I quit my job.

Ok, I didn't quit like this guy quit or this guy quit. I did the standard two-weeks-I'm-outta-here routine. It's never easy to leave a job, no matter what the circumstances. I know where I'm headed next, but there's plenty of time to talk about that in the future.

But this is more than a turning point in my career. It's also going to be a turning point for this little web site. I've been repeating my user-centered design daily affirmations -- such as "Do it for your users" "You are not a user" "You have to find out their needs" -- every day for the last couple of months, taking it with me to my job interviews and talks with friends.

From these experiences and others I've learned that it's a very powerful philosophy that not enough people understand. I also haven't given it enough attention on this site. That's why I'm going to start writing more about it from here on out. It's a change you'll notice very quickly, so stick around for the fun new things I have planned.

But I'm not the only one wrapped up in change, and before I depart to my user-centered state-of-mind I'm going to linger in the music world for a moment longer. Apparently lots of folks out there think this year will be a turning point for the use of DRM in digital music stores. I'm not so certain. Let's look at two big music stories of late.

First, negotiations with EMI (one of the big four music labels) to sell DRM-free music have collaped. Why was EMI looking to sell their music DRM free? Money. This has nothing to do with appeasing music buyers or Steve Jobs. EMI has made some other headlines lately, including:

• A big drop in revenues, shifting their projections down 5 to 10%
• Replacing the CEO and vice-chairman of the board
• All of this news drove EMI stock down 12%
• EMI rebuffed a Warner Music offer to purchase the company

EMI has been going down for the last few years, facing many of these same profit and restructuring problems before just to face them again. So why pick now to sell the music as MP3s? The cynic in me thought that EMI was doing the MP3 negotiations to boost their stock value, making them some more money in any potential buyout. However, checking their stock performance over the last few months it seems that the market is more interested in the buyouts themselves rather than selling MP3s.

Negotiations ended when, as "unnamed sources" said, the digital retailers wouldn't pay a big enough advance (that is, money upfront) for EMI's catalog as MP3s. If they had paid, those retailers would likely need to raise the prices on those tracks to make up for the loss, something they're not eager to do because of the impact on sales. And if EMI isn't gonna go MP3, you can be certain the other big labels (Sony BMG, Warner, and Universal) won't go either.

This just leaves the question about EMI's fate, if they really are struggling so badly. I don't know the exact future, but I have a feeling Warner won't be so forthcoming with an offer now that EMI isn't going to sell MP3s. That is, a major reason Warner made the offers right now was to stop EMI from selling their music without DRM. The big labels like DRM the way it is, and a DRM-free EMI catalog would force them into MP3 territory as well.

This brings us to the other turning point of late. Steve Jobs wrote an open letter trying to convince the big labels to sell their music DRM free. This is, of course, bullshit. Yahoo, eMusic, and others have been way ahead of iTunes in selling MP3s and in calling for big music to sell their tunes without DRM. (Why? To level the playing field versus Apple, of course.) Jobs -- like Apple did with the iPod, iMac, and all things Apple -- came out after everyone else did but suddenly made it cool.

I've written before about why Apple uses DRM -- because the big labels want them to, and there's no iTunes Store or digital music market without the big labels' content. But Apple is equally at fault; they have never licensed their DRM to other companies (and the major labels didn't insist on interoperability when they had the chance). The indie labels have never cared about DRM; most of them already sell their content as MP3s on eMusic (the #2 digital music retailer) among other DRM-free outlets. This debacle is solely about the big four labels and DRM.

So why is Jobs calling for the end of DRM? Things are a bit different now that France and Denmark and Germany and Sweden and Norway have all opened investigations into Apple, their DRM, and anticompetitive practices. Steve Jobs is covering his ass, saying it's not his fault there's DRM in the music (true) and it's out of his hands -- and up to the big four -- to fix it (bullshit).

