I have blogged about this many times: social networks are the next broadcasters, and many content creators will start going direct, both for distribution as well as for funding. And we will use networks like facebook mostly on mobile devices - 3 Billion of them, soon.
"Two years ago, Hollywood talent agent Ari Emanuel made a remarkable statement about the future of media. He said he could see a time when certain movies premiered on Facebook instead of in theaters. “For the $150 million movie, you’ll still need to go to Warner Brothers, but for the $25 million movie, probably not,” he said at a San Francisco conference. After a decade of war with Silicon Valley, big chunks of Hollywood’s establishment are thinking about technology differently. Instead of freaking out about how high-tech companies will drain their pockets, Hollywood executives are increasingly looking at deals with firms such as Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon as a way to line them. As we spend more time online — almost as much time as we spend watching television, according to Morgan Stanley — these companies are becoming TV networks for the digital age. They are hugely valuable advertising and distribution engines for Hollywood content..."
"Facebook revealed impressive statistics about its growing and active userbase, which totals 845 million members, more than half of whom, or 483 million, return to the site daily. These hundreds of millions of users have shared more than 100 petabytes (100 quadrillion bytes) of photos and videos with Facebook, and produced an average of 2.7 billion “likes” and comments a day in the final three months of 2011"
A few days ago, I contributed a few comments to an io9 piece on the future of Facebook - read the whole thing here. Douglas Rushkoff is also quoted (and needless to say, he has a slightly different opinion on Facebook:)
Here are some of my quotes:
"Facebook has a bright future," as long as it can stay "human and open," contends Gerd Leonhard, founder of Green Futurist and author of The Future of Content. "Facebook is infrastructure now, like a highway, or water." He predicts Facebook will rival Google in terms of revenues within three years, and already rivals Google for importance. The main challenge Facebook will face is user fatigue, as it adds more and more services and forms of content...but Leonhard notes that real relationships will always be about the combination of offline and online encounters. And as "offline" and "online" converge, we will stop thinking of them so much as two separate places. People will also be more likely to start grooming their Facebook pages more carefully, and "personal branding will become more of an art form."
In addition, someone just emailed me this illustration below, on what the expect of the Facebook IPO - good fit. Enjoy and RT:)
Here are both parts (90 minutes plus 35 minutes) of my keynote speech on The Future of Content at Colombia 3.0 October 7 2011 see http://www.colombiatrespuntocero.com
The panel discussion afterwards can be viewed here, as well (all in Spanish). Note: even though I am actually presenting in English the overdup is Spanish and very much in the foreground. I will try and get an English version, as well - stay tuned.
El suizo GerlLeonhard, líder futurólogo experto en modelos de comercio electrónico, medios de comunicación e innovación fue el encargado del cierre de la Primera Cumbre Nacional de Contenidos Digitales, Colombia 3.0, realizada por el Ministerio TIC entre el 5 y el 8 de octubre. Después de cuatro días de análisis en los que se reunieron emprendedores, inversionistas, animadores, desarrolladores de aplicación y representantes de la industria de los contenidos digitales del mundo terminó Colombia 3.0. En la cumbre participaron 30 conferencistas nacionales y 50 internacionales, quienes se reunieron en 14 eventos simultáneos.Las distintas actividades y conferencias fueron seguidas en línea en 23 ciudades del país y 15 países. De igual manera se tuvo la participación de Siggraph, una asociación mundial de animación gráfica y técnicas interactivas, espacio en que 19 expertos en animación compartieron sus experiencias exitosas en las firmas más importantes del mundo de esta industria. Bogotá 7 de octubre de 2011.En su intervención GerlLeonhard, realizó un detallado análisis de los cambios que han sufrido los medios tradicionales al migrar a los medios sociales como Facebook, Twitter y otras redes sociales. Además,Leonhard anotó que en la actualidad se vive una cultura de la banda ancha y son los “prosumidores”, consumidores activos, los que producen contenidos digitales.
Mencionó el experto suizo que el mundo digital está regido por la relevancia y no solamente por la distribución, según Leonhard, los contenidos digitales deben ser depurados antes de ser distribuidos a los distintos públicos y subrayó que la nueva economía digital que se está viviendo en la actualidad debe iniciarse desde Internet y especialmente desde los dispositivos móviles. Anotó también Leonhard, que el usuario es quien genera los contenidos digitales en la actualidad através de distintos dispositivos móviles. En su intervención, señaló además que la tendencia actual se desarrolla a través de lo móvil, lo social y lo local. Ademásindicó, en este sentido,que para el 2015se esperaque 7.1 trillones de dispositivos móviles sean usados en el mundo.
