The new year is coming. How can I get poppin', all right? What's gonna be relevant? What are the new things that I should be doing? What are the old things that I should be doing to make my music move in this next year? And marketing moves so fast. I think a lot of artists miss out on the things that already turned the curve. You gotta stop doing that. So for this conversation, we wanna talk about overrated music marketing tactics for this year to come. What you think about the playlist name? Are you gonna overrated with that one or no? Yeah. You talked about it. Yeah, it's overrated, bro. Okay. So what we were talking about pre-show is I was saying that it's still a relevant conversation for artists at a certain level. If we go back to my zero to 10 example, I'll keep using super relevant conversation between people from like a zero to like a three. You know what I'm saying? I think the higher you get, the more you start to either have discernment for playlisting or you start to understand more about how it fits into the overall marketing infrastructure. Right? And so what I've come to see playlisting as is it is one, just a social proof builder, right? Hey, this thing was gonna do 50,000 streams. Let me put an extra 100K on it. So I look nicer to my investors or to that booking agent I'm talking to or to that, you know, that I don't know that product guy that wants to maybe give me a sponsorship, right? Let me do things that make the numbers look big to people who are not able to get full context in this space. Right. And then on top of that, it's a bragging moment. Like once you talk about like getting into like editorial playlist, right? Not like the necessarily running a meal like third party plays, but like, you know, like your most necessary or you know what I'm saying? Like those editorials, those are more like bragging moments, one within the industry, but then two to your audience because their audience typically doesn't understand what hoops you have to jump through or somebody around you had to jump through to get you on those. So it's cool to say, hey, I got it on most necessary. Great, you know what I'm saying? Go listen to it. Oh, that's great. Great for you. Write some good celebratory moment within your fan base. Outside of that, those two things it doesn't hit. It never hits like people needed to. And I'm talking about at all levels, bro.  It might have been like Teardrop or something. Like it was huge. And like, they let me look at their backhand looks and what came from it. And the string spike to drop off looks exactly the same as when you get an independent playlist. Right? So I'm like, oh, this issue isn't even a bot playlist issue. It's not an independent curator playlist issue. This is just an issue across playlisting as a whole.  You know what I'm saying? It's a pretty big playlist, especially in that space. So it's like, you literally can see it. The spike, then the curve drop off. And then it's back to probably just his core audience. Maybe a small bump in the floor from like new people coming from the most part. Like it didn't go back to, things didn't go back to like, you know, exactly as they were before the playlist. But like the increase in the floor was like very, like small compared to like what they saw during the spike. And so that completely changed the way I looked at playlisting. Cause I was like, okay. But I watched everything else in a moment. You know, he's on it. I'm watching him get, you know, these people reach out to him and congratulating them. And you know what I'm saying? Offering all these things, the social proofing aspect of it, right? Hey, this big platform thought you were important enough.  You know what I'm saying? So I saw that aspect of it. And like I just saw like, like I saw the social proofing part of it kind of get put into play. And then looking at the analytics is like, okay, this is the fan aspect of it. But like they came in, it's cool. They drop off and go about whatever. I don't think he ever got crazy. Like other platform engagement from being on it could be wrong. I actually do remember seeing one comment on one of his YouTube videos that mentioned seeing him in the playlist. So that was pretty cool, right? Like, but even that goes back to the fan brag moment, right?  This is my favorite artist, bro. He's an XYZ playlist. He's the cover of XYZ playlist. Like those are typically the only two moments where it seems like playlisting cares. Celebratory moment, if you're trying to be a social proofing or something.  Overwrite it. Stand on it. I'm gonna go 100% and I think the problem is the lack of culture with playlist. When I say that, I mean, if you look at a brand as a playlist, brands have trouble scaling and maintaining culture and taste, all right? I mentioned this earlier on another episode and if you're not really looked at as a true curator, why will people continue to follow? Most playlists, people get into because of convenience, not out of a cultural pool, you know? So if I see the R&B playlist on Spotify, A, R, E and B, you know how they flip titles and stuff, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm in the R&B mood today and I wanna check that out. I'm gonna follow that playlist, right? But it's not because of true culture and I'm not looking at it and checking on it repeatedly like I might with somebody who's a taste maker that I like on TikTok that says, oh, this music is good and they're already putting me onto new artists, all right? And there's an association in context of telling me why I like it, right? Like Sean C saying I like or don't like this because X, Y and Z, all right? So there's that element that's missing from almost everything as you scale up it becomes really difficult to maintain that with artists, right? That's how people always graduate into selling out in some way, but then on the other side of it it becomes even more difficult when you're a faceless brand, all right? So you're just a, you're really a graphic. That's what you are to me on Spotify. I don't really know anything about you anywhere else. I probably only follow you on Instagram, anything else like that. There's no lifestyle I associate.  So why am I gonna keep checking up on this playlist? So it makes it difficult and if you talk about these editorial playlists you look at the benefit on Spotify side the benefit is there for people to continue to go to the playlist cause it's like, yo this playlist is really powerful. So we can keep churning and adding to this playlist and focusing on building this playlist because it's bringing us more activity on the platform and that's exactly what we want. However, Spotify finds benefit in that but they aren't limited to benefit from just that. What if that doesn't work? What if that's too hard? What does Spotify also get benefit from? Well, you follow me another playlist on the platform, right? So yeah, there was this general R&B playlist but now it's Valentine's. So I'm just gonna pop up this Valentine's day photo and it's gonna have some other same artists possibly and you're gonna follow that playlist and it's still my playlist and I'm still getting the listenership, right? So I don't really care as much about building a culture around a single playlist. Spotify is in constant sales mode, right? That's why they're always changing the covers, right? Changing these names with something clever to constantly attract you in because they know the user can get a little lazy and they're gonna find the thing that pulls their attention in at the moment. So they have to recapture attention again and again, refreshing these headlines. That's what you see now on Netflix and these other platforms too where they'll have five, six different covers.  Let him see a different character and think it's a different movie for a second. You know what I mean? Because we're still gonna get the benefit as long as you stream, period, you know? So that culture is in there, which makes me think the stronger culture I've seen around a Spotify playlist editorial specifically was the rap caviar. That was what I was aware of, right? I feel like it was kind of weakened. And that was what I was about to ask you, what is your insight or thought on the power of rap caviar today versus what it was before? Yeah, I'd never thought about this before, but just thought about it because of what you said about the faces brand thing. Yeah. At the time when rap caviar was really popping was when what's his name? Tumah Basa was the one running it. And he was the one Spotify curator that we knew was over it, right? And then he leaves and then it goes back to every, now every playlist on Spotify is faceless now. Yeah. So I think that's what happened.  Now, of course a lot of the consumers don't necessarily know who Tumah is, but he was such a strong face in the industry built up, you know, people, he has so much face card in the industry that 100%, he was a curator and influencer within the industry that in many ways influenced the outer industry. Yeah, it's the same way with what was it? Carl Sherry and Apple? When Apple, yeah. And now he's at Spotify now, right? I think so, yeah. So it was like that, these were the two playlist brands where I could go find the person that made it and like follow them on Instagram or meet them at a conference where I versus like today, I don't know who updates Teardrop, you know what I'm saying? I don't know who updates most necessary and maybe some intern, you know what I'm saying? But we'll never know. And so yeah, I think that's what kind of killed it off. It's like that cultural tie that's kind of like failed by the wayside because artists wanna partner with a person, not an entity, you know what I'm saying? People wanna partner with a person. Yeah, people wanna partner with people. Yeah, exactly. Like be able to have a face attached to it. So yeah, but I've never thought about that till you said the whole like people thing.  Maybe they're like TikTokers or YouTubers and things. And usually those players are the best playlist. Like they have the most engagement. You see like high scale impact relative to like whatever you may have had to pay or do to get onto the playlist. You can see the impact carry over into their audience, right? So you could very much so hit a TikToker for a promo post on their page, getting their playlist and then see the effect that that whole line is having on that fan that found you from them. I saw your post, when his players listened to it, I thought that she was fired and boom, I'm back, right? And so I do think like, playlists thing still has its place in music. I do think if we could really graph out all of the music marketing things you could do, like I would put it on there. I do think there's a time when it makes sense. I just think for most rising artists, it doesn't make sense. One, because you probably are not getting on the playlist that can have that type of impact for you.  Because now you're getting all this traffic in so fast from this like relatively unreliable source that you can't accurately fine tune like the other parts of your machine, right? It's like we had a campaign once where I remember we were building out the artist's ad funnel, nothing crazy, maybe like a $500 ad budget.  