A recent photo was sent my way showcasing a small piece of history in Maryland for Rudie's Pharmacy.
Yes I do realize the spelling is different then mine.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Netflix vs. Spotify
Thought that this newsletter was too good to pass up and thus your treat below on the comparison of the growth in online streaming of music and video.
Once upon a time television was like radio, something you received over the air for free via an antenna. But in the eighties, TV moved to a subscription model, people paid for cable, for a better picture and more and better programming. So, customers became inured to paying a subscription fee, every month, in perpetuity. And they still do, despite all the hoopla about cord-cutting, the truth is you're paying for access, whether it be with the cable company of yore or via FiOS or LTE wireless, all of which you pay for each and every month.
And then came home video. Initially an ownership market, it didn't burgeon until it was turned into a rental market, which flourished until it became a dirt cheap ownership market which threw off tons of cash, then Netflix brought back rental and then went streaming and the cash cow ownership model crashed.
Music was always about an ownership model. And this was resented by consumers when DVD prices dove down to nothing and included all the music on the CD for a lower price than the music only disc.
And then the internet hit. All media were unprepared. And music was affected first, because of the small size of the files. But TV learned and created Hulu and Netflix flipped its model to streaming, which, if you remember, customers hated, but have now embraced. Furthermore, streaming is cheaper than all its predecessors, and it's all you can eat.
In music, we stayed with the sales model deep into the twenty first century, way too late, with the iTunes Store. We broke out the single from the album, Steve Jobs tried to keep the prices low, but the labels lobbied for an increase, which they finally got, driving their enterprise right towards the cliff when YouTube emerged.
There was no viable alternative. Yes, Rhapsody existed, but most people had no idea what it was, and unlike in TV/movies, people were not in the habit of paying a subscription fee, which they'd already been doing in visual media for decades. So with no viable alternative, the youngsters, who are cheap and have loads of time, flocked to YouTube, which the rights holders eventually monetized.
Now visual creators and actors get paid in the new streaming era, just not much. The rights holders bundle their products and license them to distributors. Actors and writers agitate, even go on strike, but it's seen as a battle between them and the studios, not them and the distributors.
But it's different in music. Because despite hefty advances, artists got royalties, which were frequently a laugh in visual entertainment, owed, but not paid.
Now visual entertainment is screwed because it believes it's ahead of the game, believes it's got it all figured out, when the truth is you need multiple subscriptions to get everything you want and as a result piracy is rampant. In music, one subscription will get you everything, so piracy has tanked. But in both worlds, streaming rules. It's just that ownership fell by the wayside eons ago in visual entertainment.
Also, visual entertainment is still holding on to windows, it's still trying to figure out how to replace DVD sales revenue, never mind make its nut via streaming income, whereas windows are passe in music, but the reduction in income...creators are still bitching about that.
But consumers don't care. They're in heaven. And they're never going back to the old ways.
So where does this leave musicians?
Believing that the barrier to entry is so low, the ability to get your stuff streamed so easy, that they should all be millionaires, not realizing consumers have very little time and infinite choice and they probably won't choose you but the hits.
Whereas in visual entertainment, the hobbyist doesn't believe his productions should be offered on Hulu or Netflix. And doesn't believe he should make bank on YouTube unless he's got millions of plays.
The song remains the same. If you're popular, if you've got leverage, you'll make money. Actually, popularity now rules because of the suddenly seen metrics, no one with 1,000 plays is bitching they're not getting rich off of YouTube, but somehow people with the same number of streams on Spotify believe they should.
So what we've learned is that access has won. And in this case, TV preceded music by nearly two decades, it trained people to pay, every month. Furthermore, the public was weaned from ownership by insanely low rentals, like Redbox, and nearly as cheap streaming. This is the future of music too.
So music has to train its audience to pay. It was blindsided by YouTube, which has become the music destination of choice. Blame the labels, who didn't license Spotify, et al, earlier, forcing Spotify and its clones to offer free subscriptions just to get people to try them out, because YouTube is free.
But movies were never free. There did not need to be a free Netflix. The only thing the visual purveyors are fighting is piracy, which is incredibly significant, but convenience is helping them, because you can watch so much instantly, at your fingertips, on all your devices.
Yet in music, the makers abhor convenience. They trumpet CDs and vinyl. They insist people listen to the album when they don't want to. They're pushing the ball uphill, they're fighting their own best interests.
