The dash from convergence and how the web can save us if we choose

I wonder if the proliferation of devices we are experiencing give us a hint about what will happen to the web?

A few years back – when the first smart phones were making inroads, when the first all-you-can-eat mobile data deals were laid before a hungry audience, then it seemed to make perfect sense that convergence would arrive via the device.

Hell, I have a phone that can take picture, tell the time, calculate, run my diary... open documents, access my email, access the internet, play games and music, play video, show broadcast tv etc etc. Why wouldn’t we think one device could do it all?

And here I am packing a few items for some days away on business and finding it essential that I load up with a laptop, ipad, kindle fire AND iphone (4S)...

Little sign of convergence here. And I’ve never given up on wearing a watch either.

But platforms? Despite the vast variety of opportunity, there are only ever a handful of giants. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, for example

All start off with relatively focused aims. But over time they bloat – copying the ideas of others, assuming that the battle is on for the one social home we will become and remain loyal to.

But the more they bloat, the more we see the value in the specific, the more we spill out into those with greater focus on specific needs – the Pinterests, Instagrams, 4Squares of this world – and the thousands more behind them in the long tail.

I wonder if, given just a little more bloating from the big boys, we may rediscover the self-forming-group value of the web – that we need less direction and guidelines from those who would be our internet, and more purpose from ourselves to make our connectedness count.

The dash from convergence in devices may be yet another indicator that we are more comfortable with complexity than the reductionists would have us believe, that we value niche over lowest common denominator in a very powerful way.

And that’s a good thing – because it’s a much better match with the infinite variety of adhoc self-forming groups the web is built to enable.

The web is our salvation from the bland, from the mass, from the uniform. If we want it to be.

Dodging cannon balls

I don't know why, given how often it happens, but I still find myself getting wound up by the way old-style business is regarding the emergence of the networked world - and even how mass media reports on it. Together they seem to repeatedly miss the point. Heads in the sand?

I recall the Times report on Radiohead's 'pay-what-you-like' download. How they sniggered when people paid a low average price. Why did they reject the significance of 1.2m downloading it in a month?

Another example today report from ft.com about a debate at Davos.

The guts: "In debates at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, enthusiastic technologists and advertising agencies pronounced that 2008 would be the year in which (social networks, video games and mobile phones) marketing techniques would become mainstream.

But sceptical media owners disputed their growth predictions, questioning consumers' appetite for advertising campaigns in such new areas.

"The [supposed] solution to everything at the moment in the digital space is adsupported," Sir Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony, told the Financial Times. "While advertisers are happy to talk that up, there is a limit to the amount of money available."

"The business model is not there today [for mobile advertising]," said Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal.

Bobby Kotick, chief executive of Activision Blizzard, was similarly sceptical about advertising-funded video games, saying: "It's early days. I wouldn't go in that direction myself."

The issues here are manifold.

1. "consumers' appetite for advertising campaigns" - Two problems. Keep thinking about consumers and advertising and you are only going to see a downward spiral.
Of course there is less appetite for advertising campaigns. That's obvious. Consumers are gagging on interruptive ads of all varieties - whether on old media or in new. They might, however, want to take part in the community-dominated creation of value. They feel under assault from 'campaigns'. They also want to be treated as something more than consumers - converged individuals who are part of the creative process.

2. Scepticism over a business model for mobile advertising? Tell that to Admob who are busily serving 1bn ads a month. And perhaps its worth considering NEW business models which aren't about same-old interruptive ads. Consider Blyk, for example. Your business model 'may not be there' today, old chap, but those adapting to the 7th mass media are making hay.

3. Early days for ad-supported games? Tell that to MyNuMo - who are busily creating (and making money from) exactly these for the Iphone (and others) in the States. If more people spend more time playing games than watching TV and all you want is eyeballs (let's not make this too complicated for the disconnected...) then... well, there's the water. Drink if you want to.

Thankfully there was a voice of reason - and one you'd expect even the most stuck-in-the-mud to have a twinge of respect for: Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google.

"(mobile represents) the recreation of the internet, it's the recreation of the PC story, it is before us - and it is very likely it will happen in the next year," Eric Schmidt, chief executive, said of the location-based advertising made possible by the mobile internet."

It is Eric - it's the internet revolution all over again, only this time its personal - it's that PLUS.
And if you aren't already familiar with Tomi Ahonen and Alan Moore's work on Mobile as the 7th Mass Media - now would be a good time to catch up.

It seems bizarre that some of those who are witnessing the failure of interruptive advertising appear to draw the conclusion that there is no (or slow growing) revenue to be made with the networked world (either via social networks, mobile...what ever). Perhaps it's because they keep looking at the world from the centre-out, rather than the edge in.