It's very clear to see like where that's coming from, right? But then the artist gets into a playlist and then it jumps out to doing 10,000 streams a day. And now I can't see where the ad phone is having an impact, right? I can't see where my influencer strategy is having an impact. I can't see where my content strategy is having an impact because you overrided it with all this playlisting traffic. And so I think that playlisting for a majority of artists makes sense when you have other legitimate parts of your fan funnel built out, right? Like you have your content influencer, whatever that looks like for you, if you can see a very clear correlation between you doing this thing or a thing and Z output being made and you have tried and done up to see that it consistently works, at that point I can understand when the artist wants to do playlisting. Yeah, I equate that to constraints and marketing. That's how we look at it, right? When we think about scaling the company, we marketers, right? We can market our ads off, create all kinds of viral campaigns, cool campaigns, we can do that. But what does that matter if our infrastructure isn't built out and there's no business set in place that can capitalize off of the marketing that occurs, right? And then there's no operations within that business that truly can fulfill to the scale of the marketing. So we're constantly at this ebb and flow, oh, let's build the infrastructure to a certain place. And then we can scale using all types of tactics, playlisting will fall as a part of that, like one of the top layers of scale in what your analogy is, right?  But when you think about those tiers, it's always starting with, well, hey, do I have enough infrastructure in place? And if I'm marketing, is it overrated to start it now or is it overrated to start it later? Because that's what this whole list comes down to, right? Like it's not, none of these things are useless, right? But their usefulness comes down to when they're executed. Yeah, 100% context. Context is everything. That's like my motto, man. That's like my life motto for real. Like I hate things out of context.  And those nuances make a massive impact. Let me take a quick second to say, if you're an artist trying to blow your music up or if you're a manager, a music professional in general, trying to help an artist blow their music up, I have something that's a game changer for you and it's completely free. As you may know, we've helped multiple artists go from zero to hundreds of thousands of streams. We've helped multiple artists go from hundreds of thousands to millions of streams, chart on Billboard, GoViral, all of that stuff. And we've now made the way we've branded multiple artists and helped them go viral completely free, step by step in Brandman Network. All you have to do is check out brandmannetwork.com. You apply, it's completely free. But the thing is, we're not gonna let everybody in forever so the faster you apply, the better your chance of getting accepted. Brandmannetwork.com, check it out, back to the video. So with that being said, let's get to the next thing that's a little overrated. Chikori, put them on game in terms of these TikTok influencers. Where are we with TikTok influencers? Yeah, TikTok influencers are super overrated. So I do wanna preface it by saying this, I do think that you can have a successful TikTok influencer campaign. I just think the way that is typically thought about is super overrated, right? So before we've kinda looked at TikTok influencers as the magic button, relatively cheap, compared to other influencers, the organic engagement is usually five to 10X what it could be on other platforms. And then the possibility that this idea could, or there's the idea of this one influencer post could just spark a whole bigger thing in terms of like a trend or something like that, right? Which all that stuff is possible. It's still very much so possible. It just happens a lot less, right?  Three, four months or something like that. The relative to like how big the platform is now. And so I think they're overrated in the sense of creating this massively viral moment. Not saying it's impossible, just saying it takes a lot more for that to happen and it's going to happen a lot less and it's gonna continue to keep happening a lot less. Now they do still have their uses just I think a regular marketing tool. Like if you're looking at a dollar cost average of the amount of attention you get for the money you put into it and you're just looking at it like a regular brand awareness campaign or maybe judging it from the same way you judge your YouTube influencer or Instagram or other social influencer campaigns, right? Then there is still value there. Nobody gets a YouTube influencer post hoping like thinking it's gonna go viral and change everything, right? Like you don't get an Instagram influencer post and think like, oh, this one post is gonna just spark everything off. It might, you know what I'm saying? There's a hot chance that it could. But I don't think most people are planning their campaigns necessarily with that being the end goal. They're planning to get a little bit more strategically and logically. And I think that same level of discernment and thinking needs to be applied to TikTok influencer campaigns for it to be effective.  Sorry to say, probably ain't gonna happen that way. Now if you're like, hey, here are six influencers who I feel like audiences represent who I wanna speak to and I don't expect their posts to go viral but just speak to the right people. Yeah, that still makes sense, you know what I'm saying? That still can have an impact. Overrated in the context of creating like these magic moments like they used to. There it is. There it is. It's just misplaced expectation. And at one time, it was rightful expectation. Yeah, 100% right. Because that's how they got that opportunity. That's how TikTok start popping.  What's going on? Let me get into the house now. Yeah, no, it's not so much. But the cool thing about it when we talk about the brand aware side that you talked about is if you look at these relevant influencers, right, you can still get your image built within that community. You can still start to create this social proof effect of someone's willing to actually physically do something to my music. That's so different than you running an ad on the music video itself. This person is socially saying this is okay, right? To show love to this thing.  So someone doing something physically to your music is still amazing content for you.  And we're gonna meet at this location and set all these things up. How much do I owe you, right? The way somebody with no following would think a lot of times and how much they would ask for would end up being more than just somebody who has 50,000 followers on TikTok. People with 50,000 followers, you could pay them $50. 25, some of them and get away with it, right? And they're still shooting content. And now you can use this content in so many other ways and catalog the experience and narrative of your song, all right? So I think that is an underrated, no, an overrated thing in terms of that expectation, but 100%, like what you said, man, it's still valuable and please understand this, right? Like the regular marketing stack, virally is something that has to be engineered but is never the primary expectation, right? It's the icing on the cake. It's the icing on the cake, that's what you want. But you don't expect it as if, hey, I deserve it because I did these things. Today, we still have some artists that feel like, oh, because I paid five influencers and spent $2,000, I deserve to go viral. And if it didn't go viral, it's because of the marketers fault or because the influencers did something wrong, they didn't post it the right time. It's not that, it's a lot of other elements that we're not gonna get deeper into because it isn't a solely TikTok segment, but yeah, just know that everybody's feeling it. It's not just you. But you touched on a really important point too. I think help the way we look at TikTok influencers and that's looking at them is work for higher content creators. Right, because now the bang of the buck is strengthening. I could pay you $100 and let's say the post only gets 1,000 views and I might feel like, hey, that wasn't enough return from the brand awareness perspective, but you as a creator made me an amazing piece of content. I still think the video was dope. And then I have all these ideas on how I could use it in my ads maybe, or maybe you pay some other pages to repost it and do whatever with it. And then that doubles, triples the value you got for the payment. And I know, because we were right there at the front of the gold rush for TikTok. I do want people to understand that, bro. We speaking from being at the front of the line, like watching how it kind of changed from down out. And yeah, that to us, I think that for us was a big game changer once we kind of sat down with it. Hey, like if that post does great, cool. If it does new great, we need to be looking at the actual content and what we can do with that so we can strengthen the bang we got from it in terms of the audience kind of makes it weak.  Like you can get your brain and think of it that way. The brand awareness I get is the bonus, but I'm really paying you for the content and what I plan to do with it after that completely changes the context of like the TikTok influencer campaign. Every time. Every time. Every thing. Part of the interruption, I have to take this quick commercial break to let you know that we are sponsored by me because I signed myself. We signed ourselves. It's this brand man network. That's why we're calling no labels necessary because no label, nobody else is necessary for us to get the train moving. So if you could just subscribe to show appreciation, we'd really appreciate that. Back to the program. So next we have selling merch overrated from a standpoint of selling merch via ads when you don't even have a fan base. Okay. There's a lot of people who have done merch sales, trying to offer something for free to create a fan, right? And I understand the funnel and I know that it's worked in some dynamics when you have a lot of funnel knowledge and you break down all these things and you've seen some level of success by offering something for free and now you have this fans information and now you're giving some stuff on the back end. I get that so many people have done it, but most people don't see the greatest results out of it. Here's why. Because one, how are you selling merch to someone who doesn't know and care about you? How are you trying to build your fan base with merch? It doesn't make sense, right? Okay. And a lot of people are doing that or still think that that's like a thing. Now, here's a sub tier to this. Another thing that I think is overrated is merch that reflects your music and your face directly. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like, no. Yeah.  And if you just allude to that lifestyle message and vision that you represent for people, you can build an entire brand that doesn't even have your face on it that's popping. Like, I know an artist, she told me that she made like 300, 400K in merch last year, but she doesn't even associate herself with it anymore. Like people don't even know that she's behind it because it represents a larger message, right? And now she's almost just like a spokesperson for the brand and it's how people see her along with some other people that they'll have put on the stuff, but they don't even know it's her. It's like the golfing model. Yes. Yes, exactly. So don't sell yourself short. Represent something greater and you can always have these small capsule launches that are more use specific, right? That's built around this special tour, built around this special album and it's limited, right? And done in that time, you do it and take away, but you have a larger merch brand that can sell at any time, any day as long as somebody reps the message. You know what I mean? Yeah. For me, I'm just about the artist making money as soon as they can and reducing the friction. Again, never saying, not ever saying, I'll never drop merch with my face on it or with my album cover on it or something like that, right? It's just understanding that you can flip the model and make money and build a brand and a culture regardless. And then next to that, right? Your merch brand, right? The company that you own can do a collaboration with you as an artist. Yeah, yeah, and I agree with that. Because I think the important distinction is using merch to grow. Because I agree, but if you're not in a position to where you think you can sell the merch, you should not be pressing on merch. Even if your context is, hey, I got a show on Friday, it's gonna be 50 people there. I think I can get 10 of these off. Cool, I will understand that situation. You know what I'm saying? Like go for it, why not? People be drunk at these shows, man. They might drop 30 or 40 out of nowhere. They will. But yeah, if you are in a position where you don't think, I was gonna get like, if I don't think I can sell at least double my inventory, I won't do it. Like that's how we used to look at when we did shows. Like, all right, we wanna press up 40. Do we feel like we could get off 80? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. If yes, then let's go for it. If not, then let's keep building and keep trying to build demand for it.  I'm big on that, by the way, creating those type of parameters mentally. And the sole reason is because our feelings are usually off. Yeah. Yeah. Like we're bad thermometers for what really is. So we need to create that wiggle room. Yeah, I can do double, triple that just so we can hit that number sometimes. Yeah, yeah, bro. It's like I'm shooting for the top, but I'm big on that. Yeah, it's like the music video conversation all over again, like the money to produce it and then to not make the money back is gonna be more detrimental than if you just didn't do it. You know what I'm saying? And you focus that energy on something else. And like the rare situations where like, I think merch giveaways can produce like a new fan or like very, very slim to none. Merch is typically better. It's just a pure monetization vehicle or to reward people that are already your fans. You know what I'm saying? Like you give that free t-shirt to the person that's already proven his loyalty to you, not to this person you trying to convince to go listen to your song on Spotify. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't have the same impact in that scenario. As the person that has been listening to you, he gonna get that shirt?  The person that you gave it to to check you out is already looking like, man, he had to give me this $40 t-shirt or however much it costs for me to go listen to his music or to even give him a chance to check him out. They're not seriously gonna check you out. Oh, they might, but it's gonna be more so I like pity. You know what I'm saying? Like you kind of like bought their ear, you know what I'm saying? But that's basically what ads and everything else is and it's much cheaper, you know what I'm saying? So it always comes back to cost, bro. It always does, but it comes back to cost. Always, man, always. Cause cost determines on how long you can do it or not. That's what it is. Now, speaking of ads, another thing that's overrated. Cheap ads. Cheap ads? Cheap ads are overrated. Okay. Why are cheap ads overrated? Because I hear again and again and again, oh man, I got my cost per click down to this. I got my cost per click down to that. But what does that really mean? Running ads are more than just getting your cost per click down. Ultimately, the whole function of running ads is about the return on your investment. So if I'm an artist marketing my music video, I got my cost per click down. Many people are clicking over to the landing page, but then they're not clicking to watch the video or stream the song. What does it really mean to have a low cost per click? Or if I'm getting fans in, I don't know, 12 different countries and however many different cities, what does it really mean if I got one fan in 500 different cities? But I had a really low cost per click, but I didn't really tell them where to target so I could get a low cost per click. None of that really makes sense cause you're not building a fan base in a specific area enough for you to be able to capitalize on it, right? So it's always like the starter marketer is looking at cost per click, right? That's like the first thing that you kind of are trained to look at, but over time, you have to adjust to have a legitimate strategy. And honestly, marketing without a strategy is overrated, right? But that's what most people are doing. That's really what it comes down to. It's the difference between the team that came to us last year and they were like, hey, I just wanna be able to target these two or three cities, find the two or three cities that are making the most sense for this artist and who's responding best and then when we find that, well, I wanna find the best city and do a show six months from now, all right? Oh, okay, that's really targeted and it might be more expensive to do that. Usually it is. Usually it is, right? 100% because you're targeting in a specific place, maybe more than ads. It could be other activities that you're doing, but you actually can get a return on your investment. So that $1,000 that you spent there and it seemed like you got less out of it, might actually be a better return than this $1,000 I spent worldwide and I have no idea how to get my money back. So don't obsess over something being cheap for the sake of cheap, right? Or doing whatever marketing activity for the sake of doing a marketer activity. What are you looking to get out of it and what is it creating for you that you can then leverage to get to something else? Yeah, nah, I agree 100%. 100%, man. Like even at this point, our marketing team, I mean, we take what the ad platform is the same for cost per conversion and clicks into consideration, but we're typically doing our own manual calculations for cost spent versus like smart lean conversions, right? Yep. I mean, well, I guess it's in brand mail. People don't know we use one called Tondin, like you're able to see what the CTR is on there. And so I'm training the team to like, hey, don't look at Facebook saying it costs you 10 cents a click. Look at your calculations across the clicks on your smart link and do your math on that. So you really might be at 40 cents, a true conversion, you know what I'm saying? Something like that. But that typically is more impactful because all the cost per click really tells you on the campaign is one of two things. Either you're, whether or not you're targeting to a really saturated area or how good your content is, right? Cause typically the better the content, the cheaper the cost per click is as well, right? Like good content plus the right audience, cheap ads, right? Good content, bad targeting, not a cheap, maybe they're not a cheap, right?  So typically that's how we look at like, the cost per click is letting us know, are we pushing it to the right people or are we pushing, or is this piece of content like the right thing? Other than that, it doesn't really tell you much else. Most of your other fan data or listen to that is gonna come from like your DSPs and like your smart link data and things like that. That's gonna tell you like true, honest to God, like behavior patterns amongst the people that you're targeting. Because it's also very possible to have a cheap ad that doesn't convert well to the music. We've seen that, right? Your ads doing 10 cents on the front end. Look at a smart link, they got like a 4% click rate. And it's like, okay, well, something, there's some gimmick about the content itself that made people click over in droves.  I don't want this, right? I'm not here for this. It's like, it's the equivalent of like, I'll see a lot of artists who like to use like skits and things as advertisements. And that's typically the issue there.    It was like, no, I'm going, I'm going back to where I came from, right? So it's like, you end up being in a much better position like training yourself to look at like the cost per back end even doing your own manual calculations, you know what I'm saying? Versus going like, oh, Facebook said I got 20 cent cost per click. Oh, okay, this is good. Because like, no, that 20 cent ad could be producing a lower quality audience for you than that $1.50 ad. Like we've had a campaign like before. I remember there was one campaign we did for R&B artists. He had an ad running to the US that was doing maybe like a $1.18 cent cost per click but it had like a 90 something percent click rate on it. So like, it's like, these people are expensive but they're very high quality people.  He had a similar ad that was, I don't remember what it was pushing to maybe like, I don't even remember, I don't even throw that on the country but it was pushing somewhere, no, US. And I remember the cost per click on it was maybe like 30, 40 cents but it was doing like a 40% click rate on it, right? So it's still pretty good for like the cost of it. It's like, but these people, the audience of people that's hitting for whatever reason are not as high quality as the more expensive ad that we're pushing out. And so I think that's always something that has to be taken into consideration. Like, is this, okay, you've established that this audience is cheap but are they quality, right? Because in most instances, you will be better off. Like I said, I would much rather have the $1.15 cost per click with the 90% click rate than the 40 cent, you know what I'm saying? Cost per click ad with the 40% click rate. And then work from there to figure out how can I make this $1.15 cheaper. Exactly, because that's much easier than the reverse of it, right? Like how do I make these people like this thing more? Yeah. Right, because like I said, usually we can go like, okay, it's expensive because, you know, but well, this video that we're using for the ad is shitty, bad content. Go make some new content, right? Maybe the next video knocks it down to 70 cents or something, right? So there's always like a way to process like what is the issue on that end as long as we can at least see that people like the end result, which is music, you know? So yeah, I agree with you, bro. I've been waiting for that topic to come up in the group. So I didn't know how we was gonna ever bring it up. You know what I'm saying? But yeah, okay. Man, hey. Now it's way too important. It's way too important, right? We all want to graduate together and you know, even we have talked about getting a cheap cost per click at one point in time. But you know, I think it's important to make sure the community keeps elevating and understanding that it's so much more to this marketing than that, right? It's full funnel. Yeah. Now when I say it's hard to people, I don't even say cheap, I say good. We're looking to get you a good cost per click, you know what I'm saying? 100%. Because good can be subjective. Exactly, exactly. Cheap is not the goal. Winning is the goal, right? Now what gets you there? Yeah, pass. Now, getting on platforms too early, overrated. Matter of fact, I switched it up. I should just say getting on platforms early is overrated. But too early is especially overrated and that too early is people asking about rumble right now, right? It's another new platform. And I know that there's this first mover advantage when it comes to should I get on TikTok, should I get on Triller, should I get on Dubsmas, should I get on Rumble, should I get on Discord?  