New futurist conversation with Ross Dawson: Open vs Closed Systems (video)

Here is another episode from a series of videos I made with my friend and fellow futurist Ross Dawson, in Sydney, last month. Read his entire post here, and check out Ross's video channel here.  And be sure to visit GerdTube:)

Via Ross's post: "Here are a few of the points we make in the video:
* Many executives want to know whether and why they need to open up their business models and customer interactions
* Open systems are faster, more viral, have more innovation, and are more fun to work in
* Apple is the only prominent example of a closed system that is working well
* There is a long and gradual trend to open systems, but progress is rarely linear and it hasn’t shifted as fast as we may have expected
* Platforms and open source have been significant wins for open systems
* There is a battle between ecosystems – you want to be open within the space but compete with other ecosystems
* Android within the platform is open – arguably too open – yet it competes with other mobile platforms it in fact so has boundaries
* Being too open can make things slower to progress, for example with quality assurance issues
* The development of a highly interconnected world creates more need for open systems
* APIs have provided a huge boost to the Internet economy
* Google’s early move to expose APIs to many of its products provided the impetus for this to become standard practice across the net
* A key issue is the pace at which commercial organizations should open out their models
* Facebook has become more open over time due to customer pressure, however now that Google+ has provided a ready way to export personal profiles that changes the competitive landscape in social networks

Related articles

• Futurist conversations: Ross Dawson and Gerd Leonhard on Open vs Closed Systems (rossdawsonblog.com)
• Video conversation with fellow futurist Ross Dawson: what is the role of a futurist? (mediafuturist.com)
• Futurist Conversations: The Future of Money (Ross Dawson & Gerd Leonhard Video) (mediafuturist.com)
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• Futurist conversation: Gerd Leonhard and Ross Dawson on the future of music (rossdawsonblog.com)

Announcing the payment model for my new iPhone & Android mobile apps: pay what you think it's worth

2 weeks ago, I launched my free iPhone app, followed by the Android version just a few days ago, powered by MobileRoadie in LA. Now that I am very close to the first 1000 downloads I  wanted to share how I intend to 'charge' for the apps and the exclusive content that I plan to make available there. So here it goes.

As you may have noticed, almost all of my content is free, including this blog's full RSS feed,  65+ slideshows, 100+ videos, most of my books & PDFs, and, for now, the new iPhone and Android mobile apps. I make a living with speaking engagements, keynotes, think-tank events and seminars, advisory work, CEO coaching sessions, and various other, mostly fun things; and I am indeed very privileged to really enjoy my work and make a living at the same time (an usual combination, I hear).

I want to continue to provide you with lots of great and free content even though many (if not most) people have suggested that I should start charging upfront for my content. However, instead of going down the road of requiring you to 'pay before you get' my content, i.e. to pay for my apps via iTunes or the Android Market I have decided to deploy my own version of the often-cited 'Radiohead Model' (borrowed from the group's (in-)famous approach to selling their music for 'whatever you think it's worth'), i.e. you will continue to receive a lot of stuff for free but yes, you can indeed make a payment if you like what I do. And I would be delighted if you do.

So here, below, are 4 ways to return the favor, help me pay for my iPhone apps and to otherwise monetize (terrible word but appropriate):

1) You can go to my Lulu bookstore and either buy a dead-tree i.e. printed, packaged and shupped version of my books, such as Music 2.0 for $17.75 or Friction is Fiction for a whopping $60.40 (sorry for the price but it's a lot of pages, 4c,  the cheaper b/w  version is here), or any of the PDFs ranging from $2.50 to $7.50 (even if you already have it... that's OK, too).

 2) You can  go to Amazon and order my 'old' and first book "The Future of Music"which is still a great book (co-written with Dave Kusek); just keep in mind that since this book is owned and marketed by a publisher (Berklee Press) it is not really the most direct way to ship a few $ directly to me;) - but still very much appreciated. The audio version is here, btw. The self-published, Lulu-powered "Friction is Fiction" book mentioned above is also available via Amazon so I'd prefer you to buy that first, or ... just get both.

