There’s been a lot of talk about Louis CK directly marketing his recent concert online and how he made a million bucks at it in little over a week, and I think it’s well deserved. I paid 5 bucks for a video that at times is fantastically funny and other times (much fewer and further between) is just “pretty funny” and I have zero regrets whatsoever for the purchase. And I get to keep it forever – no rental approach here.

It’s funny, though: if I’d paid ten bucks perhaps I’d be a little ticked, I don’t know. What I do know is when Radiohead let their customers choose the price I bought In Rainbows off their site, and then I turned around and bought it the full definition bits from Amazon in CD form when they were released. In other words, Radiohead got paid twice by guys like me for being incredibly flexible in their approach to selling and distributing their works.

And I think that’s the point to take away from all this. I hope more performers remove the middleman and simply sell their performances at a price that empowers their audience to be truly empowered and connected. Fifteen or twenty bucks from Best Buy isn’t that solution, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say Apple’s fairly high and inflexible pricing might not be the complete long term solution either. For most of us competitiveness and elasticity drive secondary purchases like these, and frankly we’re the “gravy” that makes the entertainment market lucrative.

I just took a quick gander at an old Apple iPhone Service Guide that was sent to me, along with a replacement phone, when I called with problems recently.  I never noticed before, but the staples on the white booklet are also white.

Who cares about details like this?  Apple, that’s who.  Despite receiving tons of multipage white documents in my life I don’t think I’ve ever seen a white staple in my life and I doubt I ever will again unless it’s on a document that comes from Apple.

Who carves an Apple symbol into their head when most kids would probably prefer a mohawk?

This kid.
I love this story.

It surprises me that no one has talked at all about Tim Cook joining Apple’s board at the same time he’s stepping into the CEO role.  This has been speculated since Eric Schmidt vacated his seat in August 2009 (see http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125019983643730309.html).  One can only infer that this succession plan has been in place for at least two years despite public pressure for the company to reveal a plan.

Steve J doesn’t do anything without a ton of detail, and you’ve got to believe his press release jab was more than just a passing reference to succession plan demanders.

Robert Scoble pens this Steve Jobs retrospective.

The big question in the interim is ‘how’s his health?’ and I’m not sure we’ll have the answer anytime before we hear any really bad news.  He will continue to drive product in his new role as chairman and employee – ain’t collecting COBRA alone.  What he has done is provided Cook with a fantastic opportunity to employ brilliant supply chain dynamics that assure Apple’s competitive product advantages give them far more runway and net profit than any similar company in history, and that alone will buy a ton of time even if they lose some of that creative force.  I’d contend much of their unique product DNA will remain intact and what will remain unanswered is how they identify and implement features from here forward.  Theory is there’s at least one more product in the kitty – perhaps 2 or 3 – that are ready to go and waiting for the market to systemically green light them.  When you consider the iPad was around 4-5 years before any touch device was released that wouldn’t be surprising.  There’s touch-hybrid line of computers, some kind of TV-style media device, and loads of cloud products that are at least 80% assured of showing up in the next couple years alone, and their transition to Apple-developed CPUs will at minimum lock their trajectory for several years while they continue to lock-in their adjusted executive chemistry.

Don’t trust me, listen to Jimmy Fallon: if you live in NYC you need to get your iPhone 4 upgrade now.

The old school Apple guys like me will love this one.

CNET reviews the two big players in Apple mobile video.

I keep wondering who was surprised that FaceTime didn’t wind up looking more like iChat.  Is this going to make it easier or harder for those of us who want to use our home boxes to chat with mobile folks?  I want to be able to call my wife when she’s in another town, for example, and I want to do it from the iMac sitting at my desk.

Pretty good article on the antenna problems some have experience with their iPhone 4 devices.  Easy to forget this is not the first time the antenna has been the subject of problems for a phone manufacturer.