Diary Of A Madman : GenY

Innovate..Evolve..or become irrelevant (Baby Boomers vs Gen X)

Derek.Dunlop — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:47:00 GMT

The world is a very different place than what it was 20 years ago! Nice opening statement from the ‘school of the bloody obvious’ isn’t it? Well you would think so, 20 years ago back in 1991 we were a very different breed, we had a taster of technology...(read more)

The Social Revolution and The Social Evolution

Derek.Dunlop — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:03:00 GMT

We live in a connected planet - one world, one voice? Perhaps not, but technology has enabled a wider reaching voice, a voice of the previously muted, gagged, censored... but no more. What has technology unleashed? A torrent of people round the world sharing images, stories, support, freedom and some heartfelt plea's, but not for money, but to help get their messages and struggles to the world - to open its eyes... and that the sharing vehicle is the same one that most use to show their own personal freedom... this is the Social Revolution that is being supported by the Social Evolution...

Previously oppressed counties, where the previous generation lived under a cloak of fear and reprisal by their reigning regime are moving towards a brighter different future. The previous generation(s) lived their lives as dictated to them due in part, to lack of visibility and awareness of their situation, as well as this was the only life they knew. They were fed propaganda that the West was an evil empire that would rape the land and kill their families – while travel, and international travel, was far beyond their means. The only form of communication out of their countries were written word (and probably vetted before it left – because who would these people be writing to outside their country) or the emerging telecommunications infrastructure and payphones – but again, international calling was restricted, expensive and monitored. They lived their ‘normal’ lives, not aware of what actual life is like outside their confined society.

The freedom that we felt in the Western world, and took for granted as we walked, talked, communicated and felt free to comment our own views and opinions was a generation away for these countries… that generation has arrived and have had enough of being told how to feel, what to think and how to act. The Social Evolution has help build the momentum of the Social Revolution – but at what cost.

The most important, and most heinous and vile cost is that of the lives of these innocent citizens looking to break free of oppression and retribution, protests, marches and ultimately the clashes with the scared regime has left an almighty impact and greater loss of life, that we can only hope that their efforts will not be in vein.

The hypocritical nature of some of the Western Governments, specifically the US, that condemned and vilified the countries such as Iran, Libya, Syria, Egypt that shot and killed their protesters, harked back to a darker period back in the 1970’s and specifically the Kent State Massacre, while 4 people were killed for protesting against the Vietnam war expanding into Cambodia – part of their 1^st Amendment rights.

Pic by John Filo (Mary Ann Vecchio & deceased Jeffery Miller)

This tragic and unnecessary killing is significant in Americas History, not only did it represent a failure of the constitution of its Citizens, it was a reaction by a cluster of 1920’s/1930’s born leaders that felt that the students were out of control, not respecting the country and values that they had fought for in WW2, Vietnam and the continual fear of Communism and the global world that was beginning to influence the US in such a way that FEAR struck a chord that led to the state not knowing how to react and control a volatile and riotous group of students. Their mistake was to open fire on the crowd.

But fast forward 40 years to 2010, there is similarities to the uprising that we see today, where the disconnected youth see, hear and understand that something is wrong, and take to the streets to voice their anger, concerns and call for change. The regimes, unable to control or contain retort to the only form they know – brutal force – as it has worked over the past 50+ years to keep the citizens in check – fear.

The internet and its ability to communicate to a global audience has been the lifeline to promote and show the world what is happening within their country. Old regimes that had previously saw the rise of the web, put locks, process and procedures in place that would in effect wrap a firewall around its country and only allow certain web traffic through that it deemed appropriate and right for its citizens – this was the next wave or controlling its citizens from the outside influences of the West. China vs Google is an ideal example of the fear factor and demands that Chinese controlling regime placed on Google to filter its search results, as well as monitor and report on its citizens usage patterns and communication – far too deep and complex to go into here – but rest assured, other companies would turn a blind eye to the regime in order to make their almighty $$$$.

