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
I touched upon this in my presentation at the Mobile Monday event in Amsterdam: I think we are going through a totally amazing and very challenging paradigm shift, right now (and this may still be a somewhat delayed consequence of the Internet (r)evolution and the first .com bubble): From EGO to ECO, from Control to Openness, from Domination to Collaboration. A few examples:
The amazing shifts in U.S. policy and America's new global role: when President Obama implements his far-reaching plans to rewire how America works we will see this new trend towards win-win solutions rub-off everywhere else, too, and kick off chain-reactions in many other, traditionally more dominance-focused countries such as Russia, as well (and the reverse is also true). The old Bushinator mantra 'You lose - we win' has simply become unsustainable in today's networked economy, and America will doubtlessly struggle with this shift from domination to partnering for quite some time. However, I definitely anticipate a strong trend towards open systems and open platforms in the global economic and political spheres - as well as in technology and content / media - with utter transparency and TRUST becoming the key requirements for success, everywhere. There will no doubt be considerable debate on what this trend means for copyright and patent laws, globally, too, since these laws have traditionally been used for shoring up market-shares and protecting the interests of the large, dominant players in many industries.
The music industry: the decline - or shall we say gradual vaporization - of most major record industry players due to their amazingly persistent obsession with control, makes a great case study. Rather than to finally permit new revenues to be co-developed via collaborating on win-win scenarios, the IFPI and RIAA are still looking for new enforcement and protection mechanisms such as the now flamed-out '3 strikes & out' legislation - it does make you wonder if their 'leaders' have lived under a rock for the past 5 years! In any case, the music industry is the prime example why monopolistic and totally centralized structures will simply not work in the future, and why we need governme
I
nt intervention when a market place is clearly dysfunctional. Many of my readers know that I have been talking about this for a looooong time, but now we are finally seeing it take shape: the music rights organizations and their related content licensing processes will undergo significant and sweeping changes in the next 2-3 years; everything is moving from a 'not allowed / not possible' default mindset to a more collaborative, open, flexible, transparent and public rights licensing
logic - and they must adapt or get out of the way. The bottom line: If it's not based on a web-centric and connected logic it will cease to exist. As an example, the current conflict between the Music Performing
Rights Organizations (PROs and MROs) such as PRS, GEMA and Youtube is based on
this basic paradigm disparity: PRS and GEMA are thinking of the music rights still
being firmly and exclusively their business (i.e. an EgoSystem), and
Youtube/Google think of music rights as being a crucial component
of a new, 21st century content ecosystem that concerns everyone and should not be governed by monopolies and cartels. Therefore, for Google I reckon that the music rights issue is something that must go far beyond
the traditional structure that's based on 'I own the rights, exclusively, and you'll
need to pay whatever I ask for'. My prediction is that if the traditional rights-holders and
the many societies that represent them don't materially change their thinking on this very soon, they may
wall see a wide-spread revolt of their younger, more progressive
members, because they know that not permitting the use of music on Youtube (and
Google!) is simply a suicidal move, in terms of getting attention and building your brand. Get off the Ego and think Eco!
Microsoft's Windows OS is becoming less and less dominant (and relevant, too) as 'free' and cloud-based operating systems are gaining ground everywhere (Linux, Google)
Most telcos, mobile operators and ICT companies are trying to switch from the traditional 'total control of the network, the infrastructure and the users' to open platforms as fast as they can (e.g. AT&T's open source plans, Skype's open Silk codec, Nokia's Open Symbian Foundation, Google's Android Mobile OS)
In software, the continuing trend towards open-source and crowd-sourcing is clearly visible everywhere (e.g. the huge success of Firefox vs IE, and the rise of open-source DMBS)
Many large corporations are starting to move into crowd-sourcing, wanting to pursue increased openness in return for a chance to realize network-economy benefits. E.g. Glaxo Smith Kline's recent move to release a huge amount of cancer research data into public domain (Note: in this context, I highly recommend Yochai Benkler's fantastic book "The Weath of Networks")
The mind-boggling popularity and global success of API-driven web portals and platforms (Twitter's amazing growth, Friendfeed, the new Facebook 'River', widgets, the UK Guardian's open API etc)
For many large companies as well as for SMEs (small medium size enterprises), Social Media is quickly becoming CRM (customer relationship management) - rather than running expensive ads that talk about 'Me' and how great the new product is (i.e. Ego), the switch to 'having conversations with the customers aka users' is visible everywhere: Ford's new Fiesta campaign, Kraft's cool iPhone app. Brands can no longer be just BIG EGOs - they are part of Ecosystems, too.
