Have you heard enough yet?

Darn, I’ve really been neglecting this blog… I don’t blame anyone for bailing if so inclined. I think that after 5 years of discussing social media at IBM, I’ve hit a spot where I’ve lost some of my oomph in regard to talking about it all. Don’t get me wrong, we are extremely active still and having a ball. Still tons of creative freedom, and always learning through doing and from the greater online community. I have just become sick of hearing myself wax poetic.

So what does this self-aware dilettante do whenever he gets bored? Launches another project. Yes, we are rocking through some cool Smarter Planet activities on YouTube and on the Smarter Planet blog, but I got the itch to do something personal again. Tired of LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace (but still having fun on Twitter I must say), I have a new podcast and blog. It’s called A Pop Diary. Available on iTunes, through Feedburner, and on the blog, this is a music-related show that I plan to nurture over the course of the coming year or two (that’s about as accurate as I can guess based on my historically given attention span).

So please stop by. I will only be interviewing people I truly adore musically and will try my best to make it fresh and unexpected. I want to talk about the ‘now’ and dig into the finer points of what makes my guests tick. I want it to be informative, positive and not dig into the past at all. Sort of a diary entry in regard to whare these folks are in their lives now, what they have learned and like to practice, along with a slice of who they are and what they love. I hope you like it.

Maybe I’ll get back some steam here soon… def will be distracted the next few months.

Media minus subscription

Seems there is quite a bit of focus these days on subscription-enabled media publishing as the norm.  As my MySpace page continues to increase in traffic, I wondered about the pages of my friends and the kinds of visitor numbers they were receiving.

I should point out here that I went to High School with a number of very musical people.  Many seem to be on MySpace such as Mike Milazzo, John Andriani, Lee Feldman, Michael Shelley, Philip Shelley, Josh Brown, Dan Garcia, and more.  Their visitor numbers are strong for relatively unknown artists.  I began pondering why I, a podcast enthusiast/educator and evangelist, am still on MySpace…

Well, I LIKE that many of my friends are on MySpace.  I like the somewhat standardized way I can quickly sort through their pages to find out what’s new and where they will be playing, how they are feeling, who has found them etc.  It is so much faster than clicking around on a custom web site, and adds so much more of a personal touch than my feed reader would if I were just subscribing to the audio or video content alone.

My point is this…  subscription is often best employed when you are certain that the media you are sharing can do most of the work for your desired goal.  If you want to add other, sometimes valuable elements, consider another approach.  Something simple, something that has a quick and user-friendly design with a few really strong secondary elements. 

Let’s face it, subscription is still not the holy grail many thought it would be. I’ve seen a few Twitter posts over the last two days from friends ‘cleaning out’ their feed readers and comparing it to sock drawer maintenance.  Subscription is embraced by a select group, but many others surfers want more.  They want to find out more about who you are, how you are doing, what you look like, who your friends are, what your interests are, they want to comment, hear back from you, network.  This is social media and it is still something that is finding new fans.  It ain’t always only about subscription. 

Making iTunes work for me

So, they did it.  iTunes became the top music retailer today.  A sad thing for me, a child of the 7” singles era, but no great surprise.  I have only just begun to shop there and have only just learned how to make it work for me.

Although I am now in posession of my 7th portable media device over the last 10 years, I have only just recenty succumbed to making content purchases on iTunes.  How have I made it through the past decade without performing online content purchases?  Well, I have a massive collection of CD’s and I record a ton of content on TV, specifically Late-Night talk show music guests.  Transferring that treasure trove into my devices has been a great experience over the years, but the novelty is wearing thin. I’m getting sick of my physical collection.

So why iTunes? Well, for one, I’ve moved to consuming all of my content on a Nano and an iPhone (sorry good old Zune).  Nano for the car, iPhone for all other times.  This, naturally, has me managing my content in iTunes… the temptaion is there to buy… they got me with their sexy little devices.  But it was a horrible experience attempting to learn how to shop on iTunes in a way that works for me.  Like, I would say a three month learning curve.  It was exhausing and frustrating.  I wondered if I would ever get to like it at all.  It is simply not built for people like me, the ones who spend an hour in the CD shop going through every single bin hunting for that one true gem.  It was designed for mass consumption of mediocre label-driven hit artists.  Surely, just like the CD shop, I could figure out how to get around the end-displays and find the gold, right?

Well, I finally found my groove.  It requires some patience and is not what I would wish for the ultimate experience, but it’s working for me right now.  Here’s how I attack…

1) I’ve learned to love shopping for only the one-to-three songs per album that I would ever have listened to if I had purchased the full CD anyway.  I look at it as saving big $ per album with the single tunes only costing a very fair .99 apiece.

2) I have tapped into the free podcast offerings and have been pleasantly surprised.

3) I’m enjoying the free cable TV programs, and have even purchased a few TV shows – perfect length and mood for a short train ride into Manhattan.

4) Movies on my iPhone have become a regular thing.  I have not rented yet, but silly films (ones that do not require the full movie screen IMO) for $10 is perfect, plus my kids can watch them too when they want.  Hot Rod is a perfect example.  Who would go to a theater for that?

5) Search works, recommendations works, the library of music is extensive, and artists with long and varied careers can be mined very effectively. 

6) I dig the ‘recently added’ and ‘new’ functions on certain pages.

There you have it.  I’m one of the folks who has made the move.  I openly admit it.  I am not ashamed.

Is music social? Yes.

I just read a fantastic article in Wired written by David Byrne, former leader of the Talking Heads.  In it, he dissects the music industry and the way in which digital distribution has changed everything.  It is fascinating for me, a former musician, to look at how a successful industry insider views the various ways artists join forces with labels, publishers and distributors.  More in line with this blog, his description of what music is grabbed me.  From his opening:

What is music?
First, a definition of terms. What is it we’re talking about here? What exactly is being bought and sold? In the past, music was something you heard and experienced — it was as much a social event as a purely musical one. Before recording technology existed, you could not separate music from its social context. Epic songs and ballads, troubadours, courtly entertainments, church music, shamanic chants, pub sing-alongs, ceremonial music, military music, dance music — it was pretty much all tied to specific social functions. It was communal and often utilitarian. You couldn’t take it home, copy it, sell it as a commodity (except as sheet music, but that’s not music), or even hear it again. Music was an experience, intimately married to your life. You could pay to hear music, but after you did, it was over, gone — a memory. 

It all just keeps coming back to the social.  It is in our DNA.  It is an important part of what so many of us desire and seek.

If his quote or article grabs you, be certain to listen to the ‘lunch conversation’ audio between Byrne and Brian Eno.  Links are on the article pages.  I’m a massive Eno fan, and this was an extra bonus that I found to be remarkable.