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2015
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Maine Coon
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
12
Posts :
1659
Posted : Jan 15, 2015 02:58
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^ Actually, targetting the ubiquitous middle-aged upper middle-class dude (or dudette) is not the only way to go. In fact, it's not even the best one.
A much more profittable scenario looks like this:
- find a company operating in an obscure market niche,
- quietly copy their business model, if not the whole implementation,
- get a guy with very-very deep pockets to believe that this obscure idea will have its day,
- watch the original innovators fold, go bankrupt, get bought by Micro$oft and deliberately shut down etc,
- when the original obscure inventors of "your" idea disappear, re-brand it it tell "Wired",
- get hugely popular through network effects,
- laugh all the way to the bank.
If all this sounds too theoretical for you, consider Google, who basically copied Altavista's approach to Web searches and exploded with their genious idea - a few years after most of competitors died in the crash of 2001.
Consider Facebook, who copied its idea almost exactly from a little known company named Six Degrees (also a victim of the dotcom bust).
What these two examples have in common is their founders' ability to recognize a niche and quietly wait until until their hour. Which is to say: their ability to secure enough funding to survive, while the original obscure innovators go bankrupt.
Another important aspect - going back to your claim about targetting constipated WASPs instead of bright eyed Rastafarians - imiddle-aged rich guys were last to joun the party, well after teenage geeks and all kinds of freeloaders did. Neither Google nor Facebook make their money from Flomax sales. Neither does the publisher of Angry Birds. |
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moki
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
38
Posts :
1931
Posted : Jan 15, 2015 14:29
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Neither google nor facebook target a niche or move in obscure markets. On the contrary, they target everyone and make their money from creating order in the big data chaos. If you want to copy their business model for music, then the idea of pattern recognition and big data analysis would be the right thing to do - and I guess it won't be musicians who pack the statistics and the programming. By the way services like soundcloud seem to survive well, some main stream radio apps as well, but not well enough the save the music industry. But this business model of google and facebook or some streaming services is conquered for ever.
Btw the fremium model preached by Wired , which works perfectly on a few well known markets, is considered to have failed by some insiders in terms of digital rights management issues - for examples you could read "who owns the future" by Lanier. He suggests a global micropayment model for intellectual work of any kind, based on traceability of internet links. The idea is that the model of DRM for music has failed for everyone and forever, so there is no doubt that if we continue like that , there will be no musicians in 20 years. And a new model must appear.
I believe, the main problem is the following:
the people who can build such an infrastructure are the programmers and the big data gurus, but unfortunately many of them are dedicated to the hacker manifesto which saya " Information wants to be free" . What to do? I am sure there are people who could make a good working business model in this obscure market of psytrance, may be the model of ektoplazm could have worked. May be it even did and we do not know it?
And about the middle aged whatever: well just think of the concerts of classical music too. The musicians did have an alternative way of life but did not care about how they make a living - just because they agreed to play innovative music for the high classes. I mean, Haydn for example was a niche at his time too, and was not ery digestive for the masses....He would not become what he is if he played only for the street.
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moki
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
38
Posts :
1931
Posted : Jan 15, 2015 16:17
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in addition,
- even if you find the right business model for pattern recognition of music and pursuade an investor or two that the target audience is existent , well-funded and interested not only to consume music, visit festivals and buy clothes but to pay for media too and
- even if you get the right IT professionals to do the hard work of making the algorithms of personalization work,
what would be their reason to leave a well paid job and dedicate to making trance profitable? according to http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/technology/06stats.html?_r=1& for example, ppl who are powerful with big data algorithms start with 120000 dollar in their first year of experience. probably 200000 in the fifth. i guess, charity would help more than building models for underground markets.
hm, anyway. i just wonder why you think that musicians do not market themselves. everywhere i go, on every trance related site, the topic is only musicians, djs and their work....may be it is just the defitinition of the word to market yourself that i see differently.
to end the prediction for 2015: according to global analysts, the legal marihuana market in the USA will be the third fastest growing industry in 2015. this is not a joke, may be just change the industry 
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Login
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
65
Posts :
1707
Posted : Jan 19, 2015 21:17
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Actually pretty happy to see you guys around here once more.
Hugs to everyone.
 "The dedication to repetition — the search for nirvana in a single held tone or an endlessly cycling rhythm — is one of electronic music's noblest gestures." |
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OzMike
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
148
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1681
Posted : Jan 20, 2015 06:50
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Ok I'm too over this to debate but at least got some interesting comments.
Cuntus Maximus. |
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Maine Coon
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
12
Posts :
1659
Posted : Jan 21, 2015 16:36
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I could not help noticing that the Forum is unusually quiet. Just wondering: was it the "real life" that sucked people out of this place or was it one of the virtual traps (Facebook etc)?