In Advertising, the entire paradigm of 'we'll yell until you listen' is finished - this concept was all about the Ego of the brands, and about us, the people formerly known as consumers, listening. Now it's all about the Ecosystem: Do you come recommended? Who trusts you? What makes you worthy of my consideration? Why should I pay attention to you? Who vouches for you? Who has told me about you? Are you open and transparent? Here, too, Egosystem has become Ecosystem, and a Trillion $ industry is changing as a consequence - from Push to Pull, from Yelling to Talking / Listening. Tough gig but... a gold mine if you can make it ;)
This is from our new series called "Where is it Going (WiiG)": Futurist Glen Hiemstra and Gerd Leonhard
talk about Behavioral Targeting, privacy, the future of advertising and
Google's recent announcements in this context. Subscribe to WiiG via iTunes (download all videos as soon as they go up).
MP3 file is here Details are here. Some snippets: Bottom Lines: The fight for Control was
a fight for Distribution. The flight for Attention is a fight for
Trust. The beneficiaries of Control were Monopolies. The beneficiaries
of Trust are those that Collaborate. Advertising 2.0:
Information becomes Conversation. Interruption becomes Engagement.
Annoyance becomes Entertainment. 'This is an Ad' becomes 'This is
Content'. The Sharing Economy Logic: Sharing...the
Output (i.e. publish, re-mix, co-create, life-stream...) the Input
(i.e. remuneration in cash, attention, reputation...) ... the Thruput
(i.e. usage data, meta content, attention trails >> New Data
Economics)
I just uploaded this new video (below) to my video channel on GerdTube.net (Blip.tv); it's somewhat similar to what I presented at Mobile Monday Amsterdam on March 30, 2009.
Topics: A
drastically different Broadband Culture is imminent - total mobility, always-on, low-cost Internet access,
constant peering and pervasive social media, rivers of news and oceans
of content. Developing nations will go straight to digital content-access,
straight to mobile EVERYTHING and straight to next generation
advertising and marketing. Control, Domination and Push / Monolog is
out; Openness, Collaboration and Conversation is in. From EGOsystem to ECOsystem. More: check out the GerdTube RSS feed (download all shows via iTunes)
I have mentioned Google's music-related activities in Chinaa few times during the past 2 years; and just yesterday this topic seems to have heated up considerably. I think these developments are crucial and need further exploration.
As you may know, Google owns a good chunk (or all?) of the Chinese search engine Top100.cn, one of the biggest rivals of the Chinese super-portal and ruling search giant, Baidu. However, Google is still a more or less distant second in the Chinese search market (in 2008, Google had approx. 16.6% vs Baidu's 76.9%) and really needs its Top100 property to better compete with Baidu. The major issue here is - you guessed it - the availability of CONTENT- or rather, the simple displaying of links to millions of music & film files that those hungry freeloaders i.e. digital natives want to stream or download. Baidu allows this - in fact, thrives on it - while Google / Top100 does not (i.e. it filters and removes the links to the files). This is a huge handicap for Google, because the filtering of those content-links is basically driving away all of those 100s of millions of Chinese Internet users that are looking for just that.
Realizing that the real value of the users is in their participation and engagement, and then in paying-with-attention, Google has clearly pursued a strategy akin to the 'Music Like Water' model that I (and Dave Kusek, my partner-in-crime for "The Future of Music") have also described countless times: Google will simply provide the platform where music can be turned into money, by connecting the user with the content they want right where they already are (i.e. the search page), while gradually but aggresively monetizing their presence and their clicks via 3rd party payments - and this does not mean just ads. Sounds simple but maybe this has not yet been financially feasible in the past - today, any new money for the music companies is welcome, I guess, so here we are, finally: Search with us and we'll give you Free Music. Kai Fu Lee Image via NYT.
Clearly, it is much better for Google to offer and develop a new payment logic and mechanism for the music that is being used, i.e. to somehow license and pre-pay for it (I call this 'being the lubricant of the ecosystem') until such time where the revenues from advertising, up- and cross-selling are big enough to pay for everything, and quite possibly beyond that, as well. And as far as the music licenses are concerned - otherwise a no-go minefield that few Internet companies have crossed in the past - China is clearly a very good place to start as most of these new revenues will be 'found money' for the record labels.
