Black Plastic Glasses » Audio CD

Quo Vadis, Amazon?

Evan — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:20:51 +0000

Reading Nicholson Baker's long piece in the August 3^rd New Yorker while on the beach last week, got me thinking about the role of Amazon in the future of print book publishing. Mr. Baker, a novelist, is coming to terms with his new Kindle - its benefits and as well as its drawbacks. While I don't get a few of his observations (especially his preference to read on the much smaller and much harder-on-the-eyes LCD screen of the iPhone), one comment made about the Kindle struck me as particularly eye opening.

“If I looked up a particular writer on Amazon—Mary Higgins Clark, say—and then reached the page for her knuckle-gnawer of a novel “Moonlight Becomes You,” the top...

There Will Be Disintermediation

Evan — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:28:06 +0000

The first two parts of this series, Disruption and Generation On-Demand, explored my own personal content consumption disruption and traced it through the seismic shift in my reading, listening, and watching habits. My experience seems to align with the generational experience of content at one’s fingertips, on-demand. I called this phenomenon Generation On-Demand because this generation has grown up with and expects that everything and anything (content) be available to them, however, whenever, and wherever they want. I traced the dramatic decrease in my own immersive reading, music listening, and TV and movie watching in the last few years and cited my ability to work and play whenever and wherever I want as the primary reasons. Accessing...

Tommy

Evan — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:07:40 +0000

In 2006 The Smithereens did something really unique – they did a covers album. Actually, they covered an album. The Smithereens recorded the Beatles breakthrough album, Meet The Beatles, from the first track through the last. Meet the Smithereens is a fun romping and wonderful re-imagining of the spirit of the early Liverpool Beatles as heard through the power-pop chords and Marshall amps of New Jersey’s Smithereens. On May 5th, the Smithereens are back at it again with the release of the Who's Tommy. As much as I was ready to roll my eyes at the thought of it – in listening to...

Bang the DRM Slowly…

Evan — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:47:58 +0000

Two weeks ago on NPR’s All Things Considered I had a brief sound bite about DRM (Digital Rights Management) and the music industry. What you didn’t get to hear was the larger point I was trying to pull together – which is that DRM is not bad, nor is it good. It is like any tool, only as good (or bad) as it is implemented. DRM has gotten a lot of press over the years as there is a quite vocal group who are politically/philosophically, perhaps even morally opposed to any restrictions on the use of content once disseminated. I call them the “Anti-DRMers.” They come in many forms – from scholarly archivists to Swedish anarchists.