Thursday, February 23, 2006

PERMALINK

Putting Google's capitalization in its place Cory Doctorow is a brilliant science fiction writer and one of the most eloquent voices on the Net today arguing against corporate lock-downs of intellectual property. But in catching up on my RSS backlog recently I did trip over something of a whopper in the middle of an otherwise typically persuasive rant against an ill-advised digital rights management scheme (in this case, Google's):   Google's really good at adapting to the Internet -- that's why it's capitalized at $100 billion while the whole of Hollywood only turns over $60 billion a year. This comparison is, as I'm sure Doctorow would admit, pure apples-and-oranges. "Capitalization" is a number you arrive at by taking a company's current stock price -- the last dollar amount that a buyer and seller agreed upon for a block of shares -- and multiplying it by the "outstanding shares," or total number of shares in the company known to exist. Google is doing quite well, and its high stock price gives it all sorts of advantages, but there is no pile of $100 billion flowing through its coffers. Its revenue -- what it "turns over" each year, the number of actual dollars flowing into its operations -- is more like $4-5 billion. That's impressive, but smaller by a factor of 10 than the number Doctorow cites for Hollywood's gross revenues (I found $63 billion as the global revenue figure for American movie studios). Capitalization is a purely theoretical number. In the case of companies like Google, much or most of the value of stock that adds up to $100 billion is not being traded. If all or most or even just some significant fraction of the holders of that value decided, "Hey, it's time to cash in," and sold at the same time, the share price would begin a quick slide, and the capitalization would evaporate. Revenue streams aren't permanent either, of course, but they're a lot more tangible. Google's high capitalization essentially means that investors believe its impressive profitability growth will continue. (Or maybe they just believe that it's 1999 all over again and not buying would mean missing out on a new bubble.) One thing's for sure: despite the company's claim not to be focused on short-term results, its management must be acutely conscious of the need to keep that growth charging along. Which, ironically, is probably why Google is beginning to lose its user-friendly footing and adopt the kind of unpleasant, user-hostile DRM schemes that inspired Doctorow's wrath in the first place. comment [] 10:56:01 PM | permalink

Furnace heat I've always found that the music I love best, the music that stays with me through the years, is music that takes a little time to warm to. Songs that are instantaneously ingratiating are often quick to pale into boredom, but those complex enough to be initially off-putting reveal their appeal on third or fourth or fifth listen and become long-term infatuations. Unfortunately, my life as a working parent these days does not leave as much room as it once had for third or fourth or fifth listens. And so sometimes I'll check out a new band's music and, if my auditory fancy is not instantly seized, I'll put the CD or the files aside for months, even years. Frequently, this means I'll miss the boat for an unconscionable length of time. I certainly missed The Blueberry Boat. This album by the Fiery Furnaces was an indie-critical sensation when it came out in 2004. But the spectral nautical rambling of the album's 10-minute opener, "Quay Cur," didn't grab me quickly when I brought it home, so it languished at the bottom of my pile, and I am only falling in love with it now. It's a collection of long story-suites (the band's brother-and-sister creators, Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger, have cited Who pop suites like "Rael" and "A Quick One While He's Away" as influences) that hop restlessly from theme to theme, spitting off throwaway melodies and opaquely allusive, effusively articulate lyrics. The title track features an assault by pirates; "Chris Michaels" seems to tune onto the wavelength of a suburban gossip; "Mason City" takes snapshots of the 19th-century midwest from formal correspondence and railway company files; "Chief Inspector Blancheflower" seems to be a sort of Victorian policier unfolding in the mind of a bored typewriter-repairperson manque. I hear fragments of everything from Phil Spector to Phillip Glass in the mix; there are snarly-catchy guitar solos and even gospel flourishes (in the frantic "I Lost My Dog"). Some of Matthew Friedberger's sound treatments hark back to the heyday of early Eno. (The fanfare at the start of "Mason City" sounds a lot like a sped-up outtake from Another Green World. And both Blueberry and Here Come the Warm Jets feature songs with "Paw-Paw" in their titles!) Other synthesizer flourishes fondly recall the bombast of the prog-rock era, though that label is one the Furnaces understandably do not embrace. One evening, when I turned up Blueberry Boat in my office, my wife shouted incredulously from the next room, "Wow -- Emerson, Lake and Palmer?" Not exactly -- but not crazy, either. The followup to Blueberry, apparently a tribute to the Friedbergers' grandmother titled Rehearsing My Choir, has gotten a colder critical reception. But before making up my own mind, I'm going to listen to it at least a half dozen times -- as soon as I get the chance. comment [] 7:32:01 PM | permalink