(* Source: Michael Arrington *)

Mike says...

We learned yesterday that Warner Music, the third largest music label, is gunning for a $5/month music tax on U.S. residents.

Some of the details were in the article: they’ve hired industry veteran Jim Griffin to create a new entity around the project, presumably to get other labels involved. Griffin threw out the idea of a $5/month tax (which would be added to people’s ISP bill), generating $20 billion/year in revenues. The tax won’t be mandatory, he implies. And he also said that it isn’t really a “tax”: “we have no such interest in government running this or having any part of it.” Griffin also talked about advertising subsidies for partners who don’t want to pay the fee.

Users who are paying the tax will be able to download music from the Internet legally, through all the normal channels (BitTorrent, other P2P networks, etc.).

Nothing he said is strictly untrue. But a source with knowledge of the project clarified a number of points for. Those details, combined with the vague outline provided by Griffin, show a scheme that is very similar to classic criminal protection rackets. We threw out that term to describe the scheme in our post yesterday as well - today, with these additional details, it seems to fit like a glove.

Here’s What They’re Really Planning: Pay Us Not To Sue You

The tax will not, in fact, be mandatory. But that is misleading - it won’t be mandatory for ISPs who provide Internet access to actual users. But if ISPs join the scheme, it will apply to all of their customers and be added to their bill as a surcharge.

Why will ISP’s agree to this? Mainly to avoid liability. The core of the plan is a covenant not to sue anyone who pays the fee. Griffin touched on this in the article, saying ISPs will want to “discharge their risk” around file sharing that occurs over their networks.

The rollout plan will hit colleges and universities first, who will simply add the fee to tuition bills so they won’t have to worry about getting dragged into lawsuits. Then Griffin will approach consumer ISPs. If an ISP joins, their users will not have the option of not paying, even if they don’t download music from the Internet. So, basically, the tax is only voluntary if you define avoiding it as not going to college, or using the Internet.

The advertising-supported option is likely a red herring to satisfy critics, and would be dumped before the project launches. It just isn’t feasibly to try to aim advertising at users who are downloading music from BitTorrent and putting it on their iPod. There’s no touch point to force advertising down their throat.

So the plan essentially comes down to telling ISPs that they can avoid any copyright infringement liability if they pay the fee on behalf of customers. And while the government wouldn’t be directly involved, the willingness of law enforcement agencies and the judicial system to enforce civil and criminal copyright infringement laws is the stick by which Griffin will convince ISPs to jump on board. It’s government endorsed extortion, nothing more and nothing less.

The effects on innovation in music would be disastrous if such a scheme were ever to become reality. It’s clearly good for the music labels, who are facing their imminent extinction. For everyone else, though, this is the worst possible thing that could happen.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Duncan Riley *) 

Figures released by the Newspaper Association of America show that the decline of newspapers is more rapid than previously thought, with total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunging 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006, the biggest drop in revenue since 1950, the year they started tracking annual revenue.

Online provides some solace for the dead-tree business, with internet ad revenue growing 18.8% to $3.2 billion compared to 2006, but a rate significantly lower than the 31.4% growth the year before, and not even close to replacing the losses from print. Online revenue now represents 7.5% of total newspaper ad revenues.

Newspapers do have a future, but as I wrote in November, we are yet to see a major consolidation of print in the United States. Declining revenues will ultimately force consolidation across print media in the United States, and many of those that fail to embrace change will be on borrowed time.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Paulisakson *)

A great presentation to what is otherwise a rather complicated issue made simple.

| View | Upload your own

Posted by brian tiong at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Ben Hourahine *)

Nice video from Ben, Futures Editor from Leo Burnett 

Posted by brian tiong at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *) 

Radiohead is the poster child for web distribution and an autonomous strategy for controlling one’s own destiny (while still making money) as an artist in this day and age. So when we heard about th latest Radiohead “In Rainbows” widget, powered by Clearspring, we decided to check it out.

The widget contains an entire menu of video and music content, along with tour dates, news articles, and a link to purchase the album. We’ve seen a few companies launch similar music widgets for artists, with some variants such as maps for tour dates, etc.

The Radiohead widget currently lacks interactivity for the end user, otherwise it would be a bit more like Splashcast’s widget offering, which has also been taking advantage of the open platforms across networks like Facebook and MySpace.

But given Clearspring’s other efforts to move forward in the widget space, having launched an ad network and other tools for web publishers to extend widgetizing content offerings, what we’re seeing is a standardization of widget features that are widely being adopted by musicians, combining viral sharing tools, self-promotion and easy access to content that can be monetized.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mike Arrington *) 

Mike says... 

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. Birch has cited me as an influence in Bebo’s attitude toward artists. He got in touch two years ago after I took MySpace to task over its proprietary rights clause. I was concerned that the site was harvesting residual rights from original songs posted there by unsigned musicians. As a result of my complaints, MySpace changed its terms and conditions to state clearly that all rights to material appearing on the site remain with the originator.

A few weeks later, Mr. Birch came to see me at my home. He was hoping to expand his business by hosting music and wanted my advice on how to construct an artist-centered environment where musicians could post original songs without fear of losing control over their work. Following our talks, Mr. Birch told the press that he wanted Bebo to be a site that worked for artists and held their interests first and foremost.

Bragg does attempt to argue his case, primarily by (1) saying that social networks are as much to blame for declining music sales as the people who are downloading songs in violation of copyrights, and (2) saying that arguments that social networks are doing musicians a favor by marketing their music are “disingenuous.”

Both arguments have holes in them so large you could drive a BitTorrent stream through them.

Social networks have absolutely nothing to do with the decline in music sales. The fact that recorded music can be reproduced at a zero marginal cost is why music sales are declining. You can hate that or love that, but it’s simple economics that drives it.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *)

An excellent overview on the web today.