Total Telecom reports: "Record companies will take roughly half of any revenue from banner ads
placed on the page users see when they are downloading or streaming
songs, with Top100.cn taking the remainder. Google could benefit from
increased traffic on its Chinese site, and can sell its trademark
search ads on the search page" The bottom-line? For all parties, it is better to deploy new kinds of ads (think mobile - that will certainly be key), sponsorships and affiliate links while the music is being used (fka consumed;) and to thereby fund thepool of music licensing costs, then not to get involved and leave the turf to all the other guys that don't play by the rules, anyway.
Now, Google has apparently licensed 350.000 tracks from all major labels (how long did that take... I am afraid to ask... *rant alert) and many leading Chinese record companies and artists, and if you are logged into Top100.cn, and based in China (sorry - no access from EU / US), apparently all the music is yours to stream and download.
So: Google pays for the music to get our attention for their ads - sure sounds like a familiar strategy. Radio and TV broadcasting, anyone?
Another interesting morsel is that apparently streaming and downloading is treated as pretty much the same thing (again, from the WSJ coverage, see link below): "Google's Lee said songs on the service are downloaded or streamed
around 1.5 million times a day, and he hopes the number will eventually
be many, many times that". I believe I have mentioned this basic fact of Internet music a few times before, too: streaming & listening IS downloading, access IS ownershop, and that's that. The legal artifacts remain, I guess...?
Now, just because I won't want to agree with the major labels and their lobbyists too much;) - here are my big questions:
If this works in China, why not do this everywhere else? If this works for Google, why not for telecoms, ISPs and mobile operators? If this works for music, why not - sooner or later - for music, TV, video, books and newspapers?
First: China does not have much of a business of 'selling units', i.e. there are no Billions of $ in selling CDs or single-track downloads. Therefore, any money that the rights-holders (i.e. the record labels and music publishers, and hopefully the artists) can actually get from anyone in China is probably very welcome; and that is exactly what the Google / Top100 deal will provide. And even though it would be a fair bet to guess that this deal is probably not coming cheap for Google China, it is probably still quite doable since the 'competition' of physical music sales is negligible and so-called 'cannibalization' of traditional music sales is not a major concern for the record industry in China. This would of course be substantially different in the UK or Germany where CD sales and the omni-present iTunes still generate Billions of Euros per year. But this is the lesson: someone had to put some money down. Congrats to Google / Top100. Next: the telecoms - within 6-9 months, imho.
While the cannibalization prevention is, of course, entirely reasonable (if you still sell units), it does beg the question: why do those lucky Chinese Internet users - many of whom may never had to worry much about potential copyright issues, 3 Strikes+Out ideas or MP3-server raids - now get a de-facto feels like free music service, while we - the more or less faithful and compliant residents of 'The West' - still need to pay 1 Euro / 1 $ for each single download on iTunes, $3 / month for Last.fm (ouch) or run off to the record store, or order on Amazon.
This clearly does not make sense: it feels a bit like we are being penalized for having actually paid for our music until now. So, some will surely argue, does this mean we should stop paying for music until such deal is being offered in Europe as well? You tell me - but it's sure worth a discussion, I think. It seems to me that this model is workable around the world now - and not just for / with / via Google - and that it should be pursued in Europe and the US, as well. Give us a licensed platform provides 'feels like free' music to the users, based on collective and public blanket licenses that can enable anyone that wants to offer music with what they do, while paying for the licenses with the traffic that those offerings, the added values, the platforms, will generate.
Here is another interesting quote from the WSJ: "I can't overstate how important the new Google service is, said
Lachie Rutherford, president of Warner Music Asia Pacific, which is
making its entire global catalogue available in China as part of the
deal: until now, the online market in China has been completely
un-monetized by the music business"
This strikes me as a very interesting way of putting this: Lachie / WMG: isn't the entire Internet music-sharing economy (i.e. P2P, stream-sharing, drive-sharing etc) un-monetized, as well? And why is that? If WMG can do this in China because their is no previous unit-sales income worth mentioning, why not do it for the Internet, period? Why not license Google - and Facebook et al - and the ISPs in much the same way? Or will you just do this in places where nobody paid anything to begin with?
Techdirt has a very fitting comment, on this (see the link below): "The fact that the labels are moving forward with this plan in China,
given its reputation as the wild west of copyright infringement,
undermine their contention that they can solve the supposed piracy
problem with legal or technological means elsewhere. Furthermore, it
exposes the reality that what's staring them in the face is a
tremendous opportunity, not a problem"
Not much to add here, except for my usual Lessig-esque mantra "Compensation not Control". Google + Telecoms - will you do that for / with us, please? This year?