Of course, in situations like these you can always expect the market to come up with a solution. DVD Jon, who famously cracked DVD encryption, apparently is pitching a system compatible with Apple's DRM for anyone who wants to buy it. And in response to Jobs, the big four have shot back that DRM is necessary in light of their declining revenues (due to declining CD sales), challenging Jobs to nix the DRM on the Disney/Pixar movies sold in the iTunes Store if he believes in interoperability so badly.

When it was just France who was considering a bill to eliminate DRM last year, that was no problem for Apple because they could stop selling in France with little impact on their bottom line. Now that Europe has ganged up on Apple, Apple is gonna have to do something to fix this. Not even the combined forces of all the digital music retailers will be enough to convince the big four to sell their music without DRM. It's Apple's move if they want to be the ones to decide the resolution to this turning point. Otherwise the EU has it's own plans for the future of the iPod and the iTunes Music Store, and Apple certainly won't like that.

What better way to get the stress out than whacking a stranger with a pillow? This question was answered when several hundred (a thousand?) people gathered by the Ferry Building for Pillow Fight Club. Personally, I can't think of a better or more appropriate way to spend Valentine's Day. Pictures and videos are below.

1900

Videos: 1
2
3

Recently, lots of folks have asked me what I think the future of this Web 2.0 thing will hold. I give my token answers -- users expressing themselves, creating their own content, mass customization of web experiences, online conversations, attention economy, multitasking, widgets, bonsai kittens, Muppet porn, State of the Union remixes, and so on. Most people eat that answer up.

But that answer never satisfies me. While most folks are caught up in updating their MySpace profile or watching narcoleptic pets on YouTube, a deeper transformation is happening right in front of us. In this hyper-polar Internet, large sites still draw the most attention and revenue while an ever-growing number of smaller sites increasingly disrupt the Internet landscape and invade our everyday lives.

I take no credit for inventing the term "hyper-polar". That honor goes to Moises Naim, who I saw on Fareed Zakaria's excellent PBS news show on international issues, Foreign Exchange. Rather than mis-translate the concept, I'll let Naim explain it in his own words from a Financial Times article:

What is coming – and in some important ways is already here – is a hyper-polar world where many large, powerful actors coexist with myriad smaller powers (not all of which are nation-states) that greatly limit the dominance of any single nation or institution.

Naim continues, saying that these micro-powers have great new opportunities in the world, but these opportunities come with a loss of stability -- stability that was once enforced by the major powers. This is similar to the concept of a "nonpolar" world; the importance is that we're not in a unipolar (U.S. dominated) or bipolar (U.S. vs. U.S.S.R.) world as in the past. A hyper-polar world is the world of terrorist groups, religious zealots, criminals and smugglers, and mega-corporations and the power they hold over governments and worldwide political, environmental, economic, and social events.

Not as obvious, this is also the story of every Web 2.0 company ever made, bloggers, podcasters, video bloggers, every other individual and group creating new content online, the Creative Commons, Second Life, micro news operations, content aggregators, web site remixes, and so on. Even though the Internet is becoming a part of our daily lives, it still has the power to disrupt and change other events in our lives.

Let me offer some examples of this from the hyper-polar Internet. The first national news story that I can remember where a blog was involved was the incident with the forged GWB National Guard papers, as reported by Dan Rather on 60 Minutes where GWB supposedly skipped out on his duties. A day after that story aired, Power Line Blog posted the story on their site. Within a few hours, they received enough evidence to conclusively prove that the document was a forgery -- news which slowly percolated back up the news chain until the major news networks got a hold of it and forced Dan Rather off high and mighty CBS and on to fledgling cable channel HDNet.

Here are some more examples of smaller actors disrupting bigger powers. Facebook received backlash from over 100,000 of its users when they added a privacy-breaching feature. 100,000 individual users probably wouldn't make a difference, but their united effort was enough to make national headlines in several periodicals. A left-wing site ambushed Google News and took the top spot with amusing results. Online video has accelerated the spread of stories like the Saddam execution video, the tasering of a student at UCLA, and lonelygirl15. Howard Dean made an unprescedented presidental run driven largely from communications and donations made via the Internet. And the best examples of this are yet to come.

