The latest case in point is Neil Young who joined Twitter yesterday. Thousands are already following him, presumably to hear the rock legend wax about life and love in 140 characters. But the debut has so far been a flop.

Young’s inaugural three tweets haven’t been about rocking in the free world or even the Canadian prairie. Instead, they form a small stream of promotional pap:

See the @rollingstone exclusive premiere of the new video for, “Walk Like a Giant”: bitly.com/QSj1hD #PsychPill

— Neil Young (@neilyoung) September 25, 2012

Ps. @neilyoung fans, our #LegendsOnTwitter fan Q&A with him will happen in… OCTOBER! So get ready! #PsychPill

— Twitter Music (@TwitterMusic) September 25, 2012

And so on. It’s pretty clear that whoever is writing and tweeting this stuff isn’t Neil Young. Heck, for all we know, Young hasn’t even used Twitter in his life.

This is grating on a number of levels. For one, it’s annoying to see such blatant commercial tactics from an artist who famously refuses to license his songs to advertisers. While philosophy or song lyrics might be a tall order, some fans expected something better:

Here’s hoping we hear from the master @neilyoung himself, and not just some PR dweeb tasked with social media duties

— Neil Brennan (@nellob) September 26, 2012

Young, of course, is hardly the first musician to give the keys to his Twitter account to a publicist. Bob Dylan as well as numerous celebrities and politicians have done the same. It’s still a disappointment though, considering how other creative figures like Margaret Atwood have used Twitter as an authentic extension of their own voice. (Twitter didn’t help matters by having its publicist hype that “Neil Young” was on Twitter).

More broadly, the Neil Young episode raises questions about rights of identity in the age of social media. Companies like Facebook are already trying to ban fake names to appease advertisers and one day Twitter may try to do the same. If it does, will there be an exception that allows the rich or famous to keep their fake accounts? Or is it time for companies to start flagging the difference between brand and personal accounts?

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The e-book contains excerpts from over 30 fall titles across publishers and genres — including “This Is How You Lose Her” by Junot Diaz, “Live by Night” by Dennis Lehane, “Waging Heavy Peace” by Neil Young and “Flight Behavior” by Barbara Kingsolver.

The e-book is “our answer to the BEA discovery problem,” Publishers Lunch says, so “attendees can arrive at the convention having already sampled dozens of the most promoted books.” It’s also “a contribution to improving general consumer discovery” of new titles.

Publishers Lunch is releasing two editions of the e-book: one for the trade and one for consumers. The trade edition includes “detailed publisher rights, publicity and promotion information and contacts for each title, and lets you know what kind of BEA promotion and giveaways (if any) are planned for each book. Plus, nearly all of the excerpts click through to NetGalley, where registered users can either download the full digital galley or request it from the publisher.” You can download it here, in Kindle format or EPUB.

The consumer edition “omits the trade and BEA-related info that isn’t relevant to general readers but keeps all the excerpts, and adds click-throughs to pre-order from the three major stores with that capability.” Click here for download links from all e-book retailers.

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As an artist who probably makes a substantial income from licensing his music, you might think Neil Young would frown on piracy and file-sharing, but that appears not to be the case, according to an interview he gave at the Dive Into Media conference in Los Angeles. Instead of railing against file-sharers, Young called piracy “the new radio” because it’s “how music gets around.” The musician’s comment puts a lot of the hysteria about copyright infringement into perspective — as we’ve pointed out before, file-sharing and monetization aren’t mutually exclusive, and in many cases a certain amount of so-called “piracy” can actually be good for business, as authors, musicians and even game developers have come to realize.

Comparing piracy to radio is a smart way of looking at the issue: in the early days of the music business, when live performances and record sales were the main revenue generator for artists and publishers, radio itself was seen as a form of piracy (as sheet music was before that). Musicians fulminated about radio stations playing their music for free, and some record labels made their acts sign waivers saying they would not appear on the radio. In the end, of course, radio became a huge revenue driver for music — although it did so in part because record labels and publishers pushed for licensing fees.

