The Browser is the new iPod!
Just posted this on my Friendfeed page
Inspired by this Wired blog entry by Eliot van Buskirk (always the best!)
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21 posts from April 2009
April 30, 2009
April 29, 2009
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Selling 2.0: The Future of Selling (slideshow)
Here is a collection of slides I have just cooked up for an upcoming presentation. Music (optional) by Natasha Beddingfield (congrats to Sony Music UK for making this happen 'for free' - good work). Enjoy and RT @gleonhard.
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Paul Saffo on the Emergence of Forecasting Tools (video)
Paul Saffo is always a good guy to pay attention to.
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April 27, 2009
iPhone apps more popular than music downloads: 1 Billion downloaded in 9 months. What gives?
Image via Wikipedia
Based on what Wikipedia says I am estimating that iTunes has maybe sold a total of 6.8 Billion songs since April 28, 2003 - i.e. exactly 6 years ago. Now Apple just announced that over 1 Billion iPhone & iPod apps were downloaded around the world (a good list of the top 20 free & paid apps is at Ben Tao's blog), during the past 9 months, already. Why is that? Why is music apparently less popular than software gadgets? Here is my 2 cents:
- The music on iTunes is always paid-for while apps are sometimes free and sometimes paid (and at different price points), and are therefore an easier sell. Try and buy is still the best way to get hooked - and iTunes does not even allow me to listen to the full track before I need to shell out my dollar! In any case, the fact that some apps are entirely free can serve as a good reminder that for the creators there are many other, equally attractive forms of remuneration than just getting immediate cash. App developers certainly seem to have many other reasons than just getting paid 'by the unit', such as creating a stronger 'Pull' for their other offerings or providing the app to get a wider audiece for their skills - and the same argument could certainly be employed for music I would reckon. Why not start with the stream-on-demand, then offer the download for free or for a very low price - but then upsell the fans to a much larger fan package, similar to what Depeche Mode is now doing with their Season Pass. The ever-resourceful Techcrunch, btw, estimates app store revenues to be $777 Million for 2009 - I would be even more optimistic than that, though, because I expect much higher sales of iPhones and iPod after the next version comes out in June, featuring the build-in FM transmitter that can send the music wirelessly to your car stereo (radio execs... are you ready for that?)
- The music on iTunes is both too cheap and too expensive (depending on how you look it it), but there's nothing that fits the "free stuff + premium" package that people like so much these days (such as for my favorite, Instapaper) which is how most people get hooked on the good stuff. In this world, Freemium Rules, indeed.
- Most apps are really cheap and it's easy to part with a few dollars for something that may have real value for me - especially if one of my peers has just recommended it. I have purchased at least 40 apps, and I can tell you that the barrier to purchase an app is much lower than the barrier to buying songs at $1 / Euro 1. And yes, sure, unlike music the apps can't be gotten for free anywhere else (apart from what can be done with jailbroken iphones I guess) and that certainly is a factor - but even if they could be 'pirated', I would venture to say that I would still pay for them on iTunes, because it's LIQUID, quick, convenient, low-cost and no big deal. If the music industry can achieve the same (and not just on iTunes!), than you'll see those numbers go up, for sure. Liquid and friction-less are the keywords here - and that, to me, as you may have guessed, means the digital music flat rate.
- Mobile phone apps are about ME, about my personalized style and experience. The apps give me the power to select what I like, try it and love it or hate it. See a guy's apps and you can get a feel for who he is (yes... that goes for women, too, but unlike guys you probably don't see them comparing iPhone apps over a drink;). If we can make music -and other content- more personal, more customized, too, my hunch is that would help boost the sales, as well.
So, Music Industry, here is my recipe:
Lower Price Points + Freemium + Customizing + Value-Value-Value = Revenue Growth
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April 26, 2009
The Future of Content starts with Open Platforms!