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, sorry, slow your roll. Not necessarily. There's multiple factors because you still have to do it to a quality where you actually win on that platform, one. But you do get some true excessive gains when the platform grows, if you are at that top and the platform grows in the way that you think, right? That you think, that's the important part about it because many of these platforms aren't gonna grow at all. Not to what you think they are. And here's my issue with the first mover, FOMO mentality when it comes to artists. If there's a new platform that comes out and you abandon everything you're doing on your current platform to put most of your effort on this new platform, what if that new platform doesn't exist anymore? What if I said, yo, I'm not going to make any IG videos, I'm gonna start doing everything on Triller right now a couple of years ago and that was your MO. And then what happened when Twitter wiped out or Triller wiped out? Gone. Gone, right? You built this fan base that you can't even tap into anymore that's completely irrelevant and now you're out on the game. So what I say is you can dabble and test some things, but especially as a new artist with limited resources and needing to focus, focus on getting good at a platform, like for real good at a platform. Like anybody can invest in YouTube at this point and be pretty assured that it's probably gonna be around for a minute, right? It might be harder to grow on YouTube now that it was so long ago. However, if you get really, really good at YouTube you know that there's gonna be a positive outcome, right? But some of these new platforms be real for instance right now, you can get really, really good at be real whatever that looks like, but you don't know if be real is gonna be here in 2024. You just don't know, right? And that's cool, that's that risk but you gotta understand that that risk is there and as a new artist, right? With less resources and your time is really meaningful that risk is so, so dangerous to take. But I get it, I get it, right? It's a shiny new thing because you already been losing on another platform. So let me just gotta go find another platform to win. Yeah, I mean it's like you said like the key is the balance, you know? Cause I do think artist should set aside maybe at least 10% of energy to try things out as you see it and come across it, right? Give it a little bit of credence but I think the important thing is not championship which artists do have a really bad habit of just completely abandoning the ship, brother.  I'm going over here. It's like, whoa, whoa, hold up man. Instagram is still doing fine. You know, it's not 30X but you still doing pretty good over there. So, yo, hold up real quick.  Remember the person who was like, I went from 13X and now I'm at 5X and they were complaining. They were getting a 5X return. I do remember that. Yeah. That's the mentality that you're basically talking about. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I forgot about it.  We're talking about money, by the way.  Yeah, that I get. That I understand what you're saying. But it's like artists have a typical have a really bad habit of like jumping ship, you know what I'm saying? Cause I think a lot of them are looking for like one vehicle to focus on. So they are chasing, you know what I'm saying? Different vehicles like, this could just be the one.  You know what I'm saying? For you to really build things out. And I think the more comfortable artists get with understanding that like the more of a true content infrastructure they can build where it's like, hey, I do have my one or two bread and butters and every year I take some time out to go try a new platform for like three months. And if I like it, I figure out a way to integrate it into what's going on. Right, if I believe in it and I think it's gonna be here, I figure out a way to integrate it.  You know what I'm saying? Like, and I'm still good, you know what I'm saying? To say the least. So I think I can sound that, it's over already. Cause it just, it becomes a new conversation every time a new platform come up.  How can we use it?  Like let it hit the world first, bro. Let's let the users get into it and so we can study them and see, bro. Like, I don't know. Like it just hit the app store. Like I said, like three weeks ago, bro, like, you know, so I already got people asking about be real strategist. I'm like, bro, I don't know. Leave me alone. It don't fall for the vision of the founders of these companies that they're selling and they're marketing, right? You're on a professional side. As a consumer, you can taste and look, sop up that Kool-Aid however you need to all day. But as a professional, this is your career. You can't just be like, oh yeah, they're selling this vision and they want this to happen and that sounds cool. So a new thing is challenging these other platforms so I should hop on it. That's not how you have to think about it. Again, it's a risk assessment. What am I losing by going to this new thing or putting all my effort or how much effort should I put towards that platform? That's what you should be asking and that varies based on where you are in your career, right?   You start, right? That's the news. But even if you've already invested and you have like 500 followers on IG, that's a level of investment that matters, right? Then let it on 200K, 500K, whatever, whatever. So all these things are something to keep in mind and with me, I'm still the person that ultimately says, try to master one platform before you try to get on all these platforms. And I know that we are in a space where you can just copy and paste your reels, right? To TikTok, to YouTube Shorts, to choose Snapchat if you want to. But at the end of the day, the nuances and the way the platforms think are different, right? The way they act as a whole are different. So you might copy and paste onto other platforms, but your priority platform should be the platform you focus on, the minutiae, get into the details, right? Understand what they like, what the response rates, how much you should be creating content, how hard is it to get a subscriber or a follower? What are the things that you need to do on that platform in the description or caption to get people off platform? Like all of those details for that platform is gonna be different for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, whatever is out there that you wanna think about. So if anything, at least think of it from a model standpoint. If I have one priority platform that I'm truly paying attention to top to bottom, and then I might have content that I can copy and paste and redistribute on other platforms. And hopefully I do get some gains over there, right?  Yeah, 100%. I agree. Websites. Websites, websites, websites. Artists, I hear the right thinking that people tell y'all to do or that y'all share among the community. I gotta have a website. I gotta have a website. I gotta have a website. I disagree. You don't need to have a website. You can have a website, 100%. I'm not gonna say don't have a website but the fact that you think you need to have a website to grow your fan base and all these things, especially as an artist starting up, I don't think so. Now let me break this down. One, we talk about resources. Part of your resources is not just money. It's time, effort, right? Your actual attention span. So you already have to do all this other stuff on social media that's gonna create fans, right? That you already probably don't wanna do because you just wanna create music. And you also have to create music, by the way, right? These things already have to occur. You might not be somebody who can build a good website or you might use these templates but how are you gonna get people to this website when you're really trying to get them to your music? So they don't matter at this phase of your career like that. But then let's get to the elephant in the room, which is a big thing that so many people say I need a website for. I need a website because I wanna own my own information, man. What happens if Facebook dies tomorrow, they have another shutdown or some weird political stuff happens and all of a sudden I can't access my followers on IG or whatever happens on Twitter, on TikTok or any of these platforms. And we know, it's been some times where we actually have not been able to get on Instagram. It's been crazy, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, do you actually have to have a full website for that? No, right? Not at all, especially today. Maybe this is more relevant and easier to talk that way before, but today, there is literally these link tree style smart URLs that allow you to collect somebody's email, right? Or, and this is an easier hack and probably my most suggested in that category, there's a lot of these email platforms, right? Let's just say MailChimp, right? Aweber, Drip, a lot of these platforms now have a form feature, right? So you got your email platform so you can collect everybody's emails, but you just create a form, whatever you're trying to sell is that single small landing page that collects their numbers, collects their name, collects their email. That's all you need. You don't necessarily need a super official website domain. You don't even have to have your name. It can still be, you know, I don't know, brandmanshawnaaweber.com. Now I know it doesn't sound as sexy, right? You want to have your official thing, but when we look at the actual statistics, the effect on click through rate at that stage, especially of your career, the numbers don't really play out. Like it doesn't make a difference, right? So a website is something that you 100% can do and it's not going to hurt you outside of the fact that you might not have time or not, or you might not be good at it or you might not know how to arrange it, but the most important thing that most artists are trying to achieve who are thinking about it correctly when they think, oh, I want to have a website or something, they're thinking about, oh, I want to have some, have data, right? Control space. Some kind of control space, but you're not doing much through your website, what you're really talking about is you want to have the information, their phone number, their name, their email. We have all these things with text me if you want to, that can get people's number right there, right? If you want to get access to my new exclusive video, just text me or send me your number, whatever, whatever, if you want to merge. There's so many ways to get that stuff. So it's overrated, not completely ineffective, but it's highly overrated and it's time that people look at the other ways because it's cheaper, saves you a hell of a time and when it comes to pixels, most people aren't even really using pixels to the extent that it really makes sense. Most of them let you pixel anyway, like most of the smart link providers at this point get the option to pixel them. Yeah, the smart links and the email people, providers let you pixel now. So that's not even a strong enough point. I literally just had this argument with someone like a week ago, bro. Somebody on the conversation call and they were like, yeah, I'm about to make a website. I was like, why? Why doesn't it make sense, bro? Because at least you going back to that zero to 10 argument, if you're anywhere between like a zero and like a four, no one cares about the website. I argue you could get away without a website up until like a eight, you know what I'm saying? Like for real, for real. Cause I think about artists now, I know now that they're doing millions of months and there's millions of streams that do not have websites, you know what I'm saying? They're funneling people maybe to some type of community. Like I said, back in just collecting phone numbers and emails and things because they don't want to do that maintenance. So this is another platform to maintain, which is the part of I think a lot of artists don't think about, like this is, it comes with the same level of maintenance as your Instagram account or your TikTok. The only difference is you're paying for it. You know what I'm saying? It's like you're paying to do it and you're, I also think it goes back to the artist not thinking about the end consumer. You know what I'm saying? Like you create this thing because it looks nice to you. You feel like it makes sense in your funnel, but most for like music consumers today, really only probably go to our website to like buy stuff, maybe merch, tickets, you know what I'm saying? So if you're at a point where your audience isn't ready to be monetized or they're not buying things from you, then they really don't need a website. Like, because like you said, everything else that you would use a website for can be done with like one or two other platforms for free or relatively cheaper and with a lot less like work put into it.  Like it's gonna take you some time, so. And look, keep, be clear. The data is the thing that matters, not the website itself.  So that's still the same theory that you think you're moving away from.


