Category: Globalization

MDNA: sales vs. torrents

I simply burst out laughing reading the Detroit News‘ article regarding Madonna’s sharply falling record sales. Her latest release MDNA debuted at #1 last week after selling 359,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan. Yet as the article indicated: Madonna set to make the wrong kind of chart history. Clearly author Adam Graham (@grahamorama) has no idea how torrents have simply crushed the music industry. If he does understand — it was not mentioned in his article.

Riddle me this: How does Nielsen, Billboard or any other entertainment resource accurately reflect the impact of torrents on sales? Ah….they can’t. The fact that Nielsen/Billboard still lists “traditional chart history” tells me another analog business is choking to death on the globalized internet.

I have come to accept that illegal downloads are no different than drugs, ebooks, guns or music. All are in heavy demand. The only difference: ebooks and music use the internet. Supply and demand. Nothing more.

Its been a long standing issue for me to see mainstream media really show how inept they are when it relates to the globalization of the internet. So what exactly did Adam Graham miss?

If you really want to understand the way the world works…

Tags bestseller, chart history, content, copyright, download, Globalization, Google, itunes, madonna, mainstream media, mdna, music industry, nielsen soundscan, p2p servers, piracy, riaa, torrents

Education Globalization Reading

Opening The Vault On The Financial Crisis

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date April 25, 2012
1 Comment on Opening The Vault On The Financial Crisis

Great Britain slipped into recession again this week. Its worth another view of how close we came to economic collapse:

The HBO movie was good. The book was so much better….and rather shocking.

Tags andrew ross sorkin, bear stearns, economic collapse, fannie mae, financial crisis, freddie mac, Globalization, morgan stanley, tipping point, too big to fail, wall street

Design Education Globalization Innovation Technology Virtual Reality

Glass technology

Is this all possible? Great product marketing nevertheless.

Tags glass technology, product marketing

Design Education Globalization

Superbowl Freakonomics

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date January 29, 2012

Is the Superbowl commercial price points of $3.5million for a 30 second commercial really worth it?
The NFL, NBC and every Ad/PR firm on the face of the world is saying yes for all the reasons wall street loved credit default swaps: Loads and loads of CA$H! Life must be great on Madison Avenue.

But consider this: would a public auction of commerical time before, during and after be more accurate? Steven Dubner from Freakonomics fame takes a deeper look.