Thursday, January 13, 2011

bank foreclosure

It's not like the banks don't have infinite rent seeking leverage with near zero interest FED money, but they have marvelous accounting tricks to make them look healthier. But, anyone who has been in a financial bind knows that simple accounting tricks don't last you forever, and, sooner or later the piper must be paid, accounting or not. Well, what his article points out is that the piper will get his due. The real question is, who is the piper, and who is paying him. Once the interest earned, in accounting terms, vanishes, as it will on each loan to be finally foreclosed, the piper is the hole in the balance sheet. According to those who wrote the financial reform, the payment won't come from government (i.e. taxpayer) funds, but the special mechanisms built in will require a restructuring of any banks whose stability is thus threatened. Really? Well, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. With the new folks in the White House, fresh off Wall Street, the banks are as powerful as ever, having endowed the campaigns for the newly elected Congress. We have already heard that funding for the financial reform agencies and those already existing, is in trouble. Next, we'll get some subtle, small bill come through and pass which neuters the capability of the government to keep the banks in check. What comes next? Collapse and no action or a bailout.

Only the banksters could get away with this:

TRUCKEE, Calif. — When Mimi Ash arrived at her mountain chalet here for a weekend ski trip, she discovered that someone had broken into the home and changed the locks....

The culprit, Ms. Ash soon learned, was not a burglar but her bank. According to a federal lawsuit filed in October by Ms. Ash, Bank of America had wrongfully foreclosed on her house and thrown out her belongings, without alerting Ms. Ash beforehand.

Ash was in the process of loan modification with Bank of America at the time. And they didn't just break in, they completely emptied the home, even taking "a wooden box, its top inscribed with the words 'Together Forever,' that contained the ashes of her late husband, Robert."

In Florida, contractors working for Chase Bank used a screwdriver to enter Debra Fischer’s house in Punta Gorda and helped themselves to a laptop, an iPod, a cordless drill, six bottles of wine and a frosty beer, left half-empty on the counter, according to assertions in a lawsuit filed in August. Ms. Fisher was facing foreclosure, but Chase had not yet obtained a court order, her lawyer says.

The break-in was discovered when a Canadian couple renting the house returned from the beach.

Turns out these and countless other Americans have become victims again. They're victims of the deficit peacocks.

WASHINGTON -- Despite mounting evidence of big banks committing serious fraud in the foreclosure process, the U.S. Senate eliminated $35 million in legal aid to homeowners trying to keep their homes.

The fund was wiped out in order to meet government spending caps advocated by Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), but will likely end up costing taxpayers much more in the long run, as wrongful foreclosures burn through the balance sheets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The slashing of the foreclosure-assistance fund is just one casualty of Washington's increasing bipartisan push to cut spending across the board....

Recent reports suggest severe, nationwide problems with the mortgage system. A survey of 96 attorneys found that banks started foreclosure proceedings on 2,500 borrowers who were negotiating a loan modification. The survey was conducted by the National Association of Consumer Advocates and the National Consumer Law Center.

There's no relief in sight from the administration, either. Treasury has refused to use any of the funds for the Wall Street bailout for homeowner legal aid. Much worse, the Federal Reserve is actually blocking new foreclosure regulations that would homeowners.

WASHINGTON -- Top policymakers at the Federal Reserve are fighting efforts to rein in widely reported bank abuses, sparking an inter-agency feud with the FDIC and the Treasury Department. The Fed, along with the more bank-friendly Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, is resisting moves to craft rules cracking down on banks that charge illegal fees and carry out improper foreclosures. The FDIC supports such rules, according to an FDIC official involved in the dispute.

The new regulations would rein in debt collection, loan modification and foreclosure proceedings at bank divisions called "mortgage servicers." Servicers have committed widespread fraud in the foreclosure process. While the recent robo-signing of fraudulent documents has received the most attention, consumer advocates have complained about improper fees and servicer mistakes that lead to foreclosure for years.

It's the banksters' world, and we're apparently to be considered lucky if we get to live in one of their houses, which is what they and the government consider them. It's hard to arrive at any other conclusion than dday does when it comes to the Fed, "They don’t want to stop the banks from breaking into your house." And your representatives in the Senate are fine with that.

