When I was at the founders and funders dinner in Toronto, I invited myself into a conversation on Holiday Cruises. I, as a Gen-Xer, was decidedly anti-cruise. "Never been on one," I said. "Can't stand the thought of being stuck on a floating hotel."

I was immediately corrected by a gentleman named, Stuart MacDonald, who I learned later is very well known in the travel circles having started Expedia.ca. He waxed on about how it's not a floating hotel, you can go on personal expeditions at numerous ports during a cruise (rent cars, site see off the beaten path, go hiking, fishing, rock climbing etc), you can also sit back and relax anytime you like, and how you can party all night if that's your thing. That's what a cruise offers and it is all at your finger tips. He was pretty convincing as were others in that conversation. All of whom had taken numerous cruises.

Stuart asked, "Do you have young kids?"

I said, "Yes, 3 years and 3 months."

"Ever go on a week long trip with them in a car?"

No. And I immediately got his point.

Talked to my wife, Mandy when I got back to Vancouver about the possibility of a cruise, who like me was immediately "no way!" I couldn't explain it as well as Stuart (He's REALLY passionate about cruises. Seriously passionate.), but she kind of got that it was a bit more than we had both thought about it.

However, literally this past week Mandy and I have been feeling a little overwhelmed with kids and family life and we really want to take a relaxing and fun vacation this year to recharge our batteries and renew our natural Joie de Vive.

"Maybe a cruise is not a bad idea," Mandy said.

Well I've been meaning to contact Stuart about it later this year, but today he launched Trip Harbour. He had mentioned the idea to me in Toronto, but it sounded like it was still in idea state. I didn't realize it was well into development and ready for imminent release.

It's a pretty impressive travel site. I'll dig into it later this summer, but if anyone has cruise suggestions let me know. Or I guess write a review on Trip Harbour.

Congratulations to you and your team, Stuart.

After a brief stay in the office, I'll be back on the road presenting at some great conferences.

I'll start off on April 15th presenting and demoing JAMM at Open Web Vancouver:
How Open Source Technologies and Open Content Bring Value to Music
This talk will be a case study exploring how a highly complex project evolved from proprietary players and MPEG 21 packages to a simpler Web services model based on common Web 2.0 principles and open source technologies. It will also discuss how in the process of developing these technologies the development team realized the need for open, current, and trusted content which presently is dominated by closed services like All Music Group.

On May 8th, I'll be in San Francisco at the SanFran Music Tech Summit demoing JAMM and the Sliiv service to the who's who in the music tech community.

On May 22nd, I will be in Toronto presenting on a Music 2.0 panel at Canada's premier Web 2.0 conference, Mesh.

Update:
Forgot one. On March 29th I'll be at Music BC presenting on a panel, The Internet - New Marketing & Distribution in the New Music Industry

Our very own Rochelle Grayson and her talented partner, Geoff Meredith recently launched Twemes, a kind of Techmeme for Twitter. It actually is really simple and really cool. It's perfect if you are interested in following a specific topic rather than specific people. Simply put a hash (#) symbol before your tag (topic), and it will aggregate on Twemes. You can follow a topic via RSS.

Simple and useful.

When Ian Rogers posted his Aspen presentation, I received a lot of requests asking to see what we are building and how they could implement it. That’s pretty exciting, but I wonder how many people have actually thought what a package actually means. Although it is too early to show what we are working on, I think its past time we start talking about it more openly.

First, I think it is important to talk about why we began pursuing an open packaging format for music in the first place. My company, Project Opus, originally began as a service for independent music artists and entertainers to self-publish and distributes their own music with a focus toward ‘local music’. Our intent was to further develop the social networking tools for the filtering of music on the site: mine the long tail if you will. We even built one of the first embeddable music widgets for selling digital downloads.

No one values digital audio files

This seemed like a smart approach, and I think it still is in some respects. Except, I discovered that the economics of offering digital music for sale simply were not there no matter how you slice it. Add to that the fact that many new artists are simply choosing to give their music away. They need to get heard, and let’s face it that makes sense for new artists. I cannot argue against it.