When Facebook, Twitter and You Tube and the like were used by the Iranian protesters, this was a seismic shift in supporting the revolutions in these countries, as previously, these sites had gone under the radar, as it was not widely understood, it wasn’t a Google, Yahoo! Information pool, or email using SMTP, this was very different…

By adding the focus and attention from the citizens in these regimes from Social Communication tools, as we have seen, now that these dictators understand the threat that these are one of the first lines of defense – to silence it’s people (after they plunder their ill-gotten gains into offshore bank accounts) and shut down the web. However just as quickly as this is done other doors have opened for the people to let the world know what is happening in their country – and companies like Google, are supporting this by diverting or delivering ways of using some of the other network means to get the messages, images and video out to the world – hoping that the world is watching, listening and can support them!

The Long Tail in Digital Media

Derek.Dunlop — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:35:21 GMT

I have talked enough about this topic in various blogs, presentations and events. Sometimes I try to be explicit in the reasoning and other times I add it as a point of reference...

So The Long Tail - as described throughout by Chris Anderson and others talks about - and here I am talking about the digital media Long Tail where unlimited breadth and depth of a digital catalogue and should become unlimited to the point that it is really only metadata on a webpage, application and a rack of servers that can deliver this content. Content can be amassed from anywhere in the world, multiple suppliers, with multiple digital assets and that the niche products further down the line will be available to all. Therefore catering for, so the assumption goes, every need, whim, want and requirement by the end user and consumer without the added headache of physical storage of that item.

Compare that to the early days of The Long Tail way before Chris published his book where traditional retailers and resellers fought in the late 80's & 90's to be the biggest, deepest and widest range of products housed under one roof (or at least able to distribute that to a physical store) This however did not work as a good business practice as the stock turn and stock holding figures exceeded the business forecasts. As traditionally the Long Tail product (being niche) would, could and did sit in warehouses, shelves and boxes gathering dust and in a lot of cases devaluing quarter by quarter - as to find that hidden gem or specific item that the consumer had been searching for may well be mis-placed, filed, located - not on sale - stuck hundred of miles in a warehouse in the Midlands. Which meant that window of opportunity was in effect lost for another 'x' months.

The result was huge stock write offs from businesses that attempted to re-address this during the late 90s. Core ranges and top sellers would be the core of the business as well as new lines. These would be defined based on the stock turn of each SKU and therefore a new product that didn't hit the stock turn figure defined by the business would be relegated and in most cases defined as a niche product never to grace the sales floor again. This of course made these stores look and feel very... well empty! From the halcyon days of stuffed to the ceiling of stock that could effectively have anything the consumer wanted - to only the real movers and in effect 10% of the entire Long Tail. These business needed to rethink what their offer was going to be - diversification was the key and winner for some (look at Tesco in their dominance - they would never had the same success had they stuck to grocery only) others would downsize and become a core niche play in their own right. Others found the stock write off process too much to bear and in teh end had to liquidate their assets to clear their books.

Then along came the Internet....

If you want to know and understand how the Long Tail and in effect Amazon championed this then read Chris Anderson's book - not new but great to read how these ideas have been structured in his book.

Now we are into Digital Media and where does the Long Tail fit within here.

Back in the early 2000's and the emergence of digital media and in effect portable music files - the strategist among us though that this was the perfect playing ground for the full long tail. Forget a few hundred of thousands products, even forget a millions SKUs - if done correctly the option to have a 20million SKU Long Tail would be possible and the value of that would be truly immense. Suddenly the race was on to build the archetypal platform that could access, serve up and deliver this untapped beast and the ultimate Long Tail would be the rich pickings for the winner!!

As we all know Apple delivered an eco-system that included device, software and content to the extent that they achieved the goal that other scrambled for. Yes their were lots of 2nd, 3rd, 4th placed companies. The consumer adopted Apple as their digital media safety blanket - but there was a problem. A big problem!

