Me against the music

I have an iPod I rarely use since getting an iPhone. I used to carry two devices with me always, an iPod always playing, a phone I sometimes answered when I felt like it. Now I’m not given a choice - in more ways than one.

Aside from the music stopping if the phone rings, that iPod, all 80 gigs of it, had more music on it than I could ever really hope to listen to. But it also meant not having to make any choices about what I carried with me - not just because of its size but also because I could put music on it from any device. iPhones however don’t have that luxury - they commit you to one computer and one computer only. And in a modern age where access is increasingly key, that seems like a bizarre move to make.

Amazon have understood this notion of access and in a surprise move have beaten both Apple and Google to a music library offering that provides that access wherever you are. Apple have long been rumoured to be working on such a thing, while Google’s music offering hasn’t yet made it to vapor-ware status, but that can’t be far off.

Amazon of course have one final hurdle to jump - plans from mobile carriers that make streaming music constantly from the cloud an affordable reality. They’re unlikely to do that without handsets of their own, the idea of which has the tech press buzzing.

In closing the loop on the consumer journey, Amazon could be making an end-run around Google. “Thanks very much for the technology, but we understand the consumer.” The Seattle-based retail giant has so far failed to make a dent in Apple’s stranglehold on digital music sales. In delivering this service, they’ve finally arrived with a proposition Apple have no clear competitor to.

Not yet anyway.

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My thought process when ordering a Kindle was, if I am to be honest, informed by more than one bottle of the City Wine Shop’s finest. I’d been umming and ahhing for a while about it, and figuring that my future involved more traveling rather than less, and especially having tired of of paying hundreds of dollars to ship books around the world with me, something had to give. There’s no shortage of first impressions and break-downs of Kindles out there, and I’m not particularly interested in writing one of those. I will say the screen is actually extraordinary, you really do have to see it to understand what it loos like. Because it looks like text or an image printed in black ink on some kind of not too unfamiliar surface (f you’re interested in what it actually is and how it works, here’s the Wikipedia page). The curious thing for me is what it decidedly isn’t. Namely, it decidedly, very purposely is not an iPad. People will argue that an iPad competes with the Kindle but nobody will argue that a Kindle competes with the iPad. It is a digital device purpose-built for the display of text. Think about that - in 2011. Not for multiple types of media, for text (it displays images, but that’s not what you would use it for). It actually causes my brain to explode a little. Now there is some limited web-browsing functionality, and, in a move I thought was quite cool, it displays any text & image items from Instapaper with no problems. So the longer-form text pieces I opt to not read on my iPhone are quite capably handled there. Ultimately the thought that is occupying my mind most is “will this impact my consumption of books, newspapers and magazines the way the iPod impacted my consumption of music?”. I bought my first iPod in much the same way, almost as an after-thought, in 2004 or 2005. The funny thing is I still took all my CDs with me everywhere I went, for a while anyway. And I guess that is the crux of the issue. A pile of CDs in someone’s house now looks rather quaint and decidedly not of this era. But a wall full of books can make a room! At least they can now, the way an obviously robust music collection did (for me anyway) half a decade ago. Right now my Kindle resembles nothing more than the world’s smallest empty book shelf, as the book I’m part of the way through just isn’t available on it. And that’s really where the trick is going to lie, because to imagine a world where you need a certain kind of book shelf to hold a certain type of book is just ludicrous. Imagine if the original iPod had only been able to play music from iTunes - it’s hard to imagine it having quite the same impact. I’ve no doubt Amazon have people working around the clock on this, and I hope they get it right. If this has even half the impact that my iPod had, it will amount to nothing short of a revolution in an industry that desperately needs it.
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My thought process when ordering a Kindle was, if I am to be honest, informed by more than one bottle of the City Wine Shop’s finest. I’d been umming and ahhing for a while about it, and figuring that my future involved more traveling rather than less, and especially having tired of of paying hundreds of dollars to ship books around the world with me, something had to give.

There’s no shortage of first impressions and break-downs of Kindles out there, and I’m not particularly interested in writing one of those. I will say the screen is actually extraordinary, you really do have to see it to understand what it loos like. Because it looks like text or an image printed in black ink on some kind of not too unfamiliar surface (f you’re interested in what it actually is and how it works, here’s the Wikipedia page).