Market forces are driving the price point of digital audio files down towards a marginal price. Note I am not using the term music – it is my opinion that people clearly value music. People just don’t value the format it is being delivered in anymore.

Why are consumers not valuing the audio files?

To understand this I think we need to look at recorded material we did value. In my opinion recorded music purchases are about experiences. Until recently recorded music has always had a package that enhanced a fans experience.

First there was vinyl.

1. Convenience. I can listen to my favourite music on demand. This was the most important reason I bought an album. Convenience trumps everything.
2. Collectablity. It is an expression of who I am and my social status.
3. Connection. with the artist or band. Albums included liner notes, pictures, notes, artwork, poetry, rants, stickers, etc.

The Dark Side of the Moon was one of the first albums I ever bought.

Then there was 8-track and cassette.

Tapes significantly reduced the quantity and quality of the “stuff” that connect me with artists, but it added a new element:

4. Portability. I could take my music with me. I could share my music with my friends more readily, which made them more collectable. Portability also enhanced convenience. Flipping through cassettes in your car or home was easy. You could be a bit rougher and less careful with a tape than with vinyl.

I bought The Dark Side of the Moon in 8-track. That was a mistake. I bought it again as Cassette.

Then there was CDs.

CDs provided the same as a cassette, but they also introduced:
5. Durability. I had friends who had bought the same piece of Vinyl or Cassette multiple times. We thought CDs were unbreakable and forever.

I bought The Dark Side of the Moon in CD as my cassette was worn out and sun bleached.

Now, I know many people would argue that CDs also provided consumers with an improvement in fidelity. Although true, I would argue that was not the reason for the global consumer adoption of CDs. Clearly, fidelity took a hit with the move from vinyl to tape, but that did not stop their adoption. A lesson should have been learned here convenience trumps fidelity, too.

Then there was MP3s

This lesson was ultimately learned with the MP3 revolution. Which introduced another element to convenience:
6. Ease of acquisition. I could get a song within moments of hearing it for the first time. Through official routes are still difficult, which just pisses us off.

MP3s are the definition of convenience and convenience trumps everything. However, in the consumer conversion to MP3s everything else around music has been completely stripped away. We are left with just a file on our hard drives with a thousand others.

I DID NOT buy The Dark Side of the Moon as a digital download.

Why are people less likely to pay for music – even though they have ultimate convenience?

People will pay for convenience but when the cost of delivering convenience is near free. That will be the price. But for many of us recorded music is something more than just the audio file. What of collecting and connecting? Mp3s do not provide:
- collectablity. Everyone can have an MP3 so how can it be collectable or be a reflection of me?
- connection. MP3s have been stripped of all contexts. It’s just a file on my hard drive.

It’s time that we reintroduce these two characteristics to the recorded music experience. However in doing so, we need to remember that convenience trumps everything.

If we get it right I will buy The Dark Side of the Moon again.

My wife and I just watched ONCE, a bloody wonderful movie. In fact one of the best movies we have watched in over 2 years. Probably longer. We LOVED it. The look of the film was real. The acting was natural and familiar. We could see/remember past friendships and relationships played out in the film. And we loved the music. Adored it. We loved the film and music so much, we wanted to buy the sound track right away. Since we have a bit of a hate on for iTunes (FairPlay is NOPLAY in our house), we decided to give Amazon's MP3 service a try.

First: I could buy the sound track on CD but not as an MP3 download. That sucks - I want it now - I'm hooked!
Fortunately Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova recorded most of the sound track as separate album called The Swell Season which is available as a download. Awesome. It's not exactly what I want but close enough.
I download the MP3 manager app, and buy the sound track, except - oh - I'm Canadian. Sorry this service is not available to me. Although I use Amazon.com on a monthly basis, I can not buy downloads. I can buy the physical CD, but not the MP3s.

Nice.

Oh. Look. Limewire has Once for download.

Hello. Who is in charge here. WAKE THE FUCK UP!