Here’s some nice stuff on format changes.
Say So Long to an Old Companion: Cassette Tapes New York Times
It’s a nice obituary.
And the library angle is discussed nicely at The Monkey Speaks.
And for a nice humourous contrarian view, you can check out the CanWest news service’s seemng national campaign to bring back vinyl:
Vinyl revival
Vinyl to Digital
And the Ottawa Sun chimes in too:
Surviving the digital age
I worry when I read quotes like this:
“At least 10 independent record stores in Ottawa now specialize in vinyl. Meanwhile, CD sales continue their painful plummet…”
What a mess statistically and informationally. Confusing a niche market with a mass market alone is frightening. Publishing it in the newspaper as fact is journalism at its worst.
If libraries had take this attitude we’d still be focusing on scrolls.
Stephen
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While I agree on the silliness of comparing niche and mass markets, it is true that vinyl–or, more broadly, the analog playback market–has been growing for some time.
I don’t believe you can find a CD player that costs even $50,000–but there are several turntables that cost more than $100,000. True story. And they wouldn’t exist if there weren’t buyers.
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True. Antiques cost more too and there’s a limited edition and a small market. Buyer’s too. Stores too. I wouldn’t set up a factory though. Growth in small numbers is illusory. It’s much easier to grow from 2 to 10 than 100000 to millions.
SA
There is still a certain captive population that thrives on the audio cassette: http://tinyurl.com/5dumjy
Interestingly, I just read a piece at BoingBoing about how cassettes remain pretty big business at prisons–where prisoners aren’t allowed CDs (easily converted to makeshift knives). Here’s the bit: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/22/cassette-tapes-are-b.html
I’m a fan of vinyl, but I don’t see it becoming a major player again. It could outlast the CD as a physical format, during an age when physical media is increasingly irrelevant. There is too much inertia behind the CD format for this to happen any time soon, not the least of which is the recording industry itself.
Another article on the vinyl revival…
http://digital.spin.com/spin/200805/?pg=39
A big drawback to the LP is the amount of material that goes into it. Perhaps old vinyl can be recycled? Let’s start with all the Herb Alpert LPs, which can be found in quantity at any thrift store.
And here I am a little more than three months later reading this blog entry for the first time and the Ottawa Sun article on surviving the Digital Age is no longer available online, but for a slight fee of $12 I could have it faxed or emailed to me. I guess I’m not fast enough for the digital age. Sigh.
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Or get it from you local public library for free….
SA