Announcing my new Kindle book "The Future of Content"

Today is a very big day for me. My new Kindle book "The Future of Content" just went online at Amazon, and is already gaining a lot of traction. You can view a very short video greeting about the book on my GerdTube channel (Youtube:) 

Of course I would be very happy if you would consider buying the book for yourself (only $3.90, Kindle-only) but beyond that it would be really great if you could help me spread the word via rating and / or 'liking' the book on the Amazon.com page, tweeting about it or just forwarding this mail to some friends that may be interested.

As you probably know, I have published my last 3 books as free pdfs (which are quite popular) but really wanted to try something new with this book; after all reading on the Kindle is a much better experience than reading a PDF, and thus is, to quote Kevin Kelly, one of those "New Generatives" :)

"The future of content" will also be available in dead-tree-versions aka print, via my Lulu store, soon - please stay tuned.    Happy reading!

Gerd Leonhard
(Media Futurist and CEO of The Futures Agency),
Basel /  Switzerland
http://twitter.com/#!/gleonhard
My public Amazon / Kindle profile
(sharing all my book highlights there)

 

Update October 25 2011: this nice review may be helpful:

Increases brain power for content creators, October 25, 2011

By 

Suzanna Stinnett

This review is from: The Future of Content (Kindle Edition)

"I challenge you to expand your brain and read this book. What Gerd Leonhard is always doing is informing the global brain (or the collective brain) in ways that help us all get where we're trying to go. He builds the buildings in front of us.

This collection points toward several compelling answers for content creators. As a writer who is already swimming in the changing currents of "content," I found it intensely informative.  Leonhard shores up my courage to continue embracing a digital world without DRM, and ebook prices "for the masses." He makes the all-important concept of curation crystal clear. If you are providing any kind of content in print or on the web, it's relevant. If you want to stay on the front edge of content creation and publishing, it's basic. I'm making this book mandatory reading for my epublishing circles"

Amazon Kindle German Store
Amazon Kindle French Store
Amazon Kindle UK Store

ABOUT "THE FUTURE OF CONTENT"
Futurist Gerd Leonhard has been writing about the future of content i.e. music, film, TV, books, newspapers, games etc, since 1998. He has published 4 books on this topic, 2 of them on music (The Future of Music, with David Kusek, and Music 2.0). For the past 10 years Leonhard has been deeply involved with many clients in various sectors of the content industry, in something like 17 countries, and it’s been a great experience, he says. “I have learned a lot, I have listened a lot, I have talked even more (most likely:) and I think I have grown to really understand the issues that face the content industries - and the creators, themselves - in the switch from physical to digital media.”

This Kindle book is a highly curated collection of the most important essays and blog posts Leonhard has written on this topic, and even though some of it was written as far back as 2007 - “I believe it still holds water years later. I have tried to only include the pieces that have real teeth. Please note that the original date of each piece is shown here in order to allow for contextual orientation.” Leonhard’s intent to publish this via the amazing Amazon Kindle platform, exclusively, and at a very low price, is to make these ideas and concepts as widely available as possible while still trying to be an example of what digital, paperless distribution can look like, going forward.

Related articles

• "A free Kindle could be just the beginning of an explosion of book-like content from Amazon and..." (futureof.biz)
• The Future of Digital - Eco NOT Ego (futureof.biz)
• The End of Control & The Future of Content: Gerd Leonhard Authors@Google (gerdleonhard.typepad.com)
• Mobile advertising must be content-based (review of my talk at MMA Forum in Sao Paulo (mediafuturist.com)
• Future of Connected Television Gerd Leonhard @ MIPCOM Digital Minds 2011 (slideshare.net)
• Meet me in Geneva on October 26th: Visions of a Networked Future at ITU Telecom World (mediafuturist.com)
• Gerd Leonhard: New video: "Friction is Fiction" explained (mediafuturist.com)

Must-watch video: CNET roundtable on the music industry (with chief disruptor Michael Robertson)

CNET's Rafe Needleman and Greg Sandoval (2 people whom I follow closely and whose work I really like) have cooked up a smashing 33 minute roundtable (video) with the notoriously tenacious music-business disruptor Michael Robertson (MP3.com founder, MP3tunes creator, now CEO of the very interesting music / radio cloud-recorder service Dar.fm).

