Died, at 72, in New York, Neil Postman, NYU professor and media critic. His Amusing Ourselves to Death has been on my shelf for many years, and is a fine, principled critique of the devastation of public discourse by the mass media, which I fondly hope this medium may help repair. The irony of his departure on the heels of the California recall election is profound.
10:33:00 PM    

OK, you non-CA types can skip this one, unless you're planning a visit, in which case: Welcome tourista!

Some nice bits up on the Sonoma coast:

• Renting a house at The Sea Ranch. A bit too homogenous to entertain the idea of living there, but just the thing for unplugging for a few days. Not cheap, but nice. Due to a long ago coastal access controversy, the place is laced with both public and private hiking trails. Sort of like Cornwall, with wine and blackberries besides. (Unfortunately, most of the berries were not yet ripe this year. The coast has its own timeline.)
• The Annapolis Winery. The 2001 Gewurz is likely gone, we bagged one of the last four cases. But there are other good vintages and a beautiful drive.
• The Gualala Hotel restaurant. Not as well known as the faux-Russian St. Orres, but it'll get there. Well designed and prepared dishes with fresh, crisp flavors. And it's a genuine old-timey hotel and bar from 100 years ago. (You Europeans quit snickering, I can hear that! We have a history shortage here.)
• The King's Ridge Road in the Sonoma backcountry north of Cazadero. Not for long wheel base vehicles! The beauty of the coast is well known, but most travelers miss the more subtle attractions of the grass and oak lands of the interior ranges. Stunning views into Gualala and Russian River basins. Watch out for cattle (and cow pies) on the road!
• Wild Flour Bakery in Freestone (scroll down). Artisan breads from brick ovens. Sticky bun, Egyptian, sunflower seed. Trust me.
• Cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station, their own and Bellweather Farms' Carmody. (See the same article as above. Try that, some Wild Flour bread, wine, and a Sonoma sunset. It doesn't get any better. One of the reasons for putting up with ridiculous prices and politics here.

9:33:12 PM    

Pre-announces, actually. Redline Communications of Canada says it will show its first 'WiMax' product offering in November. Intel, Fujitsu, and others are hot on their heels, likely to release in Q1 next year, so Redline has a few short months to try and exploit an early release.
6:34:01 PM    

Speaking of Don Park, here are a couple of good posts he made while I was off loafing:

A reply to my own screed on the exaggerated importance of metadata aka the Semantic Web. I do want to make it clear I am not at all blasting the use of RSS, RDF, or what have you for the sake of better systems integration, and capturing structural information that is there anyway. Starry eyed notions of semantic nirvana and a kumbaya data commons are not going to get a pass, however. More anon, once I've unloaded some more spleen on the RIAA.

Don also has a wise post on the non-death of e-mail. What he said. Without getting into a lot of details, I and the team here spent a year and more thrashing through the whole e-mail investment opportunity space. Augmented e-mail. E-mail and enterprise app integration. Alternative e-mail platforms. Etc. And ended up with the D'Oh! realization that people will most reliably pay to fix up something they already know, rather than changing their way of work or life. Hence this investment, which right now is the champ in our portfolio. So I do have an axe to grind here, but I think the market is on my and Don's side.
3:31:28 PM    

Another for your collection, if you haven't yet seen it. Ferocious posting rate, largely news driven. It's hosted on blog-city, so expect slow response at times. Also, the archives seem to be partially messed up, click through from the calendar navigator to get old posts.

Try this useful post on grid computing. I guess I don't get it either. Unless you've got a problem that naturally decomposes into distributable chunks that don't need coordination, grid computing means that you're comparing the continually dropping costs of rack-mounted commodity servers with the costs of tearing out and rearchitecting the backbone of an enterprise network to support synchronous, high bandwidth traffic. I think someone once told me that costs were minimized by keeping interconnect as low in the architectural stack as possible. Was that law repealed and I missed it?
3:07:56 PM    

There's more to come in our business analysis of the future of music, but I wanted to take one post for my own summary of the consequences for individual action of Kevin Law's analysis of the industry.