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Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

The first impressions in light of President Obama's speech at tonight's memorial for the victims of the Arizona shooting, and, at least on Fox News, the reviews are overwhelming positive. Charles Krauthammer, Chris Wallace, ...

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Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

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Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

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Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

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Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Winona Ryder Has Disappointing News About Heathers Sequel ...

No! This NEEDS to happen! Back in 2009, there were rumblings of a proposed sequel to the ´80s cult classic Heathers coming to fruition, with original stars Winona Ryder and Christian Slater...

Bad News, About Virgin Mi-Fi and Verizon Upgrades - NYTimes.com

Two announcements this week. Two big bummers. Two good things gone.

Tucson Memorial - Fox News Panel - Video | Mediaite

Monday, January 10, 2011

Making Money From the Internet

You're probably reading this on junk. And I'm not talking about newsprint - industry woes aside, that's high-quality stuff. But if you're on a computer or an iPad, and you're not plugged into an Internet jack in the wall? Junk, then.

But it's not your MacBook or your tablet that's so crummy. It's the spectrum it's using.

Spectrum, in the words of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, is the economy's "invisible infrastructure." It's the interstate system for information that travels wirelessly. It's how you get radio in your car, service on your cellphone and satellite to your television. It's also how you get WiFi.

But not all spectrum is created equal. "Beachfront spectrum" is like a well-paved road. Lots of information can travel long distances on it without losing much data. But not all spectrum is so valuable.

In 1985, there was a slice of spectrum that was too crummy for anyone to want. It was so weak that the radiation that microwaves emit could mess with it. So the government released it to the public. As long as whatever you were doing didn't interfere with what anyone else was doing, you could build on that spectrum. That's how we got garage-door openers and cordless phones. Because the information didn't have to travel far, the junk spectrum was good enough. Later on, that same section of junk spectrum became the home for WiFi - a crucial, multibillion-dollar industry. A platform for massive technological innovation. A huge increase in quality of life.

There's a lesson in that: Spectrum is really, really important. And not always in ways that we can predict in advance. Making sure that spectrum is used well is no less important than making sure our highways are used well: If the Beltway were reserved for horses, Washington would not be a very good place to do business.

But our spectrum is not being used well. It's the classic innovator's quandary: We made good decisions many years ago, but those good decisions created powerful incumbents, and in order to make good decisions now, we must somehow unseat the incumbents.

Today, much of the best spectrum is allocated to broadcast television. Decades ago, when 90 percent of Americans received their programming this way, that made sense. Today, when fewer than 10 percent of Americans do, it doesn't.

Meanwhile, mobile broadband is quite clearly the platform of the future - or at least the near future. But we don't have nearly enough spectrum allocated for its use. Unless that changes, the technology will be unable to progress, as more advanced uses will require more bandwidth, or it will have to be rationed, perhaps through extremely high prices that make sure most people can't use it.

The FCC could just yank the spectrum from the channels and hand it to the mobile industry. But it won't. It fears lawsuits and angry calls from lawmakers. And temperamentally, Genachowski himself is a consensus-builder rather than a steamroller.

Instead, the hope is that current owners of spectrum will give it up voluntarily. In exchange, they'd get big sacks of money. If a slice of spectrum is worth billions of dollars to Verizon but only a couple of million to a few aging TV stations - TV stations that have other ways to reach most of those customers - then there should be enough money in this transaction to leave everyone happy.

At least, that's some people's hope. Some advocates want that spectrum - or at least a substantial portion of it - left unlicensed. Rather than using telecom corporations such as Verizon to buy off the current owners of the spectrum, they'd like to see the federal government take some of that spectrum back and preserve it as a public resource for the sort of innovation we can't yet imagine and that the big corporations aren't likely to pioneer - the same as happened with WiFi. But as of yet, that's not the FCC's vision for this. Officials are more worried about the mobile broadband market. They argue (accurately) that they've already made more beachfront spectrum available for unlicensed uses. And although they don't say this clearly, auctioning spectrum to large corporations gives them the money to pay off the current owners. But even so, they can't do that.