Radio was seen as piracy too, but became a publicity engine

But more than just being a source of fees, radio was also a huge publicity engine for music, and eventually this became so obvious that at one point record labels were giving radio stations and disc jockeys “payola” under the table to promote their music. And now we have come full circle with Neil Young’s comment:

I look at the internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone. [...] Piracy is the new radio. That’s how music gets around.

This idea of piracy as being “how content gets around” doesn’t just apply to music either. In a videotaped comment last year about piracy, British author Neil Gaiman — who I interviewed recently about his opposition to the proposed federal anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA — said that he used to be irate about people pirating his work, but eventually came to realize that he was actually selling more copies of his physical books in those countries where piracy was the highest. Brazilian author Paulo Coelho found the same thing, and actually started uploading his own work to files-sharing sites without telling his publisher.

Some game developers — the digital-era equivalent of songwriters and authors, in many ways — have also come to see piracy as being a necessary evil, and in many cases a positive force. Markus Persson, the Swedish developer of the massively popular game Minecraft, has said that he came to see piracy of his game as a form of marketing. And at a recent music-industry conference in Europe, the CEO of superstar game company Rovio (creator of Angry Birds) said that piracy “may not be a bad thing” because it increases demand for the official version of the company’s products.

If you make it easy to get and pay for, piracy isn’t an issue

Even Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has been known to see the virtues of a little piracy, especially in developing markets like China. The Microsoft founder reportedly said of that market: “As long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.” Gates clearly saw pirating as a kind of loss leader, creating eventual market demand.

We’ve described before how one of the reasons why users engage in copyright infringement is that distributors make it too cumbersome to get the official version of whatever the content is, as venture capitalist Fred Wilson complained in a recent post, admitting that he pirated a livestream of a basketball game. But the example of comedian Louis CK — who allowed anyone to download his comedy special for just $5 with no copyright protection, and made over $1 million in less than a week — shows that there is still room for creators to monetize their content, if they make it as easy as possible.

As Andrew Weissman of Union Square Ventures noted in a recent post, information wants to be free — not necessarily free meaning it costs nothing, but free in the sense of being friction-free to access. And if you don’t make it easy for your music or writing or other content to “get around,” as Neil Young puts it, then piracy will take care of that for you.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Flickr user Paul Sapiano

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Earlier this week, in my email newsletter Om Says, I shared Young’s story about how he changed his company’s business model: a decision that not only saved his company, but also ended up getting it acquired by Japan’s DeNA for $403 million.

In a wide-ranging video interview, he shared some of his thoughts about the gaming industry and mobile app platforms (and business) with me, which I believe are incredibly useful for anyone building apps and app-based businesses. First, though, let me give you context as to why you should listen to him (and why I have a lot of respect for what he has to say).

The first time I came across Neil was about seven years ago.  Then a senior executive at Electronics Arts, he gave a talk about the future of games titled, “Can a game make you cry?” He argued we were entering the phase where games would be nearly movie-like. It was a powerful presentation, impressive enough for me to stay in touch and follow Young’s career.

About three years ago, he decided he was going to leave EA and start ngmoco, a mobile game company. The company raised tons of money from the likes of Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. It rode the iPhone wave, and last year, it sold out to Japan’s DeNA for $403 million.

Young started the company building premium games. He raised millions of dollars from top venture capitalists. Apple promoted his apps inside the app store. Along the way, he learned some vital lessons and formed opinions I think would (and should) come in handy for a lot of entrepreneurs, especially those in the business of developing apps.

“Opportunity is here to build a new kind of entertainment company, thanks to the disruption in media, social and mobile,” says Young. “iOS and Android are the platform for the future of media and entertainment. “ Still, he bemoans the fact that not a lot of apps are not taking full advantage of the technological capabilities of the iPhone and the iPad platforms.

