With movie studios and record labels worried about piracy, the solution is more constraints. As this open letter to Rhino shows, digital rights management is getting in the way of legitimate uses.

“She later went on to explain that I could burn the songs to a CD and listen to them in a regular CD player, but I would need an additional Windows based music player to listen to them on my computer. But either way, she suggested there was no way the files could be played on my iPod.

“I mean, could you imagine the consumer response if Coke could only be consumed from specific Coke-approved equipment, and then only in the specific ways that the folks at Coke wanted the product to be consumed. ‘Drinking Coke with fast food is no problem, but we must warn you that your license forbids the mixing of Coke with any alcoholic beverages…'”

A certain amount of theft is bound to happen. The solution is to fight back with simplicity. Make it easier to do the right thing than to steal. As Reemer put it, “create the path of least resistance for your customers.”

I’ve written about releasing early before. I think it’s a good game plan for most web-based applications.

But when is it worth waiting a little bit?

Dick Costolo says we should release late and use the extra time to make the product extensible.

“The bottom line being that you want to invest pre-launch such that you optimize for innovation post-launch.”

I like the idea of making it easy to add features to later versions. His milk shake analogy is a must-read. He explains how taking a little longer and making things extensible can beat first-movers in the long run.

The trouble I see with this approach is that it takes a lot of patience to keep the momentum moving for a product one isn’t sure will be accepted. And if ideas need execution, then getting something, anything out is better than turning your wheels waiting for perfection.

Maybe great project managers can pull this sort of thing off. Maybe someone who has a great vision of a product can do it. Maybe it takes extreme focus that many big companies don’t even have.

Most likely, as Costolo acknowledges in the comments, it takes a hybrid of early and late approaches. Which has worked best for you?

First off, I really enjoyed SXSW and Austin. It was a crazy, busy time. I can’t believe how much it has grown since 2000, when it also felt big and crazy.

A recurring problem, other than getting between the third and fourth floors, was that many panels weren’t what they seemed in the program guide.

I was confused about how that could be and then Sean reminded me that people voted for two-thirds of the content. That sounds utopian, but it has a major flaw:

The crowd has imperfect information.

It’s no wonder I was disappointed with many of the panels. The title and description was all I had to make my choice. The people who chose the panels had only the same information.

I’ve never been involved with putting a conference together, but I imagine it’s a tough job. You receive proposals, look them over, and ask questions of the possible presenters. When I wrote for Webmonkey, my editors would sometimes ask for a longer outline of a promising story. This helped flesh out the idea and let them know whether what I was thinking was the same as what they were thinking.

Provocative titles are important. They grab our attention. Then the content needs to live up to expectations set by the headline.

When the crowd doesn’t know the full story, they’re bound to make really bad decisions. SXSW seems determined to use the Panel Picker voting again next year. I would encourage Hugh Forrest and the other SXSW crew to do something to get better information to the crowd, or include some form of vetting. The conference will be better for it.

The key to being really good at something is terribly simple. Just do it a lot.

This story about an art assignment makes two great points to explain why:

1. Don’t drown in the details
2. Quality improves with each iteration

Thanks to Josh for sending it to my del.icio.us.