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The Untapped Potential Of Utilizing RCE
(Don't know RCE stands for? Read on!)January 13, 2006
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"The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential."
-- Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's President & CEOIf one didn't know any better, it might seem like it's the "Invasion of The Body Snatchers 2." Except this time the things taking over peoples minds and bodies are those ubiquitous iPods.
Not only are they STILL spreading like wildfire among the masses, auto manufacturers are fitting many 2006 models with iPod dash capabilities and audio component companies are making the Apple success machine an integral part of home audio systems faster than you can push the remote button and channel surf your choice of one hundred plus programs.
As cited in the link to the news story below 'Legitimate Music Downloading Enjoys Dream Week', the last week of 2005 was big. Really, really BIG. This news coupled with the ongoing 'iPodding' of America is just more evidence of how fast things continue to move outside 'the Matrix' that many in the industry are still living in.
Instead of viewing these changes as threats to existing business models, we should view them as signposts on the digital highway that evidence the true potential of what can be accomplished with putting real creative energy to work.
While the principal business operating philosophy has always been spending with analysis on ROI (Return on Investment), we now see a shift in the digital age where companies focus operations and marketing on RCE. (Relevance, Creativity, Engagement) Those elements are what separates leading innovators like Apple from other hi-tech companies and those elements are critical in redefining goals as things change daily. It doesn't mean ROI goes out the window. It means that to get a satisfactory ROI, companies should invest heavily in RCE.
Perhaps adding a shift in paradigms from ROI to include RCE would benefit the music industry greatly. Without putting the best minds together and defining the 'relevance' and value of music in today's marketplace to consumers (critical); employing 'creativity' in all areas of the business to generate new dynamics and revenues; and 'engaging' consumers for the long-term, the same problems will continue to plague the industry this year and beyond. You know the tune, more of "meet the new boss ... same as the old boss."
Legitimate Music Downloading Enjoys Dream Week
There was so much legitimate downloading in the final week of 2005 that it recalled the impossible tallies research firms used in the late 1990s to dazzle venture capitalists and scare the daylights out of major-label executives.
In the seven-day stretch between Christmas and the new year, millions of consumers armed with new MP3 players (primarily iPods) and stacks of gift cards gobbled up almost 20 million tracks from iTunes and other download retailers, Nielsen SoundScan reports. In the process, consumers shattered the tracking firm's one-week record for download sales.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Apple's Tune Resonates At CES
Apple Computer's big trade show kicked off this past Tuesday in San Francisco, but signs of the Mac maker's influence were omnipresent at last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. There were plenty of new video services to rival iTunes and new MP3 players looking to dethrone the iPod. Well-known and little-known accessory makers alike were sporting new iPod add-ons. Belkin was showing off its latest gear, while Speck Products used the trade show to display its first electric accessories, including cables, car chargers and FM transmitters. Numerous newcomers were looking to get in on the iPod act as well.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Carmakers Park In Digital Living Room
DETROIT--Get in the driver's seat. Adjust the rearview mirror. Boot up the Xbox 360. To some young drivers, a car that's also a video game system may sound like a dream come true--or so Nissan Motor hopes with a new concept car aimed at gamers. Nissan's Urge sports car, introduced at the North American International Auto Show, is a prototype where the steering wheel and pedals become game controllers when the car is still. The mirror conceals a small flip-down screen. The dashboard conceals a Microsoft game console.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Jobs: New Intel Macs Are 'screamers'
SAN FRANCISCO--Addressing a packed crowd of the Mac faithful, Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday served up the first Intel-based Macs, introducing a new high-end laptop and a revamped iMac. The new machines both include Intel's Duo dual-core chip. The iMac will come in the same sizes and sell for the same prices as the current models, but the Intel chips make it two to three times faster, Jobs said. A new laptop computer, called the MacBook Pro, will be available in February, he said.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Satellite Radio Leaves The Car To Go Home and on Walks
When Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio first introduced their subscription audio services, both companies expected success to come primarily from the automobile market. As most radio listening is done in the car, the two companies worked to sew up exclusive licensing deals with major car manufacturers. But in the four years since satellite radio began, new technologies are making additional demands on listeners' time and dollars. Today, satellite radio is competing not just with broadcast radio in the car, but also with MP3 players, which can hold thousands of songs and can be hooked up to car stereo systems. And unlike bulky satellite radio receivers, pocket-size MP3 players can be carried everywhere and are useful in the gym.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Digital AM/FM Challenges Satellite Radio
NEW YORK - Howard Stern might be leaving terrestrial radio at the wrong time. With the release of the first real digital AM/FM radio receiver, satellite radio may have some real competition to worry about. HD is the digital system that the U.S. government has approved for broadcasts of local AM and FM radio stations. That's broadcast, not satellite - no subscription fee is required. You may not be aware of it, but a number of your local stations have already begun to broadcast a HD signal, in addition to the analog signal you've been listening to for years.
Read more about it by clicking here.
OFF THE MARKET
Malcolm in the Middle star Justin Berfield (Reese) buying Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey's house. The home, features in the ex-couple's Newlyweds, was listed for $3.75 million.
MOTOWN REDUX
The Temptations recording 15 Motown classics for their upcoming album hitting stores on Jan. 31.
IT'S GOOD TO BE THE KING OF ALL MEDIA, DEPT
Howard Stern and his agent awarded an additional $222 million in Sirius stock ahead of the originally set 2010 time frame after the shock jock helped the company reach certain subscriber milestones.
