Fashion Contrast

Recently a few people have been getting fairly vocal or should I say simply been ‘tweeting’ about the Digital Economy Act which looks be little more than a slightly draconian approach to combating illegal music downloads. A large threat comes in how this law can mean your broadband connection can simply be disconnected if you are as brilliant blog Information is Beautiful suggests a ‘persistent pirate‘

Below is a fairly long and perhaps for some slightly non-understandable graphic to show how artists are being paid in this new coined ‘Digital Marketplace‘. What I can determine is that being a proper artist in this time means you almost need to go back to basics and make your own stuff and as long as possible continue to live to an almost “D-I-Y” style when it comes to recording and publishing your work.

I guess many artists are now seeing the potential rewards that a digital download campaign can bring in as an investment for the future of the band they are in. I say play the system for as long as you possible can.

This image is based on an excellent post at The Cynical Musician called The Paradise That Should Have Been about pitiful digital royalties. As ever, this was incredibly difficult to research. Industry figures are hard to get hold of. Some are even secret. Last.Fm’s royalty and payment system is beyond comprehension. (If you can explain it to me, please get in touch)
Note: these figures do not include publishing royalties (paid to composers of songs). The full spreadsheet of data does though. You can see all the numbers and sources here:http://bit.ly/DigitalRoyalty

For more information visit the original post here

When you make a call on your telephone especially whilst at home do you ever think: Could I be doing this for a lot cheaper, or alternatively, could I just send a online text or something similar?

Personally I use a contract SIM phone for when I am on the move, this way I am contactable at any point and can of course send texts when I need to. However, I don’t see any need to pick the mobile phone up when I’m at home. Why? because I’m easily contact on either my Home Telephone number or indeed my E-mail.

I am personally all for Skype Mobile which incorporates basically texting and calling using a simply to use platform. Plus, it works off the back of a normal mobile phone, which means your bill is your bill and the cost is extremely low. This is beneficial in many ways, one way is below.

• Children use mobile phones and generally rack up massive bills. I know I did. I believe a great idea is to with a group of likeminded parents buy (if your kids want/need a mobile phone!) phones which contain Skype Mobile and then it can be used freely at no cost to the parents. This can be useful in teaching the children how to text etc (I feel slightly weird writing this).

Girl on Mobile Phone

If you just want to have a voice chat, and you just want to have it computer to computer, then Skype will work fine for that, but Skype is more of a VoIP voice messenger then it is a VoIP phone providor, even thought it does have VoIP phone features, and you can call cell phones and landlines, you have to do all the talking through a computer microphone, and listen through your computer speakers (or use one of those computer headsets), or you can get one of those third party USB to RJ-11 adapters to connect a phone to, but the directions to set it up are very vague, and they don’t discuss how to connect it to a landline network (though it is as easy as just connecting the adapter to the wall, after disconnecting the NID first), also, it’s not really a reliable phone connection, so calls can drop due to computer problems or internet access problems, also, the computer and Skype must be running all the time in order to make and recieve calls, and the settings on the computer may be difficult to configure.

Could the key to business success in the small sense be related to having your family around you?

Research is showing that the UK is lagging behind the rest of Western Europe as according to the report only 8% of Businesses are family owned and ran. In stark contrast Germany and France have a much higher proportion of family run companies, with 36% and 30% respectively/

An increasingly diverse ethnic mix is playing an increasingly important role in the stimulation of family ran businesses as 66% of ethnic minority businesses are family owned.

Out of the the small 8% of family businesses in the UK it appears that they are floundering when it comes to the owner making decisions as to what to do with the business after the owner retires.

Family- The Perfect Business Mix?

42% of these entrepreneurs say they have no fixed succession planning for when they retire and for those who have, only 27% plan on keeping the business in the family. It comes as no surprise then that only 16% of such enterprises have been family run for three or more generations.

Equally its worrying that family owned business are more likely to lag behind when it comes to business survivorship rates, due in part to their approach to the long term rather then aggressive business development. Probably due to the sheer cost of such an investment.

Ultimately, one of the reasons for the relative stability of larger economies in continental Europe is the significant presence of family businesses which, at least on a stylised basis, tend to be less leveraged and generally have a longer-term focus on investment and innovation