In May 2007, the Oscar De La Hoya vs Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight on HBO PPV not only became the biggest selling non-heavyweight title fight of all time, but the biggest of all time period, with 2.5 million buyers. The fight itself generated roughly $134.4 million dollars in domestic PPV revenue, making it the richest prizefight of all time. (Wikipedia)

And, guess what? HBO doesn't sale the most PPVs. UFC is the current king of PPV sales.

In 2007, UFC officially took over as the "king of pay-per-view". Of the 15 biggest PPV events of 2007 in North America, UFC had eight, four for boxing and three for World Wrestling Entertainment. (Wikipedia)

I've never bought a PPV fight of any kind (MMA, boxing, WWE, etc). Instead, I watch big fights on video sites like YouTube hours or days after the fights happen.

For instance, Saturday night was the big UFC 86 fight between Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Forrest Griffin. I got home after UFC 86 finished and immediately started scouring video sites for a full version of the fight (see my Twitter).

I found a full version of the fight pretty fast.

Sorry, UFC.

ShareThis

1) The service's music collection would have every album or single ever released in digital format

2) The service would let you stream online every track in it's collection at high quality and full length

3) The service would let you download every track in it's collection to your computer at high quality, full length and DRM-free digital format

Ok, now with a little explanation.

1) The service's music collection would have every album or single ever released in digital format

This is a must. Massive amounts of content is the reason I put up with Netflix's imperfections and have a monthly subscription.

2) The service would let you stream online every track in it's collection at high quality and full length

This is the primary way I listen to music nowadays. I stream music on websites like Imeem. And music blogs, like Tuftsmania (even though they'd rather I "right click, save as").

I find streaming to be much more convenient than downloading since it requires less clicking, transferring and storing.

3) The service would let you download every track in it's collection to your computer at high quality, full length and DRM-free digital format

When I'm not streaming music online I like to listen to music on my iPod and on the CD player in my car. The only way I can do either of these things is by having tracks in digital format on my computer's hard drive and than moving them to iPod or CD. (Note: Nowadays most of my CDs are burned, not bought.)

This is also a key item since you can't get the Internet everywhere. The batteries in your iPod and the electricity that powers your CD player both take you farther into the woods than Internet goes.

If you're wondering, "Why would a music service let you download every track they have?"

Why not? It's not like I'm going to set-up a business reselling the DRM-free tracks. And, if I did start selling them and my business got even somewhat popular I would be immediately shutdown, sued or asked to pay up.

The music industry is moving to DRM-free tracks and that combined with an era of p2p means that music will be passed around regardless. So, might as well provide unlimited downloading and make money doing it. (Note: Downloading is less convenient for me than streaming, so if I have a service that provides both unlimited streaming and downloading I probably wouldn't even bother downloading 99% of the music I listened to).

Ok, so what would I pay for the ultimate music service?

1) Nothing for unlimited streaming and downloading because it would be completely ad-supported

This seems like an easy business model to throw out their since we have so many ad-supported web services today. And, it's an obvious choice for me since I like free.

I understand that a completely ad-supported music service might be hard to do. But, if someone could figure out and do so in a highly profitable way that would be ideal.

2) Monthly subscription for unlimited, ad-free streaming and downloading

I have a monthly subscription to Netflix and their service offers far less than what my ideal music service would offer. I could definitely see myself paying for a monthly subscription if it included all three of my "ultimate" elements.

However, that depends on what the monthly price would be. If it's just an unnoticeable blip in my budget I'm game.

Just to give you an idea of what I might pay for massive amounts of content with a distribution system that I can put up with: I'm paying $13.99 for Netflix's "2 at-a-time Unlimited" plan. And, I think that Netflix's distribution system sucks.

3) Nothing for ad-supported, unlimited streaming but monthly subscription for unlimited downloading

This would have to be less than #2 since the unlimited streaming is ad-supported.

4) All other payment models don't work for me

This is because I don't pay to download individual albums or tracks from mp3 stores like iTunes.

If you made it this far you'll probably find both these posts from venture capitalist/blogger Fred Wilson highly interesting: "The Free Music Business" and "Something Important Is On The Horizon In The Music Business".

ShareThis

The sentence claims:

"... 261,000 Iraqis subscribe to the internet, against almost none before the war."

