Sunday, December 2, 2012

[LINK] Nobody Surfs to Work

Local NYC band The Peculiar Gentlemen have posted a hilarious list of albums I can no longer stand to hear when I'm at the bar. Especially Weezer:
1.  Weezer - The Blue Album
This is a combination of the band becoming douche-bags and douche-bags doing what douche-bags do best.  Weezer only made 2 great records.  This was one of them.  I'm afraid to tell you the other out of fear that they'll ruin that one too.  The Sweater Song isn't witty or cute after the 14 billionth listen.  Buddy Holly isn't associated with that awesome video anymore.  You still haven't learned the correct lyrics to Say It Ain't So.  He lied about his name being Jonah and nobody surfs to work.  Weezer has become everything they set out to defy.  (See also Metallica and Rage Against the Machine)  They were once the anti-hero and now they are the typical run of the mill mainstream mediocrity that douche-bags flock to.
 The rest of the list is just as spot-on: 10 Great Albums Ruined by Douche Bags

Saturday, December 1, 2012

[LINK] The Nature of Internet Monopolies

Faza over at The Cynical Musician has a really interesting post about the nature of online business to tend toward monopolies (Everything, Everywhere, All the Time). You may have heard the phrase "the internet only wants one of everything" recently, and his post explores that concept.

During a recent hearing on the reprehensible IRFA legislation, debate arose about why there's no other online radio service as popular as Pandora. In light of that discussion, here's a bit from Faza on the difficulties of launching a competitive business on the internet in a market dominated by one company (Pandora in this instance, but it just as easily applies to Amazon, Facebook, and Google):

Once we have someone in this position, there’s very little other businesses can do to compete. They can’t sell something that the established power player isn’t selling, ‘coz he is. They can’t go for geographic advantage because there’s no issue of distance on the internet. They cannot hope to sell when the big guy’s closed, ‘coz he’s always open. Their only hope is either to compete on price, which is a race to the bottom (and one could argue that online everyone’s living in silt as it is) or on purchasing experience, which only becomes a factor if they can match the established player’s prices – tricky if you ain’t got the scale to make it up on.

Everything, Everywhere, All the Time at The Cynical Musician