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Author: cgerrish

Unemployed philosopher

Music Unchained

Published October 9, 2007 by cgerrish

Prince gives away thousands of free CDs to support his tour. RadioHead decides that fans should pay whatever they want for their new CD. Nine Inch Nails starts selling directly from their website. There’s CD Baby, and even the Pod Safe Music Network. Something is happening, and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?

With very few exceptions, musicians don’t make money by selling recorded music. Musicians make money by playing live shows. Records are promotional items. Don’t buy advertising, give records away. Music isn’t a recording, music is live. It’s different every time.

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Reading Paintings

Published October 8, 2007 by cgerrish

Field Study

I have a vested interest in introducing people to the idea of owning art. I like articles like this one on Reading Paintings. It brings art within reach. But I’d like an extension of the concept to art that you can buy and live with. It’s one thing to read a painting in a museum, it’s another to live with art and read it deeply over time.

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It’s Never about the Technology

Published October 8, 2007 by cgerrish

It’s always about the uptake. Interesting to see that Mint, after it’s big win at TC40 and other publicity was signing up a new user every 5 seconds. Mint isn’t that different from the aggregators who launched the idea in 1998. But the idea was too early back then. Now it’s easier to aggregate, and easier to create an interface better than a financial institution. But getting people to try Mint is much harder than providing ongoing value. You can build anything, but getting people to use it and keep using it— that’s a different matter.

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