A bit off-topic: wouldn't you rather have a real conversation (however weird or chopped it may be) here than clicking "like" on pictures of somebody's kittens?
...Continuing with the real conversation:
Tina, the pattern recognition software is only as good as the people who wrote it. And its performance is only as reliable as patterns themselves. Some patterns are subject to interpretation and simply do not have an "universal meaning".
Here is a simple task for your super-duper big data sniffer system:
Consider this number sequence - 3, 5, 7.
Predict next number in sequence.
Here are just a couple of possible scenarious:
These numbers are consecutive odd numbers - next number is 9.
These numbers are consecutive primes - next number is 11.
These are "culturally important" numbers (Trinity, 5 pillars of Islam, 7 chakras etc.) - next number is 12.
This is one of the questions about "life, universe and everything" - the answer is, of course, 42.
I suggest you read the story about a guy whose mortgage was cancelled because his name was the same as Saddam Hussein's brother's. It may dampen your enthusiasm about wonders of pattern recognition. |
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Login
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
65
Posts :
1707
Posted : Jan 21, 2015 17:25
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The forum has been quite for some time, the last time a topic dragged some activity was last summer when discussing the implications of Israel-Palestina conflict to the psy scene which, as was expected, ended badly.
Why so quiet?
I think more regular users have started to grown up and out of the psy scene and the new generation doesn't seem to come here, probably they hang out in facebook groups.
I prefer forums to FB for many reasons but I am on other sites (music related) which are more active than isratrance.
Still this place makes me nostalgic 
"The dedication to repetition — the search for nirvana in a single held tone or an endlessly cycling rhythm — is one of electronic music's noblest gestures." |
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kriz
Horrordelic Records
Started Topics :
25
Posts :
1247
Posted : Feb 15, 2015 02:03
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OzMike
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
148
Posts :
1681
Posted : Feb 15, 2015 10:59
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Psynews is active if you like the old school & neo Goa vibes. Rest is gone.
Only real active forum I know online is Muffwiggler for hardware synth enthusiasts.
Cuntus Maximus. |
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moki
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
38
Posts :
1931
Posted : Feb 18, 2015 14:52
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For me it is exactly the other way round : it is not the place that makes me nostalgic but I actually first feel nostalgia and then come to the place and write something for a minute or two.
FB is indeed an interesting phenomenon, but I don't think that anyone from the "new generation" could find FB very cool anymore considered his grandma and his teachers are on FB too - it is simply not a place where underground culture can flourish. The specialised press predicts that the next big thing in FB must be some forum culture, since anyone there is already fed up with presentations of selfies and monologues. However I doubt that FB will make the giant leap into a new culture of discussion as we know it in the forums.
And btw for me it is a total no go to be in a place, where users are profiled by financial institutions using algorithms that conclude if my friends are poor, non employed ppl and thus I am not creditworthy. But there we talk about big data algorithms again:).
For me forums are a place where one can learn new things, and I guess today I still find some new ideas even in abandoned places where only one person is writing. In FB the time factor would be too high for that.
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Boulevard
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
55
Posts :
2497
Posted : Feb 19, 2015 15:57
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Its very difficult to spread the word for an underground or psy party with like minded people on FB. If its out there you bet there would be some people coming to the party spoil the vibe. FB is meant for commercial party promotion .
Mushrooms make you do crazy stuff. Look at Mario he jumps on animal heads and fights with dragons. |
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exotic
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
200
Posts :
5057
Posted : Feb 21, 2015 20:27
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kriz
Horrordelic Records
Started Topics :
25
Posts :
1247
Posted : Feb 22, 2015 13:05
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moki
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
38
Posts :
1931
Posted : Feb 25, 2015 22:32
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Quote:
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On 2015-01-21 17:25, Login wrote:
The forum has been quite for some time, the last time a topic dragged some activity was last summer when discussing the implications of Israel-Palestina conflict to the psy scene which, as was expected, ended badly.
Why so quiet?
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It is quite because first of all most trance related topics that you would read about in psychedelic, shamanic and cybernetic books have been sorted out through the years, and at the end of the day there is not so much to talk about party culture 15 years long...Only the production forum seems to breathe further .
And second because most users have grown up and are probably more interested in politics, the future of the planet and their place in society than they were when they were young - and exactly conversations like this one you mention frighten many people and keep them away from being in a forum that might seem to be internationally centered around anything like national politics.
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Djones
IsraTrance Senior Member
Started Topics :
267
Posts :
1766
Posted : Mar 31, 2015 23:44
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