I’m no fan, but the mainstream appeal is clear: the video has almost 13,000,000 views. I’ll allow Wired.com to explain what happened next:

On YouTube’s business blog, technical account manager Chris LaRosa and music partner manager Ali Sandler describe how Chris Brown and Sony Music managed to capitalize on the 12 million-plus times people have watched the “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” video, which shows Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz’s wedding party boogieing down to the Chris Brown song “Forever.”

“The rights holders for ‘Forever’ used [YouTube's content management tools] to claim and monetize the song, as well as to start running Click-to-Buy links over the video, giving viewers the opportunity to purchase the music track on Amazon and iTunes,” they wrote. Not only did the song rise to No. 4 in the iTunes music store and No. 3 on Amazon, partly as a result of YouTube’s links, but Sony and Chris Brown also collect a share of revenue from Google’s text ads on the page itself.

The wedding video is inspiring people to click through from YouTube to Amazon and iTunes at twice the normal rate, according to LaRosa and Sandler. And the effect appears to be spreading to YouTube’s official music video page for the song, where they say the click-thru rate has increased 250 percent over the past week.

And the kicker:

Unfortunately the newlyweds depicted in the video aren’t making any money from the video’s millions of views, which would have surely helped defray their wedding and honeymoon costs. YouTube spokeswoman Jennifer Neilsen confirmed that Sony is the one monetizing the video, and that the people depicted in the video are not part of the revenue equation.

This is very frustrating. Worse still is YouTube’s prideful gloating about finally monetizing a video.

Sony’s implicit logic is that because that they own the rights to the music they could have the video removed. Since it remains online by their good graces alone, they are entitled to all click-through revenue that the video generates.

This makes sense legally (it shouldn’t) and is exactly the kind of arrogance I expect from Sony. It’s also a terrible way to engender consumer loyalty. The increased Chris Brown sales would not exist were it not for the video. Taking advantage of content creators and then leaving them out in the cold is not a viable long-term strategy. If users feel that their work is going to be leveraged by others to great effect, they’ll stop sharing it.

An even more egregious example of the one-way flow of content control was South Park’s Internet Meme episode. Viacom felt entirely within its rights to take the likeness of iconic Internet/YouTube celebrities and use them in the episode to generate ad revenue. If those same Internet celebrities uploaded clips of the episodes that featured their claims to fame to their own YouTube channels they would receive takedown notices. This is completely unfair.

Both of these are examples of a larger issue at play which is tightly knit with copyright law. The use and compensation surrounding content between individuals and media companies is not bidirectional. YouTube is not only complacent, but jubilant at the prospect of allowing its users to be exploited. And worst of all, I had to listen to a Chris Brown song to write this post.

Something has to change.

Star Wars fans—and they are still legion, despite over 20 years of nonstop setbacks—fondly remember a sequence in The Empire Strikes Back on the planet Hoth, an arid wasteland characterized by deadly sub-freezing temperatures. In order to save Luke Skywalker from certain death, Hans Solo carves opens the dead carcass of a Tauntaun (described on the Star Wars “Wookieepedia” as an “omnivorous reptomammal” that the Rebel Alliance used for transport) with his Lightsaber and tucks his little buddy inside. Sure, it stinks to high heaven, but nestled under the Tauntaun’s thick skin and warm intestines, Luke is saved from a grim fate.

ThinkGeek’s April Fool’s joke was the unveiling of the Tauntaun sleeping bag, a plush replica of the beast featuring a “built-in embroidered Tauntaun head pillow,” “a glowing Lightsaber zipper pull,” and “the exact synthetic compounds needed to recreate Tauntaun fur.” Funny, right? Because who would want to sleep inside an animal’s, smelly intestines? Answer: The many, many people eager to fork out $39.99, that’s who!

ThinkGeek is now trying to actually produce said device and is negotiating with LucasFilm for the rights. It should fit in well with their other products such as the Star Wars Cookbooks, the R2-D2 trashcan and the Darth Vader USB Hub. And nothing says joie de vivre like a Yoda plush backpack.

The best comment from A.V. Club is by “Hack”, who says “Wow, an idea that was too stupid to fail. Someone deserves to be fired, then receive a huge bonus.”

Just the other day, Skittles made a bold experiment:  they moved their Skittles.com homepage to a Twitter search page (see it here).  The new homepage is the same Twitter page you would view if your were to search for “Skittles” under Twitter search.  The only added features from the company are two pop ups – one that asks for your birthdate before you can see the site, and one on the top left that redirects you to Skittles information (as would be available on a typical company website).

The outcome?  It’s 10 a.m. right now, and on average, 10 people per minute are including “Skittles” in their Twitter feed, many of them just writing in in gratuitously to get their name at the top of the page.  Tweets like this one are common:  DaveMcCue: look Ma, I’m on the Skittles homepage! 

There’s also some like this:  spedteacher: Please RT: @andrewwarner wants to take over Skittles page. He’s lending $1 on Kiva for each retweet of this message–till midnight.

This is a great experiment, and there’s obviously lots of marketing benefits (even if it is just a one-time novelty), as well as potential downfalls.

Pros:  – Lots of people on Twitter now talking about Skittles, and all of their followers now see the word “Skittles” popping up.  The novelty factor encourages conversation as well (notice that I’m blogging about it).  Great way to get people talking about your brand, at no financial cost.  This morning, the Wall Street Journal posted their own blog on the subject. 

