I Miss the Amorphous Power of Poetry

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I haven’t written poetry in months. Probably somewhere near half a year at this point. For me that’s like an eternity.

Poetry used to be one of my most expressive forms of communication. I used to write so much that it became necessary to start dividing the pieces into separate collections. As of yet, most of those collections haven’t been finished to the point which I would like.

Yet what I miss most isn’t writing a poem per se, but what writing a poem allowed me to do. It allowed me to write something that could be left set in stone. It did not need to be researched, backed up, sourced, or set up as the solution to or for an argument. A poem could exist in and of itself; its value existed simply because it did.

In many ways writing poetry is easier because it allows me to just write, and look for patterns and meaning in what I write after I write it. I don’t need to start with a central thought and build out an argument around it. In many ways, it’s the same dynamic as I enjoy with blogging.

Poetry is so powerful precisely because of its ambiguous nature. The amorphous power that resides in a poem, terse or epic, is innate to its nature as a piece of writing that is purposely enigmatic. Every syllable could mean something—or it might not. Regardless of what your high school English teacher might have forced on your thought process, poetry isn’t about finding the “right meaning” that’s hidden between the words. It’s about finding the right meaning for you, something which could be very different from the meaning for the person sitting next to you.

This is what I miss most about writing poetry. Its sprightly chirping of words that could mean something, or nothing—words that could have been carefully chosen, or words that were just thrown onto a page and never wiped off. In the end, it’s irrelevant. Poetry is about the search, not the find; that’s why it intrigues me so much. I will have to write more in the coming months.

Today Was Saturday, Wasn’t It?

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This morning I woke up, showered, made some coffee, and sat down to work. Only I couldn’t focus.

I sat looking at my computer screen and reading some emails that had come in last night. I responded to a few, but couldn’t quite get “in the zone” to really like I was being productive. After a couple hours I started to wonder why that was.

As I took a break and went for a walk in the sunshine, it hit me: today was Saturday. I’d completely forgotten. So that’s it, I thought, I’m probably burned out from the week. And I was; it’s been a super long week.

On a day which most people take off, I’d woken up as I do every day: ready to work. Maybe it’s a hazard of being in the startup world, or maybe it’s that I love what I do so much that work doesn’t really feel like work (or at least, what “work” is supposed to feel like). Regardless, I work pretty much every day; there’s always something to get done. And most days I enjoy what I’m doing, so I tend to go without noticing the fact that I’m taxing my mental capacity (as any job does). I even find my mind whirring with new ideas as I try to sleep at night.

Yet what today highlighted for me is that it’s important to step back and let your brain breathe, even if you do love the work you do. The reality is that we can’t be on 100% of the time, and even if we try, the quality of our works suffers anyway.

I would love to say that in the future I’ll make sure to keep my work habits under control. Except it’ll probably be a lot more difficult than that. Even when I’m not “working,” I’m still emailing artists, setting up call times, looking for new music, working through new thought processes—this is just what I love to do. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Perhaps I could benefit from a break over the weekend, but the truth is, if I could be at a concert tonight, “working,” I would be.

It may not even be as extreme as that; maybe I just need a Netflix-binge tonight to purify the system. Then back to work tomorrow. It’s a good thing Family Guy and Friends all on for instant stream. Break well deserved.

When Things Get Tough, Head Back to the Artists

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Some days in this business are hard. Some days are downright frustrating. The music business isn’t exactly known for being easy and fair. At times, the most infuriating thing can be dealing with the very industry that you stepped foot in in the first place. Massive egos, backroom deals, power struggles—these things aren’t relegated only to the field of politics.

But the thing that I learned very early on is that in this crazy, upside down industry, there’s really only one respite: the artists. Of course, that’s my own personal opinion, but I hold to it like gospel. On the hardest days, I always go back to the artists, and remember why I do this. It reminds me of my deep-seated passion for what they do and how they do it, and that I’m exceedingly lucky to be a part of the process.

Yesterday was a frustrating day. But that was rectified today; not by any major breakthrough or innovation, but by something as simple as a conversation with the people I love doing business with. A conversation this morning with an artist jump-started my day on a positive note; I could hear his excitement, and that fueled by own drive for the day. Then later in the afternoon, a conversation and interview with another artist I’m excited to work with. What might seem like work to others—scheduling calls, doing interviews, laying out plans—is like an adrenaline shot to me. I love it every day; perhaps that’s the reason I’ve almost turned into a “workaholic.”  But it’s not work for me; every new song I hear, every show I go to, every conversation I have—this is everything I would do on my vacation.