What was the value of the Digital Long Tail vs the "perceived" value of the Digital Long Tail? The figures never matched up. They failed to match up for a number of reasons... here are my key 10 reasons...

The top 20% of the Long Tail would deliver $ day in and day out without too much trouble or much marketing
The availability of the longer tailed items had not yet been digitised or made available
The metadata that was being delivered, matched or mixed together was either not there or in a lot of cases just rubbish
Apathy some of the mid tier long tail products in the past had been marketed, repackaged, republished, remanufactured and redelivered so many times that there was only so many times that the classic recording of "x" was going to be purchased. Especially when the digital price was now beginning to show a higher cost to the end user compared to the physical units that were now being pushed, heavily discounted or part of a multi-buy campaign to appease the physical retailer.
The excuse of "it costs more because of convenience and instant gratification" failed to wash
D R M (enough said about that)
Illegal P2P - if the consumer can't find it, cant see it, cant hear it or want DRM - then they will hunt it down themselves. Look at The Beatles and AllofMP3.com - demand for Beatles digital music - which at £3 for The White Album - non-traditional illegal downloaders went there, put their credit card details in and started downloading - they had no idea that this was illegally ripped content being made available to them - but again the demand was there.
The labels greed and their own continued fight for survival meant that they had to keep as much of a constant on price from the top tier of their catalogue vs the lowest point of their own individual long tail - why? their digital assets would then be revised as an asset and accordingly lose money of their share value if the word in The City was that $X was just devalued off their catalogue (something that would come back to haunt Warners in 2008)
Discovery and unlocking the content based on the users listening habits, purchase habits, mood, discovery, something different or just based on a factor that is human nature - these were few and far between. Where does these relationships live, how are they accessed and how are they then delivered to the consumer that makes sense and encourages more sales based on their experience that has been given. Enter companies such as Muze, AMG, The Filter, Last FM, Pandora to name but a few that would start to bring together relationships and common sense of all this data. Where the data was available that is.. Previously this was based on "customers who purchased X also purchased Y" - no reason other than that. Relationships borne out of Band A were directly influenced by Band B therefore if you like Band A you should like Band B - this kind of hit and miss would stimulate a small proportion of the tail - but nothing that would sustain or deliver a consistent increase and deeper penetration into the long tail that would hold the "valuable" assets
Ability to have a complete picture and available access via home > car > mobile > device > work > limitations from the labels and studios meant that there would always be a limitation placed on the consumer that only "x" number of devices, "x" number of activations "x" number of transfers. Now was the time that we as passionate muisc lovers that had a passion and engineering / technical background that could start to bring all this data of listening, buying, trends, influences etc.. all to bear to create the ultimate experience that ultimately would help everyone. Help the labels and studios start to stimulate and sell more products, help the retailer / reseller also start o influence the user by delivering more richer and immersive experiences that went beyond just the original product asset and into the diverse range of products that complemented - such as merchandise, tickets, documentaries, books, articles the list is in fact endless.

Now we reach a state of "FREE" - what is free? how can it be classed? why should it be free? someone has to be paid?...etc

All this and more - this is not coming from people like me and most of my readers. Nor is coming from the "Baby Boomers" that are currently in CEO positions of these large companies. This is coming from the next Generation (Gen Y) that have been let down by technology, access, experience, greed, expectations that the people in charge of the music and entertainment "understand" what they want and how they want to enjoy their music and how? It's not bigger, better and more packaging as EMI and others would like to think will stimulate the "kids" to purchase a physical copy. Nor is it laden down with so much DRM that the can not switch on their mobile before using up a licence. They want to be able to use, listen, share and send to their friends as my generation did back in the day - only now the kids have more technology and gadgets to play with that gives them instant gratification as and when they want it (or so you would think..)