Cons:  – No company control over the dialogue could be a problem.  For instance, someone could tweet a derogatory comment next to the word “Skittles”, which would then show up at the top of skittles.com.  Atleast one website has already been launched to encourage this (I’m not going to link it myself, but if you’re really interested you can find it through the WSJ blog).  I should note that they do have one safeguard; you have to type in your birthdate before you can visit the site (must be over 18).

Overall, I don’t think this particular experiment represents a future trend for marketing, atleast not in its current form.  Skittles, in the long term, shouldn’t look to restrict their site to adults-only.   Still, it’s a great novelty, and it likely points towards a future where savvy brands will find innovative ways to use Twitter as a customer engagement tool.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  Is this a smart campaign?  Or, will it blow up in their face?  Should other companies take on similar endeavours?

(2:00 pm update:  Instead of Twitter, Skittles has changed this so that they now redirect to a Skittles facebook page.  I assume this was pre-planned.  I wonder what they have in store for us next?  What are your thoughts on this?)

HNIC used to be North America’s sole source for televised hockey games. For Canadians in particular, Saturday was synonomous with one thing: HNIC on CBC. But for years, fans have been asking, “What’s so special about Saturday night?” After all, basic cable broadcasts 2-3 games a week, and if you’re still looking for more, you can purchase the NHL Network (or a team-specific channel like LeafsTV), and watch hockey 7 nights a week. CBC clearly faces a challenge in maintaining the popularity of HNIC. So how exactly are they promoting their product?

As Andrea Bettello wrote here, many fans were outraged when the CBC sold the rights to the HNIC theme song in 2008 (for anyone outside of Canada, the HNIC theme song probably rivals ‘O Canada’ and ‘Happy Birthday’ as the tune most widely recognized by Canadians). But maybe CBC was on to something. After selling the theme song, they held a contest asking Canadians to write the new HNIC theme song, actively engaging thousands of fans in the process. But surely there are further steps CBC could take to engage and retain viewers. (Obviously they have taken such steps or this post would never have been written).

When I sat down to watch the Toronto Maple Leafs get beat by the Philadelphia Flyers on HNIC last Saturday night I wasn’t expecting any Wikinomics-related content from the CBC. But then I was struck by a commercial for ‘Hockey Night MashUp‘. On the Hockey Night MashUp site (which has been in operation since the start of the season), fans can create a mashup highlight reel using a selection of clips from HNIC broadcasts. With the application, fans can choose clips specific to their favourite team. Clips are even categorized (e.g. ‘Goals’ or ‘Celebrations’). Now, this may not seem all that cutting-edge. But, believe me, for HNIC, whose main draw for the past 20 years has been 74 year-old former NHL coach Don Cherry, this is innovative.

I’ve been watching HNIC since I was 3. There were no other games televised, at least in my cable-free home, at that time. Needless to say, HNIC is close to my heart and has special meaning. But in order to resonate with anyone who doesn’t have a deep-seated connection to their broadcasts, HNIC must engage viewers in innovative ways. They indeed seem to be doing so, and not without the help of Wikinomics principles.

(Also note that HNIC has paired with Tim Hortons [sic] on their ‘Every Cup Tells a Story’ campaign [as written about by Jude Fiorillo here], to introduce ‘Stories From the Rink‘).

In this post I would like to share my experiences as a long-standing member of a niche video game community, Uniball, that has been independently run for over 10 years, throughout which there has been an incredible display of leadership, community resilience, social dynamics, and growth in function and prosperity.

Uniball 101
In order to understand the community you need to understand the game, because it is the focus point of all activity and of primary interest to members. Uniball is a simple, 2D game that is played with ships that move around a map, passing, juking, and bouncing a ball with the objective of scoring it into the opposing team’s net. There are typically two teams a side and for almost any major sport conceivable, parallels can be made to this game’s strategy, which is so rich that players will play for years without mastering the game.

The simple in-game controls, physics, and graphics belie a sophisticated and addictive game that has captured the hearts and … fingers of many, so much so that few people ever actually retire from the game. Many community members have played for 5+ years and know each other by name, skill, and reputation in this community population of about 300 active players, and total size of 1000.  Players are represented from all over the world, with major communities and servers in North America and Europe and yet the community is intensely close, and everyone knows who you are. So dedicated to the game are some, that statistics wise, the most active player plays an average of 20 twenty-four days a year (or about 10% of all waking time). There is also an interesting demographics story, which is that because dedicated players rarely quit, the average age of players has changed over time, from teens to early 20s. Few games have the longevity of Uniball, so it is an interesting study in how the community dynamic changes (e.g. general maturity, growth in skills/knowledge) as the people within it age and learn from the real world.

Community Organization
Although the game itself is the attraction, it is complemented by a variety of tools that allow the community to communicate and organize. First among these is a chat program that allows people to create and manage teams (“squads”), as well as discuss things publicly or in private rooms. This central chat tool is the backbone of the community as it allows users to converge and dialogue in a shared meeting space, while not playing, or during times of technical difficulty. Users’ squads compete against each other in sophisticated league competitions with professionally designed, interactive websites, where squads compete intensely for the ‘fame and glory’ of winning (community recognition). These leagues and other discussions are supported by a non-real time communication channel, Internet forums, which are useful for community announcements, and for tying together geographical communities less unified by time.

