Jeff Jarvis rocks - no doubt about it. I have been reading his new book "What would Google do" and in my view it's at least as important as Wikinomics or the LongTail. Check out Jeff's slideshow and video below (yes, you can fast-forward thru the first 8 mins of German intro;) - no matter what business you are in, this will give you some serious food for thought; if you're in the content business - well... watch it 5 times! Some of his key points:
The link changes everything
Do what you do best and link to the rest
Join a network / Be a platform
Think distributed
If you’re not searchable, you won’t be found
Everybody needs a little SEO
Life is public, so is business
Your customers are your ad agency
Small is the new big
Manage abundance (not scarcity)
Join the open-source, gift economy
The mass market is dead—long live the mass of niches
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
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!!
Sander Duivestein, senior analyst at Sogeti's VINT, and one of the co-writers of this powerful ebook that provides a huge amount of both information and inspiration for anyone pondering the Future of Media, just send me the link to where his great book can be downloaded as a free PDF. Go get it before they run out of server juice;)
The full title is: Me the Media: Rise of the Conversation Society - Past, Present and Future of the Third Media Revolution
The authors are Jaap Bloem, Menno van Doorn, Sander Duivestein. There are some pretty cool illustrations in the book as well (see below).
I will be chewing my way through this during the next few weeks - hey, I may even take advantage of this opportunity and start using my new Sony Reader, i.e. without printing all 292 pages.
The main topic of the book (as far as I have read it, at the time of this blog post) is how drastically things have changed because WE 'the people formerly known as consumers' are becoming more empowered by the minute, i.e. it's increasingly more about MEMedia than about THEIRMedia; about conversation and engagement not (you guessed it) about Control. The video below provides a nice intro as well, more vids are
here. This is a must-read, imho! Be sure to pass on the news of the release.
Incidentally, I have found a few slideshows on Slideshare that are also a very good fit with this book, including this one (not mine:), and, naturally quite a few of these PDFs might also make a good fit (yes, they're mine;). Enjoy. Don't print.
Lulu rocks! I just created a 92 pages 6"x9" b/w book that comprises my best blog posts and essays from 2008, along with various illustrations. I thought that a very-low-price, on-demand book likes this makes perfect sense for everyone that does not have the time to keep up with my daily writings on this blog or otherwise - and a lot of people told me that they would like to read my stuff in a different way than via RSS or PDFs.
So now, courtesy of the ingenious folks at Lulu, you can order a nicely printed 'real' book for a very low price ($9.95 USD) and read it using the good old 'dead tree' interface. A PDF is also available, for 1/4 of the price of the book ($2.50 USD) Please note that I will keep revising this book (Lulu makes that very easy), i.e. I will of course add my best posts from Nov & Dec 2008, as well.
I get a lot of books in the mail, via my clients or (mostly) via networks on LinkedIn, Facebook, Friendfeed etc. Very few of them make it into my dead-tree-interfaced reading list (yes, it maybe that part of my problem is the 800+ RSS feeds I try to look at when I have a minute). But when the DDB people in NY send me their CEO Chuck Brymer's new book "The Nature of Marketing" I was quickly drawn into actually reading it all the way through (in pretty much one go, no less... perfect for that ZRG - SNG longhaul I went on a few weeks ago;), which by itself is a rare occasion.
I reckon that a lot of people at DDB have contributed to this book but mostly it is Chuck's enthusiasm for reinventing advertising that makes this book an inspiring read. Chuck, and DDB, is of course known for the Swarm Marketing concept (get the white paper here) which keeps popping up in this book, as well, but more importantly I really like all the various examples such as the Philips 'Simple Switch' campaign that are being presented throughout the book. Great food for thinking laterally!
I will be chewing on some of the ideas in this book for some time to come, but in the neantime here are 2 things I agree on, very much, and therefore want to share with you:
The future will require connected agencies that are evolving from merely orchestrating campaigns to actually facilitating conversations
Technology is now merely a commodity, and this is a social / cultural revolution, not a technological one
Making a long story short - this is a good read.
Related: my slideshow on the Future of Social Media, here
Disclosure: I have held various speeches and keynotes for DDB and TribalDDB in the past.
If you are in the 'content' and / or media business, Jeff Howe's new book 'Crowdsourcing' is a must read, because it describes a powerful trend that will change the way we do business: because of the fact that we are all connected now, at all times (well... just about), it is no longer just authorized insiders, professionals, employees or otherwise paid workers in large firms that can solve large problems or contribute to complex projects. Now, the world can be your talent (as Don Tapscott is putting it, in Wikinomics, years ago), and companies like Procter & Gamble are busy sourcing ideas and solutions from anyone that wants to take a crack at it, via platforms such as InnoCentive or YourEncore.
