Comment by 6stringmerc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 6stringmerc | Hacker News Reader

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So, taking a sub-standard product[1], slathering it with a ton of hype and celebrity endorsements, then selling it off to an even more practiced entity in a similar method of business is now heralded as genius?

I've got a better idea for Dre & Iovine: Finish Detox. Then you can talk about...whatever else...

I do think this quote is rather telling though:

Says Iovine: “We want kids who can work at Beats or at Apple.”

Yeah, that's the kind of herd mentality I'd expect from a record industry professional. I'm serious. What's popular in music is dictated by the tastes of 14 year old girls. If you think Iovine is worth following, just keep this context in mind. You might get rich, but then again, is that your end goal?

[1] As a Monster product, a wide swath of musicians and professionals rightly dogged on their gimmicky marketing and high price versus their in-the-field performance. While there are many great headphones on the market (Sennheiser is my personal favorite), nobody will rate Beats anywhere near the top 5. Just because Skrillex likes them doesn't mean they're actually good.

Beats headphones are Instagram for music. They are not built to deliver high quality or fidelity, they are built to make music sound more cool.

Filters on Instagram are universally derided by serious photographers, but that hasn't hurt Instagram...in fact it's their competitive advantage. Just like the unique (but not accurate) sound of Beats is theirs.

Yes, this counts as innovation, at least in a consumer product sense. Serious professionals care so much about their own metrics of quality that they usually cannot see a different "worse is better" way of building consumer products. Instagram is the biggest photography product in the last 5 years at least, and it was not built by professional photographers.

That's a pretty good correlative. Instagram is favored by a young demographic. One that's highly dependent on their parents for fiscal means. This is the group that Beats targets with their marketing - people who make poor financial choices or lack critical thinking to make individual quality decisions. Jimmy Iovine is successful because he markets to the same kind of people who use Instagram. That's not innovation, it's effective target marketing. It's a hollow achievement, because real innovation will stand the test of time - like headphones as a design itself (or earbuds) - one stupid brand preying on ignorance? Give me a break.

You sound bitter.

"Just because Skrillex likes them doesn't mean they're actually good."

They have pointed out in the article that Beats really isn't as "high quality" as other superior headphone sets.

So, I don't understand the knock towards them. Its a product. A product that has done extremely well. There are many products out there that sell because of a celebrity endorsed it. In fact the article stated that Dr. Dre was thinking of marketing fashion before he spoke with Iovine on what he should do. Dre would have had sold some product one way or another to make money. Why not Beats?

All in all, it all just worked out for Dre. Beats is a good headset made cheap and sold high. It found its star in Dr. Dre to be the face.

Beats is the George Forman Grill on headphones!

No reason to knock it. There are many products out there that isn't the greatest, but it works fine for most of us. Look at Windows.

Now, should getting rich be the end goal of every business venture? No, but well you'd definitely want it to do fairly well.

-- I think its a cool idea that they are trying to disrupt college. Especially in the fields of the Arts, why not try? More choices means more people (especially young people) get to see what's out out there, what's possible.

How many articles do we need to post on Hacker News about the "youth not able to find a job even with a bachelors degree at Stanford" before some change to how we "educate" them occurs?

All in all, I cannot criticize someone's business practices who's able generate $3 billion for a company let alone $1. Someone was going to do that, why not him?

Personally it bodes poorly for the future of consumer products, if such a marketing achievement can be labeled a success when a small amount of critical thinking would deflate the premise of the purchase.

They're not headphones, they're status symbols. That's plenty of reason to knock it. I'd like to see actual innovation in the sense of what Dolby is doing. They're successful too, and I'm not knocking them. Would I go to the Dolby classes on innovation? Sure. Iovine? No.

If you think 'disruption' in the arts is going to happen by way of long-time industry insiders, then I don't know what to tell you...other than you're wrong I guess.

I don't know about Beats headsets, but Dre and Iovine are innovators when it comes to music production. Dre for example is a perfectionist when it comes to music infact most artists that work with Dre on his Aftermath label never release an album, because its not perfect enough by Dre's standards. Sounds similar to Steve Jobs when it comes to product quality. At least as far as music production goes.

> Dre for example is a perfectionist when it comes to music infact most artists that work with Dre on his Aftermath label never release an album, because its not perfect enough by Dre's standards.

Sounds like a failure to me.

How is that a good thing? So the genius tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it. Does it really count?

Most records released on aftermath end up at #1 or #2 on billboard.

Ignorance towards 14 year old girls's interests is still ignorance. Like it or not, the next generation will take leadership while our generation ages. It is their values and tastes that constitute our future.

If a company is considering entering the wearables market, fashion and brand need to be intimately integrated with design alongside technology. The reason the headphone industry was stuck in the 1980's was because they ignored exactly this part. Nobody wants to wear the same shirts on their chests- why should they wear the same headphones on their HEADS? Now Beats has created a new market. With new markets come innovation. It is only a matter of time until top sound comes out of fashionable headphones. Maybe there will even be a paradigm shift in sound quality technology as a byproduct of the fresh infusion of capital. I listen on Kipsch.

The headphone industry most definitely was not "stuck in the 1980s" unless you only shopped at Best Buy for the past 15 years. Musician's Friend runs specials on AKG headphones that are superior to Beats and for - get this - about $40.

Conflating "innovation" with savvy marketing doesn't benefit anybody - especially the tech-minded readership of HN. Marketing is an element. With Beats, marketing IS the product, and if that sits well with you, fine.

>Just because Skrillex likes them

"Just because Skrillex got paid to like them" - and this is the genius of those two, they took something medicore, pimped the shit out of it and created a strong brand.

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