The video covers just about all angles of the music industry and provides a great overview of everything that's wrong (and could be righted, I guess) in digital music, and Michael sure has all the right answers to some pretty tough questions. In fact, for most of it, I couldn't have said it better myself:).  Check it out. Michael and me do have a few things in common, as far as the message goes, I guess...

Related articles

• DAR.fm is TiVo for radio. That's not necessarily good (news.cnet.com)
• The Music Industry Isn't Going To Be Pleased About DAR.fm (businessinsider.com)
• Michael Robertson Bucks the Music Industry Again (businessweek.com)

Egosystems become Ecosystems: the future of media, marketing and business (my presentation at DoLectures 2010)

Blogging this aboard a train from Wales to London; on my way back from one of the most amazing events I have attended in a long time: DoLectures in Cardigan, Wales (UK); see more details at their blog, here. I was invited to speak on one of my key topics: the switch from EGOsystems to ECOsystems - here is the PDF, below. Video to follow shortly.

Egosystem to Ecosystem: Gerd Leonhard at DoLectures 2010

View more presentations from Gerd Leonhard.

 

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Future of Media: Presentation at Estacio de Sa / Telezoom event in Rio de Janeiro (mediafuturist.com)
• INMA Ideas magazine feature: "The future of content in a connected economy" (mediafuturist.com)
• The Future of Film: My Talk at the Neuchatel International Film Festival (slides, video, audio) (mediafuturist.com)
• MusicNetwork Interview on the Music Business "The Future of the Future" (mediafuturist.com)

Check out my daily Twitter 'Paper' created by Paper.li

Very cool tool - simple and useful. Paper.li organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag. A great way to stay on top of all that is shared by the people you follow - even if you are not connected 24/7 !

Related articles by Zemanta

• How to make your Paper.li newspaper rock #paper.li (holykaw.alltop.com)
• Guardian Technology links curated via Paper.li (mattmcalister.com)

My recent contribution to the INMA Ideas magazine: "The future of content in a connected economy"

In July, I was invited to do the cover story for the International NewsMedia Marketing Association (INMA) and the latest edition of their Idea Magazine (available to subscribers, here), on the topic of how to monetize content in a digital, networked and mobile world.  The magazine has now been published and INMA allowed me to publish my story on this blog, as well so.... here it is, as a PDF:  Download Gerd Leonhard INMA future of content. Enjoy and spread the word.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Future of Film: My Talk at the Neuchatel International Film Festival (slides, video, audio) (mediafuturist.com)
• The Future of Music: mobile, social... paid? (slideshare.net)
• Complete video and audio from my appearance on Roda Viva / TV Cultura (Brazil), April 2010 (mediafuturist.com)

Jeff Jarvis on New Business Models for News (video)

Great stuff - a must watch! and check out NewsInnovation.com

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Future of Business in the Open Economy (video of my presentation at the Fundacao Dom Cabral, Brazil) (mediafuturist.com)
• 10 Film Trends that spell success and doom (springboardmedia.blogspot.com)

New Video Interview from the INMA World Congress in NY: the Future of Content & News: ECOsystem not Egosystems

Just found this - some good soundbites of my favorite memes - well worth the 3 mins 50 secs;) . The slideshow from my keynote at the International News Media Marketing event, itself, is here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Future of News, Publishing and Media: Monetizing Content (INMA Wordl Congress) (mediafuturist.com)
• Gerd Leonhard: Really funny video (via The Onion): How Will The End Of Print Journalism Affect Loons Who Hoard Newspapers? (mediafuturist.com)
• Immediate Media Futures (Presentation at Guardian Changing Media Summit 3/18 2010) (slideshare.net)

Complete video and audio from my appearance on Roda Viva / TV Cultura (Brazil), April 2010

This is the complete, 75-minute video of my appearance on Brazil's most popular talk show on Public TV, called Roda Viva (on the TV Cultura channel). I was delighted to be invited to the show, and really enjoyed being 'grilled' by the super-smart journalists and Brazilian media experts in the studio. We could have talked forever! The show was originally broadcast on April 26 (on Brazilian TV as well as online, see the Twitter buzz here) but unfortunately the webcast did not work very well so this is the first time I have seen the video, myself, and thanks to Roda Viva / TV Cultura I am delighted to be able to share this recording with you, as well.