Here is Jeff Howe's definition of Crowdsourcing: "The White Paper Version: Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a
job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee)
and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in
the form of an open call. The Soundbyte Version: The application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software." Jeff's blog is here, btw (a Wired blog). Some nuggets from the book (quoted):
Labor can often be organized more efficiently in the context of community than it can be in the context of a corporation
Crowdsourcing has the capacity to form a sort of perfect meritocracy... Gone are pedigree, race, gender, age and qualification
When this demographic (the digital natives) reaches adulthood, they will bring behaviors and attitudes honed through 1000s of hours in front of a computer, constructing their own experience and working collaboratively in various online communities
For the past decade I have been looking hard for a new solution that spares me from having to print 100+ pages from various websites and blogs every single day, only to subsequently stuff 1500+ pages in my computer bag and end up making a huge mess in airport lounges around the world as well as on the plane, reading and desperately bookmarking (high-lighting) the best stuff. A huge waste all-around and impossible to really retrieve anything.
Apart from reading even more PDFs like this one on my computer (which is far from convenient or easy-to-do), I have now discovered that some of my many mobile devices are actually starting to be very suitable alternatives for reading printed paper. Leading the pack here is of course the iPhone and the iPod Touch' and some select Nokia devices which I will cover in a separate post - I currently use both but the iPhone's app-store does make it a lot easier to give this a try.
Not only can I now read webpages that I have converted and stored for offline use via the cool instapaper app but now I can also read real books (well... not fiction, really - that would be a stretch) using the eReader app for the iPhone. The selection at eReader is not very large, yet, and the prices are quite high (surely that isn't their fault I would reckon), and of course there's DRM galore but it's still something worth looking at - convenience trumps those hurdles only for early adopters like me, though, that's for sure.
I do wish that the publishers would wake up and see this as a much, much bigger opportunity than they seem to do, at this time: there is simply no reason whatsoever for a book to cost $15 via the eReader - give me a break please - there are no shipping and no printing costs. Darn - you could make this a real, liquid, low-cost, ubiquitous global business.
In any case, what I do now is to save the longer web-pages on my instapaper page (on the computer), sync with iPhone or one of my iPod Touch devices (it would be great to have that on the Nokia phones, too!), and then read it when in the taxi, on the train, or in the plane. For annotating stuff, I simply carry a small paper (!) notepad and pen so that I can quickly jot down the most important realizations from what I read - I have found that actually writing stuff down really makes a difference when trying to retain information, anyway, so that works fine for me.
Using Instapaper, the webpages are converted and very easy to read, btw, and scrolling is easy with the pro version. Next, if I want to read a book, I think I'll start using eReader for that (I am trying it with the free books right now) - but here again, if I could have a flat rate now that would be good; don't punish me for my interest, punish me for buying the dead tree version.
And if you live in the U.S. - which I don't - there is Amazon's Kindle which seems to be making some serious headway and the OLPC XO2 (see pics on Flickr) which allows book-like reading and looks great - hope they don't really get stuck with the MSFT OS, though.
The bottom line is this, and I think it's really exciting: easy and comfortable electronic reading is just now becoming a real possibility using mobile devices, and this will have serious impact on the entire publishing industry, from newspapers to magazines to books. As usual, if content owners and their representatives can ease up on the Control a bit I think we're looking at another huge opportunity for those that actually create the content to begin with. The business models? Stay tuned - I am working on it;)
I am a great fan of Cory Doctorow's work - he is totally amazing in the way that he covers everything from (Science) Fiction to reports and columns for the EFF. One of the sharpest minds around - do yourself a favor and read his Craphound blog. Cory's new book "Content" just came out and I have just downloaded it, added it with iPod notes (very cool) and ordered a few copies via Amazon. Here's a summary:
"Hailed by Bruce Sterling as “a political activist, gizmo freak, junk
collector, programmer, entrepreneur, and all-around Renaissance geek,”
the Internet’s favorite high-tech culture maven is celebrated with the
first collection of his infamous articles, essays, and polemics.
Irreverently championing free speech and universal access to
information—even if it’s just a free download of the newest Britney
Spears MP3—he leads off with a mutinous talk given at Microsoft on
digital rights management, insisting that they stop treating their
customers as criminals. Readers will discover how America chose Happy
Meal toys over copyright, why Facebook is taking a faceplant, how the
Internet is basically just a giant Xerox machine, why Wikipedia is a
poor cousin of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and how to enjoy
free e-books. Practicing what he preaches, all of the author’s books,
including this one, are simultaneously released in print and on the
Internet under Creative Commons licenses that encourage their reuse and
sharing. He argues persuasively that this practice has considerably
increased his sales by enlisting readers to promote his work.
Accessible to geeks and nontechies alike, this is a timely collection
from an author who effortlessly surfs the zeitgeist while always
generating his own wave...."
I also like the way that Cory provides free downloads along with the donations, see more here.
"Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call. Look for the book by Jeff Howe, the man responsible for identifying the term, this August...." I just ordered the book; review to follow. Check out the blog here - a fantastic resource! Wired covers it here.
Highlights:In just the last few years the influx of talented amateurs armed with
inexpensive, high-resolution digital cameras has upended the economics
of stock photography. Five years ago, a professional-quality image was
still a scarce resource. No more. This isn't to say the market for
high-end photographs has disappeared...he company [istockphoto] is in the midst of transforming its business, from one
reliant exclusively on professionals to one that is at least equally
reliant on amateurs...And photography may well be just the beginning. iStock itself is doing
a burgeoning business in the sale of stock video footage, and the crowd
is also making commercials, collaborating on TV scripts, and recording
and distributing their own music...."
