meta-roj

kevin laws did, as expected, provide a very lucid description of the trouble with walmart over at due dilligence.

some time ago, i hinted at some of these points, saying that “the battle of pennies between vivendi and walmart will squeeze every last penny out of the existing business model.”

kevin’s material gives a good functional description of just how that squeeze works.

one thing i missed in my post was the strength of the “push back” from the record retailers. i mentioned it when i heard about it, but ultimately, the retail channel was apparently strong enough (still) to result in the collapse of the price-reduction plans at vivendi-universal. so much for my crystal ball 🙂

the independent music specialty retailers have been folding under the weight of large chains for some time now, and with that, the power of negotiation is consoldated. 1000 indie stores probably couldn’t get organized enough to push back and avoid the price cuts, but with only a few large chains, all it takes is a few phonecalls to say “we won’t take this.”

the real damage, on both a social and musical level, is that the traditional filters we used to find [good] new talent aren’t sustainable anymore. the brilliant musigeek at the local indie cd store – the one who knew every act on the 40-foot-long jazz shelf – he’s wasting that knowledge asking you if you’d like to supersize those fries or buy a refrigerator. the buyers at the retail level and the a&r people at the labels live under one-screwup-and-you’re out conditions. oh, and just to mention it – the djs at the local radio station are under the thumb of a centralized program director with a not-entirely-hidden agenda.

there aren’t many people left in the society that are paid to know music and find good, new talent. there are still people who are paid to push hits (top down), but the discovery-and-filtering process that can only happen with time (listenting to music is not time-compressible) and experience (lots and lots of listening) is suffering. sure, these people still exist, and they may even be on the net posting opinions for free – but if they’re holding down a non-music job to keep themselves fed, that’s an inefficient use of their time (at least as far as the music business is concerned)… these are extreme specialists.

ultimately, the business of music doesn’t work without these filters. on the macro level, you need to be able to go from a half-million garage bands (and, by the way, has anyone ever quantified the number of garage bands out there? i just made this number up because i can’t find a good data point) to 165 charting superstars. from a business perspective, you need to be able to focus resources – today more than ever.

i had plans cancelled tonight, so…..

today we demonstrate power laws for the various power-law-seekers, and throw out some more data points about the top end of the music business into the ether.

to create these, we compile data from the full set of 52 weekly charts of the year 2002. each chart is inverted (score 40 for the #1 hit, score 1 for the #40 hit), and they are sorted and compiled by song and artist throughout the year. the chart positions for each song and artist are added together and plotted. this gives some measure of both time on the chart and rank on the chart (some will argue that a #1 hit isn’t just “one better” than a #2 hit, but that’s a different exercise and a different power law). it ends up looking like this (click for readable versions):

some points that may not be obvious…

there were 233 charting hits from 165 artists. there were 9 #1 hits from 8 artists.

it’s very possible to get “good chart juice” without getting a #1 hit. vanessa carlton scored 2nd place on the song juice chart, while only getting as high as the #5 position with “a thousand miles,” but it stayed in the top 10 for 15 weeks.

it also helps to keep new hits cycling through the charts – the “one hit wonder” syndrome caught kelly clarkson, and her #1 hit dropped off the charts after 13 weeks, leaving her with the 33rd ranked artist juice (and 32nd ranked song juice). no doubt, on the other hand, managed to get three tracks into the charts, “hella good” up to #13, “hey baby” up to #5, and “underneath it all” up to #3. no #1 hits there, but 53 track-weeks on the charts, which was good enough for 3rd ranked artist juice.

i don’t have the patience to figure out if 2002 was a “typical” year, but this is another demonstration of the high end. if you want to “crack the charts” you have to score among about 165 artists. the kelly clarkson (2002) and milli vanilli (1989) stories probably demonstrate that you can manufacture hits if you put enough cash under them. that said, kelly’s #1 juice in 2002 is the red dot on the far right of the group of #1 hits, and didn’t have the “hang time” on the charts to accumulate much “juice.” you can see that a lot of not-#1 tracks and artists outperformed kelly by this measure.

now, there’s a whole different set of questions about how efficiently various artists convert “chart juice” into “cash money.” i’m not going there tonight.

update: added the “song juice” stat for one-hit-wonder kelly clarkson.

according to a little article i just read (and at least one other), it seems that sunncomm has realized that the only winners in the dmca/civil lawsuit battle over the power of the shift key would be… the lawyers.

i doubt sunncomm ceo peter jacobs read my little blog, but… i’m glad he got smart anyway. at least a little smart.

this is inevitable after issuing bombastic sue the bastard! drag him to jail by his toenails! statements, there has to be a bit of spin. but that’s ok. i think this is decent and righteous spin. it seems like the parties sat down and talked. they both compliment each other’s stance, the lawyers don’t get to spend 2 years dragging this through the courts, and we can all get back to picking on some other Evil Empire. and yes, you’re right, mr. jacobs, you do not want to be one of “those people.”