It really got me thinking about those 261,000 Iraqis and how they are using the Internet.

Here are some of the questions that jumped into my mind immediately after reading the sentence:

Do Iraqis blog?

Do Iraqis use Twitter?

What news websites do they frequently read?

Is the Internet usable given the unstable power grid?

Where are they accessing the Internet? From Internet cafes? Actual cafes? At home? At school? At work?

Are they using the Internet for business? Communication? News? All of D above?

Damn. So many questions popped into my head regarding how those 261,000 are using the Internet.

I don't know about you but I'd love to follow a Baghdad resident on Twitter. Especially if they were Twittering recent happenings, conditions and normal life in Baghdad. Right?

And, I'm not exactly talking about American soldiers or journalists living in Baghdad since they probably weren't included in the 261,000 number. I'm talking about Iraqis born and raised in Baghdad.

Hey @Ev, @Biz and @Jack, let's get some of those 261,000 Iraqis on Twitter.

It would be awesome to connect with some of them in a personal way that's not filtered by New York Times' journalists, CNN or any other news source covering Iraq.

We can call it Operation Baghdad Tweets.

ShareThis

But, don't get me wrong. I still love print magazine gloss flipping through my fingers. It just doesn't get delivered to my mailbox.

When I get a hankering for some glossy print reading action I walk a couple blocks over to a Barnes and Noble near my apartment and head straight to the magazine section.

I do this every two weeks or so. I hold court in the magazine section and flip through print magazines soaking up their shiny, squeaky clean features. When I get my fill I walk back to my apartment not having spent a penny. It's a solid routine.

Whenever I do this little routine I always come across a really good article, but have no way easy way to share it, bookmark it, etc. If the article is really good I pull out my iPhone and take a picture of the article so I can find it later online (Or, write a post on it).

Do you have print magazines delivered to your front door or do you just browse them occasionally in your local bookstore, supermarket, etc?

If you haven't noticed, I've been really interested in personal trends bullshit lately.

ShareThis

Yesterday, it dawned on me that I'm ****ing up the music industry.

It made me think on how my consumer behavior is effecting the movie industry as well.

I have to say that I do still monetarily support the traditional workings of the movie industry, unlike my non-monetary support of the traditional workings of the music industry.

For instance, I still pay to see a movie in the movie theaters from time to time.

And, I have a Netflix subscription, which is guaranteed dollars out of my wallet on a monthly basis.

The funny thing is that Netflix's content distribution sucks. And, I still pay on a monthly basis.

Why does it suck? Because they send me DVDs in the mail. In. The. Mail. The turnaround on getting a new Netflix DVD in the mail after watching and mailing one takes anywhere from two, three and sometimes four days.

At one time I thought this distribution system was awesome but now with all the online video streaming I do it seems pretty slow and chunky getting DVDs in the mail. (Note: I use a Mac so I can't use their online streaming option, which is only available to PC users. Doesn't bother me too much since their online streaming option only works with a very limited number of movies.)

Why do I put up with this slow and chunky service? Because Netflix has a wonderfully extensive collection of DVDs. It seems that they have every movie, TV show, etc, ever put on DVD. That's the one and only reason... massive amounts of content.

I haven't found any other service that has Netflix's extensive collection of DVDs? Especially not a service that streams the same extensive collection online.

If I did find a service that streamed a Netflix-like collection of movies online for the same monthly rate I would switch in a heartbeat.

This Netflix post has me thinking about the music industry again. Stay tuned.

ShareThis

Hello. I'm 23 and I really like music. I listen to a lot of music.

And, I'm ****ing up the music industry.

Music label executives are popping Ambiens at night because of me. Their relationship with their spouse and children is strained because of me. The water in their traditional distribution pipes is drying up fast because of me.

Why?

I haven't bought a CD in over 1.5 years.

I've only purchased a handful of albums and singles off iTunes over the years and only because family and friends gifted me iTunes gift cards.

I stream and download pre-release material on music blogs and than never pay money for the material when it is released.

And, you know what's going to give music label executives an even bigger headache?

I'm losing passion and zest for the digital download.

More than ever, I actually prefer streaming my music online than "owning" a track in digital form on my hard drive.

Why are music label execs getting hemorrhoids right now?

