Tune in now, before the celebrities take over and the haters show up.
Something is happening here, but we don't know what it is…
The hype has been deafening. The digerati congregated at SXSW and declared
Meerkat the new savior. Then it was crippled by Twitter, which announced its
own, me-too product, and we're all sitting at home wondering what all the
fuss is about, wondering whether it's just the new turntable.fm.
You remember turntable.fm, don't you? The service that ruled the airwaves
for three weeks, before it crashed and burned and went out of business.
Because the internet is endless fads. Kinda like boy bands. Sites come and
they go. And if you're not busy being born, you're dying.
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His intense brilliance captivates readers from Steven Tyler to Rick Nielsen to Bryan Adams to Quincy Jones to music business honchos like Michael Rapino, Randy Phillips, Don Ienner, Cliff Burnstein, Irving Azoff and Tom Freston. Never boring, always entertaining, Mr. Lefsetz's insights are fueled by his stint as an entertainment business attorney, majordomo of Sanctuary Music's American division and consultancies to major labels. Bob has been a weekly contributor to CelebrityAccess and Encore since 2001, and we plan many more years of partnership with him. While we here at CelebrityAccess and Encore do not necessarily agree with all of Bob's opinions, we are proud to help share them with you.
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That's what Amazon does so well, reinvent itself, push the envelope. Now
they're all about same day delivery. Whether it be by drone or not. Whereas
Google was too stupid to realize mobile was going to disrupt their search
monopoly. Just like Apple went from computer to iPod to iPhone to iPad,
Google has been unable to have an Act II. Same with Facebook. Well, Facebook
bought WhatsApp and now they're into virtual reality and they're trying,
they're really trying to imitate Amazon and Apple and gain new traction, and
one has to give them credit for it, but my main point is even Facebook may
not be forever. And in a culture where everything is evanescent, do I have
to pay attention? It won't be long before Facebook pages are calcified, set
in amber, the site will be a ghost town no one goes to, because that's the
nature of the internet, we use and we abandon, can you say Geocities? But
for now, all the attention is on Meerkat and Periscope. And I'm not gonna
give you a primer. There are no instructions on the internet, just like with
video games. You download the app and poke around and experiment and…
You find two naked girls in Westwood broadcasting from their kitchen.
Sex is always first.
Of course, you can pay for a one on one live stream on a cam site, but this
isn't about money, this is about the bleeding edge. And that's what's so
exciting about Meerkat and Periscope, it's all brand new.
Like I watched a sunrise in New Zealand. A cove in Australia. Someone making
coffee in Amsterdam and a snowy spring in Siberia. Call me a voyeur, we're
all voyeurs, and right now regular people are letting you into their lives,
just for the fun of it, and it's strangely riveting.
They do it for the love. No one wants to be alone anymore. They want hearts
and comments and interaction. They'll perform if you show up and comment.
And who are these people?
Nobodies. Those with time. Who are not reading the newspaper, who listen to
the tribal drum and want to participate.
That's what's so fascinating about the bleeding edge of the internet. The
power fanatics, the government and the wealthy, don't partake, they're
behind the curve, so busy luxuriating in their status they can't see that
they're threatened, that everybody's threatened.
But if something gains traction, the money moves in and the celebrities rule
and the rest of us are excluded, left on the sidelines to pay and watch.
Believe me, no one's gonna want to see nobodies broadcasting in the future.
Why?
But now everybody does have his own television station. And we'll get new
stars, with talents we cannot predict.
And isn't it funny that Facebook is about our permanent record, but Snapchat
and Meerkat and Periscope are about impermanence. Experiences have trumped
objects and fleeting has replaced lasting. We're all in future shock. And
I'd tell you you could ignore Meerkat and Periscope, but then you'd miss out
on the fun. And it is fun to partake in something unformed, that is being
developed on the fly.
You signed up for AOL and had no idea you were going to abandon it for the
web, hell, you thought AOL WAS the web!
You didn't know you needed broadband, on your phone no less. LTE enabled
Meerkat and Periscope, never forget that. Innovation runs on technological
breakthroughs.
And you might Facetime or Skype into a loved one's life.
But what if you could Periscope into Britney Spears's life?
Oh, you'll be able to see Kim Kardashian's fake life, she shows up wherever
money is to be made.
And you'll see sanitized backstage tours.
And cleaned-up shows.