I have observed a recent trend that I want to share and get your feedback on: some Internet companies and platforms such as Google / Youtube, Facebook, Nokia, Slideshare and Twitter are becoming so important to many of us that we would be severely challenged if they went away or materially changed their services. This makes them both very powerful but also very vulnerable - for if we chose to no longer trust them, they would quickly face their demise. Some examples:
Google already provides the digital toolbox and 'cloud computing' infrastructure for a 100s of Millions of people: free email, domain services, calendars, docs, widgets, blogging, videos, voice (soon!) - and of course: search and advertising services. Youtube has become the de-facto next-generation TV for a lot of people, already. My slightly futuristic view is that pretty soon Youtub
e and the many other video sites (and of course the 100s yet unlicensed video download services) may start replacing Cable TV as the prime source of entertainment for a lot of digital natives. A fast net connection + AppleTv + Boxee + Miro ...pretty soon, that should do it!
Facebook provides a key social platform that, for many users, has already substituted email or phone calls,
and is well on the way of becoming a cyberspace 'home' for many of us, a digital meeting place and key part of our social lives. My prediction is that Facebook will become as important as Google - and they will reinvent advertising in the process, just like Google did.
Nokia is heading in the same direction: Comes with Music is looking to provide a seamless, all-inclusive music experience
that is build-in or shall we say hard-wired into our mobile lifes, Nokia's OVI is gearing up to compete as the preferred destination for sharing things, and their handsets i.e. mobile computers are well on the way of becoming remote controls for our lives.
Flickr, Slideshare and Twitter - to a lesser degree, for now, compared to Google and Facebook - have become crucially important to Millions of people
already (I can attest to that) because they are great platforms to share stuff; and shar
A bit like the good old BBC, these companies may soon face a double duty and somewhat of a conundrum: 100s of Million of people have grown accustomed to using them, and their services have become so crucial that they have become not only valuable businesses but also public utilities that we are increasingly depending on. My feeling is that once a company has reached this position, its value is much higher than the actual revenues could ever warrant, since it's no longer just about monetary value but also the social capital they have accrued, and the corresponding TRUST that we put into them. So this is, as a result, the most important mission for those companies
that make it to this point: Earn and keep my trust, every single day,
with everything you do. And then, I will keep paying attention to you,
give you my data to use, send my friends to you. Don't mess with the
terms of use without asking me (>Facebook), ask for permission to use my clickstreams and cookies (see Google's approach to behavioral targeting), and don't ask me for $ too early (see Twitter's yet to be defined revenue strategy).
The Google guys have just published a video with my talk at Authors@Google, in San Francisco, March 2, 2009 (see the details here Pdf: The End of Control Gerd Leonhard at Google SF PDF
*22MB). Due to some technical issues my fancy slides (i.e. the stuff on the screen) come across very nicely in this video while I am left a bit 'in the dark' - but if you use the HQ version on the Youtube site you can still get a much better idea of what my face actually looks like (I guess always wearing black is not ideal when the lights are bad;). Anyway, I do think this is one of my best talks, so... watch the entire 55 Mins 22 Secs. As far as the End of Control Book is concerned, I will have an announcement on my plans within the next 10 days...stay tuned.
Here is the official Google Talks description:The End of Control & The Future of Content: The tough
issue of control emerges, again and again, as the key contention point
within TV companies, publishers, record labels, and broadcasters: How
can a commercial venture that is based on so-called intellectual
property thrive and prosper in an environment that seems to
continuously and progressively remove control from the
creators/owners/providers of content, and hands it over to the people
formerly known as consumers (aka the users), effectively making them
more powerful every single day? But the reality is that every
click inadvertently makes another case for the consumers
ever-increasing rise in importance. Within all the conversations I have
had about things like commercial content versus shared content, about
the read-only or the read-write web, and about copyright versus Fair
Use, the crucial question always seems to boil down to WHERE IS THE
CONTROL HERE, i.e., questions such as Who will control this new media
universe and How much control do I need to run a revenue-generating
business?
I already blogged about the Youtube / PRS show-down (hey - that's a great word for this) in the UK, earlier today. After reading, twittering and talking to lots of 'real' people about this today, this is my conclusion: This conundrum is not Google's 'fault' but still: Google needs to really, materially and boldly get involved with facilitating the construction of a new content logic and economy, and lead content creators, owners and representatives into a new ecosystem that will actually work for all involved parties. Because it can.
