Emusic.com was great when i stumbled upon it about 5 years ago. It was new, it was the feisty underdog biting at the heels of the Goliath of online music stores, iTunes store. It had all these cool obscure independent labels that were hard to find elsewhere.
Somewhere along the way, something happened. Changes were made, and in the course of these 5 years, i’ve somehow found less reason to visit it. Doesn’t help when you don’t want to have a conversation with your customers i.e i sent a few emails inquiring on various issues, and none were replied to.
So how much is your subscription worth? How much would people pay for music these days? Next to nothing it seems. Radiohead turned the music industry upside down when it released In Rainbows online, and you could technically get it for free (you paid a discretionary amount).
Strange thing is, people actually paid (including yours truly). People paid what they think it was worth. You could be a real cheapskate and download it for free, but i would think that most people saw behind the mechanism and read the sub-text that the band had put out, and it read: We’re willing to take a bet that you’ll reward us accordingly, and we’ll come out (still) as the coolest band in the world.
By all accounts, the crowd decided to do just that.
They took a risk by initiating a conversation with their fans, and they still are (in the books of most people) the coolest band in the world.
Here’s something that you really don’t have to pay for. It’s a pretty damn good selection of stuff too.
I’m an iPhone fan (and unabashedly so), and i’ve been eagerly the launch of the iPhone 3.0 O/S at the WWDC so i can get my grubby hands on some of the long overdue features such as cut/paste, MMS etc. That however is not the point.
I’m just staggered by the amount of conversations going on (by way of Twitter, just see the trending topics), and even hardcore folks streaming live from WWDC.
3205 Tweets on WWDC in 5 minutes??
It’s incredible that one company is able to generate such conversations between fanboys, haters in the Internet-sphere. Long live the Cult of Mac.
So what conversations are going on about your organization/products today? Or are they even talking about it?
Me and ton of people worldwide not at the WWDC watching it live. Incredible.
Ok i’ve hit a posting frenzy, but it’s because i want to remember some of the crazy stuff i’ve been seeing.
Fanzines have come a long way from the old gritty photostated DIY stacks of paper put together. Check out the Web 2.0 equivalent:
One of the featured mags on Magcloud.com
That’s a question i’ve been asking myself. If all goes according to plan, i’ll be starting school again doing an MBA programme in September. I came across this post by Seth Godin on an extraordinary programme that he recently conducted. I was pretty blown away by what the selected students got to do. Talk about a well constructed experience. This made me wonder if i’ll be getting the same value from my programme? Well, i’d at least be asking them to, for one.
You can read about his crazy and totally wikkid programme here.
I’m starting this blog from scratch once again. This does find me at an interesting juncture of my life where i see life leading me many places. I hope this will serve to be a documentation of my personal journey, as well as a repository of things that have inspired me, and hopefully these will do the same for you too.
I just have to start getting off my ass.
