Reactions

This is how the NFL sees Broncos fans

Jeromey Balderrama

I’ve written before why I hate Thursday Night Football, mainly because it’s a shameless attempt for the NFL to insert itself into another weeknight just to promote it’s mediocre Network by giving you sub-par game coverage.  The NFL Network, further demonstrating their incompetence, puts together a spot where they show off their coast-bias (NFL Network is based out of LA, where ironically there is no football) against Broncos fans in flyover country.

So apparently Broncos fans are all redneck hillbilly ranchers who can’t drive to save their life.  Thanks, NFL.

At least that commercial got one thing right – you’d have to go to a bar to watch the game, as chances are you don’t get NFL Network at home.

Why Coldplay and Adele are being idiots

Jeromey Balderrama

Read: Why Coldplay and Adele Aren’t Bringing New Albums to Spotify

If you haven’t used a streaming music service like Spotify or Rdio yet, you’re missing out on where music consumption is heading. The industry is shifting, just like it did at the turn of the century when recording artists had to come to grips with the fact that people weren’t buying complete albums and getting singles – either through Napster and eventually through more legitimate channels like iTunes.

Now a decade into the digital music age, people are moving away from the “ownership paradigm”, where instead of being limited to the songs on your iPod, you can just pay a flat fee or stream whatever you want.  When Pandora first came around, people became happy with having new music to stream – now with services like Spotify you can go a step further and choose a specific song or album.   Personally I’ve come around to this.  Those who know me personally can attest to the level of effort I’ve put towards developing my personal collection, but even I find the appeal in the ability to have any song stream straight to my phone any time I want.

Just like a decade ago, when we had artists who refused to join us in the 21st century (Metallica), you know have artists that are kicking and screaming their way into the streaming era: Coldplay and Adele, who feel that their new albums are too good to simply be streamed.  They can hide behind the notion that their album should be experienced in a certain format or fidelity, but this boils down to one of two things: greed or ignorance.  They think that people should pay more for new music – not unlike how the movie industry is delusional enough to think people are happy to pay full price for a new release rather than rent it.  For their sake, I hope they’re just being ignorant about where the music industry is going and won’t deal with the vitriol people still hold for Metallica.

Adele and Coldplay are kidding themselves if they think the purchase model is competing with streaming models.  The people who don’t purchase their music will do one of two things: steal it or worse – not even listen to it.  In terms of music discovery, people will continue to turn away from the radio and use these streaming services to find something new.  Musicians need to temporarily take themselves out of the “artist” shoes and place their feet in the entrepreneurial shoes.  More and more, recorded music is transitioning from being a product and more towards being a marketing tool to get fans further engaged.  As an entrepreneur, you need to be where your consumers are – and if you’re consciously choosing not to be where people are, they’ll either resent you or ignore you.

Never forgetting.

Jeromey Balderrama

People far more eloquent than I will write better tributes on the 10th anniversary on September 11, but a song that appropriately sticks in my head is “Tuesday” by Five For Fighting, talking about the stark contrast in our country when we went to bed on Monday, September 10 and Tuesday, September 11.  Two years ago, I wrote some reflections on my thoughts during those two days.

Going out in Old Town? Make sure you bring your papers!

Jeromey Balderrama

I came across this story in the Coloradoan earlier this week:

Old Town Fort Collins bars plan to launch ID scanners

You need to read the story, but in a nutshell an initiative called “Downtown After Dark” wants every establishment in downtown Fort Collins to install drivers license scanners, as well as photograph everyone that enters a bar in Fort Collins at night.  They want to build a database of all patrons so that they can easily identify trouble-makers.

They say “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, but I’m not even sure if these intentions are that good. I can appreciate the intention of wanting to curb bar fights and disorderly conduct, but is giving the police a database on everyone that goes out the way to do this? Talk about “guilty until proven innocent.”

If we’ve learned anything by the internet: building a database of personal information will surely get hacked. It’s like what Steve Buscemi said in Armageddon, you’re going to put your trust into something that was built by the lowest bidder? They said that the ID system is being targeted by the small minority of disrupters, but it’s the vast majority that’s going to be impacted when some identity thief gets into that data. Moreover, if you have open access to employees in these establishments, how hard is it for a seedy worker to go in and get the address of woman he’s decided to stalk?

You then have the issue of what’s considered “unruly behavior”. I’m sure the law enforcement in Fort Collins do a fine job, but this system becomes all too easy to track the whereabouts of anyone out to have a good time in Fort Collins. What happens when someone who has unpaid parking tickets shows up at the bar?  What happens if a private investigation firm gets access to this DB. All of the sudden your employer can now find out whether you were drinking the night before you called in sick?

Each one of these systems costs $1800 – multiply that by the number of bars in Old Town and watch those costs sky-rocket.  Those machines need to be paid for by someone – whether it’s the owners hiking the prices of drinks, or the tax-payer when this measure is put on a ballot.

This all boils down to the fact that some bars in Old Town have a problem over-serving people. Instead of cracking down on the patrons who are having a good time, not causing any trouble and pumping money into the local economy, why don’t we crack down on the bartenders who aren’t cutting people off when they need to be? There are bars in Old Town which constantly have these incidents, why not crack down on the owners of these places to beef up their own security before tracking anyone who goes out in Fort Collins?

Apple Reality Distortion

Jeromey Balderrama

Given the amount of hype that goes into the launch of any Apple product, I thought I’d do my due-diligence to offer some good-natured balance from the other side:

First off there was an awesome video that Conan put together:

In a more articulate note, Fortune’s Seth Wentraub breaks down some misleading statements made during yesterday’s Apple keynote:

Steve Jobs’ reality distortion takes its toll on truth

Granted Wentraub’s blog is called Google 24/7, so you need to take that grain of salt, but his points are no less valid: how Apple conveniently picks & chooses the specs they care about when it comes to comparing it with other competitors (like Apple won’t tell you how much RAM is in the iPad), how they’re disingenuous about the price comparisons, as well as their claim that they’re the first to ship a dual-core tablet.  If you’re feeling a little warm from Jobs’ reality-distortion field, read this article to cool off.