Conflicts like Youtube vs. PRS are unavoidable because the canyon between Google - imho still pretty much the primary driver of Net-fueled innovation and disruption- and the content creators (never mind the industry) gets bigger by the minute. And, in my humble opinion, Google isn't doing nearly enough to explain this to them, and to guide them more conclusively into this new domain where content isn't always king, and where it won't matter if it is or not (if it ever did).
I talked about this in my speech at Authors@Google in SF last week; hopefully we will have that video available soon. The bottom line is that this will take deep, serious, multi-lateral, honest and open collaboration between these (and other) key constituents:
Content creators and the content industries (in that order;)
Telcos, ISPs, mobile operators and other telecommunications companies
Advertisers, brands, and their agencies
Social media and social networking platforms (of course all Internet companies, other search engines and portals)
Governments and governmental bodies
Welcome to a new Data Economy, a new Advertising Economy, and a New Content Economy.
Your turn, Google.
I will write more about this, but here's a quick illustration (thanks to Kevin Kelly for the power-lines & copy pic)
The UK / EU web is buzzing with the news that Youtube (Google) has started to block or remove UK music videos because they have not been able to strike a new music licensing deal with the PRS-For-Music, the UK rights society which represents the songwriters and the publishers. I particularly like the coverage of this issue by TelecomTV.com, here, but a lot more links to other coverage can be found below.
As is my habit, at times, I want to quote and comment. Before I get started, though, I want to point that obviously I don't know the terms of the license that were suggested by either Youtube or the PRS, so therefore I cannot comment on whether either one of them is realistic or not. I just know from my own experiences (among many others, with the now defunct - RIP - Sonific) and from many other deals that I have observed, that very often the respective proposals are 20-50x apart, i.e. one party may suggest 1 cent per stream while the other party wants 20-50 cents - mostly, simply because they can; after all, the rights holders enjoy the protection of having the exclusive rights to license their songs. I would not be surprised if that was the case, here (my exact guess is something like 10:1)
Anyway, here we go, from TelecomTV.com "Yesterday YouTube
announced that it was going to take down all the premium music content
currently available to UK YouTube users because it had failed to hammer
out a new licensing deal with the UK's Performing Rights Society (PRS)
for Music, a notoriously hard-line royalty collector. YouTube said the PRS wanted more royalty payment for each video view
than YouTube could ever make from the ads situated next to each"
My comment: this points to the root of the problem, right away. Any deal between the mighty Google and the still-trying-to-find-the-right-$-model Youtube and the rights-holders' representatives has to be about sharing the revenues that are actually achievable, in the market, here and today, and jointly building a system that can generate more and more revenues, tomorrow and beyond. Again, as Larry Lessig says, and as I have proudly annexed from him, it's about Compensation Not Control! To the PRS: NO, you cannot have both - and it looks like you just decided against Compensation???
Unfortunately, this detrimental mindset has become a default seeting: many if not most of the rights societies in the so-called developing world, and now apparently the PRS, too, have adopted one of these 2 strategies: a) if a potential licensee is still too small and economically insignificant to warrant their consideration, they will not offer any license at all, unless it neatly fits one of the existing templates b) if a potential licensee is large, juicy, popular and financially connected to an entity that seems to have verrrrry big pockets (see Last.fm, Myspace, Youtube, Facebook... maybe), they will ask for the moon and try take them to the cleaners. Even better if that entity has been previously in-breach of the existing licensing traditions and regulations - more leverage is always a good thing, right? Just study the mind-boggling story of my favorite web-radio service, Pandora. Never mind that this kind of 'it's my right and I will fully exploit it as I see fit' - thinking is also pretty much what has gotten us into this horrible economic crisis, as well - but that's another story.
None of this has anything to do with real, honest and open intention of building a mutually beneficial and future-oriented model, and everything to do with what I like to call Economic Egoism that is effectively set in stone i.e. law by some outmoded laws from over 20 years ago. As long as rights organizations -whose tasks it is to license music not to forbid its use - are pursuing this strategy we will not get to a point of 'peace' with all those new entities that clearly want to use, and pay for their music.
The PRS published a very revealing statement when Youtube announced their decision to play hard-ball and remove the music videos - here is the nugget: "Google had revenues of $5.7bn in the last quarter of 2008". What does that have to do with negotiating the fair and equitable licensing rates for music? PaidContent.org has some great comments on this issue, interviewing YouTuber Patrick Walker, including this one: "to suggest that, because Google’s a big company, we should just suck
it and pay a ridiculous rate is not something that we’re going to stand
by...it’s hard for new models to emerge when the starting point is a massive loss on a per-stream basis".
