There Goes My Business Model

With the official in-store launch of the Apple iPad yesterday, I found myself thinking about what else the company might be selling with its ads in the frenetic spot based on a first-person lap view showing screen capture of various apps in action, all set to the tune of "The Goes My Love" by Danish rockers The Blue Van. Looking at the Wikipedia page for The Blue Van it becomes apparent that the group also epitomizes the label-less new media music model where bands are assumed to make bank mostly on TV spots and licensed theme music along with the Apple iTunes micropayments to which visitors to their MySpace page are forwarded. It's a paradigm explained by NPR in a story called "Who Needs Labels When You've Got ASCAP?"



At BoingBoing hacktivist-sympathizing bloggers are discouraging their readers from buying iPads on the basis of their glued down input-limited product designed for consumers rather than prosumers who want to tinker with what the company gives them. I celebrated the launch day not by videotaping people lined up, as I have at previous launches, but by buying my kid an Arduino board and a lot of buttons and LEDs.