"Imagine someone was given property on Fifth Avenue 50 years ago, but they don't use it and can't sell it," says Tim Wu, a law professor at Harvard and author of "The Master Switch." That's the situation that's arisen in the spectrum universe. It's not legal for the FCC to run auctions and hand over some of the proceeds to the old owners. That means the people sitting on the spectrum have little incentive to give it up. For that to change, the FCC needs Congress to pass a law empowering it to compensate current holders of spectrum with proceeds from the sale.

One way - the slightly demagogic way - to underscore the urgency here is to invoke China: Do you think it's letting its information infrastructure stagnate because it's a bureaucratic hassle to get the permits shifted? I rather doubt it.

Of course, we don't want the Chinese system. Democracy is worth some red tape. But if we're going to keep a good political system from becoming an economic handicap, there are going to be a lot of decisions like this one that need to be made. Decisions where we know what we need to do to move the economy forward, but where it's easier to do nothing because there are powerful interests attached to old habits. The problem with having a really good 20th century, as America did, is that you've built up a lot of infrastructure and made a lot of decisions that benefit the industries and innovators of the 20th century. But now we're in the 21st century, and junk won't cut it anymore.

Thanks God we are done with celebrating and can start working! Here’s one essential checklist for you to start:

1. Acknowledge Your Biggest Fans

Do you have fans that re-tweet your posts, email your articles to friends, and send new business your way? What have you done for them? Have you at least taken the time to thank them?

You should always monitor your brand, your website link and your own name (I use SocialMention). Every time someone says something nice about you, you should thank them. If you can do something else in return, by all means do.

2. Understand the Golden Rule of Blogging

Most blogs don’t appeal to the audience they’re writing for. The writing may be good, but the topics aren’t. Let’s say you sell furniture. Your blog shouldn’t be about your specials, the new employee you hired or about your vacation to Hawaii. Your blog should be about furniture.

Always ask yourself this question: who am I writing for? What kind of content do they want? It doesn’t matter if you don’t offer all the services you write about. For example, I own an Internet marketing agency and my audience is business owners. But, I don’t only write about online marketing; I write about topics that are of interest to business owners, such as lowering costs, motivating employees and off-line marketing.

Find out what your audience wants and give it to them.

3. Use Decoy Offers

Have you ever wondered why some stores sell an item for $100 and in the price tags says “Was $200″? It makes the current price look a lot better. Some people might think $100 is a lot of money for that item, but hey, it was $200, so you’re getting a great deal, right? Well, believe it or not, it works. This is because everything is either a great deal or an awful deal based on what you compare it with.

Psychologists call this “the principle of contrast.” How can you use this to your benefit? My favorite way is to present two or more offers. One will be your current offer and then you’ll add some decoy offers. The decoy offers will be really bad deals, but they’ll make your main offer look great. For example, you can sell one can of your product at $19 and three cans at $25 with free shipping and feature this last offer as the weekly special. Try it; it works like a charm and there’s nothing unethical about it. You’ll keep your main offer and all you’re doing is making it look better by adding some not-so-attractive offers.

4. Write Your Marketing Copy First and Develop Your Product Around It

I’ve found this tactic to be extremely effective. Instead of creating a product and then writing the marketing message, I like writing the copy first because by trying to sell it with words, I get a much better understanding of what the audience really wants and I can give them that product or service.

5. People Buy from People, Not Companies

Your customers might have known your company first, but they bought from you because they liked you or the salesperson they dealt with. This is especially true in B2B. The takeaway here is: do a good job explaining how your company can help your clients but do an even better job connecting with your prospects at a personal level.

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Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Fashion Industry News, Designers, Runway Shows, Style Advice. Send Tips � Advertise � About Us � Network � Above the Law � AltTransport � Breaking Media � Fashionista. Search for: Home � Fashion Shows ... Posted in: News ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

News Corp. Insiders Talking About Selling MySpace To Yahoo

News Corporation (News Corp) is the world's second-largest media conglomerate (behind The Walt Disney Company) as of 2008 and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009. The company's Chairman, Chief Executive. ...

