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April 26th, 2007, 11:32am
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In and attempt to fulfill my contractual obligations as a member of the Net Generation, for years I’ve been trying to get my parents to buy something online. While they have “stubbornly” refused for a variety of reasons, this changed yesterday when I got an email from my Dad who was looking at his first web purchase - a complete DVD box set of his favorite show from many years ago called WKRP in Cincinnati.
Boy did he ever make the wrong choice about where to start in the whacky world of digital commerce today - as he’s now recieved a crash course in the fraudelent looking retailers that float around out there, and all the funny things that happen when the music labels are involved with anything.
So things immediately got off on the wrong foot when I looked at the link he sent me - promising seasons 1-4 for $55.99 (versus a regular price of $199.99). The site just a looked little bit shady. Among other things, there was no company address anywhere, and a phone number that just went to an automated voice system. So I did a quick search for the site name, and lo and behold 1/2 of the hits led to sites complaining that the “company” was basically just ripping people off. I’m not sure if it’s true… but don’t want to take the chance.
But that’s not the big problem, because I was undeterred and hit Amazon and eBay trying to to find the DVDs from more reputable retailers. From this search I found out there were no “complete sets” out there. In fact, only season one was being released - and not even the real season one at that. To quote Fox on the release:
“Some fans are going to look at this and say, ‘Well, this isn’t the show I saw on television.’ It’s not, but it’s the only show we could bring out on DVD.”
Awesome. You see (for those that are unfamiliar with the antics of Les Nessman and crew) WKRP was a show about a fictional radio station in Cincinnati from 1978-1982. As one would expect, a lot of music from the time was being played in the show in short snippets, and that music was kind of critical since it’s about a radio station and all. But it seems that WKRP only had music licensing deals cut for a limited amount of time, and these would have to be “renegotiated” in order to things like DVDs to be released.
So this is where the music labels get involved, and anyone that’s been following what happens when the music labels get involved won’t really be surprised by what follows. Re-licensing the songs is prohibitively expensive (tens of thousands of dollars for even short pieces of songs, which adds up quickly if you have a lot of them), so WKRP can’t be re-released at anything close to a reasonable price point. In turn, for season one, nearly all the music has been replaced with “generic” music, and some scenes have been cut all together or truncated to avoid using musical content. On a show about a radio station.
Let’s just say my Dad’s excitement level dropped a fair bit upon hearing this news - and a list of just a few of the cuts puts it in perspective. Mr Carleson and Johnny discussing the merits of Pink Floyd while the band’s song “Dog” plays in the back ground? Gone. Les Nessman famously jumping around to “Hot Blooded”? Well he’s still jumping around in a funny manner… to some unnamed generic song. Over, and over, and over again the pattern repeats itself. The music, and many of the stories and jokes around it, is just gone.
Now of course it’s important for music labels to protect their IP, make money from it, and all the rest. But for some reason I have this notion that if my Dad got to re-live one of his favorite shows (while paying for the privilege), and be reintroduced to some of his favorite music from the time he might do something crazy like try to buy the full songs or CDs! Or he might have me watch the show with him, like I vaguely remember doing many years ago - and I might hear music I never even knew existed! And I might buy something too!
Nope - can’t have that. If someone had an emotional reaction to Johnny Fever blaring the Ted Nugent rocker when the station mercifully flipped back from a temporary move to easy listening… can you imagine the chaos that might ensue? It must be far, far better to keep the music under lock and key and make sure no hears it so, er, money can be made. Right.
I find this story to be a great example of many of the problems that continue to exist in digital commerce today, and how little progress has been made on many fronts. My Dad has no desire to steal anything or rip anybody off. He’s got some cash burning a hole in his pocket that he wants to give to someone in order to enjoy a show he remembers from a long time ago. He’s pretty sure that getting this pre-recorded video onto a Disc and mailing it to him shouldn’t be that hard, and there would seem to be a whole lot of money that could be made if someone offered him this - and he’s right.
But in sticking with the pattern the music labels have been following for years, they’ve managed to get $0 for their content, annoy a whole new group of consumers, missed a promotion opportunity, and given the Boomers a lesson on why so many of their kids are on file sharing networks a lot.
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April 20th, 2007, 10:06am
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Kevin Rose announced yesterday on the Digg.com blog that the company would be opening up their API to the public. Up until now all of the work with the API had been done in Digg Labs which brought us the Swarm, Stack and BigSpy.
Now, just as Amazon and Google have done, Digg is releasing their API and allowing the power of mass collaboration to take hold. They will be running a contest and awarding prizes for the best and most innovative projects. (details here)
Considering the wild success that both Google and Amazon have had, it will be interesting to see what users can come up with.
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April 19th, 2007, 05:12pm
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Second Life has spent a lot of time in the news lately. Businesses are fascinated by the virtual world’s potential for advertising, market research and as a collaborative space. There is also much interest in the business model which is based on selling real estate in a world created entirely by its users. With people, or their avatars, making real life millions, the Second Life economy is being studied as well. A recent special in BusinesssWeek covers the many interesting aspects of Second Life. There is even a rich list of people who have struck gold in the virtual world.
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April 19th, 2007, 03:24pm
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For a long time Google indicated that they weren’t really interested in taking on Microsoft’s lucrative Office business - they had bigger fish to trying to take over the global advertising market and such. Then, in rapid succession, they acquired Writely.com (online document application like Word) in March 2006, released Google Spreadsheets (like Excel) in June 2006, combined the two in October 2006, and have announced a new application allowing users to create and share presentations (like PowerPoint) is going to be coming pretty soon.
Let’s just say that it doesn’t look like they’re not interested in the Office space, and it should be interesting to see how this plays out. On one hand, Microsoft has such a dominant installed base, and a tendency to have the “good fortune” of competing applications and technology not working so well with their stuff. On the other, well, Google can start with a pretty attractive price point of zero dollars. At minimum, that could put some downward pricing pressure on things - and it might be worth noting Microsoft is now selling a Windows bundle for about $3 to students in emerging markets.
At the same time this is happening, as discussed in an earlier post, Microsoft is actually talking about paying companies to make employees use their live search feature, while enticing consumers by making charitable contributions based on their use of the same service. Some might argue an acute focus on search is an attack on Google, which others like Wikia are quickly joining from a different front. They might also argue as upstarts like Quigo continue to make inroads in targetted advertising online… well a whole lot of businesses could be heading into commoditization territory relatively soon.
I’m not saying it will happen, but there sure doesn’t seem to be a good historic precedent for what could transpire. Two large, seemingly dominant companies, with a combined market cap approaching half a trillion dollars, trading at multiples of 24 (Microsoft) and 50 (Google) times earnings. Each not only have the potential (either through their current technologies, or relatively “low” cost acquisitions of emerging competitors) to drive the margins in the other’s core business down to zero or negative with minimal effort, they pretty much seem to be trying to do just that.
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April 17th, 2007, 07:57am
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One of the purposes of this blog is to keep people up to date on news and events around the world that relate to wikinomics - and as it explodes into the mainstream more and more other news sources are (knowingly or not) providing information on the same thing.
But if you want to do more than just keep up to date on the topic, I recommend you stop by our wikinomics website and help us write Chapter 11 of the wikinomics playbook - or at least tap into the knowledge base that is evolving.
For example, on April 12th Dwayne Phillips contributed to a section called Mass Collaboration Beyond Individual Disciplines, which was originally created by Kartik Ariyur. A particular focus is placed on the benefits of common language, with emphasis placed on one of the most valuable universal languages in existence - mathematics. Joost Bekel has recently updated and an interesting contribution on enterprise 2.0 architecture he created earlier this year, and Shava Nerad’s update on prosumers (originally created by Chris Wisehart) has many interesting ideas and examples throughout it.
Given the way that wikinomics is changing how the world works all around us, any one person trying to keep up to date on all the best knowledge being created faces a daunting task - but if we bring all of our knowledge together, we might just enable a whole new level of understanding.
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April 15th, 2007, 04:28pm
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I recently re-read the Book of Lists #2, a great anthology by the author’s of the People’s Almanac published in 1980. Lists include “10 meetings between Famous People and People Not Yet Famous”, “5 Prominent Persons Put on Trial After they were Dead”, and “8 Women Who Wore (or May have Wore) Chastity Belts.”
What struck me as interesting was the list “6 Outrageous Plans that Didn’t Happen” which takes about the CIA plan to humilitate Castro by dusting his shoes with hair-remover to make his beard fall out, the plan to dissolve the Berlin Wall (a suitable substance was not found, etc).
The last outrageous plan, though was pretty much the Internet…here is the passage:
The Wired Nation
In his bk, The Shadow Presidents, author Michael Medved related the extreme disappointment of H. R. Haldeman over his failure to implement his plan to link up all the homes in America by coaxial cable. In Haldeman’s words, “There would be two-way communication. Through computer, you could use your television set to order up whatever you wanted. The morning paper, entertainment services, shopping services, coverage of sporting events and public events…Just as Eisenhower linked up the nation’s cities by highways so that you could get there, the NIxon legacy would have linked them by cable communication so you wouldn’t have to go there.” One can almost see the dreamy eyes of Nixon and Haldeman as they sat around discussing a plan that would elimated the need for newpapers, seemingly oblivious to its Big Borther aspects. Fortunately, the Watergate Scandals intervened, and Nixon was forced to resign before “the Wired Nation” could be hooked up.