Well, hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Jonathan Asley of johnathanasley.com. And I'm so excited to be shooting this short video for you today. Our topic, men are like dogs. They're like dogs. And they require training. And I know you don't like this, but they require training. See a little puppy dog? All right. If after this video, this content resonates with you and you're a single woman looking for love, check out the link to a free discovery call to see if working with a coach is right for you. That call is with me. All right, men are like dogs. They need training. OK, right off the bat, I know you're not going to like this video. You don't even like the idea of it because most of you are looking for that 10% or that unique guy who's out there that's already fully trained and he shows up in relationship, very emotionally mature, very intentional, very chivalrous, and demonstrative. OK, I know that's what you want. Let's look at men in the reality here and why a little bit of training goes a long way for helping you establish the relationship you want. So let's just start from this premise. Just hold with me here. Just stick with me, OK? First off, I want you to see this little chart I've created. And literally there's this half and this half and this represents men. Now in this box, these are men who are emotionally stifled. These are people with clinical issues that makes it very difficult for them to be in relationship. And on the flip side is this 10 and you see this 10 and 10. This represents percentage. And this represents men who fully know what they want. They're the men we talked about. They are the Prince Charmings, the guys you want. And the most everybody are in here. Now, here's the unique part. People with clinical issues, about 10% of them are in relationships. And trust me, they're in dysfunctional relationships. And that other 10% represents not in relationship. Then there's this 10% fully know what they want. They're in relationship. Then there's another 10%. Guys like me, fully emotionally available, emotionally mature, know what they want, but they're not in relationship. Now, here's the tricky part. Most of the time, you're all dating in this category. Because by the way, just like this represents men, this represents women as well. Now, just bear with me a little bit longer. These are people in this category, they just don't make good partners. They're emotionally immature. They lack intentionality. They lack direction. They're wounded. Most likely childhood and women's and traumas that have been unhealed. Then there's this other category that they're literally working on themselves, like I did. They're in the tunnel. Now, this is where the vast majority, you're either dating in this pool or this pool. What we're talking about is this pool right now. Now, you might go, Jonathan, how do I meet that pool? Hey, that's my area of expertise. Again, if you're single looking for love, check out the discovery call with me. So why do men need training? Well, it's really more, it's not so much training, it's more about you establishing your standards. If you watched my video recently on boundaries, setting your standard starts, that's how you train a guy by starting with your standard. Standard is what are you seeking in relationship? And if the man doesn't know what your standard is, then you're gonna have to train him on it. Or first, you're gonna have to figure it out for yourself, which I can tell you as a coach, so many of you have no effing clue what you want. And I see this time and time again. And you all go, yeah, Jonathan, I do know what you want. Yeah, ladies, you know it at the 40,000 foot level, but not at the ground level. And if you want support on that, again, schedule a call with me, that's my area of expertise. But what's most important after you've set your standard is establish the rules by what this relationship looks like and hence why you're training a guy. You're training them like a dog. And one of the best ways to establish the rules in the relationship is both buying a book called Eight Dates by Dr. John Gottman and Julie Gottman. Eight Dates by Dr. John Gottman and Julie Gottman. There's a link below to all my recommended books. This is the mechanics to a healthy happy relationship. This is how you train a guy by introducing him to what it takes to be in a healthy happy relationship with you. And if you're not doing this, you're setting yourself up because most men are effing clueless. If you watch one of my recent videos, I showed you the chart about, you see this chart here? It says child, adult, parent. Most men and women are operating in their emotional childhood. They're emotionally stunted. Men and women alike. So this is why you have to move into, slightly the parent role for a little bit to get them into the adult role. And you want to be in the adult role as well. Now I know you can't stand this. I know the idea of training a guy, it goes against everything. Look, I know you're shooting for that 10%er. Just remember, 10% of the 20%er, I should say. 10% of them are already in relationship. And then the guys like me, we're seeking that 10%er ourselves. And in a sea of dysfunctional people, sometimes it's just hard to see them. It's one of the reasons why what I mean by training, I literally mean introducing the mechanics to a healthy happy relationship before the penis ever gets to go inside the vagina. Okay, there, I said it. I said it, I said it. Before you begin an intimate relationship with someone, understand the mechanics for yourself and then introduce it to the other person. Because without it, you just look at the vast majority. Think of how many people are going out on a first date tonight, or a second date tonight, or a third date tonight. And it's never gonna go anywhere. We have so many people going out on date, after date, after date, after date. Some people are going out on 52 dates a year. Oh my God, that's exhausting emotionally, as well as physically. And it's emotionally, it's exhausting here, which can affect our hearts. This is why become a grownup before you ever begin dating and you're gonna have a greater chance for success. So can you see where I'm going with this? Is this resonating with you? Please post a comment. I wanna hear your thoughts on this. I'm hoping this is sinking in. And if you need some additional support, then check out my book, What the Heck Is Self-Love Anyway? Because if you're struggling, chances are there's a lack of self-love going on inside. And this is a journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work on the inside. And those who know me know this book was birthed after the loss of my 19-year-old son a couple years ago. And I just decided to do a deep dive on what it means to love. And I want you to do the same. In honor of Connor, I encourage you to begin, oops, begin a deep dive of self-love for yourself.  I hope you like my little prop here. All right, I think you get the gist of where I'm going here. I'm gonna wrap up this video as I always do first off, giving myself a big, gigantic Jotland Bear hug of self-love. I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm gonna ask you to turn to someone or a pet or a pillow or even my little teddy bear here and give it a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love and we can all use more love in our lives. Thanks a bunch. Saying bye-bye now, bye-bye.


All right. Sorry for the delay. We'll get started here. This is a demonstration of Istio in the open service broker API. I may have said open source on the website, and that's because I had a typo. Some things we're going to talk about just generally about us. We'll talk about a few Istio basics, as well as the open service broker basics. We have a live demo, talk about some of the ways we want to enhance this demo and collaborate with Istio community, as well as Cloud Foundry to open up the scope of it and we'll take questions. So this is me. I just got married a few weeks ago in Vegas. If you could please tweet at my wife on Twitter and thank her for allowing me to come here. That'd be great. That's at be willies. I work full time on Kubernetes mostly, though I also balance my time with Istio and other Cloud native foundation projects. Don't forget the underscore on there. Oh, yes, underscore. CM Luciano, without the underscore, is a Canadian resident that owns some junk company and like a junk removal company, a lot more successful than I am. So remember the underscore. Hi, I'm Morgan. I'm the horse guy on GitHub. And I work on Kubernetes now, but I was working on Docker before always at IBM and Docker maintainer and Kubernetes member. And my main work nowadays is the service catalog in Kubernetes, which is an implementation of the open service broker, the platform side. So I also have a Twitter and it's there. And cool. Move on. OK, so a little bit about Istio. You may have heard mesh networks thrown around. This is an implementation essentially of a mesh network. There's been a few talks that went over some of the basics of this. The goal is really to have some sort of a drop-in replacement to gain some functionality that you may have to build into client-side libraries. So Istio handles this with a sidecar-based approach. In the Kubernetes sense, it gets injected into your pod, either through the command line utility or how we're going to do it today with the open-serts broker API, which deploys an initializer. The initializer essentially just models with whatever you deployed normally and then inserts in the necessary Istio bits to make your application part of the network. And a few of the features that it supports, metrics collection and tracing are things that most people talk about. It's able to gather these things a little more easier than you instrumenting them because it's capturing both the entry of the traffic and the exit of the traffic so it sees the whole picture. The protocol-level metrics that it collects are basically like HTTP metrics. It's able to capture some of your application-specific metrics if you have them. But you would have to specify those to Istio. Mutual TLS authentication as well. Like IPv6, that's one of those things. It's like, yeah, well, we're going to do that next year. It's priority number one next year. Mutual TLS authentication, one of the big features within Istio, and you're getting that for free. And then I'm going to talk a little more in detail about some of my favorite features, which are a little bit more difficult sometimes to build in without having your client libraries already. Thanks to Jason McGee for a few of these slides that I grabbed from him because they were great. So traffic splitting is one of the things that I really like about Istio. It allows you to, fortunately, move traffic over between different services, either by a percentage based, as this example is showing, or you can use header matching. So inspect for user X and directs to this instance or enable this feature for user X. Circuit breaking is another big one. This is if anyone's ever had a dependency or has been a dependency of someone else. You can be very familiar with a stampeding approach if another service started acting inappropriately, making a lot of calls to you. You're down. Your service crashes. It's just a chain effect. So you can build in some level of retry logic within your application. And this gets fed in using a configuration file similar to what we have here. And then failure injection. This is also a very neat feature. You can visualize what would happen to your application by just moving some sliders around and controlling the flow of the traffic in order to detect what happens if one of your dependencies is going down. How exactly does that affect your service? What happens if there's a delayed response from that service? What's happening to your service? All right. So part of this I'm bringing to the table here is the Open Service Broker API. This was a piece of Cloud Foundry, the service broker, service catalog piece that has been split off into its own specification where we are defining both the server side and sort of the client side interaction. And what it is is it's five APIs, five resource endpoints that are defined to get a catalog, create a instance of the service that you're defining, bind the servers to an application is the Cloud Foundry model. But we're expanding that to support sort of the Kubernetes way as well. And then unbind and delete the service. We recently released the 2.13 spec, but right here is a link to the 2.12 spec. As it is right now, there's two sort of well-known platforms, one of which is obviously the Cloud Foundry, Cloud Controller implementation of it. And at least I would like to think