Dimen Designs

Sufjan Stevens at the Kennedy Center

Free tickets for Sufjan Stevens playing at the Kennedy Center, sounded like a great idea. We arrived an hour early for the 9-10am ticket release on Saturday and saw this:

Hmmm, guess an hour earlier was a bit optimistic. Turns out that people had camped out for these tickets and the line was like one of the sneaky lines at an amusement park that loops and snakes around so many times that you never know how long its actually going to take before getting on the ride.

Except at the Kennedy Center, the line looped back and forth right out in the open, making it difficult to how desperate the situation really was. That entire space to the left of the building was full of people waiting in line.

We didn't get tickets and it seems that most people didn't either (see DCist's coverage). These free tickets for Sufjan Stevens are now on Craigslist, with many offering exorbitant prices to purchase tickets from the Lucky few who arrived before sunrise.

In honor of Randy Cohen and Jason's Ethicist posts, here's my ethical question: With tickets you acquired for free, is it all right to scalp those tickets for $200 or $300?

Snarky Post of the Week, #2: American Idol "Sucking" Sound

Just reading the BW's Bloggspotting column about a political polling company before going to bed and after following various links, came across this gem (emphasis added):

"...And so we begin season six with what I’ve read will be twelve weeks of cattle calls, before we get to the good stuff...A montage of suck from America’s Heartland follows...One more montage of suck, and we’re off to the Seattle audition...A final montage of suck for the week, and we’re out. God, I hate this show."

May the snarkiness of the blogosphere never die!

Snarky Post of the Week: MS vs Wikipedia

Given the tech blogosphere's hullabaloo over a Mircosoft employee allegedly suggesting that a XML expert change the Wikipedia entry on Open XML, this week’s snarky post comes from that MS employee himself (emphasis added):

“Call Microsoft evil if you must, but in this case it's Doug Mahugh you're talking about. PR didn't know I contacted Rick. Hell, my own manager didn't know, although it seems likely he knows by now. You're talking about my actions alone, so I think my opinion is relevant. And in my opinion, the premise of this thread is a lie.” (Slashdot)

Seems like much ado about nothing from this post but everyone else seems to be using this as another reason to demonize MS. I may not be the biggest MS fan but if the MS employee, as a private citizen who's passionate about Open XML and acted solely on his own (without company encouragement) suggested that a Wikipedia entry post was biased and could use some adjusting, I see no foul.

Add in the fact that the MS employee himself didn't change the post because he believed that this action might smell of impropriety (given that he works for MS) and I have to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. As the evidence stands now, I think he took a reasonable enough action and don't see the big harm in him suggesting that a colleague well-versed in this technical topic review and perhaps adjust the language around a biased or opinionated Wikipedia entry.

Side note: Used the relaunched Google Images (I like the the new image mouseover highlight and size info, eliminates having the view the actual image to know how large or small it actually is) to track down the images I used to make the graphic above. And here's today's tip, don't ever image search for "Wikipedia," you'll receive really strange results.

Free the Music: Are Record Labels Finally Getting It?

  fu 
  Originally uploaded by cherbert.

Whether is was Lessig, folks like Cory or EFF, Mike at Techdirt, or even an insider like Bob Leftsetz, the opinion that the music industry should adopt DRM free music (if only for the reason that DRM is an oxymoron at best and is really dead) is long standing.

What's changed now is that we're hearing rumblings of change, FINALLY, from the mainstream music industry. Several indie labels are banding together to flex the power usually reserved to the big four record labels.

And now a mainstream media lsource this NYT article are joining the bandwagon by reporting that the music industry is now actually thinking about (not yet implementing it yet, I'll believe it when I see it) allowing consumers to purchase DRM-free music so that we can listen/consume music the ways we want, where we want, and when we want.

Amazing, the music industry now thinking of customers first and what we want.  We'll pay for music but get rid of the DRM. Listening to your customers and having customer service is simple but not easy (see my post yesterday about the importance of transparency when delivering great customer service).

For far too long the music industry has been combating digital music rather than embracing it. Let's hope the long overdue death of the DRM Sacred Cow is close to coming true.

The Colonoscopy Effect

If you give a crap happiness then you’ll love this section from a recent Economist article on economics discovering its feelings (emphasis added):

Mr. Kahneman’s most notorious experiment took place in a Toronto hospital over a decade ago. He and a colleague asked patients undergoing a colonoscopy (in which a probe is passed up the rectum) [this is actually in the article, no kidding] to report their level of discomfort minute by minute. Later, they were asked how they felt about the procedure in retrospect. Their answers were surprising. The test left a worse impression on patient A, for whom it lasted less than ten minutes, than on patient B, who suffered for 24 minutes. Patients’ recollections were heavily coloured by the procedure’s worst moment and its last moment. The duration of pain did not seem to make much difference. Patients were happier about a colonoscopy that lasted longer but ended better.

