Music Piracy, Never ending cycle.

Like the eternal chase of the mouse and the cat, from the invention of recordable media there has been an infinite fight between musicians and/or producers with “pirates”. Everyday new developments in information technologies allows us to keep more and more information and even smaller and cheaper media. This advances plus other aspects makes it easier to get our hands into illegally obtained music.

The internet has become the villain and the hero in different cases. Justin Bieber and the new Golden Voice man have taken the opportunities, even if they didn’t directly look for them, of low cost high reach internet media. In matter of days, their videos became viral and consequently they became famous.

Unfortunately for the more traditional music companies, this freedom of communications limits their most valuable asset: Control. Not only controlling the artists but also their creation impulses, and even the music we hear in our favorite radios stations. Believe me, I’ve hated a song, and after hearing it about 100 times I begin to sing it! That type control is traduced in $$$ millions!!! Even though music industry is a huge business last periods have been of constant decline.

Let’s be honest about it, most of us have at LEAST hear some music from unknown sources, but at it is core it just stealing, so if we hope to live in a civilized society, we should encourage laws and regulations preventing this kind of behavior. The music industry has given lots of people a way of life and has a positive impact on economies around the world. So in short we should protect it.

As always I am not in favor of newer regulations by bigger governments, but in this case we are dealing with a special market. It is not rational to conclude that music piracy would be completely eliminated in the future, due to the nature of electronic media people CONSTANTLY will continue to beat the “system”. One example of newer mechanisms to try to prevent piracy is the development of sites in the internet that allows the consumer just to pay for a particular song, instead of buying an album which you would finally appreciate two or three songs. Eventually we can conclude that this is just an eternal chase, between the listener and producers, labels and artists; and this chase would continue to develop newer and best music media and ways to try to stop electronic piracy.

Web Firms: Give them chance to work!

Information is POWER! Everybody thinks about specialized industrial, technical or military and national security information when one says that, but what about your name? Well, your name can be changed, you can move from one city to another and even change your physical features, but when you are issued a Social Security Number, you are stamped for life. Well, even though, we could eventually change our SS number, it only can be made when the bad things have already happened.

I mentioned on another blog earlier, that people should assume that all information they post on the internet, even via a simple message, will become public information, at least in current situations. Now, can legislation be approved to restrict even further the misuse of your information? Yeah, of course it can be approved, but would it really help? I don’t think so. Right now most of your misuse information is obtained via illegal methods. You could actually buy Facebook profiles!

We could allow this problem to be solved by new government legislation, but I think it would be better if instead we encourage private companies to cease this opportunity by creating solutions themselves. Users can right now access a variety of software that gives you the chance to protect your navigation and the illegal access of Trojans, and viruses into your computer.  This allows further development of new products, it could even represent a new competitive advantage for companies that may use it as a marketing characteristic. Another advantage of encouraging private companies to develop protection is the creation of jobs, and economic development. Furthermore, private companies have the ability to move faster in responses to new threats, that’s not the case with legislation.

I also believe that education about the proper ways to use internet and its resources should be provided by parents and institutions. The problem with this is that sometimes parents do not have the slightest idea on how to protect even themselves! There are a lot of negative consequences on losing your info.

From the marketing standpoint, if we restrict the recompilation of user information by firms, our local companies may face millionaire information losses. A lot of new opportunities are being developed around the world, companies from abroad could become the newer profile collectors which would be even more dangerous  from a national security issue. We have to be careful, and hope that a company like Facebook is ready to compete in other markets where it is not currently allowed. So let’s not make our companies weaker, cause we could lose even further our internet security. Finally, let’s create a proper environment to incentivize security developments by private companies.

Selling souls at Facebook? So let's buy some!

     What has happen to my generation? Where is the people who treasured their privacy? People are doing lots of comments on the recently TSA newly approved “Pat Downs” but how about our newly public life in the internet? People have to understand that having your profile at different social networking sites is a much longer commitment than a tattoo! Why? Well... first there has been several investigations from different parties that have found a way to retrieve information and pictures of some deleted profiles up to 16 months from been deleted! Second, it really doesn't matter who is watching your profile, the computer that displays your pictures will automatically save your info into its hard drive!!! You only need a little tech knowledge to be able to retrieve it. A tattoo can be removed with specialized surgery but your digital footprint would be almost impossible to delete if you have already make it public.