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Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

News Corp. Insiders Talking About Selling MySpace To Yahoo

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Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

News Corp. Insiders Talking About Selling MySpace To Yahoo

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Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

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Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

News Corp. Insiders Talking About Selling MySpace To Yahoo

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

News Corp. Insiders Talking About Selling MySpace To Yahoo

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

News Corp. Insiders Talking About Selling MySpace To Yahoo

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

News Corp. Insiders Talking About Selling MySpace To Yahoo

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

News Corp. Insiders Talking About Selling MySpace To Yahoo

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

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bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

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bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

News Corp. Insiders Talking About Selling MySpace To Yahoo

bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

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bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Grading the Spring 2011 Campaigns, Part 1 – Fashionista: Fashion ...

Transfer news: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti targets AC Milan ...

Chelsea boss targets AC Milan striker, Aston Villa plot player swap for Newcastle star and Real Madrid warn Man United, Man City and Chelsea off defender.

News Corp. Insiders Talking About Selling MySpace To Yahoo

Friday, January 7, 2011

Forum Making Money

Case Study: How Shpongle Went From Yelling At Fans To Embracing Fans

from the a-case-study dept

Over the last month or so, things have been quite busy at Techdirt, and we haven't had time to add to our case studies section, even though we have a few more lined up. However, Bas Grasmayer, sent over the following case study (also posted on his blog), which is a part of his thesis (which we've mentioned before). The case study is about Shpongle, a much respected group of musicians in a very specific niche, psychedelic chill-out, but it has attracted many fans of other genres too and is generally categorized as 'electronica'.

A while before they released their latest album 'Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland,' it leaked onto filesharing networks and fans of Shpongle started discussing the new album on the internet forum of Shpongle�s record label, Twisted Music. Obviously, Simon Posford, the main person behind Shpongle and owner of the Twisted Music label, was very unhappy about this and lashed out:

"So some fucker has released the album on the internet already.... thanks a lot, whoever it was... Maybe twisted will still recoup, maybe not... all i know is that we are teetering on bankruptcy, and are seeking deals elsewhere.... the 12 loyal fans on this forum are not enough to sustain a record label.... How much do you think Twisted has in the bank account? Have a guess? More than $10,000 ? More than $20,000 ? Well it is actually less than $1,000..... Raj and i haven't even been paid our advance for this album.... All the artists on twisted are seeking deals with other labels now... We can't pay a label manager, and we can't pay the artists.... always putting our hope in 'just ONE more release'.... "We'll be ok if the DVD sells"...."Surely the Shpongle CD will sell, right?"

[...]

This sucks, for Twisted, for myself and Raj who have spent 3 years working on the album.... Just as i started looking around and posting on this forum again, i remembered why i shouldn't bother.... I'm outta here... Soon to be followed by Younger Brother [another project by Simon Posford] and probably Twisted...

Enjoy."

He got understandably emotional, but misdirected his anger towards perhaps the most dedicated fans: those who really cannot wait until the release and decided to preview it. After all, Shpongle hadn't released an album in four years and their following is quite fanatical about their music. Later in the same forum topic, he adds some more thoughts, which are also relevant to this case study:

"It's all very well to speculate, but i can tell you as a fact, we made more money before file sharing... we could survive... now not so.... and i think you will find it the same all over the music business... the argument that "file sharing is promotion" is probably valid.... in fact, i agree...in a way it serves a similar purpose to radio.... but the argument that "file sharing is promotion and therefore you will sell more CDs" is clearly absolute bollocks, otherwise the music industry would be booming right now!

[...]

Also i'm sorry that "And if it weren't for the internet, I would have given up on music entirely".... for me, the internet makes me want to give up music wink But i guess i'm from a different generation.... I started making some of the trance that probably fills your 100Gigs hard drive before i'd even heard of the internet... and i didn't need the internet to find a deep love of music... the rush of buying a new vinyl, of collecting every release/picture disc by my favourite artists�. discovering new music i liked, all underground, no radio-plugged mix CDs or whatever... ALL without the internet!"