As I like to say: The Future of Content starts with Open Platforms, Open Standards and Open Licenses
- Getting paid with attribution, attention,
traffic, reputation: Open Software Copyright Ruling tells us that
attention equals money
Gerd Leonhard Futurist At Jakarta Broadband Summit "Open is King - The Future of Media
View more presentations from Gerd Leonhard.
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April 25, 2009
Net-powered Musicians and Creators: how to take advantage of the Internet (Video)
I did this in early 2008 but it's still very accurate. The video was shot by my friend and fellow blogger Jonathan Marks, in Amsterdam, and talks about how artists and musicians can use the Internet to their advantage. Hope you like it! You can find the same video on my Youtube channel, btw, here.
Gerd Leonard - Net Powered Musicians - VUrbia.com...Life in the Entertainment Age! from JesseJaeo Tolbert on Vimeo.
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April 24, 2009
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Joi Ito on Innovation in a Recession (a must-watch)
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April 23, 2009
Nice CNN video on Google's Free Music Offering China
I blogged on this crucial development here; and just found this video to share.
April 20, 2009
Defining Attention Revenues (and how to convert attention into tangible income)
... working on a longer blog post on this topic. Preview illustration below. Stay tuned!
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April 17, 2009
Cool Sprint 3G network commercial with some interesting statistics (video)
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April 16, 2009
A key topic for 2009: EGOsystem becomes ECOsystem, yelling becomes talking, traditional Marketing...dies!
Image by gleonhard via Flickr
I touched upon this in my presentation at the Mobile Monday event in Amsterdam: I think we are going through a totally amazing and very challenging paradigm shift, right now (and this may still be a somewhat delayed consequence of the Internet (r)evolution and the first .com bubble): From EGO to ECO, from Control to Openness, from Domination to Collaboration. A few examples:
- The amazing shifts in U.S. policy and America's new global role: when President Obama implements his far-reaching plans to rewire how America works we will see this new trend towards win-win solutions rub-off everywhere else, too, and kick off chain-reactions in many other, traditionally more dominance-focused countries such as Russia, as well (and the reverse is also true). The old Bushinator mantra 'You lose - we win' has simply become unsustainable in today's networked economy, and America will doubtlessly struggle with this shift from domination to partnering for quite some time. However, I definitely anticipate a strong trend towards open systems and open platforms in the global economic and political spheres - as well as in technology and content / media - with utter transparency and TRUST becoming the key requirements for success, everywhere. There will no doubt be considerable debate on what this trend means for copyright and patent laws, globally, too, since these laws have traditionally been used for shoring up market-shares and protecting the interests of the large, dominant players in many industries.
- The music industry: the decline - or shall we say gradual vaporization - of most major record industry players due to their amazingly persistent obsession with control, makes a great case study. Rather than to finally permit new revenues to be co-developed via collaborating on win-win scenarios, the IFPI and RIAA are still looking for new enforcement and protection mechanisms such as the now flamed-out '3 strikes & out' legislation - it does make you wonder if their 'leaders' have lived under a rock for the past 5 years! In any case, the music industry is the prime example why monopolistic and totally centralized structures will simply not work in the future, and why we need governme
nt intervention when a market place is clearly dysfunctional. Many of my readers know that I have been talking about this for a looooong time, but now we are finally seeing it take shape: the music rights organizations and their related content licensing processes will undergo significant and sweeping changes in the next 2-3 years; everything is moving from a 'not allowed / not possible' default mindset to a more collaborative, open, flexible, transparent and public rights licensing logic - and they must adapt or get out of the way. The bottom line: If it's not based on a web-centric and connected logic it will cease to exist. As an example, the current conflict between the Music Performing Rights Organizations (PROs and MROs) such as PRS, GEMA and Youtube is based on this basic paradigm disparity: PRS and GEMA are thinking of the music rights still being firmly and exclusively their business (i.e. an EgoSystem), and Youtube/Google think of music rights as being a crucial component of a new, 21st century content ecosystem that concerns everyone and should not be governed by monopolies and cartels. Therefore, for Google I reckon that the music rights issue is something that must go far beyond the traditional structure that's based on 'I own the rights, exclusively, and you'll need to pay whatever I ask for'. My prediction is that if the traditional rights-holders and the many societies that represent them don't materially change their thinking on this very soon, they may wall see a wide-spread revolt of their younger, more progressive members, because they know that not permitting the use of music on Youtube (and Google!) is simply a suicidal move, in terms of getting attention and building your brand. Get off the Ego and think Eco!