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April 13th, 2007, 12:39pm
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Last Monday, Rogers hired William Shatner of Star Trek days of ole to tout the benefits of its new video cell phones. The selection of Captain Kirk as a spokesperson is a fitting choice for a company who appears to be telling consumers, ‘the future is now’. The phones, part of the company’s new aptly named ‘Vision’ line, will enable wireless users to video conference and literally see their conversational counterpart in real time on the device’s screen.
Rogers is delivering these services via its new High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) network. With the introduction of this new product line, Rogers is positioning itself on the cutting edge of wireless technologies, claiming ground as the first North American provider to offer video chatting capability on mobile phones.
These calls, during which the phone basically doubles as an audio-enabled webcam , are being offered at the rate of 25 cents per minute, or 5 dollars per month for 50 minutes of calling. Currently the service is only available in and around Southern Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe Region, but Rogers has plans to expand to top markets across the country throughout 2007. In order for the video-calling feature to work both parties must be using a Rogers Vision phone.
Other intriguing features of the Vision suite of services are that it will allow subscribers to download any of the top 50 YouTube videos of the week, access XM Satelite Radio, watch up to 25 local television stations including the Weather Network, BlueJays.TV, MuchMusic, and CBC Newsworld, and participate in redpipe.ca, which according to Rogers is “the music-lovers mobile music destination for free artist generated content like music, videos, artist news, alerts, blogs, pictures and event listings.”
This offering in part seems to in part be a response to Telus’ recent partnership with Amp’d Mobile, allowing the company to deliver gaming, music, and video downloads to members of their cell phone network.
When it comes to real time face-to-face mobile communications, however, Rogers seems to be demonstrating to customers and competitors alike that they’ve got the monkey now.
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April 12th, 2007, 05:11pm
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Wikis are making inroads in the corporate world. The explosive growth of Wikipedia has proven the usefulness of these collaborative tools and driven demand for their use inside corporations.
Many are jumping on the bandwagon. Intel’s “Intelpedia” has 5000 articles and received 13.5 million page views. Sony uses them to keep executives up to date on the newest products. IBM experts used wikis to collaboratively create their IP management policy. There are many more examples.
While the use of wikis has many advantages, chief among them the ability to cut down on email, there are many issues that companies will need to resolve. Reaching a critical mass of users is among the top challenges. Others include ensuring the quality of contributions, data control and security and overcoming individualistic and competitive corporate cultures. The companies that create the intricate set of rules, incentives and governance structures necessary to develop a true collaborative community will benefit from increased productivity and innovative capacity.
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April 12th, 2007, 02:45pm
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For the last few years I’ve been talking about the emergence of Second Life - to quote my friends at Rabble.ca, it is a rich, virtual online world populated with 1.2 million citizens worldwide. Everything, including non-profit storefronts, libraries, campuses, and yes, nightclubs and strip joints, is built by the folks who live a second life online.
But Second Life is not something that can adequately explained to anyone on the outside - you have to experience it for yourself. I did just that last night when I dropped by the Rabble.ca treehouse last night to talk about Wikinomics. It was really an awesome event.
It was so much like reality in many ways, and so much better in others (for example, I may look slightly younger in my Second Life than my first one). As you can see in the pictures, I did my presentation from a chair while others gathered in the gallery around me. My slides were on the screen behind me, and the discussion was both educational and entertaining. It came up that my wife was the chair of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and we spontaneously decided to brainstorm how to get them on Second Life - and I have a lot of venue offers for where this could take place. Like most good events it went longer than expected, the mingling after was fabulous, and I even threw in a little virtual book signing in the end.
But words really can’t do it justice - you have to go there and see it for yourself. Better yet, you can go there, create something, and have others come experience it with you.
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April 10th, 2007, 05:10pm
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Google has teamed up with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to create awareness of the atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan. Darfur, which has been labeled by the U.S. as the first genocide of the century, has seen over 200 000 deaths and 2.5 million displaced since the start of the conflict in 2003.
The initiative, called “Crisis in Darfur”, involves mapping photos, stories and other data onto the Google Earth platform. This will allow over 200 million users of the satellite mapping program to browse through the content to learn more about the conflict. Elliot Schrage, Google’s Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs comments, “At Google, we believe technology can be a catalyst for education and action.” The company plans to partner with the Museum to create a similar database covering the events of the Holocaust.