To be clear, the bigger powers (whoever they are) in this hyper-polar era aren't about to implode or go away. Instead they will have to face greater uncertainty about their and their competitors' futures. For example, Fox is not going away (sadly). 24 is ridiculously popular, and Fox will keep making that show until Keifer is rolling around in a wheelchair, holding the gun in his mouth, pulling the trigger with his tongue, and sleeping while drooling for 18 of the 24 hours. But it takes a Fox to produce 24 because of the time, money, and other resources required to create shows like that. If you don't like Fox or 24, just replace it with the TV show and channel of your choice. (Don't watch TV? Then how do you live?)

Fox will be affected though. There are hundreds of other network and cable channels competing against Fox for your TV attention. The good news is that there's enough eyes watching TVs to keep those hundreds of stations on the air, even if some of them are seen by only a handful of peopole. The bad news is that every channel now has hundreds of channels of "competition" (because The Souffle Network is hardly competition for Fox). And you never know which of those channels will launch the next big addictive television program, especially since there's hundreds of places where that new program can come from (like The Souffle Network's new hit "Souffle On You"). Yes this is related to the long tail of television, and I'll write more about that in the future.

For its great explanatory power, hyper-polar is not predictive about how what new forces will form or how they will disrupt. This is a metaphor for understanding the phenomenon, not a crystal ball for showing us how things will pan out. But just to satisfy your craving (and I'll admit it -- to stroke my ego), here's a prediction about what's coming next as seen through a hyper-polar lens.

The Internet, for better or worse, is built on advertising. (For proof, look at the beating Yahoo! took when they announced a delay of their new advertising platform, or check where Google's profits came from the last quarter.) And advertising is built on attention -- flashing banners, fifteen second commercials before videos, full page ads you have to watch before getting a link to click through, etc. You need a huge site like Google or MySpace to draw an audience big enough to make significant profits from advertising.

At the same time, Internet audiences are fickle. MySpace and other sites surrounding it are soaking up more and more of peoples' Internet time, where years (or months?) ago they might have been browsing eBay for hours on end. One site is absorbing attention, so another site is losing viewer time. What can those losing sites do to fix it?

There's no way eBay can compete with MySpace for a viewer's time. Instead, eBay needs to find a footing in the MySpace world. How do they do that? Widgets. Let users put an eBay list in their profile featuring their favorite items, auctions they're watching, or items they're selling. This way eBay is getting viewer time even though the viewer is really on MySpace. And the best part about widgets is that they can go from site to site, outlasting MySpace and wherever the fickle audiences migrate to after that.

This also shows you how sites like PhotoBucket and Slide have nudged their way up the Internet hierarchy into prominence. You don't need to compete with MySpace; instead fashion yourself into a compliment of the site. Widgets aren't the only solution to this problem, but they're the solution du jour and will be until the next big thing comes along. And before I forget -- MySpace disrupted the old guard of the Internet and made itself a staple of today's Internet. Slide and PhotoBucket came from out of nowhere and are now staple sites because of MySpace.

Unfortunately, this spells doom for some fledgling social network sites (SNS). Since advertising is the business model most have chosen, SNS sites that can't get the numbers will fall out of existence. MySpace is on the short list of sites that will stick around. Bebo and Hi5 are probably around for the long run too. Niche sites like Tagged or TeamSugar may have a place in this ecosystem as well. But volatility is a trademark of a hyper-polar world, and nobody can predict when these sites will pass into memory or which sites will succeed.

This should be enough to show you that the Internet is really a hyper-polar playground for new sites, ideas, and interactions. I find it a useful metaphor for framing my other observations and opinions about the state of the Internet, and I'll happily expand on those in ramblings to come.

What the fuck is the problem with 24? Can't they go one season without killing a major character, murdering thousands of people, or finding conflicts at exactly the end of every hour of the day? How many TV Americans have to die for my entertainment? More and more are dying each day. Act now to stop it! Only you can prevent fictionalized death.

