Madonna Rocks the Music

Posted on October 11, 2007 by JoeDuck

Madonna’s $120,000,000 deal ( Wall Street Journal story) with Live Nation signals a powerful shift in the music industry that hopefully will lead to a cutting out of the middlemen in favor of the best for the artists and for the music consumer. I don’t follow this industry all that closely but my take on the coming trend is different than most of what I’ve been reading. It seems to me that over the coming decades we will see music thankfully shifting to a less sensational and more “niche genre” focus. We’ll see more emphasis on quality music, and perhaps on quality concerts because the human to human aspect of music will not go away anytime soon, and may even be enhanced as artists move to online communities where they can interact with thousands effectively and somewhat intimately. We’ll see more independent artists who can make an “OK” living thanks to an online global fan base, and this will thankfully come at the expense of the Britney Spears and Madonnas who have been rather spectacular beneficiaries of the giant music marketing empires that made all stars what they are today.

The idea that individuals are the key component in these things is absurd. They matter in the big profit and entertainment equations but the key component is generally the huge support system that starts as a small gathering behind promising talent and then blossoms to a cast of hundreds as the promoters step in to “discover” the new talent.

American Idol’s brilliant model created a huge fan base for the participants as the weeks went on, and many of the top 10 American Idol singers are now doing quite well as actors or singers. This “social networking” approach will become increasingly important in a music world ruled by the fans and not the big players.

TechMeme on … TechMeme

Posted on October 10, 2007 by JoeDuck

Gabe Rivera’s TechMeme is a favorite info destination for thousands of technology enthusiasts and news junkies all over the world. However Bobbie Johnson over at the Guardian has taken a mini-swipe at TechMeme, suggesting that the relative low traffic from the site shows that people are overrating TechMeme’s importance in the scheme of things technological.

Robert Scoble, in response, has a great summary of how he gets very different traffic depending on the source. Although he does not focus on the *topic*, clearly that matters a lot as well. Scoble’s blog is influential enough that it would often send more traffic to a linked site than TechMeme. I’ll have to check my own stats to be sure but I the times I’ve had links from “A list” bloggers like Robert Scoble, Jeremy Zawodny or Matt Cutts it has sent more traffic than my frequent links at TechMeme – though I have never had a post be a “headliner” at TechMeme. In fact I don’t think Gabe’s algorithm would allow his “second tier” sites to have featured posts. My (wild) guess is that TechMeme has at least two lists of blogs/sites, and only sites and blogs on his top tier list can have the posts featured prominently – others are relegated to the comments section even if it’s a more detailed, more linked, or better post.

I think this “small stable of premier technology sites” may be a potential defect at TechMeme that keeps the Tech echo chamber very loud but not very diverse, though Gabe may have learned that this helps keep irrelevant posts out of the mix. At SES I was talking with Matt Cutts about how the TechMeme algorithm might work, and how it might be applied to a broader set of blogs as a ranking mechanism.

Nick Carr jumped on this TechMeme traffic bashing bandwagon suggesting “juicelessness” which is a cleverly coined phrase but misleading because TechMeme clearly reaches a lot of key technology folks and that’s a juicier kind of audience in terms of advertising and influence than, say, 16 year old Diggers.

So, I’m sticking with TechMeme and redict it’ll get bigger and better.

Social media frenzy may kill high quality content. Somebody fix this!

Posted on October 7, 2007 by JoeDuck

The news last month that Microsoft may wind up offering Facebook $500,000,000 for a 5% stake is great news … for the tiny number of Facebook insiders who stand to gain from this move which would effectively value the social media giant at about $10,000,000,000. For the millions of Facebook folks like me who provide the content and faces that drive Facebook it means … um … more advertising.

Gee, thanks Facebook.

When people wake up they may start to realize that we’ve got a potential crisis as small numbers of “info intermediators” like Google and Facebook scoop up the lion’s share of the online ocean of cash while the “info creators” are distinctly second class citizens in the big show. Small time web publishers and mom and pops are in this group. So are major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post and most other print outlets who tend to make relatively little online despite offering much of the web’s best content to date, especially now that the foolish paywalls of some newspaper outlets like NYT are coming down. Having no paywall will allow them to make more, but it’s not clear to me they’ll make enough to keep all that high quality content coming.

