danwtmoon

I forgot my headphones!!! This is a massive blow as I'm now missing out on maximum awesome.

Gonna be weird listening to the world go by for the first time in a long while... Makes me wonder how much is missed / not experienced by always being either plugged in to content on devices such as iPhone or conversations with friends, family and coworkers.

Let's find out...

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As most will know there is a little campaign called #ratm4xmas

It started, as far as I know, as a facebook group to get the classis Rage Against The Machine track "Killing In The Name" to be the UK Christmas number instead of the normal X-Factor routine.

Awesome.

Not only is the track a personal favourite of mine, the principles behind it rock.

For the last few years the Christmas number one has become a farce and has therefore lost any sense of the importance it once had for us Brits.

Although the track itself may not be the "people's choice", the campaign shows a large number of people would like some choice.

One can only hope this inspires other artists to perhaps re-connect with the idea of crafting an apt tune for Xmas so that the tradition of the Christmas number one is once again exciting and meaningful.

There's lots to be said with regards to the power of social media in the success of the #ratm4xmas campaign too. I'm sure in hindsight many experts will analyse and give insight on this area... My two cents is that it proves a point about social media connecting global niches.

Anyways another key point to raise is charity. All the £ made from the X-Factor goes to the "music" companies behind it.

Most, if not all, of the £ from the spike in revenues for Rage Against The Machine will go to homeless charity, Shelter.

So in summary if you'd like the UK chistmas number one to have meaning again I suggest buying "Killing In The Name" in order to inspire artists for next year and help a charity in the process.

Howevere if you like X-Factor to always be number and no £ going to charity then please do buy that single and implicitly be responsible for Tiny Tim's death ;)

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I recall hearing the phrase "content is king" many a time in the past few years, especially when I was in heavy with mobile world.

Nearly always in context of Sales & Marketing I never paid too much attention at the time.

In recent years though I've got more involved / exposed by that side of things and have had hands in experience of delivering IPTV to consumers.

From this and other experiences I believe actually that the value of content which is at the heart of many heated debates such as online piracy, is in the context of it's consumption.

What I mean is, there is more value to me in having the nice box and artwork for my Godfather DVD set than if I just had the files.

With the latter the context of the content is that I am on a computer and have the opportunity to spend time watching something.

With the former it's an event. Likely planned. I get to have the box out. Feel the texture, review the artwork and sit back and enjoy the content.

Another example is music. I have no issues in volunteering I am a *massive* U2 fan. I have entire back catalogue, backed up on DVD, on iTunes. This is so that I can listen wherever, whenever through my iPhone / Mac.

However, these days I mainly listen through Spotify. The context of Spotify for me is that I get to have *my* radio station playing. That's of value to me so I'm a premium subscriber.

This is a whole different context to why I pay for individual music (which sums far more than I spend on Spotify) on iTunes.

A hot off the press example is my enjoyment of news content. A fan of the economist I used to be a print subscriber. Somehow that went as I largely read online.

In context of reading online, I felt the economist was analogous to reading BBC (although of a different editorial quality).

Now they have a pay wall. I won't be subscribing online. However I'm tempted to go back to print subscription as the content in context of me having the paper, seeing Kals cartoons in a different quality etc has a value to it.

The content is the same. The context of it's consumption is quite different.

This is also highlights the point about the future of TV etc.. As I said, I've worked with IPTV as part of a triple play operator.

In this area again it's the context of consumpion that sets the value. A video on YouTube is only different to a TV programme because of the context given to it. It's all video at the end of the day.

TV, IPTV, Satellite, iPlayer, YouTube, Vimeo etc it's all video. But the context given to it creates the value.

Vimeo vs YouTube is a great example of creating value out of the context of it's content.

So that's my rambling two cents on why context not content is king.

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The challenge I have with Spotify has been to answer the question "What shall I listen to?"

When an avid iTunes user this was not a problem... I had only my favoured artists and all was neatly rated plus I had Genius... Therefore I could always hit play knowing I would like what I listened to...

With Spotify, which is now my primary music tool, because of the access to more music than I know about I put myself in a state of quandry as I'm thinking "I know what I like but I can listen to anything... Anything Dan! What will it be??!??!?!" 

So I sit there trying to think of an artist I don't know (you can see the issue with that ;))

Hence my new found love of playlists... I had never been a fan.. The nearest thing I used was iTunes Genius because it gave more variety than a predictable playlist I had made...

My listening patterns have now changed so that I am either in the mood to just listen to something I know I need to hear there and then.. Other than that I'm sticking on a playlist made by friends such as @tristanbodman or @reyes. Or I'm searching Twitter for original combos. This is in effect Spotify's Genius - the genius of the crowd of Spotify users makes for as great a listening experience as the AI of iTunes Genius.

So playlists are back in my life... Never love nor used now they are key to my enjoyment of Spotify :)

If you have any recommendations for #awesome playlists then please post them up as comments, cheers

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