I
Image by gleonhard via Flickr - Microsoft's Windows OS is becoming less and less dominant (and relevant, too) as 'free' and cloud-based operating systems are gaining ground everywhere (Linux, Google)
- Most telcos, mobile operators and ICT companies are trying to switch from the traditional 'total control of the network, the infrastructure and the users' to open platforms as fast as they can (e.g. AT&T's open source plans, Skype's open Silk codec, Nokia's Open Symbian Foundation, Google's Android Mobile OS)
- In software, the continuing trend towards open-source and crowd-sourcing is clearly visible everywhere (e.g. the huge success of Firefox vs IE, and the rise of open-source DMBS)
- Many large corporations are starting to move into crowd-sourcing, wanting to pursue increased openness in return for a chance to realize network-economy benefits. E.g. Glaxo Smith Kline's recent move to release a huge amount of cancer research data into public domain (Note: in this context, I highly recommend Yochai Benkler's fantastic book "The Weath of Networks")
- The mind-boggling popularity and global success of API-driven web portals and platforms (Twitter's amazing growth, Friendfeed, the new Facebook 'River', widgets, the UK Guardian's open API etc)
- For many large companies as well as for SMEs (small medium size enterprises), Social Media is quickly becoming CRM (customer relationship management) - rather than running expensive ads that talk about 'Me' and how great the new product is (i.e. Ego), the switch to 'having conversations with the customers aka users' is visible everywhere: Ford's new Fiesta campaign, Kraft's cool iPhone app. Brands can no longer be just BIG EGOs - they are part of Ecosystems, too.
- In Advertising, the entire paradigm of 'we'll yell until you listen' is finished - this concept was all about the Ego of the brands, and about us, the people formerly known as consumers, listening. Now it's all about the Ecosystem: Do you come recommended? Who trusts you? What makes you worthy of my consideration? Why should I pay attention to you? Who vouches for you? Who has told me about you? Are you open and transparent? Here, too, Egosystem has become Ecosystem, and a Trillion $ industry is changing as a consequence - from Push to Pull, from Yelling to Talking / Listening. Tough gig but... a gold mine if you can make it ;)
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April 15, 2009
Futurists Glen Hiemstra and Gerd Leonhard on Behavorial Targeting, the Future of Advertising and Google (video)
Image by gleonhard via Flickr
This is from our new series called "Where is it Going (WiiG)": Futurist Glen Hiemstra and Gerd Leonhard talk about Behavioral Targeting, privacy, the future of advertising and Google's recent announcements in this context. Subscribe to WiiG via iTunes (download all videos as soon as they go up).
April 13, 2009
Podcast of my Authors@Google speech in San Francisco: The End of Control and the Future of Content
MP3 file is here Details are here. Some snippets: Bottom Lines: The fight for Control was
a fight for Distribution. The flight for Attention is a fight for
Trust. The beneficiaries of Control were Monopolies. The beneficiaries
of Trust are those that Collaborate. Advertising 2.0:
Information becomes Conversation. Interruption becomes Engagement.
Annoyance becomes Entertainment. 'This is an Ad' becomes 'This is
Content'. The Sharing Economy Logic: Sharing...the
Output (i.e. publish, re-mix, co-create, life-stream...) the Input
(i.e. remuneration in cash, attention, reputation...) ... the Thruput
(i.e. usage data, meta content, attention trails >> New Data
Economics)
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