Mathias Bank

A soundeffect, that represents a product. A sound, that represents product properties. All these aspects should a soundlogo have. Let’s look:

(I don’t want to say, that the Mercedes soundlogo is bad. But it is interesting to change the point of view!)

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has recently released a revised fee schedule for internet radio. Left unchanged, these rates will end internet radio, period. The RIAA has effectively convinced this federal committee to establish rates that make online radio a non-viable business.

[Pandora]

I cannot understand, what people especially in the music industry are thinking about? I have learned in business studies (especially in controlling and corporate planning) a lot of things. But no one has told me, that new technical approaches have to be ignored because they destroy the current business plans. I have thought, that new technical approaches could be an innovation and that they could lead to new and better business plans.

Well, I think, that the music industry is making a big mistake. I think, that services like pandora could enforce sales because people are informed about new songs. Pandora is very powerful, because the user can interact with the system. He will not be bored. He will listen to new songs.

Perhaps, new business plans are not the problem. Perhaps, old men in executive levels are the problem, because they are frightened about changes.

Well, I think all of you have read the open letter of Apple’s Steve Jobs, in which he complains about DRM (Thougts on music).

It is a really interesting article in which the music industry is responsible for DRM and Apple wants to sell and use free music. Really good, Mr. Jobs. You can be my hero!

But, there is one little thing, which irritates me: If Apple loves music and if Apple wants to sell free music, why is the iPod not able to play free formats?

Some examples?

• ogg
• flac - not supported natively

I really agree with the words, Steve Jobs has chosen. But if you think about the things he says and the things Apple does, it sounds a little bit like a marketing gag.

It would be interesting to see, what Apple will do. Currently, Apple takes me for a fool?!

A great campaign of The Blue Man Group! Earth to America (at Youtube). Last year, I have visited The Blue Man Group in Berlin. It was a really fantastic show! A little preview can be viewed here.

It is very interesting, that such a show is so successful. It is realized perfectly. There are so much details, that impress so much. This marketing trick can be read in a very interesting book called “Tipping Point”. I’m reading this book at this time (thanks to Robert Basic for the tip). It clearly shows, that success can be achieved just by changing details of your product. A really great book!

You learn a lot at university: you learn how to plan a product, you learn how to test a product, you learn how much the product does cost. But you don’t learn how you can sell it to your costumors (ok, their is a lesson called marketing, but this is not what I mean with “how to sell” because it’s not mainly the costumer who is in point of view). So I want to start at this place to publish some interesting informations I have found. Their are a lot of very interesting books I have read and of course, their are a lot of interesting pages in the www.

I want to start with a book called “Interaktive Wertschöpfung - Open Innovation, Individualisierung und neue Formen der Arbeitsteilung“, which is also avaiable as ePaper (Creative Commens Licence). The book is about how you can integrate the costumer into your company and how you can avoid by-developing at the costumer (UMTS for example).
After I have read this book, I let you know, if it’s good or not.