More information about the show is here. Duda Groisman made some great photos during the recording of this show, embedded below. Related activities on this trip include: my presentation for NBS Brazil "The Future of Communications and Business", and my presentation at Fundacao  Dom Cabral (one of Brazil's best business schools) on "The Open Network Economy". Please note: the video is half Portuguese (the questions) and half English (my replies)

Here is a 9-minute version via Youtube (their 10-minute limit really bugs me!) Audio:

Gerd Leonhard Roda Viva TVCultura Brazil

Gerd Leonhard Roda Viva No Intro

Related articles by Zemanta

• Some great pictures from my session at Roda Viva / TV Cultura in Brazil (mediafuturist.com)
• The Future of Business: Slideshow on the changing Frameworks of the Open Economy (FDC Brazil) (mediafuturist.com)
• Shifting to the Open Network Economy: my presentation at the Fundacao Dom Cabral CEO event in Sao Paulo (mediafuturist.com)
• Presentation: The Future of Communications and Social Media (NBS Sao Paulo) (mediafuturist.com)
• A must watch: full-length video of my talk on the Future of Communications and Social Media at NBS Brazil (also: live on Roda Viva TV Monday 4/26) (mediafuturist.com)

Friction is Fiction: the Future of Media & Business (my presentation at Next10 Berlin)

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!

Friction is Fiction: The Future of Business & Media (Next10)

View more presentations from Gerd Leonhard.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The latest revision of my book "Friction is Fiction" is now available on Lulu and Amazon (mediafuturist.com)
• My MidemNet Academy Presentation: beyond the noise - how to use social media to market music (mediafuturist.com)
• Warner Music Group 2.0: my unsolicited advise on how WMG could embrace the Future (mediafuturist.com)
• Gerd Leonhard: Panik vor Piraten: Gerd Leonhard on Swiss TV SF1 "Kulturplatz" (on eBooks and Music) (mediafuturist.com)

The Future of News: a new relationship with the public (Jeff Jarvis at INMA 2010), 'Not sell the words' (my take)

Check out this short Jeff Jarvis video, below, and then peruse my slide-show on "The Future of News" Update: here is my interview, as well

Related articles by Zemanta

• The iPad romance is over for Jeff Jarvis (tuaw.com)

Good Nieman-Journalism Lab summary: ASNE conference, iPad’s ‘walled garden’

This is a good read if you want to catch up on the Future of News (as I am preparing for my INMA World Congress speech next week, in NYC, I will be focusing on this for most of this week). The snippet below is particularly revealing, I think: while all the buzz is around the 'pay walls' debate, most of the work actually happens on discovering or co-creating new revenue sources. 

"While some editors are looking at putting up paywalls online as that new revenue source, the nation’s news execs aren’t exactly overwhelmed at that prospect: 10 percent are actively working on building paywalls, and 32 percent are considering it. Much higher percentages of execs are working on online advertising, non-news products, local search and niche products as revenue sources..."

via www.niemanlab.org

Related articles by Zemanta

• Gerd Leonhard: What will the Guardian do if Murdoch's paywall succeeds? (Peter Kirwan/Media Money) (mediagazer.com)
• Should you use ad blockers or not? (guardian.co.uk)

Cross-posted from my Techdirt Guest Post: The Future Of Content: Protection Is In The Business Model - Not In Technology

Last month, Mike Masnick invited me to do a guest-post on Techdirt.com one of my favorite online destinations. It went live last night and is getting quite a few comments - check it out here. Comments and discussion is here.  Retweets are here.

Image by gleonhard via Flickr

If I received a dollar every time I get a question along the lines of "how can the content industries compete with FREE?" -- I would be traveling first class everywhere I go. Underneath this question I often find my favorite toxic assumption: "less control over distribution means less money."

This belief is as tired as it is poisonous: enforcing control (when trust is really what's needed) will yield instant disengagement, which swiftly and surely will translate into dwindling revenues -- as the music industry keeps proving again and again. If you believe in control rather than value and trust, the content business of the future is not a good hunting ground for you.

Take eBooks: despite clear and present proof that DRM has proven disastrous in selling digital music (and now is pretty much history), technical protection measures are still being looked at to 'secure distribution'. When will they ever learn?

The thinking that the digital distribution of content must be controlled to achieve any kind of reasonable payment is fundamentally flawed because of this not-so-futuristic realization: in our open, mobile, social and digitally networked economy, content publishers need to offer their goods in a way that no longer centers on the distribution of units (digital or physical) as the key revenue factor. The idea of just selling copies is toast - selling (i.e. offering) access is where the money is. Kevin Kelly said it years ago: we must sell what can't be copied, what's scarce, not what is ubiquitous.

