How come Mac users can't watch videos on mtv.com?
I'd love to blame MTV, but just-featured in "BusinessWeek" Judy McGrath is too damn smart to make this mistake. Then again, Judy's a little removed at this point, and I'll tell you right now, those in charge now DO NOT have their finger on the pulse. It's kind of like when Steve Jobs left Apple. He'd built the company on a solid foundation and those now in charge were just CARETAKERS! Al Teller after Irving Azoff at MCA. Eventually the hits RUN OUT! Judy is a teenager at heart. She knew the station had to stay one step ahead, certainly in front of the RECORD COMPANIES! But those now in charge, they believe they've got a franchise. But if these people were so fucking hot, so fucking good, mtv.com wouldn't be the loser site it is, IT would be the new MySpace. Instead, mtv.com runs just about as slowly as MySpace and has none of the heat. But, despite all that, despite those now in charge of the TV network being clueless when it comes to the Web, they being two comple tely different WORLDS, the reason you can't stream a video on a Mac is because of the stupid motherfucking RECORD COMPANIES!
Come on you pricks. Do you really think people are that interested in stealing VIDEOS? Do you REALLY think they're such a profit center? I mean charge B2B. I don't think Yahoo and MTV should build a business on your back. But the paradigm remains the same, videos are PROMOTIONAL TOOLS! If you can get someone to buy them, more power to you. But the key, like airplay, is to get people EXPOSED to the act. Which, if they're actually PULLING the video, or attempting to do so on mtv.com, they're already INTERESTED IN! It's like not letting someone take a test drive at the car dealership. The money is in selling the CAR, not the TEST DRIVE!
Tomorrow morning Apple's gonna reveal another breakthrough. If Pixar and Apple were bands, they'd be the Beatles. One jaw-dropping moment after another. Funny how the labels see Steve Jobs as the enemy. I think they're just jealous.
Microsoft has given up development of Windows Media Player for the Mac. There's a format war. The labels are bitching that Apple won't allow the DRM format it utilizes to be licensed to other companies. Yet Yahoo lobbied last week for NO DRM. But that's SELLING! Here there's DRM on the ADVERTISING! With no solution in SIGHT! What's the end game here? The record companies will charge customers a hundred bucks a year to see videos on special locked down computers in malls? I mean are these guys FUCKED UP or what?
Yet, despite not being able to watch Pink's "Stupid Girls" video on mtv.com, you can just mosey over to her homepage, http://www.pinkspage.com/, if you're a Mac-user, and see it no problem. And I advise you see it. Because contained in this postage stamp sized window is everything that's wrong with today's record business.
Pink is affable. Cute. Warm. Sexy.
She's taking a stand against the airheads. Known as Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie. She's got it all right in this video. The only problem is...THE MUSIC SUCKS!
This is where MTV has brought us. Where the marketing is more important than the music. There's focus on spending dollars to hype something yet this can't cover up the fact that there's a deficit of the one thing hit music depends on...INSPIRATION!
I mean this is like the movie business. Where the music is an AFTERTHOUGHT! Anybody who thinks this song is a hit is a shit. God, it's even got the obligatory rap in the middle. It's like high school. There's an insiders club the members of which all "play" on each other's records. But if you remember high school, the rest of the academic population HATED the insiders. And it's these OUTSIDERS who rule on the Internet. And they're rejecting this faux music, this hoax. Only casual fans, people who don't believe in music, could get excited about Pink's "Stupid Girls".
Yet, you can even read about it on the Drudge Report. That's how good the major label marketing machine is.
What if it just came down to the music. What would the labels do THEN? If it didn't matter what the singer looked like. If there had to be hooks, and intelligent lyrics. If it was all about the SOUND!
Those days are back kids. And that's why the major labels are dying. They're COMPLETELY OUT OF TOUCH!
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