tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63254452012-01-30T18:38:51.178-08:00Super Long PlayIdeas for Long-Tail Media <a href="http://slp.blogspot.com/atom.xml">XML</a><br> from <a href="mailto:patrick@vadver.com">Patrick R. Koppula</a>Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.comBlogger581100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-84794666704087512732008-10-08T19:01:00.000-07:002008-10-08T19:05:28.210-07:00Suddenly the most useful tool on the internet is a little know feature on Bankrate.com it's a rating system for places you might have deposited your money and you are not sure anymore whether you should move it. It's called Safesound. It occurs to me if we all checked it out, make a move for the safer and stopped hoarding, this crisis will blow over because the antidote to a debt crisis is lquid Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-32159551582318250062008-06-02T23:12:00.000-07:002008-06-02T23:14:15.552-07:00Wow...all this writing finally got me Forbes...as a writer. Go figure. The whole series is good...execs and analysts weighing in on Microsoft vs. Google will fall out in their neck of the woods.Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-59737647977072347032008-02-12T17:41:00.001-08:002008-02-12T18:00:03.667-08:00Microsoft buying Yahoo may be bad for data portability, I just realized. I was reading through some recent articles when I put two and two together on this topic.Most people, I suspect, don't know that while Google and Yahoo pretty freely let people import their contacts into social networking sites (and theoretically site's of any kind), Microsoft restricts this simple data portability function Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-55199066478718840882007-11-01T17:53:00.000-07:002007-11-01T18:03:11.774-07:00Speculating on Facebook's next move Nov 6th in NY... just occurred to me but don't have time to consider in detail right now. Could Facebook do any better than to launch a SocialAds (social advertising network to Google's search advertising network) AND announce that SocialAds (but not Facebook.com) would support OpenSocial. Wouldn't that put them in position to reap the benefits of OpenSocial Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-31276106004056574992007-11-01T13:00:00.000-07:002007-11-24T11:39:05.629-08:00Facebook vs. the Internet...that's what I spoke with new friend David Spark about at lunch day before yesterday. If you read my posts from when the Facebook Platform launched, you know I expected this to happen, but talking it over with him I was inspired to extrapolate a little more. What is new to me is the role Google is playing in pushing this process forward. Let's review the history shall Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-12549952996944040862007-10-15T09:18:00.000-07:002007-11-24T11:41:25.859-08:00I just made a bunch of comments on a post Steve Rubel made on the "economics" of Web 2.0 where he tries to offer economic defense of his argument that "It's going to get very hard for advertiser-supported startups to get any scale when it comes to revenue.". I thought it might be useful to collect my comments here: Steve misstates his point but in the way most people misstate it for shorthand:Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-88733394876086532042007-10-01T14:39:00.000-07:002007-10-01T14:57:52.427-07:00Replacing "Fame Creation" with "Fame Transfer" is the next transition for the music industry.A realization was triggered by the news of Radiohead's new album download pricing scheme: pay what you want, $1 - $100. This isn't a new idea, nor is it at all the first implementation of the idea. What's new here is that Radiohead, a band with singular brand power, is doing it. And that got me thinking..Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-2247601774734045702007-09-14T18:02:00.000-07:002007-09-15T11:36:22.458-07:00James Currier (a founder of Tickle and currently of Ooga Labs ) is my hero for the week. On Wednesday we both spoke at the STIRR Founder Hacks event and James was by far the best of the three of us "seasoned" entrepreneurs who spoke. Not surprisingly he is the most seasoned, Tickle actually being a site that informed a part of the ffwd.com marketing strategy. Regardless, he had the best lock on Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-63080579477695914522007-08-29T15:42:00.000-07:002007-09-10T11:43:31.238-07:00We just reached out to the industry press for the first time and this was the result:http://newteevee.com/2007/08/23/vadver/So let me begin by saying, Liz gets it. She understands who our competition is, what sets us apart, what will be critical to driving early adoption, and even why some of our out there ideas might be good ones.I also appreciated her willingness to engage in a conversation Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-14986137819592311572007-08-14T13:53:00.000-07:002007-08-14T14:54:12.655-07:00Flattery is the highest compliment, right? Well, while everybody is trying to "compliment" Apple, iLike (along with Last.FM and MOG) should be doubly flattered that Apple is "complimenting" us. It's a classic turnaround from a company that has often succeeded in be a strong second or third mover in a nascent market: great for the ego, but really a threat with little if any upside.Then again, it'sPatrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-37999217118767603792007-07-17T11:24:00.000-07:002007-07-30T15:28:12.317-07:00I was struck this morning with a clear vision of the fundamental strategic battle going on among web technology businesses today. It allowed my to finally understand three often ignored oddities that I've had a hard time explaining away and I think provides a framework for predicting the endgame in this cycle of innovation.Oddity #1 - Yahoo and AOL are still relevant.Oddity #2 - Social networks Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-3699381672427865812007-05-31T16:17:00.000-07:002007-07-18T14:53:40.477-07:00Building a cross-platform application took on new meaning at the end of last week with the launch of Facebook Platform. In a sense what Facebook has accomplished is a tantamount exhibition of Tim Orielly's notion of "The Web As Platform", coupled with a brilliant competitive lock on, "Data...the Intel Inside". All of that is to be expected, thought they still deserve kudos for execution.What's Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-44708678070608556672007-03-30T09:08:00.000-07:002007-03-30T10:41:57.228-07:00Online video is like online music part two...In part one I considered the habit of making comparisons between music and video that just don't apply. Most of the mistakes fall into this category. The flip side of this is missing comparison that they should. I think the largest gap of this type is not seeing that YouTube will follow a similar path and most likely suffer a similar fate as mp3.com Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-9673118924085331312007-03-22T23:36:00.000-07:002007-03-23T12:37:34.938-07:00Online video is like online music (mostly) because TV networks are like record labels (except when they are not), but video is not at all like audio (despite being created the same). Confusing? Such is the attempt to draw parallels between disruptions in the various entertainment industries. On a very high level digital video is repeating the history (in the Hegelian sense) of digital music (andPatrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-25593084094933114022007-01-25T11:04:00.000-08:002007-01-30T09:44:18.885-08:00The iPhone is not for me :( That was my initial reaction to the product announced at Mac World and after trying hard for a few weeks to convince myself otherwise, my lack of interest wouldn't budge, so instead I spent the next few weeks trying to figure out why.Why is it surprising that I don't want this phone? Any one of the following facts would be sufficient evidence, but taking them all Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-37782904301697216282007-01-01T18:05:00.000-08:002007-01-01T23:49:40.968-08:00Happy New Year everybody! I usually refrain from reporting news in this space, preferring to comment on the news, or comment on other people's comments on the news. But what I want to share today needed to be kept out of the public eye and so there is no news about it to comment on...until now.I'm starting a new company!It is still stealth under the name Vadver and I invite you to visit http://Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-90084834728407119472006-12-23T14:57:00.000-08:002007-01-01T16:52:34.461-08:00Merry Christmas iLike, Gcast, and GarageBand users and other music lovers (i.e future users). Actually, Christmas came a little early this year. On December 20th, 2006 iLike closed a $13.3 million dollar investment from TicketMaster! It is a high point in a way, but more importantly it is a launching pad for far greater things...like landing on the Moon on the way to Mars. We just had an offsite Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-85955168469912623202006-12-08T11:50:00.000-08:002006-12-24T01:08:14.001-08:00Seems like everthing is going John (Doe, rhymes with video), these days:Om Malik just launched a new blog, NewTeeVee that aims "to cover online video from end to end and front to back."There seems to be no end in sight to the parade of "we'd be happy with one percent of YouTube's market value" companies.And now my blog has extended its focus to include all media types (i.e. video).On the other Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-57768581875453768182006-11-13T13:22:00.000-08:002006-11-14T11:04:32.613-08:00Okay, so I know I've been a little heavy on the boosterism lately, but come on, can you blame me? We've really been rocking it recently. We have the pictures and video to prove it. (That's me in the hat)Here's another example. This blog was noticeably silent on GooTube. But that doesn't mean I wasn't thinking about it. I was thinking about it a lot, like starting to lose sleep over it. I hadn't Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-71717668555060124002006-11-07T16:50:00.000-08:002006-11-07T23:59:34.137-08:00What's the difference between the best music you've never heard and the best music you have heard? Apparently the answer to that question is not obvious, as evidenced by the recent article by Techcrunch writer, Marshall Kirkpatrick.Quote Marshall:"while many of us may be interested in discovering new music similar to our existing tastes - the lower production quality and lack of familiarty [sic] Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-52454234724771349812006-10-30T17:57:00.000-08:002006-11-02T22:58:56.097-08:00Last week we launched iLike.com, a long jab right into the future of music discovery. Today we launched the GarageBand Faceoff, a right hook square in the jaw of music promotion, knocking loose any preconceptions you still have about the music industry:Thought you had to choose between grassroots empowerment and mass media distribution? The GarageBand Faceoff has two bands chosen by the public atPatrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-9030017900533514752006-10-25T18:28:00.000-07:002006-11-02T17:56:50.239-08:00Congratulations to the iLike Team! Yesterday they launched into beta...iLike.com. As you might expect from my gushing about the team up there in Seattle, they've exceeded even my wild dream for how something like this could work. Sometime when I'm not so busy, I'll try to biograph the ideas involved, but right now I've got a radio show to premiere.For now, you'll just hafta be content with being Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1161907257459546492006-09-15T16:59:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:11.579-07:00Why is Spiral Frog a neat development but ultimately irrelevant? Because it misses the point...or rather three points:Apple sells music so they can sell iPods - iTMS is a service that makes the iPod, nearly everyone's favorite mp3 player, that much nicer and oh btw it locks you into the Apple ecosystem (note: I'm note sure what the stas are, but I can't believe that any more than 5% of music on Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1161886357000663502006-08-14T11:01:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:23:10.716-07:00And we're off! The new iLike project (was code named iJam) just got funded. I probably won't say much more about it here until it launches but you can follow the progress at the team blog. Suffice to say, I'm very excited to see where these guys (some of the best ajax coders in the world!) go with my little sketch on how to discover music (or frankly anything) socially.Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1152142997963379372006-07-03T16:42:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:11.460-07:00Kudos to GarageBand.com Advisory Board Chair, Sir George Martin, for being open enough to new technology and self effacing enough to completely rework some of his earlier Beatles masterworks for Cirque du Soliel's new show, Love. Eighty years old and still on the verge...In other Beatles tidbits:Did you know that the Beatles are the single most cited influence among GarageBand members?Have you Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1151707934751059552006-06-02T03:51:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:11.210-07:00God bless our new engineering team hired and headed by legendary MicroSoft manager Hadi Partovi (yes Ali's brother). Also keeping it the family is our new CTO, Nat Brown, one of the best architects in the world.In addition to working on our new social music discovery offering they've found time to make the old battleship better. Check out the new look of GarageBand.com's homepage at (if you are Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1151694213145780892006-05-11T10:36:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:11.145-07:00We may be the Johnny-come-latelys to the free hosting thing, but I'd like to say it was worth the wait:* 200MB: that's 25-50 songs and not limited to just songs, podcast posts, images, whatever media you can provide all goes under the same cap (by comparison: Pure Voulme and MySapce are limited to 3 mp3s)* Automatic creation of embeddable podcast from your media, so you can embed it anywhere (Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1151688928372657182006-04-15T10:09:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:11.083-07:00Vive la France. While I'm usually not a big fan of government intervetntion in the economy, especially the new kind, I do respect governments that step in on the side of consumer liberty.First to clarify, I disagree with the implication of this article that this law would have any significant long-term impact on Apple's position:1. In Europe there is far more music activity on phones than on Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1139341949178267762006-02-07T11:48:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:10.947-07:00our new desktop application was BETA released todayhttp://www.gpal.comHere's some early thoughts from a Cnet reporterhttp://news.com.com/2061-12351_3-6036099.htmlThis product incorporates many of the ideas I've been discussing on this blog, spcifically many of the enhancements I wished other companies would make to thier products to facilitate the paradigm shift we forsee. We got tired of waitingPatrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1133489200667592162005-12-01T17:11:00.002-08:002006-10-26T17:09:10.874-07:00Today we launched Gcast.com, a free service that makes it easy for any person to create, host, and share their own podcast. During our beta period, thousands of real people have already made a diversity of creations:- Kingsley's Corner - a UK commercial radio DJ, finally free to create the show he always wanted- Poopcast - a certain proud parent recording audio snapshots by phone- Anne Heaton - Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1129321308761885552005-09-30T12:58:00.000-07:002007-07-18T15:18:53.722-07:00Happy Birthday GarageBand! Today is the six year anniversary of the garageband.com domain. Not bad for a career in music, huh!? Anyway, here's a little blast from the past for all you long time fans...a screenshot of an early homepage.and a copy of the press release. What's perhaps most remarkable is that, except for the $250K contracts, all the ideas laid out in this press release have come to Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1129322297361473942005-09-15T13:30:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:10.679-07:00I just wanted to expand a little on the quote from me in the San Antonio Express-News, "The most exciting thing about the promotion is that this great music is going to be exposed to such a wide range of people(emphasis mine)." I should have said, "the most exciting thing about the promotion is that this great music is going to be exposed to a wider audience".Why is this so exciting? It's Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1120865640816915182005-07-08T16:33:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:10.361-07:00My response to Mark Cuban's thoughts on PodcastingEven though you may not guess it from the comments so far, Mark’s cautionary tale was meant for a specific audience: the individual podcaster. It's good wisdom from the blogsphere to the emerging podsphere (podcastersphere?, podwaves?, pod-people-invasion?), about the current state of affairs in long-tail digital media. And as such, he was carefulPatrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com74tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1120266903822098952005-07-01T18:04:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:10.298-07:00Trent Renznor, the Grokster ruling, podcasting on iTunes - there is a lot that's happend recently that I should have written about, but alas there is a good reason I haven't. I've been planning my wedding :) Unfortunately I had limited time so I had to choose between accelerating the music paradigm shift and writing about it. I hope you think I made the right choice.Don't worry though. The Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1116914885360939222005-05-23T22:58:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:10.230-07:00Today we unveiled our take on a better way to fill the promotional gap in the music industry. It's been a long day, so I only have enough energy to post the press release right now.---GarageBand PODCAST STUDIO IS UNVEILED AS First CONSUMER ONLINE Tool to Record, Mix and Publish PodcastsAmerican Idol’s Bo Bice is Featured on First Track Ever Released by a Major Artist for PodcastingSAN FRANCISCO, Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com42tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1112206893967430832005-03-30T09:22:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:10.104-07:00USA Today writes, "Dozens of lawyers and big names in the entertainment and technology industries crowded into the red-upholstered seats" to hear arguments on "MGM vs. Grokster" today. Actually, that sentence should read, "Dozens of lawyers and big names in the soon-to-be-former entertainment and technology industry". The case hinges on the interpretation and application of the precedent set in Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1108693474282063472005-02-07T15:47:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:10.039-07:00Thanks to Napster To Go's superbowl media blast, the music business question of the moment is Owning vs. Renting music. This is a sadly misleading rhetorical structure. Neither party in this argument, iTunes nor Napster (and by proxy Microsoft's Janus platform), provides rentals or sells ownership of recordings in the traditional sense.Ownership of music recordings, whether by design or accident,Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1100624340658885082004-11-16T08:56:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:09.848-07:00BTW, GarageBand has been busy setting up a partnership with MSN Music. Check it out at http://music.msn.com/garageband. Of course, it's really exciting to bring the marketing power of such a large company to work for independent music, but what makes this effort significant is the impact of being the first company to really break an artist via the Internet.Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1100647123710713012004-11-11T10:53:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:09.974-07:00Today I feel complete. We just launched the last in a series of component improvements to the GarageBand system. Now, I can gladly say that the system works the way it was always meant to work. I'll bore you with the full details of the GarageBand system some other time, but let me explain this most recent improvement as an example that other music companies could follow.GarageBand unleashed an Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1100629007788277532004-10-03T09:00:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:09.907-07:00What did we get when we combined a winnebago, an election year, and 100,000 indie bands? We got smelly, very smelly. And dirty, too. The real elements of this experiment? A different set of independent bands in each city rather than one set for all cities Municipal venues (parks, amphitheaters), rather than traditional club venues Using press interest as the primary promotional vehicle. Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1089223089024659162004-07-07T10:58:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:09.788-07:00The GarageBand/Live365 experiment is getting some serious attention. Unfortunately you need to register to see the full article, but the gist of it is there in the summary. What's missing are highlights from a few top bands who credit part of their recent success to GarageBand.Anthony Rodriguez, recently returned from a tour of Ireland with Pet Project (formerly Sci-Fi Lullaby) said "If it Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1089221578485259122004-06-07T10:32:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:09.712-07:00I've mentioned Creative Commons before, but today I'm pleased to mention them in an official capacity. My company, GarageBand, now offers the Creative Commons license as an option for songs hosted on our site. So far the response has been positive.  At GarageBand, nearly 100 thousand bands can choose from 5 different levels of download permissions, now including the option to offer their songs Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1087270160325991002004-05-01T08:11:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:09.526-07:00I just offered my encouragement and enthusiasm to the DJs at the Live365 Broadcaster Conference. That's me in the center green. For those who don't know, Live365 is doing for radio what GarageBand is doing for musicians: creating a community that empowers individuals and evaluates their creations. They've aggregated the third largest internet Radio audience by broadcasting user programmed Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com78tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1089220641673849182004-04-28T10:17:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:09.654-07:00Happy Birthday iTunes. There are a number of new features in this release that exhibit Apple's willingness to break down old paradigms they can't benefit from. For instance the new "publish your iMix" meme (a copy of Napster's playlist sharing, but not as community oriented as their Inbox), is another stab at cutting down the per transaction cost from single song downloads. Of course it also Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com99tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1087271189166305062004-04-16T20:29:00.000-07:002006-10-26T17:09:09.596-07:00Thanks very much to Eric Von Hippel of the MIT Sloan Innovation Lab for inviting me to speak this week. I was very glad to share my thoughts of how garageband.com is riding and pushing a tide of democracy and innovation on the creative side of the music industry. The preparation gave me a chance to wax philosophical that perhaps the only thing separating art (especially performance art)from otherPatrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1077308492312369952004-02-20T11:57:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:09.465-07:00Now here's an interesting development for the RIAA's anti-piracy strategy...a New Jersey woman is filing a RICO lawsuit against the RIAA. This isn't the first time the comparison has been made. At Tech:Knowledge, Mike regularly refers to the RIAA always in conjunction with the phrase "thugs and goons". And most of are now familiar with the whistle-blowing book Hit Men. But this is the first time Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1076352887441779272004-02-09T10:42:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:09.403-07:00What are you supposed to do when everyone starts using your bread-and-butter as a loss leader? Suffer and recapitalize, apparently. Venerable Tower Records is filling for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company is well run, well loved, and profitable for years, but has come under intense price pressure from multi-product stores such as Wal-mart and Best Buy that price their CDs at a loss in order to Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1076024314442398072004-02-05T15:28:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:09.343-07:00Just found this, but thought it was worth bringing up...Doc Searls suggests Apple's iLife products are "Turning Consumers into Producers" and draws a parallel with the open-source development paradigm. He takes it up one level of abstraction to a supply-side versus demand-side analogy. This is very astute, but doesn't go far enough. What's been happening in the music industry much longer than thePatrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1075760638401092552004-02-02T12:43:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:09.283-07:00*Another one for the smart and innovative category* A full stocked digital music retailer started