Archive for July, 2009
Everything Becomes A Service
I was in the Austin airport yesterday and they have an outlet there for Waterloo which is the famous indie record store down in Texas. I had this thought and the thought was that I thought it was sad because I couldn’t see a way out for these indie chain stores to make it through both a secular downturn in physical music sales and this cyclical downturn in the economy. It feels like a death knell to the record store business.
The Myth of Twitter
I hear some people talking about Twitter and, as presented to them, they seem bewildered, confused and slightly angry. Again and again, we come back to the meme that “nobody cares what you ate for breakfast.” Essentially, that millions of people participating in this platform don’t have nearly enough interesting things to say to warrant all that participation.
Of course, the answer is that this is absolutely correct.
And that’s why, as Jonathan pointed out in his Mediaiate column, thinking about Twitter in the context of a social utility is far less helpful than thinking about it as a traditional media publishing platform, albeit one with many more inputs.
Twitter is the cable television of the 21st century. You’re right that nobody cares what you ate for breakfast. I sure as shit don’t. (Except for the fact that a few people do). But, perhaps more importantly, they might care what Shaq ate for breakfast or they might care what Fred Wilson ate for breakfast or they might be interested in what that old curmudgeon Lefsetz has to say about one thing or the other. And the point is that, with Twitter, basically, all of these folks own their own cable TV stations. Except instead of it being just a “Food channel” it can be even more specific. It can be the Anthony Bourdain channel.
If I Ran The Movies
I see a lot of movies in theatres. I’ll go with friends, family or by myself. I see blockbusters and independent films although I hover in the Upper West Side most of the time, as I wrote in Aquarium Drunkard. Continuing the conversation that’s been happening over at AVC and which I commented on, I’m an active user of the movie theatre.
I believe firmly that the flat rate pricing that movie theatres employ leaves a tremendous amount of money on the table and that, relative to opportunity cost and only slightly more sophisticated pricing schema, the theatres actually lost money on major tentpoles like ‘The Dark Knight’. Even though The Dark Knight made billions for Warners and I respect that, I think the exhibitioners missed an opportunity as they’ll miss an opportunity this weekend with Harry Potter, as they missed an opportunity with Transformers, etc.
Put simply, they’re not doing enough to cater to active users like me. They don’t understand that, relative to going out and getting wasted, I actually don’t view a $30-40 investment at the movies as particularly onerous and I believe there are others like me who are either fanboys or just really into movie-going (ed note: you mean nerds, right?). And my point is that I’d pay more for any number of amenities that nobody is offering me.
Chipotle
This has probably already been written before but:
There are so many lessons to be learned from Chipotle that can be applied to other businesses. They are focused on doing one thing and doing that thing really really well. Their menu is simple. Their store layouts are fairly predictable. They focus on good ingredients and a workflow and process they can easily repeat and then they charge a modest premium because they’ve convinced you that what they’re providing is valuable. And it is.
It’s not what Chipotle does. It is, implicitly, all the things they haven’t done. The infinite dead-ends they’ve chosen to forgo. The wacky menu concepts. The roll-out of new Chipotle premium coffee! The steady infection of their core product with ancillary ideas, add-on concepts and bold new experiments which would, essentially add cost and complexity to a system that is operating efficiently and smoothly.
They know who they are, those cats at Chipotle. And it’s a wonder to behold.
Here’s a quote I pulled from the founder, Steve Ellis:
“When I created Chipotle in 1993, I had a very simple idea: Offer a simple menu of great food prepared fresh each day, using many of the same cooking techniques as gourmet restaurants. Then serve the food quickly, in a cool atmosphere. It was food that I wanted, and thought others would like too. We’ve never strayed from that original idea. The critics raved and customers began lining up at my tiny burrito joint. Since then, we’ve opened a few more.” –Steve Ells, founder and CEO
I don’t have an obvious corollary for a musician. If you’re making art, you’re not running a burrito business. But if you’re running any other kind of business the lesson seems to be fairly revealing.
Know who you are.
Get really really good at it.
Simplify simplify simplify.
Avoid distraction.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Different Kinds of Fans. Different Kinds of Content.
I was reading Fred today and he was talking about total registered users and active users. And the final point was this:
Your best advocates are always your most active users. So focus on them, make them successful in your service, focus on growing that number, and the non-active problem will take care of itself.
I think about that concept a lot. Making stuff and tailoring it towards the best advocates and letting everything else fall into place. I’ve thought about how I have Twitter followers, email list subscribers, website visitors, commenters on web posts, people that have purchased the album, etc. All different kinds of fans. Some of them I’d hesitate to even characterize as fans, just people that are sort of casually hovering in the background.
But I think a lot about tailoring different kinds of experiences to different people and really creating something unique and special for someone if they take an action that indicates they actually care. Specifically, I am thinking about doing something special for anyone that comments on the blog. That is, perhaps, one of my most desired actions. It reflects genuine engagement and appreciation for the conversation I’m trying to get going about good music, arts, music, the intersection of technology.
The counter-argument is, “Dude, isn’t that what your email list is for?” I guess maybe. Trying to stratify all these different experiences seems, to use a phrase that I hear at my day job, “not scalable.”
But that would be the system I’d seek to build if I had the resources.
Something that gave a different kind of asset (probably a free song) every time you took a desired action. God, I sound so calculating about this whole thing. But, honestly, it’s really just about appreciation. Perhaps it’s the following:
There’s a song or set of songs that I host privately. Every time you reply to me on Twitter, re-tweet something I said on Twitter, comment on my blog or come to a show, you get a special song that nobody else gets to hear, just as appreciation. Something like that.
It’s not Ticketmaster. I don’t have the pull yet or the systems to automatically deliver free content to everyone that comes to a show but that would certainly be my preference. But it’s something to separate the Active Users from the Total Users and engage the people that have shown an interest in participating. I’ll give it a shot.
Paul Brill Nominated For Emmy
Paul Brill, famous composer, guitarist, songwriter, TFC-band-member and producer of the critically acclaimed record “Pain Is A Reliable Signal”, just got nominated for another Emmy for his score for ‘The Devil Came on Horseback’. The film is a documentary about the tragedy in Darfur and is the product of the producing team that also worked with Paul on his first big film, ‘The Trials of Darryl Hunt‘, another wonderful wonderful and inspiring film and another film on which he was nominated for an Emmy.
Paul works his ass off, puts together big shows, is the curator of a wonderful musical community in New York and is also a good friend of mine. This is his second nomination after the nomination he got for Darryl Hunt last year. Dude is a stud. Here’s a screen shot so you don’t have to scroll down on the Emmy website:
Congrats, amigo! Wonderful things.