The curious thing for me is what it decidedly isn’t. Namely, it decidedly, very purposely is not an iPad. People will argue that an iPad competes with the Kindle but nobody will argue that a Kindle competes with the iPad. It is a digital device purpose-built for the display of text. Think about that - in 2011. Not for multiple types of media, for text (it displays images, but that’s not what you would use it for). It actually causes my brain to explode a little.

Now there is some limited web-browsing functionality, and, in a move I thought was quite cool, it displays any text & image items from Instapaper with no problems. So the longer-form text pieces I opt to not read on my iPhone are quite capably handled there.

Ultimately the thought that is occupying my mind most is “will this impact my consumption of books, newspapers and magazines the way the iPod impacted my consumption of music?”. I bought my first iPod in much the same way, almost as an after-thought, in 2004 or 2005. The funny thing is I still took all my CDs with me everywhere I went, for a while anyway. And I guess that is the crux of the issue.

A pile of CDs in someone’s house now looks rather quaint and decidedly not of this era. But a wall full of books can make a room! At least they can now, the way an obviously robust music collection did (for me anyway) half a decade ago.

Right now my Kindle resembles nothing more than the world’s smallest empty book shelf, as the book I’m part of the way through just isn’t available on it. And that’s really where the trick is going to lie, because to imagine a world where you need a certain kind of book shelf to hold a certain type of book is just ludicrous. Imagine if the original iPod had only been able to play music from iTunes - it’s hard to imagine it having quite the same impact.

I’ve no doubt Amazon have people working around the clock on this, and I hope they get it right. If this has even half the impact that my iPod had, it will amount to nothing short of a revolution in an industry that desperately needs it.

I never said that I told you so

I’m not one to revel in another’s misfortune (unless it’s James Blunt of course, he’s first to go when the revolution comes). I couldn’t help but smile however when I got wind of Glenn Wheatley’s Stripe radio network having closed its doors in June this year. For those that don’t know (and that would seem to be everyone given it has joined Pets.com in the place bad ideas go to die), Stripe was going to be radio you paid $10 a month to access on your mobile phone.

Long time readers may recall me writing about this last July when news of its impending launch first came out. Rather than re-word it, I’m just going to paste what I wrote:

—-


  1. Why would I pay $10 a month for radio on my phone?

  2. Particularly me who does not listen to radio at all?

  3. Why in an age of increased personalisation will I believe you can satisfy me with someone else’s taste-making?

  4. Why create a service that relies on early-adopter up-take when the early-adopters do not listen to radio or value music in pure ones-and-zeroes terms?


Now, I imagine much of the VC money has already been sunk, unfortunate for those involved. If you guys with the money could just begin to understand that broadcasting in a one-to-many model is dying and being replaced with niche-casting and many-to-many, you might have a hope of creating something with lasting value.

This last quote from Programming Director Jarrod Graetz is killer:
“A great advantage of our service is that you don’t need a new device or gadget to hear us. If you’ve got 3G coverage, you can access your favourite music and programs from your (3G) mobile phone, and of course on broadband internet. No ad breaks, less interruptions, more music. We position ourselves as “What you want on radio” because we believe Stripe delivers what Australia wants.”

The bolding is mine (the lack of vision entirely their’s). I may not need a device to hear you, but I have a device anyway, it is called an iPod. It comes with NO interruptions and ONLY my favourite music and programs. See, it doesn’t actually matter if you do serve up what I want on radio, because I don’t want radio.

Ever.

—-

*ahem* All together now…

TOLD YOU SO!
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Let’s call the whole thing off

[caption id=”” align=”alignleft” width=”134” caption=”What’s wrong with this picture?”]Whats wrong with this picture?[/caption]

Australian music manager Glen Wheatley’s latest project Stripe is set to launch. It is a digital radio service which will have 40 stations up by Christmas playing over the 3G network to any 3G enabled phone, and 100 by the end of 2009. Those wanting to have ad-free radio on their phones will apparently part with a little less than $10 a month for the privilege.

This would be funny if it wasn’t so painfully short-sighted. All together now: the epic, epic lulz.

It betrays just how deeply bereft of real strategic insight media is - and how sorely the media industry needs fresh DNA, instead of old dudes with the same old lame ideas.

Thanks Umair. Mind you he didn’t write that about Stripe, he wrote that about a misguided Wired article where old media guy #1 was berating new media guy #2 for spending time in Second Life as it wouldn’t help him sell more Coke. The point remains though.

