Saturday, November 03, 2007

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." Leo Tolstoy

"A person is a success if they get up in the morning and gets to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do." Bob Dylan

"We don't need more strength or more ability or greater opportunity, what we need is to use what we have." Basil Walsh

Today's image: Bicycle by Elenapaint. Great shot. Thanks for sharing.

"Free is more complicated than you'd think."

Scott Adams writes Giving Stuff Away on the Internet for WSJ...

"A few years ago I tried an experiment where I put the entire text of my book, "God's Debris," on the Internet for free, after sales of the hard copy and its sequel, "The Religion War" slowed. My hope was that the people who liked the free e-book would buy the sequel. According to my fan mail, people loved the free book. I know they loved it because they emailed to ask when the sequel would also be available for free. For readers of my non-Dilbert books, I inadvertently set the market value for my work at zero. Oops.

So I've been watching with great interest as the band "Radiohead" pursues its experiment with pay-what-you-want downloads on the Internet. In the near term, the goodwill has inspired lots of people to pay. But I suspect many of them are placing a bet that paying a few bucks now will inspire all of their favorite bands to offer similar deals. That's when the market value of music will approach zero.

That's my guess. Free is more complicated than you'd think."

Read Scott's entire commentary via WSJ here. The lessons here are...


We teach people how to treat us


What we allow, we encourage


Congrats & cheers: Tom Curley, AP prexy and CEO. For the courage to tell it like it is, to wit:

"The first thing that has to go is the attitude. Our institutional arrogance has done more to harm us than any portal. We must understand and embrace the new ways people...are consuming content.

There’s still a place for appointment media -- a home-delivered newspaper on the porch each morning or an evening newscast while making dinner. But it is a smaller place. People, of course, want the news when they want it. Even more difficult to accept, they want control over what they get.

Think of it this way. The perfect paper or newscast is becoming possible -- at least in the reader’s or viewer’s eyes. What is it you really want to know? We can personalize content now."

Read Tom's prepared remarks here. Bravo Tom!


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