Tim Regan-Porter

mosteverybody:

‘I don’t believe in the sky bully’ - Joss Whedon. This seems like a correct Easter sentiment. Neither do I. Happy Easter.

After a decade at Paste, I am moving on.

On March 1, I will become the inaugural director of the new Center for Collaborative Journalism at Mercer University.

I am beyond excited at the opportunity that awaits. Academia has long held special appeal for me, but this opportunity is incredible beyond that. The Center is funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation (whose reputation for promoting journalistic excellence and innovation is unsurpassed) in collaboration with The Telegraph (a Pulitzer-winning McClatchy newspaper that, most impressively, remains financially successful and where the vision for the Center originated) and Georgia Public Broadcasting (one of the top public broadcasters in the nation). The paper’s newsroom will be located in the Center, and GPB is just out the door (also on Mercer property). It’s an innovative program focused on community engagement and a clinical (medical school-like) model of education. It will be cross-disciplinary; we’ll work with Knight and the other departments at Mercer to explore new technology and innovative business models. And Mercer is the most entrepreneurial and fast-moving institution of higher education I have witnessed. The impact they have had on their community is incredible. This position really ties together all the disparate parts of my background–-media, technology and entrepreneurship. I am looking forward to working to build the Center into a model of excellence and a program of national renown.

Nonetheless, the decision to leave the magazine I helped found and poured so much into over the years was not an easy one. I’ve already passed on multiple opportunities in recent days. It would take a dream job to pull me into a new path. In fact, my dream magazine company (the best magazine company out there, unless I count the McSweeney’s collective) was about to make an offer and bring me to New York City, where I’ve wanted to be forever. But the vision and ambition for the Center; the unique flexibility, speed and resources offered; the wonderful people I met; the chance to return to higher education; and the opportunity to continue the reinvigoration of Macon were irresistible.

I’ve even fallen for the city of Macon, which comes as quite a shock. I grew up 40 miles north and never knew the treasures the city offers nor its rich history. Macon’s place in rock history rivals Memphis’. Little Richard (barely arguably) got it all started in Macon. Otis Redding followed soon after, and then the Allman Brothers and Capricorn Records. Mike Mills and Bill Berry of R.E.M. got their start there, as did Mark Heard (a personal favorite) and Young Jeezy. Macon was one of the 5 M’s where you could find legendary engineer Tom Dowd (the others being Manhattan, Miami, Memphis and Muscle Shoals—not bad company). I’m looking forward to exploring (and maybe helping to build) the current scene. The architecture in parts of the city is stunning. I’m told Macon has more homes on the historic registry than Savannah (Sherman spared Macon) and the nation’s largest revolving historic-renovation fund. The tree-lined avenues and blocks of gorgeous buildings downtown are like something out of a movie. We’re looking at 19th Century homes that we can get for a song. And I can’t wait to go kayaking through downtown.

Paste has been a wonderful, enlightening, enlivening and surreal journey. Over the 2001 winter holidays, Josh, Nick and I began crafting a plan to bring forth Paste magazine. The music we loved wasn’t getting the attention it deserved, and the music press was either narrowly focused on a single niche or consumed with reaching teens. In March 2002, Nick and I headed to our first SXSW to learn what we could (“how do you get review copies of albums?”—how green we were!). People told us we were crazy to start a print magazine in 2002, especially one as broad as “whatever we like” (including non-music entertainment). But we plunged ahead. Borders signed on nationwide on the strength of a one-sheet alone, Wilco gave us a track for the sampler, and Paste debuted on July 1 of that year. We soon brought on Joe Kirk as a partner and even started a label that spawned Manchester Orchestra. The ensuing decade saw incredible growth in audience, quality and prestige. We quickly surpassed all our niche competitors in audience and racked up numerous awards. I was fortunate to spend a day with Cameron Crowe (who helped recruit Joni Mitchell to illustrate our cover), to talk to Philip Seymour Hoffman near his home right after his Golden Globe nomination (and Matt Lauer interview), to spend time with Jeff Tweedy in the band’s loft and follow them on the road, and to interview many other favorites (Jason Schwartzman, Janelle Monaé, Quincy Jones, Over the Rhine, Edward James Olmos, Helen Hunt, Patty Griffin, T Bone Burnett, John Hiatt, Marty Noxon, among others). I never got to Bono, Bill Cosby or Joss Whedon, but I’m not giving up hope just yet. Sitting in Lincoln Center alongside David Granger, Jann Wenner and Anna Wintour for our numerous National Magazine Award nominations was an honor. And I’ll never forget attempting to watch the 2009 Presidential Inauguration while also trying to keep the Obamicon servers humming. Taking the staff through Good to Great and the big redesign of the magazine were highlights as well. Over the past year and a half, Paste has transitioned from print + digital to digital only, and we’re now reaching a much wider audience than we ever have. I’m proud to have conceived mPlayer when most others were simply throwing glorified PDFs online. At two million monthly unique visitors, Paste now has one of the largest editorially focused music sites in the U.S. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing, but I’m proud of what we (that means everyone involved with Paste, in any capacity, in any of its iterations ) built. I will miss the work, but mostly I will miss the wonderful people I’ve worked with over the years. 