by a pair of psychologists is experimenting with dynamic pricing. At MusicRebellion.com prices for well-known tracks start as low as 5 cents (e.g. Blink 182's "Feeling This") or 30 cents (e.g. Outkast's "Hey Ya"), but increase as more people download the track. The price can also decrease as Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1075507872712089762004-01-30T15:39:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:09.159-07:00This is very clever on the part of both KFOG and Apple... "The exclusive digital EP From KFOG to iPod by The Thrills is available now on Apple's iTunes Music Store, less than 36 hours after the band recorded the tracks at a KFOG-FM Emerging Artist Concert...The entire EP can be downloaded for $4.95 or single tracks are available during a limited four-week period for 99 cents each." They've Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1075509876256901542004-01-28T16:24:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:09.221-07:00Lifestyle brand sponsorship of digital music are bubbling over. Three services now have soda pop brand to bootstrap usage in the early stages * OD2 has Coca-Cola and is already live. * iTunes and Pepsi will launch at halftime during Superbowl XXXVIII. * MusicMatch has teamed with Sprite. We've officially entered the primary season for the new retailers. I contend that whoever is unable to Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1075351107878734112004-01-26T08:19:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:09.086-07:00Now this is interesting. Lyor Cohen is leaving Island/Def Jam to take the top spot at Warner. Lyor is an interesting blend: truly opportunistic creativity and the ability to play power games as well as anybody. He had to be remarkably savvy and determined in his youth to end up being a the only white kingpin in the black-dominated rap industry. He's not prefect and had a barely publicized, but Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1074887784893761672004-01-23T19:17:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:08.982-07:00According to Bernhard Warner, the global music industry has only lawsuits, lay-offs, and laziness planned for the year ahead. * They plan more P2P lawsuits: "a zero tolerance philosophy against online piracy will see the industry take its legal clampdown on individual song swappers...to Europe and elsewhere" * With or without consolidation, lay-offs are the only plan to improve margins: "Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1074714058773588142004-01-21T19:30:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:08.922-07:00I'm not sure if the record labels should be happy or not that they can continue their strategy of suing "egregious" file sharers. At the end of last year, ISP's won the privacy of P2P users on their networks. Today the RIAA issued 532 "John Doe" lawsuits where the accused are only identified by IP addresses. Previously, the RIAA claimed a right to get the names of ISP customers before filing the Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1074571787236936662004-01-20T11:07:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:08.865-07:00Let's put the proposed Warner Music Group (WMG) restructuring in perspective. Warner posted revenues of $4.2 billion in 2002 about 10% of its parent company's (TWX) numbers according to the annual report. Let's assume that the $24 billion cost of revenue is proportional across all segments of TWX. That means WMG would have had approximate costs of 2.5 billion. By this estimate Brofman's task Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1074298587463946212004-01-16T20:08:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:08.806-07:00Maybe the guys at Goldman know something I don't (that wouldn't surprise me) but, the increased rating on EMI doesn't make sense. Perhaps it's an after the fact coronation, since, "EMI's stock has soared more than 40 percent since the beginning of the year, bolstered by a report that discounted CD prices pushed UK album sales up 7.6 percent in 2003." If so, it's a sad exhibition of irrational Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1074157203036617592004-01-15T00:58:00.002-08:002006-10-26T17:09:08.691-07:00Geez, wasn't it just yesterday that I was saying the existing industry structure would collapse? I didn't know my blog could be so powerful after just one post ;) Warner Music Warns of 'Significant Restructuring' This isn't the first time a music company has signaled the hatchet man, but usually he comes around after a merger or after a bad quarter, as happened at Warner less than a year ago. Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325445.post-1074030356442933952004-01-14T12:44:00.000-08:002006-10-26T17:09:08.457-07:00Anytime I reveal that I work for a music company, I get a mixture of intrigue and pity in response. When I add that it's a start-up music company, shock and awe get added to the mix. People can't fathom the risk of starting a business in an industry that is imploding under intense margin pressure. And since it is a start-up, I don't even have the glamour of a rock-and-roll lifestyle as Patrick Koppulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14965115801842725875noreply@blogger.com0