Free Music and The Decemberists

I see that on TechCrunch today there is a story about how commercial recorded music will inevitably become free unless governments create artificial barriers. I definitely agree with the premise and view it as a good thing.

A friend recently sent me a link to 16 Military Wives by The Decemberists. Little Beam and I watched the video many times. Then I searched YouTube for more material by the band. The stuff that I found, I really liked. Finally, I could stand it no longer and ran off to Borders to purchase their CD, The Crane Wife, so I could experience the product as the artists packaged it. Now that I am satiated, I will probably endeavor to make future purchases directly from their website. I'll also keep an eye for when they make it down to the South and purchase concert tickets.

This is how bands should make money in the future. Create a quality product. Provide your potential audience access to the product. People will pay if they like what they see and hear.

Emergence and the ABC's of YouTube

Boids is an example of emergent behavior. A large number of self-interested agents interacting produce an unexpected group behavior. I am always interested by stories with a touch of emergent behavior associated with them. Perhaps, that is why I find Web 2.0 fascinating.

Here is an interesting video that the folks from GMail put together from short clips sent in by fans around the world.



As it so happens, I have a 2 1/2 yo daughter (Little Beam). When we watch the video together I point to the GMail icon and say "M! There's the letter M!"

Now I have this idea that it would be neat to put together a list of the ABC's of YouTube. This would be a list of 26 (child friendly) videos from YouTube each featuring a particular letter in a less subtle manner than, say, the old Sesame Street segments. That is, the videos should not be titled "The Letter M".

Mmm... That's probably a collaborative project.

YouTube

What's a blog if you don't have at least one YouTube link?

Here's a great song from the mid - 90's. Tahitian Moon by Porno for Pyros.



I've never actually seen the video. Watching Little Beam (age 2) dance to the music is certainly more interesting. (Sorry, Perry.)

Here's how you do the dance:

During the fast parts run around in random directions like a wild animal.
During the slow parts stand in place and stretch your arms up towards the sky, repeatedly. (Kind of the way that they are doing it in the video...)

Enjoy!