Netflix got into trouble from a lot of people for pretty much getting rid of renting physical DVDs but still paying the same for the service and then bringing it back as a sister business. One of the founders, now no longer there gives his take. He supports the idea and gives great insight into the history of the company. 95% of revenue was from selling DVDs not renting in year one and then they killed it off. Ballsy.
Nice post about the resurrection and plummet of Nixon both done via TV. Never heard of the Checkers speech before.
The Business Post reports that a Government sponsored group, the National Substance Misuse Strategy Steering Group is looking at suggesting the banning of drink sponsorship of Arts and Culture events. There’s been talk for a long while too about banning drinks brands sponsoring sports events. So no more Jameson Film Festival, Absolut Fringe, Corona Cork Film Festival and the Guinness Jazz Festival?
Arts and Culture organisations will be even more moany if another source of funding is shut down. Government grants aren’t what they used to be. We’re in a recession so it’s harder, for some at least, to get corporate sponsors. Of course one can donate to an arts project without having to publicly be listed as a headline sponsor/sponsor. I’m sure many drinks companies will instead do this, given how they care so deeply about Irish culture. So says the press releases. Bit of Dáil discussion on it too.
You have to wonder about Arthur’s day too then. Will this artificially created calendar event get killed off too? It’s not “Guinness day” but is associated with it. No coincidence it was created just as worldwide drinks companies started seeing traditional marketing routes denied to them. Funds for social entrepreneurship, like sponsoring arts and culture events are another route to keep your name around if you’re a drinks company. I wonder will these be classed as sponsorship too. It’s nice that a fraction of revenue from a single day out of a year is spent to keep these projects sustained for a while.
There’s some great lessons to be learned from the arms race between the tobacco industry and various Governments over the decades. Now it’s happening with alcohol. I’m sure fatty foods will be next. For those that haven’t issues working for tobacco companies or drinks companies then there is serious money in change and disruption. Think of the euro changeover or the Y2K bug. Fortunes were made from it. Helping these companies find newer routes to market their products will get you that mansion sooner.
And of course with tobacco TV ads banned we get this instead, now if they ban drink and fatty food ads…
The Business Post covered the Mulley Comms Teen Smoking Survey recently. Some of the data was unexpected and eye-opening. Reasons for giving up saw cost and health equally matched and what many already know: the anti-smoking ads don’t work.
Still reading the book – Nudge. Interesting bit in it that people will spend sometimes up to twice as much on desirable items because the option to pay with credit card is there.
Follow. At the Fringe this year, be great to get them down to Cork.
Shane’s parents are deaf. He grew up in a house with doorbell lights and subtitles on the TV. A house where to be heard, you had to be seen. Follow him to a place where languages collide. Where the lights are so bright you can’t see to speak. Where sound is just a feeling and signs are all around. Close your ears, cover your eyes. Come to the Deaf Disco. We’ll see you there
Love research and data around cities. The first bunch of paragraphs talk about a London with deadly fires, the Plague, Cholera and more and yet it survived and grew even bigger. I
I like the idea. Sculpture classes as a team-building, fun event. Nice results.
Found via Twitter User story does online usability testing and website reviews.
Starlings create these amazing patterns when flying together. It seems they follow three simple rules and if you recreate them as a software model, you can get the same patterns. Fly at the same speed, always stay the same distance between you and your neighbours and if you see a predator, leg it.
If you were to bump into this witty and cultured guy at a friend’s party and think he’s a good laugh and he invites some friends and you to another party, you take his car and on the way to this other gaff you realise it’s not his car, he just lifted keys from the original party and he’s actually on second thoughts a bit mental and with a scary dark side and you have no idea where the fuck you’ll end up or if you’ll escape, then you’re slightly experiencing the genius that is Neil Watkins and his play The Year of Magical Wanking. And if you only breathe out after that last full stop, this is what the play will do to you. You can’t be prepared, so go with it. Funny, scary, intelligent and with spit in your face honesty. It could just be a little bit liberating.
Ah there’s another ex-Demonware founder let loose on the bloggersphere. Sean Blanchfield, hello.
Nice idea from Paul. SEO in a box, type service. 747 SEO.
Tickles, another deal site, this time for us down South are hiring. Part of the TCH Group.
Woah. From a McDonald’s (why did he not cover his tracks properly?) a disgruntled employee almost totally wiped out the tech infrastructure of his ex-Pharma bosses. Virtual servers eh?
Seen all those cool levitating type pics from Asia? Here’s how they do it. Yer man has the same accent as Paul Whitehouse. Via Hyperallergic.
Active Child – Hanging On
Posted in Fluffy, irishblogs | Comments Off on Fluffy Links – Sunday August 21st 2011
Jim Carroll’s post on Quality v Quantity in the music business where you now have only a few months to break on through (it seems) due to easy findability of every band on the planet, kind of links into this piece quoting Ian Rogers on how it’s easy to create and distribute music nowadays but again because of easy discoverability, you have to market harder/smarter to get yourself noticed, so more resources are going in to marketing/pr/promotion.
That to me says there are opportunities as well as suggesting maybe with all this connectedness it could bring the quality way up for bands but they still need that 10k hours idea Gladwell came up with. Wait til they get the tech right for people to jam with each other properly around the world in real time. No more ‘bassist wanted’ flyers in guitar shops. It worked with Internet dating!
This of course ties into everything else not just music. When the web first came about, search engines allowed us to find/discover textual information and it worked well. The amount of information then for the basic web was tiny compared to now. With these more complicated media, more tech and more opportunities to sort out information were born. Now with the web we have services like Last.fm (liked this song, others who did liked this one), Netflix for movies, Amazon recommendation services (bit rough) and sites using your social media footprints are now aiding us into finding new things we might like. Counter to that though is the idea we are having too much hidden from us due to what we soley like. Serendipity gets stomped on. There’s a whole TED video on filters and this:
Anyway, Dylan Collins did a blog post on what people (I was included too) thought were opportunities for startups. A good range of people and a load of good ideas are over there. Importantly for me and maybe you is that these quick bursts of ideas get you to think and come up with other ideas and opportunities based on them. Even reading them and saying “this is bullshit because…” gets you to be creative and analytical and maybe share ideas and potential opportunities.
So loads of new ideas for everyone around the world that can be inspired by blog posts and what not. More ways to be inspired, cheaper tech and infrastructure to build your ideas and faster turnaround for the ideas. Increase in quantity, increase in quality too but also a lot of noise. Geography won’t matter as much (we’ll have no Valley is better than Roundabout stuff in the comments please) so an Irish startup could compete with a German one for example. Creativity and skill not previous history of the area become stronger factors for startups.
Is the startup world following what is happening in music? If yes, will the issues with the music industry become a lesson to be learned by startups too? So a bit like Inception, there seem to be opportunities inside opportunities as the opportunity to have an opportunity becomes easier.
Inspiration is just a matter of slowing things down and observing:
