Tips on Buying Design — We don’t work on projects that aren’t essential to the client’s business. The further a project gets from a client’s core concerns the more likely it will be run on subjectivity and whims, or be starved of the internal attention and resources it needs to succeed. The same applies to hiring a design team. Work with someone who’s excited to be working with you. You’ll get better work. (via moleitau on Twitter)
Is the Sky Falling on the Content Industries? — research paper covering the history of “X will kill Y” from the content industries. Switching channels to the video industry, by the late 1950’s and the 1960’s, the television industry was threatened by another bogeyman that was going to destroy television. The existing business model was providing television for free; the threat was cable television. Note the irony here. The argument was not that paid content can’t compete with free, the argument is free content can’t compete with paid. If we don’t shut down the cable television industry, no one will bother to produce new television shows, and there won’t be anything to go on cable. This is an argument that made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court in the Fortnightly case and led to a decision that brought us within two votes of shutting down the cable television industry. (via lawgeeknz on Twitter)