Community Governance
What is perhaps, most impressive of all, is the degree to which this community has been self sustaining, and independently run for over 10 years. Uniball was originally programmed by an individual who, before disengaging from the game, passed decision making control to a group of administrators. Over time this central government (“Administration” or “Admins”) had the authority to guide the community through turbulence related to user troublemaking, cheating, server outtages, and game development. Although the Admins staff and maintain their elite organization, they are still publicly accountable, and it is critical that users trust their decision making, lest they rebel and cause trouble. Thus, administrative actions are closely monitored by members of the community, as well as by other Admins, who are generally transparent in their dealings.

Community Development
Although the Administration is important from the perspective of authority, and mediating issues, much of the driving force behind the game is its users, who will go to great lengths to develop community or squad initiatives. Examples of these include programming interactive league websites or spin-offs of the game, developing playing manuals, as well as creating new maps, patches, and graphics. These user driven enhancements ensure that Uniball is continually refined.

Community Engagement
And although the administration and user contributions are important, what really drives the game, is competition. The aforementioned squads will compete for brand recognition (some squads are dynasties lasting 2, 3 and 5+ years) by recruiting and training players. These squads require leadership and top squads can have a strict recruitment process to recruit talent, involving sponsoring a new recruit, a voting process using private squad forums, a probationary period, as well as squad practice involving group and 1-on-1 coaching. A number of squads even use voice chat to communicate, for bonding, and for training, and over time many players develop deep ties with each other.

Uniball is a good game but what makes it great is the community element. Although people enjoy video games, it’s important to remember that people play in order to be entertained, and online entertainment is largely a social device. Communities exist in the real world, and online with people from the real world – I hope that this discussion has provided a small peak into that online world.

What about you? Have you considered yourself a member of an online community, video game or otherwise? Which community and what are some of the characteristics that you think speak to the community?

After watching the clip there are two quotes that stick out as having provided some great insight into HP’s future direction:

“Brands are not defined today by campaigns but by the consumer ecosystems we nurture to support them”

“When you look at your customer service, the digital strategy can play an incredible role and in fact what I think and what we have seen is that it can actually be much more effective….We know of communities that have existed on their own as a social community around HP are actually solving customer service issues for HP customers better than at times some of our own service department people. So you can have more accuracy within this community, bring efficiency into the process of the operation and actually be more effective….I do believe it is a digital strategy that should exist across the operations of a company and not just in marketing and communications.”

It is evident that HP not only promotes consumer feedback and the creation of social networks around its product lines but it actually listens to what consumers are saying, which in turn creates a win-win situation for the both consumers and the company. As outlined by Mendenhall, it creates an entire process that becomes more efficient and effective –by using the information gleaned from these social communities to help correct consumer problems the first time they occur. This results happy HP users and a customer service department that isn’t laden with call-backs and complaints about the same problem. The positive customer experience that follows translates into positive word-of-mouth and ultimately creates a stronger brand. As HP has learned, it doesn’t necessarily matter what HP’s marketing campaign says about their brand, it matters what a trusted and influential source (friends, neighbours, digital communities) has to say about the brand. It is the old marketing rule dressed up in digital clothing; listen to your customers, apply the information they provide, create a satisfied consumer base. This may seem simple or straightforward but more often than not companies fail to see the value provided. Some companies aren’t aware that social networks about their brand even exist let alone use the information to improve their service and even worse some companies create social networks around their brand as if to say “we’re doing something digital” and then ignore any consumer-generated ideas. Companies like this invariably believe that they better understand their brand than does the customer. In other instances, customer suggestions make it inside the company boardroom but they either get lost in translation or because they don’t fit with the current strategy they are cast aside.

Hats off to HP for making the effort to actually listen to their customers, perhaps other companies can take a (digital) page from HP’s playbook, or else risk alienating clients and eroding brand value. In an era when existing and potential clients can connect with one another in ways never seen before, ignoring these influential, digital communities is a risky business practice for firms seeking to remain at the forefront of their industry.

The makers of NBA 2K9 have come up with a very, very cool way to promote the game, and get users engaged in an ongoing way. It’s called The Other Season, a unique combination of video games, fantasy sports, and celebrity endorsement. Eight NBA superstars (real ones like Kevin Garnett and Steve Nash) own “franchises” within the game, which are competing with each other over the season. How they are competing is by selecting a team of gamers to join their respective squads. In other words, I, Denis Hancock, could be drafted by Steve Nash to play for his team, the Nash Potatoes- an MVP staple that always delivers.

Everyone who signs up will be drafted, but interested fans can make their case for why they should be highly ranked – describing strengths and weaknesses, the platform they play on, gamertag, and they can even upload videos and images. Over the course of the seasons stats (for things like points, assists, etc.) are accumulated based on one-on-one, 5 minutes games against “blind” opponents. Thankfully, a player’s score is determined by their average performance in these games, so the game doesn’t necessarily require you to play 24/7 in order to dominate. Team owners will communicate with their squads, can trade amongst themselves, and cut people that don’t participate enough ( < once a month).

Very cool idea – have to imagine a lot of gamers will be interested in this, and the prospect of being traded by Carlos Boozer to Andre Igoudala! I sure would be if I, er, still played video games. I’m way to old for that now.*

You can check out the official site here.