Why did I highlight this? Well, for several reasons. First, it’s funny. No, having a colonoscopy is not fun but talking about in this context is funny.

Second and more important, we’re researching the topic of issue resolution at work and this example underscores one of our key hypotheses: being transparent during the issue resolution process may be as important as or more important than the actual resolution delivered to customers.

Not to say that interacting with a contact (call) center is as painful as a colonoscopy but the idea that longer resolution timeframes, even if more painful, can be perceived as better than shorter resolution timeframes when the former ends on a happy note is insightful precisely because it seems counter-intuitive.

Third, it’s interesting to think about how the Colonoscopy Effect applies to customer service in general. As we see more shopping and commerce move online, where there is less human interaction, we would expect more automated customer service and issue resolution processes. People fear what they don’t know and when it comes to products or services they’ve purchased online, they want to know exactly where the order is and why it hasn’t arrived yet.

I'm paraphrasing from a cited statistic and can't remember it exactly so this may be a little off:  according to FedEx or UPS, on average, customers check the tracking progress of a package six or seven times a day.

So for the internet companies, old (e.g. Amazon) and new alike (the Web2.0 startups), keep in mind how transparent your customer service and issue resolution processes are to the customers. People will evidently accept long delays (within reason), even painful ones, if you ultimately deliver on your promise and delight the customer by the end of the process.

Currently Playing: Magic Numbers – Crazy in Love (cover)

Home Runs vs. Singles: Long Tail in the VC World?

Being an avid WIRED reader (the print version now thanks to a subscription for Christmas the last two years running), I rushed out to buy Chris Anderson’s Long Tail and have been following the post-media hoopla ever since.

  Khao Sok: Longtail at Dawn 
  Originally uploaded by Nathan Moody.

While Anderson uses online video, music, and book sales/services for the main quantitative analysis in the book, it didn’t take long for the rest of the blogosphere and the MSM to jump on the Long Tail premise and begin applying the concept to other industries (e.g. newspapers).

From my various RSS feeds, came across VentureBeat’s article on whether entrepreneurs should always accept VC funding. I highlighted the following nugget (emphasis added):

“In addition, my partners and I won’t be too excited about a $50M acquisition. This type of exit is not sufficient to ensure superior returns to our limited partners across a broad portfolio of investments-our returns are determined by home runs, not singles.”

I’m not in the VC industry but can assume from what I read/listen to and from the article’s tone that the VC world has at least traditionally been won or lost on the home run successes that Charles writes about above. With that context, is there a connection between the changes we’re seeing in the VC industry and the Long Tail theory on the future being less dominated by the big hits?.

The VC industry is definitely changing as the required startup capital for entrepreneurs is now much lower (thanks in part to Web2.0) than it was during the Dot Com days so we can imagine that the required ROI for VCs is now lower as well—does that translate into lower risks or point simply, will the new world of venture capital be less dependent on having home runs to subsidize the singles (the Long Tail theory)?

Have the relative differences between homeruns and singles changed, with successes being slightly less pronounced and failures being slight less negative (overall spikiness is reduced) so that VCs will become less dependent on overcoming the majority of losses with the few and far between big successes?

Or would we expect the home runs to be even more important because the market is so crowded with the average single or double hits that making money in a more open, lower barrier to entry playing field actually requires even more success in order to stand out from the crowd of average entrepreneurs and startups?

My hunch is that the scales of the investment risks have changed but that the ratios of successes to failures is still roughly the same with entrepreneurs and startups so that we’re still balancing an acceptable level of risk (albeit smaller) with an anticipated exit reward (perhaps smaller) down the road. Even if the investments have become smaller, I don’t think that fundamentally changes the odds of being a successful entrepreneur. It’s still lots of hard work and a little luck too.

I’m not really into trading stocks but the reason that I’m interested in the VC world is that I’ve always been into business and technology and how to combine those interests to understand the future. And if I can be in the middle of those two worlds and be a part of the exciting changes we’re seeing now with the internet, and make a buck or two while doing it, than all the better.

Why I Love Murky Coffee

  Murky Capitol Hill interior 
  Originally uploaded by Aldo Coffee.

There are lots of reasons that I love Murky Coffee, one being that the coffee is excellent. I only frequent Starbucks during the week because it’s close to the office but their coffee isn’t that good (actually, I don’t drink coffee--just never got into it-- so I drink Chais instead). And besides, you go to Starbucks for the experience of it and being seen with their cup in your hand after you leave the store. 

