Is Taylor Swift right about music or Jennifer Lopez? The future is Taylor Swift's way

Gigaom covered Taylor Swift’s WSJ article on the future of music is a love story.

Taylor Swift is right about music, and the industry should act on her ideas

by Jeff John Roberts

15 HOURS AGO

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photo: Taylor Swift/YouTube

SUMMARY:

Country star Taylor Swift made some bold and hopeful claims this week about where the music business is going. We should listen to her.

Country-pop star Taylor Swift penned an optimistic essay in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal about the lasting bonds between performers and their fans, and why she thinks the music industry is “just coming alive.” You can think what you want about Swift’s songs, but her take on the business is a welcome change from the doom-and-gloom we normally read.

The Doom and Gloom is covered by HuffingtonPost’s article on Jennifer Lopez’s statement the music industry is no longer a big magical world of possibilities.

Jennifer Lopez Says Music Industry Is No Longer A 'Big Magical World' Of Possibilities

  | By MESFIN FEKADU

Posted: 06/23/2014 10:14 am EDT Updated: 06/23/2014 4:59 pm EDT

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NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 20: Jennifer Lopez performs on ABC's 'Good Morning America' at Rumsey Playfield on June 20, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images) | Jamie McCarthy via Getty Images

NEW YORK (AP) — Jennifer Lopez remembers the days when her record label budgeted $1 million for one of her music videos. Today, she's attempting to create the same magic with one-tenth of the money.

The entrepreneur says being a singer has been "challenging" since she debuted on the pop scene in the late 1990s, dominating the charts with back-to-back hits while becoming a driving force on other entertainment platforms.

"It used to be like this big magical world, almost like Oz, when you'd make a record," the 44-year-old says. "(It) was like anything was possible."

Lopez, who released her eighth album, "A.K.A.," on Tuesday, says the music industry no longer feels like Oz.

"Now, it's like, 'We'll see if we can do that and we can give you this much,'" she says of record label meetings. "And you're like, 'Wow, OK. So how am I gonna do that?' It's a whole different mind-set."

Taylor Swift posted here own story on WSJ on the future of music is a love story.  Seems like Taylor swift is falling in love, and Jennifer Lopez is the end of love.

Where will the music industry be in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years?

Before I tell you my thoughts on the matter, you should know that you're reading the opinion of an enthusiastic optimist: one of the few living souls in the music industry who still believes that the music industry is not dying…it's just coming alive.

Here are some of the best points made by Taylor Swift.

There are a few things I have witnessed becoming obsolete in the past few years, the first being autographs. I haven't been asked for an autograph since the invention of theiPhone with a front-facing camera. The only memento "kids these days" want is a selfie. It's part of the new currency, which seems to be "how many followers you have on Instagram."

Fan Power

A friend of mine, who is an actress, told me that when the casting for her recent movie came down to two actresses, the casting director chose the actress with more Twitter followers. I see this becoming a trend in the music industry. For me, this dates back to 2005 when I walked into my first record-label meetings, explaining to them that I had been communicating directly with my fans on this new site called Myspace. In the future, artists will get record deals because they have fans—not the other way around.

Drones document the people who cheat, helping spouses and insurance companies

Foxnews posts on the benefits of drones, catching those who cheat.

Investigators use drones to catch scammers, cheating spouses

Published July 13, 2014

New York Post

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Investigators are taking drones to new heights -- using the remote-controlled aircraft to catch New Yorkers cheating on spouses, lying about disabilities and endangering their kids.

“People want you to believe there’s all this negativity associated with drones . . . but they could be a very helpful tool,” said Olwyn Triggs, a gumshoe for 23 years and president of Professional Investigators Network Inc. in Glen Cove, LI.

Triggs recently used a drone to find an upstate man suspected of insurance fraud. Signs on his rural property warned that trespassers would be shot, so she sent in her 2-pound, foot-long Phantom 2 Vision quadcopter, which costs about $1,000.

When you bridge the gap between IT and Facilities, where is your dictionary?

I get a good laugh whenever I see companies announce or promote they have a service/solution that will bridge the gap between IT and Facilities. DCIM is the latest service to be promoted as bridging the gap between IT and Facilities. But, guess what there is something more at the core of bridging the gap than technology.

Can IT and Facilities communicate? The reason there is a gap, a communication gap is because they use words in different ways.

To illustrate the communication gap that can exist when groups are separated without a common dictionary check out this post on The Guardian on South Korea’s efforts to create a common Korean dictionary to support the communication between the countries.

Two Koreas make strides to talk the same language

The Korean People's Comprehensive Dictionary will iron out the differences between the North and South

• 
  
  Steven Borowiec in Seoul
  
  




• The Guardian, Friday 11 July 2014 12.22 EDT

Joo Yeon-ah did not realise how hard it would be to settle in South Korea. The 45-year-old defector says she was prepared for the dangerous journey out of North Korea, and the unfamiliarity of everyday devices such as mobile phones and cash machines.