* Or so I’m told by various family members. But I do dominate my NBA 2K8 in season mode… Calderon to Bosh for two… and the foul! Get out the salami and cheese!

Valve, the company who developed Portal, has a long history of openness with their games. With their first game, Half-Life, Valve released a Software Development Kit (SDK) that allowed amateur game designers to build their own games on top of the existing engine. Counter-Strike, arguably the most popular FPS game ever, was the result of a fan-made project built on top of the Half-Life engine. Valve ended up hiring the team behind Counter-Strike, and eventually made a sequel.

Staying true to form, Valve released an SDK for Portal. So far as I knew, it was mostly used to make new levels with new challenges. Monday, it was announced that for the past eight months, a fan-made prequel, Portal Prelude, has been silently under development. It serves not only to add content to the existing game, but also greatly expand the scope of the story. In fact, Valve has even approached the team to offer their support and congratulations.

The team released a trailer for their project:

It’s tremendously professional.

Valve has done a fantastic job of building a loyal community around their games, and they’re very relaxed about amateur teams using their characters and settings to tell new stories, it’s very reminiscent of the Japanese manga culture. But instead of just providing their fans with material to adapt, Valve also gives them first-rate tool to work with. Based on the Portal: Prelude trailer, those tools look to be usable to great effect.

Valve, and other companies that open their games, are providing their consumers, and potential employees, with far more than a game, they’re selling a platform (and access to a loyal and enthusiastic community). It’s a fantastic example of openness and prosumption, and with benefits shared among everyone involved. This fan made extension of the story is fitting, given that the original development team was a bunch of students who caught the eye of Valve at a trade show, they were brought on board. Maybe the same thing will happen to this team…

Prelude is due out this month, here’s to hoping that my excitement isn’t misplaced!

It was created by a young, talented kid who lives in Japan called Adrian, aka kidguru. With a straightforward, easy to understand video, kidguru very articulately explained how someone looking to connect their laptop to a tv would go about doing it. Going to his YouTube channel I discovered that he’s been doing this for almost a year now and has turned his site Tech-World into a blogging, vlogging, podcasting, twitter site/community. He’s managed to turn a hobby into a paying job, with sponsors and understands the value of creating community around his videos. He does product and app reviews, and tutorials among other educational things.
KidGuru’s YouTube channel now has over 1,500 subscribers and over 47,000 channel views, and he is now an official YouTube partner. The YouTube partner program is an ad revenue sharing program to reward users that frequently post original content and who have a steady following of thousands of viewers.

If you have any tech related questions I suggest checking out Kidguru’s channel or sending him an e-mail!

If you go to the YouTube partner sites you’ll see all the different YouTube partner channels, the vast majority of which are Net Gen (Net Generation – The children of the baby boom; the generation that has grown up with the Internet) using YouTube to express their creativity and build a community around something they love. Some great examples are KevJumba (#6 most subscribed of all time with over 285,000 subscribers and close to 9 million channel views); HappySlip ( #11 most subscribed of all time with over 205,000 subscribers and close to 7million channel views); and VenetianPrincess (# 17 most subscribed of all time with 153,000 subscribers and almost 2.5 million channel views).

These aren’t small numbers, they are reaching a huge number of people and are influential in their own way. The best part is that from what I can tell, they’re not doing it for any particular reason other than to have fun doing something they love and sharing it with the world. Literally. If they can make money at the same time, that’s even better.

The site provides member-scanned full digital copies of magazines, which can be browsed, shared, archived and even re-assembled to create aptly-named “mygazines”.  The site is hosted by Stokholm-based PRQ, “the world’s least lawyer-friendly hosting company“, which is also host to (and owned by two founders of) well-known bittorrent tracker, The Pirate Bay.

Interestingly, the site tour appears to be targeted at publishers, pitching itself as multi-faceted growth opportunity,  but most industry leaders asked aren’t exactly jumping at the “opportunity”.

Why should I upload my publication to mygazines.com?

• Our article-level search and archiving ability allows your audience to find the content they’re looking for faster
• Increase your distribution and advertising revenue by exposing your publication to more eyes
• Keep control of your publication: Mygazines will not allow for downloading or printing of your publication. Your original source file is never accessible.
• Save the trees – no paper will be used in the making of your virtual publication  

It’s absolutely free!

Wow.  A paper-saving, “distribution” and advertising revenue-increasing model that is also reader-friendly, allowing for customized content…seems like a no-brainer, right?  Well, not so fast.  Despite the site’s sugar-coating, the proclaimed “benefits” do not accrue to a publisher whose member-uploaded content becomes hosted on the third-party site. (Even if hyperlinks on advertisements are provided, the content is not tied to the original publisher.)

I must admit, I see both sides of the coin on this one.  Will this be a push towards open-content release or a short-lived copyright casualty?

In other copyright news, well-known Canadian law professor and fair copyright crusader, Michael Geist, has launched a campaign entitled c61in61seconds, where citizens are challenged to submit their reactions to Canada’s heavily-debated amendment to the Copyright Law, Bill C-61, in a YouTube video of 61 seconds or less.  The campaign has yet to gain full traction, but be sure to check it out and submit your 61 cents if you’ve got an opinion.

Welcome back to another edition of the Wikinomics Roundup: Week in Review! In this week’s roundup, I will capture in brief, some of the thoughts, discoveries, and discussions that graced the blog throughout the past week.