The music industry can be an amazing place. Even more so now that dynamics have shifted to give more power to the everyday singer/songwriter playing that song you like at a bar. We should all take advantage of it. That’s why in my off days, I always remember: when things snafu, just head back to the talent. When things get tough, just head back to the artists.

If You’re an Independent, Kiss SoundCloud Goodbye

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The Partnership with Zefr Isn’t the Real Story

News broke today both on The Verge and TechCrunch that SoundCloud is looking to step up its drive towards revenue by signing a deal with Zefr. For those unfamiliar with Zefr, they’re the same partner who works with YouTube to track content and brands. Part of what makes Zefr so helpful to YouTube is that they are able to track media files as well as specific brands like Nike or Coke.

But that’s actually not the story here. The real story is buried deep in the TechCrunch article. Helpful though Zefr may be to and for SoundCloud, they can’t help with the larger problem that SC has created for itself. No, that has to do with the licensing quagmire that SC is increasingly encircling itself with. It goes like this.

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SoundCloud, now a platform for major labels and advertisers

– SoundCloud, now a platform for major labels and advertisers

SoundCloud blew up as an independent-driven engine way before major label music was even a thought. It was the place for the singer/songwriter in his basement, or the newly formed doom metal band, to post their recordings and attempt fan acquisition. It was beloved by independents the world over because it was a free, easy way for them to distribute their material and make a name for themselves. That’s where SC started, but it’s not where they now find themselves.

Legal Problems That Were Never Solved

Of course SoundCloud’s rich environment of remixes and covers led to a legal quagmire that saw them losing material as complaints were brought against them from the original sources for copyright infringement. While Zefr does help specifically with this, it’s effectiely irrelevant, as independents will begin to migrate away from SC amidst a new major label focus anyway. I can imagine it was a major headache for SC as remixes and covers are particularly popular in certain genres of music. Thus began the drive away from remixes and towards “more mature” content. For those who care, this is basically code for major label content.

soundcloud_logo

And thus, instead of solving the more challenging problem (the legalities associated with remixes and covers) SC rather decided to chase the major label route to better compete with services like Spotify and Rdio. (Again, as noted above, partnering with Zefr does help, but will essentially become irrelevant in the bigger picture). In doing this, they basically told their grassroots fanbase (you know, the people who gave them love and support (and traffic) before anyone else) that they didn’t need them anymore.

Rather than spend the few million dollars of their funding figuring out the legalities they were faced with (which probably couldn’t have amounted to more than ~5M), they made the choice to look towards the major label paradigm for music content. Frankly, the partnership with a company like Zefr which helps in the copyright arena may not be too little, but it is too late. Let’s examine how this worked out for them.

Buying Into a Broken Business Model

Back in November of 2014, SoundCloud signed a licensing deal with Warner Music Group (one of The Big Three) to bring onto SC’s platform the music which Warner controlled through itself and its subsidiary labels. My assumption was (is) that SC is looking towards the other two big labels (Universal and Sony) to sign similar deals, and step up to the same level as a service like Spotify. Here’s why that was a bad business decision:

1. A Bad Business Model 

SoundCloud already had a dedicated userbase of independents who used it, without demanding licensing money upfront. To put this in perspective, the deal which SC signed with Warner most likely cost them ~45-50M for a 1-year contract. This means that they paid somewhere in the neighborhood of 50M to license music content from Warner for a year. This in turn means that they will most likely need to renegotiate sometime later this year; those licensing contracts are not static agreements. It also does not account for the royalties which they will need to pay on the backend. So, to recap, multi-million dollar expense on the front-end (which will need to be renegotiated eventually) and multi-million dollar expense on the backend.

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What the major label industry really looks like; The Big Three

– What the major label industry really looks like; The Big Three

2. You Can Only Have One Priority #1

Business 101: You can only have one priority #1 in the morning. SC’s priority #1 used to be its independent artists/users. Now it’s not, and it can’t be. How do I know? Because Warner now holds the power in the relationship. In providing SC with major label content, they have eventually shifted the paradigm of SC’s focus from independents to Warner’s major label artists. This means that, eventually, independents will begin to understand that they are no longer the priority, and will migrate elsewhere. That’s not a guess, that’s fact. Look at the migration patterns:

MySpace==>Purevolume==>Facebook==>SoundCloud==>?

