Video: the Wired Magazine Tablet Application (Demo), my comments

Everyone in the content industry should watch this demo, below, of what the Wired guys are working on - it's fantastic food for thought; exciting stuff. And just gotta love Scott's Matrix-dude-like, gravely voice in beginning;). Well done, guys.

4 'IF' comments: 1) If the publishers can and will provide very addictive, immersive and interactive experiences at LITERALLY no-brainer prices or via bundled services (big 'if' here) 2) If the media companies and 'rights-holders' decide to get rid of all that crippling and legitimate user-insulting DRM and other technical protection models (remember, Protection is in the Business Model) 3) If the advertisers and brands are really going to fast-track their support for these kinds of new platforms 4) If everybody can finally resist the temptation to make this yet another 'walled garden' competition, albeit with prettier flowers....THEN indeed, we just may have something here. I'll be watching (+).

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My presentation on "Content 2.0 - Monetization Examples" at MidemNet 2010

 Below is the PDF from the presentation I just did at Midem 2010 in Cannes / France (Sunday January 24, 2010, 5.30 pm). My MidemNet blog posts are here, and my presentation "Compensation not Control" from MIDEM 2009 is here. Please click through to the Slideshare site to download the PDF if desired. The video is now available, here, as well. Download: Content 2.0 Gerd Leonhard at MidemNet 2010 Public PDF 15MB

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Content 2.0: finding new ways to generate revenues

View more documents from Gerd Leonhard.

Great Steve Jobs video, some key messages for 2010: Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish!

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

(Reposted from the MidemNet blog Dec 31 2009)

I just ran across this really amazing and very personal, moving video of Steve Jobs at Standford University: "...drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life's setbacks -- including death itself -- at the university's 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005..."

Steve has some very important messages for us (summarized below); I think they offer some perfect reflection points as we move into 2010 (even though his talk is actually 5 years old!):

• The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking!
• You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
• Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma.
• Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish

A transcript is here, btw.   Let's make this our motto for this new decade: Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish!

Some invitations left: Future of Telecom, Media & Technology (TMT) at BLP Law in London, January 13, 2010

If you are interested in attending please contact me (eMail, Twitter); they have very few places left. It's a free event but reserved for senior executives in the TMT sectors.

 The New Year Revolution - Event January 2010

We would like to invite you to The New Year Revolution: an insight into what's on the horizon in the technology, media and telecoms sector in 2010 (and beyond!)

We are delighted to welcome Gerd Leonhard, TMT futurist as our keynote speaker.

Gerd is renowned for his presentations and think-tank appearances, which are hard-hitting and provocative yet inspiring and motivational.  His clients include Nokia, Google, Sony-BMG, Siemens, ITV, the BBC, The Financial Times and many others.

Following Gerd's keynote there will be a session bringing you up to date on important law changes for 2010.

Date: Wednesday 13 January 2010

Time: Registration, breakfast and networking at 8.30am.  Seminar 9.00am to 11.00am, including time for questions. There will be more time to network when the seminar has concluded.

Venue: Berwin Leighton Paisner Adelaide House, London Bridge, London EC4R 9HA.

via www.blplaw.com

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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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Will this be the way we read magazines in the near future? Videos: SI.com & Wired tablet versions

I have a hunch it may well be... check it out. This is amazing stuff - the only limit is our time, and attention;)

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Crucial Intelligence: the latest Internet & Economy Trends by Morgan Stanley (via Web 2.0 summit)

Once again, great stuff by Mary Meeker and her Internet team at Morgan Stanley, via the Web2.0 summit. The video, embedded below, is good, too, but in my opinion it's the the slides that matter most: every single page packs a punch and makes you think. Great mix of facts, statistics and some key foresights. A must-read (and then... digest). Techcrunch has some great comments on this presentation, here.

Economy & Internet Trends - Morgan Stanley Presentation

View more presentations from kvjs.