In case you missed it, you can catch last week’s roundup HERE.  From now on the Wikinomics Roundup will have a  nice new home on the left side of the page, under Regular Features. Come visit!

“Governments are already lifting mandatory retirement ages but can do more to encourage employers to provide older workers with flexible options, such as phased retirement, part-time hours, telecommuting and other flexible arrangements, and mentoring opportunities.”

Are you young? Old? Unsure? Join the discussion @
Children of Men: The world in 2053?

“A few months ago my colleague Alan wrote a paper called ‘Social Networks as Operating Systems,’ in which he stated that:

‘Social networks and Web 2.0 technologies herald a new collaborative platform that will be very different from our experience of the Web today. Social networks are destined to become the new “operating systems” (OS) of the collaborative Internet. User identities, attributes, and relationships are all pivotal assets for the networked applications within this new platform. End users, social networks, application providers, and technology vendors will face a looming battle over the ownership and use of these assets and indeed, the question of whether they can be “owned” at all.’

Well, Mark Z. and the Facebook team must have had the same idea…”

Talk about Facebook’s plans for web domination @
Facebook plans for Web domination

“Peering: My colleague David Cameron wrote about My Starbucks Idea on the blog a few months ago. The idea is quite similar to Dell’s Ideastorm, most recently blogged about by Justin Papermaster here. The basic idea is that Starbucks customers submit ideas, and then discuss and vote on them. Starbucks then tries to implement the best ideas, and you can now follow their implementation progress on Twitter. This is a great idea that both generates great feedback and does a great job at engaging customers.”

Did they pass with flying colours or get a sheet full of red ink?  Find out @
Wikinomics Report Card: Starbucks

As I wrote back in January, the rise of the Net and its ability to engage citizens is equally applicable to globalist or nationalist schools of thought. While on one hand it has, and will continue, to break down the barriers of distance and standards that exist between nations and people, it holds an equal ability to reinforce those very walls by those who see what’s beyond them as threatening to the sovereignty and future of their nations.

Get the full story @
China’s net nation

Keep checking back each week, as Wikinomics bloggers keeps their eyes on the web, and their fingers on the keyboard. And as always…if something stood out and interested you, please comment!

Until next week…

This week I will profile the Seattle based coffeehouse giant Starbucks. In case you missed my last report card on De Beers; you can find it here. You can now find all my previous entries, and posts relating to them on the new Regular Features tab on the top left side of the page. Like all my previous entries, I will be evaluating Starbucks on the Wikinomics principles of being open, peering, sharing, and acting globally.

Company Background: The original Starbucks was opened in Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington, in 1971 by three partners. They sold coffee beans and high end coffee equipment, but didn’t sell any actual coffee. Entrepreneur Howard Schultz (current President and CEO) joined the company in 1983, and after trip to Milan, Italy, suggested that they sell coffee and espresso drinks in addition to beans. The original owners disagreed with this new direction, and sold the company to Schultz in 1987. By the time the company went public in 1992, it had grown to over 165 locations across North America. In 1996, Starbucks opened its first international location when it opened in Tokyo, and opened in London in 1998. Today, Starbucks has over 16,000 stores in 44 countries including over 11,000 in the U.S. alone. However, the company recently announced that it was closing down 600 underperforming company-owned stores in the U.S., effectively ending the era of prolific growth and expansion.

Being Open: Starbucks ranked 7^th on the Fortune 100 list of Best Companies to Work For 2008. Although friends of mine may tell you differently, Starbucks treats its employees very well. They offer health, dental, eye-care benefits to all employees who work an average of 20 hours per week over a three month period in addition to a 30% discount on drinks and merchandise. While Starbucks treats its employees well, it has been the target of much public controversy. While Starbucks claims that all their beans are purchased through fair trade, groups such as organicconsumers.org say that only 6% of Starbucks coffee is certified free trade. While they say the amount Starbucks ultimately pays for its beans is fairly comparable to free trade prices, Starbucks does its transactions through middlemen rather than with the farmers directly. Starbucks claims to sell “rare, exotic, cherished” beans from a remote plantation in Ethiopia that Starbucks advertising says is grown in ways good for the environment – and for local people too. However, this eco and poverty friendly sales pitch falls flat when the farmers are paid $1 a day and the plantation is located in a threatened mountain rainforest. Instead of committing to an accountable and respected third-party certifying system, Starbucks has created in internal “corporate responsibility” model that is expensive for coffee farmers, non-transparent and strictly voluntary.

Grade: B-

Peering: My colleague David Cameron wrote about My Starbucks Idea on the blog a few months ago. The idea is quite similar to Dell’s Ideastorm, most recently blogged about by Justin Papermaster here. The basic idea is that Starbucks customers submit ideas, and then discuss and vote on them. Starbucks then tries to implement the best ideas, and you can now follow their implementation progress on Twitter. This is a great idea that both generates great feedback and does a great job at engaging customers.

Grade A

Sharing: Starbucks does its best to try and control its intellectual property. Starbucks owns most of its stores, and only franchises or enters into joint ventures in certain circumstances. From the Starbucks website, “A qualified high volume/high traffic retail or foodservice operation can own and operate a Starbucks licensed store.” However, Starbucks will only license its name and operations in places like airports, college campuses, or hospitals where they would otherwise have no access. While it violates some Wikinomics principles, it is hard to criticize Starbucks for going this path. Even without franchising, and sharing its intellectual property, Starbucks has completely saturated the U.S. market. However, Starbucks is smartly entering foreign markets through joint ventures, partnerships, and licensing agreements.

