The amazing power of online networking and collaboration, open platforms, creative commons licensing and crowd-sourcing (whew... that's a mouthful!) has manifested itself once again: for the past 9 months, the tenacious and dedicated Zvonimir Dusper (Dus) from Croatia (LinkedIn profile) has been hard at work translating my entire Music 2.0 book into Croatian language (see the English book site here, download the English version as a PDF here, buy the dead-tree version or U.S. letter size book PDF at Lulu, here, visit the Amazon.com book page [incl. reviews] here).
The book is now available as a free PDF download and in a print version via Zvonimir's Glazba2.0 site - check it out and please forward this post to anyone that may be interested in reading Music2.0 in Croatian (you can use the tools provided, below)
To receive the free PDF please use the email box on the left site of the Glazba2.0 site (see here >). Enjoy!
PREDGOVOR HRVATSKOM IZDANJU Tematika “2.0” u posljednje vrijeme sve više okupira medije (nove i stare :-), pa smo, osim već razvikanim Webom 2.0, sad bombardirani i Novinarstvom 2.0, Marketingom (komercijalnim ali i političkim!) 2.0, Ekonomijom 2.0, Sociologijom 2.0 i drugim raznim inačicama tog fenomena, među kojima nas, ljubitelje glazbe i/ili glazbene profesionalce, najviše zanima upravo tema ove knjige – Glazba
2.0. Riječ je o promjeni iz sustava kojim je dominirao princip “od-vrha-prema-dole”, u sistem “od-dole-prema-vrhu”, u kojem korisnici/potrošači svojim sudjelovanjem u interaktivnim online mrežama grade tkivo budućih socijalnih ekosistema. Pažnja je postala nova valuta, a poslovni princip vrlo jednostavan – ako je privučeš dovoljno da se posuda prelije, višak možeš lako pretvoriti u novac. Kako god to zvučalo jednostavno, živjeti u 2.0 svijetu znači imati hrabrosti za radikalnu promjenu svojih navika, i odustajanje od tradicionalnih očekivanja i (nerealnih) projekcija budućnosti. Budućnost ne dolazi, ona je već tu, samo je neravnomjerno raspoređena – da citiram Johna Cage-a (taj sam citat, naravno, “pokupio” iz ove knjige :-) ....
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.
“The logic is quite straightforward: You find a way of creating a
payment within the network,” says Gerd Leonhard, a media futurist and
author...Although a similar idea failed in France in 2006 amid a fierce
lobbying effort by the recording industry, Mr. Leonhard has long argued
that if the recording industry licensed Internet networks with a
flatrate for streaming and downloading music, then advertising and
other subsidies would be able to cover the entire CD business. He
doesn’t even think the Isle of Man’s tax is necessary.
“The payment of about €1 [$1.28] per week, which we have been
debating in Europe as a flat rate, is entirely possible to raise
through the ecosystem. The music won’t be free, but it will feel like
free,” he says, in an interview from Austria. Business models like Leonhard’s are becoming more feasible as concert
tours, merchandise, and endorsements become more lucrative than
recordings. “When Prince gives away his CD away with a British Sunday newspaper,
he knows that he will be guaranteed three sold-out shows. That is worth
more to him than the recording,” Leonhard says...."
Author and futurist Leonhard says the recording industry is fighting an
uphill battle: “The tactic of criminalizing users hasn’t produced any
money. The industry needs to look for compensation, not control.”
"Seventy-five years ago, Prohibition ended. Just 13 years after
launching an extraordinary experiment in social reform, the nation
recognized that the battle against "intoxicating liquors" had failed.