that the Kubernetes platform is the other one. I have heard of other platforms coming up and being created now just at this conference. And what I have been working on for the last year, I guess, or so is the service catalog in Kubernetes, which is the platform side of the service broker in Kubernetes, sort of the native Kubernetes-style API. Using Kubernetes objects, you can use kube control as if this was a built-in thing like pods or deployments once it's installed. API aggregation means that you can talk to the same kube server once you do a kube control list APIs. It shows up in the API list like every other object. And you can use kube control natively. And there's no sort of friction other than the fact that the objects are kind of have weird names. But we're improving that. In the last six days, we've significantly changed the API. So some of the objects you'll see here probably don't exist anymore. But it's alpha state. And we're hopefully about to release the beta very soon. And then the last part of this is that we have taken both the platform service catalog. And we have created a broker, a service broker, a standard interface. And this broker is, unfortunately, right now specific to the Kubernetes platform. But in the future, hopefully, it would be great once I hear a lot of work is going on to somehow support Istio and Cloud Foundry to include the Cloud Foundry platform as well in support for this sort of a future goal. In this case, the broker that we've written is going to be running in Kubernetes. And it will be serving the standard service broker API, which our service catalog will be the platform for. And we will create Kubernetes objects to basically run through the API flow as if it's just run through the API flow and deploy Istio on there, deploy the broker, and then create a binding between Istio and namespaces in Kubernetes. And that way, when you deploy apps into specific namespaces, you will Istioize the applications versus having to do the Istio control inject. Instead of manually having to do it, it automatically does it for you in the background using an initializer. And I think that is time for the demo. So what we're going to show is the service broker that we specifically created for this demo. And as Morgan was saying, there's a few supported ways of getting Istio to work with the inside of your cluster. And normally, people will go with the Istio inject method, which the documentation basically shows you using a kubectl command, and then it shoots it over into another shell, which basically munges with your yaml and adds on things. And you have to remember to do this every time. Otherwise, the sidecar isn't going to be injected in there. There's also just the initializer, which is published by the Istio team, that you could take and modify yourself. However, then people have to have some inkling of how your deployment file is set up, a little more documentation. So in this sense, we decided to try out the service broker. And people that are familiar with implementations of service brokers, this is going to feel very familiar to them. And there's a lot less steps for you to do. We're going to do this within a Kubernetes namespace, which represents some degree of tendency within Kubernetes. It's not strictly hardlined. There's ideas, even of combining namespaces together into another tenant concept. But it's the closest that we can come right now to having basically a group of developers in this namespace and group developers in this namespace. So here, I'm just showing the Kubernetes dashboard for the demo. I have already brought up Kubernetes and just seeded the cluster with a few Istio components. So at this point, the operator would then make sure that they are deploying both of the brokers so that individual developers could utilize them. And we package these up as HALM packages. It's not really important to note really what they do, or the format that they're deployed in. But what is important is to note that we are first deploying the Kubernetes catalog. So this will provide basically the APIs to utilize to hook in other brokers for like our custom broker, providing almost like a menu system for here's all of the applications that we're exposing within here. So that's going off, and it's creating two components right here. And then we're also going to, I'm just going to wait on those to come up. Well, side by side. So this is our specific broker, which is going to register itself and expose the individual bits that we're controlling. So at this point, the Istio initializer has not been provisioned. It's just allowing you to provision one. So at this point, the operator is basically hands off. And now an individual developer that wants to consume Istio within the side of their namespace Green. We'll create the broker link. Yeah, this is just a simple YAML that says, add the broker to the catalog. And here's the URL that it's at, and here's the name that we're going to use in the future when we refer to it. Once the broker is added, there will be the classes, the service classes, and the service plans. For our broker, there's one service class and one plan on that service class because it does one thing. There are no levels to it.  And you can see the parameter there as the namespace is going to be Istio testimony. So we're registering the broker, and we're allowing someone to create the initializer. But the initializer has not been created at this point. You can see that here. Nothing has been created yet. No, but we have gone through the open service broker API, and the catalog has been grabbed from the broker and registered, and all of that has been gone into the controller that we have, and we have Kubernetes objects that represent all of those things. So now we have an initializer. So what this means now is that one developer just said, hey, let's start using Istio within our namespace. Now, anything that gets created in this namespace is going to automatically be Istio-enabled without anyone having to modify their deployment, remember those commands or anything. So to demonstrate this, I have a simple example, which is going to demonstrate some of the traffic shaping. I created a very special application, which I effectively named Morgan Web. And this consists of two containers, Morgan Web for Android and Morgan Web for iOS. Nothing specific to Istio within here. I'm not specifying anything that resembles Istio. It's just a normal Kubernetes deployment and a normal Kubernetes service. You can see only one container is defined in each deployment. Oh, yes, very important. Not more than one. There should only be one container when we deploy this normally. So I'm specifying the Istio test mean namespace that I created specifically for my team, and I'm creating that deployment in there. So now I've got two pods coming up. Can everyone see the text of this? I didn't increase the text size of the web quite too much. Was it not a little better? Can anyone not see it if you raise your hand? OK, great. So now if we go into one of these applications, we can see that necessary annotations have been set, and now we have two containers within here, which is the proxy side card. Now this application is registered, so these can start talking to each other. They can start using the retry logic. But I know you're not impressed. This is just showing that two containers could go in there. I'm just demonstrating basic Kubernetes features at this point. So the real meat of this is going is I deployed one application for iOS and one for Android. So now what I want to do is when coming from an Android device, I want to direct to the Android service. When coming from an iOS device, I want to direct to the iOS device. I'm not doing anything like super special here, but this is a feature of Istio. It's called a route rule. So I've got a bit of regex in there to search in the user agent header, which can sometimes be an unreliable way of doing this, but it's been working for me lately. And I'm targeting the specific application that I want these rules to affect. Android iOS is basically it there. So let me just create those. So I'm creating these not with the kubectl command, because I haven't tried that before, but with the kubectl command. So those route rules are created. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to open up the Android emulator from Android SDK. And I'm going to actually show you that I'm just not making stuff up. So this is the point to MiniCube running on my machine. And this is the port that I have exposed to the public access of service. I hardcoded in the web page that you should be reaching the Android page. So if we don't see that, then something broke. And it did break. Yeah, somehow it ended up backwards. Close enough. Yeah. But for this, I already recorded the demo in case you wanted to see it actually working. OK, so here we go. It's going to be a little smaller, but I discovered that it's probably going to be smaller. And I ended up increasing the check size. This is some riveting, opening up the simulator, remembering where it is. So this is even starting from scratch, essentially. It's booting up a fresh iOS. You stopped it? It's the wrong video, then. Oh, yeah, I did. Sorry about that. OK. So we're starting with essentially exactly what we did before. We have those route rules created. Now I stumbled open up one of the emulators after first showing it on my laptop, I suppose. If it doesn't find a header, which one does it go to? So that might be where I messed up the default rule. So normally, you would have the default instance that you would just send things to if you screwed up a bit. But I assure you this was working all over an hour ago when I tested it. So here we go. We have Morgan Web for iOS. I even refreshed it to prove that I wasn't kidding in going to some static website. It's beautiful. Then I struggled to open up the Android emulator. I go to the exact same URL. Then realized you probably can't see that, so I start extending the screen centers. It says Android. Bam, Android. So this is a simple example of some of the traffic shifting abilities that you can use Istio for when your demo works. But I assure you it does work. I think I may have fat-fingered something, which one of our colleagues said I might. So future work, where are we going with these types of things? So the initializer is something that some individuals on the Istio team that are working on the Istio service broker official are interested in adding. They want to be able to maybe have this on just individual deployments instead of the per namespace. There's also a subtle bug that in other namespaces at the moment, some things may not be working because it's trying to go to the initializer. But the initializer is just watching one namespace. There is a fix for this. But just if you try this at home, it's going to break on that moment when you try that. And I will have all the code for this available on GitHub along with the slides later on today as soon as I just slap on some licenses and whatnot. We're also interested in working with the Cloud Foundry team. I know that they have some PRs open and some stories open for the transparent proxy, which will be bringing Envoy in along with your individual service. As Morgan mentioned, before Istio largely only wins on Kubernetes right now, though, in the latest release, it does allow you to bring VMs in the outside into your existing Istio cluster, assuming your original Istio cluster started on Kubernetes. Really, the goal is just having a common service discovery mechanism that people can swap in with their Cloud provider. If you want to catch me after this, these are technical topics that I like to talk about. And if you don't want to talk about those, these are some other things that I know some stuff about. And just talk to Morgan in general. Yeah. I didn't create a big question slide. But ready for questions? Go ahead. The Istio one? It's created. OK, so when we do the instance, it doesn't really do much. It instantializes the registration in Kubernetes. It creates the initializer registration, which is just a thing that says, in the future, everything that comes in needs to go through this initializer. It doesn't actually create the initializer, which means until you actually create the initializer, everything is broken. So that's not great, but we wanted to try to get binding and instances in. I fixed that in the demo, actually. But then when you do the binding, that is where it actually sets up the initializer for the specific namespace in the parameters of the binding. The initializer is the thing that when a deployment comes in, it munges the deployment somehow. And in our case, it adds the Istio sidecar to it. Yeah, so normally