Adele and Spotify - not quite yet

Fast Company had an interesting article (read here) about how Spotify turned down Adele's album 21 (which just one a Grammy for Album of the Year).   Essentially, Adele wanted her album available to paying subscribers of Spotify, but not to the subscribers using the ad-based version of the service.  Spotify wasn't willing to change the structure of their service (currently both types of members get access to the same library) to accommodate this request.  I wonder if this is a slippery slope for Spotify, since in many ways the popular albums available for free subsidize a substantial part of the their music library, and as soon as other major artists realize this the Spotify service might lose some of its appeal.

The power of a logo

Here is a really interesting 2 minute video of a 5 year old's reaction/knowledge of corporate logos.  Taken from her perspective, I'd say some logos definitely be replaced.  Video

Best Buy going bankrupt? - Part 2

If you read my original post on Best Buy (here) you might be interested to know that the Forbes article I had linked to exploded in popularity shortly afterwards.  I think it got over 2 million views, interestingly enough that's more than the number of Best Buy shoppers in any given week. After the spike in popularity, the CEO of Best Buy wrote his own blog post and then the original writer from Forbes (Larry Downes) wrote another reply.  You can check both out here.

Best Buy - for how much longer?

I'm curious how much longer I will be able to go check out and play with a new piece of electronics at Best Buy before going home and buying it online.  Best Buy is on its way out and the only thing that saddens me is that there will not be really any stores left selling electronics in a retail store. This is something I actually know a lot about as I worked at Sears selling computers and electronics for several years.  If you bought something from me back in those days, you likely paid more than at Best Buy, Circuit City, or Amazon, but you also got someone that was friendly and knowledgeable about the products you were buying.  I knew that the cheap Vtech cordless phones got returned 5x more than the more expensive Panasonic ones and would tell you so.  I knew not because of what I had heard or read, but because I had physically returned the phones myself.  You can't find that kind of knowledge in many places any more in this industry.  The majority of the people working in Best Buy today know absolutely nothing about the products they sell.  The last few times I tried asking questions I was shocked at the answers they gave me.  Not only were they not helpful and showing a complete lack of knowledge, but they were actually WRONG.

In my opinion, the only chance Best Buy has is if they focus on providing a reason to pay more to buy in a store.  That's why I buy my running shoes at a local running store (South Boston Running Emporium) and not Amazon and why I enjoy going to Microcenter in Cambridge.  REI also does an awesome job of this, every employee I've ever talked to there is passionate about the outdoors, friendly and helpful, and incredibly knowledgeable about what they are selling.  Having someone to speak with that knows what they are talking about is worth paying for and it helps my local community.  Best Buy doesn't know the products they are selling or really do much for my community, and unless that changes me and millions of other people will continue shopping there but buying elsewhere.

Read the great Larry Downes article in Forbes that inspired this post here.