Organized crime had exploded. Civil rights had been weakened. And an
enormous number of ordinary Americans had become "criminals" as they
found ways to evade, and profit from the evasion of, this hopeless law"
"But though I believe kids should not use the Internet to violate
others' rights, I oppose these failed copyright wars: We have not
reduced the amount of peer-to-peer file sharing. To the contrary, it
has only increased. Nor have artists earned additional revenues from
this battle—settlements don't go to the artists but to the lawyers. Instead, the single certain consequence from this battle has been one
our government is strangely oblivious to: its rendering a generation
criminal. A concerted campaign by rights holders, politicians, school
administrators, and increasingly parents has convinced kids that their
behavior violates the law. But that law breaking continues. We call our
kids crooks; after a while, they believe it"
"It is time we recall what the nation learned 75 years ago: The remedy
to a failed war is not to wage an ever more violent war; it is to sue
for peace. Rather than continuing to sue to stop what no lawyer could
ever stop, Congress needs to consider the scores of proposals that have
been advanced by some of the best scholars in the nation to legalize
this sharing while enabling other ways to compensate artists..."
"But are things really that dire? Some would argue that these industries
are healthier now than they ever have been. With the spread of
information at a never before seen level, pieces of journalism are
being read more now than ever, music artists are able to reach a
broader audience than ever (some by bypassing the record labels
all-together), and movies are being watched by more people in more
countries..."
"The issue is control, and the embodiment of that control is copyright.
The music industry is perhaps most illustrative of the issue..."
"Currently in Japan, new copyright laws are being debated which could
make average users subject to civil law suits from record labels or
movie distribution companies. Within the walls of mega-forum 2-Channel
and the Japanese blogosphere, debate has been raging over the laws and
what they will mean exactly for the average user. Specifically the outright banning of illegal downloads—music, movies
and games being the main points of interest—is currently being
investigated by a sub-committee appointed by the central government.
Presently, Japan’s copyright law makes an exception in the case of
downloads for personal use..."
"The industry veteran [IFPI's John Kennedy] says he believes a large increase in resources
will not be needed to govern the Internet—warnings and enforcements
will just need to be carried out in a similar way to any other law.
“People call the Internet an ‘Information Super Highway.’ Well like any
normal highway, it can be governed. If someone is speeding you give
them a ticket and in extreme cases you take away their license.” But
how about finding them? “People sit in their rooms and think they are
anonymous but they are not—their IP address says exactly who they are,”
says Kennedy..."
"Media futurist Gerd Leonhard [Me] says that in a globally networked world,
with an expected 3.5 billion mobile users and Internet speeds
increasing exponentially within the next two to four years, the
traditional Western concept of exclusive copyright must be reviewed.
“It is the purpose of copyright to generate sustainable and growing
revenues for the creators, not to prevent new uses of their works that
may eventually result in those new incomes. He believes that in the
future, “many of these models will be more like flat-rated or bundled
access models, rather than unit-sales based models.”
***"A recent case involving Google may help provide a blueprint for content
creators. In October, Google settled a dispute with authors and
publishers over its scanning of 7 million books for digital versions of
printed material. The company paid $125 million to publishers and
authors and will, from now on, provide a percentage share of the
profits from ads and downloading fees. Under the agreement, Google
would receive 37 percent of revenue while publishers and authors would
get the rest. The settlement could pave the way for similar agreements
within other industries..."
"Ito continues, “While it is important to protect copyright and the
incentives that copyright (and intellectual property) provide, it is
important that we do not prevent many of the basic things that people
want to do with content or prevent some of the potential new ways that
people will be expressing themselves and sharing this expression.”
"Futurist Leonhard says the key to making money in a post
super-connected world is to embrace the concept of losing control. He
believes that “a continued loss of control over IP and copyright and
most other measures of restrictions is absolutely inevitable; and in
fact, the less control we will have the more new revenues will surface.” Leonhard believes that “The future of creativity, content and media
is bright, as it is the human creativity and its embodiments that will
be even more valuable in a world of ubiquitous access and huge growth
of output. It is the value and dollar system and logic that we need to
rebuild and adapt—and the law is, of course, there to support this, and
will therefore be adapted. This process is not new, just more drastic
since the Web is often removing many old ways to get money out of
scarcity while not yet offering the same profit in a plausible new way
yet. This new logic needs more than 3 percent of the global population
on broadband, and always-on, to generate increasing revenues from those
new ideas. Another 24 months and we should have a much better take on
this.”