Let’s do the why’s together so we all take something away:

  1. Why would I pay $10 a month for radio on my phone?

  2. Particularly me who does not listen to radio at all?

  3. Why in an age of increased personalisation will I believe you can satisfy me with someone else’s taste-making?

  4. Why create a service that relies on early-adopter up-take when the early-adopters do not listen to radio or value music in pure ones-and-zeroes terms?


Now, I imagine much of the VC money has already been sunk, unfortunate for those involved. If you guys with the money could just begin to understand that broadcasting in a one-to-many model is dying and being replaced with niche-casting and many-to-many, you might have a hope of creating something with lasting value.

This last quote from Programming Director Jarrod Graetz is killer:
“A great advantage of our service is that you don’t need a new device or gadget to hear us. If you’ve got 3G coverage, you can access your favourite music and programs from your (3G) mobile phone, and of course on broadband internet. No ad breaks, less interruptions, more music. We position ourselves as “What you want on radio” because we believe Stripe delivers what Australia wants.”

The bolding is mine (the lack of vision entirely their’s). I may not need a device to hear you, but I have a device anyway, it is called an iPod. It comes with NO interruptions and ONLY my favourite music and programs. See, it doesn’t actually matter if you do serve up what I want on radio, because I don’t want radio.

Ever.

—
Image courtesy of Dave Goodman, with thanks to compfight.

Wanna be startin’ somethin’…

Can\'t Fail CafeI started writing this yesterday and I wasn’t quite feeling it, think this will be one of those ones where I have to put it out there before I realise what I meant…anyway….it got quite long, so I’m breaking it up over a series of shorter posts around the same idea, we’ll see where it goes from there. I’d love your thoughts along the way to help shape it, so leave a comment or drop me a line. For reference, I’m thinking about about processes that are inherently flawed and the businesses attached to them.

—

I’ve spent the last hour (plus at least one more last night) getting music off my iPod. I’ve had it for a bit over a year, and I’ve noticed it is starting to act a little funny (as opposed to acting a little funny). There are plenty of stories around about Apple building product break-down into their life-cycles, but I’m not really interested in that; I’ve derived plenty of value from it and will in all likelihood buy another when it finally joins the big circuit graveyard in the sky.

The thing about getting the music off it though is I don’t want to have to add it all back to the next device. That isn’t a good brand experience. But Apple couldn’t get the music industry on board without making it at least somewhat difficult to do, so we wind up in this middle ground where an industry who doesn’t know enough about the medium thinks they’ve got a good deal, and in the interim everyone who bought one has a hoop or two to jump through before getting what they want.

My thoughts here: If this was anyone other than Apple, they would be out of business.

Say “I love you” with…a pink iPod?

Pink iPod NanoI receive Apple’s regular newsletters pointing me to all manner of wares available in their store pretty regularly. I haven’t unsubscribed, and I don’t really know why. I’m not big on impulse purchases and I read enough to be well aware when a new product has arrived or is at least about to. On top of that, while I’m completely trading in traditional notions of gender stereotypes, as a guy I do not want a pink iPod. I’d be interested to know if women received a newsletter pushing a blue or black iPod for their male counterparts, but I somehow doubt it.

The iPod itself is a hard sell as a Valentine’s Day gift, one that screams “Holy shit, I’d better get them something!” For anyone who has taken this option and is now reading this thinking a grave mistake has been made, take these helpful tips:


  1. When you order it, get it engraved (Apple do this for free via their online store, it takes less than a week to arrive)

  2. Open it up.

  3. Pre-load it with:

    1. Songs you know your partner loves or have significance in your relationship

    2. Photos of the two of you, your friends, family members, etc.

    3. TV shows you know they love (you’ll be surprised how clear the iPod screen is)



  4. Buy them a decent pair of headphones as well, as the iPod ones won’t last long; I recommend these from Seinheiser, roughly AU$80 and a great investment 18 months running)

  5. An optional extra is the Nike add-ons for those with particularly sporty partners, be careful this doesn’t get turned into a suggestion you think your partner needs to lose a few pounds - this slippery slope is harder to navigate than you think it is.


As a complete aside, I just unsubscribed from the Apple newsletter. Upon reading my opening paragraph, what choice did I have? Now in my sights: Border’s, Go Daddy, eBay. How many newsletters do you receive which you have no intention of ever acting on?

Update: Paypal just copped it as well. I’m reclaiming my inbox and nobody is safe!