Two Things America Got Right

I love this commercial and think it is both hilarious and genius. By mocking the ignorant over-patriotic stigma of Americans it allows viewers to feel they are beyond such a stigma whilst being affected by it. This commercial rivals the national sentiment of my previous post Canadian Pride (I know right?)

Go America!

The Economics of Not Looking Like A Selfish Jerk

Here is a really interesting article from The Economist. Since I know most of you won't read it, allow me to briefly explain.



They did an experiment at an amusement park where a camera snaps a picture of patrons and they then have the opportunity to buy the picture. For the experiment instead of charging the standard $12.95 they told customers they could pay whatever they liked. As a result, even including the people who chose to pay nothing, they made more money with the "pay what you wish" policy. Additionally, they tested an option where customers could pay what they want and where told half would go to charity. With this option revenues nearly tripled! That is including after the money was split to the charity.



This is similar to the case in Freakonomics where the author examined a bagel business that ran by dropping of a bag of bagels to company and putting a box out for people to pay what they wish. Again in that case the bagel company still made at least normal profits. Ironically the only people who didn't pay were the executives.



As both cases prove, there is more to every transaction than just dollars and cents. What people think about themselves and what other people think about them has great value. This is a great example of how the decisions we make are more complicated than we assume. In the article they call it "shared social responsibility". I call it not wanting to look and feel like a D-Bag at Six Flags with your family. Consider Salvation Army fundraising. I hate to sound like a bitter pessimist but how many people that donate do you think have a genuine interest in helping the Salvation Army? Most people (including myself) barely even know where the money goes or how it is used. If people had the sole desire to help the Salvation Army they would actively seek it out on their own to make donations. I'm not mitigating the virtue of charity. I'm simply saying sometimes looking a cold bell-ringing Santa in the face and walking away can cost more than the change in your pocket.

What Facebook and Your Parents Sex Life Have in Common

They both involve too much information! (or TMI if you speak teenage girl) I'm not sure if anyone has noticed recently but the raw amount of information on Facebook has been increasing dramatically. Now I know what you are thinking "Wow Mark...Facebook having a lot of information...brilliant observation." Condescending smirks aside, I noticed this the other day after posting my most recent blog post Music Without "The Industry". I noticed in Google Analytics that the post got less Facebook traffic than usual and, since nobody could ever see a new post by me and not want to read it, I determined something had to be up.

Because people frequently complain about this blog being hard to find (Its called a bookmark!) I post one link through my personal Facebook and another through the A Delicious Blend Facebook Page. After posting I usually refresh my home page to confirm nothing has gone awry. This time instead of each appearing above one another in my news feed neither surfaced. I checked back to insure both posts went through and everything was fine. The problem was (and still is) that they were buried under a more massive amount of Facebook info (if anyone can come up with a clever trendy name for Facebook information let me know) than ever before.



I think the fact that people share information by the ton on Facebook is great. While I don't care what adorable thing your cat just did or what your GPA was last semester (Alec), who am I to judge what information is worthy of sharing? I personally love sharing new music, interesting articles, and of course my own blog posts on Facebook. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who hate seeing links to my screechy nonsensical music or self centered blogosphere blather. All the same there are probably people who can't believe your cat always tries, but never succeeds to catch your goldfish or who are riveted by your 3.2 (kudos).

Over the past year the amount of traffic going to Facebook has exploded. So much so that last May it surpassed Google as the most visited website.



Like I said, I think the more people share on Facebook the better. The next major step for Facebook to take is upping the filtration of information that gets to you. While I know this filtration exists (not enough to explain how it works) the surge in traffic has probably just been too much to proportionately compensate for. TMI hasn't always been such a huge problem. Back when people read the news paper the costs of publishing info was so great that only the most "important" information made it through. The cost of publishing information today is so little ($0.00) that the only question is what shouldn't we publish? After all, every empty status update about your cat comes with the potential self esteem boost of somebody commenting on it and reaffirming that someone out there might care about you.

Speaking of screechy nonsensical music...

N-E-R-D & Daft Punk - Hypnotize You (Nero Remix) by TheDropFather

Music Without "The Industry"

Its no secret that the music industry has been struggling over the past decade. Facing slumping sales at the hands of free downloads and digital distribution chains, people are clamoring to find a way to "save" the industry. I however have a different question, who needs it? Just to clarify, when I say music industry I'm not referring to artists and producers. I'm talking about publishers, distributors, etc. The people who increase the cost of music without increasing the value. In Clay Shriky's book "Here Comes Everybody" he talks about how the collapse of communication and publishing costs are changing the rules about the functions of "professionals" and "amateurs".

