don’t want a closet full of storage devices. I don’t even want a hard drive full of files. It feels like clutter to me, and something that will endlessly have to be maintained, backed up and worried over. If I ever did make a full to-do list, there would be several items related to just the external hard drive with my MP3s on it “back up, eliminate duplicates, organize”. I don’t need that.
Tommy Lee Jones, viewing a new piece of alien music technology in one of the Men In Black movies says, “I guess I’ll have to buy the White Album again.”
No you don’t! You just need to pay somebody who has the White Album online. And if a service like Spotify can supply both the archiving of old music and the discovery of new, that’s all I’ll ever need.
“Of course this all falls apart if the White Album isn’t available to stream. I should probably check that.”
If you like owning your music and books, I’d love to hear why.
image by me
Thanks. He’s here all week.
Long-time fans of The Boy may recall his first joke: somewhere around the age of 18-24 months, he put his bowl on his head and said, “New hat.”
He tried his first traditional-format joke tonight at dinner:
Me: “Tell us a joke.”
The Boy: “Does Dr. Doofenshmirtz poop in a car?”
Me and The Mrs: “I don’t know. Does Dr. Doofenshmirtz poop in a car?”
The Boy: “Yes.”
Why Google+ will replace ice cream
Disclosure: Post title is fatuous linkbait.
I was on vacation last week when Google+ happened. I kept my email inbox in pretty good shape when I was away, but when I returned I felt like I was a week behind on creating circles and +1’ing and learning all the new stuff. Some folks dove in head first. Chris Brogan, for instance, is all over Google+ and has even replaced his Facebook icon with a Google+ logo with the phrase, “I have moved,” and unless I’m missing something, he’s shut down his personal Facebook wall. He really has moved.
I’ve seen lots of useful how-to articles, and lots of posts from people pondering the significance of Google+ for social media in general, business in particular and, inevitably, whether or not Google+ will replace Facebook. That’s a big, thorny question. So I’m going to ignore it.
I’ve joined quite a few new social networks over the last decade and a half, starting with a “pre-WWW” forum on the old Delphi network “a competitor of AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe” called “The UK American Connection.” It consisted mostly of Yanks asking Brits questions like, “I watched Cracker last night. What the hell does ‘naff’ mean?”
I joined Friendster just in time for my girlfriend “now The Mrs” to tell me it was dead. I joined Twitter in May of 2008. I still remember the first person who followed me “former colleague Jeff Batte“, and pondering my next follower, an American journalist living in Germany. I spent hours trying to work out how I knew him and why he would follow me.
My point, if there is one, is that I have yet to see a new social network take off as quickly as Google+. I’m sure there are statistics that either support or refute that, but for me it seems that my nerd friends “and I have created a circle for you called “Nerds”” are taking to Google+ extremely quickly. “Cynical Girl and Pixie of the Apocalypse Laurie Ruettimann linked on Facebook earlier today to a Mashable post that said Google+ was about to hit 10 million users, so as you can see, I’ve done my research.”
It takes me a while to work out how I feel about a new network or online tool, and I’m the kind of person the slow, dull-witted “how to” videos were created for. Unlike Brogan, who within minutes had written a post outlining 50 ways Google+ could be used, I have to be shown it, and shown it again. And again. Then I will become a violent convert.
So far I think Google+ has tremendous potential to unite messaging, photo sharing, video calling, chat, document sharing and other features. This may be the locus that brings the value of Google’s various services and applications into one place. But here’s why I think it’s gotten so popular so fast:
This morning I was flipping back and forth between Facebook and Google+. I have lots of good friends on Facebook, but also a lot of people I’ve accepted as friends who I don’t actually know, or know very well. I accepted some of those out of politeness, and I haven’t taken the time to hide or unfriend the people or companies who clutter up my stream. I scroll for a while before I come to an update from someone I really want to keep in touch with, or something I really want to read.
My Google+ stream, on the other hand, has been filled with interesting posts and long, enjoyable comment-thread discussions with clever people. It feels the way I’ve heard other people describe the early days of Twitter. Everyone I’ve added to my circles so far is someone who I know personally or have built an online relationship with.
So maybe we like Google+ so far because we haven’t cluttered it up yet, and because it’s easier to keep tidy? Time will tell. Just like Twitter, it will be months “years?” before we know the real value.
Should you join now? You don’t have to “and Doug Haslam has posted a cogent argument in favor of Google+ patience“, but so far it’s fun. And if you’re a marketer or communicator, I suspect it will become mandatory before too long. Google’s previous attempts at social networking “Orkut, Buzz, Wave” didn’t take off, but Google+ is so much more than even the sum of all three.
image by me
Daddyblog: cleaning stanky Crocs
When The Mrs and I got married, we decided we didn’t want to have a traditional wedding; we wanted a big, easy-going, fun party for all our friends. Then we realized that once you start trying to plan a party for 175 people, it’s easier to go along with The Machine. So, we had a big, easy-going, fun party for all our friends. In a ballroom. With a wedding planner.
When The Mrs and I decided to progenerate, we decided we didn’t want him to be just like all the kids knuckling under to consumerist conformity. Right. Then we actually had him. Yesterday we bought him a shirt at Old Navy. And his green Crocs are his favorite shoes. He likes the little “expensive” things that you can stick through the holes.
Just like every other kid in America.
Unfortunately the Crocs bring together a couple of factors in a distinctly unappealing manner. Plastic shoes, hot weather and, not to put too fine a point on it, my boy’s stanky foot sweat. Faced with the prospect of traveling across the country on an airplane with him and his little injection-molded odor holders, I googled “cleaning Crocs.” Here’s my amalgamation of the tips I read:
- Fill a sink with warm water and 1/4 cup baking soda.
- Soak for 20 minutes, turning occasionally as though they were, I guess, a pork tenderloin. Eww.
- Scrub with a green scrubby, paying special attention to the gray unk along the white trim strip.
- Throw the green scrubby away. Far away. Perhaps cut it into little pieces.
- Rinse well, or they’ll be slippery.
- Dry picturesquely in the morning sun.
They gleam like new. Bye bye, boyfoot pong.
Do we need new titles?
I’ve been tired of the arguments over “social media experts” for a long time. There’s also the recurring meme about people with unusual titles “ninja, guru” and that one bores me as well. If all you have to write about is semantics, dig a little deeper.
But here’s a nomenclature discussion that makes sense to me. The PR firm GolinHarris has tossed out their old title scheme and adopted a new one:
Strategists, who analyze a client’s business;
Creators, who develop new ideas and engage in brand storytelling;
Connectors, who reach target audiences through media and other channels;
Catalysts, who manage client relationships.
“Thanks, and a tip of the blog hat to Publicity Club of New England, where I found out about it.”
I’ve always been a big fan of clarity and saying what you mean. Those titles seem to me to say pretty clearly what those people do “with the possible exception of Catalyst—that one seems a little less descriptive and more like marketing speak”.
With the speed at which things are changing in the communications and marketing world, and the different ways we are pursuing those activities, it makes sense to rethink the way we talk about what we do. Two of my three most recent titles didn’t exist five years ago.
The big question, of course, is will this provide clarity and value to clients, or will it confuse people? Regardless, it’s a bold step and one that seems to me to involve more than just semantics.
What do you think of those titles? And do you think we need new ones, or should we let the old ones evolve?
image by suchitra