How to be Obselete in Business

Taking a page from Blockbuster's playbook (the one where you keep thinking that jumping into an market that has long since passed you by with old and buggy technology that nobody wants to use is a GOOD idea), Best Buy announced that it is buying Napster. NAPSTER. Remember Napster? Yeah, the one that started it all. Well, fucking Napster, also known as CRAPSTER, which now SELLS songs in the much vaunted DRM-free mode (seems to have really vaulted their business... yeah) apparently needs someone to buy them. Apparently they have 700,000 subscribers. WHAT? Who are these people? My guess is they are the same people who's email addresses end in "@aol.com". I mean, and AOL is going to an ad-based service, no longer offering subscription service, figuring that THAT will boost revenue. But I digress...

Best Buy, the most ubiquitous of big box electronics and more stores seems to be right around that Krispy-Kreme breaking point, where companies have over-expanded so much that they become irrelevant. Best Buy thinks that adding Napster to its ranks will help it expand it's customer base and reach new avenues of revenue. Really? Because you are too lazy to develop your own online music retail site, you figure it'd be easier to buy one with a failing business model? REALLY?

And as Worst Buy's press release was sure to mention (otherwise the author of the article sure as shit never would have), Best Buy is already committed to "wireless technology" adding cell phone stores to all of their branches. Wow. Look at all that technology. Gosh.

What Best Buy doesn't understand is this: They really made a name for themselves in the 90's by selling CD's next to their electronics. Walking into a Best Buy, one will STILL find a huge selection of "today's hits and yesterday's favorties". But buying CD's is so pre-Tower Records on 66th street closing. So some CFO looks at the figures and says, "Music is down 45% from 10 years ago. What gives Al?" Al says, "I dunno sir, perhaps people aren't listening to music anymore. I'll look into it." Al calls Charlene, his former temp with the huge ass, but the cute face who's image he used to jack off to while his kids were sleeping and his wife was out fornicating with the tennis instructor. Charlene now works for BMI records. Al gets her on the line, and she says, "Al, are you insane? People still love music. Probably more so than they used to. We're still making tons of money here. But not as much as we used to. We're used to fleecing the populace for a product at an artificially inflated price. And we would've gotten away with it to, if it wasn't for those damn kids, and their Napster or whatever it is they're using to download music". So Al asks his assistant Silvia what the HELL that all meant. Silvia, a recent Harvard grad with a spurrilous wit, tosses aside her golden blond locks that lay on the shoulder pad of her DKNY Clinton-esque pants-suit, and says, "Al, really? Today, with the advent of the internet, people are able to put music on their computers." Al, now frantic calls his son Toby. Toby is good with computers. Toby can't answer, because he's in school. But Toby showed Al how to "text". Remembering that "the Tobster" is in school during the day, Al shoots him a text which reads, "How do i doenlid musiv." Toby responds, "Lol. Get Napster". BINGO. Al's heard that word twice. Good enough for him! Little did he know that Toby only said "Napster" because he figured explaining to his dad AGAIN about how iTunes works, or god-forbid trying to explain Bit-Torrent would end up with him not allowed to watch the plasma for 4 days like it did last time he called his dad technologically-declined. So Toby figured Napster would be easy to explain and so he followed up with "google it". After 20 minutes of figuring out how to respond to a text to say thanks, Al fires up America Online. After reading the top headlines, he types into the search bar, "napster", and is eventually taken to a link to Napster's site. A few minutes of low intensity browsing go by. Several ads for porn pop up. Al clicks a few that feature secretaries with big asses and cute faces. Then he realizes that they monitor his work computer browsing. He's not sure how. He figures there's a camera in his office. Satisfied that Napster is indeed a way to download music based on all the things he's read on the website, and based on the number of hits for news stories he's seen (not paying attention to the date), Al makes the call to the CFO. "Jim, I've got your answer. It seems that people are upploading music off of the internet, and downloading it from CD's onto their computers, and then wirelessly on their... on their.... they have iPods." Jim listens intently. "Sounds technical. What do we do?". "Well," continues Al, now ready for his big reward, "there's a company called Napster that specializes in internets. They've got a store set up already on one of em. I say we buy them, and then people will do their music from us". "Brilliant. Al, I don't know how you keep up with all this, but you deserve a raise. Congrats". "Thanks Jim! I'm going out for Taiwanese whores after work to celebrate, you in?" "Can't tonite, Al, it's Jamie's Catilian ball. Lot's of underage ass around, wouldn't miss it. Think one of her friends is kinda into me." "Go get her, you old dog!"

I'm pretty sure that's about how it went. I guess what I mean to say is, BUYING OUTDATED TECHNOLOGY THAT SUCKS THAT NOBODY USES AND IS ESSENTIALLY THE JOKE OF THE MODERN TECH WORLD WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR STANDING AS A TECH-SAVVY COMPANY. When you start advertising your new music store "powered by Napster", I don't think it's name-recognition will do you any good. Since it sucks. I mean, like 10 years ago, it was a name. Yeah. So I mean, you're right on track. Your company colors are the same as Blockbusted, I guess your business decisions are being made by the same monkeys. Enjoy!