The reality is that independent artists are loyal only insofar as they are the priority customer base. Why would they be loyal beyond that? They don’t have major label deals and massive radio play on FM radio to fall back on. And they’re not signed to a powerhouse like Warner or Universal. Which means they don’t need to settle for anything; they’re free to do whatever the hell they want.

3. You Should Never Depend on Anyone Else

SoundCloud has basically tied itself to the major label paradigm, which could cost it. It’s never a good business decision to tie your company’s future to the company structure and revenue of someone else. You should never be dependent on another company’s good fortune for your own upward trajectory. But in signing a deal with Warner, that’s effectively what SoundCloud did.

It goes like this: As the independents begin to see that SC has shifted its focus from their desires and needs to those of Warner’s major label artists, they will begin to look for other options. SoundCloud can’t really do anything about that because they’re now tied to Warner (and searching for deals with Universal and Sony). That means that as the independents begin to trickle out, they can’t market any sort of real campaign to woo them back; Warner wouldn’t let that happen. And if I was Warner, I wouldn’t either. Why would I? I want all the focus on my artists, not some independent artist who might be taking ears away from my stable of talent.

Once the independents start to trickle out to somewhere else, SoundCloud is essentially locked in to the major label paradigm. It will effectively need to renegotiate with Warner (and the others) because their major label content will become its lifeblood. If Warner decides not to renew their contract with SC (which they could do, since they have Spotify, Rdio, Deezer, etc. to fall back on), one could see the music-life sucked out of SC in a heartbeat. With no major label content, SC could become a shell of its former self, begging the independents to come back (which takes years, if it ever happens at all, just look at Purevolume and MySpace).

4. The Big Kicker

Now here’s the big kicker for SoundCloud: they have not yet been able to secure deals with Universal or Sony—only Warner. This means that they are effectively straddling two completely different music industries moving in opposite directions: the major label machine and the independent arena. Precarious though this may be, it’s not a secret. And the independents know it. Artists I’ve spoken to are already looking for more alternatives because they recognize that SC will soon become the same sort un-level playing-field as Spotify or Rdio, where they essentially stand no chance against the Taylor Swift’s and One Direction’s of the world.

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SoundCloud only has a deal with Warner as of now

– SoundCloud only has a deal with Warner as of now

If I’m SoundCloud, I’m driving hard at those Universal and Sony deals because I can’t backup. If I try to, that will send a message to Warner that I’m not really invested in their business model, and since Warner essentially now holds the keys to my content, that could be a major mistake. But if I continue to pursue those deals with the other major labels (which I can pretty much guarantee is what SC will do) I will lose that attractive quality that made me popular among independents to begin with.

Except these aren’t really the thoughts going around in SoundCloud’s head; they already made their decision when they inked that deal with Warner last November.

SoundCloud’s Independent-Focused Days Are Over

The options for SoundCloud as I see them now are really only to double-down on the major label paradigm and business model. They need to out-Spotify Spotify; and that’s going to be very difficult. Rather than sitting pretty as king of the hill with the ever-growing base of independents, they made the decision to move towards the major label content arena.

Does this mean that they are destined for failure? Of course not; they may in fact find a way to play the major label game better than even Spotify or Rdio. That’s entirely a possibility. Really only time will tell if that is what becomes of SC’s new business trajectory.

But it does mean that SoundCloud will play less and less of a significant role in the independent sphere, possibly moving mostly out of it in the next few years. It makes no economic sense for them to stay, now that they are pursuing the major label route. They may host independent material, but the independents will never be their bread and butter again—those days are coming to an end.

Independents aren’t stupid; they go where the best opportunities are for them. They don’t stick around too long where they’re not wanted or cared for. I wouldn’t, not if I was free to do what I wanted. Which begs the question: where will they go next?

Curated, Part I: Introduction

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This post will serve as a brief introduction in a much larger topic that I will cover in a series of posts called Curated. The posts will focus on the difference between curated discovery and real discovery in the music industry. Further posts will follow over the next few weeks, but for today, let’s simply set the stage.

Part I: Introduction

This morning I saw a new “music discovery” site that has taken a detour to try to re-imagine visual discovery. I was intrigued by a couple of things on the site, but as a whole, I don’t really think that the term “music discovery” is the right one to use. Let’s get one thing straight before we continue: curation is not and should not be a substitute for choice.

