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Hey, halfvast.org is still available Just learned about this fun quote site from HalfEmpty. My fave so far: "Resistance is useless! (If < 1 ohm)." a la carte The Napster proposal to the record companies, reported in yesterday's New York Times, is a move in the Nielsenian direction. Jakob has caught a lot of shit for his advocacy of micropayments. But ultimately, that's what we all want. It's the tip jar system Courtney love talks about. Maybe not exactly as she expresses it, but close enough. According to the Times, Napster proposes charging $4.95/month to users, and sharing 70-80% of those revenues with the record companies, which reportedly (and stupidly) want no part of the deal. It's a sell-out, of course, but it's the first time Napster has suggested behaving like the real marketplace (example: eBay) which it has enormous potential to become.
Speaking as one consumer who would rather be a customer, I But the content distribution media have no interest in becoming a la carte utilities. The cable companies like the zero-infrastructure accounting convenience of their meat-and-potatoes subscription model, plus the advertising gravy that comes with it. The broadcasters make their money entirely from advertising, and have no interest in microserving, much less doing business with, the tube-addicted masses they call consumers. Napster is different. It's more a market than a medium. It's a place you go to, not a tube stuff goes through. The peer-to-peer nature of Napster begs a new vocabulary. Crossloading, for example, is a far better word for what we do on Napster than downloading. On the supply side, I would love to put a copy Danny Gatton's Cruisin' Deuces in my Napster and Gnutella folders, and have people pay for crossloading them. On the demand side, I'd love to pay for the same privilege. Why not? So let's do it. Does this put them in the dead pool? Looks like Fast Company lost its sense of humor. New! Edible Currency! I just like that headline. Thought it kind of went with the venture community's policy of full employment for wacky entrepreneurs. Just kidding. Sort of.
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