It's like the Rolling Stones and their hit songs; 24 found a perfect formula for a TV crack. But thanks to themeat.org's research labs, we've cracked their formula. Now anybody can make their own season of 24. This bit of text should cover your first four or five episodes.

A terrorist group from ___________ has obtained
                         a place

__________ ___________ ___________ that they will
 a number   adjective  plural noun

use to terrorize the American ___________.  The
                              plural noun

only _________ who can ________ everyone from this
       noun              verb

is ______________ Bauer.   ___________  has years of
    a first name            same name

training as a _________ and can use ___________ with
                noun                plural noun

lethal accuracy.  Only after the government ___________
                                             adjective

unit foils the ________ do they learn the enemy really
                noun                              

has __________ ___________ ___________ and that their
     a number  adjective   plural noun

real plan is to _________ ___________ _____________.
                   verb    adjective   plural noun

President ________ is in for a long __________ hours.
           a name                    a number

I wrote this over a year ago and never published it to the site until now. Thankfully all human events are cyclic, so the time to post it has come again. Since I wrote this, both Virgin Digital US and AOL Music have turned their users over to Napster, Apple launched their video store with only Disney movies and has been unable to get other big studios to come on board, a slew of music/cell phone hybrids have appeared including Apple's new iPhone along with music stores to buy songs for your music capable cell phone, and Apple debuted their Intel powered iTV device for playing your iTunes library on your TV (and the remote control has six "buttons").

For the record, I have not edited this since I first wrote it on September 21, 2005. (That's right -- 2005.)

Video iPod... you know, for kids!

Let's think about how people use iPods today. Many people wear them walking to and from work, plug them into cars or stereos for listening to music, or wear them jogging and exercising. Sometimes using public transportation or on airplanes, people sit and listen to music.

Video is a visually intensive medium, absorbing the attention of the user almost exclusively from other activities. McLuhan pontificated on the differences between radio and TV as hot (low participation) and cool (high participation) mediums. (I think TV is just dumber.)

So how can you watch a high participation medium like video while driving your car without meeting new people (by rear-ending their cars)? I'm sure there are some really rich people out there who do watch videos in their car despite the impact on their driving, but then again people also drive and talk on their cell phones. I can only hope that someday I believe in karma so that it can catch up to those people and bite them in the ass.

Still, would you watch videos walking around or jogging? Today it's socially acceptable to tune out and listen to the radio or an mp3 player in public. More and more people are walking and text messaging at the same time. But video? You can buy a TV right now that is small enough to carry with you as you walk, but people aren't walking around with TVs all the time. And on buses and subways (and even walking around), I think people would be wary of holding an iPod in your hand to watch the video for fear of having it stolen right from your grip. (Watching for thieves while watching a video is hard.) Without a transformation in iPod culture, the only places where people will use these is on airplanes and in automobiles as passengers and that's about it. Can that change take place?

The content Apple is going to sell also tells you something about the target audience of the iPod video -- teenagers, because I'll be damned if I ever buy a music video. They're the ones who buy ring tones, who watch MTV, who obsess over pop culture, who text message while walking and chewing gum, who spend time riding on school buses. I don't know many adults, if any at all, who watch music videos. I feel bad for all the parents who will have to shell out for the new iPods and iTunes accounts for their kids. Maybe Apple can start selling iPod family packs... There's even an iPod mini for baby -- it comes in pink and blue.

I think Apple is expecting success similar to that of ring tones -- that having videos on your iPod will become cool and wildly popular, passed on between friends, a kind of identifying mark like a ring tone. Maybe something like this is one of the features they'll announce September 7th (more at the end).

But my doubts linger... Other video players on the market right now already play a variety of video formats, but what will Apple do? Will their video iPod only play video files with digital rights management or some form of encryption? Will the iPod video have an output for display on TVs? We'll find that out soon, and then we can decide for ourselves whether or not they were pressured to do so by the RIAA or MPAA or their moms.

