I subscribe to Google Alerts for the word Alertbear, and it just found me this. It’s a very thorough review of the original Alertbear release, the RSS reader that I designed. It really is quite a gushing piece, which makes me feel great. It’s only a shame that the project died a death.
And that a didn’t get rich from it.
This is my response to a blog post by Stephen Poole, slightly edited to make it standalone. It’s also a subject that came up on this week’s Macbreak Weekly, so it’s already been on my mind this week.
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If you’re currently making a living from writing books, composing music, or making movies, then you may be forgiven for thinking the Internet has you under seige. Everywhere you look it seems that people want you to give away your content for free, as if everything you do no longer has any value and it’s a basic human right that everyone be able to do as they please with anything you produce. You are basically being told that if you wish to continue to be creative, you’re mad to think anybody is going to pay you to do it.
This really is not the case.
The argument is not that anyone who is creative should be denied payment for their efforts, but simply that those who are going to be the most successful going forward are those that embrace a new business model, rather than continue to cling on by their fingernails to the old one.
The record companies are a perfect example of what happens when you cling on too tightly. At first they tried to pretend the Internet didn’t exist, and then when Napster came along they sat there and just lashed out at anybody that tried to take away their comfort zone. Then they woke up a bit, and at least admitted they needed to do something. But they lock up their songs up with DRM, sue anybody who ever touches a file sharing network, and in one Sony case, install malicious software on your customers computer. This is simply not the way to conduct yourself. Not only is it hugely damaging to their brand, but it also devalues music even further, as those who truly do like the rebellion distance themselves even further from the money grabbing corporate whores the music executives appear to be. The harder the music companies push, the harder it is for them to win back the mindshare.
But some of them are beginning to get it. iTunes was the first real step in actually providing what people wanted, easy access to the songs people wanted. And unlike Napster, you had a 100% chance of actually getting the song you wanted to download, with proper tags, and not an MP3 rip of a song recorded from the radio with a DJ talking in Spanish over the end. Starting to allow DRM-free versions, even in their previously feared MP3 format at Amazon, shows that they have finally realised you should treat your customers as people first, and thieves later; not the other way around.
The lesson from this is that change should not be feared. Grab the internet generation with both hands and use them to your advantage, rather than locking your doors and cowering in the corner with your old business model pressed tightly to your chest, afraid that the mob is coming to steal it from you. For musicians this means giving away a few tracks from your new album for free and selling the rest, with a premium for the higher quality lossless versions. Or selling complete recordings of all your live shows. And using the momentum from this to sell more tickets to your next show (see TMBG and Barenaked Ladies). For writers, this means giving away your last book for free in order to create publicity for the one you’re about to release in hard copy. Or giving away the first couple of chapters for free as an incentive to buy the rest. Or selling your novel one chapter at a time, as you write it (see Stephen King). And if you’re a movie producer, let people download the first 30 minutes of your movie for free and then let them buy the DVD containing the rest of the film direct from your website.
And most importantly, take the feedback from your audience, interact with them, let their word of mouth be your marketing machine and never treat them like criminals. People will be more than happy to pay for your work if the price and terms are fair. At the end of the day these are your customers, and for the first time in human history creative people have the opportunity to truly communicate with those who appreciate their art en mass, and that should be something artists should be excited about, not fearful of.
We came, we saw, we pimped.
My PC broke. All of a sudden it started randomly giving me blue screens, either before I managed to login, or shortly afterwards. To determine whether it was a problem with Windows or the hardware itself I decided that installing Linux wouldn’t be a bad idea. That didn’t work either. It doesn’t even get 80% of the way through the installation before it just gives up, freezing completely. I’ve installed Linux just fine before, so it definitely seems like something is amiss.
I’m at the stage now where actually debugging something like this is not what I want to do, I just want the thing to work. So since the machine is a few years old anyway, time to order something new.
