5 Rdio Features for Music Enthusiasts

I've been using Rdio a few weeks now thanks to Glenn Peoples, and I'm impressed with their service. Below are 5 features that make Rdio a great experience for music enthusiasts:

1. select and listen to a specific artist, album and/or a specific track
2. create and share custom playlists, subscribe to your friends' playlists, or collaborate on their playlists
3. effortlessly write a review for a song and/or album (this data could be a great resource for artists, labels, managers and the like)
4. great social interface allowing users to easily see what their friends are listening to (vice-versa), as well as other Rdio users, and who is listening to the music you like (creating new opportunities for music discovery)
5. nice visualization of music collections (i'm assuming they'll add more visualizations)

Rdio will likely influence other music service providers to modify their offering with similar features and design, benefiting all music listeners, but there are a few areas where Rdio can improve:

• increase content, especially from unsigned artists with services like CD Baby and Tunecore
• easier queue creation/management for individual songs and albums (e.g. the drop down to add is cumbersome)
• tighter integration of music recommendations based on a user's listening activity; it's a bit separated from the experience at present

Write a Feature Article on IMT

If you would like to write a guest article on Indie Music Tech (IMT) and have it featured for about 24 hours promoting your new music tech startup, app/service/features, or discussing a music tech topic, just send me an email or submit your news via the tabs above. As Greg Rollett of Gen-Y Rock Stars suggests, writing guest posts on blogs is great way to build your brand, and if your content fits, I'll post it.

IMT reaches thousands of music industry professionals, artists, companies and media each month in almost 100 countries.

Benefits of Twitter Lists for Artists

Most everyone now has Lists enabled for their Twitter account, but what does this mean for you, the artist? Well, there are numerous ways to gain value from them. Below are 4 simple ways you could use Twitter Lists as a tool to help you maximize your tour and net the most income while on the road:

1. Keep track of other bands and musicians by region (e.g. Southeast, Northwest, Central, etc.), so while you're on the road you could see what they're doing and possibly headline swap, invite them to share the stage with you, meetup, etc.
2. Keep track of venues by region. Similar to above, the difference is that you're looking to see if there are any last minute openings or opportunities you may have not been aware of before hitting the road.
3. Keep track of your top fans by city (fan segmentation). Building relationships with your fans and superfans is vitally important, especially if you're trying to pack the house each night, and this is a great way to segment them via Twitter (tip: you may want to keep these lists private).
4. Discover. By doing the above, or creating another type of list for your band, you're going to discover some interesting people, artists, fans and more - nothing but a good thing, and it works equally for people discovering your band as you get added to Lists, which could open up more opportunities for you, so be creative and build some Lists.

There are lots of other ways Twitter Lists can help your band, these are just some examples to get you started. How do you plan to use Lists?

Inference is the Difference: Gaining Insight from Music Data Analytics

One of the goals of Band Metrics is to help artists and music industry professionals gain insight from the quantitative and qualitative data we collect, as identifying correlations can be the difference between increasing revenue for your band, or spinning your wheels guessing as to how your fans interact, share and listen to your music. Below are two recent screencasts that help demonstrate a couple of the areas we're working on to make meaning out of your music data (view more of our screencasts here).

The first screencast demonstrates how radio play data (soon social data) could help you build relationships with broadcast stations that are, or are not playing your music. The second one provides a suggested tour map based on the data we're collecting about your band. These are both experimental mapping features at this point, one of the reasons why we're still in private beta, but we thought you might like to see them if you don't have an account:

Gauging Artist Popularity

Traditional music rankings seem to display an antiquated way of determining popularity and gauging success. For example, companies like Billboard and CMJ posit to accurately rank/chart artists based on variables such as CD sales, digital downloads, radio plays and ticket sales. However, CD sales are diminishing, and digital downloads and ticket sales represent only a portion of how an artist's popularity can be measured, as music enthusiasts have changed the way in which they consume music. Not to mention, many artists are giving away some of their music, and tours are only temporary reflections of popularity.

Online music providers from Deezer to Rhapsody also fall short, as true popularity can not be determined from web silos that collect data solely from within their own community.