when you're deploying Istio, you're using the Istio CTL command line utility, similar to what I did for creating the rules. And you tack this on to the Kube CTL commands, which you're using to create your applications within Kubernetes. And the Istio CTL command essentially just intercepts exactly what you're trying to send to Kubernetes real quick, munges your YAML, reconciles all of it, and then submits that one big YAML with the sidecar tacked on. And this is something like I said, if you're trying to update that application now and you didn't remember to also tack on that magical Istio CTL thing at the end, now you're just going to get your application and it can't talk to anything because the sidecar didn't get ejected because you forgot to tack that on. So a lot of the service brokers that people have made for Kubernetes have been more of like the stateful service type of thing, like I want a database. So when you're creating an instance of the database and you're binding an application to the database, the creation of the instance and the binding of your application are pretty obvious. But this is basically just a service similar to a load bouncer that you would create. Now there is in a case maybe some additional steps you'll do to register yourself with the load bouncer, say I'm registering from here. But in this example, we really just set up the necessary credentials at a time. It allows you to create new initializers. And then in the binding step is when we actually create the whole deployment. But there's nothing to say that that create instance step couldn't just contain both tasks. Yeah, we need to think about probably the correct semantics for each particular piece. But for the purposes of a demo, that's what we did. Because it's going to intercept it every time. It's basically like having someone run the Istio CTL for you every time without you having to worry about it. So yeah, this is one thing that I was experimenting with today to try to make the demo work a little more reliably to actually create an ingress. At the moment, I'm using a node port, which makes me think that in some cases it's getting trapped in the connection tracker and just routing to the Android service. In the demo example before, I set it up properly with some ingress and everything. But whatever reason, the ingress was just finicky on the Wi-Fi. But so yeah, because I'm using it on Minicube, I just use a node port for now. Normally, you will set up an ingress controller and Istio even provides an ingress. It's self that you can use. But like ingress in the Kubernetes sense, some of these things rely on you either having preset up the Nginx ingress controller or utilizing your cloud du jour load balancer that they're providing. But having said that, all those things being opened up, the routing between the emulators does work a lot more reliably in the ingress controller when you have a real IP address, when you have something that's like a real DNS entry mapping and everything. It would depend on what the client's doing with it. So normally, you are opening things that you want to be able to access outside with an ingress controller. And if your clients with inside of the cluster are also using the ingress controller or using Istio and using the Istio endpoints that are returned when you're communicating with Istio, then they'll get whatever Envoy is directing it to. And that's one of the important parts of Istio. Like all traffic is now being redirected once that sidecar is injected to Envoy. There's IP tables rules that are set up beforehand, which does that. But someone outside of the cluster that has no idea about it could technically call out to Kubernetes in the way that you would normally call out to Kubernetes without going through these ingress controllers. And that's really where that external load bouncer that is ingress aware is going to come in handy to make sure all these things are programmed correctly. Other questions? So talk to me around. I look like this. And thank you for coming.


So, with regard to solutions in this week's lab, thank you, you say would you want to show a center line over here or not, yes sir, no sir, why sir, why not sir, yes or no. So, those who are yes and those who are convinced raise your hands, those who are no and those who are convinced raise your hands, the number of hands do not match the decibel level of yes and no. Maybe it will be a nice idea to show the center line over here, maybe, because if you do not show the center line there, then if you look at the top, it gives the impression that you have a rectangular slot or trapezoidal slot in there, if you do not show the center line. So, that is one thing, corrected figure from last lecture, so one of the ribs is smaller in dimension and then you see the fourth circle at the center, so we will start off fresh with perspective views, those are again a kind of pictorial views, those who are into art will love the next three lectures and those who are not into art will become artists, if you follow this, what those who are into art will like these three lectures including today's and those who are not into art will become artists, hopefully. Stay with me, some examples, spare your wow for some time, some examples, what you reckon are these lines parallel to each other, are these lines parallel to each other, yes sir, no sir, yes, no, they are parallel to each other, but you get the impression by looking at this picture that they tend to converge to a single point, they tend to converge, are these lines parallel to each other, again you get the same impression that they tend to converge, this is art, look at those rods on the roof, are these parallel to each other, but the impression that you get is, I will tell you a little story about this, I will tell you a little story about this, this is something that I worked on back in 1995, when many of you guys were probably 1 year old toddlers essentially or may not have been born, then I did not know how to draw a perspective, frankly I did not know how to draw a perspective, so this was just out of intuition, can you spot me, let most, so, but I do not want you guys to have the same feeling, so if you want to attempt something like this, I would want to make sure that you guys know how to draw perspective views, this is a different example, yet another example, let us go back to the first example, look at these parallel lines, they tend to converge to a single point, choose a line they tend to converge to a single point, this example, choose a line again the same thing, again the same thing, here the story is a little different, focus on the lines on the right of this vertical edge, focus on the lines on the right of this edge and any line you choose and you extend they tend to converge to a point on the right, likewise lines on the left of that edge, any line you choose tend to converge to the point or to a point on the left, what is interesting is that this point here and that point over there, they happen to lie on a horizontal, that is what is interesting, I call the point on the left as the vanishing point, point where all the edges tend to converge, point on the right as another vanishing point, I call the horizontal line as the horizon line, line of horizon and it is this line that separates the sky from the ground, something very similar, look at the edges on the right of this vertical edge and the edges on the left of that vertical edge, they tend to converge to two different respective points, which lie on the horizontal, again the points are V p 1 and V p 2 vanishing point 1 and vanishing point 2, line in red is the horizon line that separates the sky from the ground, in this case you have a single vanishing point, single point where all lines they tend to converge, lies on the horizontal which separates the sky from the ground and this point here I call it V p 1, this is again a horizon line, this is where possibly you are stationed as an observer and I call that or I call your position as the station point. Now, let us try to apply those rules in perspective projections, apply those observations in perspective projections, of course you know about views front view, top view, profile view, so this would what be the scenario in top view, let us say you have got a picture plane, just behind it let us say you have a cube placed in the top view again, this is where you are stationed, mind you we are working with top view, so this is where you are stationed, so imagine if a bird is looking at you as well as the object over there, so this is what the bird is going to be observing that you are looking at four vertices of the object like this, so those rays from the vertices will hit your eye in these directions from the top, so in a sense you happen to get the sight information from the top view, once again you happen to get the sight information from the top view. Now, let us switch back to the front view of the profile view, I am standing on some line or you are standing on some line that is called the ground line reference line, let us imagine that the object is on the same line as where I am standing and of course this is true height of the object, now notice something important at this point over there is the station point which actually belongs to top view, not the front view or the top view, in a sense in the front view you will be stationed here on the ground line, so this guy belongs to the top view that is something that you need to keep in mind, get the height in the front view what would be the horizon line for me, what would be the line of horizon for me in the front view, I am standing here this is my ground line, the line that separates the sky from the ground what would that be, would that be below my eye above my eye or at the level of my eye, level of my eye, so in the front view my eye will be here on this line right above the station point. And if I look very far off I will be seeing the vanishing points on this line, the left or on the right any vanishing point has to be on the horizon line, in the front view or the profile view you get the height information, now what you want to do is you would want to combine both views together, so you have components from the top view the object in the top view the picture plane, this belongs to the profile view of the front view, ground line to the profile view of the front view this station point belongs to the top view. So, what you have done is you have combined information from both views and place them together, now stay with me here. If I look at an object very far away in the front view, if I look at an object very far away parallel to this edge where would my vanishing point be, once again if I look at an object very far away from me, but along this direction where would my vanishing point be, where would that be, bottom right I am looking straight, I am looking straight and parallel to may be one of those edges. Of course, my vanishing point will be on the horizon line and along this direction which is going to be where, that is my vanishing point. So, to draw a perspective in summary you have to identify the picture plane, you have to identify how the object is placed with respect to the picture plane, where you are stationed in the top view, in the front view you have to identify the ground line, you have to get the profile view of the object, you have to identify the horizon line and you have to identify either one or two or three vanishing points. So, once you have done that you are ready to draw a perspective view, let us see how, one thing that I would want to tell you is whatever feature is there on the picture plane will appear in true dimensions in your perspective view. For example, this face of let us say a cube is right on the projection plane of the picture plane, so that will appear in two dimensions that is something that you need to keep in mind. Draw two projections vertically downward, get the height and this is what you will see in your perspective view, this face front view like so, now things become little interesting, if you look at this edge where would it vanish, if you look at this edge the corresponding image in the perspective view would be like so, if you look at n h far away, if you look at an object far away along this edge that would be vanishing over here. Likewise if you look at this edge it will start from here and objects far away along this edge that will be vanishing or they will be vanishing there. If you look at the bottom edge if you start from here, if you look at the bottom edge edge below this that will be vanishing again along this direction. So, in a sense what you have done is you have identified the three directions along which the edges are going to be vanishing