Later on in the topic, which currently carries over 600 replies, fans started to suggest ideas to Simon. They encouraged each other to buy more merchandise, to replace old t-shirts or hoodies, to buy an extra album to give to a friend and they came up with ideas to help out Simon Posford, Shpongle, and Twisted Music.

And it seems Simon has also learned from the fact that you indeed will not sell more CDs even when filesharing is good promotion, as he noted. Being a fan myself, I was very delighted to receive a newsletter, one year after the leak, which featured some interesting new business models and experiments. It does a few things very well and I'll highlight this bit by bit. The opening paragraph is as follows:

"Dear Twisted fans,

The new Prometheus album has been doing very well on Beatport with 4 of his tracks reaching the Top10 of the electronica charts. If you haven't got your copy yet then Benji and Twisted would be happy if you could get onto Beatport and purchase at least the electronica tracks. We'd love to see him get to Number 1!

Ott is beginning his 6 date tour of the USA starting tonight! You can see and buy tickets to all his tour dates at the bottom of this newsletter. You can also join his Facebook Fan Page here.

We've also got two new tracks of Younger Brother and Shpongle available as a free download, keep reading to find out how to get hold of them."

What a dramatic change of tone, compared to the rants on the forum. This is how you connect with fans! First of all, it acknowledges fan support in terms of chart positions and makes a polite request (as opposed to lashing out or guilt-tripping fans, like on the forum). Also, it tries to unite the fans and give them a purpose; a mission. People love accomplishments, individually or in groups, if only for the little dopamine rewards our brains release.

They then give the fans more information and ways to connect with one of the labels artist's and finally reward fans with free music. That's a great way to open a newsletter.

As for the free tracks, the newsletter featured two images with links to the place to download the song. Once on the page, the page showed a download button, which when clicked, becomes a box in which people must enter their email address (as seen on the left). So actually, they can see which email addresses support which artists, but also, when people choose to use one of the share buttons, they help Twisted Music get more email addresses than just the ones they already had for the newsletter.

Younger Brother's page was a little more complex (see screenshot on the right), with more information, but basically boils down to the same thing.

The newsletter then continues with another exciting way of dealing with the reality created by the internet, which is crowd-funding:

"Many of you have already pledged on the Younger Brother album 'Vaccine'. We're working with pledge to raise money and to set up the best possible foundation to promote and release the record next year.

We're calling on the loyal and faithful to help. In exchange we're offering loads of interesting things from studio time with the band to limited artwork and access to rehearsals."

Again, a great way to involve fans and to offer them something exciting. It basically offers them a reason to do it for themselves, instead of telling them to please buy a CD because the label needs it (see forum post). Some of the 'items' on the list for people that pledge: signed CD (£15), new album and entire back catalogue (£25), coming to one of their rehearsals (£40), studio workshop (£300), being in one of their videos (£150), a unique personal remix of your favourite track of the album (£600), and much more.

The newsletter closes with more standard stuff, such as tour dates and the like.

RECAP

The strategy here is simple, yet complex. First of all, the label releases some very unique, high-quality music, which has given them a fanatical and evangelical following (Seth Godin would call this a tribe). Secondly, this following, together with the label, has turned into an ecosystem; when things were not going well, the ecosystem started figuring out ways in which it could survive as a whole. Thirdly, Simon Posford started paying close attention to his tribe and started catering directly to their needs. When reduced to a communication and business strategy, it becomes the formula of CwF (Connecting with Fans) and giving fans a RtB (Reason to Buy).

Giving away free songs is a good example of connecting with fans by rewarding them. The clearest reasons to buy in this mailing are the mission to get one of the label's artists to number 1, as well as all the rewards for pledging money for the new album.

It is important to note that this should not be done to generate profit, but should genuinely be done to please the fans and to give them what they want. I thoroughly believe that if you betray your fans' trust, you will lose them and your (potential) income.