This is really well-written and nicely researched, balanced column by Michael Condon - kudos!
Along with the free iPhone version of my 2007 Music 2.0 book, my new Lulu-powered eBook "Best of 2008 Blog Posts & Essays" is now available
to read on the iPhone, as well (yes, for free), using the very cool Instapaper iPhone reading app - and it works offline, too. Follow the instructions below, or add the Instapaper "Read Later" bookmark for this html page. I am still working on page breaks etc, so it's not very pretty yet - but if any of you can make a nicer-looking html file from the original PDF... please ping me!
This is what you need to do to read the free book on your iPhone
(perfect for those long, offline airplane trips!):
Download the Instapaper app to your iPhone (or iTunes), via the app store or via the Instapaper site.
Note that there is a free version and a paid version ($ 9.99 USD, which
is well worth it because of the cool tilt scrolling!), but both work
very well
Install the app, sign up / register, go to the Best of 2008 Book html page,
and mark it 'ADD' or 'Read Later" via the Instapaper.com page or the bookmarklet. It will now save the file and
sync it with your iPhone the next time you open the Instapaper app and
update it.
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.
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
Tom Smith at UniversalMcCann (I like their cool tagline 'the next thing now', btw) has just alerted me to some really nice research that was done by them, so here they are. On your next flight or train ride, be sure to print them, and dive in - there's lots of great stuff in here. Tom Smith has an interesting blog, btw, too, here.
UPDATE: My "Best of 2008 Blog Posts & Essays" are now available via the iPhone, as well (yes, for free). Follow the instructions below, and add the "Read Later" bookmark for this html file.
A lot of people have contacted me about wanting to read my last book, Music 2.0, on the iPhone. Since a 7MB PDF will not be so hot to read in your email or within Safari, I have put up the book's html file on my typepad server (yes, I know, no images yet, sorry), and then used Instapaper's READ LATER function to convert the entire book to the Instapaper txt format which makes reading it very easy - much better than a pdf. And it's all free!
So this is what you need to do to read the free book on your iPhone (perfect for those long airplane trips since it actually works offline, too):
Download the Instapaper app to your iPhone (or iTunes), via the app store or via the Instapaper site. Note that there is a free version and a paid version ($ 9.99 USD, which is well worth it because of the cool tilt scrolling!), but both work very well
Install the app, sign up / register and - on your computer this will be easier -, go to Music 2.0 book html page, here, and / or the Best of 2008 Book html file, and add it to the Instapaper +ADD box. It will now save the file and sync it with your iPhone the next time you open the Instapaper app and update 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.
Andrew Burger from e-commerce news interviewed me for this TechnewsWorld feature on Music 2.0 and it came together quite nicely I think. So feel free to Digg it... or do all that other social media sharing forwarding communing stuff to it ;).
Some snippets: "The use of Web 2.0 technologies in the music industry has changed the
market forever, with musicians promoting themselves online and
interacting directly with their fan bases...." "Getting the users involved is the No. 1 trend pretty much everywhere right now' (yes, from me... and more:) "What I call 'Music 2.0' is
now very quickly becoming the mantra for the major labels: a Web-native
music ecosystem," Leonhard told the E-Commerce Times.
"More and more artists will be able to 'go direct' from the start and
engage their fans from the get-go; both for creation as well as for
marketing. "Once more than 2 percent of the world is on broadband, this kind of
'networked creation' will explode. Much of it won't be that good, of
course, but talent will rise to the top regardless. Bloggers are now
like DJs: They pick bands to play and talk about, and become powerful
super-nodes," Leonhard noted.
Check out my Music 2.0 video here - and of course don't miss my fabulous Music 2.0 slideshow (best ever;) on Slideshare.
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