This is not the end of Apple's video migration. Apple is not stupid, and I can't imagine they're going to start selling video and not develop a version of their operating system specifically for TVs. Think of an Apple PVR or media center, because what good is it if you can't play all your paid for music videos on your TV? Complete with the $100 Apple remote control which will have only one button. (Yeah, that's a mouse joke.) I bet this is what Intel had in mind when they signed a deal with Apple to supply CPUs and such, especially with Intel's new Viiv marketing -- an Intel hardware based, Apple software powered media center. If I'm right, you heard it here first. If I'm not, then I'll deny I ever wrote this.

Maybe I'm just hoping that the iPod video will be a failure out of my disdain for Apple and their shiny, overpriced, technologically inferior media products. But the question that I have which I think there is no real answer for is this: Who the hell would buy the video and the mp3 of a single song separately? Nobody. Apple better have the best pricing and bundling strategy ever for this or it's already destined for failure.

On a random note... Apple currently controls about 3/4 of the MP3 player market, followed by Creative and then by other random companies. Most of Apple's competition (if you can call it that) are in a race to the bottom -- the lowest price. Creative is really feeling the pinch, missing their sales marks lately and struggling with their Zen line of players. (Editor's note: I own several Creative products.)

The MP3 player market is being fueled by younger people with lots of disposable income. You know them... They're the kind that own computers. Yes, I'm saying that poorer people aren't buying MP3 players with their scant extra money. I think these companies at the bottom of the MP3 player ladder are hoping the rest (also at the bottom of the ladder) will go out of business. Some will, but MP3 players are not commodities like televisions. This market is entirely fueled by rich people and has no appearance of shifting downward -- at least not until Dell bundles one of their (rebranded Creative) MP3 players with a computer for under $400. Maybe the rising tide of digital music growth on the net can save Creative and their like from the juggernaut of Apple, but that doesn't appear to be the care right now.

The same is true of digital music services. A recent survey said something like 41% of people would not pay more than $10 a month for a digital music subscription. Most people overlooked the 34% who said they would never get such a service (and probably download the songs for free instead). The time for these services to sink or swim is coming quickly. I think most of them are limping along, dumping cash into these services in hopes of catching the expected wave when lots of people start using these subscription services in the coming years. Real is just pushing into profits now, mostly from their 2 million new Rhapsody subscribers. Napster is losing money but growing fast. Even with this growth, prices for these services will not drop because of pressure from the RIAA and big labels. If anything, expect it to become more expensive but still have trouble penetrating all demographics.

Apple announces their new iPod innovations September 7th and maybe more during their expo around the 20th. It will almost certainly be the mobile iTunes stuff because Napster just announced their own mobile service. An important part of cell phone culture is sharing ring tones, photos, and more. Mobile iTunes and Napster better support this somehow. Maybe the ring tone market will evolve into the next platform for these digital music services? I've told others for years now that the cell phone was going to be the device of digital convergence. The MP3 player market is about to face new competition in the form of digital music enabled cell phones.

But that's all business analysis crud. I can't wait for this headline and how many groups it will piss off simultaneously: "Teen driver causes pileup while watching iPod rap video." That story will make news despite people who had car accidents while talking on cell phones or watching videos while driving. Damn sensationalist media...

Interactive Content

Folks often forget that South by Southwest is more than a music orgy. SXSW is really five events divided into three categories. The three categories are Film, Music, and Interactive. Film and Music are pretty self explanatory -- there's a music conference and a film conference along with a film and music festival spread out over several days. The festivals are almost entriely indie content -- indie movies and indie music. The film and music conferences have speeches and panels with the latest newsmakers about the important issues in those spaces with a heavy slant towards independent producers.