Print and newspapers are hurting and that is going to continue. That’s OK as long as websites and blogs continue to provide great insight and breaking news, but it’s about time the big players in the online world start working *a lot harder* to feed the hands that are feeding them. It’s about time they realize that the best web ecosystem encourages high quality content and not just socializing for the sake of hanging online with friends.

Yes, it is true that revenue sharing programs like Google adsense give publishers a nice share of revenues that come directly from activity at their websites. However lost in this debate is the fact that *most* of Google’s money (and virtually all of Myspaces), goes into the pocket of Google and Fox (owners of Myspace). This is because most of the cash comes from searches done at Google.com rather than publishing affiliate sites, and Google keeps all that despite the fact it’s generated *indirectly* from the ocean of content Google has categorized. Sure Google should make *a lot* from categorizing *your content* so effectively, but should they make 100%? You can argue this arrangement is fine if the big players turn around and do things with that money that make the internet ecosystem thrive and grow in ways it could not without their involvement. I think that argument was far more valid a few years ago than it is now. Literally thousands of startups are dying off as the Youtubes and Facebooks – built squarely on the shoulders of other people’s content – scoop up the super gigantic big money. It is not a problem that startups die – in fact it’s a good part of the ruthless evolution of things – but it’s problematic when the lion’s share of online resources from the work of so many are redistributed to so few. Not because this is “unfair”, but because this type of inequity does not lead to optimal system efficiency and growth.

Social media in all its various and sundry forms is a wonderful development. Finally we see clearly that people, not computers, will be at the heart of future online developments – probably for some time into the future. Facebook users are now leading the innovation in this area, though Alice at NYT thinks this could lead to unintended consequences.

To protect this new socially charged online environment from the ravages of our silly, stupid and prurient human interests we’ll need better incentives than the big players currently offer to quality content producers. Those incentives will ultimately shape the quality of online content for years to come.

File sharing fines go mainstream

Posted on October 5, 2007 by JoeDuck

Many see as harsh the recent $220,000 fine levied on a Minnesota housewife for online music sharing, but it’s more appropriate to view this action as a significant milestone in the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) strategy to crack down on illegal music and try to push people to legal file downloading. The coverage on this file sharing case is overwhelming and it will be very interesting to see how the online community will absorb this verdict.

CNET’s Declan has a good summary of key points in this RIAA case here, although in one sense it should be easy to understand the verdict because pretty much everybody knows file sharing is illegal! Common use does not make file sharing “fair use”.

Now, one can make a reasonable case that the illegality of file sharing is a trivial offense – something like driving going 58 mph in a 55 mph zone. One can hammer home this point noting that simply making a mix tape for friends is also technically illegal but never enforced by RIAA, and that gray areas about in the law surrounding intellectual property. But only foolish people (ie a lot of people) seem to argue that file sharing is a perfectly legal activity.

So, what is the solution here? RIAA would say it is for everybody to stop illegal downloads and sign up for paid services. Yet RIAA must be spending far more than 220k on this case, and won’t ever get that much from her anyway. Given the difficulties of prosecution and the prevalence of the behavior I think the laws should to be modified to reflect widespread accepted social standards while still protecting copyright holders. However this may just open up a new hornet’s nest of legal complications.

Facebook will rule the world in 33 days! Ummm … not.

Posted on September 29, 2007 by JoeDuck

Yes, of course Facebook is a great implementation of Social Networking which is undoubtedly the paradigm that will dominate the internet world for at least a few years. However Facebook is hardly a *new* idea and it’s hardly immune to other social networking forces that are in the mix now and will be popping up as time moves on.

AllFacebook is reporting that soon Facebook could kill off LinkedIn with new ways to segregate and work with your contact list, and I think he’s got a good point. Ideally it seems like would be nice to have ONE intersection point that can be adjusted and manipulated according to our network, community, or audience. But it’s not clear people will want that to be a commercial enterprise – in fact OpenID in some form seems more likely to take on that role.

Despite all the hype surrounding a 10 billion valuation for Facebook and rumors of their takeover of the world I’m skeptical they’ll be as dominant as many seem to think after a few years of hassling with the real world of real people – potentially very fickle facebookers.

