I Love My State...

Look, I am the guy who has given HEAVY consideration to getting three stars tattooed on his body in the shape of a pyramid, b/c I love this state oh so very much. However, I don't think this survey holds a lick of water.

A Truce

I have been thinking a good bit about marketing lately and I have come to realization, while the iDon't and the "There's a map for that campaigns" coming out of Verizon have been fun, they don' do a good job of selling to the right market. Look 16 year old kids are going to buy the iPhone. It makes to much sense for them. Who need to flag down are the tech nerds and the business users. That is how you truly compete. Once you have all of those people in your hip pocket, you go after the other companies market. First build your own then steal theirs. Rinse repeat.

Twitter

I have gone on record several times saying how I don't really have any interest in Twitter. I can see why some people do find some value in it, but it has simply never been for me. Now I have a few reasons for this that may or may not put me in the company of old men screaming for kids to get off of their lawn*, but it's a risk I am willing to take.

1) Most of the "famous" people who tweet that I have interest in re-post all of their tweets on their websites or write columns about the more interesting ones. I don't really see a reason to go out of my way to get content through yet another medium that I am possible going to get anyways.

2) I don't want to follow my friends on Twitter because I want to have something to talk to them about when I actually see them. Now I am aware that people don't tweet every single thought they have or event they have, but I would much rather just get the info from them while drinking a cold beverage. Also I have like maybe 4 topics I am willing to talk about or even know anything about.

3) When not at work I am just not that into using a computer. I enjoy feeling slightly detached from them as if my life does not have to completely revolve around them. Not saying being plugged in and connected is bad, but it just isn't for me.

Now, there are actually was something that made me think about all of these silly thoughts. It wasn't more proof of my secret desire to be Luddite. Far from it in fact. I was listening to a podcast featuring one of my favorite writers Jonah Keri. He and the shows host Dan Levy were talking about how Twitter can impact writers and various other public personalities. I will never make any bones about that. Twitter is a great way for one to reach out to their fans and to grow their audience. However what caught my attention is something that was said and then re-iterated in the blog below the cast.

Dan said, "I follow more than 1000 people. One of them is Casey. But I’m not reading his tweets. I can’t tell you the last time something he wrote even caught my attention in the stream."

Now the Casey he mentions is this guy. Whether or not what he is doing is valid or not is a whole other conversation. What I want to bring up is the idea of subscribing to that many people on Twitter if your not even going to see most of it? I mean at some point it's all just noise right? I don't get the benefit of any of it. What's the point in following all these people if you are never actually reading anything they say? I mean I am one of the biggest suckers for brand loyalty you are ever going to meet. I pretty much only buy Steve Madden shoes. I would kill for a Cervelo bike, but at the end of the day I make an effort to seek out these things. Maybe I am strange, but I would rather spend time going through a bunch of websites about this stuff that leads me to even more info. I dunno...maybe I am just an old man yelling at the kids to get off my lawn, but can't we find a better way?


*I mean I am sure that they just put down new Bermuda grass and lord knows it's hard for that stuff to grow.

On Copyrights

I stopped by one of my favorite blogs (The Dish) today, and noticed a fairly interesting discussion going on about copyright laws. The issues being discussed seem to stem mostly around the idea of fair use, and the duplication of media.

I have for the last ten years or so been on the side of more strict protection of copyright laws. A long time ago a friend got me to switch all of my computers over to Linux with this very compelling argument. "Do you really want to keep stealing software?"* Now it isn't that I was unaware of this concept, but it was something I had been doing for so long that I didn't even think about it anymore. It was simply part of my process. I started doing it when I was 12 (and certainly not thinking about fair use or copyright), and just continued doing it without a second thought.

My friends point really struck home, and got me to change the way in which I approached several other things. Most notable the way in which I consume music. Now I got out of the stealing MP3 game back when you had to long onto someone's BBS to get anything. I have never used Napster, Kaza, torrents, or any other form to get music.**

Now with that said I have long been a huge fan of making tapes/cd's/play lists for people of music they have not heard. I have gotten into countless band because of this practice. If not for a bus ride to school in 1994 when a friend let me hear Sky Scrapper by Bad Religion my taste in music could have easily gone a different way.

I suppose what I wonder about is where do others draw the line. If I had to guess I am a bit more draconian in my beliefs about these types of things then most of the people I know, but it's really hard to say.

Now one last thing I want to address real quick. I saw a few people trying to make the argument that the reason people pirate so often is the price. While I feel that is true with really expensive pieces of software and DVD box sets, I don't feel it's true with music. I am not sure what the average cost of a CD is anymore, but the average LP tends to run me about 12 bucks for a single LP and around 15-18 bucks for a double LP.*** Does anyone really believe these prices are super out of line. Is 99 cents really to much to pay for a single song? How much do people think these things should cost? They sure as hell shouldn't be free. That was someone's hard work and time that went into making that record. If people want to give it away for free, good on them, but I think your nuts if you expect it to be free.


*Note there a ton of technical reasons I also use Linux. It isn't a 100% altruistic love of not stealing. I am a fan of it as a technical platform first and foremost.

**I do have some music on my iPod that I have gotten off of friends computers. This was only done in cases where I was unable to buy the music on the format of my choosing. This isn't right. I just felt like full disclouser was in order.

***I talking about indie labels here. I don't really buy to much stuff on major labels. Not that it can't be good but that I simply don't know of any bands on major labels that I enjoy that are still together.