I was lucky to get tickets to M. Ward's performance at the Borderline last night.  The Borderline is a real indie venue of about 250 capacity just off Tottenham Court Road in Soho (London), and so it was a real treat to see M. Ward in such an intimate setting.  In fact, there was just one person between me and the stage!  I got goosebumps several times and had a smile on my face throughout. 

He came out doing a couple of solo, acoustic tunes including Fuel For Fire and then the band took the stage starting with one of my faves, Chinese Translation.  They played many from Post-War, including the title track (another fave), Poison Cup, To Go Home & Magic Trick (for the encore).  Hold Time, his new record, was also well-represented including Rave On, Oh Lonesome Me, Never Had Nobody Like You & Fisher Of Men.  They also did a rollicking rendition of Roll Over Beethoven towards the end. 

M. Ward is a throwback.  His gravelly voice evokes a young Dylan while his simple arrangements drip with sepia-toned poignance  (listen to Post-War for an example).  He seems more confident these days.  The only other time I saw him in Boston, he hid beneath a hat and didn't seem quite comfortable taking center stage. In contrast, last night he (hat-less) started the set solo and wasn't afraid to banter with the crowd nor display his virtuosity on the guitar.  It was a gig I won't be forgetting anytime soon.

Paidcontent describes the hype that went with Second Life, the pinnacle of which was represented by the cover page of Businessweek, and the subsequent backlash.  That didn't surprise me as, at the time, it seemed to me that the hype had outstripped the product experience, but I also felt that there was a business there as it clearly was delivering value to a core group of users.  Turns out that Second Life is actually a vibrant community that is also being used by
corporations but not for marketing purposes as opposed to distance learning & virtual tradeshows.  So while it may not be world-changing yet, there ought to be a good business there.

[Updated with links...]

YouTube.  That's according to a survey of 1,000 15 – 24 year-olds in the UK about their attitudes towards music as reported by the Guardian.  38% rated YT the best site for exploring music, which was much greater than those that mentioned MySpace (15%), Facebook (8%) or Last.fm (4%).  MySpace's low % surprises me but it's not surprising that YouTube is considered the best music discovery site.  While most consider it a video site, the plethora of music & live videos, both official and bootlegged, make it a trove for the music fan.  If they had a music recommendation layer on top of it, it would be that much more powerful.

I met an entrepreneur yesterday who mentioned how surprised he was when he visited Google's offices in London and asked his host why they had so many floors, ie what job functions were there, that the (amused) answer he got back was: 'sales!'.  We think of Google having such a scalable, low-touch, money-minting model but don't realize that a lot of their revenues, in fact probably the majority of it, is based on old-fashioned sales & account management.  Of course their revenue or productivity per employee is probably better than other companies and sites but it's a myth that it's easy to come up with a self-service model for businesses that doesn't involve direct sales of some sort to generate a signficant portion of the revenues.  I think this is something startups underestimate.  The biggest exception to this is probably Craigslist but perhaps they are the exception that proves the rule.

It was interesting to see two similar startups, People's Music and AudioMagnet, announce their funding yesterday.  Both seem to allow fans to create their own music storefronts and earn affiliate fees in referring sales.  I'm a bit skeptical that this model can be anything more than a niche business:

• Music is a low-margin product.  Since there's less margin to give-away or retain, it requires serious volume to make decent money.
• The affiliate programs of Amazon or iTunes, while less flexible than the ones that these startups would offer (eg no ability to write reviews), would probably still offer stiff competition in terms of network effects, music availability, conversion rate, etc.
• While the concept of fan-created & operated storefronts is appealing, I don't think the long tail rule would apply in ecommerce such as this.  That is, there will be much greater volume from top stores (like iTunes & Amazon), and then from sites with massive volume than the long tail of fan-created sites & storefronts.

Besides, it's already been tried, although at least these sites aren't a pyramid scheme like BurnLounge was!  Still, while I'm skeptical, I hope to be proved wrong and I wish these enterpreneurs well:  anything that helps artists sell more music and other stuff is a good thing.

TechCrunch writes about MySpace putting overlays with links to commerce on top of music videos with help from Auditude, which identifies content and then serves up the relevant ad.  Not surprisingly, the click-through rate for these units, 1.2%, is much higher than that of banner ads (though less, in my experience, than pre-roll video ads).  The effective CPM is probably on the low side:  let's assume 1.2% CTR and that 5% of clicks convert to a $10 sale.  That equals $6 for a thousand videos.  But this is high because it doesn't factor in cost-of-sale (ie the $10 in revenues is a gross number that goes to Amazon), not to mention any cut that Auditude might take.  But, while this won't be a silver bullet, it's something that the labels should embrace as another part of their video P&L, especially to monetize viral videos that have been embedded throughout the Web but are harder to monetize with CPM-based brand advertising.

Someone I know in India is looking into traveling to Europe later this year.  Following is the list of documents that need to be submitted for a visa to Switzerland and France (it's a similar list for the UK).  Note that  the "NOC from husband" signifies "No Objection Certificate".  Also, it's one-way; ie an Indian male wouldn't be required to obtain a NOC from his wife.  This is appalling on several levels.  Shame on these so-called liberal european countries for upholding such nonsense.  I was glad to see that the US required no such document for visas.

*****************************************************

FOR SWISS VISA – FOR PERSONS WHO HAVE NOT
TRAVELED TO

       ANY SCHENGEN COUNTRY
IN PAST 2 YEARS  

       INTERVIEW AT MUMBAI
IS NECESSARY

FOR FRANCE- INTERVIEW AT MUMBAI IS COMPULSORY


 

 

APPLICANT HAS TO CARRY THE FOLLOWING DOX
FOR SWISS/FRENCH VISA

 

VISA FORM – ATTACHED

THREE PHOTOS – LIKE SINGAPORE SIZE PHOTO
, GLOSSY FINSIH

COVERING LETTER

HOTEL BOOKING IN ORGINAL –EMBASSY WILL CHK
WITH THE HOTEL

CONFIRMED FLIGHT ITINERARY-  EMBASSY
WILL CHK WITH THE AIRLINES

BANK STATEMENT 6 MONTHS ORIGINAL

INCOME TAX PAPERS – 3 YRS ORIGINAL

LEAVE LETTER FROM COMPANY IN ORGINAL

APPOINTMENT LETTER

SALARY SLIP 6 MONTHS

NOC FROM HUSBAND – IF MARRIED

INSURANCE COVERING PERIOD OF TRAVEL

IN CASE OF FRANCE, DECLARATION RE: INSURANCE
AS ATTACHED