I was of course compelled to kick off this blog (which I have touched on this subject before after I read a Blog by Eloit Van Buskirk "Does the Long Tail apply to Mobile" where in essence it is the same as above - its Digital Media and its the Long Tail - but as I have described above there are limitations to this. Nokia's service does not really go anywhere to address this as there is still elements of confusion around what it does. Yes "unlimited access to music" yes but not to own, transfer, send etc.. which is one of the reasons why kids just don't get it or want it. Own 10 tracks per month = 120 tracks per year which in essence is nothing really. With all the offers that phone operators have (free Wii, Free PSP etc..) they all work out about the same price. So there's nothing really new in that apart from its now music rather than a bit of games hardware. . full review coming of Comes with Music vs Music Station..

However there has been talk about eMusic and the Long Tail and how they do see a future in it. Well funny that seeing as eMusic's service until they started doing the major label deals was based on the long Tail titles. Titles that are in effect down the end of teh Long Tail. Artists, tracks and albums that are from niche artists or content from known artists that were out of major label contracts and produced albums that were never really promoted or marketed apart from the core fanbase. That is not the mass market or the mass audience. That is of course the Long Tail.

? So is their a long tail in Digital Media - YES

? Is being tapped into just now - NO

? Is it as valuable as it has been perceived or reported - NO / YES (both really if you start to thin the cost wedge out then you will start to see higher volumes. Higher volumes at a lower cost is ultimately better for the business than little or no volume at maximum cost.

? Can mobile enjoy a Long Tail experience - ALL areas of business can enjoy the Long Tail within Digital Media. You just have to understand how to deliver it effectively and remember the audience that you are aiming your service at, and how and why they would use it.

Get these elements right (as well as creating a better business model with the labels and studios) and the Holy Grail of the Digital Long Tail will be there for the taking....

However you better be quick, with 7million+ tracks, iPods, iPhones, iTunes and now Genius - Apple once again could end up showing the world that not only does digital music belong to them - but the Digital Long Tail just got that much closer....

Illegal filesharers “Letter” Imminent” Part 2

Derek.Dunlop — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:36:00 GMT

Sorry for the rant at the start of this topic (see Part 1) However we are always a nation of wrong priorities...

Anyway Part 2 - is here!
Let’s start with a brief history..

Filesharing among kids, adults, boys, girls, mums and dads etc.. everyone does it. There is technology coming that will actually make it easier to share files better, smarter, faster - but not for any gain - but because it’s their music or movies and you know what - they want to share it. Either to another device, with Aunty Marge in Australia or Brother Tommy in New Jersey.

WHY??

Because WE CAN NOW!!! - I buy a CD - give it to my friend Dan to listen to (hey may decide to rip it), give Matt the latest South Park DVD (hey may also rip it), send Ethan in San Francisco Mario Kart 2 on Wii (because he has a chipped Wii and is not out in the US yet)
My previous Blog about the 70’s & 80’s when we shared tapes with each other and lent albums and videos to friends - the digital age makes it easier to do.

Now I do have an issue with the fileshares that decide to rebel against the industry and use the fileshring as an excuse to rip and share every album ever made - because why should we pay for music! I am 100% against that!!! It’s not hipocrital of me - as me sharing my purchases with my friends is not the same is allowing millions to download for free.

However we are at a fundamental cross roads here where the music industry has no idea how to stop this or in fact how to reverse this...

A few simple points that I started to touch on the recent “Future of Music Retail” event that I attended recently, and was allowed on the panel thanks to Music Ally (cheers Paul) - is quite simple - but it takes a little bit of courage, realisation and one of those “JESUS MOMENTS”

I have mentioned this numerous times - and maybe, just maybe it will start to sink in to the powers that be...

In 21st Century, 2008 to be precise, we have a new generation - lets call them Generation Y - that are growing up in a digital world, where information ebbs and flows at breakneck speeds around the globe. I can post this blog and within seconds can be seen from San Francisco to London, Berlin to New Zealand. It is a revolutionary time where retail is changing forever with e-commerce, news is reaching ever corner of the globe as it happens - and media is being consumed by everyone.