I leave knowing that Paste continues in great hands and will continue to grow and make me proud. Josh and Nick are as excited about Paste as on the day we launched. Bonnie, Max, and Sean–-with help from great section editors (Charles, Michael, Garrett and their assistants, Rob and Laura on the graphics front, and Jay as utility player), freelancers and the always-stellar interns–-have performed yeoman’s (and yeowoman’s) work in continuing the Paste tradition of great content. And I’ve enjoyed working with and getting to know George Howard, our primary contact at the parent company and a man with his own storied history in music.

May the next decade be filled with as many wonderful people and adventures.

UPDATE: This short video that captures well the beauty and history of Macon.

twloha:

In 2006, actor Stephen Fry received a letter from a girl struggling with depression. This was his response.

curiositycounts:

Resolutions for Good – a lovely, actionable campaign to designate 2012 the year of doing good for others. Best thing since Woody Guthrie’s 1942 resolutions list.

Compare the two lists from perpetua:

• Top 10 U.S. vinyl sales for 2011
• Top 10 Best-Selling Albums, 1991-2011

The former has The Beatles, Bon Iver (twice), Radiohead, Black Keys (twice), Wilco, Adele, etc. The latter has Backstreet Boys, Creed and Celine Dion (and, he points out, Creed outsold Perl Jam’s Ten and Nirvana’s Nevermind). Of course, these lists cover different time periods and 2011’s best sellers may be a little better than the decade’s as a whole, but I’m sure it will look nothing like the vinyl list.

Not that vinyl buyer’s superior taste should come as a surprise. Of course people who shop at indie record stores are going to have better taste than those shopping at big box retailers. (Not that I’m a music snob. I have nothing against truly mainstream music; some of my favorite bands fill arenas. But if you bought more than half of the albums on the 2nd list, I’m not sure we can be friends.)

“Being a leftist is a calling, not a career; it’s a vocation, not a profession. It means you are concerned about structural violence, you are concerned about exploitation at the work place, you are concerned about institutionalized contempt against gay brothers and lesbian sisters, hatred against peoples of color, and the subordination of women. It means that you are willing to fight against, and to try to understand the sources of social misery at the structural and institutional levels, as well as at the existential and personal levels. That’s what it means to be a leftist; that’s why we choose to be certain kinds of human beings.”

- Cornel West

This Forbes summary of Sydney Finkelstein’s research on major failures is a corrective to an insidious strain of common thinking on success and leadership. It jives well with Jim Collins’ research in Good to Great (Level 5 leaders, etc.) but runs counter to what we commonly believe about business leaders. We have this image of successful leaders as egocentric, fast-moving, loud-mouthed geniuses steamrolling through life, a combination of Gordon Gecko, Alex P. Keaton and Steve Jobs. The facts paint a different picture, and in light of the growing mythology of Jobs, we need this reminder.

How do I account for Jobs? At most, he’s an exception that proves the rule. Emulating his ego-driven management style will no more bring success than dropping out of college will bring you closer to Jobs, Gates or Zuckerburg’s achievements. Much has been, and will be, written on his success, and I won’t try to sum it up here. But I think it’s not so much an exception as a peculiar example. He may have ran roughshod over people, but ego does not seem to be his primary driver. He was driven by visions of transformational products. He was relentlessly focused on end users, not PR. And he was never complacent.

