Hng. So apparently I'm being really bad and neglecting this blog for quite some oh so long time.

So whazzup? Yeah, you're looking at a Master degree now :D I graduated and the graduation ceremony was at June 6.

"WTF NIN, YOU LEFT US IN A DARK FOR SO MANY MONTHS. EVEN YOUR GRADUATION CEREMONY HAS PASSED."

*hides*

Well, so... Hm. The final presentation went well, thank God. It was blood here and there but I survived the battle. Nyah. Oooh I will never forget the fierce vicious eyes of my Statistics professor when he grilled me ALIVE, ALIVE I TELL YOU MAN, ALIVE, with numbers, hypotheses... And Statistics *bleargh*

"So, according to this Statistics theory..."

SHIT MAN. I DON'T DO STATISTICS. LET THOSE BLOODY STATISTICIANS DOING THEIR JOB. GIVE MONEY TO THE POOR! *gets whacked*

Oh, and I was THAT happy to see my thesis advisor EXISTS. YES, ALIVE. IN FLESH. 

NOT IN NINJA-MODE.

Ahem.

So, yeah. The big burning question is: So what you gonna do with this Posterous blog?

Yeah, what should I do? Just leave this corner as it is -- As my memories of those painful nights and days of being a Ninja apprentice -- or change the route? Bring another theme! Another topic! Another rant!

Hmmm. Decisions, decisions...

P.S. If you happened to stumble here because Twitter posted this piece to my timeline, I pity you. Seriously.

Whoa, last update was November 2008 eh? :|

So, two days ago I received a (dreadful) news that the thesis should be collected at February 14. LOL. That day is going to be a Bloody Valentine for sure.

Anyway, remember the online survey before? The results are in. 84 respondents and I'm glad with it :) 

If you guys are wondering about the meaning of the title, actually it was my thesis supervisor's idea. He told me that rather than focusing myself in one research methodology be it quantitative research or qualitative research only, it would be 'easier' for me to do 'sandwich methodology'. In-depth interview - online survey - re-in-depth interview.

I have passed the first and second phase and I just finished the third phase :D So from the results that I got from online survey, I did the cross-checking with the people from the music industry and New Media/Web 2.0. industry. In short, since this thesis' topic is considered as new in Indonesia, I still need expert's opinions regarding the matter - whether the public's opinion align closely with experts' forecast or not.

Therefore, within the survey I took three critical point that I asked to the experts. Those are:

1. The opinions regarding market's tendency of getting free MP3s although they themselves have regarded 5,000 IDR (US$ 0.5) for a single file of MP3 as a considerable and acceptable amount of price.
2. How the music industry responding to some technical problems regarding buying legal MP3 over the Net. One of them is the ability to do micro payment. For artist's perspective, I'm pointing out the extent of Internet usage for artist promotion and such.
3. How the music industry responding to the public's forecast that the online music store, nevertheless, will be successful in Indonesia albeit the fact that most respondents thought it will take quit a decade to achieve it.

Tonight I interviewed two people. First one is Budi from Pochi^Monchi Band (Bandung, Indonesia) and here's his answer from musician/artist's perspective.

Since Budi alone is a netizen (person that already being aware of the Internet and having the ability in using it) the band itself already aware the usage and the potentials that the Internet is keeping. Some social networking wesbites are being used to promote themselves and their upcoming concerts and songs.

Budi's band is a perfect example of many idealistic artists (in a good way.) Some artists did not mind if their songs are spreaded all over the Internet for free because their objective is to be well-known. Not for solely making money. They make music because they want to, not as a way of living.

For the fanbase, they prefer to do it offline and some information regarding the activities are being published in some social networking sites.

According to the future of online music store, the hope is there and there's even some optimistic sight that it could be work in even less than 10 years. However, if we should look into current condition, the situation itself is not as promising as hoped. As being explained by Budi according to his own experience when he saw a booth for downloading legal MP3 from indie bands at his town, Bandung, he regarded the cool songs were those from Bandung's indie band and those songs could be obtained easily from one's PC at dorm houses. Another reason was about the price. 5,000 IDR (US$ 0.5) per song and/or 35,000 IDR (US$ 3.5) per album. For him, it would be better off to buy other artist's CD with same price.

Second one was Purwa Mahendra from Evernine Band (Bandung).

He commented the tendency of Indonesians to get 'illegal' MP3s while the fact that some people actually could buy original and expensive fashion goods. For him, it was about the sad fact that we could not showing off our MP3 unless we really want it with our iPod and hey, it's always easy to tweak it.

According to him, the market if music industry is divided into three markets, based on the population. The first market is the 'CD buyers market'. This market, according to him, is the 'exclusive' class. Since the price of CD is considered as expensive in Indonesia (usually ranged from US$ 8 - US$ 20. Here in Indonesia, you could get a decent meal for US$ 8) not many people could buy CDs as much as they could and usually those who buy CD are music collector and rich people. 

Second market is the intellectual market. This market consists of netizens. People that already get used with the Internet. People that tend to download songs over the Internet and they know how to get the songs for free. According to him, this is the market that the producers hate most.