With that said, a more holistic approach must be developed - one that considers the dynamics and trends of plays, sharing, recommending, comments, blog posts, faves, et al. from scores of web apps, and this is part of the service that we at Band Metrics have been working on long before our announcement at TechCrunch50. Internally, we call it the Popularity Profiling System, a patent-pending technology that scores bands and musicians using algorithms and other approaches. At present, there are 10 ways in which we score bands and musicians, and many of these scores are now available on our system. Since only a limited group of bands and individuals have seen our service in action, I'm not going to tip our hat at this time as to what these scores are, but, thousands of bands and musicians will be able to see their scores over the next few days as we continue to expand our private beta, so I'm sure word will begin to travel, and we'd love to hear your feedback!

In sum, my hypothesis is not intended to be critical of music ranking companies, but rather, cursorily unpack how we understand and gauge popularity relative to bands and musicians, as it seems this can only be sufficiently achieved through a scoring system that examines online information about artists from across the Internet landscape.

Btw, our system is far from perfect, but it will continue to evolve and adapt so please be patient, and please let us know how we can improve our scoring and analytics.

Notes from the New Metrics Panel at the Leadership Music Digital Summit

A couple of days ago I was on a panel discussion with some old and new friends about artist analytics at the Leadership Music Digital Summit in Nashville. We had a great conversation and since Denis Barnabé asked if there was a summary, I am providing an overview of the comments I made:

• Band Metrics is a data analytics and decision support system for the music industry. What that means is that our system collects comprehensive information about musicians and bands from across the Internet landscape, providing insights about this data in an easy-to-use dashboard. For example, Band Metrics can provide insight into what social networks are the most effective for an artist, helping an artist make decisions as to where he/she should spend their time, energy and resources.
• By understanding how your fans are using your music, and what they're saying about your music, you are unveiling your fans' online behaviors and personalities - likes and dislikes - a level of view never before possible. This in turn creates endless ways for you to engage and collaborate with them in meaningful ways.
• For Band Metrics, analysis of artist data is not about finding new ways to sell music; rather, it's about finding ways to build meaningful relationships with your fans, connecting with them in deeper ways. As such, increased sales for artists becomes a byproduct of building a great fan relationship.
• Getting to the question of why an artist and/or song is popular, while difficult and a long-term future capability, is exciting. That is to say, Band Metrics hopes to eventually understand why ground swells form from particular social communities around particular bands, songs and/or genres.
• The comment from our moderator that sometimes we measure the wrong things and rely on data we later learn is inaccurate is a true statement, and it’s one of the reasons why we believe that measuring artist data is a process. That is to say, it's going to take time and it will be a collaborative effort with bands and musicians, as artist data is only as good as the analysis and visualization performed.
• Band Metrics is tracking large amounts of data. For example, if you take one song from one band on one day, you’re going to have data relative to playing, downloading, commenting, sharing, recommending, liking, etc., so there are multiple challenges to collecting and analyzing this kind of data, for example: retrieval from disparate music services, data associations, storage, indexing and searching the data, data visualizations, and understanding behavioral patters surrounding the data, among other challenges.
• It's an exciting time to be an artist. There are more opportunities than ever before, and Band Metrics is aimed at helping artists tease out what those opportunities are through analyzing and experimenting over and over.

Social Influences on our Music Tastes

One of the reasons Band Metrics is being developed is to provide an application that will help display insight into some of the social interactions that influence success for bands, musicians and songs. To help further understand these social drivers, I've been going back to some of the sociologists and philosophers I've studied in the past. The one I've been focusing on lately is the German philosophical sociologist and musicologist, Theodor W. Adorno.

If I understand Adorno correctly, he seems to suggest that our individual music tastes within our social groups only contain minor differences, as the different artists we are listening to are producing similar music. Interesting position, and if that's correct, then what are the social drivers that cause one band to break out above all of the other bands we like? What impact do the influencers (i.e. tastemakers) of a group have on the band's rise? Do these tastemakers change overtime, within particular demographics and/or geographic locations?

It seems that part of Adorno's premise is that our musical tastes are not developed in a vacuum. Rather, they are developed out of contexts, and intricately and subtly constructed from within the social groups we are apart of (e.g. friends, family, colleagues, etc.). But, they are also seemingly deconstructed overtime, for example, as our social groups change, like when one transitions from high school to college.

Do you think Adorno's position is valid? What and/or who do you think are the influencers of the music you listen to? Do you tend to agree with them on their music recommendations?