Businessweek has a good feature called "Book Publishers: Learn From Digg, Yelp—Even Gawker: Book publishing could keep itself vital by taking a page from Web 2.0 technologies, but it has a long way to go..."
The first amazing thing they mention is this: "Amazon (AMZN)
is laughing now. The Kindle, a device that lets people download, store,
and of course read books in a digital format, could become a $1.1
billion business for the company next year, accounting for 4% of sales,
according to a widely read Aug. 11 note by Citigroup..."
So Amazon has succeeded of building a nice new business by making something that was fixed, physical and controlled by scarcity into something that is LIQUID and can flow easily. Once the Kindle's display technology improves, some of the (no doubt publisher-mandated) security provisions are loosened, the design is improved, various little bugs are ironed out, and it works worldwide (3G/4G, Wifi, Wimax?), it will be huge, no doubt. Yes, of course, that's quite a list, but Bezos will do it!
And then, what's next: maybe a flat rate for digital books (ha: books like water..?), both paid-for in cash and paid-for in attention (i.e. next- generation advertising) - and there will be many variations of such a flatrate depending on location, culture, legal frameworks. But just imagine a digital book flat rate in China - just like Google is making music 'free' in China, as you read this, maybe Amazon will make books 'feel-like-free' in Asia, as well.
Sarah Lacy at Business Week offers some more good input for publishers to stay relevant:
OK, so I read a lot of books (and... RSS feeds and other shared stuff). But Seth Godin's new book, Meatball Sundae, is one of the best marketing books I have ever gobbled up while on some airplane going from one speaking gig to another. To illustrate: I am pretty ruthless with my high-lighter in one hand, and pen in the other, and by the time I am through I can always tell which book really got me going, simply by the amount of high-lighting I have done (or not, in most cases).
And: "The 'operating system' for marketers is now fundamentally changing. It
doesn't matter how big your market share is today. If your product and
your marketing are optimized for the older model, you will be defeated
by the relentless tide of the New Marketing and the products and
services that are designed for it."
Plus I love his writing: easy to read, to the point, structured paragraphs, clear. So, for once, forget the feeds, the tweets, the podcasts... read a book. This book.
Well written and concise predictions by Futurist Richard Watson. Download his first chapter here
From the book:
"Trends that will transform society: Globalisation... used to mean Americanisation, but these days it means exposure to people, products, and ideas from everywhere. Globalisation impacts on the sourcing of products and services, and on market-expansion opportunities. It also means connectedness and mobility. Everything from countries and computers to gadgets and global banking will be hyper-linked together. In the future, this trend will accelerate even faster, thanks to devices such as GPS, RFIDs, sensor motes, and smart dust (all essentially tiny wireless transmitters and/or receivers of some kind). Hence privacy will all but disappear, but transparency and risk may increase...."
David Jennings' book Net, Blogs and Rock'n'Roll is well a worth a read - lots of great stuff in here; definitely recommended if you want to catch up on digital music trends. I met David several times *see below for evidence.
Net, Blogs and Rock'n'Roll charts how digital discovery works, from the automated recommendation services that suggest what titles you might want to explore based on your previous preferences, through to the ways that we share word-of-mouth recommendations online. It outlines the three strands of digital discovery -- TLC: Trying Out, Links and Community -- and explains how the history, culture and technology of today's media are interwoven with the rise of personalization and mobile players. It profiles the groups of consumers and their various approaches to discovery, and outlines the pyramid of influence: Savants and Enthusiasts record
their finds, express their opinions and lead communities of fellow consumers, while other groups are more passive participants.
Net, Blogs and Rock'n'Roll reviews the strategies that creators should adopt in the new era to maximize their chances of being discovered and reaching a broad audience. It shows the new breed of smart intermediaries how to support discovery by finding fresh ways of getting exposure for their material, developing buzz, and encouraging people to exchange recommendations with their friends.
"Jennings is spot on when discussing how people discover music today, and in recognizing that it
has become impossible for tastemaking to revert to monopoly held by the few. The book is rife
with amusing metaphors and nuggets, It's a comprehensive and enjoyable read." Eliot van
Buskirk, Wired (Listening Post blog)
I ran across Richard Watson's work at the Future Exploration Network the other and was so impressed that I ordered his new book, Future Files, right away. On my way from ZRH to SFO last week (and back) I read most of it and I must say that it really rocks! Lots of great information about future trends and scenarios that will provide lots of food for thought - and not just media and technology but just about everything else, too. If you are interested in the Future... buy this book. Check out Richard's essays and writings at his what's next website.
"Future Files is a new book filled with provocative forecasts about how the world might change in the next half century. It examines emerging trends and developments in society, technology, economy, and business, and makes educated speculations as to where they might take us..." (from the author)
PS: His colleague Ross Dawson (also at FEN) offers some good reading, as well, here
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