I didn’t want to spend a fortune, and I’m no big PC gamer these days, so top of the line specs aren’t really that big a deal for me. I want it to be quiet. I want it to be reasonably good looking. I want a big screen. So here’s what I ended up with…
* Antec Sonata III Case
* Asustek P5K-E/WIFI-AP
* Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33Ghz
* 4GB RAM
* 500GB Hard Disk
* GeForce 8600GT
* Samsung 20x DVD Writer
* Microsoft Vista Home Premium
* 24″ Dabs Value LCD
* Logitech X-230 Speakers
Total cost is about £800, which I think is pretty awesome considering the spec.
The worst part is that I now have to build the thing, which is something I didn’t want to have to deal with anymore. But from a price point of view, it still seems like the way to go, if you’re up to the challenge of picking the parts. There are so many model numbers, so much choice, and Intel and Nvidia are innovating so fast that it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer size of their respective product lists. It took lots of Googling and lots of looking at other peoples complete systems to come up with this one.
My original idea was that I would install OS X, and the parts I’ve bought are specifically chosen to allow that. But then I read that 10.5.2 turned machines that weren’t real Macs into bricks. Now there’s a workaround to that, if you follow a specific set of instructions, but is that something I really want to worry about? Do I want to put a whole bunch of data in there and then find it breaks one day because Apple make a change? No. I don’t. That’s why I bought Vista.
So there we go, my new home PC. Not top of the line, but easily a step up from what I’ve got at the moment. And not just because that’s broken.
ISP’s in the UK have decided that since the BBC’s iPlayer is being so successful that they should contribute to a network upgrade to properly handle the new traffic.
The job of an ISP is to allow access to the Internet for their customers. For that service, they charge the user on a monthly basis. Why should the BBC, just because they are providing a now popular destination for those customers, provide any sort of financial backing to the ISP? The ISP is charging for a service, if they are unable to provide that service at the cost they are passing onto the consumer, then their business model is flawed and they should be charging more than they are.
And why single out the BBC? Are the ISP’s going to make similar demands to anybody else who creates a site to which customers flock? Is YouTube on the line? Or Flickr? Are they going to come knocking on my door if I create something that really starts pumping out those bits?
The ISPs seem to have misunderstood their position in the Internet hierarchy. They are a gateway to content, not a gatekeeper (and they don’t want to be a gatekeeper, for that makes them liable for everything that passes through). Asking to be paid from both sides is not only greedy, but it starts a slippery slope for both consumers and web content providers.
I’ve had my Apple TV for a few weeks now and I’m using it every night. I’m a podcast whore, which was one of my main reasons for buying it, because it means I now get to watch them on the big screen in my living room. Diggnation, Tekzilla and the other Revision3 shows do look very nice in HD on there. And for the audio stuff I listen to, the various shows from the TWIT network come out a lot clearer than they do via my laptop speakers. One thing that does bother me though is the necessity to still download this on my laptop and then sync it across, as it seems like an unnecessary step. The unit itself has an Internet connection which is perfectly capable of downloading items, it’s even possible to browse the podcast directory on my television screen, just not actually subscribe to anything. I can only hope this somewhat bizarre oversight is fixed in a future revision.
I don’t yet have my music in a place that is easily accessible for synching over to the unit, but that’s something that I hope to resolve in the coming months as I reorganise my computer setup. But it is nice that the limited music I do have available on my laptop can be streamed to the Apple TV and out of my computer by selecting it as a speaker output within iTunes, just like you’ve been able to do with an Airport Express.
Purchasing content straight from the Apple TV is fast and painless, and although I was initially going to complain that the search functionality was almost completely crippled by the slowness of the on-screen keyboard, I’ve since realised that this is because of some weirdness with my universal remote as switching to the one shipped with the unit makes the interface feel much snappier. I do think though that £1.89 per show for TV is a bit much, and is unlikely to sway me from the less reputable sources of the stuff. Even buying whole series is overly expensive. It’s about £20 for a season of Friends, when the same thing on DVD is easily available for less than £10. They’re going to have to do something about that if they really want to compete with torrents.
Overall, I’m pleased with the purchase, and will get even more from it once my music can be synched across. I’d like to finish by making a special mention of the photo screensaver, it’s an excellent touch that has everyone who sees it just fascinated.
All content is (c) Copyright 2003-2008 Richard Smith. This is where it ends.
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