Erik says...

Today more than ever, the Web is a global game. Below are charts from a new State of the Internet report from comScore that paints a picture of global competition on the Web.

In 1996, two thirds of all people online (66 percent) lived in the U.S. By last October, that had completely flipped, with 77 percent of the online population living in the rest of the world and only 23 percent in the U.S. The U.S. still has the largest total number of Web surfers (162 million a month), but China is catching up fast (with 96 million):

In China, homegrown sites such as TenCent, Baidu and Sina all reach more native Web surfers than Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo:

In fact, the leading Websites in many big markets such as Russia, Japan, and South Korea tend to be homegrown as well:

Social networks are the fastest-growing category of sites (nearly 60 percent annually), but they still lag in terms of penetration (less than 40 percent) behind photo sites, entertainment sites, search, and portals:

The fastest growing of all social networks, of course, has been Facebook, which jumped from the second pack to where it is now running neck-and-neck with MySpace:

Drilling down into search, Google still dominates with 62 percent share worldwide:

And it dominates search even more in other countries than it does in the U.S., where it only commands a 53 percent market share (compared to above 90 percent in parts of Europe and Latin America):

Looking at the efficiency of its search ads, Google puts up an ad against only about half of its searches, whereas Yahoo puts up an ad 75 percent of the time. Yet for those searches where an ad is shown, Google gets 0.24 paid click per search compared to 0.18 for Yahoo and 0.14 for Microsoft. (Search advertising on AOL and Ask are also powered by Google and they show the same or better clickthrough rates).

For display ads, Yahoo and MySpace control the most market share, with 19 and 15 percent each, respectively. (Microsoft comes in a distant third with 6.6 percent):

The report also gives an estimate of the unduplicated reach of Microsoft and Yahoo. A combined Microsoft-Yahoo would have 173 million unique visitors a month across the globe, a 10 percent share of all page views, 32 percent share of search, and 24 percent share of display ads:

Both Microsoft and Yahoo each have about 260 million Webmail users (with duplication), with Google’s Gmail bringing up third place with 87 million (no wonder Google execs keep bringing up market concentration concerns in relation to mail and instant messaging):

Posted by brian tiong at 09:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *)

On the left is a picture of plain old Angelina Jolie. But on the right…well we’ve got Angelina after she’s been through the Taaz virtual makeover service.

The service, which launches today, uses some of the same tricks as many of the Flash-based photo editing tools we’ve covered in the past. Taaz has added proprietary facial recognition software so that it can, for example, figure out where your lips are when you want to put on lipstick. Taaz also differs from normal photo editing tools in that it is specifically set up to help users (mostly women) see how they might look with different hair, eyes, makeup, etc. Finished makeovers can then be shared with other users, rated, commented, etc.

The tools are dead simple to use (thanks, Adobe) and I had a lot of fun testing the service. See the image below for me with cool hair and a lot of red stuff on my cheeks. They’ve also included a number of original articles on beauty and style, and helpful hints like this one: “Contrary to popular belief, matching your eye shadow to your eye color enhances your eyes, making them pop.” Good to know.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark Hendrickson *)

KidZui is an ambitious project, launching tonight, intended not only to make the internet safe for kids (aged 3-12), but to provide a browsing experience that caters to their cognitive powers and surfaces the best juvenile content as well.

The concern for children’s safety on the net has been around for years and has usually been addressed with software that attempts to blacklist all the worst parts of the web (and pornographic websites in particular). The fundamental problem with this type of software is that no blacklist can be complete given the rate at which the web grows each day, so holes through which children can access the inappropriate content they’re supposedly protected from are bound to appear.

KidZui takes the opposite approach to these traditional solutions. Instead of blacklisting all the “bad” sites, it whitelists only the “good” ones. The application, which is essentially a custom browser built on top of Internet Explorer and Safari technology (depending on the platform), has been in development for three years. During that time, the company has hired around 200 teachers and parents from across the United States to scour the net for appropriate sites and content. So far they’ve whitelisted about 500,000 websites, as well as many videos found on YouTube. Spiders have helped to gather this content, but ultimately all of it was reviewed manually by humans.

As a result, KidZui has effectively cordoned off a safe area where parents can let their children roam free. This safe area will grow for KidZui as a whole. Each time a kid clicks on a link to an unapproved site, it will go into a moderation system and either approved or denied within an hour. The area can also grow or shrink for each KidZui user. Parents can decide to whitelist certain sites, such as Facebook, not ordinarily allowed for KidZui users. Or they can blacklist a site, such as Club Penguin, that their kids spend way too much time on it.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Financial Times *) 

Andrew says... 

Apple is in discussions with the big music companies about a radical new business model that would give customers free access to its entire iTunes music library in exchange for paying a premium for its iPod and iPhone devices.

The “all you can eat” model, a replica of Nokia’s “comes with music” deal with Universal Music last December, could provide the struggling recorded music industry with a much-needed fillip, and drive demand for a new generation of Apple’s hardware.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 09:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jim Rossman *)

Jim says... 

Posted by brian tiong at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins *)

Pepsico is launching a social network, according to announcements to the press today. The social network will center around European soccer, and the system will be powered by white label social network Youniverse.com.  According to the press information, the site won’t be released in Europe for a while, but the site seems live already, and I was able to create an account and log in with no trouble whatsoever.

The account creation process was a bit bizarre, though. Rather than filling out interests and forms indicating my level of interest, it was automatically assumed from the onset that I was a pretty big fan of soccer, and my motivations for loving soccer were then indicated by clicking on a series of pictures, in response to various questions (i.e. “The worst thing about soccer is…”; I clicked on a picture of some dudes in mullets).