Digital media and zooming in on this topic, digital music and movies are being consumed this way as well.

Zoom in even further and you start to see a picture of what is happening and where the main issues seem to be.

Boundaries and regions are becoming more transparent, territories are seen on a global rather than regional scale. This next generation know what they want, where to get it and get what they want NOW! If they can’t find it, locate it or track it down - they use their social networks to help them find it.
This is the start of the 21st Century and it belongs to the Generation Y’ers - and not us I’m afraid.

So what has this got to do with illegal filesharing? Simple, look at the paragraph above and see that wherever you shut a door (ie ISPs monitoring P2P traffic) another 20 doors will open. This is the generation that likes to share, compare, request, reject, comment and want to be commented on. They have seen the rise of digital media and the ease that it can be moved around the world. From friend to friend, colleague to colleague and peer to peer.

They see value, real value in what is important to them, and are vocal and outspoken on the elements that they feel are of no significant worth or greed. Our Gen-Y’ers are more eco-friendly and understand their planet and environment more than the need for sustained wealth, greed and power.

They have been brought up and used to being able to share media with each other and find and locate what they want and need. Why?
Because they understand the digital space more than most. They strongly believe that the digital file is of lesser value and importance than that of it’s physical sister - and as such should have a much lesser value. They recognise that a single digital file is produced and from that file millions of copies at the same rate and quality is produced. They are the multi-tasking generation that will watch TV, listen to music, chat and surf the web. They want their information in byte size chunks and if it interests them - they will look beyond the byte - if not, it is discarded as irrelevant and move on.

If an industry want to engage and survive, and even thrive, you must first understand the generation that is shaping your future business - or you will NOT HAVE A BUSINESS!!

The music industry is a funny old beast - and I use the term OLD as stringently as possible.
Here is an industry that could not believe that a really badly sounding, composed, produced and just plain bloody awful RINGTONE - could be worth more than a CD Single, and that it would sell more copies than a single!
WHY?
They didn’t understand that this is what the GenY’ers wanted and how THEY chose to consume their music. So what if we didn’t get it, understand it or even accept it. They did and they wanted it that way.

However the music industry (and even now is stuck in this mind set..)knows that since the 60’s it has lived and breathed Albums, Singles, EPs etc..

WHY?

Because they have always done that - their business is built around the success of this. The result is that in order to produce the number of “albums” to get their profits up they need to produce a vast number of average selling albums, with average songs, or worse one great song and eleven poor songs. Quality not quantity is what is required.
Think smarter..
Here is an example...

NEW BAND - X
Found in stinking Camden basement (aren’t all the best ones ;)
Great Live Performers - Crowd go’ing wild
A&R Man hears that they have 2 or 3 great songs
now here is the clever part...
Get them into a studio the next day
Record the 3 great songs that you heard - bit of spit & polish
a few days later -all done (cost $ minimal)
Get the 3 tracks out there for FREE!!
(maybe use Media Tracking & Reporting (MTR) that allows you to see the number of times the track has been shared, transferred and passed)
Use every ounce of social network and blogsphere Internet radio etc.. to get X out there
Create some quick and simple T-Shirts and merchandise
Get on the road and keep on gigging -

I could keep on going - but it’s understanding the dynamics of the the new business model that is being created here and what can and should be monetised.

But maybe the success in is getting the one or two BEST tracks out there - as quickly as possible to the biggest audience as possible - rather than spending $1,000,000 on attempting to make the best 13 track ALBUM ever!!

People and critics will say - “you can not sustain a business like that” and “we have assets and catalogue that is worth $$$$$$$$$ to us” Yes - but what is that actually worth - not what YOU think it SHOULD be worth or even worse, what it USED to be worth.