People need to stop using the phrase “new music discovery” when they really mean finding artists similar to the ones they already know and like. That’s not finding “new music;” it’s tracking based on similarities. This is what services like Spotify, Rdio, SoundCloud, and Pandora do. This is curation.

The term “new music” should (and does in many independent circles) denote music that is not generally known in the mainstream. It’s music that is actually new (created within the past year or two), and comes from an artist without mainstream name recognition. This was what “discovering new music” should be. This is what choice allows us to do.

It’s not about finding the other 10 ’80s bands just like Bon Jovi. It’s about finding that esoteric band from Belgium who released their album in 2010 and sounds like they walked out of 1986 (actually, I did find this band. They were called All I Know and damn could they wail). It’s about choosing to live outside the boundaries set. It’s about cutting down all the red-tape. Music is freedom, and freedom is choice.

There’s nothing wrong with liking what you like; but call it how it is—you’re not really “discovering new music” when you’re relying on an algorithm to make suggestions. Curation is a wonderful thing, but only to an extent. Curation is not wonderful when it becomes a substitute for choice. Relying solely on curation is basically how you end up tracking based on similarities. And that is not the same as “discovering new music.” Don’t be fooled into thinking that it is. Demand more.

And what’s better than curation as opposed to choice? Curation in addition to choice. Things just got very interesting.

Sometimes You Leave on That Tour Bus and Don’t Come Back

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This is the nightmare of the music business—the part of my industry I hate knowing about.

I see news from artists all over the world come through my Facebook and Twitter feeds all day long. I see posts about new tours dates, new song releases, new music videos, and sometimes just funky entertaining things. These are the the things that fans love, and that shrink the divide between an artist an the people who love and support them.

And then there are the other kind of posts—the kind you just wish you could forget seeing.

Facebook post from Almost Kings' feed

Facebook post from Almost Kings’ feed

This afternoon I saw one of these posts, and it saddens me that it’s the topic for my post today. But these darker corners of the music business need to be acknowledged, and the people who get caught in them need to be rallied around.

Early this morning, a tour bus carrying members from metal bands Khaotika and Wormreich was involved in a serious crash—three people were pronounced dead at the scene, and three more are in critical condition. That’s enough to stop anyone’s heart.

Part of what you learn in the music industry is that the term “family” is redefined. Your family isn’t just your mom and dad at home, or your sister in college. Your family expands to include your bandmates, your touring crew, your fans, and the other artists you meet along the way. So when you hear about something like this, it affects you on a visceral level.

It’s important to remember that this job ins’t without its hazards. We work in an industry that’s waved the banner of alcohol and drugs for decades. But what kills most of all is when you see something like this—just a freak accident that claims the lives of talented people who spent their lives chasing their love of music. Sometimes when you step on that tour bus, you don’t come back. It’s a sobering reality.

Tour Van Crash; Carrying Members of Wormreich and Khaotica

Tour Van Crash; Carrying Members of Wormreich and Khaotika

I’ve known Atlanta band Almost Kings for a long time; it was through their  feed that I saw the posted the article. All I can do as part of their support circle is support them even as they support the family and friends of those who have experienced loss today. That’s all any of us can do. These things do happen, and I hate that it’s something I’ve become somewhat accustomed to seeing. No, it doesn’t always turn out ok. No, not every tour ends in people becoming rockstars.

But we do it anyway—we make our way in this business through all the shit and challenges—because we love music. It’s how we breathe; how we interact with the world. We are all a family in this—keep supporting each other and we might make it to the next show.

My thoughts go out to those who have experienced loss this morning. We’re around for you all. We rally for you.

Lending Artists Millions of Dollars Is a Terrible Idea

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The Setup

This morning, Peter Kafka posted an article on a new company seeking to make its name in the evolving music industry: Alignment Artist Capital. The company, according to Kafka’s piece, wants to essentially work as a lending institution for artists who need the money. Except instead of doling out a couple hundred bucks here and there, it will have the resources to lend millions at a time.

money_bags

A Completely Outdated Business Model

This, for anyone who didn’t already think so by this sentence, is a terrible idea. It’s a rehashing of the same dynamic the record labels have had with artists for decades, sans the ownership percentages over artists’ creative material. Kafka is aware of this as well, noting that, “Alignment isn’t the first entity to advance money to artists…lending money to musicians is one of the core functions of music labels.” [1] That’s very true; lending money to musicians is one of the core functions of a music (record) label, and it’s one of the main reasons their obsolete business model is failing them now.