Grade: B+

Acting Globally: Starbucks is profitably expanding internationally. With increasing news about store closures in the United States, Starbucks’ international expansion is more important than ever. So far, it has been very successful in penetrating markets traditionally opposed to American coffee, or coffee in general. While Starbucks is having a hard time convincing the older generations in France to abandon cafes, younger generations are joining American tourists in embracing frappuccinos and caramel flavored coffee. Starbucks is also expanding aggressively in tea-drinking nation of China. Starbucks is trying to overcome this by empowering China’s emerging middle class to show off their new lifestyle, and purchasing Western luxuries like Starbucks coffee. While Starbucks’ international expansion has gone well thus far, it still faces public protest for what it represents in a similar way to McDonald’s. Starbucks has been boycotted by antiwar protesters in Lebanon and criticized by New Zealand advocates seeking higher coffee prices for farmers. Faced with the possibility of terrorist attacks, they pulled out of Israel. However, these are minor bumps that are expected with international success.

Grade: A-

Overall Verdict: Despite its recent ailings due to a suffering American economy, Starbucks is an international success story. In the 20+ years since being sold to Howard Schultz, the company has had unprecedented growth. It is harnessing the power of Wikinomics through its use of peering with My Starbucks Idea, and is taking steps to becoming a bigger advocate of free trade and organic coffee.

Overall Grade: A-

I am not a coffee drinker or a frequent Starbucks customer, but I applaud what they have done as a company. I was wondering what fans of Starbucks had to say. Have you submitted anything on My Starbucks Idea? Do you think they should be more of a leader in the free trade movement? Do you drink Starbucks coffee when you go on vacation in Europe?

Any and all comments are welcome!

Their website is designed to provide a portal for buyers and sellers of suitable used cars and components, and mechanics who can make the conversion with an electric motor and lithium batteries. Users on the site share ideas on the message board and e-mail lists, with the best information being put into use by the nonprofit community.

The first conversion target of this community will actually be a Toyota Corolla which they say have a range of 93 miles and a top speed of 75 miles per hour. (As a Toyota Corolla owner, this news is exciting to me.) If this community can successfully convert full size gasoline-power cars to run on electricity, look for this trend to catch on in your area. I may even be one of the first to convert my car if this trend hits the USA.

Wiki scripts: Imagine using wiki scripts edited by call center representatives. For common customer problems, wiki support pages could be both internal and external where customers and reps might find workarounds to problems that are valuable to other users (Tony Baggio from SocialText alluded to this opportunity is his comment on my previous post). There are already many communities online where people contribute for free; call centers have an advantage because they control incentives (beyond free) to foster activity. The evolution of call centers from rigid scripts to a network support model would increase call resolution times and increase the capacity of call center employees to take on more challenging issues and tasks.

Feedback mechanisms: The current focus of call centers is problem resolution and mitigation, not customer insight. Call center employees are the company’s front line to customers. Equally valuable would be wiki feedback mechanisms that send information in the other direction to marketing and product development functions. Remember, call centers only see a small percentage of problems, many are discussed in forums and on blogs that are outside the company’s control. Customers also use products in ways that you might never have imagined. How can we leverage these interactions? Is there a role for call reps to engage other communities? Can a Dell IdeaStorm-type initiative help centralize these erroneous points of feedback? The bottom line is this: market research spends an awful lot of money trying to figure out what product needs are and where to take a product; the customer support mechanism should be guiding exactly those things.

Unified account information and metrics: There is an opportunity to use dashboards, widgets, and visualizations to improve problem identification and prioritization by representatives. I’m thinking there are probably a lot of lessons to be learned here from the gaming world where dashboards are extremely complex and pull real-time data from interactive environments. From an IT perspective, this would require some serious integration with back office systems (CRM/ERP).

Reward and compensation structures: Companies need to transform how they think about call centers from a cost center mentality to a value-creation mentality, where each call is seen as an opportunity to learn from customers. For this to happen, incentives will have to change. As an example, most call centers tend to focus on solving individual customer problems; however, a much better objective is to use collaboration to identify root causes and eliminate problems for everyone (tied to feedback mechanisms). This would mean designing a system that rewards people for helping to improve and refine products by removing problems instead of dealing with them as quickly as possible and getting people off the phone. Overall design of these types of complex reward structures could also benefit from lessons learned in the gaming world where rewards, point mechanisms, and incentives are extremely well-defined.

Smart call routing that analyzes reps actual skills and matches problems with solutions: Create a reputation model for call reps that is based on what type of problems they have solved, the level of customer satisfaction, repeat calls, and so on. Smart systems could then provide just-in-time knowledge as problems are identified, either to customers, or to reps as they answer calls – no search required. In terms of wiki scripts and feedback tools, representatives could rate each other, and each others’ scripts and contributions to the knowledge base to help hone the routing system so that issues reach the appropriate person or solution.

Customers helping customers: The first step is to use Web 1.0 tools like a FAQ or knowledge bases to enable customer self-help – this is a fairly standard operating procedure for the vast majority of contact centers. However, beyond this there is an opportunity to allow customers to help each other through forums, wiki product manuals (e.g. see Moto Q wiki), customer-led support (Second Life does it), or online problem solving venues (e.g. see GetSatisfaction.com).