The Interactive conference is a whole other beast. As far as I know, it's the only conference of its kind -- a cross of academia, technology, and business all discussing the latest trends, gizmos, web sites, and so on. Judd was curious what the crowds are like. Here's my breakdown of some of the stereotypes wandering the halls.  In short, they're people who can afford to be there (or people who can get someone else to pay for them to be there):

• Academics
• New media producers (bloggers/vloggers/podcasters/mobloggers/etc)
• Recruiters and headhunters
• Venture capitol and angel investors
• People looking for money/work/business
• Product and web designers
• Authors
• Programmers and tech creators

It's a strange mix, but then this is a strange conference. Panels topics included how to use AJAX, the future of radio, all things blogging and podcasting, ways to make your users love your products, how AT&T is the Dark Side (complete with AT&T logo-Death Star morph -- done by Burnie Burns of Rooster Teeth (the Red vs Blue folks). mp3 here, videos here and here -- lots of visual gags but none of his slides are in the videos. What the hell kind of video of a presentation doesn't record the slides? Ugh. I guess you'll never see the AT&T logo-Death Star morph unless you were there. His opening slide was best:

This is the title to the keynote!

This is the smaller, italicized subtitle to the keynote!

Maybe you just had to be there.)... you know, the usual technology conference stuffs but all in one place.

They should use this as a promo:

"If you pick any conference to go to this year, make yours SXSW Interactive. Why pay thousands of dollars to go to dozens of conferences in cities that suck? Going to SXSWi is like going to every technology conference all at once in the kick-ass city of Austin, Texas!"

There were some highlights, including Kathy Sierra, author of some of the Head First books which do an amazing job teching a very boring subject (programming). She gave a kick ass presentation about how to create passionate users, drawing from topics in cognative psychology, UI design, etc. She better be in the midst of writing a book on the subject.

And there were some lowlights, like the talk about Darknets. A darknet is a private virtual network for sharing information, like when you dragged your computer over to your friend's place and plugged into his network to swap porn or when you downloaded a file from a peer-to-peer server that required a password.

The panel was moderated by J.D. Lasica, author of the darknet book. He assembled a very interesting panel including someone from a company that monitors online copyright infringement, someone from Flickr, the founder of FreeNet (hyper-secure P2P), and even a PR person from the MPAA -- the body responsible for film ratings and vilifying P2P file sharing. Did I mention that the audience was primarily bloggers, filmmakers, podcasters, and other new media folks? And that there was an MPAA person on the panel?

I think you see where this is headed.

It took maybe two minutes for the first person to interrupt a speaker with a comment. And when the "audience question" portion of the conversation began, the discussion quickly devolved into berating the poor MPAA woman (who was very brave to be on that panel IMO). Less "question" and more "fuck you MPAA." And I was hoping that the bloggers and podcasters would be able to sustain a civilized discussion...

Here's my transcript of the panel:

• Blogger: What are you doing to ensure I can do whatever I want with any kind of digital content?
• MPAA: (does that trick where it looks like you're pulling your thumb in half) You see, my thumb looks like it's in two pieces, but in fact it's really ok.
• Blogger: I hate DRM!
• MPAA: That's not a question. And you're not watching my thumb.
• Blogger: We're taking over everything! You're in the stone ages! You wait and see!
• MPAA: (holds hand above head and snaps finger in the air) You see that?
• Blogger: Wha?
• MPAA: Next question.

Don't believe me? Listen to the panel, but only if you're a glutton for punishment. I'd point you to the video but it's only five minutes long and is missing JD's great mashup that he showed before the panel spoke because SXSW didn't want to spend $20,000 to clear the rights for the media that he used.

thumb off

Thumb on

Where was I? Got mesmerized by that thumb... Oh yeah. If you ever moderate a panel, ask a question, give an interview, or give a speech at SXSW, let me offer you some advice:

1. Remind people that when you give time for the audience to ask questions, you really should ask a question.
2. If you're going to offer a comment, don't unless it's a question and relevant to the panel.
3. Berating the panelists is not nice and will not engender their kindness in return.
4. If you're giving an interview or moderating a discussion and have never done so before, please take the time to practice. Inexperience shows.
5. If you're the moderator, your job is to moderate and get the panel to talk. Don't answer all the questions yourself.
6. If moderating a panel, do not invite only your friends to be on the panel.

Was SXSWi worthwhile? Sure was. Just make sure to put your bullshit filter on high before you go. And bring a bathing suit. And a spare liver. Photos and stories are next.

