Making ethics less illegal

Bloomberg:

“Benefit Corporations,” a new legal structure that gives directors legal cover to consider social and environmental missions over financial returns

On one side, it’s depressing that this has to be a separate status, that we can’t work out how to get companies operations to include the costs they currently externalize onto society and future generations. On the other side, this is some small measure of progress.

Here’s hoping someone does for responsible, sustainable business practices what Apple has does for design - make shitloads of money from it and force everyone to take notice. The we’ll just have to endure everyone mindlessly aping them without understanding the principles involved…

Life as a VCR repairman in 2012

Steven Soderberg, quoted in Moviegoer:

A lot of people who think, “It’s just a double click—what difference does it make?” are going to find that out when they try to go into a field in which they are creating stuff and their survival depends on people buying their stuff. They’re going to have a moment of, “Oh, s—t. The reason I don’t have a career is because people are doing what I was doing when I was young.

This quote helps me understand why it’s so painful for the media industry to adjust to change forced on them by the internet. It comes from the the idea that the movie/music/publishing industry will exist in the future, so we must continue to find ways to support them is a very limited way of thinking.

No industry is permanent and things often get broken during change. Ask typewriter manufacturers. Or VCR repairmen. Or the entire postal industry. It’s unpleasant because sometimes we have to see things disappearing before we can be certain about what will appear after. This kind of pessimism is dangerous because it distorts people’s view of the net value of change. In this case, you’ll be far more likely to look back and say “oh shit” about your job because you missed what was appearing, not because you didn’t care enough for what was disappearing.

One digital rights locker please

The Akamai for UltraViolet product is designed to connect with the digital rights locker and offer up storage, security and delivery of UltraViolet-enabled digital assets. The idea is to create a common reference point that studios and retailers can point to whenever a consumer tries to access an UltraViolet title.

Just in case you were wondering why the movie and TV industry is fucked - this is how they think.

My hot tip is that you might be able to get ahead by not imagining people as passive blobs of money from which revenue can be extracted. Try making something people want to use (see Apple, Facebook, Google, Nintendo) and pay for (see Apple, Nintendo).

(Source: gigaom.com)

Seems clear enough

“The sea of bloody tears from our military and people will follow the puppet regime until the end. The tears will turn into a sea of revengeful fire that burns everything.”

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Dongguk University in Seoul, said the statement did not necessarily mean that Pyongyang was averse to reform.

I think these two consecutive paragraphs capture the insanity that is dialogue with North Korea.

North Korea warns the world: no change in policy under Kim Jong-un

Satisfaction

From John Gruber:

Can you prove that Apple is thriving because it takes much better care of its existing customers than do any of its competitors? I guess not. But it’s the difference between a company that simply wants to sell you a device, and a company that wants to sell you a device and make you happy that you bought it.

Reminds me of the explanations of Mercedes-Benz’s advertising strategy I’ve heard: they don’t make ads to sell cars - at their prices no one can do that - they make ads to make people happy with their purchase. They do this because they know people will convince their friends to buy one too (because it will make them feel even better about their purchase), and come back for another one next time. 

Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

Cannibalism beats starving

Just read these two articles on rethinking print, responsive advertising and the web. I think they’ve missed the point for two simple reasons:

• They seem to be convinced that people won’t pay for things on the internet.
• They’re similarly convinced that advertising is the way people will have to get paid on the web.

I disagree. People are starting from a previous medium and business model and trying to work out how to support what they’ve accumulated. It’s the same attitude that is worried about cannibalizing print distribution. Cannibals are less likely to starve in this environment.

Plenty of people are paying for things on the web, and this will continue to grow. Those that win won’t be those working out how to support what they’ve built. It will be those building what they can support.

What do I have in common with my friends?

I have both Rdio and Spotify accounts. At the moment I use Spotify more because I find both it’s iPhone and Desktop apps better, but decisions regarding Facebook login got me thinking about what I like (and dislike) about both services.

They both feel halfway there. Actually a third of the way there - neither of them are available in enough places for the social part of their services to shine.

Without a change in direction, I don’t see the social part of Spotify ever shining for me. Facebook is great for staying in touch with friends (best address book I ever had), but Spotify make the same mistake as many do when integrating Facebook - assuming friendship is everything. I had meaningful interactions with my friends before Facebook, but the web in general is amazing because of it’s potential to engineer value exchanges, and eventually relationships between complete strangers. This is one of the strongest points of Twitter.

Rdio’s embrace of following, rather than relying on a copy of my friendship graph from Facebook allow me to get music from people I find interesting and potential share taste with. Spotify assumes the people I became friends with through shared experiences like school, university and work will also be the people I look to for music. Not really true.

So now I wait for Spotify to understand this, or for Rdio to decide (or have the resources that allow them to admit) that wrapping their website in a thin native shell is not enough for a desktop app.