He doesn’t believe you can start an app company based on the iPhone, though does think it’s time to start a tablet-oriented company built on the premise of creating awesome tablet experiences.  He pointed out that on the mobile platform, the “opportunities are for companies that connect customers together and maintain relationships with those customers for a long time.”

Lesson #1: Hits Aren’t a Sure Thing

• You can’t build a company of consequence inside the app store, because it’s a hits-driven business, and the half-life of a game is pretty short.
• The company would have to have two games appear in the top five paid games on the iPhone store every day for 365 days for the company to build a $10-million-a-year business.
• There are thousands of apps in the app marketplace/store. The likelihood that your app is going to break out from the pack without significant support is pretty low.

Lessons #2: Awesome Products Engage Customers & Bring Profits

• Don’t build products for fleeting moments. Instead, focus on building products that build on a relationship with the customer. The longer the relationship, longer you have a chance to monetize that relationship.
• Snoop Dog tells his son that everyone is good at something. Be great. That’s particularly true in the app market. There are a lot of good apps; build something great.

Lesson #3: Great Experiences, not Whiz Bang Technology Are What Matters

• You have to look at games (and apps) through the eyes of the users and look at how you are delighting the customers.
• Great games are those with fun game mechanics, and they always win over games with the greatest/most-cutting-edge technology.

These lessons are only a distillation of what I believe is a knowledge-laced interview with Neil.

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According to the story, a farmer has a donkey, which falls into a well. The donkey starts braying, forcing the farmer to look for ways to figure out what to do. His conclusion? Since the donkey is old, it’s not worth the effort to retrieve the donkey.

He starts shoveling dirt into the well. The donkey has an “oh-crikey” moment and it starts crying and creating a fuss. But then, it quiets down. With every few shovels of dirt, the donkey re-adjusts, shakes dirt off his back, and stands up. Before the farmer knew it, the donkey was out of the wall.

This old folklore has a simple lesson: When life pours dirt on you, shake it off and move forward. This lesson is particularly true for start-ups that have to face their moment of truth.

Game On

I was reminded of this story when I was transcribing my interview with Neil Young, CEO and co-founder of mobile video games start-up, ngmoco (acquired by Japan’s DeNA for $403 million.) Young and I have talked off and on, and before he sold his company, he and I discussed the change of direction he made for the company.

Neil shared with me the story of how, when facing a near impossible business environment, he had to find a new business model for his company, which started life building premium mobile games.  It sold a lot of games!

To the outside world, ngmoco was a massive success, but Young knew the harsh facts:  the games had a very short half-life and they lost money-making potential once they fell out of the top ten or after the initial couple of weeks.

Young argues that for a company making premium mobile games, the company would have to have two games in the top five paid games on the iPhone store for 365 days for the company to build a $10 million a year business.

Even if you added Android platform opportunities, ngmoco was still in a hit-driven business. With new free (and paid) apps launching every day, Young & Co. knew that it would be difficult to keep on the hit trail. Moreover, the average price of the games was decaying fast and settling at around 99 cents. The ad-based revenue stream wasn’t going to be enough, as the eCPMs were pretty low. Like the donkey, ngmoco was in a well, with no likelihood of coming out.

However, upon closer scrutiny, Young’s team realized they had a lot of games, which had very high engagement and user loyalty. “Games are not built for a fleeting moment in the charts, but are built for an (ongoing) relationship with the customer, “ he says. “The longer you can maintain that relationship, the longer the opportunity.”

Armed with this knowledge, ngmoco started the Plus+ network (its social gaming network), and embraced the Freemium model that eventually led to the company increasing its revenues and later selling out to DeNA.

All Chips In

Young isn’t the first corporate honcho who made tough decisions. Intel Corp., the company we chip-heads affectionately refer to as Chipzilla, was the proverbial donkey in the well in 1983, when it was getting killed in the market by Japanese memory chip makers.