It is clear that Google Earth’s technology has enormous potential to become a platform for various location based services. It is interesting that the company chose a social issue for one of its first applications. Perhaps the company’s “Don’t be evil” motto is not just good PR.
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April 10th, 2007, 02:21pm
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It’s only fitting the nation that forced censorship upon Google, Microsoft and Yahoo would develop such an ‘Orwellian’ online identify solution. Most identity solutions are geared toward assisting the end user maintain their privacy and security remain intact, while at the same time simplifying the process. China has a different idea.
They claim their system is designed to monitor addictive online game play of young men (which is a serious problem in the country) by limiting their daily game play. “Players whose IDs showed they were under 18, or who submitted incorrect numbers, would be forced to play versions of online games featuring an anti-addiction system that encourages them to spend less time online”.
However, as you scroll down the article you find an interesting caveat. China has decided that those who falsely portray themselves online are also part of the problem and hope the new system will “purify the internet of socially and politically suspect activity, and have been keen to push users to use their true identities online.” This will also include a system that is able to monitor bloggers by “implementing a ‘real name’ system for bloggers to curb ‘irresponsible’ commentary and intellectual property abuse.”
Perhaps it’s better to look at China’s online identity solution like a license for the information super highway. And just as a traditional driver’s license gives you access to things that are bad for you (alcohol, cigarettes, etc…) it also provides authorities your true ID when you break the law. This doesn’t really make the user any better off, but from China’s perspective, it sure makes censorship and control a lot easier.
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April 5th, 2007, 11:08pm
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Once exclusively the realm of geeks, gaming seems to finally be getting the recognition it deserves. The battle between the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 is fierce. Microsoft has even gone to the lengths of crashing Sony’s London and Paris PS 3 launch parties as a publicity stunt. Nitendo’s Wii is flying off the shelves. The computer makers are not far behind. Both Dell and HP respectively bought specialist computer makers Alienware and VoodooPC to better cater to the hard core gamer market.
The demand is clearly there. In the U.S alone, gamers bought 5.1 million Xbox 360s, 1.9 million Wiis and 1.1 million PS3s to date. The more recent development has been the explosive growth of virtual worlds which are now worth $1bn. It is projected that subscription based online worlds such as the hugely popular World of Warcraft will have 10 million users by 2011. Millions more playing other forms of online games.
The gaming industry, still characterized by a technologically savvy user base, is a great place for companies to try out new technologies which can then be adapted to the mainstream market. As the competition heats up, the industry is bound for a burst of innovation.
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April 3rd, 2007, 05:57pm
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A new low cost computer developed by Neuf Cegetel, a French internet service provider, could prove to be a serious challenge to established software and hardware players such as Microsoft and Dell. The project is called Easy Neuf and was sparked by the company’s need to sign up internet users to cover the high fixed costs of laying fiber to deliver internet services. France has one of the lower internet penetration rates in Europe.
According to the project’s manager, Frédéric Charrier, “We wanted to create something as simple and cheap as the Minitel [a French minicomputer project] to reach technophobes and people without much money. For a slightly higher subscription, customers get a simplified computer with all services they might need.”
The service will cost around $50 per month and will come with a toaster sized computer. A mouse, keyboard and screen will come for an additional fixed price of $170, well below the average price of a typical computer. The operating system is Linux based with an easy to use graphic overlay designed by Neuf. The computer will use other open source applications such as Firefox (browser), Abiword (word processor) and Gnumeric (spreadsheet). As a first for open source software the system will be supported by a help desk.
While the computer has its limitations in terms of storage, size and speed, it may be very appealing to Neuf’s target market. Easy Neuf has all the hallmarks of a disruptive innovation, and if successful, will put a lot of pressure on the already ultra competitive PC market.
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April 3rd, 2007, 04:30pm
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Is Hilary Clinton your friend? How about Rudy Giuliani or Barack Obama? Well if you are an American youth and you use MySpace, you can expect that these and other presidential hopefuls will be knocking on the virtual door of your friend network soon.
On March 19th 2007 MySpace launched the Impact Channel as a forum for citizens to learn more about their favourite political candidates, as well as charitable causes. Despite its recent inauguration, there is already broad speculation about the impact that Impact will have in the 2008 US Presidential elections.
The role of MySpace in the race is of particular interest given the site’s popularity amongst the youth population – folks often referred to as ‘swing voters’ due to their frequently low voter turnout rates. MySpace asserts that by creating profiles on Impact and engaging with the often politically disengaged youth aged 18 through 29, candidates can gain support from a demographic which is otherwise hard to reach. If successful, the Impact Channel could take the concept of ‘viral campaigning’ to the next level.