I can’t find the quote at the moment, but I want to say it was Chris Brogan who mentioned something about the difficulty or impossibility of building community around global brands.  I’m not sure if that’s the goal of this particular social network, but picking a subject of so much passion like soccer and using a unique approach like they are, I say they have a pretty good shot at pulling it off.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Paul Resnikoff *)

As the influence of major labels continues to recede, a number of ambitious power-players are filling the void.  Early predictions called for the rise of the ultra-powerful management agency, though unexpected retailers like Starbucks, performance heavyweights like Live Nation, and even big-boxers like Wal-Mart are now commanding the most attention.

But when it comes to commanding the most hours of undivided consumer attention, the gaming industry is frequently unparalleled.  The hyper-distracted consumer of today is mostly a multi-tasking, surface-oriented animal, but games often defeat those tendencies.

And that spells a solid promotional platform for up-and-coming bands, especially those wishing to target a younger demographic with larger amounts of free time.  "It's just a new way of going to where kids are, versus where they're not - like radio," said Steve Schnur, worldwide executive of Music and Marketing at Electronic Arts (EA), during a recent discussion at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, TX.

Instead of tapping established artists, Schnur is pursuing a more cutting-edge approach.  "I want someone to hear a song in a game that they'll hear on the radio two years from now," Schnur said.  "We want to be ahead of the curve."  And that means starting careers in a serious way, by starting with gamers who are seriously listening - over and over again.  "For the past seven years, we feel we've been pretty instrumental in helping to break and expose new artists," Schnur continued.

So why simply hand those success stories to others?  That is undoubtedly a question Schnur started asking himself.  And in March of last year, EA formed a collaborative venture with Nettwerk Music Group called Artwerk, one that started signing, distributing, and promoting artists on its own. 

That sounds like a direct competitor to major labels, though Schnur carefully characterized Artwerk as a next-generation publisher.  "Artwerk is not a record label, it's an aggressive, proactive music publisher that delivers master recordings, film and TV synch deals, advertising placements and distribution - it goes way beyond games," Schnur explained.  "We feel that record sales don't matter anymore, from a publisher's point of view - cross-platform global song placement does."

So what kinds of artists is Schnur talking about?  The first signing was Junkie XL, and others include Datarock, Airbourne, and Chromeo.  Some of those groups were discovered at SXSW, according to Schnur, a result that bucks criticism of the event as an overpopulated, hopeless endeavor for artists.

As a self-defined publisher, EA frequently partners with labels, and Schnur still pays for the use of songs and recordings.  "We pay for other people's IP," Schnur assured, though he was less confident that other gaming companies are doing the same.  Still, the total licensing amounts involved are mostly modest. "You won't make your yearly nut from a gaming license," Schnur advised.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark Hefflinger *)

Thirty-three million Americans age 12 or older -- or 13% of the population -- listen to an Internet radio station during the average week, up from 29 million a year ago, according to a report from Arbitron (NYSE: ARB) and Edison Media Research.

The study found that 63% of online radio listeners have a profile on a social network site, compared with 24% of the general population of Americans 12 or older.

The top social networks among online radio listeners was MySpace (28%) followed by LinkedIn (24%).

Posted by brian tiong at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: NEKESA MUMBI MOODY *)

A great article that shows the rising of star bloggers and the kind of influence they wield.  Another example that the future of marketing is conversational.  Read on. 

Nekesa says...

This year, he arrived as one of the music industry's key playmakers - and his newfound power was on full display as he played host to one of the festival's more coveted parties.

"Thank you Perez!" Robyn, the Swedish-born pop star who is releasing an album in the United States this summer, gushed onstage Saturday night as she performed in front of a packed crowd filled with industry insiders, artists and the typical hangers-on. Even more people lined the block around the venue in downtown Austin, hoping for a chance to see acts ranging from Internet darling Katy Perry to established artists such as Robyn and N.E.R.D.

"There's a lot of great acts performing these past couple of days, but not all on the same stage on the same night," boasted Hilton, sporting bleached blond hair with streaks of pink, in an interview with the Associated Press. "The musicians performing speak for the evening."

They also speak to Hilton's ever-increasing clout within the music industry. While his site routinely posts salacious details about perennial gossip targets like Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and the crew from "The Hills," he also regularly gushes about his favorite artists and songs - like Robyn.

Hilton (real name Mario Lavandeira) has been credied for helping to boost an artist's sales and profile from his postings: The New York Times reported last month that Warner Bros. Records was in negotiations to give Hilton a development deal that would make him an executive on the label.

"It's very flattering," Hilton said about all the attention.

So, not surprisingly, Hilton lined up a few key artists to perform at his party. The biggest act was undoubtedly N.E.R.D., the trio led by superproducer Pharrell Williams, who said Hilton's site is a key outlet for groups such as his.

"He's connected to the kids, he's connected to our demographic - people who want to be in the know, and he's opinionated and that's what makes it work," Williams said after spending a few minutes chatting with Hilton at a celebrity lounge Friday.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Henry Blogget *)

Henry says...
 

For the past few quarters, we've analyzed the amazing rate at which advertising spending is moving online. Now we're able to look at full-year 2007.

Specifically, we analyzed the change in US advertising revenue at 17 major media companies from 2006 and 2007. The companies included Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Time Warner (TWX), Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIAB), CBS (CBS), and Clear Channel (CCO). The companies span all the major advertising sectors: Online, TV, Print, Radio, and Outdoor.

Highlights:

• Total US ad revenue across all 17 companies grew 9% from 2006 to 2007, from $53 billion to $58 billion

• Online ad revenue grew 28%, from $14 billion to $18 billion.