Facebook is seeking the mantle of the one stop social networking shop, and as of the latest buzz they seem in a good position to take over from Myspace as the world’s top social network. However Facebook has a very long way to go in terms of subscribers even though it does seem that the earlier enthusiasm folks showed for Myspace is giving way to Facebook. But Facebook is not as “fun” as Myspace so I’d guess we’ll see a demographic division as kids and new users gravitate to the more “fun” sites like MySpace or the new Yahoo Mash and more sophisticated users move in the direction of Facebook.

TechCrunch on Facebook’s changes

Battelle will be back at Mash!?

Posted on September 16, 2007 by JoeDuck

John Battelle‘s already giving up on Mash and I think that’s too bad. He’ll be back because I think it’ll catch on… unless Yahoo fails to evangelize properly. Umm – wait a minute. Yahoo ! Evangelize!!!!!

Here’s the comment I could not post over at Searchblog because I gave up on the 4th time with the captcha. Searchblog is still a good resource though I think it suffered greatly when John went off to build the Federated Media Empire. Today’s challenge posting was a perfect example of why I’m getting tired of putting in my “valuable” comments at A list websites only to be treated poorly by tech problems, short replies, or no feedback.

Social media / social centric blogging will soon trump the current elitism that is damaging blogging and that’s a good thing. I’m finding the best stuff is coming from peole who are not read enough. That can be fixed though Google’s ranking system is getting in the way of that for sure – but this is for another post.

—— To John at SearchBlog —-

Wow John, I think you’ve given up too soon. Yes it’s too much like Myspace but there are some great features that bring Yahoo’s strength to bear in social networking. Blog and picture integration are good features but the threaded conversations *across different profiles* is a feature I’ve not seen before – it’s a very good way to get people talking, like MyBlogLog does.

For example I’ve given up on SearchMob and even commenting here because as much as I appreciate your wisdom on things this is very one-sided. I give my .02 in thoughtful comments and get back…very little, because most A list folks are far too busy building empires to actively engage with the rifraff bloggers out there. That’s OK, but’s regular blogs don’t reflect the web in all its powerful 2.0 social glory. The holy grail for blog/social media is where we get away from the “A list” and towards socializing that is spawned from the belly of the internet beast itself – ie where socializing springs from natural relationships of people and sites. Facebook and now Mash are facilitating that change, and it’s a great one.

Yahoo Mash is cool

Posted on September 16, 2007 by JoeDuck

I’m enjoying Yahoo Mash so far. email me if you need an invitation as it is still in beta: jhunkins@gmail.com

Here are some observations for what they are worth:

* Lots of search and SEO folks in the beta so far. This will probably make early feedback very different,and a lot more sophisticated than what it would be with a normal online sample.

* Business features lacking. I agree with others who are noting this is a bit “too much” like MySpace which is inferior to Facebook and LinkedIn. You can do a hybrid of all these here, so bring in more biz networking features ASAP and it’ll get early adopters and influencers on board fast.

* More blog integration /mybloglog stuff would be nice. I’d like to use Mash as a way for people to talk about blog posts at my blog and others. I can’t get the RSS feed to work in my Mash profile so far ( joeduck.wordpress.com/atom/ )

Mash has a GREAT idea with the comments crossing across all profiles and the convo feature which allows people to carry on a conversation across their profiles. I think this is a really neat breakthrough in interactivity though I’m still processing this feature, which I have not seen elsewhere.

Yahoo’s MyBlogLog, combined with Mash, could actually be the killer application (though I assume MySpace and Facebook would soon copy it but that’s fine) . For most onliners like me there is a huge problem with the amount of time spent navigating and participating in social networking plus blogging, not to mention “real” work on websites and such. Needed badly are ways to seamlessly travel online, carrying your profile and important ID elements, blog posts, and more around with you. IMHO MyBlogLog has come the closest to this holy grail so far because it allows people to do their own thing AND interact with others who are doing their own thing.

Yahoo gets this in a big way which is why they bought MBL and have created certain features in Mash. Good going so far Yahoo!

Disclaimer: I’m a Yahoo stockholder, so I’m rootin’ for them but remain pretty darn objective otherwise.

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