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Does the 2012 primary campaign really start in January 2011? Perhaps not. Most of the presumed contenders for the Republican presidential nomination have apparently decided to skip the Hispanic Leadership Conference despite its location in Florida, a key state in the early part of the primary schedule. Of the generally-recognized candidates for the ticket, only outgoing Governor Tim Pawlenty has confirmed his appearance next month:

It was billed, in part, as a forum for the 2012 Republican presidential field to speak directly to Hispanics – a replica of the vaunted Conservative Political Action Conference, but tailored to the fastest-growing slice of the electorate.

Yet, when former Gov. Jeb Bush, former Sen. Norm Coleman and former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez open the first Hispanic Leadership Network conference next month in Miami, the only potential presidential candidate confirmed to attend – so far – is Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. …

A poor showing could raise doubts about the commitment of Republicans to court Hispanics, one of the open-ended questions of the 2012 presidential cycle.

It could, but there are some mitigating factors. The conference is being held at about the same time as the RNC winter meeting, for one thing. That won’t usually require attendance by candidates, but the organizers within the party will most likely opt for the RNC meeting rather than the first iteration of this conference. The organizers may want to make this “the CPAC for Hispanic Republicans,” but the actual CPAC is just a couple of weeks later. The activities in Washington will overshadow Miami, and the organizers of the HLC will probably be attending CPAC anyway.

The general timing may not work well, either. Unlike the 2008 cycle, when both parties had an open primaries for the first time in decades, the GOP can take its time putting a pre-primary campaign together. No one will feel rushed into making January announcements; most candidates need time to organize for a national campaign. Some of those sending regrets also hold political office now, such as Senator John Thune, Governor Mitch Daniels, Governor Rick Perry, and Governor Haley Barbour (who hasn’t confirmed his response either way). Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin have media jobs that they will want to extend as far as possible before having to take hiatuses after announcing their intent to run. Pawlenty’s term of office ends this month and he’s been organizing for a while, which means those pressures won’t keep him from outreach efforts like this.

The organizers for HLC perhaps should have rethought their scheduling and picked a date farther into spring, perhaps in April or May for their first-ever conference. Its close proximity to CPAC alone will mean that potential attendees may have to decide whether to spend money in Miami for a limited event or spend it in DC for CPAC where they can network on a much wider basis. The GOP definitely needs to organize to make their case to Hispanic voters, but organizers need to keep logistics in mind, too.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011

Making Money on Line

It’s being reported by BGR that some Best Buys may be unable to activate new T-Mobile lines at their stores. Normally, you may think “What’s the big deal?” but it’s causing issue for those hoping to buy the new Nexus S superphone. With Best Buy unable to activate a new service line through T-Mobile, some BGR readers are reportedly having to pay the full retail contract-free price of the Nexus S ($530) in order to assure that nobody else nabs their phone. Brutal!

According to the reader, he couldn’t activate the new line in store, and after heading home, he called back and after repeated calls, they said that if he wanted to get a Nexus S, he would have to pay full retail for the phone. Now, this seems to be an isolated incident, and who knows if the guy was black listed by T-Mobile or something.

BGR reached out to Best Buy’s press relations people, who apparently didn’t respond to their questions. Have any of our readers had this issue? We’d love to find out. Tell us about it in the comments section.

To briefly recap the specs of the Nexus S, it’s not a bad phone, though it’s basically a Galaxy S with Google branding and a curved display:

4-inch OLED contour display
1GHZ processor
512MB RAM
16GB storage
Android 2.3
5MP Camera w/ LED flash

Weekly Pulse: GOP Plays Chicken with the Debt Ceiling

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is calling for a "big showdown" over the upcoming vote to raise the nation's debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion from $13.9 trillion. The debt ceiling is simply the maximum amount the government can borrow.

Congress routinely raises the debt ceiling every year. It's common sense: Since the government has already pledged to increase spending, Congress must authorize additional borrowing. (Remember that the government is now forced to borrow billions of extra dollars to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, which Republicans insisted on.) If the ceiling isn't raised, the United States will be forced to default on its debts, with catastrophic consequences.