So get with the program. Know that streaming has won and the goal is to get everybody to pay for a subscription and that winners will be paid handsomely and losers should just thank their lucky stars that they're able to play.
And, now that visual entertainment is everywhere, along with video games, it's incumbent upon musicians to make art that trumps its competitors, that is better than "Homeland" and the rest of the cable shows.
That's quite a challenge, but I know you're up to it.
Some of you.
Once upon a time television was like radio, something you received over the air for free via an antenna. But in the eighties, TV moved to a subscription model, people paid for cable, for a better picture and more and better programming. So, customers became inured to paying a subscription fee, every month, in perpetuity. And they still do, despite all the hoopla about cord-cutting, the truth is you're paying for access, whether it be with the cable company of yore or via FiOS or LTE wireless, all of which you pay for each and every month.
And then came home video. Initially an ownership market, it didn't burgeon until it was turned into a rental market, which flourished until it became a dirt cheap ownership market which threw off tons of cash, then Netflix brought back rental and then went streaming and the cash cow ownership model crashed.
Music was always about an ownership model. And this was resented by consumers when DVD prices dove down to nothing and included all the music on the CD for a lower price than the music only disc.
And then the internet hit. All media were unprepared. And music was affected first, because of the small size of the files. But TV learned and created Hulu and Netflix flipped its model to streaming, which, if you remember, customers hated, but have now embraced. Furthermore, streaming is cheaper than all its predecessors, and it's all you can eat.
In music, we stayed with the sales model deep into the twenty first century, way too late, with the iTunes Store. We broke out the single from the album, Steve Jobs tried to keep the prices low, but the labels lobbied for an increase, which they finally got, driving their enterprise right towards the cliff when YouTube emerged.
There was no viable alternative. Yes, Rhapsody existed, but most people had no idea what it was, and unlike in TV/movies, people were not in the habit of paying a subscription fee, which they'd already been doing in visual media for decades. So with no viable alternative, the youngsters, who are cheap and have loads of time, flocked to YouTube, which the rights holders eventually monetized.
Now visual creators and actors get paid in the new streaming era, just not much. The rights holders bundle their products and license them to distributors. Actors and writers agitate, even go on strike, but it's seen as a battle between them and the studios, not them and the distributors.
But it's different in music. Because despite hefty advances, artists got royalties, which were frequently a laugh in visual entertainment, owed, but not paid.
Now visual entertainment is screwed because it believes it's ahead of the game, believes it's got it all figured out, when the truth is you need multiple subscriptions to get everything you want and as a result piracy is rampant. In music, one subscription will get you everything, so piracy has tanked. But in both worlds, streaming rules. It's just that ownership fell by the wayside eons ago in visual entertainment.
Also, visual entertainment is still holding on to windows, it's still trying to figure out how to replace DVD sales revenue, never mind make its nut via streaming income, whereas windows are passe in music, but the reduction in income...creators are still bitching about that.
But consumers don't care. They're in heaven. And they're never going back to the old ways.
So where does this leave musicians?
Believing that the barrier to entry is so low, the ability to get your stuff streamed so easy, that they should all be millionaires, not realizing consumers have very little time and infinite choice and they probably won't choose you but the hits.
Whereas in visual entertainment, the hobbyist doesn't believe his productions should be offered on Hulu or Netflix. And doesn't believe he should make bank on YouTube unless he's got millions of plays.
The song remains the same. If you're popular, if you've got leverage, you'll make money. Actually, popularity now rules because of the suddenly seen metrics, no one with 1,000 plays is bitching they're not getting rich off of YouTube, but somehow people with the same number of streams on Spotify believe they should.
So what we've learned is that access has won. And in this case, TV preceded music by nearly two decades, it trained people to pay, every month. Furthermore, the public was weaned from ownership by insanely low rentals, like Redbox, and nearly as cheap streaming. This is the future of music too.
So music has to train its audience to pay. It was blindsided by YouTube, which has become the music destination of choice. Blame the labels, who didn't license Spotify, et al, earlier, forcing Spotify and its clones to offer free subscriptions just to get people to try them out, because YouTube is free.
But movies were never free. There did not need to be a free Netflix. The only thing the visual purveyors are fighting is piracy, which is incredibly significant, but convenience is helping them, because you can watch so much instantly, at your fingertips, on all your devices.
Yet in music, the makers abhor convenience. They trumpet CDs and vinyl. They insist people listen to the album when they don't want to. They're pushing the ball uphill, they're fighting their own best interests.