But what she wasn't expecting was a communication barrier with people who spoke the same language.

"I didn't understand [what people were saying]," said Joo, who has lived in Seoul since 2009. "Everything is so different in South Korea, but I thought at least our language would be the same."

What she discovered is that after more than 60 years of division, different forms of the Korean language have evolved, with the South incorporating many words from English.

this work is not trivial.

Han says he and his South Korean colleagues have completed comprehensive definitions of more than 20,000 words. The completed dictionary is to contain more than 300,000 words.

When someone starts discussing a common dictionary between IT and Facilities then I’ll spend more time discussing how they are reconciling the differences in communication between the groups.

What will the New Microsoft Data Center Group look like?

We haven’t seen a major reorganization of a company’s data center group for quite a while.

Reading PCWorld’s description of the coming changes at Microsoft.

“Nothing is off the table in how we think about shifting our culture to deliver on this core strategy. Organizations will change. Mergers and acquisitions will occur. Job responsibilities will evolve. New partnerships will be formed. Tired traditions will be questioned. Our priorities will be adjusted. New skills will be built. New ideas will be heard. New hires will be made. Processes will be simplified,” he wrote. “And if you want to thrive at Microsoft and make a world impact, you and your team must add numerous more changes to this list that you will be enthusiastic about driving.”

Specifically, Microsoft will “modernize” its engineering processes, so that they’re more in tune with customer needs, and are more data driven, faster and more focused on quality, according to Nadella.

MICROSOFT

Bill

Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Satya Nadella, the only three CEOs to ever lead Microsoft. Nadella says the Microsoft of tomorrow may not resemble the Microsoft of yesteryear.

The goal is to “reduce the amount of time and energy it takes to get things done” in the engineering team by having fewer people involved in making decisions, and more accountability.

It is quite possible that the Microsoft Data Center Group aka GFS. http://www.globalfoundationservices.com will have significant changes. This group has been in existence since about 2005 when Mike Manos was the first Sr Director of the Data Center Services Group.  9 years later a restructuring seems like a good possibility especially when you take into account statements Satya Nadella is saying “Nothing is off the table in how we think about shifting our culture on this core strategy.”

Maybe GFS will not be touched at all and it will be exactly as it is now, and the rest of Microsoft will change. :-)

One thing that could sabotage attempts to Regulate Data Center Industry, seeing the effect of Regulations

For those who have to implement government regulations one of the few options to influence the regulation is to try and influence the defining of the regulation.  Once the regulation is put in place then you can try and negotiate the compliance to the regulation.  The hopes of changing the regulation is almost impossible.

For years the regulation on the Data Center Industry was an inevitability.  The EU’s “right to be forgotten” regulation on Google and other search engines followed the pattern of governments meeting and playing their political games to create something legally binding.  Google fought as hard as they could to prevent the “right to be forgotten” regulation, but it is now in effect.  And, we are able to see the effects of the regulation since the results are out there for all to see.  Oh oh, the results are not what people thought it would be and the vision of what was sold by the government regulators is not as accurate.  There is data to see how effective the regulation is in achieving its goal.  The regulators by trying to regulate the data center industry are finding they themselves could be measured as to how well their laws are working.

The Guardian has a post that says the “right to be forgotten” is not enforceable.

EU 'right to be forgotten' law unenforceable, says justice minister

Simon Hughes says law currently being negotiated by EU states could lead to thousands of misconceived complaints

...

The judgment had created a new stream of complaints to internet companies which might eventually find their way to the Information Commissioner's Office and be appealed up to tribunals, Hughes added.

He denied that the ICO was already swamped but acknowledged that thousands of requests had been made since the ECJ judgment, the result of which, he said, had been "unexpected".

He said: "There is no right given by the judgment for people to have their personal data deleted from the search engine results. There is no unfettered right. There is no right to be forgotten. Not in the law of the UK, not in directives, not in the judgments of the court."

Hughes said a "mischievous" business of online reputation management had emerged since the judgment, offering to assist people trying to request removal of information online.

On the practicalities, Hughes commented: "It looks to me as if it may be an unmanageable task. It will be a phenomenal task. It's not technically possible to remove all traces of data loaded on to the internet from other sources. You can't exercise the right to be forgotten. The information system could not be made to do it.

Google is cooperating by providing the information that supports seeing the effect of regulation.

"Google are being very cooperative. My interpretation is that this is difficult and uncomfortable for them. They are conscious of their global influence. I think they would be very keen for the law to be changed as soon as possible and will collaborate with us to do so."

It was probably not a coincidence that a number of requests to remove stories by high-profile journalists had been "on the top of the pile" when Google came to consider removals initially. "That series of events suggests to me that people want to make sure their positions are known," Hughes said.

Ministers have estimated that the cost to British businesses of enforcing a new EU law on the right to be forgotten and related regulations would be up to £360m a year.