The lessons in 7 Habits and Good to Great aren’t just for high-profile CEOs. I’ve witnessed firsthand entrepreneurs, managers and non-profit employees who hurt their organization and careers because they over-identified with their company. I’ve seen teams shun anyone who raises questions in the interest of shared vision or community, silencing perspectives they very much need. And I continually see everyone from line workers to middle managers to company leaders who repeatedly use what worked in the past, insisting against the evidence in front of them that the square peg will fit in this round hole if they just keep trying (since they got a square peg to work somewhere else in the past). I need these reminders too. Not only have I made the same mistakes, I occasionally buy back into the myth of the steamroller leader and forget what it really takes.

Andrew,

I’ve particularly enjoyed your recent series of posts on religion (I’m still pondering the whole faith vs practice thread). And I agree with the sentiments expressed by you and your reader in this Whatever Happened To Hell? Ctd post.

However, I must take issue with those sentiments presented as a critique of what Rob Bell has said. You are both in violent agreement with him, just not the paraphrases and soundbites that his book has been reduced to.

Your reader quotes Bell’s “endless list of absurdities and inconsistencies” and says, no, it’s the abuse and “God is going to send  you to hell, unless…” that turns people off. But that is exactly his point. Not a tangent, not a minor one of his points. Exactly his point. Hell, it’s the context of the video your reader pulls the quote from. But it’s even clearer in the book. Much of modern Christianity (especially the evangelical portion that Bell speaks from) talks of an all-loving God but then says, you have an unknown but infinitesimal amount of time to do, say and/or believe the right things to appease this God and avoid eternal torment. That is the essence of the absurd inconsistency that he is writing against. (Even worse, that view of hell and salvation is usually presented as the only possible interpretation of Christian history and text, and he tries to show the history of much broader way of thinking going back to the early church fathers.)

And Bell also makes exactly your points. Some excerpts:

Do I believe in a literal hell? Of course. Those aren’t metaphorical missing arms and legs [referencing Rwandan kids with missing limbs].

Have you ever sat with a women while she talked about what it was like to be raped? How does a person describe what it’s like to hear a five-year-old boy whose father has just committed suicide ask: ‘When is daddy coming home?’

… I’ve seen what happens when people abandon all that is good and right and kind and humane.

… I tell these stories because it’s absolutely vital that we acknowledge that love, grace, and humanity can be rejected. From the most subtle rolling of the eyes to the most violent degradation of another human, we are terrifyingly free to do as we please.

… So when people say they don’t believe in hell and they don’t like the word ‘sin,’ my first response is to ask, ‘Have you talked with a family who just found out their child has been molested? Repeatedly? Over a number of years? By a relative?

Some words are strong for a reason. We need those words to be that intense, loaded, complex, and offensive, because they need to reflect the realities they describe.

But his broader point is that, as his title says, love wins. That the real story of Christianity is about unfailing, never-ending, all-encompassing love, grace and redemption. Its a story that doesn’t even stop at the grave. Maybe we get so locked in our own depravity that we’ll keep rejecting what’s healthy and good and loving forever. But eternity is a very long time, and to say that God has some magical cutoff time by which you must do, say or believe the right things doesn’t strike him as good, loving, moral or in keeping with what he reads of the Biblical story. That’s the story he wants to tell.

Rob Bell doesn’t need me to defend him, but I think it’s important that, if his name is going to invoked in an argument, what he actually says should at least be accurately represented.

I am not evangelical (though I grew up as an evangelical PK). And Bell does little to address the existential skeptic in me. But I have tremendous respect for him and he paints a picture of God and Christianity that is as appealing and optimistic, while acknowledging the ugliness of our present reality, as I can imagine.

Thanks,

Tim

Word As Image. Cool book trailer. Got me to add the book to my wish list.

Cool view from inside guitar.

iPhone4 from jumbopunkin was “inserted into the body of Phil Keaggy’s Olson guitar to record the oscillation pattern created by the vibrating strings and the ‘rolling shutter’ artifact of the camera’s CMOS sensor”

Picked up this t-shirt last night, courtesy of @startupriot. #mathhumor

Infographic: HBO Actor Recycling Program (Interactive)

Jeff Mangum plays Occupy Wall Street

Here’s proof in two sets of exchanges from @lettersofnote:

Mr. Rogers

Phil Hartman

Time Out London speaks to the screenwriter.

‘I think if I’ve worked anything through with screenwriting it’s that I’m not going to be able to work anything through. It’s an ongoing crisis. You deal with who you are in different circumstances.’