The third market is considered as the widest. This market consists of people in rural areas. People that didn't know about the Internet yet. This market consists of people with low income and they tend to buy cassettes more than CD or downloading.

However, the industry needs to sustain itself and many artists are going into mainstream and following the market demand just for the sake of sales and getting money. It's a good thing though unless the fact that the market's preferences and taste is going way too much which left to the assumption that there would be another new genre of music in Indonesia when rich people started to make a band. 

The availability of free songs over the Net is not being accepted negatively by Purwa though. There are reasons why he said that free songs not always bad. In fact, he didn't really trust buying legal MP3 over the net. First, it's expensive. Second, the CD is unavailable at the music store. Third, the uncertainty of online payment system and forth, free songs is being downloaded as reference before he bought the whole CD at the music store (to know whether the songs are good or not.)

According to him, the possibility of online music store is there when the public itself already aware with the technology and the buying power is sufficient. Furthermore, he added that the 'community' of free MP3s will always exist. It even evolved from Napster to Kaaza then Limeware then Rapidshare. And it will still evolves.

The original objective of P2P itself was to providing the old/classic/rare songs that already gone from the store shelfs. As the Net evolves, the 'objectives' itself changed. 

The problem here is about the mindset. Some Indonesians still think that it's cooler to get something free rather than buying it. If one said that he got the ticket for, say, music concert by buying it at the ticket booth, another one might boasted that he got his ticket for free because he has inside-man and so and so. That kind of mindset needs to be changed. Purwa also added that in order to eliminate the piracy, the economic condition of people should improve. With that, he has this faith that the concept of online music store is in bright future, especially with the emerging technology nowadays.

Yesterday I met my thesis supervisor. We talked about my thesis from Chapter 1 (Background) to Chapter 4 (Results and Analysis). He asked me about the interviews and he told me to put it inside the thesis as my source of information. 

"You do have records from your interviews, rite?"

"Sure I do."

"Great. Because some of your friends didn't record it."

With putting everything at Posterous, how could I not having any records? :P 

So yeah, I'm jolting down my to-do list here.

*Now where's my Mickey Mouse notebook?*

Okay. First. Chapter 1.

See, this is why I said that my thesis supervisor is funky. We already THIS far (spread your arms wide. Be careful not to hit your sister or she'll bite you. Yeah, THAT far) from Chapter 1 to 4 yet he went back again to Chapter 1. 

So, from Chapter 1. I should fix these:

• Explain more about the definitions of 'major label'.
• Put a definition of 'fifteen-minutes of fame'. Hmm, I think I should rummage the Net to know about the dude who said that. Wait. Hmm, Salvador Dali? Er.. Yikes I forgot.
• Explain more about 'fair opportunities in having fame nowadays'. Yeah, should add 'with the aid of the Internet'.

After those sleepless and uneasy nights thinking about how on Earth I should face the jury at thesis defense later on with my oh-so-qualitative thesis (while I'm being paranoid about oh-so-quantitative juror appearing at my thesis defense), I decided to get myself a cup of Java and online survey. Pretty late I know, but rather than nothing at all -- and I also want to know the opinions from the users themselvs in percentage (%).

So, since my Posterous here helps me big time in tracking my thesis progress (also as my place of 2 cents. Many many 2 cents) I'm putting the temporary result of the online survey.

Number of respondents: Until this post is published, the number is 74.

71.62% of respondents are male.

Most of the respondents are from Generation X and Y (young adults) with 74.32% from total respondents.

48.65% from the respondents are spending >12 hours going online.

48.65% of the respondents spending their time mainly at microblogging services followed by 20.27% spending their time by checking e-mails.

95.95% of the respondents answered 'Hell Yes' when being asked "have you ever downloaded MP3 at the Net?"

Here in Indonesia, a song that being sold at online music store is being priced at 5000 IDR (US$ 0.5) and 52.7% of the respondents said that the price is acceptable.

Accessibility is the main factor about downloading music at the Net. When being asked, "if in one event you could download a song from online music store, what would be the reason?" 31.08% of respondents said that it would be the accessibility. They don't have to go outside to brick-and-mortar music store to buy the whole CD and 28.38% of the respondents said that it's about taste and ability to choose. They could choose songs that they like rather than buying the whole CD and listening to songs that they think so-so.

What is the reason of you for NOT downloading MP3 freely over the Net? 51.35% of the respondents said that the song is unavailable. 40.54% of respondents said that the quality is bad.

What is the reason of you for NOT downloading MP3 at online music store? LOL. As expected, 54.05% of the respondents asked back, "if I could get the stuffs freely over the Internet, why should I buy it?" While 33.78% of respondents pointed at the unavailability of micro-payment. At least for now.

Therefore, as the final question: "Are you positive that the concept of online music store is applicable in Indonesia?" 55.41% of respondents are being 'quite' optimistic by saying "Yes. For the next 10 years."

