Friday 8 May 2015

What we're listening to this week? Keith Jarrett - Koln Concert.





Everybody, but everybody talks about Keith Jarrett 'Koln Concert' (1975) and everybody would be right. It's extraordinarily wonderful and all you need do is to put on the first 4 minutes and you'll get it. And you can do that at the end of this blog.

It is after all, the best selling piano recording in history.

He started with Art Blakey, which started him on a solo career as well as a stint with Miles Davis. Although known to be a bit grumpy on stage, it's worth it to get his live recordings. 

(And he did sue Steely Dan for copyright on 'Gaucho'.....)

Put it this way, when we started listening to The Koln Concert, we've ended up with 9 Keith Jarrett albums in a week. Few can stir you like that.

It's jazz (but not in a four blokes all playing a different tune way), because Jarrett was also very classical as a player, but it's much more than that. Perhaps it will open up a new world to you. It did us.

Have a bath, put on the Headphones and listen to Koln Concert and you'll be transported to another place. Like Van would. Absorbing.


Thursday 7 May 2015

And in case you haven't seen it....Old Men Grooving (OMG).


Nearly 9 million views online in a week.
This will be more than the TV show it appeared on (Britain's Got Talent).
Now what's that telling you about the future of TV....

Tuesday 5 May 2015

The Google/Facebook Advertising gap, is widening......




On the Advertising Revenue side, it looks like Facebook and Google are hoovering it up leaving 'second tier' companies such as LinkedIn, Yelp, Twitter (who's shares fell -26% last Tuesday) and even those less established like Snapchat/Vine, finding it hard to make Ad progress.

Those second tiers are showing time and again, that their Ad revenue is growing, but slowly and too slowly for investors.

The dominance of Facebook and Google is more than likely, to continue and so that 'gap' will widen

In 2014, both Google/Facebook had more that 30 Billion US Dollars (60%) of the 49 Advertising Billion spent - that's dominance. Which is why those other businesses need to move into niches - as LinkedIn has done for recruitment - for as long as Facebook/Google have the largest audiences (over a billion users a month) they'll always get the Ads.

Video too is where the Ad growth is and Google's YouTube is well positioned whereas for others, their video offerings are unclear and poor.

Of course too, these shares of tech companies are particular high, so one bump in the road causes real pain. Investors won't wait.

But even so, that Ad revenue gap will widen in display advertising between Facebook/Google and the others. Now, that's a problem.