In case you're thinking of going next year

If you're not from Austin and think you're going to the South by Southwest music festival, think again. 1300 bands in 5 days is a music lovers dream. Bands covering every music style from all around the world play fill nearly every bar in downtown Austin. To see any shows, you need either a badge or a wristband. People who pay the music conference fees (about $500) get in to any show they want by using their conference badge as admission.

Music fans can pay $125/$150/$175 to get a wristband, and that wristband will get you into the music shows as well. The price depends on when you buy your wristband; this year the first 2000 were $125, the next 2000 were $150, and any remaining ones were $175 (up from $110/$130/$150 last year). 4600 total wristbands were sold this year; the first 4000 sold in one day, two max per person. The remaining 600 were $175, cash only, and had to be worn immediately after purchase "to prevent scalping."

If you didn't get a wristband through the normal channels, plenty of people were selling theirs online. There were at least 260 SXSW eBay wristband auctions and 300 Craigslist wristband sales listings, most of which sold for over face value. If you're not from Austin or have a friend who's willing to brave hours in line, then you can always get gouged by the scalpers since Texas has no anti-scalping laws.

I emailed the SXSW music people about this. They said that the wristbands are sold as a "courtesy" to Austinites in exchange for having their town invaded. Anyone not from Austin who can't be at Waterloo Records on the magic day when wristbands go on sale is SOL. A coworker of mine got a less cordial letter -- that SXSW is about the conference and not the fans. If you can't get a wristband, then please pay the full music conference fees or shut the fuck up. Or words like that.

But that's not the full extent of SXSW's indifference to music fans. Buying a wristband does not guarantee you admission to the shows. People with badges always get in first, even if there's 200 wristband wearing fans who have been waiting in line for the last three hours. In short, if you have a wristband, you're probably going to spend a night wandering up and down 6th Street instead of listening to the music you paid for.

I don't know about you, but paying a scalper $250 for a wristband because you couldn't buy one in person isn't very courteous; at least ten percent of all SXSW wristbands were sold online. Courteous is not selling only 4600 wristbands and then giving priority to the music execs who have badges paid for by their companies. SXSW is Austin's premier music festival. It's the party that put Austin on the map. And it's fuckin crazy that they would treat music as such a commodity when it should really be about the fans.

One example will clear this up. I saw Sleater-Kinney play a kick ass show on Tuesday night. Admission was an SXSW badge -- that is, only people who paid the conference fees could get in. When S-K asked the audience how many people are from Austin, maybe 10% cheered. And that doesn't count the remaining 2/3 of the people who were busy having conversations and weren't watching the show (read as: business people). If real S-K fans were in attendance, you wouldn't be able to have a conversation over the music, dancing, and noise.

Every person who goes to Austin for SXSW should know that if you're buying a wristband, you're gambling with your money. In my opinion, you're better off spending that money on 4 days of great meals and drinking. That's what I did with the money I saved by not getting a wristband. And let me tell you -- I had a better time than I would have if I had gone to those shows. And I didn't even have to deal with the crazy SXSW traffic and parking.

There's one last thing that's been bothering me. It's "South by Southwest, Inc." They're a business. How much money are they making of everyone? Let's go through this:

• Speakers don't get paid to speak at the conference (though they do get a free badge)
• Bands don't get paid to play at the festival (but they get free wristbands)
• People shell out hundreds of dollars for wristbands and badges
• Companies pay tens of thousands of dollars for SXSW sponsorships

Other than paying rent for Austin Convention Center, SXSW Inc must be making tons of money off this. Yeah, if you're from SXSW Inc and are reading this, go ahead and refute this all you want. But all of us who know you've raised wristband and conference fees by 5-10% each year for the last few years know better. We're getting screwed.

I loved the years I went to SXSW, but there's no way I'll ever go to the music festival unless someone else pays for it. Or if they have some kind of lottery system for purchasing wristbands along with online purchasing. And give wristbands the same priority as badges. And make sure that wristbands can't be sold for more than face value.

Of course, a free platinum badge for next year would get me there as well... More on my SXSW and Austin experiences later.