     Another interesting thing I was able to find out, is the possibility within some courts of making your private profile information public due to the interest they may have in a determined suit or case. So you got to think twice of telling your boss you are sick and later posting pics of your vacation to Tahiti!

     Well, maybe this falls into our right to publicly express ourselves even if we are not consciously aware of it!

     Now, the positive aspect of this “public/private” information is the ability of companies to developed closer relationships to their potential or current clients. Our world is becoming smaller and smaller and there has been a lot of inventions that make competition harder every day. Local companies have to compete with other companies even from the other part of the world, today we have to develop personal relationships with our customers and this will give us the advantage that may keep our business successful. Before  the development of social internet media; only humongous international companies were able to invest millions of dollars in advertising that reached most common households, portals like Facebook now allow smaller companies to reach out for specific clients and create this communication channel that makes easier advertising and feedback from costumers. This NY Times article has some examples of a correct use of Facebook as an advertising tool.

     By creating this “personal” commitment, companies are able to developed marketing mixes directly almost to each individual, and gives the opportunity to react almost instantly to different stimuli in the market.

     Internet has become a hand held tool, due to the advancements in cell phone and wireless communications. So companies have newer opportunities to react faster than their competitors if social media is used accordingly.

     Overall industry concern about “imports” is growing; but we have the ability to change and improve our businesses to keep them profitable and competitive. Finally, it is always important to remember that there are always opportunities in the market to shift or morph a company, but the most important thing is to have an “ear” at the world, and what could be easier, faster, cheaper and more reactive than internet social media? Nothing......... at least for the moment!

Neuromarketing: Just a Black Dot in a White Paper

    Even though marketers throughout history have intended to get into people´s mind and try to “influence” them (not to say control them) one can only theorized into the ability of producing direct biological responses to trigger a consumption behavior to a predetermined product or service. Even for people that have a very light knowledge on human behavior or psychology, Pavlov´s experiments with dogs behavior would sound familiar. He concluded after a series of experiments, that an unconscious reflex can be developed in a dog using reinforcements that provoked that behavior. In simple terms dogs could be trained to generate saliva with sounds.

    This kind of experiments could be done in humans, but there are ethical and moral implications that may persuade people not to carry them on. One can conclude that similar results can be obtained with this kind of tests in people; this gives us a referral to our “animal” background. But the main difference between our reactions and those in animals is the complexity of our memories and our responses to stimuli. Also we have to take into consideration that as humans, we have the ability to create memories and to anticipate feelings and reactions, that is a factor that modern marketers may take into consideration to develop products and promotions.

    Many of us have experienced feelings and memories due to external stimuli, even major religions around the world have use sounds, smells and tastes to generate submissions, reactions or meditation states. But these reactions have lots of things and behaviors related to them, for example in everyday situations, like my personal reactions on weekends: Every time I watch a soccer game on Sunday, I have a craving for barbeque, but not only this biological desire for a specific food, additionally, there is a desire for sharing with friends, having some beer, laughing and telling jokes, and the occasional poker match after the game. So there are lots of responses that I can do to try to reach most of my desires due to that soccer match. There is a mix of social, biological and other intrinsic and extrinsic factors that combine for certain reactions to an specific situation.

    To give a more scientific approach of why there are differences in brain reactions with similar products lets analyze the conclusions of a specialized study made to compare Coke^® and Pepsi^®. This study was made on 2004 in the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. It used different combinations of presenting Coke^® and Pepsi^® into 4 different study groups. Among the conclusions of the study, the brains reactions to both drinks were in very similar almost identical parts of the brain. Meanwhile when Coke^® brand was showed to the individuals, not only the sensorial parts of the brain we working, but also other parts related the memories and logical processes where activated.

    Independently of the brand that is presented to the person, not only a biological response is given, but also a combination of zones in the brain that represent complex reactions of humans. In one hand all dogs can be trained in the same matter with the same stimuli, but for humans the same set of exposures doesn't provide the same reaction for everybody. This is a fundamental factor a company must include in their marketing strategies to provoke the desired reaction at the target audience.

    Neuromarketing is just a dot that can become a part of a great artist paint of product promotion.