posted on October 12th, 2007 in Ask a Ninja, Conventions, Podcast, Undies 

Go undie. Go now.

The sportswriter of the piece below attended the 3rd Annual Podcast and New Media Expo in Ontario, California, last week. He’s seen a future where sports fans, enthusiasts, and a new class of professionals have the tools, skills, and audiences necessary to create their own successful shows for every niche.
He offers a cool, quick [...]

posted on October 12th, 2007 in Music, News, The Machine 

we are living in a material world

The recent Madonna news, while intriguing as a tale of industry tumult, has next to nothing to do with undependence. She has signed up to receive $120 million from one of the largest (and oft reviled) music companies on the planet. In addition, she may yet see traditional distribution via a music label. See this Forbes article for great context and analysis.

It turns out that Madonona wants maximum money and doesn’t care about Undies, which is of course quite fine. She’s just, err, expressing herself.

Live Nation, formerly of Clear Channel, is about as far away from undependent friendly as you can get. They are co-Dependent central.

For more info on Live Nation / Clear Channel, please see:

• The Wikipedia entry on Clear Channel;
• This profile of Live Nation;
• The documentary, Before the Music Dies (buy it);
• These Salon articles.

Undies can now thrive in all kinds of exciting ways. As always, new opportunities present new challenges. We will continue to discuss trends, developments, industry structure and economics, and related topics of interest to Undependents. The seismic shifts in music reveal lots of cool stuff; Madonna, though, lives in another world.

posted on October 12th, 2007 in Ask a Ninja, Content, Despair, Inc., JibJab, Perry Bible Fellowship, Rooster Teeth, Undies, Web Comics 

Let’s look inside the Undies, 10.12.07

Some of our favorite Undies have been busy:

• Ask a Ninja question 56 “Back in the Day“
• Despair busts undependent.com and millions of others;
• Eepy Bird takes note (Digg it);
• Richard Stevens of Diesel Sweeties on undependence;
• Join this community, or the Ninja might have to, well… you know;
• Have you seen Tiki Bar TV’s “The Wedding” episode yet? It rocks.
• Don’t miss the Web Comics Weekly episode about channels;
• Rooster Teeth talked with CNN.
• The latest from Perry Bible Fellowship. Genius. (NSFW)
• JibJab’s launched another Starring You called Unnecessary Force. Undie and friend of the Undie Aaron Simpson has created his own. Why don’t you?

We like trying out new Undies, and we hope you do, too. Enjoy.

Feel free to recommend your favorite Undies to us. Thanks.

If you would like to support these Undies, here are your store links: Ask a Ninja; Despair; Eepy Bird; Diesel Sweeties; Tiki Bar TV; Rooster Teeth Productions; Perry Bible Fellowship; JibJab; Cold Hard Flash; and the four good folks behind Web Comics Weekly — Scott and Kris, Kris and Scott of Half Pixel; Evil, Inc.; and Sheldon. Undies need your support; buy directly from these creators and enjoy all their great stuff.

posted on October 12th, 2007 in Tools 

grab the RSS for the Undependent delicious feed

Go here to get the feed for your favorite RSS reader: http://del.icio.us/undependent

If you don’t use an RSS reader or even know what that is, go to Netvibes immediately and get started.
You can also follow our delicious feed down along the lower right side of this page. It’s located underneath the “recent posts” bar like so:

If you see a story you think we should share, just tag it “for:undependent” in your delicious account, and I will get it.
And in case you missed it in the delicious feed, make sure you catch Diesel Sweeties giving props to undependence.

posted on October 12th, 2007 in Music, Radiohead 

Really? Radiohead are up to something?

From Entertainment & Media:

Yet Radiohead are singularly about to demonstrate the true paradigm shift taking place in the music industry, and it has little to do with technology: that the artist is, and always has been, the most powerful player in the business.

Simply put, only the artist has a direct relationship with their fans! Everyone else is simply along for the ride.

Of course, for a long time the cost of recording, manufacturing and distribution was prohibitively expensive; marketing remains so. While digital technologies have changed that paradigm what is becoming clearer is that the relationship between the artist and fan is a quantifiable, valuable asset.

Something that Despair, RoosterTeeth, and Undependents could have told ‘em.

Also: Radiohead are plural?

posted on October 12th, 2007 in Music, News, Radiohead, The Machine 

hey, music industry, i can see your undies.

Radiohead started something.  Diverse folks are following.  Where do we go from here?

The music industry has its own unique characteristics and severe issues.  However, many lessons can be learned by following it.

Lefsetz Letter on Madonna/Live Nation
Bottom line, the majors have lost their clout. Their monopoly was always distribution, and they used this to get talent to sign. Eventually they owned EXHIBITION also. So, if you wanted to play, you had to sign with them. The fact that they weren’t hip enough to know this wasn’t going to last forever is astounding, especially since trends come and go so quickly in the music business.

Lefsetz Letter on Radiohead

You can’t make a TV show by yourself. Certainly not a movie. Not that anyone can see. But you can make a record all by your lonesome, it doesn’t cost that much. And you can say exactly what you want, you don’t need to clean it up for Wal-Mart. And, you can distribute it yourself online. That’s what Radiohead is doing.

Will they make a deal with a major for physical distribution? Will they do it themselves? Or will they leave ALL that money on the table?

Undies are already very familiar with saying what they want to say.  And they already distribute themselves online.

If you can attract a growing audience for what you create, you hold a massive amount of power in this emerging space.  Use it wisely.  Learn how to make the most of these new opportunities.

posted on October 12th, 2007 in Music, The Machine 

If the boys can do it . . .

“Rather than renewing her contract with her longtime record label Warner Bros., the Material Girl is signing a 10-year, $120-million deal with a concert-promotion company,” the WSJ Biz Blog reports.

All these music industry moves comes at the expense of the former financial and physical infrastructure intermediaries between Artist and Audience.

Labels provide either (usually both) start-up capital and the physical distribution network for musicians. Both those come at an extremely high price, naturally.

But when the internet enables digital and physical distribution, and musical publishing tools can be bought off the shelf for lawn-mowing money, labels lose their monopoly on access to Audience.

posted on October 12th, 2007 in Music, Radiohead, The Machine, Undies 

Nine Inch Nails declares undependence

From their own website: (no permalink)