Guest Post: Do Bands and Musicians Understand What is Happening Online Right Now?

The guest post below was written by my friend, Greg Rollett of Endagon Innovations. Greg writes regularly on Gen-Y Rock Stars, a Social Music Marketing Blog and Resource for indie musicians. To get a free copy of his Social Media Sites for Musicians and the Rock Star Tool Kit, go here. If you'd like to reach Greg directly, please send him an email (rollettmarketing [at] gmail [dot] com).

(confused music photo by Adam Schilling)

Do Bands and Musicians Understand What is Happening Online Right Now?
I ask myself this question everyday when I see all of the small companies, corporations, brands and innovators taking advantage of tools, resources and conversations that are happening every second of every day online. I get scared when I see musicians still parking their homepage on Myspace, blasting out self promotions with no regards to getting real fans to have conversations with and not accepting feedback from that promotion.

We can start with Twitter, since everyone from the president to late night newbie Jimmy Fallon to, even, Facebook is taking notice of what is happening on this platform. Every second, there are thousands of links being shared, videos being passed, questions being asked and answered and music being streamed directly because of Twitter. In the music world there has been uproar of music related services and platforms devoted to heighten the music experience of Twitter. Roll call please:

Twisten
TinySong
Blip.fm
Tweettj
Song.ly
playTwitter
Twiturm
TwittyTunes (FireFox Plugin)

Then there are the Music Marketing people providing resources for how musicians can leverage twitter:

• Bob Baker’s Music Twitter Resources
• Ariel’s Publicity Twitter Roadmap

And don’t forget the ridiculously long crowd-sourced list of musicians on Twitter

• Musicians On Twitter – (Google spreadsheet)

But did you know that? Do bands see what is going on here?
Technology shrank physical sales and transformed us into a digital world. If you are willing to accept that fact, and embrace the tools, tactics and hard work that it takes to make these things work, there is a great chance that your music can be in more iPods, more YouTube channels, more blogs, more playlists, more countries, more options that ever before.

The key to getting the word out to musicians is to prove that this stuff we are preaching actually works. The reason Myspace friend adders/blasters/spammers were extremely popular and ultimately helped to ruin the site was because they worked. It was a numbers game, reach enough people and a few become fans.

The reality is that numbers were inflated, play counts skyrocketed and bands felt like the king of the mountain. Then you booked a show off your Myspace stats, invited the local music industry players who were also impressed, and you played an unrehearsed live show to the bartenders, wait staff and your frat buddies.

The reality is that developing fan relationships is the key to all the tools and websites out there today. The name of the game has become, how many people can I connect with, on a personal level?

• Can you broadcast your show via UStream and connect with fans that may never get to see you live?
• Can you throw a Meebo widget on your blog and talk to fans every Monday night for an hour about life, music, hobbies and pet peeves?
• Can you take photos at your shows with real fans, post them on Flickr, Facebook and Myspace, tag them and get the fans excited to tell their friends about the night? Can you do it the next morning and not wait 3 weeks to get around to it?
• Can you write a blog post so inspiring that 20 of your fans retweet it, their friends see it and pass it on and all of a sudden you get new traffic from new fans?
• Can you remember to send your monthly newsletter out every month? Can you use Champion Sound or FanBridge to collect emails on your websites and at your shows to grow your fan base?
• Can you look at your band's analytics to see how popular your music is, with whom, in what social networks, gauge where your fans are coming from, etc.?
• Can you create products on demand? Special shirts for special shows? Audiolife can do this for you, instantly. What about a lyrics book or a tour journal? Can you publish that as an eBook or physical book that someone can print on demand (think Lulu)?

The idea that musicians can now create content, have their fans talk about it directly to the band, and then have the band comment back while measuring the process and results is something that is so inspiring, it’s hard to find a reason to argue against it. Yes, it takes time, it might take some money, but this is your life, your business and your future.

Do you understand what is happening? Bands, do you get it?

New Design for Indie Music Tech

Just launched a new design for Indie Music Tech created by our very own Jared England, and integrated by TypePad Hacks. It still has a few bugs we're hammering out, but I welcome your feedback, comments and suggestions. Here's a screen shot of the old design. Is the new one an improvement?