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iPhone mania: there's an App for that (2 videos)

The trend towards everything becoming an iPhone app is really amazing. Go to a bar with your buddies and you'll be certain to hear 'hey - there's an iPhone app for that'! Some of us used to talk about cars, sports, tech... now it's all about 'check out my cool iPhone apps' and swapping them. Techcrunch just reported a pretty cool, 30-day online background music app by designer Philippe Starke, too. A-mazing... I'll be watching.

The official Apple version The spoof (really funny)

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Mobile broadband is set to explode - so what happens to Content Creators (90 sec video)

Mobile broadband penetration is making vast strides, around the world. Smart phones and connected devices are getting cheaper by the minute. LTE (long-term-evolution, a next generation mobile telecomunication technology) will offer mobile data connectivity at vastly increased speeds, and at very competitive prices. Jointly with a company called O2B Networks, Google is launching 16 satellites to bring low-cost or free mobile broadband to Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 

So if and when we actually have 2 Billion+ people connected to mobile broadband, in 2012 (see the forecast in the video, below), what will happen to all the Content these users will consume or shall we say... share... remix...forward...adapt? How will content creators generate revenues from this enormous, interconnected and hungry, always-on audience?

In my view, the only plausible answer is to equate network access with content access, i.e. to bundle them together - once you connect, much of the content usage is included. Revenues are derived in many different ways, including next-generation (!) advertising, bundles, sponsored access, flat-rates, freemium etc.  This video briefly explains why this is needed.

If would like to know more, please check out these resources:

Broadband Culture and the Future of Broadcasting (video)

Future of Mobile Content (presentation)

Mobile Content Futures (narrated slideshow)

Compensation not Control (video of keynote speech at Midem 2009)

Why Spotify will fail without a public digital music license (blog post)

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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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Imagine an iPhone Netbook 2x the size - adios Kindle and Sony Reader. Publishers: get ready!

Thinking about the current Netbook craze I have a strong hunch that Apple may well jump in and roll out a new iPhone-inspired Netbook - let's call it the Apple iNet - that could be roughly 2-2.5 as large as an iPhone. A TOUCH-SCREEN device like this could easily become a major challenge to digital reading devices such as the Kindle (which I can't try here in Europe) and the Sony Reader (which I have but don't like a lot). I have found myself wanting an iPhone / iPod like device like this 100s of times already, especially while traveling.

If Apple does this - and I would certainly like that , let's just imagine:

• We could finally, really read offline web-pages, PDFs, slideshows, white-papers, non-fiction books etc on a nice, full-color touch screen, using next-gen versions of existing apps such as Instapaper ****, Soonr, Stanza, Bookshelf, EReader (in fact, this may be why the new Kindle app for the iPhone is crucial for Amazon!)
• We could review our RSS feeds much easier, including images and videos, using apps like Byline (my favorite) and Newsstand, or the Google Reader offline app (once they offer it)
• We could cache i.e. record video and audio streams and play them on our 'Apple iNet' device - and actually have a really nice viewing experience
• We could use the iNet device to do some simple image and video editing - but most likely this would be done 'in the cloud' not using local software

  Image via Wikipedia

A smart, Apple-style device like this (which may have similar elements to OLPC's XO2 but would not compete in the low price markets, naturally) would give a huge boost to the mobile content ecosystem - and it would also usher in an era of rampant and wide-spread electronic book sharing that would make music file sharing look like child's play.

Publishers: you may want to get ready for this sometime soon. My 2 cents: radically lower the prices for ebooks, start looking at bundles, subscriptions and flat rates, figure out how to monetize sharing with new advertising-supported models, gear up to provide added values all the time (value is around the content!!), start planning for those New Generatives - you've got another 12 months if you're lucky. Go!!