Meanwhile, Alex Billington rounds up the latest news on Kaufman’s next film, which is set to star Jack Black, Steve Carell, Nicolas Cage & Kevin Kline:

Details have finally started coming out confirming that the plot is indeed about an online film critic versus a filmmaker, with some extra Kaufman craziness thrown in. In an update yesterday, The Playlist says that the script makes fun of the film industry in all of its forms: “not only, the graffiti-with-punctuation bloggers, but the entire machine: fatuous filmmakers, vapid PR people, self-absorbed writers, blowhard actors, and last but not least it serves up a jiujitsu-like takedown on the ego-driven, vacuous meat-parade that is the Academy Awards.” Intrigued to see how it plays out. Despite all that, in the end “it also says a lot of things about society, culture, human nature (and race) and human behavior—albeit some of it in his patently strange and sometimes baffling way.” Of course.

And Vulture weighs in with more details in “Five Things to Know About Charlie Kaufman’s Wild New Movie, Frank or Francis.”

Some good advice from Chris Dixon, angel investor and founder of Hunch.

His first point, if you aren’t getting rejected on a daily basis, your goals aren’t ambitious enough, is applicable to art, business… life in general. Hyperbole, sure. But the right attitude and a good goal, if approached right. I love his point about certain things being “max functions”—where getting the best outcome is what matters, not what the average is. When things are sucking, we get trapped in averages, and we don’t want to keep trying because, chances are, we’ll just bring the average down further. But it’s only the next hit that really matters. Something I need to remember more.

His 2nd point, don’t climb the wrong hill, is really about a particular danger of incrementalism—because things are slowly getting better, we stay on course and miss opportunities for dramatic improvement. An illustration from hill climbing optimization might help understand his discussion:

If you are dropped off near the smaller hill and try to find the highest point by always going up and backtracking when you start going down, you’ll end up on top of the smaller hill. You’ll have found a local maximum but not the global one (even one nearby).

I’ve seen examples of people not getting his third point, the next big thing will start out looking like a toy, time and time again. I am leery of trends and the search for the “next big thing.” But I’m even more leery of people who proclaim something to be just a fad. If you find yourself proclaiming “I just don’t get it” a lot, then just settle back into your dad couch and try to enjoy the view, but don’t pretend to be a business leader or a “clear thinker.” Chances are that you see everything that is not an incremental improvement as fad and you dismiss all game-changing innovations, the things that truly end up disrupting industries, as “toys.” (Of course, those who peddle in daily minutiae are likely to miss the game changers because they can’t see the big picture and are more interested in the trivial scorekeeping of vanity metrics. But that’s another topic.)

Earlier this week, Nicholas Kristof followed up on a group in Kenya that benefited from his Mother’s Day suggestion of donations to help women around the world.

It’s staggering what she and Kennedy have created. The Kibera School for Girls now has 64 students in pre-kindergarten through second grade, adding one grade a year. Almost 500 children competed for the 19 slots in the current pre-kindergarten.

The school looks like a good American school, and classes are taught in English. Even though English is a second or third language for these children, 82 percent perform at American grade level — and these kids are ravenous to learn.

“Some of the first and second graders are reading at seventh-grade level,” Jessica said proudly.

And on his blog, Kristof writes of successful efforts to raise money for Somalian relief:

After my previous column from Dadaab about the Somali crisis, a reader in New York City — Whitney Tilson, who is active on several philanthropic fronts — sent it out to his entire email list to encourage people to donate to charities working in the area. He also offered to match any donation up to $100, and he figured the mailing might generate a total of $2,000 or $2,500. Instead, the response was a torrent, including other offers to match, so the amount raised climbed to almost $200,000. The Wall Street Journal had a nice piece about the episode. All I can say is: Wow!

I greatly appreciate Kristof’s regularly follow ups. Sustainable progress demands that we move beyond crisis-of-the-moment journalism and fundraising efforts. Much more is still needed in Somalia, obviously. And the Kenyan story highlights what a small number of people, back by relatively small amounts of money, can accomplish. Between the mega-crises, like the Haitian earthquake and the 2006 tsnami, with their mega-fundraising success, and the struggles of American institutions to show progress and the effective use of their funds, we sometimes are left with an impression that money doesn’t help. Not that much. We can certainly debate the marginal benefit of additional dollars for, say, the Chicago school system. But let’s not forget that most of the world, and most NGOs, are at a vastly different place on the marginal benefit curve. 500 children competing for 19 slots in a program where 82% read at grade-level in a non-native tongue. There’s no way you can argue against the need for or effectiveness of money in that case.