Don’t be discouraged, though. There’s still plenty of money to be made in the music industry. In fact, it’s on an upswing. But not in the major label space, or using any of the traditional business models of those labels. The new upswing is with the independents—that’s where I would lay my chips.

With all the tools now cheaply (or freely) available to budding new artists, the traditional artist/record label model doesn’t apply anymore (something which Kafka notes as well as “harder to justify”). The reality of the situation is that most artists can get the basic things that they need—access to distribution, access to recording equipment and programs, access to merchandising platforms, access to producers/promoters, etc.—without signing away anything. That begs the question of why they would choose to take a monetary loan if they can do most (if not all) of the necessary things themselves.

New Artists Don’t Need Millions (of Dollars)

And there’s something else: funding an artist (band or solo) like a startup is indeed a unique idea—but a misguided one. Artists don’t need millions of dollars out of the gate to be successful in today’s market(s). The sums of money are too large to apply to most of the new artists who might be interested in taking it, precisely because the economics don’t work in their favor; it’s highly unlikely that throwing a million dollars on your fire will create a lasting fanbase for you. Core fanbases are made on the road, sleeping on couches, driving crappy vans, connecting with your real fans—all things that can be done without a multi-million dollar loan on your shoulders.

In the startup world, there’s a delicate balance between taking VC money you know you’ll need to survive (to the next round), and not taking so much that you end up diluting yourself beyond reason. The same principle holds true here: the concept that new artists should take millions at a time is analogous to a startup raising a Series B when they only need a Seed investment of possibly a quarter of that.

Why Incur Debt You Don’t Need?

AAC cofounder James Diener is quoted in the article saying “We’ll give the artist and their entity financing so they can go build a record label.” That’s like giving someone financing so they can go invest in a line of new and improved floppy disks—i.e. obsolete and irrelevant. The fact that this seems to be one of the main drives behind AAC’s plan tells me that they are still mentally tied to the old model of the record label, only now they’ve decided to cut their prospective losses by dealing only with the financial side (and not the creative one).

Based on my years in the independent music arena, I see these sorts of monetary entities as having a very difficult time breaking into the independent spheres—essentially where they need to be in order to really thrive. Buying streaming services, record labels, summer homes—these are things most artists don’t care about and don’t think about. I suppose a few do, but the numbers of those people are well below anything you can build a real solid business model on. The Jay Z’s of the world are astronomically outnumbered by the independents who are on the rise, now with distribution at their fingertips.

I wrote last week that artists are becoming savvier business people, and I can see them steering clear of these sorts of institutions at all costs. They understand that injecting millions of dollars into their brand image doesn’t buy them fans—that’s a belief propagated by the major label industry. Rather, they know it has to be done by way of live shows, personal attention, and appreciation of core fans; all things which can be done on their own, and without incurring debt (remember my article on crowdfunding?). I suppose there will be some customers of course, but I don’t see this ever catching fire in the independent industry. And that’s the next growth phase of music.

So why would artists incur massive debt if they do’t have to??

I wouldn’t.

Would you?

 

Notes


[1] Notice here that Kafka used the term “music labels.” I have a friend who used to work for Warner Music who explained this phenomenon to me. The reason that the term “music” has replaced the word “record” is because the major labels have become so bloated with an obsolete business model, they need to start making money off of revenue streams that they traditionally never touched: live ticket sales and merchandise sales. Traditionally, their main revenue streams were from record (or CD) sales, hence the term “record label.” Yet in the wake of the massive disruption of their business model, they have taken to calling themselves “music labels” in order to explain their practice of now taking money from revenue streams traditionally left for the artists.

Further Musings on Writer’s Block: Day Two

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As the writer’s block seems to continue, thoughts dance through my head that anyone who know’s me would be slightly confused with. Sure, it’s a well-known fact (at least by those who know me) that I’m a huge art, history and music buff, and as such, these are the topics that typically dominate my writing. Even business and tech have come to the forefront of my preferred subject lists, even as I continue to educate myself in them.

