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Sandbox Percussion – Victor Caccese (BM ’11, Percussion), Terry Sweeney (BM ’13, Percussion), Ian Rosenbaum (BM ’08, Percussion), and Jonathan Allen – premiered the Seven Pillars film anthology, 11 films that were commissioned to accompany their latest album of Andy Akiho’s music, on their YouTube channel on Thursday, October 21 at 8:00 pm EDT.

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When Spotify announced that Adele had broken the record for the most streams in one day, with 19.8 million streams, the caveat was that this was true as long as you do not include all of the streams BTS had accumulated in 24 hours for ‘Butter’ in May. ‘Butter’ racked up 20.9 million streams, but 10 million were wiped from the record for ineligibility, thus only counting the first 10 plays per user in any given 24-hour period. While the caveat makes sense from the perspective of countering chart manipulation, it also raises fundamental questions about just how we measure success and whether, what are fundamentally subjective definitions, discriminate, intentionally or otherwise, against certain types of fans and music.

Fandom is fragmenting

We are living in the age of fragmented fandom where niche can feel mainstream, and mainstream can feel niche. Central to this is the shift from cultural moments to cultural movements. In the old, mass media world, most people experienced the same TV shows, movies and songs, with mainstream media promoting a relatively narrow selection of titles to the majority of the population. Now, audiences are fragmented and marketing is more targeted. So, it is possible for something to feel entirely mainstream to the target audience, even though it may not even register for the majority of the population. Whereas big, old-school releases resulted in water cooler, cultural moments. Successful niches become cultural movements, driving sustained engagement and cultural capital among their respective audiences. 

Bond vs Squid Game

Nowhere is this seen better than in the successes of Squid Game and James Bond’s No Time to Die*. Bondwas the cultural moment, with wall-to-wall mainstream media support and is close to crossing $500 million in box office receipts. Squid game is Netflix’s most successful show to date with 132 million viewers, but was only watched by a minority of the total population in most countries. Nonetheless, it has become a cultural movement, seeping across popular culture via memes, social posts, fan content and so forth. Bond’s box office receipts translate into about 25-35 million viewers, while Squid Game is estimated to be worth around $900 million to Netflix. Bond was the global cultural moment, but was actually smaller on all counts than the less ‘traditional’ mainstream Squid Game.

A similar dynamic is at play when comparing BTS’ Butter with Adele’s Easy on Me. Easy on Me was the cultural moment, with the massive initial wave of listening soon dropping off, while Butter was a cultural movement, which sustained throughout the first 6 days of release at pretty much the same level. Adele was Bond, while BTS was Squid Game – perhaps no coincidence that their nationalities match too. 

Adele was still the bigger success, but only if measured by the way the music industry wants it to be measured, i.e., discounting all those extra BTS Army plays. But what if a 13-year-old BTS fan simply wants to listen to the track 20 times in a day because they love it so much, while an older Adele fan listens to her tune a couple of times in the evening after work? The way we measure success inherently suggests the former behaviour is invalid, while the latter is more valid. The system favours casual listening over super-engaged listening. Listen, I am fully aware that the BTS Army is renowned for caning BTS tracks 24-hours a day in their thousands. But the risk is that the baby is getting thrown out with the bathwater.

Converting success metrics

So, why does this all matter to music? Quite simply because, just as in the TV and film industry, traditional metrics are still used to measure success – even if the old units of measurement have progressively less relevance. Music charts especially so. Since the advent of music downloads, the music industry has continually revised its definitions for ‘sales’ in order to try to make the old ‘cultural event’ measures work for a world that is increasingly shaped by cultural movements. The industry and media both like being able to talk about ‘sales’ and platinum releases – it is convenient short hand. But, if a platinum certification from 2021 is not equivalent to one from 1991 then does it really serve any purpose?

All of this would be a minor inconvenience if it were simply a ‘currency exchange’ issue, e.g., understanding what a million sales in 2021 was versus 2020. But it is not just that. The current measurement frameworks are biased towards artists that fit better in the traditional artist model than the new, emerging one. Including all BTS Army plays is probably as wrong an answer as discounting half of them. But a solution does need to be found, one that better captures the impact of a song on its fans. Perhaps a blend of measures that incorporate number of listeners, number of listens per listener, and total number of listens. (Also, there is a strong case for treating lean-back plays differently than lean-in plays – both in terms of charts and royalties). Each measure would be useful in its own right, which implies there may not be a single measure anymore. But, given the fragmentation of fandom and the growing diversity of fan behaviour, that is probably not a bad thing. The days of trying to measure every artist and every release by the same metrics will eventually become a thing of the past, however inconvenient that may be.