Shift your perspective and you might see a crowd willing to join with you, rather than cannon fodder waiting to be assaulted by your next campaign.

No wonder we do all we can to dodge your cannon balls...

Flixya.com: Where the co-creators get their dues... almost

Interesting new arrival on the social media scene: Flixya.com - where co-creators of content earn "100% of the ad revenue they generate" (as seen on killerstartups.com.
At first look you'd think this is way better than just creating your own content and adding google adsense because google adsense only pays you a portion... (certainly not 100%)
And then you discover that this is actually powered by google adsense. So you don't do any better than creating your own content elsewhere (ie on a blogger blog). Flixya offers 100% of what they'd get - but you'd need to talk to google about getting the full amount!
The extra incentive Flixya is offering (apart from the tools) is that it aims to aggregate an audience in the way that facebook or myspace does (and in the way that blogger doesn't).
And if you are a constant updater of facebook, twitter, etc... why not get a little something back?
It treats the user as a much more converged creature (ie creator/consumer/marketeer)
I guess they hope to earn their pound of flesh by offering other services (ie at the moment there are ringtones you can pay to have - but they aren't offered in a particularly engaging way).
To that end, while they may well be offering the co-creators 100% of the available interruptive advertising revenues... it's unlikely they can continue that ratio for the emerging engagement opportunities.
But perhaps this is just semantics - you get to keep the ad revenue - we'll have the engagement marketing cash.
Fair and accurate - or a bit of spin? You decide.
All in all, it's about the most interesting start-up I've seen in a good few months. Didn't see a mobile play in my quick once-over. If you have, let me know!

Famous for 15 people

In 1968 Andy Warhol predicted: ‘In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes’.

It’s usually contracted to ‘Famous for 15 minutes,’ of course.

Andy was right from where he stood. But his future is now past. Now it’s about being ‘Famous for 15 PEOPLE’.

I first referred to this in the post ‘Famous for 15 minutes? Famous for 15 people is better’.

And over time it’s become clear to me that this phrase, and Andy’s, and the shift between them, offers a neat description of the way things have changed.

Once, the idea of mass media was to reach ‘everyone’. The Warhol prediction describes the last moments of mass media very well - a world of frenzied vying for attention in which the attention that’s grabbed becomes worth less and less. When everyone can be famous for 15 minutes, what is the value of fame?

A brief, non-immersive relationship with anything has little value.

Consider how that applies to content or advertising, or customer relationships.

If you are assaulted by a parade of interruptive ‘sells’ they become a passing blur (quite literally in the case of the fast-forward button on your PVR) none of them registering, none of them engaging.

Far better to be fully engaged with a small number (a niche – and please don’t take me literally on the ‘15 number’…) than to broadcast to a billion who are looking the other way.

This is the lesson of the long tail.

We're at the start of a new and even more powerful (long-tail-led) internet revolution/disruption.

Only this time... it's personal.

It’s personal because the mobile device is critical to how we will make use of and contribute to the internet from now on. The mobile offers a level of personalisation that is a giant leap up from the fixed-line web.

The fixed line net was initially grown by content providers of the mass industrial age, the mobile web will explode as a direct result of User Generated Content.

And because of the social nature of web2.0 the growth will be exponential. It will dominate the way the mobile web develops in a faster and more pervasive way than we saw with the original fixed-line internet.

The long tail will wag the mass media dog way more vigorously than it has in the fixed line internet world.

Converged consumers/creators/designers/buyers/sellers/marketers etc are setting up their own mobile sites, sharing their interests, forming their own communities, creating their own content and services and selling them. A whole new way of discovering and creating value is emerging.

Emails bounced back and forth with Communities Dominate Brands’ Tomi Ahonen (itself an illustration of the power of the network in action), helps crystalise how this can shape the way we must start to think about the emerging opportunities.

He said: “Yes, of COURSE! The long tail is an excellent metaphor for personalisation. The longer we move along the personalisation "long tail" the more we can find real opportunities in it, and discover "segments" or personalities that are ill-served by current media, technology etc. GREAT thought!”

The community of readers of this post are small in number. But they are absolutely the right ones. This post is not intended to be famous for 15 minutes. That would have little value to you or I.

If it becomes famous to 15 people, 15 people who are willing to contribute to it, share it, change it ENGAGE with it, own it... then we 15 may discover value we never knew we could share.

Tourist trap: Personalisation and limitations of convergence?