1. Preferrably, boycott the RIAA labels and acts entirely, and let the industry collapse of its own weight and ineptness. If you need any more reasons, try this. There are lots of non-label acts, festivals, concerts, CDs and MP3s available. The production isn't as slick, but you can find astonishing quality, and have the satisfaction of putting the money straight into the artists' hands.
2. If you feel you must patronize label acts, buy digital tracks online, and hasten the decay of the the channel for physical media embodiments of music. Apple and Dell Computer may have their own issues at time, but they pale in comparison to the corrupting influence of the RIAA.
3. If you really need tangible media, buy online. A virtual channel like Amazon is quite capable of adapting its business model to selling digital tracks, and won't fight the vicious rearguard actions of the physical channel. Update: Or, as Tom Walker writes to suggest: "...buy from small independent used stores.  That way we keep small businesses running, and our money doesn't get back to the RIAA since they already got their profits from the initial buy."
4. If you really must buy a CD in a real store, go to Wal-Mart. Help collapse the influence of Tower Records and other music specialists that are holding back the industry. While you're at it, consider moving your video business to Netflix or another online source. Kevin's analysis makes it clear that the Tower's of the world are near the root of the music industry's retrograde tendencies. Let the air out of their tires.

2:00:40 PM    

This idea's too good to stay dead, in spite of political correctness. A good post and lots of intelligent commentary at the Brothers Judd.

Via The Prof
1:41:51 PM    

Guest blogger Kevin Laws, former music industry consultant and current venture capitalist, returns with another installment of his industry analysis: a tale of channel conflict.

The music industry resists online distribution not because it has too much power, but because it has too little. Failing retailers are holding them hostage.

Previously, we covered the reasons the music industry is in such dire straits. The music distributors used the contracts with big-name stars to exercise control over the distribution channels. This all changed when Wal-Mart and other big box retailers showed up and turned the tables. They only carry the biggest hits, but not many new acts. So much music is sold through Wal-Mart and its brethren that they are weakening the industry's ability to create new artists.

The most logical answer to this problem is online distribution. This solves both problems Wal-Mart created. The labels would again have the ability to create bottoms-up buzz by having new artists available at the same place you get your top hits. The labels could also take advantage of media buzz by having the record available for sale as soon as you want to buy it - online, there's no chance of your local store not carrying the title.

On top of that, the economics are very good for the labels. One study I did for a major music distributor concluded that when you purchased a CD for $17.99 at Tower Records, the record label only got $3 - $5. Out of that, they paid the artist and their own expenses and profit. Count the additional sales you could get for a lower price, and the label makes more money from an online price of $3.99 than a store price of $17.99.

The music companies were ecstatic - this solved their Wal-Mart problem at a stroke. In a private conversation, the head of one of the major music companies said that he'd love to get out of the physical distribution business - he hated the headaches of manufacturing and distribution, and knew that it put a huge gap in between what consumers pay and what the labels receive.

Online distribution to the rescue... not

For those of you who think the industry was blindsided by online distribution and just didn't know what they were doing, check out the press from 1993. Long before Netscape put the web at everybody's fingertips, the industry was already talking about the potential for online distribution and the threat to the existing system. That year, IBM and Blockbuster teamed to create an online distribution initiative for the industry. To start, they were going to put PCs in each store that could burn any CD instantly.

The effort was killed by 1994. Major music companies announced they wouldn't allow the system to carry their titles. The trade magazine Variety claimed it was an ego issue - IBM announced the venture without coordinating with the major players in the industry. (See the article in Variety - reg req'd)

The real story was different: the retailers killed it. If you can buy every CD ever made at a kiosk sitting in a store, then every retail store in the world is also a music store. All investments in music outlets across the nation are worthless and everybody is a competitor.

Major retailers hinted that they would boycott most titles from any distributor that supported the initiative. They were threatening to hit the labels exactly where it hurt the most; the music companies get their money by making retailers promote their new artists.

Since online distribution was too small to care about in 1993, the labels caved.

BMG tried to jump in again later by investing in Napster, and was sued for it. Universal tried to reduce prices a few months ago, but quietly made the program optional when faced with resistance from the retailers. Even while dying, the music retailers can still throw around their weight to keep the recording industry in line.