Supplement call center activities with other Web 2.0 initiatives: Why stop at wikis and forums? Live chat is a common addition to the contact center arsenal to improve upon automated online responses (this also allows reps to deal with multiple “calls” at once). What about using videos for online tutorials (vs. documentation) to allow users/reps to post common problems and solutions? How about tutorials using virtual world technology?

Radiohead chose to shun the traditional camera and lights video (that’s so 2007) in favour of the Velodyne LIDAR system, which used 64 lasers, shooting 900 times per minute in a 360 degree radius to capture the data for the video, which would later be re-assembled to create the four and a half minute sequence.  The final product perfectly captures the eerie tone of the song and in the words of the video’s director, James Frost: “In a weird way, [the video] is a direct reflection of where we are in society – everything is data…Everything around us is data-driven in some shape or form and we’re so reliant on it now. Our lives are so digital, so in that way, it felt apt.”

And the video itself is not even the coolest part.  Radiohead has made available the data used to make the video (here) and is encouraging fans to download, remake and post their own version to the YouTube group, which “the band would love to see”.

Kudos to the “video’s” production team and to Radiohead’s front man, Thom Yorke, for once again pushing the envelope and as he says himself: “using technology in a way it wasn’t meant to be used.”

Check out the making of the video here.

Word processing individuals no longer need be confined by the fonts available within their software or even by fonts available for download online. Don’t like what you see? Build your own font.

FontStruct, which describes itself as “a free font-building tool brought to you by the world’s leading retailer of digital type FontShop,” lets users sign up, download their software, and build fonts by “construct[ing] geometrical shapes, which are arranged in a grid pattern, like tiles or bricks.”

Don’t have the time or creative inspiration to create your own? Browse other users’ fonts, which are available for download for free (if the creator feels generous with the rights). Or, for $250, FontShop will create a font based on your own handwriting, which you then own the rights to. On top of it all, FontStruct aficionados have built a tight community where they rate each others’ fonts and discuss all things font and beyond.

FontStruct seems to be gaining momentum. It’s been chatted up here, here and here. There are some legitimately cool fonts available to download for free, but I don’t think I will be making my own anytime soon since it looks pretty time-intensive. As the explosion in prosumerism provides lazy consumers like myself endless choices, I think I will leave the labor up to someone else and pick something someone else spent hours creating.

The transition from being console software to desktop software brings about some advantages, support for HDTV, and support for new hardware… like the Nintendo Wiimote.

A bunch of strangers on the Internet found each other and collaborated to write new software for an old product, making the old XBOX a top-of-the-line media center, better than commercially available alternatives. The team grows, develops into a community, and the code gets ported over to new, more powerful platforms, allowing a competing Nintendo product to join the equation and make things better still. All of this is done by volunteers and released for free online. I think that’s really cool.

It’s not that he doesn’t like the iPhone; he does, he owns one, and he’s jailbroken it. The problem is control, or, more accurately, the lack of control that device users have over their own devices.

The argument builds on Jonathon Zittrain’s new book “The Future of the Internet (and how to stop it)“, where it is argued that “generative” technologies (think: open) are being marginalized by closed technologies like the iPhone and other proprietary platforms. As Wu went on to argue, open devices are important (and even the iPhone is making tentative steps in this direction), but without open access to networks they aren’t much good. There is also an interesting perspective on Wu’s history provided, notably including how he determined that some work in his former life (working with a device maker to help ISPs control content people can access) was “probably not very good for the health of the Internet or the future of free speech.”

Anderson concludes by properly pointing out that the “moralistic rhetoric” coming from the likes of Josh Silver (where openness is the path to righteousness, and the closed path where giant companies decide what and how much is evil) probably won’t sway many corporations, as companies may detect a tinge of socialism to their words. The key is having these companies realize that being “righteous” and extraordinarily profitable are not necessarily mutually exclusive – which I believe will the biggest driver behind wikinomics being accepted on a mass scale.

Naturally, as I skimmed through Wikinomics this week and saw LEGOs mentioned, I was eager to see what has happened since then. The book mentions the mixture of mass customization and peer production that happens at mindstorms.lego.com and the free downloadable NXT software that LEGO offers to encourage tinkering and programming.

As was mentioned in the book, these LEGO enthusiasts are as passionate as they come. This past month the NXTLOGgers’ challenge was to design a NXT robot that would help maintain a healthy, sustainable environment in support of Earth Day. The winners included: The TP-Bot 2008, The Tree Doctor, and Vestas windmill.

Sorry to bring up LEGOs Dad, but look at it this way, at least these ones have the power to put themselves away.
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The game has great reviews so far as well as the typical hoopla about inappropriateness of the material.  Thing is, adults make up a huge percentage of the gaming population and some games are just not made for children — just as the Godfather (parts I and II), Silence of the Lambs, Pulp Fiction, and the Usual Suspects are all considered great films, but not ones that you would watch with your tween.

What’s the wikinomics angle? User-generated content delivered through “walkthroughs” are a huge value ad to the game and the best ones are prepared by volunteers. Below is an excerpt from a study that Alan Majer and I conducted about a great walkthough creator “named” AggroSk8ter.

