wooba.com - for your clicky finger

Very good read on why companies or services need to cater not only to the mainstream hits, but also to the obscure, unknown artist as well. Why? Because people want and DEMAND it. Yes, I’ll admit to having Netflixed quite a few DVDs based on recommendations alone, and have found some pleasant movies that I would have missed if I didn’t live in the Netflix, IMDB, and IRC world where someone can recommend a movie, and I can have it in my hands usually within 3-4 days if need be. The more options we as consumers have, the better off we are, and the happier we are. It’s a very thorough article and well worth a read if you are interested in marketing and consumer traits.
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An analysis of the sales data and trends from these services and others like them shows that the emerging digital entertainment economy is going to be radically different from today’s mass market. If the 20th- century entertainment industry was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses.

The main problem, if that’s the word, is that we live in the physical world and, until recently, most of our entertainment media did, too. But that world puts two dramatic limitations on our entertainment.

Wired Link

And yet Barry Bonds wonders why people don’t like him? From the sounds of it, he’s got some serious issues with control and having to ‘one-up’ everyone else. I’d tend to believe Gary Sheffield over something like this, it makes you wonder if the BALCO drugs had any effect on Bonds’ personality or not. And how his wife could put up with him…
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“The only thing Greg Anderson does is what Barry tells him to do,” Sheffield says. “Barry ran everything. If I’m training and if he sees Greg making me do one curl too many, it’s an argument: ‘I told you, don’t have him do no more than he needs!’ So I knew Greg was a puppet. All these guys around [Bonds] were puppets.

“They used to confide in me about how they hated it. I told them, ‘You knew what you were getting into. You accept his money. You accept the status when you’re around him. But you don’t want to deal with the backlash of what comes out of his mouth, and you want to complain to me.’”

Sports Illustrated Link