Why would default be catastrophic? The principle is the same for countries and consumers alike: If you have a good track record of paying your bills, lenders will lend you money at lower interest rates. If you don't pay your bills on time, or default on your obligations altogether, lenders will demand higher interest rates.

Congressional Republicans say they oppose raising the debt ceiling because they favor fiscal responsibility. This kind of rhetoric is the height of recklessness. The interest on our debts is a big part of government spending. Even idle talk about defaults could spook some creditors into raising interest rates on U.S. debt and cost taxpayers dearly.

Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly quotes Austan Goolsbee, chair of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, who says that congressional GOP members are flirting with the "the first default in history caused purely by insanity."

Making work pay (for real)

An astonishing 80% of full-time minimum wage workers can't afford the necessities of life, according to new research by labor economist Jeannette Wicks-Lim of the Political Economy Research Institute, featured on the Real News Network.

Wicks-Lim argues for a two-part solution to the crisis of working poverty in America: i) raising the federal minimum wage to $12.30/hr from $7.50/hr; ii) Increasing the earned income tax credit to 40% of income. She estimates that these two policy changes would raise the income of a minimum wage worker from $15,000 to about $36,000 at a manageable cost to employers and taxpayers.

Her proposal is a revamp of President Bill Clinton's attempt to "reform" welfare by cutting social service benefits and shifting government spending to tax credits. Currently, the Earned Income Tax Credit is a subsidy for the working poor that is designed to "make work pay"--i.e., if workers aren't making enough in wages to secure a decent standard of living, the government provides an income subsidy to reward them for working.

However, if a decent standard of living remains out of reach for 80% of full-time minimum wage workers, Wicks-Lim argues that the minimum wage is too low and the subsidies are too modest to achieve the stated goal of making work pay.

Colorado minimum wage inches up

Speaking of minimum wage issues, Scot Kersgaard of the Colorado Independent reports that the minimum wage in the state ticked up from $7.25 an hour to $7.36 on January 1. The modest increase represents the annual adjustment for inflation. Every bit counts, but Colorado families are falling further behind. According to a new report by the Denver-based Bell Policy Center, 8.3% of working families in Colorado live below the federal poverty line, which is $22,050 for a family of four. Fully one-fourth of Colorado families do not earn enough to meet their basic needs, which requires an income approximately twice the FPL, according to the report.

Colorado is one of only 10 states that automatically adjust their minimum wages for inflation.

Wage theft epidemic

Unscrupulous employers are stealing untold millions of dollars from hardworking Americans, Dick Meister reports in AlterNet:

The cheating bosses don't take the money directly from their employees. No, nothing as obvious as that. The employers practice their thievery by underpaying workers, sometimes by paying them less than the legal minimum wage. Or they fail to pay employees extra for overtime work, or even force them to work for nothing before or after their regular work shifts or at other times. Some employers make illegal deductions from employee wages. And some withhold the final paycheck due employees who quit.

In New York City alone, an estimated $18 million worth of wages is stolen every week. Workers in the restaurant, construction, and retail sectors are at increased risk of wage theft. Wage thieves disproportionately target undocumented workers because they assume that these employees will be less likely to report the crime.

Debt collection from beyond the grave

The dead don't tell tales, but they have been known to sign debt collection papers, Andy Kroll reports in Mother Jones. Martha Kunkle died in 1995, but her printed name and signature appear on paperwork filed by the debt collection agency Portfolio Recovery Associates as late as 2006 and 2007. The ruse was discovered and PRA, facing a fraud lawsuit, agreed in 2008 that the "Kunkle's" documents couldn't be used in court. That didn't stop the agency from trying to use them again in 2009.

The attorney general of Missouri has announced that he will investigate whether any of Kunkle's handiwork was used to support debt collection in his state. The attorney general of Minnesota is already investigating whether debt collectors have used fraudulent paperwork in court.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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PHP: News Archive - 2011

Latest news. For the latest news, check the homepage, or our Atom feed. Archives by year. 1998 � 1999 � 2000 � 2001 � 2002 � 2003 ... News Archive - 2010. Here are the most important news items we have published in 2010 on PHP.net. ...