On my way to the Chinwag Media Widgetised bash in London yesterday evening, I paused in Trafalgar Square.
It's a great place to people-watch, and do it internationally because it's such a tourist draw - and meeting point.
I'd love to be able to say I gained some great socio-economic insight. But I didn't get a chance. As is usual a tourist was soon thrusting their camera into my hands with the polite request that I should take a picture of them with a famous London scene behind them.
But this simple act did reveal something to me. The young lady had taken her standard silver box of a digital camera and customised it with pretty little fake gems stuck all over it.
We know all about the personalisation of the mobile phone - but I'd never seen anyone do this to their camera.
And it made me think. I've got a great camera on my mobile (more pixels than my digital camera, for example). But while I'm happy to hand a stranger my camera to take a shot of me and my nearest and dearest in some tourist haven - I couldn't conceive of handing them my mobile to take the same picture.
Perhaps here is one limitation of convergence? When something is so personal to you (the mobile) it's really hard to let go. So, for tourists at least, the stand alone digital camera has a future.

Long tail will wag the mobile internet dog

Internet success stories have long valued the long tail. And all the predictions are that the value of the mobile internet will follow the same pattern.
What's interesting to me is the way the socialisation/democratisation of the web has set new standards for users and means they want to take that with them into the mobile web.
The result of this is that while the fixed line net was initially grown by content providers of the mass industrial age, the mobile web will explode as a direct result of User Generated Content.
And because of the social nature of 2.0 I expect the growth to be exponential - and to dominate the way the mobile web develops in a faster and more pervasive way than we saw with the original fixed-line internet.
The long tail will wag the mobile internet dog more vigorously than it has the fixed line internet.
I don't know the facts and figures - and I'd welcome hearing from anyone who does - but I suspect, where mobile internet is concerned, already content provided by mass media makes up a tiny percentage of all content on the mobile web. The vast majority must be coming from users setting up their own mobile sites, creating their own content and services and selling them.
I think of sites like mynumo.com where users can create their own ringtones, and a mobile webpage to sell them on.
I think of sites like peperonity.com where you can create your own mobile internet page in seconds - and then start charging for content and downloads from it (360,000 plus have already).
These are sites which converge the user, the buyer, the seller, the marketeer, the employee - all in the one person. This is the social nature of trade described in more detail here.
I think of Admob, which allows you to start making money from your content - if you can add its code to your mobile site.
But there's still a gap in this. I set myself up a fasterfuture.peperonity.com mobile version of this blog. But I'd have to call it a 'lite' version. There's no ability to add an rss feed (ie of latest items from this blog) and there's no way I can monetise (should I wish), beyond actually selling the content in a micro-payments model. And who pays for content?
Peperonity do ok from this model as they place ads on my content. I get a site to play with, they get a way of serving mobile ads. But wouldn't you want a cut of the earnings from the ads?
Widsets.com allows you to choose fasterfuture as a widget to download to your mobile - and that delivers every post as it's made from this blog to an organised rss feed. But there are few design options, no ad model (from a ugc perspective), no ability to add code etc etc.

For the long tail to truly go exponential I think we need something which allows all of these:
1. Really easy creation of mobile pages (on fixed line and on mobile)
2. Really easy ability to change the design to our tastes (and I'm thinking icons/desktop style as well as background colours and layout)
3. Ability to add and create rss feeds
4. Ability to add code snippets (ie YouTube video, google adsense)
5. Really easy share/ creator propogation (ie socially networked)
6. Enabled for social trade.
7. It has to be free to the site owner.
8. Option to offer as an application-based widget.

So, a lot of the things we expect from our blogsites on fixed line - and a few which don't.
If you know of anything that ticks the boxes - or is about to. Please share.

If I'm asking for the moon on a stick, let me know why!
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Does a straightforward transaction site need a social element?

As publishers start to work out that content (in and of itself) has little or no value outside of print, there's an increasing urge to shuffle along the supply chain.

There's also a growing willingness to understand that a disaggregated internet is best served by one trick ponies - sites/services which do one thing, but do that one thing better than anything else does.

This leads some to conclude that what they should deliver is a really good shop - a place that helps you make the transaction of your choice swiftly and efficiently.

This doesn't sound like the place for the socialised web2.0 - does it?

But a shop which ignores the attributes of 2.0 is a shop with a limited shelf life.

