Year 2000 Headline: CD's may one day be obsolete, but world still loves Americans

I went to 7-11 to buy a tall boy after working 12 hours today. I had my correct change out and beer in hand and they said my ID was invalid...

So instead I found this story posted on Yahoo today on a "new" technology to replace CD's. It's quite revolutionary. Sounds something like what would have been tossed around just before the iPod came out:


Just as vinyl once gave way to compact discs as the main physical medium for music, could CDs be replaced now by a fingernail-sized memory card?

Perhaps not entirely, but SanDisk Corp., four major record labels and retailers Best Buy Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are hoping that albums sold on microSD memory cards will at least provide an additional stream of sales. The companies were expected to unveil plans Monday to sell memory cards loaded with music in the MP3 format, free of copy protections.

Called "slotMusic," the new format is meant to address two intertwined trends. Most albums are still sold in a physical format — 449 million were sold on CDs in 2007, while 50 million were sold digitally, according to Nielsen SoundScan — yet CDs are decreasingly popular. Albums sold on CD dropped almost 19 percent last year.

Given this, the record labels — Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Corp. and EMI Group PLC — are hoping slotMusic can be another physical revenue source — and one that is more versatile than CDs, given the kinds of gadgets people carry around these days.

Unlike when the CD was introduced and people had to buy new players, many people already have the ability to play slotMusic albums, since many cell phones and multimedia players support microSD cards.

These new albums will come with a small USB dongle that lets buyers use them with computers, too.

"Particularly in this kind of economic climate, the idea of being able to use an electronic device you already own to enjoy music rather than going out and buying a dedicated player is pretty compelling," said Daniel Schreiber, who heads the audio-video business unit at SanDisk, which created the microSD card format and is working on the technology behind slotMusic.

Schreiber said slotMusic albums will be sold on 1 gigabyte microSD cards, which means they will be able to hold a full album and related content such as liner notes and cover art. Buyers will be able to use extra space on the cards to hold songs and photos from their own collections.

The cards and dongles will come in boxes similar to current CD packaging, and Schreiber expects the cost of slotMusic releases to be "in the ballpark" of current CD prices.

It's not yet known exactly when — or how many — albums will be initially sold in the format, but Schreiber expects retailers to give a "sizable amount of shelf space" to slotMusic albums. The albums are expected to debut at multiple retailers, including Best Buy and Wal-Mart stores in the U.S., and later in Europe.

Rio Caraeff, executive vice president of Universal Music Group's eLabs digital music unit, said the label will initially release about 30 titles in the slotMusic format. The titles will include old and new albums, such as one by singer Akon.

"We want to provide the benefits of digital music to people who go to physical retail environments," he said.

Asked whether he sees the format taking the place of the CD, Caraeff said, "I think we would certainly hope that would be the case, but I don't think we are so tied to that."

NPD Group entertainment analyst Russ Crupnick sees a potential for slotMusic to emerge as a compelling format. He said the industry needs "desperately" to give people a new reason to head back into the music sections at brick-and-mortar stores.

"Not that we want them out of the gaming section, but once they're done looking at `Guitar Hero' we want them to come look at the music section," he said.

The Eminence of Fall

I am not the only person who has been noticing this. Yesterday evening my room mate commented that it seemed like it was getting cooler and seemed like fall. Today I was surfing and I overheard someone say that the ocean reminded him of fall. I have been noticing for the last two weeks that fall is coming is a hurry.


Devereaux Point, Goleta, CA, November 2006.

There is something veritably different about fall in Southern California that we don't tend to see in other seasons or regions. The light grows pale earlier, and the angle of the sun changes to just a bit farther South, leaving a glow that is more amber than white and changing the shadows from buildings and trees. The direction of the wind changes from Southerly to Northerly, causing a bump on the ocean starting around 11 AM that is distinctive to that of summer. Then there's the fires. The smell of a fire burning in nature makes me think of starting school, Halloween, my birthday, and the great waves that come along every October.

People often say they don't like California because you don't get a change is seasons. Granted, we don't get leaves falling like clockwork, or snow on the ground, or birds suddenly chirping, but if you have your ear on the ground and your eyes open, you will notice fall coming. The change comes slowly and within nature's own timeframe. It's in no rush to become cold or hot.

Leave that winter coat in the closet, it's still in the seventies. You won't need a thick wetsuit yet, or a stock of eggnog, or a snow plow. I am just trying to enjoy it. I like to think of it was a different shade of sunglasses, courtesy of Mother Nature.

Sausage Fest

Your favorite blogmaster has been at it like crazy lately, with a couple new jobs and more on the horizon. I worked at a new restaurant for the lunch yesterday then went straight to West Hollywood for a wedding in the evening. It went down like normal: flowers, candles, great food, vast wine selection, impeccable Gucci suits, and two men tying the knot...

Yes, it was quite the sausage-fest. All kidding aside, it was pretty cool to see. I have worked probably 100 weddings, and I am not always a fan of the whole thing. Kinda phony and pretentious, probably won't work out, that sort of thing. However this time I could see two people clearly in love, and after being together for twelve years they could finally do what the state shouldn't have stopped them from doing in the first place. Bravo.

Still the King

My friend Ryan came up on some passes to the Surfer Poll Awards last night and I had to take him up on the chance to check it out for my first time. The Polls are the Oscars of surfing, with pros, bros, hos, and industry folks in attendance, and awards for best movie, maneuver, wipeout, and finally the rankings of the top dudes and ladies. It's basically a brodeo in Dudeseldorf. Someone will get that one.



Kelly Slater retained his crown as chief shredder of all-time, taking the top nod ahead of the rest of the guys he's been smoking on tour for the better part of the past two decades. In his acceptance speech he thanked the usual deserving contributors then named Dane Reynolds the best surfer in the world. He also spoke of how proud he was of being given this award given the level of surfing today. Today he removed the Clark Kent blazer and wing-tips and returned to the Boost Mobile Pro to score a perfect 10 on one of his waves. Congrats, Mr. Slater, you rip.

$1.10 per hour

I went down to San Diego for Labor Weekend weekend to surf, have a big reunion with my parents' friends, and have a garage sale. My parents remodeled their house last year and had a bunch of extra junk lying around so they offered my brother and I to have a garage sale to get rid of the stuff, and we would keep all the money we made. They said we could make a few hundred bucks a piece. Good deal, I thought. We spent the night before getting the goods (uhhh, not that good) prepared and driving around and putting up signs.

We got up early to a gloomy morning, put the stuff out on the driveway, and waited. And waited. We practiced throwing a football lefty and I'm good at that now.

We had a total of 5 lookers and 3 buyers. After 2 hours I sent T to see if the goodwill was open so we could call it a day and donate the rest of the stuff, and while he was gone someone came and basically tripled our income.

The total: $11
Split 2 ways: $5.50 each
Per hour: $1.10

My mom bought 2 bagels and a coffee ($6 total) to make change, and we used about a gallon of gas ($4) between the coffee shop and the Goodwill drop off place for a net gain on the day of roughly $1 US dollar. That's even worse than my writing payout (below).