 3) If you want to 'pay with attention' and give me some social capital rather than real money, that's OK, too (I shall ask my landlord to accept facebook points, soon, as well - seriously;). 

To this end, I would suggest these mechanisms:

• A nice, juicy blog post about my work, my presentations or my videos, or books
• A series of tweets, or retweets
• A nice review of my books (Amazon or Lulu) or iPhone / Android apps (Apple App store is good)
• Nice comments on my slideshows or videos (incl. my Youtube channel)

4) Finally, and most efficiently, you can just make a payment for what you think my stuff is worth to you; and guess what - there is no limit! Use this button, below (Paypal). And you can do it more than once, too.

 

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• The Corey Smith success story via TechDirt (nice to hear my books are having some effect;) (mediafuturist.com)
• Free mobile version of my Music 2.0 book for iPhone, Android and Blackberry (mediafuturist.com)
• Mobile first, from now on: the Media Futurist iPhone app is now ready for 1000 free users (mediafuturist.com)
• Announcing my new book on Lulu: "Friction is Fiction" - write a review and get the free PDF! (mediafuturist.com)

Great news: The MediaFuturist Android / Google app is now available, for free, as well, following the iPhone app launch last week

Go get it now, while it's still free (I will be announcing my business model for my mobile apps next week). Mobile first, from now on!

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Happy New Year: cool video: cell phones upcycled to form an interactive art installation (via Neil Perkin), 2010: all about Mobile!

Fellow Futurefeed Twitterer and London-based social media expert Neil Perkin is always good for an artful reminder; I found the video below on his most recent post. Nice one, Neil - thanks for sharing!

This egged me to predict (or rather... post-dict;) that 2010 will be all about Mobile:

• Mobile Broadband Take-Off
• Mobile Devices 2.0 (readers, tablets etc)  
• Mobile Communications X.0 (Google Wave, Twitter, apps etc)
• Mobile Reading (what... news to you? Start with my free Music 2.0 book, here;)
• Mobile Content ?.0 (drastically new, cross-media models... such as the tablet will offer)
• Mobile Applications, round 2 (and ...html5!)
• Mobile Advertising (i.e. not at all like on PC but mobile ads as targeted content) *Data is the New Oil!
• Mobile Location-Based Services
• Mobile Augmented Reality (Layar et al)
• Mobile Money (Africa, Asia)
• Mobile Me (as in...'Me' in the Cloud)
• Mobile Social Networking
• Mobile Disruption (Google Nexus is just the start)
• Mobile Music (Spotify, Pandora, RDio)
• Mobile Convergence and the coming TeleMedia Economy

As to the video: says its creator James Theophane: "Each phone is individually addressed by a computer to cofunction and create a choral arrangement.  Assigning each phone a tone, the mass is transformed into an aural form that appears to come alive, shimmering and flirting for onlookers."

Experience Mobile Mobile from James Théophane Jnr on Vimeo.

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Making Money from Mobile (Video via TelecomTV)

Nice video with some good examples of how new revenues can be generated via mobile applications; incl. Shazam, CoPilot Live, m.FT.com, AQA63336 (CEO: "in mobile, you can actually charge money")

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New mobile lifestreaming page now available: get all my shared stuff on your mobile device

I met Michael Reinsch and the other cool guys from Mobalean at Tokyo 2.0 back in August 09. Now, they have put together a pretty nice mobile version of my Lifestream Page (see the regular version above) that makes it very easy to view all my latest updates on your iPhone,  Blackberry or Android phones. This includes all the stuff that I share via many different platforms, incl. Twitter, Slideshare, Twitpic, Google Reader etc.  We are using the Friendfeed API here, in case you were wondering. Check it out, and please let me know how you like it! 

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Gerd Leonhard's Life-Stream via kwout