Why?
1. Consumers want to co-create. If your shop site doesn't allow the community of users to share their ideas about what it should sell, rate what is on sale, come together to propose improvements to what is on sale etc etc - you're locking out all the value of the network. Let members of your community pitch next year's ideas, rate them and shape them - and big up the things they love. If they score down some items - don't sell them. The community has spoken.
2. Two-way flow of communication beats the market: How do you know what your users want NEXT. The market shows you what they want now, and also what they don't want - but it can never tell you what next year's hit or miss is. Your community can - if you're engaged in a two-way flow. This is genuine 'consumer insight' based on real conversations with real people - not on generalised assumptions that "we know our market".
3. Convergence of buyer/seller/product developer/user/employee: If the employee and the user is converging in the concept of user generated content - the same can be said of communities of people trading together. eBay writes this large: The buyer and the seller converge. The buyer is also converging with the developer/designer (think BMW cars for a solid example happening now - the customer customises). This is a 3-dimensional version of a person - not a one dimensional "treat me as the customer... and only the customer" approach. In a 'shop' community environment one person can be a buyer/seller/developer/user/employee
4. Trust is communal: Trust is now created in a wiki-way. The social tools of 2.0 (eg diigo) make it ever easier for people to share what they think of a product or a supplier with their community, rapidly and in a way that is much more readily trusted by most consumers than old-style marketing messages. Sony tells you its PlayStation 3 is the dog's. The community tells them its made a heap of mistakes (1.1m views on YouTube of How to Kill a Brand 1.1m of PS3 vs Wii - apple style). How does your shop help the community decide what to trust?

4. The Social Customer manifesto (see recommended blogs, left) reads:

• I want to have a say.
• I don't want to do business with idiots.
• I want to know when something is wrong, and what you're going to do to fix it.
• I want to help shape things that I'll find useful.
• I want to connect with others who are working on similar problems.
• I don't want to be called by another salesperson. Ever. (Unless they have something useful. Then I want it yesterday.)
• I want to buy things on my schedule, not yours. I don't care if it's the end of your quarter.
• I want to know your selling process.
• I want to tell you when you're screwing up. Conversely, I'm happy to tell you the things that you are doing well. I may even tell you what your competitors are doing.
• I want to do business with companies that act in a transparent and ethical manner.
• I want to know what's next. We're in partnership…where should we go?

I can't see those boxes ticked by a shop front...

Conclusion: A shop site is just dandy - providing its a shop selling things the community rates, allows buyers to be sellers and designers, makes its offers spin free, opens doors to transparent two-way flows, and lets the community decide which products and or suppliers it is going to trust - and why. It's worth adding, that all trade has always been social. A one-to-one relationship ain't a business. A one-to-many is a trading community.
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Forum Oxford: Future Technologies Conference

I attended the best conference I've ever been to, on Friday 13th - ForumOxford: Future Technologies Conference. It gathered some of the biggest brains in mobile tech, convergence, mobile internet (etc) from across the planet - at Oxford University.

Conferences can often be wasteful affairs if your thinking is anywhere close to the curve. You pay a fortune and sit listening to speakers telling you (being broadcast at) what you already knew - a year ago.

But this was something different. Not only was it fabulous value for money it was also in the 2.0 mode - sharing, interacting, challenging and igniting ideas.

It has to be the most profitable day I've spent in the last 365.

Some personal highlights: (podcasts etc are going to follow, so there may be more detail to come...)
1. Google presenting on their absolute commitment to the mobile internet - and its perfect fit with their mission statement (organising the world's information and making it accessible to all). Their promotion of the value of the long tail on mobile, too.
2. The clarification of the value of widgets/applications which mean you only update what you need when accessing the mobile internet (ie google maps for mobile). (google/symbian/Jeff Sonstein etc)
3. Google is making London its global hub for 'huge' mobile investment.
4. The emerging theme that even the mobile operators (at high levels) now 'get' the value of group forming network theory (Reed's law)- and why that means the walls not only have to come down but that they should to increase value for all parties. (3, Vodafone)
5. A stat quietly slipped in by (I think Russell Buckley at Admob) that 34% of UK mobile users now use the mobile web.
6. Prof William Webb's 'Wireless' predictions for the next 10-20 years. Brave man.
7. Vladimir Dimitroff reminding us of yet another convergence going on: in the realm of UGC the consumer and the employee are converging (expect to see this in co-creation of all kinds).
7. Personally getting name-checked three times from the stage - in a room of people of this calibre, that was a real jaw-dropper - many thanks to Tomi and Ajit.
8. Meeting some brilliant people both on the night before and at the conference itself - Hello Martin Davis, Jeremy Kloubec, Cameron Doherty, Tomi Ahonen, Ajit Joaker, Jim O'Reilly, Krzysztof Proczka, Eduardo Cruz, Jeff Sonstein, and everyone else I was lucky enough to spend time with.

and so much more... If you're at all interested in mobile/internet/world2.0 you should be at the next one: Try here for more.

It's also worth noting what a fantastic job Tomi and Ajit (the co-founders) have done at creating a truly vibrant, activated community which organises itself around a shared common interest. There's many a media company which could learn a lesson or two. Brilliant work, gentlemen.