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Apple Bends to Studios, Adds Copyright Protection to MacBooks | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

Image via CrunchBase

Madness!!! Apple Bends to Studios, Adds Copyright Protection to MacBooks | Gadget Lab from Wired.com. Talk about punishing the legal and paying user:  "Appearing to cave to Hollywood demands, Apple has quietly added a restrictive copyright protection mechanism to its new MacBooks that is preventing customers from watching movies on external displays. Apple has secretly included a copy protection scheme called High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) in the external display ports on the latest models of it MacBooks, released in the middle of October.."

Another customer insult, just like region coding - incredible!

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Why Apple Won't Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone (Wired.com) - but not for long I think

Good story here: Why Apple Won't Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone | Wired.com. The marvels:

"Don't hold your breath waiting for the iPhone to support Adobe's Flash software: Apple's terms-of-service agreement prohibits it....Allowing Flash — which is a development platform of its own — would just be too dangerous for Apple, a company that enjoys exerting total dominance over its hardware and the software that runs on it. Flash has evolved from being a mere animation player into a multimedia platform capable of running applications of its own. That means Flash would open a new door for application developers to get their software onto the iPhone: Just code them in Flash and put them on a web page. In so doing, Flash would divert business from the App Store, as well as enable publishers to distribute music, videos and movies that could compete with the iTunes Store"

Plausible explanation but of course there is no way Apple can let this continue in the long run - everyone wants Flash on their mobile devices. Zero chance for Apple to keep the lid on like this, imho. What do you think?

Picture via Flickr - well done Martin!

Even Apple can't control it all ;) -iPhone app developers NDA dropped

It's been a while but I just ran across this snippet ;)

Apple Reluctantly Tries Out Transparency - Welcome to the End of Control, Steve? (comment on Wired.com column)

A crucial post on Wired popped up in my reader this morning: After a Decade of Secrecy, Apple Reluctantly Tries Out Transparency | Gadget Lab from Wired.com.  These paradigm changes at Apple are indeed a big deal since in my view Apple is pretty much the only market leader and 'cult brand' that still banks solidly on a Total Control paradigm - and the bizarre thing is that I like their stuff, a lot, regardless.  So...Wired's Brian Chen writes: 

"The tight-lipped corporate giant recently made a move toward transparency when it lifted its iPhone non-disclosure agreement. The unpopular policy prohibited iPhone application developers from discussing their coding techniques. Lifting the NDA may hurt Apple by exposing the inner workings of the iPhone to competitors like Google and Nokia. But increasingly open competitors and disgruntled developers may have forced Apple's hand..."

This last sentence is important - this is happening everywhere: openness trumps closedness, trust trumps control, and increasingly so. Give it another 18 months, riding on the crest of the wireless mobile broadband explosion fueled by powerful mobile devices, and everyone will be busy showing us - the people formerly known as consumers - how open they are, and how much they will empower us and deserve our trust.

Look at this key sentence in Apple's explanation why -until now- they required NDAs for the iphone app store developers:  "We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work"

The fear of being ripped off caused them to want to control the people that worked with and for them - their biggest fans and most important users! Sound familiar? In the future, this is a risk that you'll just have to take - you cannot publish something and then build a remote control safe 'catch' into it. My prediction: watch for Apple dropping the DRM from iTunes in the near future, as well -because now, really, Friction is Fiction.

More from Wired:  "So what gives with the openness? One of the things that's happening to Apple is that it's less able to keep secrets than it used to be, because it has a broader supply chain and broader distribution," said Roger Kay, an Endpoint Technologies analyst. "And because it's dealing with parties that need plans -- partners as well as some customers -- they need to disclose their plans. Kay explained that Apple isn't alone anymore; the company is now working more closely with partners, such as iPhone developers, mobile carriers and so on. That inevitably forces the company to open up..."

In other words, you can't go it alone anymore, you can't keep the lid on people that are adding value to your enterprise, and you can't dominate a decentral ecosystem - anymore.

Welcome to the End of Control, Apple?!;)