Sally McLellen won silver in the 100m hurdle.

She has been training for that since my earliest memories of primary school. I am not prone to nationalistic pride or what have you but it is truly satisfying to see someone reap their rewards.

‘Unrepentant’ serial rapist is jailed

When a man is officially unwilling to address his propensity to rob others of their most basic liberties, he should have his own irrevocably taken away.

Here’s hoping someone kills that sack of shit.

I don’t care about the Olympics, but I know this girl and hope it all goes okay.

McLellan facing race of her life

After making my last post, I poked around Andrew’s blog some more and ended up at Two Notes Ahead. I found this there:

…..Click here to read more

After reading Andrew McMillen’s thoughts on the free track baiting game, I figured I’d throw something in to the mix. I do a class that is heavily focused on this sort of thing. The lecturer is a(n apparently) fairly popular recording artist who got in to music after he finished his marketing degree. He teaches at Griffith, SAE as well as various other music institutions and initiatives. His big crush is the internet and how it is changing “the game”. I love this class. It combines some of my favourite things: the internet, demographic profiling and music. Talk about tickling my fancy.

The first class we had he busted out some good news: music is losing its value. This is no big shock to anyone who has downloaded even one album. Not only is it free to download songs, it is more convenient! You never have to GO anywhere to make the purchase, you do not need shelves and racks for storage and you do not deal with issues of portability because it all fits on a hard drive or in an iPod. Advances in technology have changed “the industry”. The theories on where its going give me more than a girl boner, but that is MOSTLY for another post.

Two basic and relevant premises:
The model for purchase is moving from unit sales towards more subscription-based services.
Music is the final product, but it is no longer what is being sold.

Instead of paying $30 for twelve songs, four of which you probably don’t like, two of which you’re on pretty good terms with but wouldn’t necessarily want to cry to and six of which you totally dig but had already heard, people want the sprawling availability of music to be organised and categorised for them. They want to pay $10 a fortnight to have immediate access to thousands of newly released songs that they can stream at the touch of a button. They will pay an extra $2 if songs can be recommended based on peer review AND their own track history. Premium users will pay $30 if, attached to that streaming music, they can have the digital equivalent of liner/production notes. Want to know who produced the song? Okay. With another touch of your iPhone screen you can read their biography whilst simultaneously listening to a random playlist of their most recent and celebrated work.

The product in its most traditional sense is STILL the music, as that is what people are getting at the end of the exchange and it is what they want. But in world 2.0, the value of that product is found in the immediacy of the access, rather than the access or ownership itself.

Of course we’re still straddling the line between tradition and revolution (forever and ever, amen), but the gains in technology will ensure this doesn’t last long. Once shortfalls like laggy streaming and format incompatibility across devices are addressed, this sort of thing will take off.

So the marketing strategy McMillen cites as being useful is a good tactic*, but I expect we’ll see a lot more of it as people begin to understand just how “worthless” their recordings are. And I expect its effectiveness will be diluted proportionately.

As for his question: “How do you capture the attention of a user who rarely voluntarily visits band websites?”

I think you let them forget the website exists. Have a completely different ploy for that section of your victim pool. Conversion is risky.

Engage with people on their terms.

(Obviously the Cold War Kids had indication that people visited their site.)

Visibility facilitates attention. Intimacy captures it. And interaction seduces its host.

(I personally prefer MySpace pages to websites, and I [like Andrew] will turn to a Wikipedia entry for information rather than hit up a .com. Why is this? Who knows - perhaps the minute sense of isolation from the subject makes engaging with the information less threatening. On band websites you are often bombarded with blatant plays for your loyalty, the lay outs are more likely than not going to be over the top or unforgivably bland, and so on. There is some regulation on those things inherent to sites like MySpace and Wikipedia though.)

Of course, the Cold War Kids’ marketing dudes weren’t giving you that music for free. They are mining the statistics of everyone who accesses that track. Your location (for distributions/psychographics), your browser type and connection speed (for website functionality), how much time you spend on the site after the download (website appeal), the URL you were referred from (media consumption/promotions efficiency), and your return rate are IMMEDIATELY devoured by their statistics machine. So maybe this example doesn’t fit in to my predictions perfectly. But I felt like talking about them.

I personally long for a utopian day when music and its promotion becomes totally transparent, and the catch cry of the marketing team and its SUPERIOR PR consultants is: People, not publics.

Shit, I might make that my catch cry. It can be my first book on the subject.

*It sickened me that I almost changed my use of strategy/tactic as per the PR/Marketing definitions.

I keep hearing this.

Instead of responding at length to the many points brought up all over the cyberverse, I will issue just one sentiment: what I think will become the heart of the issue when people pull their fingers out of their overfed arses and actually consider the reality of the sprawling news-making industry in which PR snugly situates itself.

Ready?

Ready?

Ready?

Ready?

Ready?

Newsrooms are liquidating. The “tyranny of the bottom line” means that the space for journalists is shrinking, the demands placed on them are swelling and they’re getting paid NUTS for the discomfort of those conditions.

PR is not dead. It is not irrelevant. Guess who subsidizes those newsrooms? It’s not bloggers. It’s not the internet.

(These are the apparent usurpers of the PR throne.)

It’s your friendly neighbourhood PR consultant.

The value of PR increases every time media moguls and industry expectations fuck their darling journalists a little more.

Oh, and blogging? The internet? That shit is going to be the ALMIGHTY vehicle of PR 2.0 once its acolytes become masters.

Get off my dick, maggits.

THE DRONES ARE COMING THE DRONES ARE COMING THE DRONES ARE COMING THE DRONES ARE COMING THE DRONES ARE COMING THE DRONES ARE COMING THE DRONES ARE COMING THE DRONES ARE COMING.

Picture me skipping merrily through my own mind at the confirmation of this news. I think they are one of the best bands OF THIS CENTURY OR ANY OTHER.

Click here for a taste, if you have not yet been fortunate enough to gorge yourself.

I just said it on Time Off Message Board, and I’ll confess it here.

I day dream about Mick Hadley. Teaching me guitar.

Also, I am really getting in to some sort of freaky Talking Heads phase. RIGHTEOUS.

Big ups to The Gin Club for their win at the Q Song Awards.

The Gin Club’s Ben Salter won best rock song and song of the year for Ten Paces Away and best folk song or ballad for You, Me and the Sea, from the band’s latest album, Junk.

It is 4AM and there is no such thing as sleep.

When it comes to sport, I can think of nothing more dull than being the spectator. Way to be a total douchebag. Hungry for sweat? Get off your lard arse and go for a run. I mean, that is my personal opinion.

But! People keep asking me what I think of the proceedings, specifically in regards to “The Girls”, and I am not one to deny people answers.

Did I see The Girls? What do I think of The Girls?

Well, we’ve seen some fine form from these athletes (I don’t really like reducing them to their vaginas, forgive me):

Of course, there is Stephanie Rice:

Kelly Sotherton:

(I’m not really into the whole thick as shit shoulders thing, but whatever. WHO AM I TO JUDGE AN OLYMPIAN)

Tanith Belbin:

Who cares:

Mitts:

Natalie Coughlin:

Jessica Mendoza:

I didn’t post a particularly flattering photo of her but there was a reason for this. The reason is that THIS photo takes on a magical quality if you look at it whilst listening to the the intro of Satisfaction by the Stones.

Liz Hatch:

Let’s spend some time with Liz.

……………………………………………………………………………………

..Well, I could continue but I think.. Liz Hatch.

………………………………..In conclusion, I did see The Girls. Thanks for asking.