The irrefutable trend is that the window of opportunity of 'selling copies' (be it iTunes, eMusic, the Kindle or the iPad) is rapidly closing. The real opportunity, the TeleMedia Future, is in selling access and presenting a constant stream of up-sells (i.e. added values and offering content-related experiences). Remember, as Mark McLaughlin so righly pointed out in the HuffingtonPost recently, consumers have never really paid for content - they paid for distribution! And now, distribution means Attention and Access.

Imagine when buying access to eBooks, you wouldn't just pay for the authorized enjoyment of the authors' words, but you would also gain instant access to highly curated and socially-networked commentary, a fire-hose of meta-content provided by your most important peers and friends that may also be reading these books, and their ratings, explanations, slide-shows, images, links, videos, cross-references -- and maybe even some direct connections with the author or the publisher. In an access-based, bundled and cloud-centric content ecology, being a legitimate and authorized user enables engagement, conversation, relevance, personalization, meaning... i.e. it unlocks really valuable benefits for the user. Connect with Fans + Reasons to Buy (as has been mentioned on this blog a few times, before, I believe) - that's where the money is.

In music, streaming-on-demand will without a doubt be available 'for free' (i.e. bundled and packaged by 3rd parties) or advertising supported, while many added values above and beyond the mere reproduction of music will not - no matter whether WMG's CEO Edgar Bronfman thinks it's a good idea 'for the industry' or not.

Just imagine where an access-to-the-cloud model could go next: if I want a high-definition version of my favorite opera or that Blue Note Jazz Club concert from last night I could buy a premium package that provides it. If I want to share my personal play-lists, ratings and comments with my Facebook friends, and get access to their content, as well, I can add the 'social network option' to my package. If the price is right (micro-transactions, anyone...?), I'll buy - because I am already hooked on the music.

The music industry needs to ask itself this question: if a permanent, unprotected download of a song would cost only $0.10, or if an ad-supported version of a on-demand, all-you-can-eat music service would be seamlessly bundled into your mobile phone subscription - would anyone still bother to scour the web to find badly ripped, virus-laced tracks for free? Would we need 3-Strikes or HADOPI or Digital Economy Bills?

Yes, I know, that price point sounds ridiculous for those record label CEOs that used to sell CDs for 15-25 Euros a piece, but hang on a second: if they can get 95% of the users to buy access at a much lower price (and almost zero cost of duplication and distribution!), and in that process really engage with them, the fans would also do the marketing for them - i.e. share the links. Sounds like a great model to me. But of course: selling access at a much lower (or feels-like-free) price to quite literally everyone only makes sense if it actually connects directly and smoothly to a multitude of up-selling possibilities, such as interactive versions of eBooks, high-definition versions of online radio shows, albums or concerts, in-depth analysis and audio/video commentary for news, etc.

Now, content storage is starting to move from my own computer or my hard-drives into the cloud - and I think this is very good news for content creators, publishers and rights-holders because it makes it even easier to engage and up-sell to those new generatives. Crucially, the answer to the constant quest of monetization is also in the cloud: I believe most people will soon stop sharing the actual media files (since they are getting increasingly larger and larger, and therefore more unwieldy) and will share only the links, the bookmarks, the metadata or the tags, and that should be a boon for the content industries.

The perfect test bed for 'Media as a Service' (MaaS) may unfold soon, with Apple's new iPad or Google's Tablet (hopefully). Extending the concepts mentioned above, rather than blocking my wife or my kids from sharing an eBook with me it would be much more logical if I could easily read her book, as well; but beyond the 'copy of the words' all else would not be available without a micro-transaction on my part, i.e. I would not have instant access to the cool video clips, the updated links, the footnotes, the ratings, etc; i.e. all that valuable context that will make eBooks so much more powerful would be out of my reach until I validate my own access.

The bottom line: content sharing isn't the real problem: high price points, outmoded, pre-web toll-booth concepts, broken relationships and processes, low values for high prices, bad technology and service, and utter lack of conversation and engagement are.

Here is my message to publishers and content owners: lower the prices for access to your content to the point of unanimous excitement, use open standards and technology platforms that work for everyone, everywhere; bundle and package as attractively as you can (then: repeat). Team up with ISPs, mobile operators, advertisers and device makers.