*Why did James Bond go grey? No time to dye…

Electric Vehicles need to lighten up. Literally.

(Today’s blog is co-authored by Blake Shaffer, who is an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary.)

Let’s get something straight, again. If we want any chance in hell of getting to net zero, we need to electrify the vast majority of end uses and decarbonize the grid. Electric vehicles (EVs) have a big role to play here. 

But EVs are still – vehicles. Warts and all. And as three bald guys (the two of us and Costa Samaras of Carnegie Mellon) point out in Nature this week: they are heavy. And heavy vehicles come with costs. So let’s recap and expand a bit on the points we make in the piece.

When Garth Brooks rides his future electrified Ford F-150 Lightning around downtown Nashville, with his battery in low places, he is bringing along 6500 pounds of steel, battery and perceived toughness. We are into comparisons. That is the equivalent of two Toyota Camrys. Or a regular internal combustion engine powered F-150 plus 1550 pounds of battery and support weight. That is the weight of an American Bison or a Holstein Cow. As Mike Anderson and Max pointed out many moons ago, heavier vehicles impose an externality on other traffic participants. Garth is safer, but everyone else is less safe if they get hit by a much heavier car than if Garth had bought the regular F-150. This is a classic externality story. 

In our piece we compare that externality from additional weight, as measured by lives lost, to the climate benefits from driving the F-150 Lightning, considering both the current and future grid carbon intensity. The figure below shows what we found. The Y-Axis measures the social cost of the F-150 lightening’s additional weight and its climate benefits, if it were plugged into different (current and some future) grids across the world (as shown on the X-axis). The weight externality does not vary by how dirty your grid is, but the climate externality does. 

If you are into nerdy calculations, we use the increased probability of death from getting hit by a heavier vehicle, combined with the probability of being involved in an accident and the differential in weight to calculate a weight external cost per mile, which assumes average miles driven for trucks in the US. We’ll gladly send you the spreadsheet if you’d like it. You may not like that we use an older paper, using largely internal combustion energy powered vehicle accidents from ten years ago or more to calculate the externality of weight. But this is what we have to work with currently. 

Using an admittedly high (but Max thinks probably closer to truth than $52) social cost of carbon of $150 per tonne, the climate benefits (in blue) outweigh the weight externality (in red) in some countries (the blue dots indicate the emissions intensity and, thus, emissions benefits of an EV per kilometer for each country). In most places, however, it doesn’t—yet. The social benefits of EVs will of course improve as these grids get cleaner over time. So we make the following four points:

1. We should tax vehicle weight for all cars (internal combustion engine and EV), preferably per distance driven! It’s not just how heavy your car is, but also how many miles you drive it. If we could come up with weight-based mileage-dependent registration fees, this would send the right signal. Some places do charge more to register heavy cars. France is at the forefront with some very steep penalties for heavy cars – yet they exempt EVs.
2. We need to shrink batteries and lighten frames. As awesome superdad economist Chris Knittel pointed out for combustion engines, much of the technological progress has been funneled into power and range, rather than lower weight and fuel economy. But now that we have ranges of 300 miles and fast charging, we should contemplate making cars and batteries lighter instead of making them go further. The benefits of range and power accrue to Garth (the driver) and not Dolly (another driver or pedestrian).
3. We need to make progress on reducing crashes, some of which can be achieved by technology. Warning systems like lane departure and collision avoidance will help. Also, somehow preventing people from using their phones while driving would help. 
4. Finally, we need to get people to drive less. We are not trying to ruin your life, but do we really need to drive 6500 pounds for three miles for one person to pick up a gallon of milk? The answer is a clear no. Removing the implicit subsidies cars enjoy (free parking, a road system and urban design centered around a car economy) has to be a long run goal. Anyone who has spent time in cities like Barcelona very quickly realizes how pleasant a less car intensive society can be. Less noise, less smell, less climate change, fewer accidents and let me count the ways!

So why blog about this when we’ve published that nice piece in fancy Nature? One reason is “The Skeptical Environmentalist”, Bjorn Lomborg, who is heating up Facebook with a graphic that tries to suggest that our piece says EVs are uniformly bad. That is simply a gross and reckless misrepresentation. The answer to the weight problem isn’t “EVs are uniformly bad”. Heck, it isn’t even “EVs are bad”. No, the takeaway from our piece is that in addition to accelerating the decarbonization of electricity systems, we need to make EVs lighter to reduce the weight externality and reap all the real and important climate benefits of going electric. For someone like Lomborg, who spends so much time reminding folks of the tremendous capacity for human ingenuity and innovation, it should come as no surprise that continuing progress in battery and materials technology is likely to allow us to lose that weight, which is great news. 

