Internet Happenings

There's some interesting stuff happening. Guy Kawasaki (CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, a venture capital firm, and regular blogger, whose mantra is 'empower entrepreneurs) has interviewed Jeffrey Pfeffer, author of the book "What Were They Thinking?" which explores corporate conventional wisdom (or lack thereof). The interview is entitled, "Ten Questions with Jeffrey Pfeffer" but there are actually 16 questions.

The Seattle Times has published an editorial in which Whole Foods CEO John Mackey is pilloried for maintaining an anonymous blog on Yahoo Finance for about eight years. I read the entire editorial, and I'm not convinced that Mackey did anything wrong. I'm not entirely convinced that he was right, either. The editorial's argument seems to be summed up best by one line, "You have to assume, whenever and wherever you speak, that people believe you are speaking as the company's CEO and for the company." My response would be, unless, of course, you are posting to an anonymous blog. Personally, I think that's one of the advantages of blogs. Somebody like Mackey can post his opinion (or someone else's opinion) and get an honest reaction to it. Not a reaction to it as in, this is John Mackey's opinion, just a reaction to this guy, that as far as any of us knew, was just a regular guy.

Internet Radio stations have to adhere to a new set of licensing fees starting Sunday. Several have already announced that they are closing up. This decision was pushed by SoundExchange, an organization created by the recording industry. What were they thinking? I believe that this is what Jeffrey Pfeffer would refer to as 'ignoring feedback effects.' Commercial radio stations play music, and sell advertising. The ad revenue pays the costs of broadcasting the music, and people get to listen to what are essentially samples of the music industry's product. (Generally only one or two songs of a given album are actually played on the air). Most commercial radio stations play music that they already have a good idea that their listeners are going to want to hear, so that their ratings stay high, and they can continue to charge high rates for advertising. It's kind of a symbiotic relationship. Internet radio, on the other hand, generally doesn't create anywhere near the advertising revenue (if they advertise at all), and frequently direct their netcasts to more of a niche market. That is, if you have a website, and there's a handful of bands that you really like, but they aren't popular enough to be played on Commercial Radio, guess what? If you make that music available on your website, there are other people out there with a similar taste in music, that will come to your site and listen. Get enough hits on your website, and advertisers will pay you to place their ads on your website. Get enough hits, you might even generate enough ad revenue to pay your domain fees. In the meantime, some little known band becomes known through your website, and people start buying their CD's. Except, that now you have to pay exorbitant licensing fees, because the recording industry is more concerned with making money off of the Internet than making money selling CD's. Make sense? Not at all.

Something totally unrelated: Congratulations to Clayton County Georgia Police Chief Jeff Turner for doing what every police chief should be doing. I understand that Clayton County has a Police Department and a Sheriff's Department, and the Sheriff has been trying to absorb the Police Department. I would endorse that, if Jeff Turner is elected sheriff.