When was the last time you saw a squire? No, not the guitar. I'm talking about the squires of ye old times who's job it was to write and transcribe messages. Being a squire was a profession because most people were illiterate. Knowing how to read and write was rare enough to distinguish it as a profession. The invention of the printing press lead to the death of the squire profession. The printing press made language so cheap and easy to reproduce that not only were squires no longer needed to transcribe work, but literature was so available that literacy could be brought to the masses.



Today we are witnessing the slow and painful death of the print industry to digital media. Just as literacy scarcity made the squire profession profitable, the scarcity of publishing and distribution technologies made printing profitable. However today the average person (me) has the ability to publish and distribute their own media for absolutely nothing! I realize that just because A Delicious Blend is free and NY Times costs money people are not going to replace their New York Times subscription with A Delicious Blend. While this may be true, Shirky makes an interesting observation in that digital media is revolutionizing our definition of what news is. When traditional news outlets were our soul source of info "news" was whatever "they" decided was newsworthy. With so much information available to us today "news" now means whatever we want to hear about.

Just like publishers and squires are no longer necessities, neither, in my opinion, are music distributors and publishers. With the ferocious rate of downloading and music blogging we are discovering not only can we do "their" job but we can do it better! As I mentioned in my previous post The Long Tail, Making Your Life Awesome Since 2004 the lowered cost of distribution allows more obscure artists to better reach niche markets. Thanks to music blogs that offer promotional downloads such as ThisSongIsSick.com genres such as Dubstep which do not have much mass appeal but are wildly popular in certain niches can reach new audiences they otherwise never could have. Had such digital distribution channels never existed it is unlikely dubstep enthusiasts such as myself would have ever stumbled across it.

A major point I haven't acknowledged yet is the "free" aspect of distribution. This can be a sensitive subject among many and opinions tend to vary. I think distributing music for free is the best thing to happen to music since the cultural exile of K-Fed. Traditional forms of distribution create bottle necks that only allow for the distribution of artists that companies feel will be most profitable, aka have the most widespread appeal. I have nothing against Justin Timberlake but would prefer a few other options. Distributing music for free may cost Justin Timberlake a few bucks but in the long run enables more artists to make money by not being overshadowed by the bottle neck effect.

In order to both talk the talk and walk the walk, here are some artists I like that I feel deserve some exposure.

I Need A Dollar (Big Gigantic Remix) by md9

Of course I wouldn't leave you guys without some dubstep.
Download track here For the other two you just click the download arrow.
Fenech-Soler - Lies (Doctor P Remix) by MistaDubstep

How Much Advertising is Too Much Advertising?

I will be the first to say I love advertising. While this may sound strange, consider how advertising allows us to enjoy everything we take for granted as free. It allows us to confidently navigate the internet with Google, watch our favorite TV shows on command with Hulu, and explore artists we would never have found with Pandora. At a certain point though there is a difference between sustaining your business and shamelessly whacking the cash pinata. In a sense ad-sponsored content isn't really free. It still costs you your time and attention, which we all can agree have value. While advertising in print and radio are on the decline, online advertising is exploding and shows no signs of slowing down.

There is still substantial room and incentive for increased online advertising but what does that mean for consumers? Hulu for instance has much less advertising than normal television. While this is true there is substantially more advertising on Hulu than there was a few years ago. The timeless question of "How many advertisements can I add before people stop watching?" prevents content providers from piling on too much. However, in the case of Hulu we already know exactly how much advertising people will tolerate to watch their favorite shows. With so much room for online advertising and consumer's bluffs already being called could we be heading towards the same amount of advertising on Hulu as regularly programed television? I don't think so and here is why.

The reason companies advertise is to reach relative consumers. When a company buys an add on radio or television they only hope it reaches their target consumers. There are ways to help increase exposure to targeted consumers. For example the barrage of pickup truck commercials during NFL games. The problem is that for every person who sees a pickup truck commercial that will never be interested in buying one the company has wasted some of their money and effort. John Wannamaker once said "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half". The beauty of online advertising is that advertisements can be tailored to the people viewing them. Even though the amount of advertising on Hulu is less than that of television the "choose your own ad" feature makes them more effective (therefore requiring less of them) because viewers chose to watch ads that are more relevant to them.

Do you hate those ads on the right side of your Facebook screen? Change them! They are generated based on the interests you list on your profile. In case you haven't noticed, you can x out those ads and Facebook asks you why. If you continually close them and tell Facebook why you chose to do so the ads will become more and more relevant. I've done this to the point where I now find out about concerts, bands and products I love that I never would have found to begin with. Think of it as the Pandora of advertising. It is customization such as this that eliminates the need for overly general advertising. Even if you despise advertisements, wouldn't you rather be killed by a sniper than a shotgun?

As usual, The Onion takes it to a whole new level.