According to a quote by Jeff Burman, MySpace vice-president that appeared in the Globe and Mail, MySpace is excited about the opportunity that the Impact Channel has to “help to redemocratize politics in the 21st century”.
Although critics say that so far the candidates’ pages are too stale and canned to jive with the colourful and zany tapestry that veteran members are used to seeing on a MySpace page, the opportunity remains for a MySpace profile to grab young people’s interest in ways that are more amenable to them than reading a newspaper or turning on the prime time news. According to Tom Anderson, MySpace cofounder, “In the same way (that young people) learn about their friends, they could learn about a candidate.” (As quoted in the New York Times)
If an election is really just a popularity race, it will be interesting to see, will the candidate with the most friends rock the youth vote? The impact of Impact remains to be seen.
In terms of looking at the effects of other Web 2.0 technologies on the 2008 election, Lee Rainie from the Pew Internet and American Life Project shared some thoughts with the New York Times on this subject: “Right now, social networking and YouTube are the two most striking things about this election cycle that make it different from 2004 — so far, (but) that could change. In 10 months, we could be talking about Second Life or text-messaging as ‘the next big thing.’ ”
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April 3rd, 2007, 04:24pm
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As I’ve talked about the growth of the open source movement over the last few years, I’ve often speculated about how many different products and services could be created in a similar way. While some people are quick to agree, many others are resistant to the idea - surely complex products can’t embrace an open source creation process, can they? Wouldn’t it just lead to chaos?
Well earlier this week the world’s first open source car was revealed - a vehicle that’s technical drawings and blueprints are available online, and everyone is invited to add their own ideas so long as they are shared with the community. So if you can design a car this way… what can’t you do?
At the same time, it’s important to note that some important structure was added to the design process - a focus on environmental sustainability. This helped overcome the problem I mentioned in an earlier post on OScar, which was (and is, though it remains in early conceptual stages) trying to bring the open source movement to car design.
OScar found out the hard way that with no parameters in place, it’s kind of hard to come to an agreement on what an ideal car should be between (say) a racing enthusiast and someone more interested in environmental issues.
But as many companies have found, having too many parameters in place stifles innovation. Sometimes all you need is a guiding concept, an open platform, and the ingenuity and innovation that naturally flows out of an interested an engaged community.
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April 3rd, 2007, 04:13pm
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If you moved to New York with hopes of making it big and landing your name on a billboard, Mini USA might just offer you another way. This division of BMW North America LLC is piloting a new advertising campaign in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami that uses RFID enabled key tags to trigger the appearance of personalized messages on Mini advertising billboards (dubbed ‘Motorboards’) for participating Mini Cooper drivers.
Mini invited 4,500 out of its 150,000 drivers in the US to participate in this phase of the program, which Mini is calling the Motorby Campaign. In order to sign up, participants fill out a non-invasive and quirky e-questionnaire which, along side asking standard fare questions inquiring after the driver’s occupation and name, also gets playful by asking if their Mini has a name, and what the driver’s favourite features about the Mini are. Shortly thereafter the driver receives the RFID key fob in the mail.
Drivers who see a Mini Motorboard in the distance can expect to see a message, customized and personalized to them, as they pass by. The boards, which carry typical advertising when no registered Cooper drivers are in range, will pick up the RFID signal from the key fob of nearby drivers and transform into a message board with a tailored message for the driver, displayed in big flashy lights. The New York Times article on this subject explains the types of messages drivers can expect to see: “Mary, moving at the speed of justice,” if Mary is a lawyer, or “Mike, the special of the day is speed,” if Mike is a chef.
While Mini plans to test this campaign for three months prior to deciding whether to roll it out to more cities or increase its penetration, many in the marketing press believe it will be met with large success. Not only is this a novel way to solidify the relationship between drivers and the Mini brand, but as Michael Megalli, a partner with the marketing strategy firm Group 1066, as quoted in the New York Times says, “Building evangelists is the holy grail of marketing for a number of industries. This is interesting because the marketing is integrated into the product.”
It will be interesting to see how the market reacts to the use of RFID technology in this marketing application, given the hype around the massive privacy concerns/big brother imagery that notions of RFID often evoke, resulting from the technology’s potential to be used in tracking an individual’s whereabouts. Mini, however, maintains that the RFID tags are in place to support a fun and entertaining advertising campaign, enabling the company to speak with their drivers, rather than to invade its customers’ privacy. It will also be interesting to see how other auto manufacturers and advertisers react when the RFID rubber hits the road.
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