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Ticketmaster: Good Friends Are Easy To Buy |
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Dr. Samuel Says -
Bidness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Friday, 02 May 2008 |
It's no secret that the music business is lousy with 3,000 species of middlemen -- people whose jobs involve skimming the cash flow that runs between artists and consumers. This is a natural function of many kinds of business, I concede, but in the case of music industry middlemen, the situation really is terminal.
In this sense, your iPod is more than just a gadget. It's emblematic of
a sea change. There's a reason retail music is tanking (well, many
reasons). It's been badly in need of streamlining for several decades.
Digital distribution, if I may pursue a slightly distasteful but
remarkably apt metaphor, is the colonic irrigation the system rather
sorely needs.
 I think it's safe to say that, of all the
middleman entities clogging up the music business and alienating fans,
none is more universally reviled than Ticketmaster. This multinational
monolith of parasitic opportunism has managed to attach itself,
barnacle-like, to the concert and event industry since 1976. (Sorry, I
get verbose when I'm upset.) Ticketmaster infamously charges
outlandish "convenience fees" in exchange for the simple task of
processing (or "agenting") your ticket order. It's a shakedown, pure
and simple, with artists, consumers and legitimate concert promoters
all getting the shaft.
Nevertheless, Ticketmaster continues to
thrive -- its market share remains over 50% of total sales for tickets
in the United States. In the 1990s, ubergroup Pearl Jam famously tried
to Fight The Power, to no avail. Ticketmaster is simply too entrenched
an institution, and too vicious a corporate entity, to be derailed.
That
doesn't mean we can't make fun of them, though. Recent reports in the
blogosphere wonder aloud how it is that the company 's Facebook page
claims more than 150,000 "friends." Ticketmaster, brilliantly described in one blog as
being "about as popular as syphilis," would seem unlikely to have so
many digital pals. Quite right: It seems that vast majority of
Ticketmaster friends are fakes, with profiles that lack images or any
friends other than Ticketmaster, or with blank entries and names like
"Dsgf Dfddg."
So is Ticketmaster boasting fake friends? Well, of
course. Recent updates suggest Ticketmaster encouraged the creation of
these fake accounts with promotions that promised prizes to anyone who
became its Facebook friend.
Ticketmaster = pathetic, greedy, and
square 4ever. I realize my opinion isn't keeping the board of directors
up at night, but then again, public perception does have a way of
catching up to companies. Keep up the lame work, fellas.
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