The UnSub

BETTER THAN FREE, an excellent essay by Kevin Kelly, Senior Maverick at Wired magazine.

My first love is not computer science but audio engineering. The process of capturing and reproducing sounds was something fascinating as a teenager, so much so that I wanted to be an audio engineer after I flunked my 1st O’levels attempt. Somehow the practical self back then wanted to play the safe way and chose an electronics-computer engineering course instead.

Making noise/music (depending on the audience) was very much part of me during the school days in the concert band. This interest has since outgrown to business and marketing aspects of the industry as I started playing with the Internet and various enabler technologies that are within the reach of hobbyist. So long one has the right talent and inclinations, cutting your own tracks/album and marketing yourself is no longer a fantasy.

There are times I’d like to pretend to be the boss of a let’s say CD store and ask how would I survive the disruptive changes brought about by ever increasing network speeds and popularity of peer-to-peer file sharing technologies. I believe the best move is to turn the threats into opportunities, in this case by leveraging on internet and technology. Instead of selling what is easily available online, I would choose to sell good music that are hard to buy and find online and use internet blog marketing to the get the word out.

It would be interesting to have a store that plays good local independent music that needs marketing. A store with social network accounts for consumers to add so as to receive latest merchandise and product news. How about a simple system within the store that allows consumers to download the current song in promotion wirelessly into their phones. Targeting the youth and young adults wouldn’t be something that difficult since the adoption of technology is highest amongst these two groups.

Having a web store that sells at track-level and comes packaged with a personalizable CD cover would be a good complement sales channel. The consumer can either ship it to their place or have an excuse to go down-town to the store to collect and buy more stuff. I am not quite sure of the current indie music scene in Singapore. But I am pretty sure if local stores help to promote promising bands more along side with mainstream. We too can have our own brand of music.

Likewise, I am not 100% sure what I’d described will work. Most people have tonnes of reasons why things would not work, few can creatively come up with ideas that work. But I am certain that the old-school-easy-way-out of getting a shop front, bringing in some CDs and waiting for sales to happen is definitely a road to business grave.

How Pirates Will Change The Entertainment Industry

An excellent article from TorrentFreak. The Internet works as a double-edged sword, the same resources and technologies that can reach the masses can be seen as a threat or solution, depending on your perspectives.

Which reminds me of a n00b arrogant engineer in my office made a comment which I found stupid and offensive when he questioned why I’d bought a particular book that was left on my desk when there are ebooks. I simply snapped back and said “I am rich enough to afford a book.” It is like asking, why pay, just steal it.

I can be forgiving but I have good memory of who said what to me. It does not change the fact of how I view this person as it is reflected in the way he works and thinks, and most importantly how long he takes to get things done. Perhaps it takes a pot to see a kettle, as if I was looking at myself in the past and wondered “Who is this ignorant fucker who knows little trying to tell me it is a waste of money?”

So what has this particular incident got to do with piracy? Well, there WILL be people like that n00b engineer who likes to download ebooks and not paying for them despite drawing a reasonable salary. I am not saying that I am guiltLESS in this area of downloading ebooks. But I prefer to have physical books that I often refer to or I find useful. Downloading ebooks to me is like going to Borders or Kinokuniya to glance through the content before making a buying decision.

On the flip side of the coin, there are people who will be willing to pay for what they use. I don’t like to read off screen for a long period of time and I prefer to read without clocking the electrical bill meter. The challenge in the digital age will be to convince the masses to pay a reasonable amount to support authors and artistes who are like us too; they need to make a living.

Producers of content too are not static creatures. Many are aware that they have to innovate to keep up with the changes. Perhaps the “old-world” definition of “fair-use” has to change to keep up with the digital age and it has to be an agreeable definition between the producers and consumers. Whether you are producer or consumer, the only constant is change.

This is an interesting article…. Innovation does not necessarily mean high-tech or fancy design. Ultimately, things are designed for people to use, and users should be the focus. Without empathy for users, we are only designing things for ourselves to use, not for others.

Just happened to stumbled on this excellent article “Web App Autopsy” for those who wish to start a web app startup.

I am working on a web based hobby project for fun and learning. It is indeed challenging to look at screen of codes from morning till night. It’s no wonder RegOnline took 3 years to launch.