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Lessons for digital content

Seth Godin on lessons for music that also apply to many other businesses.

Gordon Haff
Gordon Haff is Red Hat's cloud evangelist although the opinions expressed here are strictly his own. He's focused on enterprise IT, especially cloud computing. However, Gordon writes about a wide range of topics whether they relate to the way too many hours he spends traveling or his longtime interest in photography.
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Gordon Haff

Seth Godin has a great post about 14 "things you can learn from the music business (as it falls apart)." And it doesn't just to music. Read the whole thing (a couple of times) but one big point that I take away is this: All the analysis and hand-wringing over what percentage of people pay for some downloadable album is really beside the point. The business model has changed for better or worse. The music business going forward won't continue to be about CD's that just happen to be available in electronic form but are otherwise essentially unchanged.

It's not easy to give up the idea of manufacturing CDs with a 90% gross margin and switching to a blended model of concerts and souvenirs, of communities and greeting cards and special events and what feels like gimmicks. I know.

Get over it. It's the only option if you want to stay in this business. You're just not going to sell a lot of CDs in five years, are you?

Lots of other good thoughts as well that are applicable to businesses producing all manner of digital content.