We’re moving closer to performers getting royalties on radio airplay. I’m of a bit of a mixed mind on this. On one hand, it doesn’t strike me as fair that they get a pass that Internet and Satellite Radio do not and I am not entirely unsympathetic to artists wanting a piece of the pie. On the other hand, in the fact of the alternatives (CDs, MP3s, etc) I have to start wondering how much more music radio can take. The number of commercials they have to run to support dwindling listenership and a weaker ad-market is already enough to make listening to the radio no longer worth it. Will radio be left with nothing else but talk and sporting events?

Is Steve Jobs right about Android? Is it really a case of fragmented/integrated rather than open/closed? For the general market, he could well be. That depresses me a good deal. Fragmentation sucks, but if you don’t want from a smartphone what Steve Jobs wants to give you, you’re really SOL. A lot of people, it would seem, don’t mind being told what they should want.

Speaking of Smartphones, it’s my hope that when Windows Phone 7 comes out, that it will eat into iPhone sales since that’s what they’re trying to emulate. It’s my fear that it will eat into Android, the only platform that resembles Windows Mobile, my smartphone OS of choice.

Yet another reason to hate the Comic Sans font. Actually, I don’t personally hate the font. Or, at least, I haven’t until people got the message to stop using it for everything. Even so, the results of the research paper are kind of weird.

How a San Fransisco lawyer is making a career out of abusing the Americans with Disabilities Act. Of course, the law is the law and so maybe it’s not “abuse”, per se, but it’s not unlike a former State Representative in Delosa who would find “no guns allowed” signs that didn’t meet with the most precise of regulations (such as the font-size being two-points too small or the word “allowed” being left off or the strikethrough circle (that thingie on the Ghostbusters insignia) touching the lettering. Anyhow, the state rep used to do it to get arrested and then cry fowl. At least he was working off principle, though, however retarded he was about it.

The secret to having happy employees is to fire the unhappy ones. This goes beyond simply manipulating the numbers. Unhappy employees can really be rather toxic. I’ve seen it myself.

John Robb on how Facebook and its kin may be undermining the future of software developers.


Category: Elsewhere, Newsroom

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8 Responses to Linkluster XXXI

  1. Kirk says:

    Regarding the guy who fired “unhappy” employees, I suspect the guy just fired anyone who didn’t worship him enough, and everyone else just fell into line. We have a lot of that at my company. Our plant manager eliminated anyone who wasn’t a “team player,” so now management is mostly populated by bootlickers, with a few “true-believers” thrown into the mix.

    Of the two groups, it’s the true-believers who are the scary ones. Absolutely brainless, they will believe (and do) anything the boss says. Looking at these people, it’s no wonder cults have no problem getting recruits.

  2. Mike Hunt says:

    Performers SHOULD get royalties for their radio airplay. The radio station is making money from the performance, it only makes sense that the performers should get to wet their beaks as well.

    The firings will continue until morale improves.

    Obviously Jay Goltz is a retard. If you have unhappy employees, then make them happy.

    This goes to my theory that companies do not want the best employees; they want the most pleasant employee who meets the minimal qualification of the job.

  3. Maria says:

    Our plant manager eliminated anyone who wasn’t a “team player,” so now management is mostly populated by bootlickers, with a few “true-believers” thrown into the mix.

    LOL, I’ve seen that too. That is why most medium-sized or large corps. are not that much better or more efficient than the government.

  4. rob says:

    The Android vs. iPhone is another case of what I think I’ll call the engineering agency problem. It’s happened at least twice, so it needs a name. Google is mostly engineers, smart ones. I heard that for a while they only hired EEs with like 3.5+ GPAs. What wouldn’t an engineer love about the droid? It’s like Linux on a phone! Besides engineers and computer folk, not many people want to deal with Linux. The iPhone just works. Applers go to App store and all the apps are useful! The iPhone isn’t hideous! See the exclamation points? Engineers hate those!

    I’ve started using “designed by engineers” for products that work, but have awkward interfaces, uncomfortable shapes…Trumwill, in your eternal war against the LED, you are the victim of engineers designing products. Also, why do want the windows phone to hurt iPhone sales?

  5. trumwill says:

    Regarding employers, I think that you have to strike a medium somewhere between the former employer I had that thought that anyone that objected to database records of restroom breaks had an attitude problem and the former employer that allowed unappeasable discontents to ruin the office atmosphere.

  6. trumwill says:

    Performers SHOULD get royalties for their radio airplay. The radio station is making money from the performance, it only makes sense that the performers should get to wet their beaks as well.

    The publicity can help a performer and/or label out a lot. Back before they cracked down on it, money went in the other direction from labels to radio stations because it was great advertising. The government has to step in and stop the money from flowing in that direction. I suspect that in a free negotiation where the radio stations were allowed to demand money for songs to be played on their stations and the labels were allowed to demand money for their songs being played… the former would win out.

    My concerns are more practical, though. Force standardized payments and you’re encouraging radio stations to play only those songs that are already hits. Less experimentation, more repetition, and so on. It’s already a problem in the eyes of many and likely to get worse. And I think there’s a chance of seeing more and more radio stations foregoing music altogether (another thing likely to happen anyway, but something this will exacerbate).

  7. Mike Hunt says:

    The publicity can help a performer and/or label out a lot.

    That is the oldest excuse in the book. Whenever someone wants you to take less money and they are acting like they are doing you a favor, hold on to your wallet… you are about to get screwed.

    Regarding your concerns about less exposure for new music, I have to admit that it doesn’t concern me. If there was never any more new music, it wouldn’t bother me in the least. I admit I have a minority opinion in this matter.

  8. trumwill says:

    Rob, I want Windows Phone sales to eat into iPhone sales because I want Android to do well and I don’t want the iPhone to do as well (comparatively speaking). The WinPhone is patterned off the iPhone, so if it replaces Android as the number 2 (outside the business market), then my options are the iPhone and something seeking too much to emulate it.

    I am relatively indifferent to the “openness” of Android except insofar as what it allows me to do that I can’t do on WinPho and iPhone and it allows me options that the latter don’t. I have a handful of things I want to be able to do (that Windows Mobile has let users do since the middle of last decade) and if a closed platform gives me those options, all the better!

    Instead, Steve Jobs has declared what I want from a phone to be irrelevant. So that puts us in adversarial positions. I want a physical keyboard. I want more than one physical button. I want to be able to watch divx videos and stop/start it without taking the phone out of my pocket. These things are difficult to impossible on the iPhone. The WinPhone hits closer to the mark with divx fileplay and more buttons, but they still mandate the number of available buttons and I suspect that remapping the buttons will not be possible.

    Ultimately, though, since the WinPhone and iPhone are serving the same market (people who want things that “just work” and are willing to sacrifice flexibility to that end) I want them to share that same market. I don’t want them to expand that market into mine, which cares about the ability to do more stuff.

    I am relatively indifferent to Linux, on the whole. It’s too flexible at the expense of getting anything to work without endless experimentation or having to read books on how to get it to work. But I also don’t like the Mac, which limits hardware range and flexibility. Windows is the helpful medium between the two. I like the existence of the other two (particularly the Mac) because it keeps Microsoft on its toes, but they command a small portion of the desktop/laptop market. I would like the iPhone to operate in a similar capacity. Instead, they’re sucking the oxygen out of the room and making things difficult for the rest of us. This wouldn’t be a problem if they were succeeding on the basis on working to give customers what they want. Instead, they’re succeeding on the basis of telling customers what they want. A problem for people like me, who wants certain things whether Steve Jobs thinks I should or not.

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