2/8/04
I wrote in an article a while back that pirating music (and to an extent, software) is totally an issue of price (and quality). I've bought so many albums at $16 a CD and only one song was worth listening to that it's hard to feel guilty - even though I know I should - for downloading that one song I think I"m going to like (or trying out a few more just to prove I'm right). $16 for one song is a little heft.... and I"m sorry, but so is $1 a song. My calculations indicate that that's about the same as buying the album, though granted, you're not having to buy the junk you don't like. (Though how exactly to winnow out the stuff you don't want...)
I thought, if they drop the price to something the makes it too much trouble to download music, we'll all buy it instead (except for those hard-core few who will pirate it no matter what). My guess is, at 25 cents a song, most people will buy it rather than risk the illegal download. AND as it turns out, statistics are bearing out the fact that most of us download just that odd song here and there, and do NOT want to buy whole albums... a recent NPD Group survey (in 2003) found that only 2 percent of music downloaders picked 5 or more songs from a single album. COuld it be that we've been right all this time and most of the songs on a given album are just lousey?
Spim: Spamming on Instant messaging. Great. More crap to get rid of.
Re: Spam, Yahoo is going to a new plan: software called Domain Keys will authenticate the outbound domain of every e-mail message using unique embedded keys within e-mail headers. If a domain is spamming, it will be picked up that way. (And theoretically,stopped.)
Offshore call centers: People aren't happy that (especially computer call center) IT and technical jobs are moving offshore, often to India, and are vocal about it. As a result, Dell has shifted some of its tech support back to the US, and MPC Computers moved its entire support center back in-house (it had outsourced it to a US company, but when it asked for higher performance, it was told that either the price would go up, or the service would be shipped offshore.) BUT, that doesn't change the fact that 23 percent of IT services are expected to be delivered from offshore centers by 2007, compared to only 5 percent in 2003.
While you're sleeping, your car may be chatting with your computer, download the latest music, news and stock quotes (as scheduled by you) so that next morning, you can listen to what you ordered as you drive to work. Connected through WiFi to a receiver and 20GB trunk-mounted jukebox linked to your car's stereo system, the Rockford Omnifi DMP1 is extpected to retail for about $600.
New from Microsoft - the MSN Direct Smart Watch. News, music, time, scores...
It used to be 5.1 surround sound for audiophiles. NOw it's 7.1
More home DVD players will read DVD-R than DVD+R
I wrote in an article a while back that pirating music (and to an extent, software) is totally an issue of price (and quality). I've bought so many albums at $16 a CD and only one song was worth listening to that it's hard to feel guilty - even though I know I should - for downloading that one song I think I"m going to like (or trying out a few more just to prove I'm right). $16 for one song is a little heft.... and I"m sorry, but so is $1 a song. My calculations indicate that that's about the same as buying the album, though granted, you're not having to buy the junk you don't like. (Though how exactly to winnow out the stuff you don't want...)
I thought, if they drop the price to something the makes it too much trouble to download music, we'll all buy it instead (except for those hard-core few who will pirate it no matter what). My guess is, at 25 cents a song, most people will buy it rather than risk the illegal download. AND as it turns out, statistics are bearing out the fact that most of us download just that odd song here and there, and do NOT want to buy whole albums... a recent NPD Group survey (in 2003) found that only 2 percent of music downloaders picked 5 or more songs from a single album. COuld it be that we've been right all this time and most of the songs on a given album are just lousey?
Spim: Spamming on Instant messaging. Great. More crap to get rid of.
Re: Spam, Yahoo is going to a new plan: software called Domain Keys will authenticate the outbound domain of every e-mail message using unique embedded keys within e-mail headers. If a domain is spamming, it will be picked up that way. (And theoretically,stopped.)
Offshore call centers: People aren't happy that (especially computer call center) IT and technical jobs are moving offshore, often to India, and are vocal about it. As a result, Dell has shifted some of its tech support back to the US, and MPC Computers moved its entire support center back in-house (it had outsourced it to a US company, but when it asked for higher performance, it was told that either the price would go up, or the service would be shipped offshore.) BUT, that doesn't change the fact that 23 percent of IT services are expected to be delivered from offshore centers by 2007, compared to only 5 percent in 2003.
While you're sleeping, your car may be chatting with your computer, download the latest music, news and stock quotes (as scheduled by you) so that next morning, you can listen to what you ordered as you drive to work. Connected through WiFi to a receiver and 20GB trunk-mounted jukebox linked to your car's stereo system, the Rockford Omnifi DMP1 is extpected to retail for about $600.
New from Microsoft - the MSN Direct Smart Watch. News, music, time, scores...
It used to be 5.1 surround sound for audiophiles. NOw it's 7.1
More home DVD players will read DVD-R than DVD+R
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