Ross Dawson and me recently met in Sydney (where I spoke at the Google ThinkTravel event, on The Consumer of Tomorrow) to do some videos together. The first episode is now live on Youtube, on the Future of Money. I think this turned out quite well and provides some interesting brain-teasers. You?
Ross has a good summary of what we discussed:
* The world of money is opening out in a big way today * Facebook credits are becoming an important alternative currency * Cash will phase out for digital payments * The rise of Bitcoin is important in shifting transactions out of the purvey of governments * In many developing countries mobile phones are becoming the predominant banking platform * Micro-payments for content could work through social media and dominant platforms such as China’s QQ * These could flow into crowdfunding for creative endeavors * Behaviorally we are some way from micro-payments working well * Money will inevitably shift to the cloud
I was invited to do the opening keynote at Ericsson's 'Shaping the Networked Society' event at this year's mobile world congress (MWC) in Barcelona, on February 14, 2011, see my blog at http://gerd.fm/i9Dh9I. Some of the topics I covered include the challenges and opportunities of convergence (TV-Web, Mobile-Fixed, real money - virtual money), new currencies and paying with facebook credits, companies becoming platforms not empires, what is beyond the current social media enthusiasm, the new paradigm of 'interaction before transaction', the tough but inevitabe switch from ownership to access (both in content / media as well as in general), the rise of the 'following paradigm', how the media and content industries are changing, and much more.
Take a look and please spread the word if you like it. Thanks.
My new company, The Futures Agency, just launched its own company page on Facebook, here. Many of TFA's partners will be posting regular updates here, and share videos, slideshows and images, so be sure to come by and LIKE us to stay connected. Thanks!
Next10 was nice event; lot's of good conversations there. In the morning (May 11, 2010), I gave a presentation on the topic of my last book, "Friction is Fiction". You can download the book's PDF via Lulu (for $3.99) or buy the newly updated black & white dead tree version for a smashing $19.99), and if you really are adverse to spending anything you can ask me for a free, low-res version of the book (via Twitter is best). Friction is Fiction explains how before the Internet (and mobile) it was possible to generate revenues by essentially forcing the users to pay, i.e. via scarcity, distribution hurdles, dominance. This no longer works (at least, in most cases) - Liquidity is what is needed, Trust replaces Control and the winners are lubricating the digital economy. Check out this slideshow - and please share it widely!
Cool, finally Facebook allows people to pick their user-names - I got what I always get: gleonhard. If you want to connect on Facebook please add me but be sure to tell me you are coming via my blog!
Read Zuck's post: Facebook | Governing the Facebook Service in an Open and Transparent Way. When Facebook changed their Terms of Use last week, making it look a lot more 'controlling', all hell broke loose. Even in Switzerland (where I live), the national TV news reported on the uproar that followed. Everyone hated Facebook's new ToUs and lots of
people were considering ditching their accounts. Even though their new ToUs did not surprise me, and I already consider everything I do on Facebook to be kind of 'in public domain' (under the Creative Commons license I use for pretty much anything), I do think that they way they have gone about this left a lot to be desired. Their brilliant and decidedly Web2.0 move was to immediately back-paddle and return to the old ToU - very smart, and something that probably got them extensive media coverage all over the world (hey - there's a lot more room to grow, from their measly 160 Million or so users;).
So Zuck wrote in this blog-post: "Our main goal at Facebook is to help make the world more open and
transparent. We believe that if we want to lead the world in this
direction, then we must set an example by running our service in this
way. And... we came to an interesting realization—that the conventional
business practices around a Terms of Use document are just too
restrictive to achieve these goals. We decided we needed to do things
differently and so we're going to develop new policies that will govern
our system from the ground up in an open and transparent way. Beginning today, we are giving you a greater opportunity to voice your opinion over how Facebook is governed"
Well-done. Sure sounds a lot like Facebook will be more like a 'Public Utility' ... kind of like the BBC, maybe? Now, there's another blog-post, right here!
But here is the key point, for me: It is now abundantly clear that the WE-THE USERS can control and influence what happens - not (just) the 'Network Owner' or 'Provider' or 'Media Company' or 'Studio' or 'Label' or "TV / Radio Network". If we-the-users, the people formerly known as consumers, don't like it, we'll leave, taking all our friends with us, deflating the platform's value very quickly - just imagine what would happen to Google if we pulled our trust from them. Control has now shifted to the Users - and that's a good thing.
This is,
of course, the topic of my next book (download some previews, here). More soon. Facebook ToU tag cloud by Flickr, AuntieP
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