Because if one of their platinum-selling artists is dropping an album this month they sure as hell better figure out a way to make money while streaming full-length songs on the platinum-selling artists' Imeem page because I won't be driving to record store to buy the CD and I won't be buying the album on iTunes.

See my video question for readers in the comments.

ShareThis

Three reasons why your friends aren't on FriendFeed:

1. FriendFeed is just one more service for your friends to signup and remember a password and username. No one likes one more password and username to remember.

2. Your friends like to use social services that all their other friends use, not just people like Louis Gray, Fred Wilson and Sacca.

They don't want to go through the hassle of Reason #1 until 25, 50 or 75 of their friends also use the site.

For instance, all of your friends use email and YouTube. Almost all of your friends use MySpace and/or Facebook. Most of your friends use a chat client. After that the use of social services amongst friends drops off considerably to sites like Flickr and Blogger. And, after that it drops off even more to a few friends on Twitter, del.icio.us and Digg. None of your friends use FriendFeed.

3. FriendFeed doesn't provide a solution to your friends' problem.

If they use only a few, or none, of the services that feed into FriendFeed than they might not have a social fragmentation problem. It's easy to check Facebook, Flickr and your email and call it a day.

It starts turning into a time-consuming problem when you regularly use like 8 or more social sites (which I'm guilty of). So, as more and more cool social sites like Twitter start popping up I'm sure more of my friends will run into this fragmentation problem.

Fragmentation problem, you ask? For instance, instead of sending your friends hopping around the web leaving comments on A) your blog, B) your newest Flickr photo and C) your YouTube channel you can do D) All of the above by sending them to your FriendFeed page.

You can find me on FriendFeed here.

What's FriendFeed? Here's how they describe their service:

FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing. It offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends.

Update: Find more discussion of this post on Louis Gray's FriendFeed here.

ShareThis

I regularly check my online Bank of America account, keep Excel spreadsheets tracking all kinds of various things and use personal budget software to track and record all my receipts, payments and expenses.

Pre-September 2007 I used Quicken as my go-to personal budget software. Using Quicken was painful and tedious but I did it.

During mid-September 2007, Mint launched at TC40 (which I attended since I was as a TC intern at the time) and I immediately signed up for an account after seeing their demo.

What's Mint? In a nutshell, it's an online money management service that lets you plugin your bank accounts, credits cards and investment accounts and than automatically tracks, categorizes and trends your spending.

Above: Screenshot grabbed from Crunchbase's Mint profile.

The great thing about Mint is that its almost completely hands-free outside of minimal re-categorizing of expenses like changing an item from the "Grocery" category to the "Restaurant" category.

I also have my Mint account set-up to send me weekly spending reports via email. And, if Mint finds any weird banks fees or low balances they'll send me an email, too.

If you hate spending time and effort on your personal budget, or if you don't have a personal budget (yet) but would like to start one, you should definitely give Mint a holler.

Inevitable privacy and security concerns can be answered here.

Oh yeah, see my video question for readers in the comments.

ShareThis

In the workplace I understand. But, for the home I'm had a hard time coming up with reasons.

So, I turned to Google and entered "landline reasons to have".

The most obvious reason that Google spit back at me was something to the effect of 9-1-1 and kids. Most small children don't have cell phones, so if an emergency were to happen in the home its a good idea to have a landline around for them to dial 9-1-1.

Outside of 9-1-1 and kids can you give me a good reason for having a landline in the home? Do you have a landline under your roof?

See my video question in the comments?

Update: Here are some more reasons why landlines are still useful: Uptime during power outages, don't need daily battery re-charging and they provide your location to emergency services faster on average (This is more an issue with emergency dispatcher technology).

ShareThis

I can't explain what it is about the few movies a year that I get completely psyched up about and cough up $10 willingly. I think it has something to do with quality plus landing in the "must be seen on the big screen" category. Most Oscar-season flicks and movie festival darlings aren't included in the "must be seen on the big screen" category instead they are put in my Netflix where they wait until they're released on DVD. A movie like The Matrix or Iron Man would be included in the "must be seen on the big screen" category.

These are two movies that I'm currently riled up about:

The Happening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Release: June 13

The Dark Knight
Director: Christopher Nolan
Release: July 18

I'll let you know if I cough up $10 to see either on the big screen. I'm guessing I probably will.

ShareThis