• Offline grew only 3%, from $39.5 billion to 40.6 billion. This was helped significantly by the inclusion of affiliate fees and (and global revenue) at CBS, Viacom, and News Corp.

• Online ad revenue grew by $4 billion.

• Offline ad revenue--in all other media--grew by $1 billion.

So advertising revenue is flowing online at a frantic rate. That's the whole story? No. Let's look at how that online revenue breaks down.

• Online ad revenue grew 28%, or $4 billion.

• Online ad revenue at Google grew 44%, or $2.7 billion.

• Online ad revenue at Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL grew only 15%, or $1.3 billion.

• Google captured 2X as much revenue as its closest three competitors combined.

It is true that perhaps a third of Google's growth came from AdSense revenue, which is placed on third-party sites--so other companies are benefiting from this growth. But the growth on Google's properties alone still vastly exceeded the growth on AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

Another fun stat:

• The year-over-year growth of revenue on Google.com (US)--approximately $2 billion--was more than twice as much the growth of ad revenue in all of the offline media companies in this sample combined. This is such an amazing fact that it bears repeating: A single media property, Google.com (US), grew by $2 billion. All the offline media properties owned by the 13 offline media companies above, meanwhile--all of them--grew by about $1 billion.

For supporting details, please see our SAI Advertising Share Shift spreadsheet.  TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld runs some cool graphics on the numbers.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: Techcrunch *)

Michael says... 

Yahoo Buzz, a Digg-like service that launched on February 25, is now nearly three weeks old. We asked Yahoo to share some of the data from those first two weeks.

The big benefit for publishers is that top Buzz stories are linked from the Yahoo home page, which turns a firehose of traffic onto a story. When those stories hit the home page there’s a good chance that the linked site will have a record day in traffic. Yahoo says they’ve sent 16 million visitors to outside sites in those first two weeks, and they’ve gathered data from some of the linked partners:

• Salon got so excited about a February 28 link from the Yahoo home page to this story that they issued a press release - they had 1 million unique visitors that day, the most ever to the 12 year old site.
• US Magazine was linked from Yahoo on February 27, and had the second highest traffic day ever. 32% of visits that day came from the Yahoo home page.
• Huffington Post reported 800,000 unique visitors from a Yahoo-linked story
• Smoking Gun, Portfolio.com, Dallas Morning News and Imaginova all reported significant traffic increases after links from the Yahoo home page.
• Sugar, Inc. sites have had nearly 1.8 million unique visitors sent from five different Buzz stories on the Yahoo home page

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mike Jones *) 

Mike says...

People online are seeking new ways to connect and be social. To meet that growing need, a new wave of social media sites have germinated explicitly to provide tools and platforms that facilitate sharing in all its facets and forms. The recent popularity of online social networks gives testimony to our most primitive desire to belong, as we congregate around the things we are most passionate about.

Savvy marketers are beginning to see this evolution of Internet users, from passive consumers into brand influencers and ambassadors who are not to be underestimated.

Many brands are wary of exposing themselves on social media sites, but as anyone who's been involved in social media for more than five minutes knows, they're too late. Their brands are already exposed, and the community is talking about them, whether they choose to get involved or not. Rather than trying to avoid the conversation, brand marketers need to create a strategy to engage online influencers and social media users who have the power to make or break their brand.

Here are seven social marketing tactics to help your brand "get social" and join the conversation:

1. Boost the Fun Factor – Find out what social sites your customers and influencers frequent, and help them accomplish something new there. This does not mean inserting your brand as a social media billboard. It may mean offering an application that entertains or informs, or starting and growing a community based around your customers' areas of interest. Caveat: Start it, facilitate it, but don't try to control it.

2. See the Forest and the Trees – Pay attention to the smaller, niche social network sites, where people are gathering around their areas of interest and hobbies. Brand opportunities around these newer micro-social sites will increase as they begin competing and winning attention from the large, noisy social sites.

3. Widgets are Welcome – Incorporate a widget into your next online marketing program. Widgets are portable applets that appear on blogs, Web sites, and social networking sites. These self-contained applications allow page owners to personalize their sites quickly and easily. At the same time, widgets allow you to engage your audience with compelling content while also strategically and subtly branding your company or product.

4. Conversation is King – If you develop an application for use in social networks, or if you build a custom network, enable seamless conversations using the tools that users are familiar with. Promoting text conversation among participants is one thing, but also facilitating conversations using video and audio can help boost interactivity and brand resonance. Also give them a way to connect back to you by subscribing to a custom feed and giving them direct access to someone internally.

5. Engage – Find something that appeals to customers at an experiential level. Once upon a time, you built it and they came. Nowadays, they won't show up unless you effectively engage them. Show your customers that you thought about them at a human level and not as simply "users." This will impact every approach you take and will force the personalization for target demographics regardless of the tools you use to reach them.

6. Research and Listen – What is appealing to the people you want to reach? The only way to learn about their preferences and what they will or won't embrace is to monitor their activity, as well as the culture of the community you wish to reach and create. By observing, you'll uncover not only the ideas to build or deploy relevant tools, services or campaigns, but also the methods and strategies for creating genuine excitement and participation.

7. Don't Go It Alone – Making the wrong move in the social media space can do more damage than not participating at all. Look to technology, marketing, and strategic business partners to create an effective and appropriate presence on the social web.

Remember that your brand influencers are online to connect with people who care about the things they care about. They are there to make meaning, not to be broadcast to. They are there to participate and create, not to be advertised to. The more your brand can assist people in connecting with others online to create or share something new, the more favorably you will be received in these new and influential social circles.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Joshua Levine *) 

I'm been recently thinking about my past year in social media and realised that I've been pretty focused on the B2C part of social media related projects.  This week begins my quest in observing more about the B2B side of the equation.  Have a read on what Joshua has to say.

