KC Confidential

Why don’t they just buy all the record labels?

Or Paramount and the rest of the movie studios while they’re at it!

That’s the canard we were exposed to again and again and again – that Apple and Spotify, all the distributors – were gonna become producers. So far it hasn’t happened. Because their shareholders would scream. Distribution is a predictable business, creation is a license to lose money.

They’re not in the content business anyway.

At least they didn’t used to be.

Netflix is the progenitor here.

They leveraged a replacement for Blockbuster – DVDs by mail -into a streaming service that was so far ahead of its customers, never mind the industry, that everybody balked. People were pissed they couldn’t get their DVDs by mail and Reed Hastings blinked and kept coming up with new names and new strategies when the truth is he was right to begin with.

You’ve got trust your gut.

That’s what Steve Jobs did – he never used consumer research.

It’s about innovation, new products, which you leverage down the line. That’s how Amazon got into the content business, via Prime. What else could they add to a two-day shipping service in order to get people to subscribe and buy more stuff. And now, Amazon has the Echo, an ecosystem which is driving further innovation and revenue.

WHERE IS THE NEW APPLE PRODUCT???

If you want to talk about music streaming, talk about Spotify and Amazon.

Apple is a zit on the ass of innovation,

It’s coasting on brand name and we’ve seen that movie before.

Are you willing to overpay for a Sony product anymore? Never. Continue reading →

You’re sitting on the couch thinking how much you hate the New England Patriots…

How the whole event seems long in the tooth. That the commercials aren’t funny anymore and Lady Gaga is boring. And you’re just letting it play out, because with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick you just never know.

Then they started to come back.

I remember when the team was a joke, when they were still called the Boston Patriots and their stadium was a suburban dump.

I remember when our nation was shocked when Joe Namath not only predicted a victory, but pulled it off.

I remember when MTV counterprogrammed the halftime show. When all of America was addicted to television and football reigned.

Before the players were revealed to beat up their spouses and an overpaid commissioner in bed with the owners didn’t know how to respond.

Before it was clear that a life in the game meant a hobbled one thereafter – certainly physically, and oftentimes mentally.

Before our whole nation decided they just did not need the NFL anymore and ratings tanked. Continue reading →

I couldn’t watch…

People have been sending me notes all day, about Trump’s speech, about the few people in attendance.

I lived through the election of Nixon. The ’60s had brought so much positive change, we thought it was impossible to retreat. And the truth is, we didn’t.

We’ve got gay marriage.

For now, you can get an abortion.

And believe it or not, in many states marijuana is legal.  Amazing that we had a black president before that, but both were unthinkable back then.

The truth is, socially we live in a very liberal country.

Democratic principles win in the end.

It’s just that the ’60s ended and greed became good and there was a tear in the fabric of our nation far exceeding the gap between hippies and rednecks. It’s between the rich and the poor, and I don’t know how we find our way out of this.

The funny thing is you can be educated and poor – elite in thinking but empty of wallet.

What drove the revolution, what drove change back in the 1960s, was art.

Art is our only savior.

And if you noticed, very few artists wanted to show up at the inauguration.

That’s a start.

Because a true artist has a backbone and will not do what’s expedient, but knows that character is everything. And what you choose not to do is oftentimes just as important as that which you do.

However art has become about money. Continue reading →

This is a classic case of disruption…

And until the Democrats recognize this and change their strategy, they’re doomed.

Talking about the popular vote is no different than record labels saying customers preferred CDs in the era of Napster. Donald Trump won with a new playbook appealing to a broad swath of the public, and until the left wing wakes up and adjusts its plan it will not succeed.

Then there are those who think it’s the same as it ever was.

That shenanigans were employed and all the markers pointing to a sea change don’t apply, because politics never changes. Wrong.

First we had Brexit, then we had Trump. Now people are laughing at the World Economic Forum. The elites lost control and now they keep circling the wagons while telling us they’re right and one would laugh if it weren’t so scary.

Clayton Christensen tells us to beware of servicing the same old audience.

The Democrats decided to appeal to Wall Street and Silicon Valley and took for granted that minorities would vote for them, believing the disadvantaged had no other choice.

Christensen also says the disruptor is laughable at first, inadequate, but it keeps getting better until it triumphs. Donald Trump is laughable, and he continues to be, but he appealed to people who felt they were not being listened to and they voted him into office.

Who were these people? Continue reading →