The company had been dabbling in the microprocessor business, supplying chips to the likes of IBM, but the majority of its revenues came from the sales of memory chips, primarily dynamic random access memory (DRAM).

Andy Grove, then-president of Intel (and later its CEO and chairman) made a crucial decision: Forget the memory chips and gamble it all on becoming the single source of microprocessors for the PC industry. His decision came at a time when it wasn’t clear what PC standards were going to prevail, or if the 8086 processor was going to catch on. The rest is history.

And the Story Goes…

Richard Tedlow, a professor at Harvard, in his book, Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look Facts in the Face and What To Do About It once wrote: “Denial is the unconscious calculus that if an unpleasant reality were true, it would be too terrible, so therefore cannot be true… In fact, denial might be the biggest and potentially most ruinous problem that businesses face, from start-ups to mature, powerful corporations.”

Nokia’s denial of the existence of the iPhone and the disruptive impact on its business is a good example. Young of ngmoco could have accepted the short-term success of his company, but instead he decided not to.

I have seen many a startups (and many a founder) spend most of its energies bemoaning its miseries, instead of trying to do something about it. But like the proverbial donkey, the decision is yours to make.

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While the fire is clearly a setback for Young’s famous plug-in hybrid car, it’s a bigger worry when it comes to consumer’s concerns that electric vehicle technology is not yet proven. Just yesterday, Pike Research reported that plug-in cars will be held back first and foremost by consumers taking a “wait and see approach.” Pike Research analyst John Gartner predicted it could easily take several years for mainstream car shoppers to get comfortable with the idea of electric vehicles.

You know what doesn’t make people comfortable? Fires. Lithium-ion batteries, which will be used in the bulk of the next-gen plug-ins on the roads, already have a reputation for “thermal runaway,” i.e., blowing up. If you google “lithium-ion laptop battery and fire,” it’s not hard to find videos of batteries combusting. But auto makers like Tesla have gone to great lengths to build battery management systems that keep the battery packs cool and under stable conditions.

Less expected from the plug-in car market are problems with charging infrastructure. Plug-in cars can just charge on standard outlets, but can also charge via faster chargers. Young writes on his site:

We do know that the car has been operating perfectly for almost 2 thousand miles and the system in question would not be in use while driving the car. We are investigating the components involved with plug-in charging.

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Image courtesy of dailylifeofmojo.

“Most negative reviews are from people who I think who were expecting a fundamental new technology, not a new user experience,” he said in a conversation with me. “I remember the same type of commentary around when the iPod touch launched.” Of course, as we all know Apple has since sold many millions of those iPod touches.

Young, who just closed a $25 million round of financing from Institutional Venture Partners and previous investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Norwest Venture Partners and Maples Investments, believes that a big portion of the mass market of buyers are going to find the iPad “magical.”

“The iPad is going to occupy a different part of a user’s life — it will be at the intersection of your home laptop and netbook and personal game console,” he said. Unlike most, who are going to rebuild their apps for the larger screen resolution, ngmoco has devised a three-step strategy for targeting the iPad:

* Adapt six of its major titles to iPad specifications and have them available for download alongside the device’s launch.
* Enhance its games to take advantage of the large screen real estate and also augment them with other iPad-specific features.
* Once iPad has scale or shows a trajectory of scale, build new applications specifically for that platform.

Young isn’t the only CEO of an iPhone games company who is thinking differently. William Volk, CEO of San Diego-based PlayScreen, explained to me that the iPad represented an opportunity to create a whole new kind of game. In a recent blog post Volk wrote,”The big screen and connectivity makes it a natural for social and team gaming. Think of board games, MMORPG’s and card playing.”

Like Volk and Young, I am very excited about the iPad, and am wondering what different types of apps can be developed for this new platform.

If you want to talk to me about these new experiences, apps or the iPad, drop me an email, connect with me on Twitter or simply leave a comment.

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