Joshua says... 

Wikis, blogs and social networking – once exclusively the Internet playground for techies, kids, and assorted enthusiasts – are being adopted by corporations at an explosive rate.

The race is on to embrace the power of the web to harness collective intelligence and sell products in new ways.

For anyone needing proof that Web 2.0 is big business, just look at Microsoft's battle with Google for an equity stake in Facebook, one of the leading social networking sites. Microsoft now owns 1.6% of Facebook after making a $240 million investment, marking a $15 billion valuation for the high-traffic website.

The Race Is On

ChangeWave Research recently completed a benchmark survey on Web 2.0, which confirms the explosion in Web 2.0 usage. Our survey of 2,081 companies shows a huge percentage not only believe in the benefits of collaborative Web 2.0 tools but are rapidly moving to implement them in a wide variety of ways.

Key findings include:

• One-in-four respondents (24%) say their company already uses Web 2.0 social software. Another 8% say they’ll begin using it in the next 12 months.

• Focusing on specific web technologies, we found that Wikis (20%), Blogs (18%), and Social Networking (15%) are attracting the most attention.

• Surprisingly, while current users find Wikis to be most beneficial to their company, future users think Blogs (26%) and Social Networks (21%) will be most beneficial.

All told, two-in-five respondents (39%) report their company is very or somewhat willing to use Web 2.0 social software for business purposes.

But why are companies so hot on using Web 2.0?

The top two reasons given by current users are both internally oriented:

• To improve internal employee collaboration
• To increase internal efficiency and productivity

However, a wholesale transformation is occurring between current and future corporate users in terms of why they’re making use of Web 2.0 software. While current users are more ‘internally oriented’ in their usage, future ones will be far more ‘externally oriented.’ Here are the top reasons given by future corporate Web 2.0 users:

• To improve internal employee collaboration
• To improve external customer service and support
• To increase external brand awareness and loyalty
• To increase external sales of products and services

Read more here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Experience Curve *) 

Karl says... 

Posted by brian tiong at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *) 

Just what is "age-appropriate"?

Posted by brian tiong at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Dan Taylor *) 

Dan says...

Below are five apps which have particularly tickled my fancy in recent months.

Moody
http://www.crayonroom.com/moody.php



Moody is a small but perfectly formed desktop app (Mac or PC, although the Mac version is more fully-featured) which enables you to tag tracks in your iTunes library according to mood. The interface is a 4 x 4 multi-coloured grid with the horizontal axis representing a spectrum from Sad to Happy and the vertical axis ranging from Calm to Intense. So a track like Homesick by Kings of Convenience would most likley be tagged purple (bottom left - v. sad and v. calm), whereas Tubthumping by Chumbawamba would be tagged yellow (top right - relentlessly happy and intense). Arguably one for the Nick Hornbys amongst us as you need to put in a bit of tagging legwork to get maximum value out of it (it is possible to download other people's tags, although there's no saying their tagging criteria will match yours).

FIQL
http://www.fiql.com



What marks FIQL out from other playlist sharing communities is the recent addition of video, pulling in (mostly YouTube) videos to match the tracks in the playlist. Whilst its only ever as good as the tagging on YouTube, the random nature of the videos is strangely compelling - you never know if you're going to get an artist's official video or a bedroom cover version. Below is an embed of some of my favourite music videos of all time (see earlier post on Top 20 best music videos ever).



MeeMix
http://www.meemix.com



MeeMix bills itself as "Internet radio that gets you" and the homepage invites users to "start playing the soundtrack of your life, here and now". Soundbites aside, MeeMix is a decent personalised jukebox in the Pandora mold with a slick, if slightly cutesy, interface. You can create new stations by entering the name of an artist or track and then rate tracks using a Hot or Not slider. There's also a Mood Control panel with Pulse and Surprise Me sliders, enabling you to adjust the tempo and serendipity of the suggestions.

Mixaloo
http://mixaloo.com



Mixaloo is an online playlist creator, positioning itself as the digital successor to the analogue mix-tape. Users are invited to select between 10 and 15 songs (from a library of over 3 million) and then share/promote their mix (via a selection of embeddable widgets - see below) with the added incentive of a revenue share on any resulting purchases. Whilst 3 million tracks sounds like a lot, in reality the library feels frustratingly limited - mix-tapes by their nature tend to include more obscure tracks and Mixaloo's catalogue is decidedly mainstream. Still, it's nice to have an alternative to Apple's iMixes, with the added bonus that some tracks are available to listen to in their entirety (rather than just a 30-second preview).



Songkick
http://www.songkick.com



You wouldn't guess it from the name but Songkick is all about tracking tour dates for your favourite artists, which you can either enter manually via the site's 'Band Manager' or get automatically scraped from your music library by the downloadable Songkicker plug-in. Whilst it's potentially a bit of a one-trick pony, the site does offer an appealing alternative to sifting through multiple email updates from assorted ticketing companies (NB. Currently only covers the US and the UK).

Posted by brian tiong at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Techcrunch *)

New social network traffic figures released by Compete show that Fubar, billed as the “first online bar and happy hour” is the fastest growing social network, having increased its traffic by 3,272,217% over the 12 months to the end of February 2008, placing the network at 14th on the list of top 20 social networking sites (chart as shown).

Year on year MySpace hasn’t grown at all, managing to lose 1% of traffic compared to Facebook with 77% growth.

The other big gainers year on year include Ning at 4803% (sneaking in to 20th place) and Twitter with 4368%.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: The Guardian *)

The power of bloggers are increasing as the Internet grows.  The guardian has kindly put together a list of what they think are the 50 most powerful blogs today. 

