I was reading Peter Kafka’s post in ATD about the new UMG/Google venture, Vevo and was struck by Pete’s analysis. What caught my attention was Pete’s observation that the music industry’s digital/online venture track record is exceptionally poor. In fact, to the best of my recollection, its zero. Nothing these knuckleheads have tried has worked. There’s I don’t know how many 25 year-old kids who are running around with online businesses worth zillions and the music industry Masters of the Universe are still trying to figure out how to program a VCR. Now I’m not suggesting that these 25 year olds take over the record business. I hate those arrogant little shits too. But do you really think that a completely out of touch septuagenerian should be running the world’s largest record company?
Doug Morris’ raison d’ĂŞtre for being a music mogul in the first place was that he was “a song guy”. He was a “music man” through and through. I would venture to guess that Doug wouldn’t know a hit today if it gave him a massage with a happy ending. And he clearly knows absolutely nothing about the digital space as he so eloquently proved in his famous Wired magazine interview of Nov. 2007.
So will Vevo work? Probably not. Because as Peter Kafka’s post made clear to me, they’ll always find a way to fuck things up.
Sooooo. This begs the question “What Should Doug Morris Be Doing?”? What do you think?
© 2009, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.
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