Notes from Midem Panel: Why Knowing your Fans Matters

Yesterday I was a participant on a panel at Midem called, "Why Knowing your Fans Matters." We had a great conversation, and below are brief notes from some of the comments I made, albeit the ones I can remember:

• at least 3 technology advancements have created an environment that has significantly changed the music industry
  
  • ubiquitous access (high speed, mobile, WiFi, etc)
  • widespread social network adoption
  • decreased cost and increased speed to develop web apps
• there is a significant amount of data being produced every day by both artists, labels and music listeners
• at present, there are at least two types of data that can be collected relative to artists: quantitative and qualitative
• examples of quantitative data include numbers of plays, downloads, fans, etc.
• qualitative data is information that is pulled from what is being said about artists (e.g. blogs, reviews, comments in social networks, etc.)
• Understanding this data is important to an artist as it provides insights about trends and opinions relative to your music, and it's the service Band Metrics will provide
• data is only as good as the analysis that's performed relative to the needs of artists
• there are multiple challenges to collecting and analyzing data about musicians and bands including:
  • retrieval from disparate music services
  • storage, indexing and searching music related information
  • prediction analysis, AI and understanding behavioral patters surrounding music and artists
• getting to the question of why an artist and/or song is popular, while difficult is exciting
• the wisdom of crowds is not always the correct analysis as demonstrated in the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis
• Another book I mentioned was The Numerati by Stephen Baker

As soon as I receive the video of the panel, I will post it here on Indie Music Tech. Many thanks to Bruce, Neil and Cory for allowing me to share the stage with them.

UPDATE: Here's a summary of the discussion.

Musebin: 140 Character Micro Music Reviews

Musebin may become the equivalent of Twitter for music reviews. Like Twitter, Musebin has a minimalistic interface that only allows for 140 character postings, but Musebin is focused solely on music reviews and news. I'm enthusiastic about this site as it opens up a band's ability to tap into the wisdom of crowds and find out what their fans think about their music. Not to mention, it's fun to use! I just posted a review myself.

Additionally, each review can be commented on and voted "yea" or "nay." The idea is that what the community believes is the best music, and/or most accurate reviewers will rise to the top of Musebin. This in-turn may create a new group of influencers.

This is a web app that I think all bands and musicians should use, and encourage their fans to use too. Not only will it provide them with feedback about their music, but it will also help them connect with other artists, and spread the word about their music as well. Musebin is also integrated with Twitter, so micro reviews about your music can be tweeted from Musebin at the same time, further contributing to the development of your tribe.

It's no revelation that the music industry has shifted to a singles market, and that fans are engaging artists like never before. These are perfect ingredients for a company like Musebin, as fans will embrace the speed and ease-of-use of posting micro reviews about their favorite new tunes, and artists can benefit by understanding their fan's sentiments about their music.

Rumblefish Agreement with YouTube is Most Significant Music Tech Deal of 2008

This afternoon I reflected a little bit on the last 12 months of news from the music tech industry, and I would submit that the Rumblefish Agreement with YouTube is the most significant music tech deal of 2008. A bold claim? Maybe, but hundreds of millions of people are watching billions of videos each month when you consider the entire global Internet population. That's a ton of potential revenue for artists and labels working with Rumblefish, and the deal will surely bring thousands of new artists to Rumblefish.

Another way to look at this deal is to conduct a simple search for videos on YouTube. It seems there are are currently about 360 million videos on YouTube. Even if you cut that number in half to account for duplicates, vlogs, channels, removed videos, erroneous search results etc., you're still talking about 120 million plus videos, and growing every minute, a trajectory that seems to be in line with Kansas State University's YouTube statistics from January through March of 2008.

It's easy to see that these numbers represent substantial revenue opportunities for the music industry, and I'm excited for artists, as this agreement will become an easy way for individuals to incorporate legal music into their videos.

So hats off to Rumblefish!

