Environment. Atlantic Records Says Digital Sales Surpass CDs. Online Communities: The Tribalization of Business - O'Reill. Recently I spoke with Francois Gossieaux of Beeline Labs about the role of online communities in the enterprise. Francois has been evangelizing the learning gained from his recent study “The Tribalization of Business” (see here for the Slideshare presentation). The interview is broken into three parts. Francois is a great storyteller, bringing case studies in to support nearly every point. Here are a few insights I took away from our conversation: Community for community’s sake: most businesses begin planning a community with traditional objectives (lower support costs, drive innovation, increase customer loyalty etc.). On the Social Web this is the equivalent of entering a personal relationship with an ulterior motive (which never works out quite right). Businesses should begin with the question, “how can I satisfy the needs of this community?” Think Bigger: Most large companies are satisfied to have small communities; basically bringing a focus group online.
Kevin Kelly -- The Technium. [Translations: Dutch, Japanese] Yes, everything will be free, but in my experience people want to pay. They really do! People, mobs of them, will grab stuff that is free. They will try stuff for free that they would never touch if they had to pay. But, but, if people have resources they prefer to pay the creators of products and services they like. 1) A way of connecting. 2) A sign of approval. 3) A vote. 4) It indicates an allegiance with the maker. 5) It feels good to the payer, to support.
People buy stuff, but what we all crave are relationships. There are some caveats in this urge to pay. Paying has to be super easy, idiot-proof and frictionless. The price has to be reasonable. The benefits of paying have to be evident and transparent. Is there any evidence for wanting to pay? They are happy to pay if it is easy, fair, and beneficial. You Can't Regulate Just One Industry And Leave The Ot. The big news here in the UK this morning (lead story in the FT and I just saw the minister of culture on the BBC) is the deal between the broadband ISPs in the UK and the music and film companies on downloading. The ISPs have agreed to send warning letters to thousands of their customers who are the most active downloaders of music and films.
The UK government will do their part by discussing legislating regulations on the ISPs if the warning letters don’t work. The most commonly discussed legislation would be a "download fee" applied to every ISP bill which would be paid to the music and film companies. All of that is well and good, but I read nothing in the FT piece and heard nothing in the BBC interview about regulating the music and film industries to force them to make their content easily and readily available over the Internet.
Let’s take The Dark Night. Let’s say that I’d really rather watch it at home on my big screen. I know I can get it on bit torrent so I do that. Some Perspective: Streaming Vs. P2P Downloading @ The Catbirdsea. Look At Free Music, Look How It Drives Web Traffic To You…. Kevin Kelly -- The Technium. [Translations: Japanese, Portuguese] My 1000 True Fans post provoked much discussion on other blogs. One blogger mentioned in passing that Brian Austin Whitney had suggested a very similar idea a few years ago. I had not heard Whitney, nor his proposition, and I missed this reference while researching, but I am impressed with how convergent our ideas are.
Whitney organized Just Plain Folks, a community for independent artists. Writing on New Year’s Eve 2004, Whitney said, I have a notion that we’re turning a corner (or experiencing a swing in the pendulum) where an artist who focuses on a smaller number of fans and serves them with a high level of direct interaction and communication will be the new model for success, even in the face of new technology and the shift in old school music business procedures.
Four months later, on tax day, blogging musician Scott Andrew picked up Whitney’s notion and expanded on it under the title of 5000 Fans. Kevin Kelly -- The Reality of Depending on True Fans. I have been researching new business models for artists working in the low end of the long tail. How can one make a living in a micro-niche? Is it even possible, particularly in this realm of no-cost copies? I proposed the idea of artists directly cultivating 1000 True Fans, which I wrote up in a previous post. It was a nice thesis that got a lot of blog-attention, but it was short on actual data. I solicited real numbers from those who wrote me, and I also sought out others who had a reputation for thriving on a dedicated fan base, and asked them to share their experiences. Robert Rich was one of the first professional musicians to start dealing directly with his fans via his own website, which is why I contacted him.
I am deeply grateful to Robert for his generous and courageous disclosure of his real-life finances. Sorry, I’m Not Buying This New Touchy-Feely Approach To The Musi. Ethan Kaplan writes a beautiful tribute to the value of music, and how we as a society must come to terms with how we will value it as the business model around recorded music continues to disintegrate. I call BS on the whole post.
His central questions are “How do you value art?” And “How do you ensure that the value of art can translate into the notion of making a living on art?” So far, so good. A discussion about music industry troubles, framed from the point of view of the artist. But then, a red flag: “What role does a government body play in the propagation of the meme of art creation? I tried to keep an open mind throughout the rest of the post.
But all Kaplan has done is take the arguments that his boss made a couple of weeks ago and repackaged them in touchy-feely “what about the children artist?” “The concept of art is fundamental to our identity as humans,” he says, and “the worst to the best music is art without any regard to its inherent quality.” How do we do that? Gerd Leonhard: Flat Rate or Flat Line - further thoughts on the. Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution Licensed (3.0 US). This is a guest post by Gerd Leonhard: Music & Media Futurist, author of “Music2.0“, co-author of “The Future of Music”, CEO of Sonific.com, speaker and advisor. Last week I wrote a response to the now (in)famous Paul McGuinness speech at MIDEM in Cannes.
In his otherwise quite misdirected talk, Paul briefly referred to the so-called ‘digital music flat rate’ (Ed. something we’ve been calling a “music tax”) and so I wanted to make sure I specifically address this topic in a separate guest post here at last100. Paul’s MIDEM speech sadly reflects the current situation: a music industry still run by yesterday’s managers, executives and (mis)leaders that are still obsessed with control, more than with anything else. So why would the flat rate for digital music solve the rampant music sharing ‘problem’? A win-win-win, really, until now. First, we must start by giving everyone “feels like free” access to music, NOW. The Music Industry’s New Extortion Scheme. Update: More details of the scheme are here. Musicians themselves may just be crazy, but the music labels are dangerously stupid, and need to be stopped before they can do any further damage to the music industry.
Case in point: Warner Music, fully aware that the days of charging for recorded music are coming to an end, is now pushing for a music tax. This isn’t the first time someone has called for a music tax. Peter Jenner argued for it in Europe in 2006. Trent Reznor said the same thing last year (as did the Songwriters Association of Canada). Mathew Ingram has other examples. But Warner Music is doing more than just talking about a music tax. The goal? Akamai’s David Barrett has an interesting angle on the issue (he says he wants to make it clear that he is speaking as an individual, not for Akamai).
As I wrote two months ago, a music tax will be the last stand of the music industry, and their last attempt to preserve the hierarchy that exists today. Yes, blossom. Israeli Singer Embraces Britney, Apple For Success - New York Ti. These Crazy Musicians Still Think They Should Get Paid For Recor. Why is it the Brits have all the crazy-stupid ideas about how to screw up the music industry even more than it is already? British musician Billy Bragg argues in the New York Times today that some portion of Bebo’s $850 million sale price should go to the musicians who uploaded their music to the site.
Note that Bragg neatly sidesteps the fact that music was uploaded to the site by artists (or their labels) themselves, with full knowledge that they would not receive payments of any kind (except free marketing, of course, and access to Bebo’s tens of millions of music loving users). His argument is based on the notion that Bebo’s success was based on the availability of streaming music on the site: “The musicians who posted their work on Bebo.com are no different from investors in a start-up enterprise…Now that the business has reaped huge benefits, surely they deserve a dividend.” Bragg also tries to take direct credit for Bebo’s success: Mr.
The Royalty Scam.