Amazing, isn’t it?
I remember crossing the border into Canada way back when on my cross country trip after college graduation. Just a few yards over the line and there it was… The Beer Store!
I had heard about them, but never thought I’d ever have the pleasure of being a customer. I walked in and was amazed by the brazen display of efficiency: no shelves, no shopping carts, no giant refrigerators all the way at the back of some huge store. Nope. Just one wall behind a counter that displayed an empty bottle for every variety of beer the store carried. All I had to do was point to the beer of my choice, and seconds later, out rolled my sixpack on the conveyer belt that separated me and the lone Beer Store clerk.
Sheer genius!
“ The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about those once in awhile and watch your answers change.
Richard Bach
Daniel James from gaming company Three Rings knows that the days of charging for bits outright are completely over. Why record companies don’t get this is beyond me.
In the process, he has penned some advice that software developers and website operators should allow to sink in. Specifically, these creators need to place LOVE above everything else in their product:
Our mission at Three Rings is to create an emotional connection with players. We want to become one of the ten places you go on the interwebs. We want to be on your Chrome start page. We want you to dream of puzzley pieces and Pirates (or Zombies). If some folks would like to give us some money, that’d be great too.
Money can’t buy you love, but love can bring you money. In software the only sustainable way to earn money is by first creating love, and then hoping that some folks want to demonstrate that love with their dollars.
My new project that’s currently under wraps possesses love in abundance. It might have a little bit to do with the tons of love that is being put into the development process. But first and foremost, our mission is to create an emotional connection with the people who will use the site to discover all the creators out there who have also put tremendous amounts of love into their works.
Once all this love is taken care of, perhaps the dollars will follow for all those involved.
What a cool, vintage map of a route I know all too well.
I believe this is a railway map, but it sure seems to mirror the Interstate 80 route.
Thanks to PJACTION for gifting this to me long ago.
An awesome shot of my friend (and old bandmate) Pierre Kaiser rocking the acoustic with his band Flock of Sea… I mean, The Dimes.
Great perspective from Om Malik regarding Myspace Music’s prospects. Om always gets down to brass tax money-wise, and that’s why I like to peruse his perspective from time to time.
But he’s got it nailed here:
Why can’t its corporate backers, News Corp., and all the record labels who own a piece of this company pony up the dollars themselves? Or do their non-actions speak for their relative faith in the prospects of the project? Of course, if I was them, I would not put my own cash in a company that has failed to hire a chief executive, though it has been a few months since the service was first announced in April 2008. Can’t they convince anyone to take on this mission impossible?
It does start to look like Mission Impossible when you consider Myspace had to go out and raise $100 million to put together this thing that is currently rudderless, I mean, CEO-less.
It makes me posit that Myspace Music went out and raised the same $100 million that imeem had to go out and raise in order to build basically the exact same product.
And now comes the hard part… making that money back.
And then turning a profit.
“ As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Damn, I love this shot of Moose launching himself at an Uptones show earlier this year.
If you want to know what an Uptones show is like, this picture should give you a pretty good idea. KFOG set the stage for them at Slim’s just a few days ago, killer show, and one that was even blog worthy for Big Rick Stuart.