Between rock (and roll) and a hard place...

The industry is trapped. Any defector embracing online distribution will be unable to put new artists on the shelves. The complete lack of meaningful initiatives from the distributors allowed Napster, Kazaa, and others to flourish.

The labels want some form of online distribution, and will support it publicly when the retailer threat loses its teeth. The first time an artist becomes as financially successful as Britney Spears outside the traditional system, the labels will no longer need the retailers.

When that happens, the big 5 companies music companies will finally enter the 21st century. They will most likely find new competitors have already staked out the territory when they arrive.
1:02:59 PM    

I'm joining others on the record (and out of step with the Bay Area.) Though Don Park suspected that I was an Arnold supporter back in early September, at the time I was in fact a backer of Ueberroth, as the most experienced manager of large and fraught public enterprises. Alas, he had the charisma of a turnip and wisely bowed out. [Update: Turns out that Don was pro-Terminator as well!]

So why Arnold? Well, Davis didn't make the power crisis, or the economic down cycle, but he and the Democratic controlled legislature made both of them far worse. The power crisis showed their profound suspicion of, and ineptness with, market mechanisms. They were jointly responsible for not only spending the one-time, capital gains driven surpluses of the late '90s, but building them into the base budget of the state, in a fashion transparently driven by payoff to the special interests that backed Davis' campaigns. In both cases, when the crisis came, Davis did not have the courage, or likely even an interest in offending the special interests to solve the problem. He's out, and well deserved. Bustamante was too obviously a continuation of the same bought-and-paid for politics that got us here.

Thus, in spite of reservations over his lack of experience, Arnold. I'll take a proven successful CEO, lacking domain experience, over a hack promising nothing but the same failed policies. At the worst we get gridlock, and that will be better than spending like a drunken sailor. At the best, we get a tectonic shift in California politics. I must also confess an intense amusement at watching the TV newscritters all but spitting in public last night, and seeing the same in print today.

So for a change in the regular blog fodder at this locale, here's some amateur political analysis on what just happened:

It must be a really interesting morning in both the state and national headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties. This could be a one-off, but it could be the beginning of a sea change.

The exit polling results show clearly that the Democrats lost large chunks of constituencies they counted as swinging their way: women, Latinos, union members. Many seem driven by the same fed-up sentiments I just articulated. Arnold is either an instinctive communicator, or extremely well advised. He spoke directly to that sentiment over the heads of the media and special interests. There's no reason to belief that savvy will be lost once in office and that Arnold will fail (like Bush) to clearly and repeatedly articulate where he wants to go and why. The first conundrum is for the Cal Dems: Will they aid Arnold or thwart him? Aid, and annoy the special interests, particularly the unions, and the socialist left. Thwart, and risk having the new swing voting bloc take further vengeance in the 2004 state elections.

The national Dems must also be chewing their nails. They rolled out all of their heavy iron, from Willy to Babs, and it didn't take. Special interests, shrill campaigning, and gotcha politics were thrown back in their face, in one of the largest and most liberal states of the union. There's a reasonable chance that shows there's a much larger than usual centrist bloc loose in the national 2004 scene, and their primary season seems lined up to produce more of what just lost in California.

The Cal Republicans are also nursing a hangover, though a bit more cheerfully. We just got a demonstration that a centrist, socially moderate Republican can win big-time in California. Arnold got half the total vote. Add in McClintock, and avowed Republicans took almost 2/3 of the vote. Astonishing. But the real message is the proof, for all to see, that the religious hard-right faction of the Republican party has been keeping them out of office, and that its effective control over the party's candidates and platform must (and now can) be ended, along with its obvious self-destruction. It will be an interesting show to watch.

For the national Republicans, they will now have to stretch the tent to include a pro-choice, pro-environment Arnold and a lot of little Kennedy stepchildren. The message is too loud to be ignored, and it will be good for them, some frothing from the rightist pundits aside. And Bush's folks ought to be out here raiding Arnold's media team right now.
11:40:29 AM