none of this has hit the sunncomm “newsroom” yet, but it might be worth dropping by anyway.

update: fixed an html error that broke the first two links.
(more…)

this just begs for linkage.

this evening, as i was sitting down to enjoy my traditional “rice with junk on it” dinner, and with the sun slowly setting outside my window, i heard an altercation on the street in front of my house.

through glass, and over the sound of a tv flipping channels, i think i heard someone say “and don’t you dare tell your mom i said that” or something to that effect.

so, i poked my nose out the front door, and found a 20-something contractor who was paving a neighbor’s driveway all afternoon shouting down a 7- or 8-year old kid on a bike. and when he noticed i’d noticed, he got relatively quiet and the kid made his escape.

a short while later, i decided to pick up the papers and check the mail and such – an excuse that would bring me within 30 or so feet of the scene of the altercation. the guy approached me, and asked it if was my kid (it’s not – and i’ve only seen him on the street and i’m not entirely sure which house he belongs to – which is very different than my experience as an 8-year-old, but i digress).

the guy then claimed the kid was out of control and had used inappropriate language with him… now, here’s where the tarnish on my armor shows up. i smelled bullshit, but i didn’t call bullshit. i just said i didn’t know the kid, and only heard the noise.

i don’t know which door to knock on to find out the kid’s side of the story, but nobody has any business dressing down an 8-year old – and if i did hear what i think i heard – telling them not to tell their parents – that’s way over the line.

but i folded at “you’re being watched, don’t do anything stupid.” this was certainly the easy way out. the kid’s safe, the contractors are gone. but was any harm done? i dunno. and i feel like i should.

i am so very not qualified.

no matter what joi says

(he graciously left out all the python references i missed)

of all the material here on the meta-roj blog, leave it to duct tape and hammers to break down the language barrier.

so, a hearty guten tag to meine deutschen freunde.

oh, and ARRRRRR!

i’m going to add myself to this group of intelligent people.

as reported by the bbc and others,

A diverse group of ex-judges, diplomats and former military lawyers is urging the US Supreme Court to intervene on behalf of hundreds of men being held without trial by the government.

i’ve said it before and i’m going to remain very hardline on this issue.

the united states of america has lost the moral high ground, set a horrible precedent, and increased the threat to its citizens, the citizens of the world, and most especially the military personnel that serve it throughout the world.

fix it.

in an amazing precedent set by the president of the united states, i apparently now have the right to screen the material that the attorney general might use against me in a criminal case.

apparently, the white house counsel’s office is reviewing the documents collected in the cia leak investigation before they are handed over to the department of justice.

this is a huge reversal, considering the erosion of civil and criminal rights in this country over the term of president bush. and if you think i’m kidding, it’s all in the press briefing

“Q Under what circumstances would information not go over there [to the department of justice]? Why don’t you just send it all?

MR. McCLELLAN: If it’s not responsive or relevant to the request from the Department of Justice — one reason you wouldn’t want to do that is because you don’t want to overburden the Department of Justice with documents that have no relevance or are not responsive to their request. You want to make sure that they have the information they need to get to the bottom of this. That’s why we’re assisting them.

so, for the record, mister ashcroft (and all other potential prosecutors):

i hereby declare my intent to cooperate with any criminal investigation conducted against me. i’ll have my counsel review everything i have, and if my lawyers decide it’s “relevant” and “responsive” then i’ll get it to you right away. i know you’re really busy protecting me from terrorists, so i don’t want to overburden you guys. thanks a lot. keep up the good work.

this is a HUGE expansion of the 5th amendment. rock on!

a short while ago, i mentioned something about someone who said something about a feature in software that lots of people use to make computers useful, that might do something that someone else was trying to keep them from doing.

it turns out that the repercussions of this feature may end up making a few lawyers rich.

you see, it seems that there was a company that used this feature of this operating system to build a system to keep evil people from doing evil things with cds. and part of the feature set of this feature is that it can be disabled. so the company that was banking on this concept took a bit of a hit. the ceo thinks his company is worth something like $10 million less because he was defeated by a shift (key). heh. so it’s time to call in the lawyers. i’ll let you interpret the chart yourself. thanks, yahoo.

someone’s gonna make money on this deal, and it won’t be sunncomm, and it won’t be the record industry.

He [peter jacobs, ceo] said the company was also exploring a civil suit based on damage to the company’s reputation, since Halderman concluded that the technology was ineffective without knowing about future enhancements

you are hereby put on notice. if it doesn’t work today, you’re not allowed to say so until the company can make it work in the future. i suppose sunncomm has plans to track down everyone who has a mediamax-cd3-protected audio cd and get them to upgrade to the new version when it works? wait’ll the shareholders get an idea of how much that is going to cost.