I sent this to the Gigmor team today. I know we’re all still digesting what happened on Tuesday night. And I know we all fear what a Trump presidency means—for this country and for the world. Seeing someone as thoughtful and well-intentioned as Hillary lose to a narcissistic buffoon is really hard. I think we’re in […]
The music industry is abuzz with talk about Pandora’s acquisition of Ticketfly. It’s a “game changer,” everyone is saying. It’s the biggest news story of the week and it’s great news for Gigmor. Why? Because it validates what Gigmor has been asserting since Day 1: with recorded music revenues declining and live revenues growing exponentially, other […]
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the […]
When I was in high school we decided to walk to Ottawa. By we I mean 6 of us who were all in the school’s camping club, which was called Outward Bound and modeled after the Colorado-based program with the same name. We camped year-round, regardless of the season or the weather. One year a […]
Recently a business acquaintance told me about a website he’d invested in. In many ways, it sounded like a good opportunity. It addressed the needs of a large segment of the population, there was no clear leader among the incumbents, there were obvious revenue streams. I wondered if my lack of enthusiasm was just my […]
We’re thrilled to announce the launch of Cat Cora’s iPad app, “Cat Cora’s Kitchen,” designed and developed by Troubadour in partnership with Nimble Chef. Cat Cora is a world-renowned chef, cookbook author, restaurateur and TV host—most recently of “Around the World in 80 Plates” on Bravo. She remains the only female Iron Chef. Cat Cora’s Kitchen, […]
The tsunami of commentary about Facebook’s IPO has finally died down. So now what? I predict several quarters–or even years–of earnings “surprises.” But as Facebook meets the challenge of monetizing its site, I see trouble ahead. The User Experience Facebook’s monetization strategy will inevitably end up degrading the user experience. […]
Last month we launched GIGMOR, a new social network for musicians that matches players and bands based on location and musical compatibility. I founded GIGMOR because after I moved to LA it took me months to find compatible musicians to jam and gig with. I know millions of musicians face the same challenge. Our goal […]
The decline of the music industry has been well documented. But music is as popular as ever. So what gives? I know I’m buying more music than ever because of price, convenience and availability. The cost of an album has gone way down and I can buy music 24/7 without leaving my house. In the old […]
It’s been a while since I’ve posted here but I’ve been swamped with fun projects at my digital media agency, Troubadour Digital Media. See our website for more information on some cool stuff that we’ve been working on. I’ve also been working hard on Gigmor, a new social network which will connect musicians, bands and […]
It’s impossible to say anything new about Apple and Steve Jobs but I couldn’t resist adding some comments when I read a recent article about him in the NY Times. Jobs was asked what market research Apple had done as they developed the iPad. “None,” he replied. “It isn’t the consumers’ job to know what they want.” From […]
Wikipedia defines Dunbar’s number (commonly cited as 150) as a “theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person.” Dunbar is director of the Institute of Cognitive […]
I’m seeing more and more written about the emergence of personalization on the web, a trend that has had me pounding the table for over a year. Recently Chris Dixon, a co-founder of Hunch, (which I covered in an earlier post), addressed a comment by an anonymous user of formspring asking (a little contemptuously) why […]
I saw “Waiting for Superman” this week and highly recommend it. Its subject is one of my hot buttons—the decline of public education in this country. The film reveals many statistics that illustrate the sad state of American schools relative to other developed nations. Just one example: out of 28 developed countries, the US is […]
In last week’s NY Times, David Brooks writes that “In 1952, two-thirds of Harvard applicants were admitted.” Unimaginable in a time when Harvard publishes its acceptance rate as 8%. Incidentally, Brooks’ Op-Ed column is an interesting take on how one of the themes of the movie, “The Social Network,” is Harvard’s shift from a Wasp-dominated old boy […]
The term “crowdsourcing” always reminds me of the book title, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” (which has been on my reading list for years). A Wired writer coined the term in 2006 by combining “crowd” and “outsourcing.” Wikipedia (probably the best example of crowdsourcing) defines crowdsourcing as “the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally […]
A comparison of my parents’ lives and mine. Statistic My Parents Me Times moved 4 34 Number of kids 4 2 Number of marriages 1 2 # Houses bought/sold 1 4 Yrs at current residence 52 5 1/2 Computers/household 1 3 TVs/household 1 4 Total # of employers 1 8 Av yrs/employer 45 4 Total […]
“Pretty soon you’ll be sitting in the catbird seat,” my boss said with a sly grin. I mumbled a reply, hoping to hide my confusion, and looked up the expression when I got back to my office. Yes, it meant something good was going to happen and I began to speculate feverishly about what he […]
Recently I “upgraded” my version of Quicken for $49.99. It was a total waste of money. I used to have enormous respect for Intuit when I managed personal finance at AOL because they were the kings of user-based testing—something we didn’t do much of in the web business in the early days. “Ready, Fire, Aim” […]
I’m often struck by the contradictions inherent in the powerful messages we’re bombarded with on a daily basis. One example is the emphasis on being thin (especially for women) contrasted with the constant barrage of ads from the food industry marketing foods that will make you fat, (if they don’t kill you first). Another contradiction […]