5 Posts on Indie Music Tech from 2008 for Independent Artists

Below are 5 posts I picked from Indie Music Tech during the past year that offer some helpful insight and information for independent artists, and they're worth reading if you missed them (listed chronologically):

• Musician Introductions: Bringing Back the MC (January 30, 2008)
• Music Videos as Viral Marketing: Lessons Learned (April 10, 2008)
• Calling Attention to your Music by Derek Sivers (May 22, 2008)
• The Advance Guard's take on DIY, Social Media, Marketing, Podcasts and more (July 21, 2008)
• 100 Social Media Resources for Musicians (December 12, 2008)

Band Name Etymologies

I was thinking about a naming convention for Band Metrics' servers when I stumbled upon this Wikipedia page that explains the origins of names for over 100 bands. It's an interesting list that also links to a list of bands that were named for other artists' songs. Here's a snippet of some of this trivia:

• Collective Soul - a term used in the popular novel The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
• The Replacements - legend has it they were given a gig after another band failed to show, and when asked who they were, they replied, "We're the Replacements"
• Death Cab for Cutie - named after Bonzo Dog Band's song, "Death Cab for Cutie" on their album Gorilla
• Foo Fighters - a term used by World War II pilots to describe strange flying fireballs they sometimes saw

Thanksgiving from Band Metrics

As some of you already know, Band Metrics closed an angel round of funding on Monday, but I'm publicizing the news today - you can read the official announcement here. This is a huge milestone for Band Metrics, as it further validates the business model, especially in this economy. Not to mention, the investment was led by Atlanta-based entrepreneur Allen Graber, a well known technology angel, and I am deeply grateful for his trust, support and friendship.

As I spend time with my family tomorrow, I will also be giving thanks to all of our investors, friends and musicians that believe in Band Metrics - here's wishing you all, and my readers, music enthusiasts and fellow entrepreneurs a wonderful thanksgiving!

Music Technology Turns up Investment Volume: a few stats and trends

Is it me, or is music technology off to a great year! Since January (just over 100 days ago), VCs have invested over $58 million into music tech companies, and that doesn't even include deals where the terms weren't disclosed, like INGrooves. Moreover, most of these investments were aimed at companies marketing their services to the indie music industry, so that's great news for musicians and bands looking for tools to build and manage their careers. Here's a couple of stats and a quick summary of some of this activity since the beginning of 2008 (If you know of more, just drop me an email and I'll add it to the list):

updated July 08, 2008:

• Topspin secures Series B financing via Foundry Group (July 07, 2008)
• MOG secures $2.8 million (April 29)
• Imeem secures additional funding (April 15)
• Sellaband scores $5 million (April 8)
• MTraks raises $500K (April 7)
• Imeem acquires Snocap (April 7)
• MySpace announces joint venture with major labels (April 2)
• Universal Music Group invests in INGrooves (April 1)
• OurStage secures $13 million (April 1)
• Universal and Interscope invest $25 million in Buzznet (March 29)
• iLike users triple to 22 million (February 21)
• Imeem acquires Anywhere.FM (January 28)
• 7digital raises $8.5 million (January 28)
• The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry announces that global digital sales for 2007 were up 40 percent from the previous year to $2.9 billion (January 24)
• We7 secures an additional $6 million (January 21)
• Motorola acquires Soundbuzz (January 7)
• Also, the term "Music" has been mentioned in about 20,000 blog posts almost every day since January 1 (see below):

It looks like the music industry's tail is becoming a powerful whip! Btw, I review these kinds of music related companies here, so if you're involved with one and would like me to write about it, just send me an email.
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I was listening to the : Red Hot Chili Peppers as I wrote this post.

Recovering Recording Costs, a Response by Jimmy Ether

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the challenges musicians face trying to recoup their recording costs. Specifically, I asked how bands and musicians that do not tour frequently recover these expenses when the general public wants their music for free? Jimmy Ether, a musician, engineer and studio owner responded with such thoughtful and detailed comments that I thought his reply would be better suited as its own post, so here it is:

"Hey man, just taking a peak at your blog and thought I'd offer my perspective on all this. First, a little correction on the recording side of thing. There is a big difference in major label and indie rates in the recording business. There are literally dozens of good recording studios in every major city who provide great quality recording at around $500 a day, and a lot of those are having to cut deals to entice the home recordists to step up in quality. $1500/day studios are strictly for major label acts and there isn't a single sane independent artist that would use them.

That said, it would be quite impossible in this day and age to track and record an album in less than a week and you'd need another week to mix (unless you are, like Frank Black, going completely live to 2-track. Most records take about 3 to 4 weeks. But, you're price is pretty close. Most quality indie "studio" records are made in between $4000-$10,000.

