At this point buying CDs seems ridiculous unless I’m at a show or it’s the only way to get the music.
I occasionally buy digital albums via amazon or itunes. Anyway, I’ve hit the point where streaming makes sense. I’ve been a netflix subscriber ($10 / month) for a long while, and it’s fantastic. They have almost any movie I could want. (with the exception, obviously, of newly released pirated films) And I’ve been comparing Grooveshark ($3 / month), MOG ($5-10/ month), etc. They all have their benefits, and a pretty comprehensive catalog.

Then you hit audiobooks. I was looking for a book I wanted to listen to recently. And wow, for only a $15 / month audible membership, I can download ONE AUDIBOOK PER MONTH!!

I’m moving to a new place soon, why would I bother with cable when I can queue up everything I want to watch between netflix, hulu, mlb.tv and torrents and watch at my convenience. (ASIDE: HBO/Showime – your models are fucked. Why do I have to subscribe to premium cable to then be able to buy your service. Sell it, streaming only, let me get it via my computer / boxee / googletv. Because otherwise, I’m just going to pirate your shows.

I don’t 100% agree with Mark Cuban’s idea re: social gaming on internet enabled tvs.
But netflix is definitely going to destroy hulu at the rate things are currently going.

What’s the end game? Seems like eventually all media will be in centralized libraries and everything will be streaming for monthly fee. Whatever. At this point subscribing to cable television seems akin to getting a landline.

The founder of imeem gave a talk at startup school discussing how fucked you are if you’re trying a music startup.

The best investment are companies making the best deals with content providers (Netflix) and companies putting broadband everywhere. Long-range wireless, whatever comes after Sprint 4g.
Let’s get to the future already.

Why?
Rule of the internet – if you don’t do it, somebody else will.

Really, Why?
We think Kickstarter is fantastic, both as an idea and in execution.
But it’s lacking in some ways. Kickstarter is curating internet awesomeness for the grand community.
And there is no doubt that Kickstarter.com has a very bright future ahead of it.

But we believe the masses of brilliant internetizens can do a lot more with this idea.

For example, say an arts community in Columbus, Ohio wants to help its members raise money:

• to curate a community arts event
• to start an art-mobile for local schools
• for an local artist to create a public works sculpture.

Kickstarter is great not only because of their technology, but because of the community they are creating around an idea.

A benefactor is going to come to the site for one project, but may not browse through hundreds of open projects to find other interesting ones.  There are countless local groups who can run with this idea, creating a community of benefactors to surround a group of creators and more precisely target their fund-raising. (local arts orgs, public radio, community blogs, businesses)

What are you, some kind of asshole?
I guess so, but if wordpress.com can open source wordpress, and people can create clones of Basecamp, Digg, Delicious and others, why not?

Really?
Honestly, I don’t expect the goal to be met, but the fact that it could be is intriguing. Plus I believe their is value in using Kickstarter to show thegreat and not-so-great aspects of Kickstarter.com

Technical Details?
OpenStarter should be really easy to install, setup and use. As in for people adventurous enough to install WordPress or Indexhibit themselves. That is, it should have a fairly low barrier to entry, so should have clear documentation and be tested to install on cheap hosting (like Dreamhost for instance)
PHP, MySQL with no crazy extensions. Support for Amazon Payments and Paypal are obvious requirements.

This project won’t have every single feature that kickstarter.com does, but will have the essentials executed very well. We’re professional web developers, we do this stuff for a living, it will be good.

I’m thinking a goal of $5000.

Think of the social internet commentary.  Think of the lulz.

Great read about the re-building of Paris.

An example,
Go listen to Doug Benson on the Comedy and Everything Else Podcast.
Or maybe go listen to Todd Glass on Comedy Death Ray Radio
Or why not just listen to Scott Aukerman on Doug Benson’s I Love Movies

Ok, enough is enough, plus there is the great Dead-From Stand Up Database.

So here’s my idea. Work on a visualization to group comedians and writers by their affiliations.
I think it would be fascinating to see all of the data laid out and see who actually knows who.

For example, as a start:

Location Associated With
————————

• Canada
• Chicago
• New York
• LA

Training
——–

• UCB
• Second City
• Harvard Lampoon

Late Night Shows
—————-

• David Letterman

• Conan
• Leno
• Jimmy Fallon
• Daily Show
• SNL

Sitcoms
——-

• The Simpsons
• Seinfeld
• The Office