What only those closest to me know is my real fascination with things that are well outside the realm of any humanities study. I was never a strong math student; in fact, I hated math. I hated it every day, every night; because it never made sense in my head that there can be only one answer. I was raised by two lawyers—in my world there’s never just one answer. Thus it would follow that as I’ve completed my schooling and graduated from college, I would only interact with math in professionally necessary capacities: taxes, data metrics, simple calculations, etc.

Yet in times when I find the creative juices refusing to flow, times like today, I find my mind drifting back to topics of mathematical thought, and other topics that are most days seemingly beyond my appreciation. Because why should sitting and pondering mathematical principles appeal to me? I struggled every day in grade and high school with it. Want me to write an 8-page essay? No problem, done in a couple hours. Do these 30 math problems? I’ll see you next week.

Perhaps it’s precisely my artistic mindset that drives me to ponder about things like mathematical thought and application—the worst thing for an artist is to feel that you’ve mastered something so much that it’s become stale to your growth. Mastery of any such thing in itself is irrelevant; what matters is how it feels. Am I being challenged or is this a rehashing of what I did yesterday? Thus on day two of my writer’s block, I find myself thinking not of tech trends or the socio-economics of medieval Britain, but of the interconnections of math principles and philosophical thought. Go figure.

Musings on Writer’s Block

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Some days, the words flow onto the page very easily, and some day’s they don’t. Today is one of the latter. That said though, even writer’s block itself can be a constructive lesson in writing. It teaches you that even the most adept writer struggles sometimes to come up with a thought process worth putting down for others to read.

But that actually begs a few question about the thought processes we as writers discard as “not good enough.” Are they really not up to par, or is it simply our nature as writers and creators to deride ourselves until we come up with something truly “worth writing?” Just today I’ve discarded numerous ideas for posts because they didn’t seem to be “enough” for me to put out to a readership.

But perhaps that sort of self-critical thought process is in fact too self-critical. Self-criticism is part of the creative process—it’s what we as creators feel helps us push forward to our greatest productions. So perhaps the whole writer’s block demon is indeed a blessing in disguise. Irritating though it might be, it nonetheless helps us to distinguish our sub-par thoughts from the truly remarkable ones. For me, I’ll try to keep a more open mind when it comes to the writer’s block I know will inevitably come back around.

Why I Tend to Write Longer Posts

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Some Topics Require Them

For those who have been reading and following my posts over the past couple months, it won’t come as much of a surprise that I prefer a longer format than just a couple of paragraphs. Of course this doesn’t mean that I seek to write book-length essays, but I find that a number of the topics which I’ve covered recently deserve a lengthier response. That said, in the digital age where news it consumed at a light-speed rate, I realize that there is certainly something to be said for the terse blog post as opposed to its longer cousin. I suppose it’s worth noting where my tendency for longer posts came from, and why its germination was welcomed at the time.

Terse Little Blurbs Did Not Suffice

When I first began my career in blogging, as a music journalist as it were, shortened posts never got the job done to my liking. Terse little blurbs are cute and easy to read, but within the context of the music reviews and explanations, they do not suffice (and indeed the reason I started writing in the first place was because the reviews I was reading were unfocused pieces of fluff at best). Thus for me, it became necessary to lengthen the music article so that it addressed its subject matter appropriately—or at least to my liking.

I decided that if I was going to write music reviews, than my readers were going to be able to “hear” the music after reading my article. They would get a basic rundown of the instrumentation, the time breaks, the lyrics—things that make songs really unique. Otherwise, I reasoned to myself, what would be the point of reading a music review anyway? Music journalism, at its core, should be about the music, not the intra-band politics that so many publications seem to think take premier importance.

But I digress.

Debating with the World

To go along with my penchant for writing detailed posts on music and performances, it’s also worth acknowledging that I am and always have been a student of history. For non-history majors, this means that in my world, research and arguments go hand-in-hand, and you would never dream of presenting one without the other. As a result, I find it quite against my grain to write a post and not back it up with a series of sources and/or further arguments.

Brevity is indeed a virtue in many parts of life, but too much of a good thing is never good (as the saying goes). Brevity used beyond its worth doesn’t help you present a good piece to your readership; it leaves you with a dangling point, and them with questions about where the rest of the argument is. Does that mean that every post should be footnoted at the bottom? Of course not. But it does mean that presenting an argument that is fully-fleshed out (or as much as you can make it so) is much harder to disprove. There is something to be said for viewing every blog post as an opportunity to debate with the world. And win.