Ian M Rountree

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A Thought About iTunes Ping

September 17, 2010 by Ian Leave a Comment

Recently, Apple announced the new version of iTunes – iTunes 10. It’s got a lot of upgrades from previous versions – a tweaked, cleaner UI, some nice small changes to layouts and organization – all of these things are good. Yes, even the new icon, which has gotten bashed a bit for being generic and dippy. Hey – I like blue gradients, I don’t have a right to bash the logo.

However, one of the new features iTunes incorporates is what feels like an ad hoc social network, called Ping. Ping allows you to follow people, or musicians – get updates on new albums, things the people you’ve connected with like. I’m all for that, but I have to wonder; is it sustainable?

Ping is a flash in the pan.

I’m not the only one criticizing this. Ping has already been bashed as an inside sales tactic. That’s not my concern (everything is a sales tactic). I’m not even concerned about the system being centralized in iTunes, or being limited in features to half-Twitter, half-Facebook (or maybe all Google Buzz) style features. I don’t even care that it won’t let me blog more effectively.

My concern is breaking the rockstar illusion. Immediately on getting Ping set up, I started following some musicians. U2, for example, who have turned out to be quite vocal, in a mostly positive way. However, after actively checking in on Ping for a few days, I realized something. I don’t really care about musicians.

Don’t get me wrong – I love music.

I just can’t connect with musicians. I sing – I was part of a community chorale for years, and I loved it. I work with musicians daily. However, like economists or farmers, my day to day life has very little to do with the process of promoting music as an art. And that’s really what Ping is for; it’s a social network aimed at promoting music. The kind I like, the kinds my friends like. Forget that I might prefer Satriani to Motorhead, or Grateful Dead to K$sha – taste is important, but one thing’s for sure – and I think this is being overlooked.

I’m probably not the only person in the world who prefers to follow music, not musicians.

Anyone – even my friends – foisting their favorite band in my direction is likely to get indifference before interest.

But then, I wasn’t into MySpace either. And that’s who Ping really goes after – not bloggers or Twitter enthusiasts. So maybe I’m just the wrong audience.

And audience is important for music to be appreciated. Am I right?

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: apple, flash in the pan, itunes, music, ping, social-networks

How Trance DJs got Social Business Right Ten Years Early

May 27, 2010 by Ian 1 Comment

First there were the Grateful Dead. Then there was Phish. From rock and roll, bluegrass and folk music, to grunge, punk and hard rock – even through to electronica, techno and other sub-genres, there have always been superstars. These few, lucky groups and artists have done for years – decades – what businesses now are just beginning to address as a powerful form of community building. They’ve created and fostered the mythical superfan – and they did it by the hundreds, sometimes by the thousands.

The idea of musicians having a culture isn’t a new one, but in the late nineties, the idea of professional musicians playing pre-produced musicwent from big to huge. Entire sub-cultures popped up in electronic music. Jungle, house, trip hop – dozens of varieties. Each had its own following, but one of the larger groups which has had the most visible bleed into the world stage at large has to be Trance. Melodic, heavily blended music has an effect on a wider majority of people in certain settings than other forms of audible entertainment do. Because of this, and the charisma of the DJ culture, trance music has sustained a wider following longer than many of the other zeitgeist artforms of the early oughties.

How does this apply to successful business? Simple; the forms used in every single set, by just about every successful trance DJ can be transferred to the business patterns of many successful businesses.

First, choose your venue.

Very few DJs choose larger houses or stadiums to play in. They know their business, they know the kinds of environment they want to foster. Smaller clubs, encouraging exclusivity and personal connection are a mainstay of the DJs weapons of presentation.

Next, you play with the crowd.

You won’t see too many DJs failing to move along with the music. They dress like their crowd does, move like the crowd does and, on the rare occasions they speak to the crowd, it’s with a We’re All in This Together tone. The DJ is bringing the crowd along for a ride, and the crowd loves it. The separation from behind the decks to down on the dance floor is physical, but not – as in other performance environments – emotional or even spiritual. there’s a different kind of connection beind made.

Learn the power of the build-up.

If a trance set lasts two hours, you can be certain the first fifteen minutes will be almost a third the volume of the remaining show. One of the hallmarks of trance is a slow progression from melodic to heart-pounding speed. Some tunes range from as few as 60bpm up to 300bpm – a massive change to address. A good DJ knows how to play with the pace of the sound, to make sure everyone pays attention, and no one notices the shift. When the whole dance floor is moving at the same pace, the change from 60bpm to 300bpm will be more emotional than audible.

Find the transition point.

A 12 inch record lasts about twelve minutes. That’s not a lot of time, really, considering the pace at which the music moves. Often, with the exception of the first record played, there are as many as four minutes of overlap between tracks – which means four minutes of two songs playing over each other, four minutes focused on a single tune, and four more minutes to get into the next tune before a record runs out. Any DJ worth her salt will study her music, know every beat, and know exactly where to make the change. The music never stops often the audience is completely unaware of the complex dance being performed and, if you’ve done your job right, every piece matches up perfectly. Two hours begins to feel like forever – until it’s over. Then it feels like it wasn’t nearly enough.

Enjoy the Silence.

When the best shows end, there’s often a moment of stunned, confused silence in the crowd. Hearts are pounding, faces are flushed. The tension between DJ and crowd – and, depending on the venue, within the crowd itself – can be staggering to witness. the crowd wants more, and the DJ is withholding… Until the next show. The DJ knows, as will many of the veteran participants, that this is the best part of the entire night. The transaction is over.

If you make yourself aware enough, just as the dancing stops, you can look out over the crowd and watch the faces. It’s easy to see who’s enjoyed the show, who’s ready to leave, and who can still hear the music.

Do you see who can still hear the music? Those smiling fools, barely keeping still, too excited to look around, eyes glazed in wonder over what just happened. Flushed, still by force of will only, ready to jump back into the swing at a moment’s notice. The ones whose eyes scream Encore une fois! barely contained.

If you’re aware enough to pay attention and properly identify these faces, see these few lucky people for who they are, you’ve just done something businesses everywhere have been scrambling over themselves to do for the last few years.

You’ve just witnessed the birth of a superfan.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: music, social business, social media, trance

The Album People vs The Radio People

December 2, 2009 by Ian Leave a Comment

Which would you rather listen to? Radio, or a CD? Sounds like an easy question, but it’s not. Like all questions of preference, nuance and reason are more important than answer.

Way back when the iPod Shuffle came out, some colleagues and I were trying to figure out who would buy them. No screen, limited space, limited controls. Five generations of iPod and they’re still around, as are any other number of cutrate mp3 players and digital audio devices. But who buys them?

It comes down to Albums versus Radio.

We figured that there’s an element of build-in serendipity with Shuffles and other screenless players that’s very like the radio. You hit play, it shuffles, and there’s something new every time. You hand over control to the machine and go from there.

Screened audio players have the same function, but we noticed it got used a lot less often. This is why we figured album people liked them – when you buy a CD, you get the track list, there are liner notes. You’re in control of what you hear and when, because you can navigate. It’s not a rejection of serendipity, but it is to an extent an exertion of control over a set medium.

Sort of an interesting correlation, I think. Lots of people make the choice to allow for more or less serendipity and surprise in their lives. Why should music be any exception to the rule?

Which do you figure you are? An album, or a radio person?

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: commentary, metahuman, music

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