Just Some Stuff

I almost thought I wasn't going to be able to post today, because I am visiting my parents, and their DSL went out. It just recently came back on. Unfortunately, having had all this time to think about what I would like to blog about today, I have no idea. What a conundrum.

One thing that I should point out: I am aware that sometimes when I post I use the first person plural ("we" or "us"), and sometimes the second person plural ("you"--which, unfortunately, is pretty indistinguishable from the second person singular). I hope I'm not fooling anyone. I learn a lot from these blogs--some of them seem to me to be directed right at me. If there are other people out there who benefit from my ramblings, I am glad of it. I'm certainly not going to tell you to butt out just because these entries are for me. I really do hope that these help other people, too.

By the way, some time ago, I mentioned in one of my blog postings that I had gotten frustrated with the situation regarding Christian radio stations in my area: Yesterday someone was kind enough to respond to that post with URL's for online Christian radio stations. I appreciate that, even though my point was really more about the way people responded to the radio stations that we did have. It is nice to have alternatives, though.

I lifted the above illustration from gravestmor.com. Specifically, from here.

Want Some Cheese With That Whine?

When I first moved to this area, there were two Christian radio stations. At least, two FM stations that played Christian music (part of the time--neither one played music 24-7). One of them had a bad tendency to play any hymn in the hymnal sung by whichever tabernacle choir... The other one played more contemporary stuff, but they had a bad tendency to have a talk show on when I really just wanted to listen to music. To be honest, it never made much sense to me: How much do you have to pay somebody to introduce songs and play them? Shouldn't that be less expensive than paying somebody to interview guests (I'm thinking, perhaps erroneously, that even somebody who shows up on a talk show to promote their latest book or whatever, is still entitled to a royalty payment for being on the show)? Eventually that station beame a 'Christian Talk' station. Fortunately, the other station updated its playlist at the same time--but they also had a lot of hour-long preaching programs and talk shows and what-not that seemed to come on when I wanted to listen to music.

Then the Christian Talk station moved to the AM band, and the parent company brought in a whole new station that just played music. Very quickly after that, another company started a new station that played just music. Wow! Now we're getting somewhere. Now the first station started out with a very limited playlist, but it was slowly growing. To be honest, the second stations playlist wasn't much better, but it had the added disadvantage of being listener supported. I'm not against listener supported radio in and of itself, I just find pledge week annoying. Especially a radio station that claims to be doing God's service, but feels like their semi-annual pledge week needs to be eight to ten days and done more than twice a year. I say disadvantage, but, again, the first radio station was supported by commercials. Even though I live in a large metropolitan area where there are a lot of religious people, a lot of the comercials that they played didn't seem to fit well with a Christian audience (most of them were at least innocuous, but, laser hair removal?).

In any case, it worked out okay, as far as I was concerned; I could listen to one station, and when I got annoyed at pledge week (or even just being reminded every few minutes that they were listener supported and you don't have to wait until pledge week to make a donation) I could switch stations. Then if I got annoyed at the stupid commercials (or hearing the same eight songs played over and over), I could switch back. In other words, I wasn't entirely pleased with either station, but, between the two, life was good. A lot of people that I knew complained about the first station: Their commercials are stupid. They keep playing the same songs over and over. They play all eighty's music (this from people whose knowledge of the eighty's is limited to what they learned by watching "That 70's Show"). I personally never understood what all the whining was about. Yes, most of their commercials were stupid (but given a choise between stupid commercials and almost constant begging for money; I don't know. I'd say it's a toss-up), and they did have a very limited play list, and most of the songs that they played were geared toward a somewhat older audience (but the other station played almost exactly the same songs). The biggest annoyance to me was that it always seemed like whenever I had had enough of one station and switch, the other station was playing the song I had just heard.

Eventually, the first station closed its doors. I was not happy, but a lot of other people were. And, again, I didn't understand. If you don't like it, don't listen to it. If you really prefer the listener supported format, then listen to that. Most of these people don't even seem to have noticed that, since the commercial radio station went away, the listener supported station has gotten much worse. Something about not having competition, I think.

Really, I think the point is that murmering and complaining doesn't do anyone any good. When Moses was leading the Children of Israel through the wilderness, they kept talking about how much better it was when they were slaves in Egypt...

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.