So how do you change the mind set of this next generation. Simple -
Listen to them
Learn from them
Ask what they want
Ask how you can help them get what they want

This is the generation that listens and responds -

we are the generation that stops, prevents, tuts and ultimately...

..sends you a letter.

Interview with NDM - "Non-Digital Man"

Derek.Dunlop — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:23:00 GMT

In the second part of our journey with NDM (Non-Digital Man) it was time to track him down and speak to him face to face and see if we can get to the bottom of why he has not adopted a digital lifestyle and see if there is anyway to make sure that he doesn't have a shortened life span by needlessly worrying about stuff that really isn't that important. Lighten his heavy load and put him on the lighter path of enlightenment and enjoyment!

We find our NDM again rushing with his heavy load of two bags across the platform and heading towards his train which is due to depart in 2 mins. There must be something fundamentally wrong in the way that he works / manages his time if he is continually running and rushing that can not be good for him. (Mental note to check his working pattern...)

We catch up with him sweaty and exhausted on the train back home where we ask him a few pertinent questions to get this man on track so here laid bare is our NDM...

NDM is a married male in his early 30's lives in Surbiton with his wife and young son. He drives to the train station each morning and when the queue is low and he remembers he buys a weekly travel card, he has heard of Oyster - but never had time to look into it more. Home life they have a family PC that is a few years old and runs XP. Although he has broadband it is a low entry 1Mbps connection (unlike some of his work colleagues that have some "super Virgin 20Mbps lightening speed connection) Doesn't really spend that much time online when he gets home as he attends to his wife and son, before settling down to carry on some work. NDM works in London as a sales advisor and although he likes his job it's all about the figures that boost his salary. The continued work is completed on his work laptop - which is nothing special - bog standard Dell Latitude, that has been locked down so he can not run any other applications as he has no "administrator" rights - but even then not quite sure what that is. A lot of his work is spreadsheet based, which he then prints off on his own HP printer (which answers the question of why he has half a tropical rainforest in his bag) His company is not really technology focused and as such has no way to update any sales work or access the office servers from home. NDM did try wi-fi once (only once!!??) when his train was cancelled and there was a wi-fi campaign in Waterloo where he received a little booklet and free access key, but alas his PC was so locked down that he needed admin rights to switch it on and took him a good 20mins to find what to do - so gave up in embarrassment of not knowing what to do and frustrated that he was being treated as a "child" by not being allowed to work on his laptop as a responsible grown up. The IT department says that this is due to other employees who downloaded porn, virus applications, file sharing and more porn - so they made an executive decision to keep all company laptops locked down to the bare minimum.

His phone is actually quite good it is an older model of the XDA - but was given it from the last sales guy who left and was never shown what to do with it. It still has some of his contacts on there as well as a couple of pictures and some emails, but as a phone it works well and has a good battery life.

I mention that I have seen him with a Samsung MP3 device - to which he replies his brother in law gave it to him at Christmas time and chucked on a few albums that he likes - and after a failed attempt to get it working on his home PC enjoys the tracks that his brother-in-law gave put on there for him. The portable DVD player was a gift from his wife for his daily commute, and she signed up for a Love Film subscription that delivers movies for him on a rotational basis. He enjoys this and enjoys the escapism that this brings. The frustration lies in that he never knows exactly what will come and sometimes the discs are slightly scuffed and the journey is bumpy and can get some screen freeze. The reason for two sets of headphones is that because he is watching a movie, the little headphones "wouldn't be good enough?"

Time does seem to a be a big issue for him - he picks up the free Metro as he wants to catch up on the daily news - most of his news consumption comes in this form - free and easy to digest bite sized chunks. He reads The Daily Mail on a weekend - but never really has a chance to read it from cover to cover - as there is always things to do.

As we get near his stop - I notice that his bag is stuffed with catalogues - holiday brochures to be more precise! I tell him that I assume that he will be looking over the brochure with his wife so that they can do the booking online? "Oh no" he says "That would be throwing my money away doing that, don't you know there is lots of people lose their money by doing that - also do you honestly think that I would send thousands of pounds over the internet???"