So get with the program. Know that streaming has won and the goal is to get everybody to pay for a subscription and that winners will be paid handsomely and losers should just thank their lucky stars that they're able to play.
And, now that visual entertainment is everywhere, along with video games, it's incumbent upon musicians to make art that trumps its competitors, that is better than "Homeland" and the rest of the cable shows.
That's quite a challenge, but I know you're up to it.
Some of you.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
When to Give Up & Move On
After
watching what she would like to have been part of her story called, "An
Entrepreneurs Journey". The hit television show the Shark Tank featured
Lori Cheeks who came up with an interesting concept to dating called
Cheek'd. Anybody who has been fighting to make something successful in
life needs to see that there is not always light on the other side of
the tunnel. This is something that the shark tank panel made very
apparent on this ventures pitch. You can make mistakes, you can be
fallible, you can screw up in life, and you will succeed if you stick
with it. The sticking with it part however is sticking with something
that works. Finding out what works and what doesn't is not beating a
dead horse over and over again because that horse isn't coming back to
life and your idea is not going to work.
All too many
entrepreneurs fall prey to an idea that they believe is going to
"Revolutionize" an industry. Truth be told outside of the iPod not much
has revolutionized the way we live in the last 15 years. Match.com
hasn't revolutionized dating it just created another alternative that
helped people to meet through the most connected communication medium
ever. Meeting in person is great but why not just give a business card
out and write a line on there with your phone number or better yet
become Facebook friends or just pull out that iPhone or Android and
exchange numbers like 99% of the rest of the dating world does?
While creating unique dating opportunities and means of exchanging information in a nonchalant way is a novel idea. There comes a point where there is a line that you must cross when you realize your time and efforts are better spent doing something that will stick.
As Barbara Corcoran stated giving up on her Flower business to start her real estate company was the reason for her success and if you can follow your efforts you will find your passion and get paid but if it's not meant to be much like that guy/girl of your dreams who just wouldn't give you the time of day it's just not meant to be. I was fortunate enough to be given the advice one day that some butterflies are meant to spread their wings and fly rather then be trapped in a cage.
Don't let your other ideas sit idle in a cage.
Certain businesses have a "sticky" factor.
That it works right away and it scales from there. If you have been in
business for 4 years trying to make it and there's no momentum, sales,
products, purchase orders, or anything of substance then you must face
the harsh reality and give up and move on. If its a website sell it on
Flippa.com or find somebody to take over the project and ask for a bit
of equity in exchange for a low low low price. Whatever crazy valuation
you put on your business be willing to take at least 1/10th of it
because that is a very favorable valuation.
I once worked for a startup that thought
they had struck gold with a shoddy website that had little to no
visitors and something that could have been coded in a week by a
competent programmer. An interested party once said he wanted to do a
similar idea and was thinking about just purchasing the website. The
price he said he wanted was $500,000 since he spent so much time working
on the programming of the site that made zero dollars and zero cents oh
did I mention the 0 cents at the end. Yes thats $0.00000. Lots of zeros
across the board. Long story short that startup after being worked on
for 5 years just was sold for $8,000 and wasted a half a decade of one
poor soul who tried to make an idea work that never had a chance. The idea always belonged in the trash once it was apparent that it was not going to work but yet kids remember the little train that could.
This is no different then poor Lori Cheeks
who doesn't want to give up. Giving up is not letting your dream die.
It's being realistic and finding out what works for you. 9 out of 10
businesses fail so do not be afraid to try something 10 times and fail 9
of those. We can't all create unicorn businesses
but you should learn from each failure and use that to make your next
venture should you choose to accept that mission an experience that will
help you to mature and succeed more so then you did in the last
venture. If you can't give up and move on when you need to then I hope
you enjoy eating Ketchup and Mustard sandwiches.
While creating unique dating opportunities and means of exchanging information in a nonchalant way is a novel idea. There comes a point where there is a line that you must cross when you realize your time and efforts are better spent doing something that will stick.
As Barbara Corcoran stated giving up on her Flower business to start her real estate company was the reason for her success and if you can follow your efforts you will find your passion and get paid but if it's not meant to be much like that guy/girl of your dreams who just wouldn't give you the time of day it's just not meant to be. I was fortunate enough to be given the advice one day that some butterflies are meant to spread their wings and fly rather then be trapped in a cage.
Don't let your other ideas sit idle in a cage.
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