"What can you do?" he sighed. "You carry catalog the other guys don't; you offer better service. You do whatever it takes."
"Whatever it takes," indeed. I'm shocked that someone would actually consider offering better service than the minimum-wage monkey at Best Buy -- and how dare real music stores carry the CDs I, as an admitted music-snob, would be interested in?
I don't shop at Best Buy anymore, and I never bought CDs there; but if $5 CDs at Best Buy mean better service & better selection at the indie music stores I go to, I'm all for it.
Besides, I'll shop at a store with the asshole from "High Fidelity" who knows his music over the Qwik-E-CD with $5 BoyBand-Of-The-Month deals any day.
I don't mean to sound unconcerned about indie shops going out of business; that definitely does suck. But if Best Buy steals all the generic-pop-music fans from "my" music shop, more power to 'em.
Did anyone else find their selective blocking interesting?
All the officer patients in the ward were forced to censor letters... After the first day he had no curiosity at all. To break the monotony he invented games. Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective. The next day he made war on articles. He reached a much higher plane of creativity the following day when he blacked out everything in the letters but a, an, and the...
I was wondering that myself, after I originally posted. Actually, saying that's true (this fan was the original taper, and that's why he sued), there's a much better way of dealing with it than the courts (especially for a Dead fan).
If I were the guy who taped a show being sold, I'd check out the bid history, collect emails, and then send an email to everyone who bid, plus the guy selling, along the lines of "This is a show I taped; rather than spending your money on it, if you'll send me blanks & postage, I'd be happy to spin it for you. And I'm going to do the same for any other shows I have in my posession that I happen to see being auctioned."
Of course, that might be against eBay policy (I doubt it -- he's not trying to undersell, he's trying to give away); but obviously Mr. Stoner doesn't think much of current eBay policy anyway.
In a ruling late Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Stuart Pollak in San Francisco County dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Grateful Dead fan who sought to stop sales of illegal concert recordings of the band...
Seeing as the band the article is talking about is the Dead, I have a feeling the author screwed that up slightly -- it should probably read:...who sought to stop illegal sales of concert recordings of the band.
No taper I've ever met has worried about "illegally" recording a band that allows taping at their shows. However, many of the tapers I know get downright pissed when someone sells live recordings -- their reasoning being, the band should be profiting off the music (sound familiar?) and not the fan; trading is fine, but if the band sees people selling live recordings (not "bootlegs" -- these aren't unauthorized) they might decide that no one's allowed to legally tape at their shows anymore, and then the people who do it for the music are SOL.
Personally, I'd never buy a live recording -- chances are, any show I'd be interested in getting (which probably wouldn't include any Dead shows, frankly) would be available for free by trading with someone who had better equipment at the show in question, anyway.
I would imagine the vast majority of the readership here types quite a bit faster than they write -- myself included.
Handwriting recognition is impressive and all that, but I can't imagine wanting to give up my 90 wpm entry rate with ten fingers and 101 inputs to use a 20 wpm entry rate with a single point of input...
You're making your cut from the amount of hits you have on your front page, viewing your banner ads.
I would assume (after reading the article) that Ticketmaster's upset because people don't have to go through their front page and read all of their ads, they only have to read one page on TM's site -- which reduces the number of pagehits required to actually buy a ticket from somewhere around seven to somewhere around three (pick event (read an ad), pick number and location of tickets (read an ad), pay for tickets (read an ad).
Meanwhile, the competitor picks up those first four pageviews to locate the show, and looks like they're doing quite a bit more business than they actually are.
Of course, anything that annoys Ticketmaster is okay in my book;-)
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"Whatever it takes," indeed. I'm shocked that someone would actually consider offering better service than the minimum-wage monkey at Best Buy -- and how dare real music stores carry the CDs I, as an admitted music-snob, would be interested in?
I don't shop at Best Buy anymore, and I never bought CDs there; but if $5 CDs at Best Buy mean better service & better selection at the indie music stores I go to, I'm all for it.
Besides, I'll shop at a store with the asshole from "High Fidelity" who knows his music over the Qwik-E-CD with $5 BoyBand-Of-The-Month deals any day.
I don't mean to sound unconcerned about indie shops going out of business; that definitely does suck. But if Best Buy steals all the generic-pop-music fans from "my" music shop, more power to 'em.
Yes, it's true. Yossarian lives.
If I were the guy who taped a show being sold, I'd check out the bid history, collect emails, and then send an email to everyone who bid, plus the guy selling, along the lines of "This is a show I taped; rather than spending your money on it, if you'll send me blanks & postage, I'd be happy to spin it for you. And I'm going to do the same for any other shows I have in my posession that I happen to see being auctioned."
Of course, that might be against eBay policy (I doubt it -- he's not trying to undersell, he's trying to give away); but obviously Mr. Stoner doesn't think much of current eBay policy anyway.
Seeing as the band the article is talking about is the Dead, I have a feeling the author screwed that up slightly -- it should probably read: ...who sought to stop illegal sales of concert recordings of the band.
No taper I've ever met has worried about "illegally" recording a band that allows taping at their shows. However, many of the tapers I know get downright pissed when someone sells live recordings -- their reasoning being, the band should be profiting off the music (sound familiar?) and not the fan; trading is fine, but if the band sees people selling live recordings (not "bootlegs" -- these aren't unauthorized) they might decide that no one's allowed to legally tape at their shows anymore, and then the people who do it for the music are SOL.
Personally, I'd never buy a live recording -- chances are, any show I'd be interested in getting (which probably wouldn't include any Dead shows, frankly) would be available for free by trading with someone who had better equipment at the show in question, anyway.
Oh man, could you imagine a beowulf cluster of these things?
True... unless, of course, you use the ever-popular partners.nytimes.com link to the story instead.
Worst senator ever.
Handwriting recognition is impressive and all that, but I can't imagine wanting to give up my 90 wpm entry rate with ten fingers and 101 inputs to use a 20 wpm entry rate with a single point of input...
Now all I want to know is if those funky Lee Majors sound effects are going to happen any time I access a page with a .cgi extension...
C'mon, Jack, get it right: His behavior is analogous to driving someone to a home so that they can get to their own house!
I would assume (after reading the article) that Ticketmaster's upset because people don't have to go through their front page and read all of their ads, they only have to read one page on TM's site -- which reduces the number of pagehits required to actually buy a ticket from somewhere around seven to somewhere around three (pick event (read an ad), pick number and location of tickets (read an ad), pay for tickets (read an ad).
Meanwhile, the competitor picks up those first four pageviews to locate the show, and looks like they're doing quite a bit more business than they actually are.
Of course, anything that annoys Ticketmaster is okay in my book ;-)
- f = Intolerance
Well, they kinda got one right, eh? I can't decide if this is a "blind dog" or a "stopped watch".