Here is what they say:-

 

"From Prince Harry in Afghanistan to Tom Cruise ranting about Scientology and footage from the Burmese uprising, blogging has never been bigger. It can help elect presidents and take down attorney generals while simultaneously celebrating the minutiae of our everyday obsessions. Here are the 50 best reasons to log on"

 

Here is the list.  See if you are current with your blog reading...

Posted by brian tiong at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Servant of Chaos *) 

I been recently thinking a little (maybe a lot) on the future of marketing and I guess, like Gavin been focus on the big picture.  Maybe a little micro focus will not hurt... read on, I suspect Gavin is thinking in the right direction and would love to hear his comments in the week coming on his new blog topic series -- entitled The Future of Your Brand Is ...

Gavin says...

At the end of 2007 and in the early part of 2008 I watched as a series of predictions hit the web. Some of these posts and articles predicted the end of this or that, or the beginning of something else. Some looked at trends, others at opportunities. Sometimes the focus was observational. And while I don't normally go in for trend analysis, I felt a strange sort of pressure to come up with my own list of predictions. I began stewing on it ... and it became worse with every new, additional post that I saw on trends. But then I realised that the only expectations were my own. I felt released. And now a good two months into the year, the focus on the future has been forgotten -- we are, everyday, seeking to define and create it with our words, actions and ideas. We are thinking on the fly, strategically doing and jumping in feet first. If anything, 2008 is more of the same ... more blogging, more social media, more connections and ideas, more conferences and meetups. I don't know if it IS faster that 2007, but it feels it.

I came to the realisation that when it came to insight I needed a little more focus, not less -- I needed to zero in, not fly at 10,000 feet.

Out of the haze I settled upon two meta-trends -- the trends of trends:

 

• Micro-transformations -- Micro-transformations refer to the miniaturising of consumer behaviours into ever smaller discrete steps. This fragmentation of direct experience is driving a range of sub-trends that are, in turn, being facilitated by economic, technical and social changes.

• Infatuations -- In a globalised world, our infatuations are taking on new dimensions. No longer is infatuation one-way, but it is bi-directional … what we love now returns that love in an equally idealised form.

 

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: PSFK *)

Colin Nagy says...

Today, online music hub Pitchfork Media announced the upcoming launch of their new music-oriented online TV channel, Pitchfork.tv, set to go live on April 7.  Pitchfork has already established itself as a respected source for independent music news, reporting and commentary across several genres, and now they’re branching out with some compelling video content — on their terms.

As stated by Pitchfork:

As a visual extension of the music coverage Pitchfork has provided for more than a decade, and a means of updating and advancing the music television format, the online channel will bring you closer to the artists you love, through original mini-documentaries, secret rooftop and basement sessions, full concerts, exclusive interviews, and the most carefully curated selection of music videos online. In addition, Pitchfork.tv will become the first online video channel to screen full-length feature films, vintage concerts, and music DVDs free of charge. From the Pixies’ 2004 reunion tour film LoudQuietLoud and Todd Phillips’ notorious GG Allin documentaryHated, to Jimmy Joe Roche & Dan Deacon’s acid-drenched visual art piece Ultimate Reality, Pitchfork.tv will highlight a different film each week in its entirety.

The announcement emphasizes the fact that Pitchfork is privately owned, with no outside investment or special interests. In their words, “We’ve waited decades for a music channel that respects our intelligence and reflects our ideals. Now that the technology is here, we’re finally able to do it the way that people who really care about music have always wanted to see it done.”

Pitchfork Media

Posted by brian tiong at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: PSFK *) 

Christine Huang says... 

Nokia’s online music store was open for business in Germany, the second country to welcome the largest cellphone maker’s virtual media shop (the first was launched in the UK in November). Nokia plans on rolling out their iTunes competitor in nine more countries by mid-2008, charging 1 euro ($1.52) per song, rivaling iTunes .99 euro/track rate.

Along with Nokia’s Ovi internet services (which offer its mobile users access to SNSes like MySpace, Flickr, and Facebook as well as the Nokia Music Store, Nokia Maps, and N-Gage games) the music store is is the first large-scale move by a cellphone producer in the realm of online content offerings. Next on the list are France, Italy, Spain, as well as Singapore and Australia by third quarter 2008, with further expansions planned for Asia and Europe through the end of the year.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark Sweney *)

Music channel MTV has struck a deal with social networking site MySpace to create a weekly chart show.

The show, called The MySpace Chart, will be shown on the MTV2 channel.

It will feature the best music videos as voted for by viewers watching the channel and MySpace users of the forthcoming mtv.co.uk/myspacechart website.

Each week fans will get to vote on 35 to 40 videos from the MTV2 playlist.

In addition five videos from new bands and artists will be promoted on both the MTV2 website and the channel's homepage on MySpace.

The show launched on March 16 at 7pm.

"The audience for MTV2 and MySpace are incredibly similar," said Philip O'Ferrall, the vice-president of digital media at MTV Networks UK & Ireland.

Dom Cook, the marketing director and head of music at MySpace UK, said: "The way that consumers are accessing music is changing and The MySpace Chart on MTV2 brings together two of the most important forces in this evolution.

"MySpace is the world's largest online music destination connecting bands and their fans and it will be exciting to see how the community will contribute to the show."

MTV and MySpace have previously collaborated in the hunt for a news presenter.

Last November, wannabe presenters were invited to upload their auditions to a MySpace web page where MTV producers assessed their chances of making it.

MTV is still in the process of choosing the winner with a five-part series of 30-minute shows about the hunt to be aired on MTV1 from April 28.

In January, MTV closed its user-generated content based channel MTV Flux.