I agree that there is no way the industry can function on a entirely free model, but I also firmly believe that most bands and labels are far too short-sighted with their tight-hold on their music. Free music goes both ways. If you can entice (essentially link-bait) press, bloggers, fanatical music lovers, etc. to write, talk, review, distribute and promote your music by giving them music for free, then your gain far outweighs your cost (in fact, in digital, the cost is essentially nil provided that the person otherwise would never have purchased it). There just have to be terms and limits. You have to figure out the value of a digital asset verses the potential value of an action resulting from allowing that asset to be given to someone free. The more direct control you have over that, the better return on investment.

There is also a pricing:convenience ratio. If the price is reasonable enough and the payment/download process is significantly easier than dealing with P2P, a large enough percentage of people will buy the download to make it profitable. $1 a song... is *not* that price.

I'd love to see a number on the budget being spent to subvert P2P file-sharing. If that amount were instead spent on making the experience easier for the consumer and *especially* on artist development (which is basically non-existent these days), then the industry as a whole would be in a much better position.

People who trade on P2P are a label and band's best friend when you get the model right. They are DJs sans-payola. P2P is the new radio. It is practically impossible for an indie-band to get attention without them. Just look at the correlation between the artists who are traded on these networks with the playlists on top college radio, 'zine coverage, indie store sales rankings, paid digital downloads, and blog coverage. Is it that the media is feeding the P2P? Nope, because the records are getting leaked (by, *cough* smart label promoters) to P2P *way* before even press copies get mailed. They'll never admit that in public, but the smart ones know it works.

I'm not saying the Radiohead model works. It doesn't, *unless* you are already a famous artist on the level of Radiohead. They only rose to that level because millions of dollars were spent in the promotion of their previous albums. Promotion costs a lot of money and far eclipses production and manufacturing costs. That's a budget that has to come from somewhere. And where to find that money is the major problem we face with new industry models.

Good blog BTW!"

Great feedback Jimmy, and I agree with you that P2P can certainly be a musician/band's best friend "when you get the model right." This philosophy also seems to be the direction Larry Lessig is suggesting, as seen in this video - as it becomes a middle ground where P2P becomes the distribution vehicle for music, but artists are still compensated.

Again, thanks for your detailed reply, and best wishes in 2008!

Btw readers, the picture in this post is of Jimmy Ether's  studio.

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As I finished this post, I was listening to: Melpo Mene - Hello Benjamin via FoxyTunes

Dumpstaphunk

Recently, Greg Hester turned me onto Dumpstaphunk. If you love the Meters, than you gotta check these guys out. Led by Ivan Neville (piano/organ) and Ian Neville (guitar), sons of Aaron Neville and Art Neville, and rounded out by Nick Daniels (guitar), Raymond Weber (drums) and Tony Hall (bass), Dumpstaphunk pushes the envelope of exploratory funk jams to a new level with tunes like Stinky, Meanwhile and Livin in a World Gone Mad. These players are simply fantastic! Having played with musicians like Trey Anastasio, Robert Randolph and Etta James, these guys are living up to their disclaimer: "the nastiest, most serial crushin funk to ever come out of New Orleans and beyond." They're playing NYE if you're heading to Fish City; I don't think you'll be disappointed.

These guys are just too good not to get the word out.

No Free Music Lunch for Indie Musicians

Ever since the release of In Rainbows, there has been a flood of posts claiming that music will soon be free... Really? Is that what an indie musician wants? Who's going to pay for the production of the music you want for free? For indie musicians, these costs are significant. For example, most good recording studios in the US charge at least $1,500 per day and you would be lucky to record an entire album in two days. Than you have to consider mixing, editing and mastering costs which add about another $1,000, so you are looking at a minimum of about $4,000 in recording costs alone. Sure, you can find less expensive studios and even inexpensive online mastering, but

The Return of the Single?

About 20 years ago, I used to purchase cassette singles of my favorite bands of that time (e.g. Guadalcanal Diary, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Smiths, etc.). Typically these kinds of tapes had the top two cuts from the LP and/or a track that was not included on the final release. It was an inexpensive way for me to find new music without buying the entire album. But, most bands stopped producing singles in the late eighties, as there was more money in selling a full length CD instead. So like most everyone, I had to buy entire albums and would just skip over the songs I wasn't a fan of.