The Nicssite Blogger

 

 Apple Getting Screwed: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Warner Music is going to allow Amazon.com to sell Their music DRM free. Great news. More great music downloads thats truely yours.  However, Apple Will be the loser here.  According to the New York Times Online on Friday, December 28, 2007,

“Now, some music executives are privately backing the idea of dropping the software from music sold through virtually every service except iTunes, in order to strengthen Apple’s rivals and potentially diminish Mr. Jobs’s advantage. The major labels have been upset with Apple’s inflexibility on music pricing, among other issues.”

Meaning that Since Steve Jobs will not be flexible on price, selling New hot releases Higher then Older music thats been off any top 40 station for a long time, They do not want to be flexible with Steve Jobs.

If this continues, Apple’s download music division will be hurting and eventually the consumers will too.  As long st Apple continues the 99 cent download, that will be the price tier for music. Everyone will have to sell at or below 99 cents to compete. However, If Apple ends up losing this one,  Expect higher prices on new hot released songs, and the same 99 cents on older hits that get no time on the radio anymore.

I signed up with digg.com hoping to bring more traffic to the site. So far, I did get one digg haha. I’ve also submitted my blog to Blogexplosion.com. They however, do check all blogs themselves and make sure they fit their criteria. I’m not exactly sure if I completely fit in, But I am working on getting there.

Also, I am still looking for writers. They can pretty much write about whatever. Current events, Old events with new insight, sports, travel, or just their life. All should be well.

Nic

 

 Save the Music Industry: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The music industry, as we all, know is in a lot of financial troubles. How do these problems get solved? I believe its time for a major overhaul.

First record companies need to start listening to the the consumers again. One thing the consumers want is more diversity. 5 bands that sound nearly identical gets kind of old. How many times do you listen to the radio thinking one band sings a song but yet, it turns out to be one of the other four? Get 5 bands with 5 Distinct sounds and lets see how CD sales take off again.

Another way to increase music sales, Have quality music. If you have 15 memorable songs People will not only buy the album but be playing it more and more. This will then lead to more tickets sold to concerts which equals more money to both the labels and artists. Also in the age of the download, it is even more important to have quality songs. People can pick and choose all they want, entire albums are purchasable by the singles. The more quality songs you have, the more singles you can sell the more money in everyones pockets.

They need to get back to their roots of promoters of music not sellers of music. By promoting you’ll end up selling. Some ways to get back to promoting are:
1: quite overplaying things on the radio. Rather then play one song from an album over and over and over and over again on the radio, play several songs from the album. Get people excited about the whole album, not just one or two songs.

2: Realize the internet can be your friend. Rather then be afraid of technology, embrace it. In the last few years this has been getting better with itunes, rhypsody, emusic and amazon and getting rid of DRM a few months back but still I think more can be done. One thing that would help is get your songs in as many places people visit as possible. Embrace Internet radio. Millions of people are listening to it and millions more will start tuning in in the next several years. Rather then try to kill it with high rates, Let it live and don’t control it, let the markets decide who succeeds and who fail. Find ways to get podcaster to review music, or even incorporate it into the podcast maybe as an intro.

3. It maybe too late to do this, but do some research on Peer 2 Peer sharing. It very well could have been an excellent promotional source. There were the bad apples, but what if people really did buy more music with it after discovering it. Lets learn from this and next time something similar happens, lets go into it with an open mind and see if its helping or hurting without assuming that its hurting. The same songs that people were downloading are now available on myspace to preview.

4. Have a simple database were people can go and a few whole songs off an album. There needs to be more then 30 seconds. There could be a rocking part of a song then the rest be crap, which part would you share? Let people truly decide if they like song before buying it. If the whole song isn’t possible, lets get a good portion, at least half.

5. Become people friendly. Realize that people don’t have deep pockets. Learn the true financials of the companies you’re dealing with. Shed the Freudian theory that people are evil and realize that people are not lying to payless, but instead are telling the truth so they are not hurt financially. Learn to sit down and negotiate new royalty rates and use your heads.

It is time for the music industry to renew its business plan. It can take years to move an industry around, but maybe its time to innovate a little more and get people excited about buying music again, particularly albums. It’s time to promote the music and sell the albums. Hopefully they will achieve this. When you have a bunch of people boycotting your music, maybe its time to listen.

Well, the Mitchell report came out this week. 20 million dollars of tax payers money spent to learn that Roger Clemens used. Was it really worth it? I would say no. Being a huge baseball fan the news to me is really completely worthless. The report named 90 names of course, and Mitchell has stated that he believes that there are many many more. Of course there is. Not everyone that is using or has used is going to be talking.

Some Yankees fans are crying foul since not many Red Sox players were named stating that Senator Mitchell was a director for Boston for awhile.  Maybe that has tainted the report some. But then again, there is proof of the 90 players named.

There is also the case of one player that agreed to cooperate with The Senator and he was left unnamed just a footnote about it. Apparently he had bought the drugs but he never used them and disposed of them someway or another. Would it be nice to know his name? Sure, I’d like know the guy that can flirt with the idea and in the end, decide to not to do it even though its all right there and easy to get too.

The Mitchell report does not have the authority to dictate a tough testing program. It does recommend one but that actual part of getting done is left to the owners and players union.

I have felt the entire time that baseball should adopt a better testing program and move on. Your right, there is proof now that Barry was probably on steroids.  There is also proof that Clemens and his best friend Andy used. Other players named include Paul Lo Duca, Troy Glause, Miguel Tejada, and Alex Caberra.

Clemens and Caberra have both denied using them, Alex may have a case. Andy has said that he Used HGH as he was recovering from an injury.

I feel that baseball should move on. There are many things going on that are in play for higher numbers. This is from an article on MLB.com “Certainly steroids have been a part of it. There has been a trend towards smaller ballparks with the new stadiums. There have been a lot of advances in hitting instruction, hitting theory, video-based hitting instruction. I think that’s been a change that doesn’t always get a lot of publicity, but that’s been a factor as well.”

The pure science of hitting is way better then before. Players can even watch video right after their at bat to see what they did wrong. Hitting a baseball is hard. And with 31 pitchers also named, It’ll get harder. Of course players will use steroids to help out. If everyone is truely doing it, How much of an edge does it really give you?

From reports with Minor League Players that have used, Steroids have only helped out slightly. Mainly they’ve gained more weight, have a slightly better ERA or a slightly better OBP.

As it is now, I feel that baseball should adopt a tougher policy and move on. Nate Silver, proprietor of Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA statistical projection system, said they will now be using the list of known Major League Players to see how their stats have improved and see how big of an edge Steroids have given players.

I think I will wait for my final call for that report.