The company retained the MTV Flux online community and is integrating the content concept into its MTV-branded music channels.

Music channels MTV2, Base, Hits and Dance will begin to offer a weekly 30-minute show, with the working title Flux Me I'm Famous, which will cover the most popular celebrity news stories discussed by the online community.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erick Schonfeld *) 

Rumors surfaced again yesterday on Billboard and today in other media outlets that Facebook is in talks with the record labels to launch a music service that will include either free ad-supported music streams or paid downloads. Talk of such a service started last October, but what Facebook ended up launching was simply artist fan pages. MySpace is also preparing its own music service to be called MySpace Music. And other competitors from imeem to iLike to Last.fm are putting pressure on Facebook to respond with its own music offering. Music drives many social interactions, so you can see why Facebook would want to own that area even at the risk of alienating key partners (such as iLike).

But Facebook should really stay out of the music business. If it tries to enter in a big way it risks alienating not just its partners, but musicians as well. Its fan pages for musicians have not really done that well. Look at 50 Cent’s official Facebook page. He’s only gathered 8,213 fans there, compared to his 1,918,372 fans on his iLike page on Facebook (which includes fans across other social networks as well). I noted a similar disparity shortly after Facebook first launched its music fan pages.

In fact, 50 Cent already dissed Facebook once. He took down his official Facebook page for at least a couple months. It just recently went up again. His online efforts are geared towards driving as much traffic to his own fan site that he controls, This is 50. That is why fan widgets like iLike or Kyte.tv appeal to him more than tying himself to any one destination. As iLike CEO Ali Partovi likes to say, “The new opportunity for growth is beyond Facebook.” Partovi just announced this morning that iLike has 23 million users keeping track of 200,000 artists across Facebook, Hi5, Bebo, iLike.com, Ask, and even iTunes.

What is happening with 50 Cent is indicative of a bigger battle brewing in the music industry between artists and record labels over who will get to control future online revenues. Both record labels and artists did not like the fact that MySpace was making money off of their artist pages with ads, so they started negotiating deals to get a cut of the action. The prospect of Facebook becoming a competitor was welcomed because Facebook treats artist pages like any brand or canvas page. The ads on that page belong to the brand or artist or application developer, whatever the case may be.

But with music, Facebook may now be putting itself in between artists and record labels, who both have claims to that page. It is easier for Facebook to negotiate directly with record labels, but in most contracts it is the artists themselves who control their Websites and pages on social networks. Of course, if they want to stream or sell music from those pages, that is where the record labels come in. Facebook is negotiating with the record labels, but the artists may be going elsewhere, as we are seeing with 50 Cent.

As traditional music revenues are drying up, the labels want to transition to online revenues as fast as they can. But if those revenues are associated with advertising on fan sites, the artists themselves may have a greater claim to them. Of course, any fan site would be pretty lame without the music. But who gets what cut is all up in the air right now and the artists are in the driver’s seat because nobody fans a record label. We might be seeing a shift in power between artists and labels. Of course, it helps if you are 50 Cent and you own your own record label.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: PSFK *) 

Christine Huang say... 

Last week, outspoken network-theory scientist Duncan Watts brought to life his argument against Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point at the offices of Fast Company. Watts, who’s currently working with Yahoo in lieu of his regular gig at Columbia, argues that the “influencers” whom Gladwell claims, in essence, make our world go ’round, are no more influential than ordinary, non-node individuals. Anthropologist (and PSFK Conference speaker) Grant McCracken was at the talk and offers some interesting commentary in response to the case presented by Watts, whose anti-tipping point theory was featured in Fast Company’s February issue. McCracken’s thoughts:

[Watts] argues that news travels as readily through ordinary people as influential ones. This means that our world is not “hub and spoke”… No, as Thompson put it, networks are democratic. We are just as likely to “get the news” from a friend as we are from a networking paragon.

Even in this narrow form, the Watts-Thompson argument has revolutionary implications for the world of marketing. If their argument is true, it feels like we are looking at a turning point, not a tipping one. Many marketers thought that Gladwell’s model gave them a way to “game” the diffusion effect. All we had to do was influence the influencers and entire markets will fall before our approach…

If marketing learned anything in the 20th century, it is that consumers are smarter than this, that there are no tricks in any case, that the world is not about process, it is stubbornly about content. If the marketer wants influence, the solution remains what it has always been. The answer is to build great products, brands and messages. It is these, and not “memes” or “viruses,” that capture attention and prompt choice.

Grant McCracken on CultureBy: Marketing reimagined: revolutionary implications of the Watts-Thompson reply to Gladwell

Posted by brian tiong at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *) 

Pow! Bam! Whap! Watch out! Here comes a hot new ad space!

Posted by brian tiong at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark Hefflinger *) 

Qtrax, a company developing a free, legal, music file-sharing service, announced on Tuesday that it has signed new licensing deals with Sony/ATV Music Publishing and TVT Records, and extended an existing agreement with EMI Music Publishing. The deals with the music publishers do not immediately give Qtrax the right to offer their repertoire, as the company must also secure licenses from the record labels themselves.

The deal with TVT, a label that filed for bankruptcy last month and filed the majority of its staff, will give Qtrax users the ability to download tracks from artists including Ying Yang Twins, Lil Jon and Sevendust for free.

New York-based Qtrax generated some controversy when it claimed at the MIDEM conference in January that it would launch its service with over 25 million tracks, but later conceded that it had not yet obtained the requisite licenses from the major labels to offer their catalogs.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Stan Schroeder *) 

 




It’s not like we doubted him, but Trent Reznor really meant it when he said that he hates the way the music industry operates and that he encourages sharing of his music on the internet. Nine Inch Nails have put up the first volume of their album ‘Ghosts’ on torrent sites, under a creative commons license. If you want the whole package of the multi volume album (36 tracks!), though, you can go over to NiN’s official site and download it for 5 bucks. You can also order a 2xCD box set for a mere 10 bucks, “deluxe limited edition package” for 70 bucks, and you can get an “ultra-deluxe limited edition package” for $300.