On Good News

Writing about children & the poor & the vulnerable these days, there aren’t very many bright spots — but this is one. -Nicholas Kristof

Last week I tweeted a link to a New York Times article, using the quote above. A friend thanked me for passing on a bit of good news after a particularly bleak week (the execution of Troy Davis on top of the ongoing bad news about the economy, global skirmishes, etc.)

As I’ve been contemplating writing more, that little exchange has stuck with me. We all need some good news now and then to keep us going. It seems there’s no bottom to the pit of cynism sucking us all down. Every “Yes We Can” moment of hope just seems to deepen the despair when our saviors are inevitably unmasked as mere mortals and our best-intentioned plans fall to pieces.

Every artist is a cannibal. Every poet is a thief. All kill their inspiration and sing about their grief. -Bono

Of course, part of this feeling stems from what we focus on (aided and abetted by the media, artists and others who are really just participating in a collusion we’ve all unconsciously agreed to). “If it bleeds, it leads.” “Every artist is a cannibal” And so on.

But there is good news. Every day. Spread across the globe. Produced and witnessed by many. On my better days, I see this good news everywhere. Some days, I even see the march of history as one of actual human progress (not just scientific and technological progress). In the language of Christian tradition, we might even see it as the Kingdom of God being made manifest in the here and now. The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk. Peace is breaking out. (I’ve been fascinated by the numerous articles reviewing and reacting to Steven Pinker’s book.) Love and tolerance, in a global community where everyone is my neighbor, are taking hold. We still have many miles to trod, and even the best intentioned of us tend to be blind to the systemic problems that bind us. But maybe, just maybe, we’re marching onward and upward. (How sad, then, that large factions of the Christian church resist rather than promote movements toward greater compassion, love and equality. Sometimes it’s cloaked in ancient language, but I think it’s really about holding onto the ideology and insular communities of childhood and adherence to the new religion of individuality and unfettered markets. But I digress….)

So, in that spirit, I intend to start regularly posting links to bits of good news—examples of another side of what humanity is capable of. (I’m sure it will entail many more links to Kristof.)

On Bad News As Good News

The sky has grown dark…. The night is closing…. The atmosphere is lethal…. All lies in ashes….

And it’s not too late. -T Bone Burnett

Having said that, I can’t just leave it there. T Bone Burnett has described the song I quoted above, with its litany of problems and ominous signs, as a hopeful song. The hope comes from taking our heads out of the sand—facing not only society’s problems but our own inner darkness head on. And I say, right on.

I consider myself an existentialist, a humanist and a Whedonesque Christian (in much the same way, and through similar reasoning, that Cornel West considers himself a Chekhovian Christian)—though I am bad in my practice of each of those descriptors. From religious existentialists like West and Kierkegaard (or Paul Tillich or Martin Buber) to atheist existentialists like Joss Whedon and Jean-Paul Satre, I’ve always (since late high school at least) been drawn to that unflinching look into the abyss. I have such admiration for those who have dared take that plunge and then returned to forge a new meaning for their lives. To let that fire purge you of preconceptions, false constructs and wishful projections is a great place for change, personal and societal, to begin. And I think it can bring you to a similar beginning that Buddhists, with their concern for non-attachment (ridding ourselves of neurotic clinging and avoidance), encourages. In some ways, I view the very different writings of Thich Nhat Hanh and the current Dali Lama, as mirror images of that of my favorite existentialists.

All that it to say that good news should NOT be viewed as hiding place, a refuge from all the bad news, something to cling to in a childish, Polyannaish way. We should be just as welcoming of bad news. That is where the opportunity lies.