In fact, I believe that this kind of attitude from rights organizations, publishers and record labels will most certainly lead to government
intervention, sooner rather than later, since a dysfunctional market is not good for anyone - and clearly, this is what we have now, and it appears to be here to stay. I think... I have said it before:)
So here is my message to the PRSForMusic (as they are now called) and their members (hopefully they have a say in this, too): pleasssse get off this bizarre and decidedly Web 0.0 idea that Google should now be paying for everything that you think has been 'stolen' from you on the Internet. Instead, give YouTube a flexible, open, transparent and realistic license that gives everyone room and time to MUTUALLY develop this model, going forward. There is nothing to be gained by refusal! Start to cooperate rather than to try to dominate these conversations. COMPENSATION NOT CONTROL. And do it now, or have somebody else force you to.
I am continuously working on my new book "The End of Control", even though I have lately been wondering quite a bit about whether it still makes sense to publish a dead-tree version of a non-fiction epic these days - I may yet decide to remain entirely in the realm of bits and bytes. Stay tuned. Or better yet, tell me what you want!
In any case, a big part of "The End of Control" is about how, all around us, Control is declining in importance (as well as in feasibility!), and our emphasis is gradually shifting to Trust. Not to become too Obama-ish here but I have observed this trend pretty much in all sectors that I work in, from media & content to travel to telecom, and it is an amazing change. And a real challenge.
So, rather than trying to control what people do with a service or product they get from a company, many businesses are now starting to focus on earning, keeping and expanding the users' trust in what they do and how they do it, so that at the right time their users will indeed make the choice to pay them. Because that is pretty much what it comes down to, now: people make implicit (bundled) and explicit (i.e. voluntary) choices to pay for what we offer them. This is especially true for content, software, media and entertainment, of course - given that many of those goods are already digital and thereby payment can often be avoided if you so wish.
Examples for how trust is starting to replace control abound - here are a few:
Twitter users make the choice to follow me (hey... don't ask me why), and now I have to constantly earn their attention with what I share on Twitter. If they like what I do, they will retweet my stuff (apparently the highest honor these days) or forward the links to other people via email or the various social media sharing tools. Yes, in case you were wondering, I have indeed been booked for speaking gigs via connections I made on Twitter (just like those that I make on this blog) - something that was a total miracle to me when it happened but now I am starting to get it. In any case, I'll be the first to advertise on Twitter when they offer it.
Flickr: they offer a fantastic platform for sharing images (and now, video), and once people trust them, quite a few of them end up buying the Flickr Pro account for $30 or - in fact, being a Flickr Pro user has become a bit of a status symbol among 'sharers'. The bottom line: earn my trust and attention with the free stuff, and then ... allow me to pay for something else.
Amazon's best-selling MP3 album in 2008 was 'Ghosts' by Nine Inch Nails, even though that very same album was made available under a creative commons license and free downloading by the band, itself - people made the choice to pay for something they could have had for free. Think again - compelling people to pay is starting to look like a real alternative to forcing them to pay (music industry readers, take note;)
Google. Of course, Google is the Master of this new art of business; constantly adding value, wielding ever higher attraction and receiving copious amounts of attention - all of which converts nicely into people trusting Google, and subsequently giving Google their money; whether it's AdWords, Apps, storage space, search tools. Google is indeed the master of giving control to us, and then have us return the ultimate favor of trust. Loads of Attention which, you guessed it, turn into serious cash for them.
Thinking cap on. A quick illustration below, borrowing Wired's Tired or Wired fancyness.
More on this soon. Please comment below. And retweet. now. yes, you.
Image via Wikipedia
Jeff Jarvis is a leading thinker as far as the future of media is concerned; I have been reading his blog and his books for a few years already, and I can guarantee you: he's inspiration pure! So, I just ordered his new book "What would Google do" and really look forward to reading it - the topic is a perfect theme for anyone looking at future trends, obviously. Here is a short video with Jeff where he talks about the lessons we can learn from Google ("make mistakes and make them well")- check it out.
Google just invited me to their new Friend Connect Service, so I have installed the Widget (see the side-bar) and am looking forward to connecting with you this way, as well. Give it a try, and let me know what you think.
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Google just invited me to their new 