Chase Ansok works diligently to improve gamer experience regarding Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. For a six-month period starting October 2002, Ansok (or his handle AggroSk8ter) compiled a user’s guide (titled “Full FAQ and Walkthrough”) by collecting, investigating, and organizing thousands of emails and instant messages from users. The end product is a highly organized, comprehensive and exhaustive 35,000 word document that provides maps, game hints, glitches and a full inventory of assets, properties and vehicles available in the game. By way of comparison, the “official” instructions from the game’s producer, Rockstar Games, is less than 2,000 words, and the instructions provided by Blockbuster for a rented game consists of only 12 words. Ansok is thorough, thoughtful, and occasionally pedantic (“check the FAQ!” he often pleads), and an important member of the Rockstar b-web. How much does he cost? Nothing. Ansok and dozens of others craft these user guides as hobbies, competing with eachother to build the best, most complete or easiest to use guide. In a similar vein to bloggers, AggroSk8ter reluctantly promotes and praises his competition, encouraging visitors to view their walkthroughs with different specializations. Along with Ansok and his ilk, there are thousands of active members of the Grand Theft Autocommunity that meet online to discuss strategies, debate the merits of the game, and provide detailed modifications and extensions to the game series— there is even fan fiction, not all of which would be rated PG, featuring the Vice City’s protagonist antihero, Tommy Vercetti. All of this activity adds value to an already immensely successful game.

I think 99.9 percent of the submitted punch lines will be less funny than my original. After all, I’ve had a lot of practice. But with volume, that still leaves room for lots of comics that are better than the original. But we’ll see. This new model makes mocking your co-workers and boss a competitive sport, so it should be lots of fun. I submitted two alternative punch lines today myself, trying to top my original. It’s addicting.

Our very own Danny Williamson is part of the funnier 0.1% remashing the comic strip below:

 Original:

Williamson Mashup:

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Because it’s open you can either buy the Arduino from a variety of people who manufacture it (for example robotshop.ca in Canada) starting at about $35 each, or you can simply build one yourself out of parts.

While the Arduino is an amazing product of mass collaboration itself, it has also spawned an interesting community of innovators who use it. Searching youtube for “arduino project” reveals dozens of results – from funky lights and robots to a visualization of voice patterns. Other companies have even integrated the arduino with mobile networks and GPS for example (there’s a contest to win one if you develop an interesting project with the arduino), the robotshop.ca site even has one with built-in Zigbee wireless capability. It will be interesting to see what new innovations come out of this little $35 hardware platform.

Some of the early homemade programs allow gamers to use their Wii as an MP3 player and also to run the Linux OS. While I couldn’t hack a mainframe to save my life, I will be keeping a close eye on this development – first to see what kinds of great applications ensue, but also to watch for Nintendo’s official reaction.

In other hacking news, the Fort Knox of the hacking community, Apple Computers, appears that it will bow to consumer pressure to allow for independent iPhone programming capability with the imminent release of it’s Software Developer Kit. With others hot on it’s tail including the Nokia N95 and the developing Google phone, this could be just the jump the iPhone needs. Let’s see if Nintendo embraces the same if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em wisdom, albeit hopefully much more quickly than Apple, who has really been a dinosaur in the world of embracing user ingenuity.

MAKE Magazine brings the do-it-yourself mindset to all the technology in your life. MAKE is loaded with exciting projects that help you make the most of your technology at home and away from home. We celebrate your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will.

In other words, it truly is the bible of a generation of prosumers who are customizing and innovating with all the technology around them. I strongly recommend that you regularly check out the site, if for no other reason than getting a sneak peek on all the cool innovations floating around there that you’d otherwise never hear of. To mention a few hot spots:

• the main blog page is the prime destination for staying up-to-date.
• The Make Flickr pool competition is a fascinating collection of pictures.
• The new “MADE in Japan” blog section will be particularly interesting to many North American readers, who may or may not know Japan tends to be a few years ahead of us in technology innovation.
• The how-to DVD rental space (powered by SmartFlix) could help a lot of people… though the lack of direct-download option is curious.
• As a side note, it appears part of their advertising done through Federated Media, a very interesting company that deserves a blog post on here soon.

Of course, there are also literally thousands of interesting little innovations posted all over the blog, etc… like this scary looking Handheld 3-D Scanner.  Anyone want to point us towards some of their favorites?

The website has since been taken down but you can view the winning video here. Quiznos take on the whole thing seems simple enough “We’re just facilitating consumers who go out and create their own expression in the form of a commercial,” said Ronald Y. Rothstein, a partner at Winston & Strawn, on behalf Quiznos.
Now, I don’t pretend to grasp the legal intricacies of corporate advertising but from what I have understand ads that contain ‘slanderous statements and false claims’ are supposed to be off limits. However, from what I have observed as a consumer doesn’t seem to be that cut and dry. Coke and Pepsi used to run blind taste test about which was better, Bud and Miller Lite continuously state they taste better than the each other, and what about the Mac ads? They are hilarious but I would think they have to be pushing the boundaries with the whole Vista sucks by a Mac angle in their latest campaign.

Personally it would make more sense to me if the lawsuit was aimed only at the ads Quiznos created and maybe the way the instructed customers to portray their subs as being better, but to sue over user generated content seems a little odd. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Hopefully it won’t kill this type of engaging and entertaining advertising that allows companies to connect with their customers and spice up the marketing industry.