The New Distribution Model

It’s interesting as you begin to have deeper discussions with those who understand copyright and open source distribution. At the tlt2006 conference conversations I had with Rick, Rob, Alec and even David Porter all speak to the concept of sharing ideas and products. While this is not a new discussion, it has spilled over into another aspect of my life.

My daughter is attending Humber College as a music student. She has been in the recording studio as well. She’s applying for a music grant with Factor. I’ll be helping her soon to set up a website to promote her music. A recent posting from the Freakanomics blog pointed out Jane Siberry’s distribution model. Bascially you determine how much you’re willing to pay. Here’s her statistics:

% Accepting gift from Jane: 17%
% Paid by determining price: 37%
% Paying Later:46%

Avg Price Per Track: $1.14
% Paid Below Suggested: 8%
% Paid At Suggested: 79%
% Paid Above Suggested: 14%

This type of free or user detemined payment model is certainly a new phenomenom that most of us have trouble completing understanding. It appears it may work. Basically if you have a product or other marketable skill, the long tail concept should work in your favour at some point.

I’d be interested in your thoughts on this one.

Meredith singing at Open Mike

Here are Meredith’s songs in case you’re interested.

The tale of two tickets

I wasn’t planning on going to any games while in Toronto but was fortunate to see a basketball and baseball game. It was the Raptors last home game and a disappointing season meant many were uninterested. We got a call at about 4:00 asking if we wanted 4 tickets. They were $199 tickets.

The next day I went to see the Bluejays and Yankees. This time I had to pay but fortunately they only cost $2. It was a choice between more shopping and watching baseball. I think I made the right choice.

Wireless in Winnipeg

It’s Easter break for us this week and I’m currently sitting in the Winnipeg airport ready to board for my flight to Toronto. I’ll be doing a workshop later this week on the use of video and multimedia for a church there.

I always appreciate having free wireless in airports. It seems more and more airports offer this service. In fact, knowing that Winnipeg offered free wireless influenced my flight options. Flying out of Regina rarely offers a direct flight and that often means a pricier ticket. So I didn’t mind having a 2 hour lay over here in Winnipeg.

Now if I could have only avoided the 4:15am wakeup to get on the 6:00am flight… Dalton I owe you one for driving me.

Dean and Dalton on the deck

Martha is Podcasting


Martha asked me about recording her voice for her blog. So now she’s a podcaster! I showed her Audacity and a few basic controls and she recorded her first podcast. We placed some music as a background track, uploaded the file to ourmedia, installed a little player and voila! I submitted her podcast to itunes so soon it will be subscribeable.

The content likely won’t shake your world too much but it’s her space and she’s quite pleased.

If you have 4 minutes to listen to her recording, do so and perhaps even leave a comment.

Geocaching and my 73 year old father

My dad turns 73 this month. For Christmas, I bought him a GPS or Global Postioning device.,
I’ve now got him hooked on geocaching. Geocaching is like a big game of hide and seek but there’s more to it. He has found over 10 caches in his winter home of Lakeland, Florida. He planted his first cache this week. He calls me a few times a week to keep me updated. On my recent trip to Florida, we got to do several caches together. We had a blast.
Technology doesn’t know how old you are.