Let me just stop here for a second and say that personally, I haven’t listened to NiN much since the Downward Spiral phase, but if there’s one album I’m gonna buy this year (I usually go to concerts and buy t-shirts, as I feel the band profits more directly from this; I have quite a collection), it’s going to be this one. Finally, you get good value for your money, and you get a fantastic number of options which cater to every pocket. I’m sure that fans will realize this and get the option they can afford, be it free, or the ultra-deluxe one.

Here’s what the band has to say about BitTorrent:

“Now that we’re no longer constrained by a record label, we’ve decided to personally upload Ghosts I, the first of the four volumes, to various torrent sites, because we believe BitTorrent is a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilize new technologies instead of fighting them.”

I couldn’t have said it better.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *)  

This community effort in allowing its users to translate the site is truely the way of the future.  Users co-create the content they will consume and allowing the community to participate.  Well done facebook!  I'm sure the 2,000 seeds will be flowering very soon.

Mike says...

How do you “poke” someone in German? Facebook users decided the right word is “anklopfen.”

Facebook will launch in German tomorrow, thanks to 2,000 users who’ve helped translate the site using an application that Facebook released a couple of months ago to a limited number of users. Supported languages include German, Spanish and French - more will presumably be coming after these versions are launched. User can set their language to German, and anyone who visits the site from a German speaking country will automatically see the site in German.

Users translate small bits of the site, and those translations are then voted on by other users until the process is complete. Spain launched last month, although only 1,500 users helped out there. The French version is basically done as well from what I’ve heard.

Facebook says they have about 1 million users from German speaking countries. That number will likely skyrocket now that they can read the site in their own language.

Application developers aren’t being left out of the party, either. Soon, Facebook says, they’ll make the same tools they’re using available to developers as well, and users can translate their Facebook applications.

Competitor MySpace takes a much different approach to localized sites. They tend to put a team on the ground locally (they are now hiring in Turkey) and then build the site not only in the local language, but promote local artists and other popular culture as well. MySpace now has offices in London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Milan, Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo, Copenhagen, Sydney, Mexico City, Sao Palo, Buenos Aires, Toronto, Tokyo, and Beijing. Offices will be opening up soon in Mumbai, Moscow, and Istanbul.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Digital Music News *) 

Facebook has now stepped up its music ambitions, though the biggest competitor may not be MySpace.  On Thursday, the Palo Alto-based Facebook revealed its music section, which allows artists to create specialized profile pages.  The pages can include a collection of elements, including streamed content, paid downloads through iTunes, and merchandise sales through Musictoday.

That offers a direct challenge to longtime heavyweight MySpace, which hosts more than 8 million band pages.  But Facebook users are already accustomed to viewing and interacting with their favorite artists, thanks to the quickly-growing iLike.  The made-for-Facebook application currently houses half-a-million bands and nearly 22 million fans, according to figures shared this week.  

For many artists, that spells redundant profile pages, and potentially confusing situations.  For Facebook, it spells overlapping business objectives, and potentially conflicting pitches to artists.  In a chit-chat with Digital Music News this week, iLike chief executive Ali Partovi acknowledged the issue, though like Facebook, Partovi's competitive focus is clearly MySpace.  Meanwhile, bands may be uneasy about creating yet-another profile page, especially within the same network.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Eric Alterman *) 

Widget providers increasingly are bypassing portals and distributing content directly to user-controlled pages, requiring portals to evolve. KickApps' founder explains.

The universe of websites has a very long tail, and soon it will be clear that earning real estate on those websites will be the primary mission of every major portal. Widgets will play an ever-increasing role in this evolution.

Prediction: Portals like AOL, MSN and Yahoo will eventually generate more impressions and ad inventory by exporting widgets to third-party websites than by serving retail traffic within their own domains.

Most people are still trying to figure out what widgets really are and their importance, but few are looking at the role traditional internet portals will play in this new ecosystem. The major content portals like AOL and Yahoo used to define "distribution" when it came to web content (as both creators and acquirers of original content). Then widgets came along and increasingly "distributed" that distribution power to individuals and their personal pages (e.g. social networking pages, blogs).

The problem for traditional portals is that content producers and third-party widget providers increasingly have convenient ways to bypass portals by distributing content and other user experiences directly to consumer-controlled pages. While the major portals often own social network traffic (e.g. AIM Pages) and feed aggregators (e.g. MyYahoo), that traffic increasingly is splintered by third-party content and widget providers. In short, the entire web community is aggressively fishing in portal waters, and there are good reasons to expect that trend to accelerate.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Gavin Heaton *)

While many businesses hesitate to "adopt" social media, many business people are already heavy users of social media sites. Sometimes they don't even notice it. The ubiquitous success of LinkedIn is proof that even the most reluctant technology user can be enticed into the Web 2.0 space. Clearly LinkedIn have a great value proposition:

• Allows you to:
  • advertise/demonstrate your professional experience
  • manage your personal and professional network
  • expose this network (and activate its value)
  • identify and facilitate business opportunities in your wider network
• Provides employers with:
  • easy access to categorised and location based professional profiles
  • ready source of verifiable and referenceable professional histories

And while there are many other reasons to use LinkedIn, the simple fact that many business PEOPLE use it is a great proof point for social media within a business. And for B2B, it just means that you need to clearly articulate the value proposition -- how will it impact the business, which problem will it solve and what opportunities will it open up.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)