Thursday, August 27, 2009

Frank Zappa explains it all


In this docu-mashup, Frank Zappa and a few others explain why radio is dead and record companies are dying.

In short, people got greedy and content producers stopped taking chances on innovation for fear of endangering profits by messing with "success." Unfortunately for them, there was a slight miscalculation.

The world didn't stop turning. And people didn't stop changing.


IN THIS VIDEO, meantime, longtime media executive J. William Grimes explains why newspapers are just as doomed as radio and records.

The short version is this: Traditional media lost our attention and then they lost advertisers, who are following the public to new media.

Grimes, however, seems to think just enough of the public will pay for online newspapers what they pay for print ones. I remain to be convinced a) that the genie can be put back in the bottle now that news is free on the Web, and b) that just a few remaining free, quality news sources wouldn't explode the whole for-pay model.

Frankly, I think expecting people to pay mucho dinero for non-physical content which easily could be gotten for free is wishful thinking, not a plausible business model.

Grimes also stipulates that newspaper web sites would have to greatly improve to make this viable. Why should we expect organizations that sat on their laurels long enough to lose the public's attention to spend money they no longer have on quality they eschewed back when they were flush?

Nevertheless, Grimes gives us a great summation of the tsunami washing away media as we knew it. Watch and learn.

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