Archive for March, 2007
Web 2.0 or USENET 2.0?
Ian Betteridge links to an interesting idea: Digg is Usenet 2.0.
Digg will become more and more like an overcrowded Usenet board - the trolls will end up owning it.
As Ian says:
Anyone with a smattering of knowledge about the history of Usenet knows that “the wisdom of crowds” is an absurd idea. Individuals within crowds might be wise, but there’s no guarentee that their voice will be the one you hear emerge.
O noes, Vista on a Mac
Apple unofficial is highly amused by an ad for Vista that seems to show an iBook (although commenters suggest it’s a Vaio):
Considering that Vista’s EULA forbids virtualizing any versions besides Business and Ultimate, this either amounts to a grossly mis-leading advertisement or a fox sly, pro-Apple designer among sheep.
I think this is more a case of misinformed/lazy blogging than a misleading ad. Vista runs perfectly well on Intel Macs, and legally so - Boot Camp isn’t virtualisation, it’s dual-booting.
Vista’s particularly good on a MacBook Pro, and various reviewers have suggested that current generation iMacs are pretty good Vista boxes too. If I had cash to upgrade my laptop, I’d probably go the MacBook Pro / dual-boot route: the combination of OS X for work and Half-Life 2 for when I’m supposed to be working would be pretty hard to resist.
And anyway, there’s a bigger point here (other than the blindingly obvious one, which is that Microsoft doesn’t make computers, it makes operating systems): Vista on Macs is A Good Thing for Microsoft, because to dual-boot it you have to buy a full retail version (or at least an upgrade for an existing XP install) - so Microsoft gets more money for that copy than it would for the discounted, OEM install on a new PC laptop.
That said, if you are considering Vista on a Mac don’t do it on a machine with integrated graphics or inadequate RAM. I like Vista a lot, but it’s not much fun on an underpowered machine.
iTunes: where your money goes
There’s a fascinating article in today’s Guardian (by musician Tom Robinson) that shows how digital downloads aren’t as lucrative for musicians as the music business might have you believe.
Out of that 79p, the person who actually wrote the song gets just 6p to share with their publisher. Even the credit card company sees 7p per individual download, while Apple takes about 12p for administration costs.
The remaining 54p goes to the record company, which assigns a share to the recording artist, typically 6p-12p. This may seem stingy, but wait, it gets better. Almost all recording and promotion costs are recouped from the artist’s modest share of the earnings.
…Say a label risks advancing you £100,000 to record and promote your new album. Let’s say (for simplicity) it’s sold only on iTunes, at a cost of £7.90, and that your royalty rate is 10% of that price. Result: for each album sold, the label receives £5.40 and knocks just 79p off your £100,000 debt.
At 20,000 sales the label has broken into profit and made £8,000. You still owe them £84,200. At 50,000 the label has made £170,000 while you owe them £60,500. At 100,000 the label’s profit is £440,000. You still owe £21,000. Only at 130,000 do you finally recoup and earn £2,700 in royalties. The record company has meanwhile made nearly £600,000.
None of this information is particularly new, of course, but Robinson’s explained it beautifully.