or the objects are going to be vanishing along those edges. Now, follow this very carefully in the top view this is what my sight ray is that allows me to see that vertex, this ray intersects the projection plane or the picture plane here. I take the vertical projection to get the corresponding image of that intersection in the front view. So, the corresponding image of this vertex on this edge on the top edge of the cube will be here. Likewise if I look at this vertex here this ray intersects the picture plane over here at this point I draw the vertical projection and this is the corresponding image of that vertex in the perspective view. What is this edge the back edge this edge the edge on the left this one the edge on the right, but on the top face this guy here the bottom edge the edge on the right, but the bottom face and this. So, I will tell you about that. So, this is a one point perspective. So, I will tell you about two points and three points maybe later. So, what I have drawn is a single point perspective by that I mean that you have a single vanishing point and to draw that you have to keep two things in mind. Number one at least one face of the object that should be coincident with the picture plane or the projection plane not a vertex, but a single line or single face in the top view and of course, you have to have one vanishing point. So, if you are here and if you look at the object along one of the lines which is perpendicular to this perpendicular to the projection plane that ray is going to be hitting the horizon line over here that would be your vanishing point single vanishing point. How do you take the stationary point that is a choice. For example, I am stationed here I am looking at the entire class I will get one view I am stationed at a different position now I am looking at again the entire class I will get a slightly different view and if I get stationed here I will get a different view and do not ask me to go out. So, station point is like a parameter so it is usually specified in other words it is a choice should I go over this once again start with a blank sheet stay with me and be alert start with a blank sheet. Do not worry about that may be it will be a nice idea for you to work this out on your sketch planes or sketch books while I am going to this once again that is the top view this is the profile view profile view of the front view because the height is going to be the same both yeah missing this is a pictorial view that you are drawing this is something very similar to isometric view that you are drawing pictorial view just single view. So, given all these parameters how would the object look like to you in three dimensions are you not missing one no you just need the sight information from the top view and the height information from the profile view. So, essentially you have you get the three coordinates ready ready here we go start with the picture plane p p place the cube in top view in such a way that one of the edges is lying over the picture plane it is coincident with the picture plane. Step one Step two figure out where you are stationed in the top view just choose any random point step three in the front view or the profile view choose the ground line it could be either above the station point or below the station point does not really matter for now let us say it is above the station point. So, once again the station point is the one that you see in the top view. So, keep that in mind draw the profile view of the object on the ground line single cube figure out what your height is 56, 57, 58. If you are standing here this is where your horizon line should be the line of the eye once you have the horizon line you are ready to start making the perspective view. Once again keep in mind that any feature of the object in top view that is lying on the picture plane will appear in true dimension in the perspective view keep that in mind what is your height what is your height 62 sure. So, if you are stationed here and if you are not scaling your height your horizon is going to be 62 minus whatever your dimension whatever this dimension is alright. Let us draw the front face because we know that is going to be in true dimensions that is the vanishing point once again if you look at an object far away along this direction. So, this ray which is parallel to this edge over here of the object will be hitting the horizon line over here and that will become your vanishing point alright. So, get the true shape stay with me stay with me get this face in true shape extend a ray from this vertex towards the vanishing point extend another ray from this vertex towards the vanishing point the third ray from this vertex towards the vanishing point. So, in a sense the three edges of this cube are going to be vanishing along these directions and they are going to be converging towards the vanishing point. Let us use the sight information look at the vertex in top left in top view this ray is going to be intersecting the picture plane over here take the projection of this intersection on this edge. So, this is the image of this vertex in the perspective view likewise the vertex on top right this ray intersects the picture plane here get the projection of this this point is the image of this vertex in the perspective view and this point is the image of that vertex on the bottom edge of the cube and finish the cube. Let us say you have another cube let us say you have another cube Mishraji do you need some water double up double up you know it is not your fault it is not your fault I must be reminds me of my C S 101 days when I was taking the first year course in computer science. I was taking this course on C S 101 I guess I was being taught FORTRON by professor D. M. Thandere and it was not very nice day quite hot and we were actually sitting the p c section auditorium we have this nice auditorium there and I was in the second range and usually that is never happened with me except for that one incident where my eyes felt heavy and I was like and when the class was over and you know professor D. M. Thandere was just here and he could have a very nice view of me and I was like and after the class ended I was still like this and when somebody did this to me I woke up and I felt the stare. So, it happens so I do not blame you guys. So, imagine that we have another cube imagine that we have another cube of which the faces slightly behind the picture plane not on the picture plane but slightly behind the picture plane. What do you do? How do you get the height information? So, what you do is project that face of the edge on the picture plane you know that that will be in two dimensions you see that profile view on the right get that face in two dimensions. Get the three edges of this cube vanish and converge at v p use the sight information use the sight information this guy insects over here take the projection down that would be hitting one of those edges over there. Likewise use the sight information see this vertex from the station point get the intersection point project that downward and that would be hitting over here and this face would actually be your perspective face corresponding that object. Once again if the features of an object are not on the picture plane to get the height information project the feature of the object on the picture plane like. So, you know that this face is going to be in true shape it is going to be having two dimensions get the verticals down get the height information from the right draw that face in two dimensions draw this face in two dimensions let the three edges of that cube vanish at the vanishing point or towards the vanishing point. You would know that these two vertices they will have to lie on these two rays once you know that start working with the sight information use the top view look at this vertex this ray is going to be hitting the picture plane over here take that projection come down this is the image this point is the image of this vertex here. Likewise look at this vertex get the intersection point take the projection downward this point is the image of this point in the perspective once you have this point this point you would have the corresponding points on the bottom two edges you complete the face yeah we can fine stay with me stay with me and the rest is straight forward rest is straight forward look at that vertex on the left get its projection down look at this vertex on the left get the intersection point get its projection down and complete this cube like this straight forward once you once you understand how to construct straight forward it is not very difficult another example. So, this how the perspective of this cube looks this how the perspective of that cube looks and if you observe all these edges all these edges they tend to converge to a single vanishing point there how about on the right a cube a little far away from the projection plane do the same thing project for the faces on to the picture plane get the true face of this cube draw edges that converge towards the vanishing point use the site information project the intersection points get the perspective of the face of this face of the cube and follow the same procedure and finish the cube art is boring isn't it or maybe not. So, once you practice you will you will probably get a little more excited questions how many of you guys are with me it is pretty nice. So, let us draw a table let us draw a table in one point perspective the top view is given the profile view is given stay with me stay with me and some dimensions are given. So, do not worry about the dimensions once you have this information let us start I would just want you to observe I will go mute I will just want you guys to observe I will go slow shall I may I here you go before I go mute I will also explain why this is the vanishing point again if I am stationed over here if I am stationed over here and if I am looking at an object far away along this direction. So, this point would be my vanishing point on the horizon line and this ray from the station point that is again top view will be parallel to that edge of the object single point perspective of a table there you go keep your eyes on the screen there you go once again come after the mix and mix is this art not yet not yet, but is this going is this giving you a realistic view for table this is not isometric definitely are you getting a realistic view. So, just follow those little guidelines to draw a single point perspective view and practice in your host rooms before you leave wait wait wait wait before you leave in a single point perspective of course, you have a single vanishing point make sure that you have at least one face of the object parallel to the projection plane one face of the object parallel to the projection plane in the top view otherwise you would not get it right. So, this guy has to be parallel to the projection plane of the picture plane. So, if you have questions I am here otherwise


Penguin Random House Audio presents Black Leopard, Red Wolf, by Marlon James, Red for You, by Dion Graham, to Jeff, for Quarumoon, and a million other things, but one. A dog, a cat, a wolf, and a fox. The odory eno appano. Not everything the eye sees should be spoken by the mouth. One, the child is dead. There is nothing left to know. I hear there is a queen in the south who kills the man, who brings her bad nose. So when I give word of the boy's death, do I write my own death with it? Truth eats lies, just as a crocodile eats the moon. And yet my witness is the same today as it will be tomorrow.  Craved for it, the way a glutton craves goat flesh.  To listen for his voice croaking and hear his chest heave in a death rattle, saying, Look, my wretched spirit leaves this most wretched of bodies, and to smile at such tidings and dance at such a loss. Yes, I glut at the conceit of it. But no, I did not kill him. Be odory eno appano. Not everything the eye sees should be spoken by the mouth. The cell is larger than the one before. I smell the dried blood of executed men. I hear their ghosts still screaming.  Shall I give you a story? I am just a man, who some have called a wolf. The child is dead. I know the old woman brings you different news. Call a murderer, she says. Even though my only sorrow is that I did not kill her, the red-headed one said that the child's head was infested with devils. If you believe in devils, I believe in bad blood. You look like a man who has never shed blood. And yet, blood sticks between your fingers. A boy you circumcised, a young girl too small for your beak. Look how that treats you. Look at you. I will give you a story. It begins with a leopard, and a witch. Grand Inquisitor. Sample complete. Ready to continue?