Moving Forward, Beyond Isolated Examples

The problem with the news as we currently get it are threefold:

1. News as entertainment. In Neil Postman’s essential Amusing Ourselves to Death, his central thesis is that we are moving toward a Huxleyan world where distraction renders truth irrelevant (with no need for a state to suppress or redefine it, a la Orwell). His concern was less that we would while away our time on reality TV and more that we’d start to view news, politics, etc. as entertainment (without realizing it). Political coverage is more about the horse race than the impact of our impending choice. More subtly and damning, we read endlessly about a tragedy on the other side of the globe, and we are only inured to its reality and lulled into passivity. It has no direct impact on us. We don’t take action to help. But we feel better: we’re more informed; we’re worldly; we care. What we really are is self-deluding and irrelevant.
2. Our definition of worthwhile knowledge. Postman has also written about how educational institutions, rightly and necessarily, define what is worthwhile knowledge. They codify it in curricula and research that leads to tenure. But there are serious pitfalls these institutions fall prone to and that weakens their (and knowledge’s) progress. Similarly, the media (led by we the people) have defined what worthwhile news is. It’s the stabbing, the unexpected poll or market result, the scandal. It’s seldom the success, the thing that works. We tell ourselves that’s because it’s commonplace, expected and not newsworthy. But why are we so cynical then? Success should be news if our cynicism is right. Most business fail; most government programs are ineffective. If that’s true, then let’s talk about what works (and not just for the behemoths). More importantly, let’s learn.
3. Little movement forward. We’ve somehow moved into age of fact and opinion as separate, disparate realms that must be kept apart (except on Fox news). The problem is that both fact and opinion are severely impoverished. (See this critique of NPR.) What happened to knowledge? learning? even wisdom? I’ll post links to good news, but the real objective is to learn from that good news (and the bad news) and then take action. I hope paradigms like the Eric Ries’ Lean Startup take hold in nonprofits, government sectors and socially conscious businesses. We can learn from isolated examples, but we can make much more progress with rigorous thinking and experimentation.

I’m not flush with time (despite what the length of this post might indicate), nor am I ensconced in a university or socially committed enterprise where such would be part of my job. But maybe a post here and there can inspire one person to learn from the actions of others and take action (or take more effective action). Onward and upward.

animalstalkinginallcaps:

DO YOU EVER WONDER IF THE RECENT TREND TOWARDS ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN AMERICA AND THE CONCURRENT MEDIA ATTACKS ON THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM HAVE BEEN ARRANGED BY THE SAME MULTINATIONAL CONGLOMERATES AND WAR PROFITEERS THAT CURRENTLY HOLD THE NATION IN ECONOMIC BONDAGE, AS A MEANS TO ENSURE THE POPULACE AT LARGE NEVER MANAGE TO EDUCATE THEMSELVES TO THE POINT WHERE THEY BEGIN QUESTIONING THE UNSPOKEN POWER STRUCTURE?

IT’S EITHER THAT OR PEOPLE SPEND TOO MUCH TIME ON THE INTERNET.

DON’T GET ME STARTED. I WAS ON YOUTUBE FOR NINE HOURS YESTERDAY WATCHING LIL WAYNE VIDEOS.

Over at GigaOM, Bobbie Johnson writes about free streaming offerings from MOG and Rdio, to compete with Spotify’s, and the results of an eMusic-sponsored survey showing consumers want to own music.

The survey or at least its implications are wishful thinking—on their part, as well as for other stakeholders like labels who need the higher revenue from purchases. I believe the actual results. I’m sure many consumers do report wanting to own music. But this is another example of the classic phenomenon of users not knowing what they really want and not being able to predict their own behavior.

A year ago, I would have shared the survey’s conclusion/implication. I believed that streaming would come but would take a while to truly change our consumption patterns. But in actually using Spotify (even before it came to the US), Rdio and MOG, my behavior changed so dramatically and so quickly (and I hear the same from others) that I believe the sea change is upon us. 

Certainly, there will remain a place for purchases. I love eMusic and they’ve got some great exclusive content. But most consumption will move to streaming and purchases will be reserved for special items (vinyl, exclusive tracks/versions, special packaging with booklets and custom artwork, bonus songs, etc.).

It’s the Netflix effect, and I began to draw this parallel explicitly in my own consumption. If I can watch a movie at any time on Netflix, I don’t need the DVDs. Even with DVDs I already own, I’ll usually pull up the video on Netflix because I can’t be bothered to get the DVD from my library, take it out of its case, put it in the PS3 and then reverse the steps when I’m done (especially for multi-disc TV series). There are some movies and shows I want to own, but precious few. Significantly fewer than I thought would be the case when Netflix started streaming.