More important to me, as I’ve explained before about good coffee shops, the atmosphere is what you expect in a great coffee shop and Murkey doesn't disappoint:

• Eclectic music, played loudly or softly depending on the time of day and the resident DJ
• Baristas that actually know coffee (again I don’t drink it they're knowledgeable about the coffee they serve)
• A ever so slighly smug feel in the air-- it's not very strong unless you walk into Murky expecting it to be like Starbucks-- it's not so get over it (they only accept cash, it will take a little time to make your drink, and they WILL yell at you for being a jerk)

It has that local vibe as well where people go to meetup, socialize and hangout, read their books, or work on the computers. You get all walks a life in there and can always expect to overhear intelligent conversations and great music, my last point about why I love Murky Coffeee.

I just heard “One Armed Scissor” by At The Drive In. What more do I have to say about this place? It’s the best coffee shop I’ve ever been to.

1/16/06 UPDATE: My brother pointed me to this short Post article on Murky's famous Ultimate Hot Chocolate. I've never tried it but heard it's more than worth the five dollars it costs.

Jobs is King Again

Given all of the iPhone hoopla and the fact that Jobs stole whatever thunder CES might have had, here's a follow-up to my previous Steve Jobs post. Thanks to Hugh Macleod (of various fame, English Cut-cited in Scoble's Naked Conversations, Gillmor Gang) for his continued blogpshpere humor:

Snarky Post of the Week

I'm not sure if this will become a regular posting on this site, like the New Music of the Day/Week, but it's time for the Snarky Post of the Week. It's a great word and snarky posts run rampant in the blogosphere, especially in the techie/Techmeme/TechCrunch sphere. In the words of Dane Cook, "He was being very snarky with me.  Yeah, snarky.  Its a word, google it."

This week's snarky post goes to Nick Carr, someone who's rather familiar with the art of snarkiness, and his response to the new new journalism. We have his classic sarcastic commentary (no cynicism yet but it's bound to come) and the real sucker punch, blasting the blogger for bad punctuation and spelling:

At first, I admit, I didn't "get it." It seemed like illiterate mush. But then I realized I was looking at the article through eyes corrupted by years of paying attention to the "main stream media." What I had thought were signs of a broken educational system - the seemingly random placement of commas, the spastic syntax, the obnoxious overuse of quotation marks, the goofy misspelling of "Jouralism" - were actually signs of the New Instantaneousness. "Instant Jouralists" cannot be concerned with punctuation and grammar and spelling. That stuff just "slows you down." To be an "Instant Jouralist," you have to write as if you were being pursued by a cheetah across the Serengeti. Don't stop to think. Just let it rip. And who needs that "n" in journalism anyway?

Forget Carr's cynicism about the future of IT, let the snarky commentary about blogger's inherent flaws (writing/posting before thinking, believing technology will solve everything and redefine the old rules, etc.) become his real trademark.

Marrying The Hype Machine with Last.fm

The time has come for online music's next big match made in heaven, marrying The Hype Machine with Last.fm.

I've posted about a Web2.0 mashup last December, thinking about combining Last.fm and Flickr, and we're now seeing those results thanks to Snapp Radio and  Tangerine (which analyzes beats per minute, BPM, to create playlists but you could imagine how BPM could be correlated to photographs that have been classified by their type of action or mood).

  Last.fm and The Hype Machine 
  Originally uploaded by cherbert.

So why is now the time to combine The Hype Machine with Last.fm?

The easy answer is that I've come to love both services so that I can't live without them. Right now, though, I'm living with them seperately as each app plays alone in its own little data-silo sandbox.

More importantly, I think they've both reached critical mass and I can't be the only one who would love to see their Hype Machine listening habits integrated with Last.fm. Last (no pun intended), unifying these great web apps would benefit both companies and increase the popularity of both services as well.

I know that Last.fm has API features but I'm not sure about The Hype Machine but I think its founder, a 20 year-old Russian immigrant could make it work. He sounds like a smart kid.

I'm listening to so much music via The Hype Machine during the day, especially when checking out new artists because you get full versions on the songs to test out, that I'm missing all of the those "plays" on my Last.fm dashboard. This is usually updated via the Scrobbler plugin for iTunes. At home when using iTunes, all of the new music or podcasts that I've downloaded are being recorded and tracked at Last.fm but my workday musical tastes are being lost.

I've been using mp3s ever since the Fall of 1998 when i started college, back in the heyday of Napster. I downloaded Winamp and began amassing a huge mp3 collection because I could, finding and then downloading any music that you wanted was just a click away but more importantly, the college dorm was the ultimate environment for music discovery.

Besides forging new friendships, the dorm fosters the sharing (or the overhearing of roommates and neighbors) musical tastes and that's when I first began really listening to new music.

Well I've long since ditched Winamp (it still does whoop the llama's ass) for iTunes and my musical discovery tools have gone Web2.0 so I want to combine my more active listening habits via The Hype Machine with Last.fm's social networking and listening analytics.