If you haven't joined the online survey, please join with us here. The survey is in Bahasa Indonesia :) Thank you very much :D

When somebody said that the Internet is powerful, I should admit it wholeheartedly. Never before, a question that being answered directly and in a matter of minutes or even seconds while the respondents are faraway in geographic term.

Therefore I would like to thank to my friends at Twitter and Plurk to help me out by giving their insights in an issue that I asked to them.

Say, for example, you're looking for this particular MP3. Which one you will choose; go to online music store and buy it with a price of a song is 5000 IDR (US$ 0.5) or spend some days and nights to search for the free MP3?

This is the result at Twitter, and this is the result at Plurk.

Quick analysis:

Despite the fact that here in the Internet we have this understanding about Free Stuffs - "anything that available at the Internet should be free/freeware/shareware" - and most people are willing to search their most-needed/most-wanted stuffs over the Internet for days and nights, some of them choose to buy it directly over the Internet. Interesting fact though, the question about 'moral', 'law' or 'legality' is not on the top priority. One of the reasons why some people choose to buy it legally over the Net is because the clear information about the MP3 (clear tag, nice quality with good standard).

While for those who choose to download it directly, they prefer it because of accessibility. There's this opinion of "if I could find it free over the Net, why should I pay for it?" The downloading/copying system is relying heavily on networking, links and ability to search.

On the time being, I'm thinking of blogging it and ask for inputs from my fellow blogger friends :)

Thank you to my friends at Twitter and Plurk for their most-needed insightful inputs :)

Here, I prove it.

According to Jorge Cham at PHD Comics -

Sounds Greek to you?

Here, how's this. Since last week, I've been looking for my lecturer like crazy. He completely vanished from this Earth surface. Nil. Nada. ZIP.

In my desperate attempt to search him, I really really 'searched' him.

Google and Ask Jeeves. Keywords: "Lecturer, where are you?"

According to Google, he's at Canberra, Australia. University of Canberra, to be exact.

According to Ask Jeeves, he's in United States. Spreaded randomly all over the continent.

Cool eh? Multiple presences.

Yes, it's true. Multiple Presences. Only the chosen people could acquire that skill that best. Ninja and lecturers.

In his own eerie way, Jorge Charm could put reality using comics.

However, my current status now is 'in dire need of my thesis supervisor'. LOL.

Me: "Hey, did you see my lecturer?"

Other person: "Well, I believe I JUST SAW HIM walked past here..."

Me: "He's not here."

Other person: "Well, I dunno then."

Me: *calling my lecturer* "Hello sir? Where are you? WHAT? YOU'RE ALREADY AT YOUR HOUSE?"

Yes yes, apparently yesterday I could meet my oh-so-beloved thesis supervisor at his office.

Anyway, we talked about my Chapter III (Research Methodology) and the framework. My thesis framework goes like this:

Rite. Okay.

Now please let me do some yoga to concentrate my mind about what the heck that picture is all about.

Okay, so, in this tiny cute mind of mine, I have this understanding that in every research, you have to have hypotheses. H₀ and H₁. H₀ would be your hypothesis and H₁ is your anti-hypothesis. For example, I have this H₀ where 'my baka-supervisor is retarded' and H₁ would be 'my baka-supervisor is not retarded. He's just imbecile'. Okay okay, at least you got the point.

So from that hypothesis (in more serious note - harharhar - my hypothesis would be: H₀. New media is affecting Indonesia's music industry's business model and H₁. New media is not affecting Indonesia's music industry's business model) I'm going into two ways of research. Qualitative and quantitative research.

In term of qualitative research, I'm prone to interviews with people from the industry itself (New Media and music industry) because in that way, I could get more insights and better understanding about the industry. For quantitative research, I will conduct it to the market itself because the reality that happened is that the industry itself is purely market-driven. Most of the times, the customers alone who decide who's stay and who's out. The industry itself couldn't dictate the market any longer. Thanks to the Internet, the market now has more and better options for them to choose. In fact, any promotional efforts that conducted by the companies are considered as disturbance and annoying for them.

From those two research methods, I'm hoping that I could get the insights from both parties and in the end, I could conclude my hypothesis.

HOWEVER, as my thesis supervisor told me yesterday, the possibility of two results contradict each other might happened. And when that happened, I'm in a deep shit.

So then he suggested that it would be better if I conduct qualitative (i.e interview with the experts) research first so then at least I could build my own baseline for my thesis. He even told me that rather laboring myself to build a hypothesis, better yet for me to have interview and have the hypothesis from that. Afterwards, I could build questionnaire for quantitative research.

Me: "But how if I didn't have sufficient time for it? I mean, I couldn't finish the quantitative research?"

Thesis supervisor: "Heck. Then lets just say that your thesis is PRELIMINARY STUDY! Those people at BiNus won't ask you a lot, heh heh."

Damn, I love my thesis supervisor :P

When I asked campus's staffs about this, they told me:

"Don't put your hopes too high. This guy always missing. He's as good as Ninja. Heck, I think he's one of KGB guys."

July 14 is not July 14?