But the more important point that will not go away is that an EV is still a car. We should remember that we have not managed to make great headway in addressing the non-emissions related external costs for any car. We need to continue working on doing so, including lowering vehicle weight, to avoid simply swapping one externality for another.

Alicia Dorn | School of Agriculture, Fisheries and Human Sciences

Dr. Nina Lyon Bennett, professor and assistant dean for academics at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB) School of Agriculture, Fisheries and Human Sciences (SAFHS), is co-author of the recently published book, African Americans in the Human Sciences: Challenges and Opportunities.

The book “explores the role and experience of African American women scholars and educators in the fields of human, family and consumer sciences. It covers careers in education, the role of historically Black colleges and universities, opportunities and challenges brought about by the internationalization of the field, opportunities for new career paths in the human sciences, and the current and future role of technology.” 

Dr. Bennett, who is an African American mother and educator, authored one of the book’s chapters, Professional Working Women: A Qualitative Look at African American Mothers. This chapter explores the mothering experiences of a group of professional middle-aged Black woman and the ways in which they define and experience motherhood.  The book is described as a “powerful must-read for human sciences professionals and beyond.” 

As the assistant dean for academics, Dr. Bennett supports department chairs in managing various aspects of academic programming, including curriculum and program development and assessment, student enrollment and persistence to graduation. 

The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

Detailed study and analysis of the Global WordPress Site Management Software Market highlights new trends in the WordPress Site Management Software industry and provides companies with trading insights. This study helps manufacturers, suppliers and investors, CEOs to identify opportunities and business optimization strategies to improve their value in the global WordPress Site Management Software market. Provides important information for well-known companies that are one of the top performing companies. The report provides comprehensive coverage of existing and potential markets as well as an assessment of competitiveness in changing market scenarios.

The report also presents data in the form of charts, tables and figures together with contact details and sales contact information for the major market players in the global market. There is a detailed overview of the competitive landscape of the global WordPress Site Management Software industry, with all the information gathered and deepened with the SWOT analysis. Opportunities for potential industrial growth have been discovered and the competition risks involved have also been structured.

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The segmentation chapters enable readers to understand aspects of the market such as its products, available technology and applications. These chapters are written to describe their development over the years and the course they are likely to take in the coming years. The research report also provides detailed information on new trends that may define the development of these segments in the coming years.

WordPress Site Management Software Market Segmentation:

WordPress Site Management Software Market, By Application (2016-2027)

WordPress Site Management Software Market, By Product (2016-2027)

Major Players Operating in the WordPress Site Management Software Market:

• ManageWP
• Acquia
• InfiniteWP
• MainWP
• BloGTK
• CMS Commander
• iControlWP
• WP Pipeline
• WPRe

Company Profiles – This is a very important section of the report that contains accurate and detailed profiles for the major players in the global WordPress Site Management Software market. It provides information on the main business, markets, gross margin, revenue, price, production and other factors that define the market development of the players studied in the WordPress Site Management Software market report.

Global WordPress Site Management Software Market: Regional Segments

The different section on regional segmentation gives the regional aspects of the worldwide WordPress Site Management Software market. This chapter describes the regulatory structure that is likely to impact the complete market. It highlights the political landscape in the market and predicts its influence on the WordPress Site Management Software market globally.

• North America (US, Canada)
• Europe (Germany, UK, France, Rest of Europe)
• Asia Pacific (China, Japan, India, Rest of Asia Pacific)
• Latin America (Brazil, Mexico)
• Middle East and Africa

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The Study Objectives are:

1. To analyze global WordPress Site Management Software status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players.
2. To present the WordPress Site Management Software development in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America & Middle East and Africa.
3. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies.
4. To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market applications and key regions.

This report includes the estimation of market size for value (million USD) and volume (K Units). Both top-down and bottom-up approaches have been used to estimate and validate the market size of WordPress Site Management Software market, to estimate the size of various other dependent submarkets in the overall market. Key players in the market have been identified through secondary research, and their market shares have been determined through primary and secondary research. All percentage shares, splits, and breakdowns have been determined using secondary sources and verified primary sources.

Some Major Points from Table of Contents:

Chapter 1. Research Methodology & Data Sources

Chapter 2. Executive Summary

Chapter 3. WordPress Site Management Software Market: Industry Analysis

Chapter 4. WordPress Site Management Software Market: Product Insights

Chapter 5. WordPress Site Management Software Market: Application Insights

Chapter 6. WordPress Site Management Software Market: Regional Insights

Chapter 7. WordPress Site Management Software Market: Competitive Landscape

Ask your queries regarding customization at:  https://reportsglobe.com/need-customization/?rid=316201

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