HE WILL BE MISSED
Grammy-winning singer Lou Rawls, who sold over 40 million albums in his five-decade career, died last Friday in Los Angeles. Rawls, best known for the hit "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine," had battled lung and brain cancer. He was 72.
CROW FLIES ALONE
E!online.com's Ted Casablanca reporting Monday that Sheryl Crow and Lance Armstrong are no longer a couple.
CELEBS WILL SING FOR SIMON
Simon Cowell executive producing a new Fox talent show that pairs celebrities with professional singers to perform for a panel of judges, with viewers determining who gets the hook, per the Hollywood Reporter.
GRAMMY NODS
Cream, David Bowie, Robert Johnson, Merle Haggard, Jessye Norman, Richard Pryor and the Weavers named recipients of the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Grammys. The Recording Academy also adding 25 new albums to the Grammy Hall of Fame, including the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Axis: Bold As Love, Barbra Streisand's The Barbra Streisand Album and Bob Marley & The Wailers' Exodus.
IT'S GOOD TO BE THE KING OF ALL MEDIA DEPT
Howard Stern now able to sell the roughly $200 million in Sirius Satellite Radio stock he received as part of his five-year deal with the company after meeting certain targets for subscriber growth.
SIMMONS TO KISS UP TO TV
KISS frontman Gene Simmons signing a deal to promote the Indy Racing League, which will include developing an Indy clothing line. Simmons also starring in Gene Simmons: Family Jewels, a new reality series for A&E that will feature the rocker, his partner, former Playmate of the Year Shannon Tweed, and their kids, Nick and Sophie.
KEYS TV
Alicia Keys partnering with UPN to create a drama loosely based on her childhood.
COMING SOON!
- Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins, Rabbit Fur Coat (1/24)
- Cat Power, The Greatest (1/24)
- P.O.D., Testify (1/24)
- Beth Orton, Comfort of Strangers (2/5)
- Belle & Sebastian, The Life Pursuit (2/5)
- The Subways, Young for Eternity (2/12)
2006 Industry Conferences
Date Name Location Midem January 22-26, 2006 Paris 2006 Media Summit New York February 8-9, 2006 New York Digital Hollywood Spring March 28-30, 2006 Santa Monica, CA MusExpo 2006 April 30-May 3, 2006 Los Angeles, CA
Quotes of the week
" Clearly the perception out there is that we shouldn't be doing too much of that copy protection stuff." --
SONY Chief Howard Stringer at CES 2006 in Las Vegas. (Gee Howard, ya' think so??? Duh!)" When I'm writing in my bedroom, everything is the greatest thing I ever wrote ... of course, until I say, 'action'!"
--Match Point director Woody Allen, regarding all those fab sexy scenes he wrote for Scarlett Johansson." A movie theater in Utah abruptly cancelled a screening of the movie "Brokeback Mountain." They felt it was inappropriate for the community standards. Instead they ran "Deliverance."
-- Jay Leno
NARIP Information
NARIP (The National Association of Record Industry Professionals) promotes career advancement, education and good will among record executives. To find out more about this great organization, how you can join or attend their events, just go to: www.narip.com.
Upcoming L.A. Event: NARIP Brunch at Sportsmen's Lodge in Studio City, CA, January 14, 2006
Click here for info:
The B-Side - 'Blips'
THEY REALLY WANTED ELVIS TO LEAVE THE BUILDING: A woman in western Australia was really not interested in her boyfriend celebrating Elvis' birthday on Sunday. Police said the woman stabbed her boyfriend with a pair of scissors because he repeatedly played "Burning Love" as a tribute to Elvis' birthday. A police spokesman said the man was treated for six stab wounds to his head, back and legs. Meanwhile in California, it was, "You leave the Elvis clothes or I'll leave you." That was the warning Elvis Presley collector Jim Curtin got from his girlfriend. Curtin was an Elvis fanatic who had spent 30 years amassing memorabilia from the career of the King of Rock and Roll. Monday it was auctioned away in Beverly Hills. It's a gold mine for Elvis collectors. Organizers said they carted 600 cartons of gear from Curtin's house. An Elvis concert suit sold for $125,000 and another sold for $50,000. Also sold were Elvis belt buckles, necklaces he gave to girlfriends, and a pair of cufflinks he received from President Richard Nixon.
THESE ARE FOR REAL: Novi, Mich. -- And the winner is: a heat gun and paint remover that produces temperatures of 1,000 degrees and warns users, "Do not use this tool as a hair dryer." That's the winner of the ninth annual Wacky Warning Label Contest conducted by Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, the consumer watchdog group known as M-LAW. The idea behind the contest is to show how lawsuits, and concern about lawsuits, have created a need for common sense warnings on products.
Other wacky labels:
- The $250 second place award went to Jam Sardar of Grand Rapids, Mich., for a label on a kitchen knife that warns: Never try to catch a falling knife."
- The $100 third place award goes to Alice Morgan of La Junta, Colo., who found a ridiculous warning on a cocktail napkin. The napkin has a map of the waterways around Hilton Head, S.C., printed on it along with this: "Caution: Not to be used for navigation."
- But will it get cold in the refrigerator? Another honorable mention goes to Lyne Anton of Elk, Calif., who found the following warning label on a baking pan: "Ovenware will get hot when used in oven."
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