MOGging out

I’m happy to say that I’m working at MOG now.

The place has a scrappy startup style but is stable and well managed. They bring their hearts to the product. They’ve survived remarkably long in the brutal internet music business.

My title is product manager. I’ll keep what I’m working on confidential in the short term, but not for long.

I have to say a little bit about the subscription business. Just a little, but something.

I think subscriptions are a worthwhile thing to work on. The internet music industry is full of smoke and mirrors, and subscriptions are not that. Yes subscription companies often make lame software, but they don’t have to. Subscriptions to an on-demand stream service can be fun, useful, usable, awesome.

I don’t think everybody in the world is going to get a subscription, and I don’t think subscription companies need that big a market to be healthy businesses. I don’t think the fate of the music business rests on the shoulders of the subscription music companies.

All these companies have to do is please their customers and earn profits for their shareholders, and I think MOG has the chops to pull it off.

I’ll be moving to San Fran for the job. I’ll miss my friends in LA and lots of things about the city. I don’t like moving. But the bay area is the real homeland for web developers, even ones like me that specialize in music.

Category: Uncategorized 17 comments »

17 Responses to “MOGging out”

  1. Duncan Freeman
    February 17th, 2010 at 4:46 pm

    congratulations Lucas! MOG is a great service/company and you’ll be an invaluable asset to them!
  2. sull
    February 17th, 2010 at 4:57 pm

    Nice!
  3. Jay Fienberg
    February 17th, 2010 at 5:02 pm

    Wow, congrats Lucas!

    I think subscription access to music is like a natural model. That there is an often artificial boundary between streaming / downloading / in-the-cloud / local-copy is something that hopefully can mostly disappear from the user experience.

    Look forward to what you create at MOG. And, looking forward to you living in SF long enough to stop calling in San Fran ;-)
  4. jim
    February 17th, 2010 at 5:37 pm

    Nice! Great get for David and T Jay.
  5. SteveR
    February 17th, 2010 at 6:14 pm

    Lucas – LA will miss you. Congrats and good luck!
  6. victor
    February 17th, 2010 at 6:47 pm

    outstanding on all fronts
  7. Daniel Raffel
    February 17th, 2010 at 10:51 pm

    Congrats, Lucas! Look forward to catching up when you’re up in SF.
  8. Lucas Gonze
    February 18th, 2010 at 9:04 am

    Thanks, pals!

    Jay, I plan to keep calling it “San Fran” no matter how long I live there. Also I’m planning to use completely wrong nicknames like “The Hub” and “The Big Apple.”

    Sample usage:
    It sure is foggy here in the big apple.
    There are a lot of great things about the hub, but the golden gate bridge is the best part of all.
  9. Lucas Gonze
    February 18th, 2010 at 9:04 am

    Also, “Frisco” is going to make a comeback, at least in my vocabulary.
  10. Jim
    February 18th, 2010 at 10:07 am

    Congratulations, Lucas.
  11. Brandon Casci
    February 18th, 2010 at 10:29 am

    Best of luck helping to make subscription services more compelling. I’m sure you can do it.
  12. Bruce Warila
    February 18th, 2010 at 11:35 am

    Congrats. There is a lot to work with there.
  13. gurdonark
    February 19th, 2010 at 4:58 am

    Congratulations on your new position. I don’t know anything about MOG, so I’ll have to bing it up.

    I’m never sure which model will be “the” model for music. I suspect we’ll find that a lot of different models are used until a service makes an impact as large as early iTunes but at a far better price/DRM structure than early iTunes.

    I write this from a business trip to San Francisco, to which I come fairly often There are worse places to move to than here. It will be interesting to see what the down economy means in terms of rental opportunities and the like.

    I’d think there will be lots of venues to play your kind of music here.
  14. max engel
    February 20th, 2010 at 12:18 pm

    congrats on the new gig! i’m excited to see what problem you set your sights on solving next. hopefully you’ll be able to continue your work on helping make the consumption and sharing of music easier for both developers and end-users.

    we’ll miss having you in the LA community, and best of luck!
  15. Todd Sun
    March 8th, 2010 at 7:39 pm

    Congrats Lucas! I think this is a great “move” for you and a lucky addition for Mog.
  16. Lucas Gonze
    March 10th, 2010 at 5:32 pm

    Thanks, friends! I appreciate it.
  17. Josh Kinberg
    March 11th, 2010 at 10:44 am

    Just seeing this now! Congrats and hope we get a chance to catch up soon!

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