Ericsson predicts mass global mobile TV by 2008

Interesting to see Ericsson predicting mobile TV will go mass-market global by 2008 (here for the full story).
Given that other sources were predicting a mobile TV audience of 25 million in Asia by 2008 recently, you'd have to think the Sony Eiricsson tie-up has even more up its sleeve.

Add this to predictions of primary access to the internet being mobile by 2008 and that thing you text and call with becomes ever more valuable.
Nokia referred to its latest handset as a 'computer' rather than a phone throughout the launch of 3's fixed-price 3G browsing deal.
Makes me wonder how long it'll be before Microsoft (and others) come up with a rival device.
Bottom line is that the convergent technology of the mobile has to make it your primary consideration in any digital launch. And it's no longer the future calling...

What's in your wallet? Oh a sim card

Over at one of my recommended blogs 'Mobile Weblog', you'll find this which takes us a step closer to your mobile-is-your-wallet, by widening the availability of the required technology.
This element of the convergent technology of mobiles opens loads of new doors. Imagine you sell a magazine aimed at kids - who run out of pocket money. Give them a mechanism by which they can buy your mag in a shop (where they see it, when they want it) without needing cash and you've just made their lives a little easier.
One interesting take on the 3G revolution is that before too long there will be more machines communicating with each other by mobile than humans - and they'll probably generate the bulk of the revenues (Tomi T Ahonen, M-Profits). A tip of that iceberg is automated billing.
Media companies wanting users to renew subscriptions may find it rather easier to have a machine send them a text message offering them a new deal - which also offers them the opportunity to buy with one click of their mobile phone.
Try the same with classified ads, display ads etc etc.

Skills for a 'participatory culture' world

Henry Jenkins has written a paper for the MacArthur Foundation which is all about what he calls: "participatory culture" and what this means for 'media literacy'.

He and colleagues have also identified core cultural competencies and social skills they believe the kids of today have got to pick up if they want to participate fully.

They also argue that many are acquiring these skills informally from the way they use digital media.

It might be useful to think of these alongside your own digital publishing plans. Does what you are offering allow participation on these levels:

Play – the capacity to experiment with your surroundings as a form of problem-solving

Performance – the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery

Simulation – the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real world processes

Appropriation – the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content

Multitasking – the ability to scan one's environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.

Distributed Cognition – the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities

Collective Intelligence – the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal

Judgement – the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources

Transmedia Navigation – the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities

Networking – the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information

Negotiation – the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.

Read more HERE (start with the post by Alan Moore and move on to Jenkins own blog.

Economist: Future of Telecoms and Convergence Special Report

Regular watchers of this blog will know I keep a regular eye on what the Communities Dominate Brands guys are up to.
Read this one-man demoltion of the Economist's special report - particularly (but not only) if you've read the Economist.
It's good to get a different (and extremely well-informed) perspective:
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2006/10/just_3_years_ou.html

Some ideas/themes for the future of publishing

I've been involved in digital publishing for a fair few years now, on a number of websites primarily (though also sms in its early days, and now blogging, V-blogging and moblogging.

We're all struggling to make sense of all the rapid changes the collaborative, everything-for-free, empowering, nature of internet - and latterly the mobile phone - is making to traditional publishing models.

So, to start things rolling - here are a few things I'm currently concluding (and this may change by the week) should guide our developments, marketing and communication as the future accelerates towards us.

So, here's my top 10 list for today:

1. The mobile phone is king - it's the one piece of convergent technology every economically viable human on the planet carries with them at all times. Google predicts you won't pay for mobile calls within 5 years.
2. Virtual commodoties (and virtual worlds) have a real and extremely rapidly growing value - what are you doing to cash in?
3. Blogging and their interconnectivity - all journalists should become bloggers
4. Mass communication is over - micro mass communication is the way ahead
5. Be led by your community, let them test and contribute to product development
6. Have an authentic voice - not a corporate line.
7. Create new market space (blue seas vs red seas)
8. Communities will tell you what your brand is - their use of it defines it.
9. Marketing must be 'non-interuptive'
10. All content has to be free - sorry but there it is. You can make cash from advertising around it and offering other services around it.

Please add your thoughts via the comment function, or email me... or whatever!

I'd also welcome any links you think should appear on here - and any RSS feeds (sse those technology news ones already appearing on the left column).


BY THE WAY: I note the FT had a supplement covering many of the themes this blog wants to explore, on Friday, Sep 20. If anyone read it, please let me know and I'll invite you to blog about it (ie you'll be able to contribute it direct rather than simply as a post).