:: The Park Paradigm ::

Markets for the Digital Generation

Keeping my promise that I wouldn’t bring you yet another girl with a guitar, this time around I thought I’d bring to your attention an incredible band - Los Lobos, and in particular a relatively obscure but amazing album - La Pistola y El Corazon (iTunes link.) One of my all-time top 50 driving albums.

Wikipedia describes Los Lobos as “…an American rock band, heavily influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country music, folk, R&B, blues, and traditional Spanish and Mexican music such as boleros and norteños.” From East LA, “The Wolves” formed in the 1970s but only rose to fame in 1987 when they recorded the Richie Valens cover La Bamba for the movie of the same name. The next year they released La Pistola y El Corazon, an album of traditional Mexican songs, entirely in Spanish. Despite it being a highly accessible window into a rich and joyous musical tradition, it sold poorly. I still think it is easily one of their best albums. Every song on the album is a corker but favorites include: La Guacamaya, ElGusto, Que Nadie Sepa Mi Sufrir and the title track, La Pistola y El Corazon. You can listen to all of them in their entirely on the media player on their website (flash so I can’t link to the individual tracks.)

Have a listen. I hope you like it. And I bet you it will have you reaching for a bottle of Dos Equis or Cuervo Gold and a box of limes!

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I read about Chaotic in a recent issue of Fortune:

Each Chaotic card has a unique code that players can enter at Chaoticgame.com. That means they’ll be able to play as easily online as in person. It also means that 4Kids won’t lose as much money to counterfeit cards as it did on Pokémon. Indeed, every item in the Chaotic franchise - from T-shirts to action figures to bedsheets - will have its own code that can be entered online, enabling players to display and trade anything in their collections.

It seems like an interesting mix of markets (trading cards), games and social networking. Is this is how the Digital Generation will learn the skills they need to prosper in the sixth paradigm? If it takes off, I imagine 4Kids Entertainment will be an interesting play. (I guess I better go ask my pre-teen in-house focus group!)

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Another great idea from Rory Devine CTO of Betfair. As technology moves to the heart of the enterprise, driving strategy, this kind of initiative is smart. (Although someone should tell the author that Scott McNealy has been replaced by MLP as Sun CEO!) Of course Betfair is a ’sixth paradigm’ company and has this understanding of technology programmed into its corporate DNA. Remember, CEO David Yu was previously CIO. How long will it be until a major bank, securities firm or financial exchange is headed up by a former CIO? How many major banks, securities firms or exchanges even include the CIO in the most senior management team and / or Board? (If I had an analyst I’d actually get her to try to answer this last question…maybe I should mechanical turk it?) And how many would at least have the CIO in the succession planning mix?

Btw, for those still wondering if Betfair is a ‘real’ exchange or a ‘real’ market, here’s another piece of evidence: almost $30mn traded on the ‘Rugby World Cup Winner’s’ market alone to date (and we haven’t even reached the knock out stages), $20mn of that on the favorites - New Zealand - including one $4.3mn trade at 1.71 that didn’t even move the market (!) (at time of writing 1.69-1.70)

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