...and with that our NDM leaves, smiles and waves - heading back to his wife and child - leaving me in no doubt that something has to change....

When "Teenage Kicks" turn to "Middle-aged Hypocrisy"

Derek.Dunlop — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:45:00 GMT

Sometimes I think that the music business today could'nt shock or surprise me anymore - then I realise that while we go through this defining phase where you have to think differently and Generation Y has a very different outlook on how they consume their media - then out of the blue a statement from another has-been!

Step up Mr Sean Feargal Sharkey. The ex-Undertones lead singer and voice of a generation back in 1978 (30 years ago!) Is now a voice of the middle-aged ex-punks (well Feargal was never really a punk - just the angst of a teenager from Derry) for the strangely bizarre BMR (British Music Rights - what the hell do they do - well according to their website:

is an umbrella organisation whose four members (British Academy of Composers & Songwriters, Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, Music Publishers Association, and Performing Right Society) collectively represent more than 50,000 British music creators and publishers in the UK. We are a leading industry voice in raising awareness, through lobbying, research, education, and PR, of the value of music to the British economy, culture and society.

With members such as MCPS / PRS and MPA (and I'm sure that the PPL must be in there as well) a good bunch of Fat Cats trying to continue to "milk" the artists and industry dry with their licenses and fees, but of course under the "umbrella" of protection and value!

So the latest is that the BMR has just published it's finding from our GenY and guess what the shock and disgust from Mr Sharkey that this generation on their iPods have half their tracks are not purchased and that they have been shared among each other!! So one person buys the MP3 and then gives copies of that to his friends to put on their iPods?? Really?? NO!!!

Feargal goes on to say that when he was a kid in the 60's & 70's he used to go to school with tapes (for the GenY - Compact Cassettes consist of two miniature spools, between which a magnetically coated plastic tape is passed and wound - weird huh!!) The hypocrite - does he not remember the BPI back then with the cassette tape with the two bones going through it saying "Home Taping is killing Music - and it's illegal" That was before he had a couple of hit singles and wants every penny back each and every-time it is played, listened to, sampled, breathed on... of course to ensure that his royalty cheques keep coming in... Back then of course kids (just like today) are very social and passionate about music and in 21st century technology will distribute digital files among friends and servers - we didn't have that in my day or Feargals day - we had tapes and making tapes for your friends was great fun - making compilations and greatest hits so that your friends could share in your latest "find" that you heard on the radio and then went to your local record store and ordered a copy on delicious vinyl!! Back in 60's & 70's you can imagine the musicians of the 40's & 50's disgusted at these kids who were illegally taping music and sharing it among themselves along with a copy of The Beano or Dandy and a pack of Spangles!

Fast forward to todays kids - they have iPods and phones that they can use as their music players - however the premiss is the same sharing among friends and still the industry claims it's illegal - because they are missing out on their cash - never mind that they may just have found a lifelong fan of that artist - if they ever invested long term in artists anymore. So it's no different to what you and I did Feargal only thing that has changed is the technology - and the greed of the music industry as it hits a cataclysmic change in how it is funded and run. With brave and forward thinking bands such as Radiohead and Coldplay realising that there is no need for such greed from EMI (don't get me started there again!!) you have to wonder who is leading the way forward to embrace what GenY are doing and support the artists that they have left?

But then here is the irony - on the very next page a full page advert from Samsung's shiny new mobile the F400 Share - bet you can guess what it wants you to share? Well I can tell you its not The Undertones Teenage Kicks or other mobile numbers - but have actually gone for the real music fan (and not the damn awful brats playing their hiss tiss at high piercing volumes) - hell no - this is state of the art Bang & Olufsen ICEpower! To then share all your MP3s with your friends - why? Because that's what they want to do? Just as kids ALWAYS HAVE!!

Don't you just love irony