Remove all the reasons that your users may have to avoid your new toll-booths and skip the desired conversion to 'paid' - the lower the hurdle for legitimate usage and paid engagement, the higher the added values, the less you will have to worry about 'competing with free'.

33 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Related articles by Zemanta

• iPad: King of All Media? [Digital Daily] (digitaldaily.allthingsd.com)

Immediate Media Futures: my preso at the Guardian CMS: data is the new oil; forcing to buy is like... forcing to love

I really enjoyed being at the Guardian's Changing Media Summit in London, last week. Not only is the Guardian one of my favorite online news-sources but I also got a chance to talk to Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales, during the event, and I met tons of great and inspiring people - London is always a goldmine for that.  So, as promised, below is the slideshare version of my presentation as well as the direct link to the low-resolution PDF download; feel free to download and re-use as you like (under the usual creative commons, attribution / non-commercial license).

Some of the bottom lines from my presentation:  1) in content and media, we are rapidly moving from just selling 'stuff' i.e. copies of content, to selling services and experiences 2) EGOsystems are rapidly becoming ECOsystems; i.e. because we are all (well, most;) connected now we must create and implement mutually beneficial business models that are based on market-making and revenue sharing 3) Trying to enforce control when trust is crucial is a very bad idea, i.e. the quickest path to failure in this new content economy 4) In the content industries, the concept of mostly 'selling copies' is becoming 'toast' - "New Generatives" based on access must urgently be created and delivered 5) The future is in selling -and bundling - access, not (just) copies, and the ecology of selling access is totally different - we must get used to it! 6) The content 2.0 economy will work only in conjunction with a new approach to what telecom companies, ISPs and mobile  operators will and can do, going forward. The creation of a new telemedia ecosystem is needed to really solve the key issues that the Internet has made even more urgent to solve 7) All content is shifting to the cloud, and Media As A Service (MaaS) will become a standard, very soon 8) therefore, as I have said many times before, data is the new oil (!!) 9) Value, Reason, Price, Ease of Payment and Packaging are the main success factors in selling content online 10) Most business models in the content industry will be based on a constantly changing mix of 'I pay, you pay, they pay' 11) A message to Murdoch et al: Forcing to Buy is like Forcing to Love!

Download Future of Media Guardian CMS Public Gerd Leonhard Low Res blog (3.8MB PDF)

Immediate Media Futures (Presentation at Guardian Changing Media Summit 3/18 2010)

View more presentations from Gerd Leonhard.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Attention, Money and the Future of the Internet (Gerd Leonhard at Internet Hungary) (slideshare.net)
• Michael Wolff: Charge for News! Yes, Do It! C'mon! I Dare You (huffingtonpost.com)
• @ CMS2010: A Dose Of Wolff: Rupe's Mad As Hell, Newspapers Are Over (paidcontent.org)
• What is the future shape of media? (guardian.co.uk)
• Presentation: The Future of Communications and Social Media (NBS Sao Paulo) (mediafuturist.com)
• The Mobility Revolution and the Power of Social Media (Gerd Leonhard at ACTE09 in Prague) (slideshare.net)

Really funny video (via The Onion): How Will The End Of Print Journalism Affect Loons Who Hoard Newspapers?

If newspapers stop printing every day, what will those loons do that collect and hoard newspapers?  Tough question. Should the loon way of life be preserved?  Watch the video. For more serious take on the Future of News join me for my presentation at the INMA 2010 World Congress in NY, April 27/28 ;)

Related articles by Zemanta

• How Will the End of Print Journalism Affect Pack Rats? (chris.pirillo.com)
• Paid newspaper apps are working in Europe (lostremote.com)
• EDITOR AND PUBLISHER: Newspapers Across the Country Show Steep Declines in Circulation, in New FAS-FAX (blogrunner.com)
• All The News We'll Pay For: Why Newspapers' Shrinking Circulation Isn't All Bad [MediaMemo] (mediamemo.allthingsd.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!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Happy New Year: cool video: cell phones upcycled to form an interactive art installation (via Neil Perkin), 2010: all about Mobile! (mediafuturist.com)
• Recognizr: Facial Recognition Coming to Android Phones (readwriteweb.com)
• The battlefield for mobile platforms and mobile applications becomes clear: fragmentation, innovation, and dead-ends (rossdawsonblog.com)