Creekside Chatter

The music and movie industries tried to fight piracy, and failed. As a result, companies not previously associated with music and movies have become rich by doing three things.

1. Understanding consumer need.
2. Giving the consumers what they want at a price consumers are willing to pay.
3. Making it as convenient as possible for consumers.

As a result of this, the biggest music player maker and music seller is a computer company, and companies such as Tivo and Netflix, along with services like Direct TV and On Demand, are changing the way people watch movies.

Apple, and the companies that rent TV shows and movies through subscriptions, have discovered something interesting about the media habits of humans.

It used to be thought that we really valued the physical object the media was presented on. As consumers, it was important for us to own VHS and cassette tapes, DVDs and LPs, CDs and BluRay.

And yet, consumers have shown, in greater and greater numbers, that they don't care about the delivery system, and they don't care about ownership of a tangible product. They just want a cheap and easy way to watch the damn movie and listen to the damn song.

footnoteMaven hits another one out of the park with the February issue of Shades of the Departed magazine.

Traditionally, writers wrote, editors edited, publishers published, retailers sold, and reader read. But in the age of the Kindle, ebooks, author websites and comment boards, all the roles are becoming fuzzy. Richard Nash has started a company called Cursor, which is trying to pioneer the idea of social publishing, specifically to try and address some of the changes that technology is bringing to the industry. He'll be speaking about Cursor at O'Reilly's Tools of Change in Publishing conference later this month.

A fascinating interview looking at books from many directions. For example, what would book clubs look like with instant delivery? I think the online peer review idea could be very useful in the genea-community to have trusted colleagues helping you edit your family history project. Hmmmm.

Looks like we have another great Southern writer to keep us entertained. It's available digitally at both Fictionwise ($14.95) and Kindle ($9.99)

This house sits at the back of the garden at the Oldest House. I don't know anything about it but it does make an interesting photo.

Ghost Towns of the St. Johns

” Fort Picolata ”

By Geoff Dobson

Some towns or settlements spring to life due to some local needs, fade becoming a ghost town, and then because of a new need arise from the dead spring into vibrancy, only to once again fade and die.

Such was Fort Picolata which went through the cycle of life and death three times.

Picolata is now remembered only in the name of a road from St. Augustine to State Road 13, yet it has a history going back some 300 years.

Who says bigger is better?