LIVEdigitally

So Steve, you came right out and said it: DRM is a bad thing.  Nicely done, blogosphere in a tizzy (I highly recommend reading commentary at IP Democracy, Thomas Hawk, and ReadWriteWeb), good on ya.  I liked a lot of what you said resonates well

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy.

Like it.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none.

Love it.

Not sure if you saw it, but Ryan Block at Engadget wrote:

But don’t just leave it to the consumer to pressure the record industry, you need to lead the way — that’s why we wrote Microsoft that open letter. You and Bill have more power over this ecosystem than any two people in the world, and the big four knows it. Perhaps The Mac and The PC need to rally the troops (i.e. us) and lead this charge together.

I have an idea for you to “step up” the battle a little further.  You wrote “In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores” and we know that a really good chunk of those 2 billion songs were sold by your iTunes store.  You want to lead the way for the world?  Try this:

Stop selling DRM-protected music on iTunes, period.

Want to change things?  I guarantee that causes a reaction.

Saw an interesting post over at IP Democracy this morning on how there is a bit of a divide between those who make money from blogging (earning roughly $1K per year) and those who make money from blogging (earning more than $1K per day).  In the article, Cynthia writes:

(It’s very depressing to me that one of the biggest and earliest bloggers out there, Jeff Jarvis, makes only $1,000 per month for his efforts.)

I share her sentiments, and recall Guy Kawasaki’s “reveal” earlier this year as to his ~$3K of “income” despite amazing site traffic and popularity. Although Google AdSense expert Ruben claims it’s Guy’s own fault, I think it is becoming more and more clear that the pot of gold is a lot closer to a lump of clay, albeit a slightly shiny one. 

This site receives (at the time of writing) between 2000-3000 unique readers per day on average according to my server stats, and right around 2000 per day according to Google Analytics (which is probably a bit closer to reality).  Alexa ranks the site around ~165,000 of all Web sites (although they state that anyone ranked below 100,000 should treat the data as “not reliable“).  Technorati has me around ~21,000, placing me in the top 1% of their tracked blogs.

Most people will say this is at least average traffic, if not pretty good.  It’s worth less than $1K per year, which covers hosting fees and a few incidentals.  So in classic “long tail theory,” I’m somewhere off in that thin part of the graph.  But the interesting part is this: so are the people in the top 0.01% of ranked blogs! 

I’m going off on a limb here, but my hunch is this: the “thick part” of the graph is made up mostly of spam blogs and squatters.  Either that, or the entire blogosphere is sitting in the tail, regardless of the traffic going to the top contributors.

So the money is clearly not much to write home about for most of us.  Except when I consider that in that batch of 2000ish readers per day are a pretty good selection of key influencers and thought leaders in my industry (yes, you!).  I might not be able to put a dollar figure, so I guess I’ve got to value it MasterCard-style: priceless.

More data points, facts, and figures on blogging for dollars over at BusinessWeek and the Christian Science Monitor.

In a post just before my vacation, I mentioned a video Robert Scoble shot of a few of us chatting about the age-old Mac vs PC debate.  Well, it’s online in its entirety (hour 1 and hour 2) and I think the part I’ve enjoyed the most is reading the comments written across the blogs who covered it (Scobleizer, Harry McCracken, Fred Davis, and especially Josh Catone – Josh, I’d be happy to debate the IPTV/DVR/TV2.0 topic any time!).  The good, the bad, and the ugly.  Thanks to Robert and the gang for the very interesting evening, and thanks to everyone who has taken the time to watch the action.

While I’d have really liked to be around last week to participate in the conversation live, I was just way too happy offline on the beach in Mexico.  I kept a journal while there (on paper even) and typed it up on the flight home.  I read a lot of travelogues (especially Bill Bryson, my personal favorite travel writer), and this is my little attempt to entertain with my travel story.  You can start reading here, or just jump to the pictures if you’d prefer.  I’ve got some video coming too, which needs a bit of editing and Muvee treatment, then I’ll put it up on YouTube later this week.