This pattern and line of thinking repeated itself with the music services. We’ve been trained by Netflix. It doesn’t matter what people say they think of the concept of streaming, or cloud-based services more generally. Netflix, Google Docs and even email (particularly gmail and other IMAP-based services) have trained us not to worry so much about where things reside. As long as we can access it more-or-less when we want, we don’t care. We may think we care, but that concern fades as we use these services. And we are moving ever closer the “always connected” promise and that further erodes our supposed concerns. The distinction between steaming and owning, between local and cloud, is just vanishing. It’s not a matter of conscious thought and opinion. It’s matter of usage and behavior. Add to that Apple’s coming entry into the field, with its cloud-integrated iTunes, and the change will really take hold. (The thing I love most about Spotify is its iTunes integration, so I can seamlessly move between owned and streamed content.) 

Having said that, the future of streaming is not certain. The genie is not going back in the bottle. Consumers want ubiquitous access and all-you-can-eat plans. The demand is so strong that it will pull enough supply that those who fight it do so to their own detriment. But the business model (and the players that make up the field) will evolve. It has to. There’s already a backlash from some artists and labels because these services seem to be cannibalizing sales more than they generate new listeners (and at a fraction of the revenue). Artists can’t survive on fractional-cent-per-listen unless the scale is mammoth. And, on the streaming service side, licensing is fraught with peril. It’s time-consuming to negotiate, unstable and seemingly onerous. The only company that licenses music that I’d bet on is Apple. Even Pandora, though on the right track, has yet to reach profitability. And when they do, it may be difficult to maintain with threatened changes to fee structures. 

I hope these services reach a Netflix-like scale that generates sizable revenue for artists and labels, keeping them in the game and making it easier for consumers to discover and enjoy music.* That will take some time. In the meantime, we will see artists and labels pulling out, pushing for higher fees, time-limiting streaming availability, etc. I hope we don’t see rising prices for the services, at least not for a while. Scale simply can’t be reached for new behavior at prices above $10.

And scale is the main thing that’s needed. I’m sure labels will try to get sophisticated in their use of the services. Some release will be withheld or time-boxed based on their calculus (or, more likely, gut feel) about what will sell outright (to fans or mass market), what will spread virally, what needs an intro period, etc. The danger in that, of course, is that they undercut the usefulness of the services and forestall reaching the scale we need.

The services themselves need to not only be savvy in their negotiations, they need to be much more sophisticated in their presentation and discovery engines. Beyond even the convenience factor, the great appeal of Netflix, for both consumers and studios, is its recommendations. It’s secret sauce is knowing, based on stated preferences and implications from usage patterns, what you like and showing you movies and shows you didn’t know about or had forgotten about. Building that kind of engine for music is the holy grail of music technology. And I fear it may be as elusive. The universe of music is so much bigger than that of film, and tastes so idiosyncratic, that its hard to envision anything like the success of Netflix’s recommendation engine in the music space. Nonetheless, the services could at least do a better job of lower-tech discovery tools. Editorially driven sections, Recommended-If-You-Like suggestions, Amazon-style collaboratively filtered recommendations, Pandora-like discovery play modes (it doesn’t need to be nearly as complex as Pandora’s music gnome-based technology—just use collaborative filtering and my collection to play a nice mix), etc. Building better discovery services is crucial to fulfilling the promise of scale.

If we reach scale and consumers aren’t branching out to new artists, then labels have gained nothing and this may all be a grand but failed experiment. Apple, Amazon and Google may let you store what you’ve purchased in the cloud, but that will be the extent of it. And that would be a loss for consumers and (assuming the business model concerns can be worked out) for the vitality of the music scene. The early promise of the Internet and the steep decline in the cost of making and distributing music needs all-you-can-eat streaming services, powered by intelligent discovery engines, to reach its full potential. Without it, many of the benefits of the democratization of music creation are lost to the noise and limited by consumer budgets.

Here’s hoping that these services and the labels and artists can get and keep it together long-enough for this new model to evolve into something sustainable and beneficial to all stakeholders.

*Even Netflix’s success is not unambiguous. It generates sizable revenue for studios, and I’ve seen little grumbling about it. However, DVD sales have been decimated. I haven’t seen any reports of the net effect, but, tellingly, the number of titles not available for streaming is not trivial. Moreover, studios have other sizable revenue streams (theatrical releases, licensing, etc.). If home video (Netflix + DVD) were the only revenue source, I imagine we’d see a little more reticence to gamble with streaming models.