Many years ago (almost five years ago in fact) I wrote an article about what the music industry might look like in a digital distributed world.
My premise was that thanks to networked portable devices and the Long Tail, bands would survive because distribution networks would allow them to reach their fans much easier. In effect, [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Digital media’
What The iPad Means For Media Distribution In The Future
January 31st, 2010 |
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Whitehall’s 20-page guide to Twitter
July 28th, 2009 |
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Guidelines suggest tweets should be frequent, timely and credible
Even its author admits that a 20-page strategy paper for government departments on how to use Twitter might be regarded as “a bit of over the top” for a microblogging tool with a limit of 140 characters a message.
Indeed, the 5,382-word official “template”,which translates into 36,215 characters and spaces, would need roughly 259 separate tweets to put the word around Whitehall using Twitter.
But its author, Neil Williams, who describes himself as head of corporate digital channels at Lord Mandelson’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, admits that when he sat down to write a proper plan for his department’s corporate Twitter account, “I was surprised by just how much there was to say ‑ and quite how worth saying it is.”
Whitehall’s official use of Twitter was pioneered by Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Communities and Local Government department.
Their low-profile experiments have grown into a regular feature of their official digital output.
Now Williams, a self-confessed web geek, has turned his template into an official Whitehall Twitter guide and posted it on the Cabinet Office’s digital engagement blog.
He suggests that nothing too onerous is involved. Each department’s “digital media team” should only need to spend less than an hour a day running their Twitter streams. A quick discussion of potential tweets at the morning press cuttings meetings should be followed by emails to minister’s private offices to gather more material, and any incoming messages should be replied to.
However, the idea of official government use of a tool that provides a confidential and confessional glimpse into somebody’s personal life and views appears at first sight to be something of an oxymoron.
The official guide seems to acknowledge this when it recommends that exclusive content such as “insights from ministers” and “updates on their movements” in a light or humanised style will be needed for the Twitter stream beyond the “business as usual” content of daily press releases and announcements.
It also concedes there is a problem with one of the basic Twitter features, the ability to “follow” any other users. It admits that if government departments start following individual users on Twitter uninvited, this may well be interpreted as “interfering ‘Big Brother’-like behaviour”.
However, once anyone does follow a Whitehall Twitter stream it recommends they should automatically be “followed back” on the grounds that it is not only good etiquette, but could result in a poor Twitter reputation if not done ‑ and in extreme cases could lead to the account being suspended.
In urging his fellow Whitehall civil servants to use Twitter, Williams sets out several grounds rules for the kind of content that needs to make it work:
• Human: He warns that Twitter users can be hostile to the “over-use of automation” – such as RSS feeds – and to the regurgitation of press release headlines: “While corporate in message, the tone of our Twitter channel must therefore be informal spoken English, human-edited and for the most part written/paraphrased for the channel.”
• Frequent: a minimum of two and maximum of 10 tweets per working day, with a minimum gap of 30 minutes between tweets to avoid flooding followers’ Twitter streams. (Not counting @replies or live coverage of a crisis/event.) Downing Street spends 20 minutes on its Twitter stream with two-three tweets a day plus a few replies, five-six tweets a day in total.
• Timely: in keeping with the “zeitgeist” feel of Twitter, official tweets should be about issues of relevance today or events coming soon.
• Credible: while tweets may occasionally be “fun”, their relationship to departmental objectives must be defensible.
Alongside the promised tweetable content of minsters’ thoughts and reflections following key meetings and events is something rather more sinister sounding called “thought leadership”. Also known as “linked blogging”, the idea is that by highlighting relevant research, events, awards and other action elsewhere on the web, the department’s Twitter feed gets a reputation as a reliable filter of high quality content.
It even holds out the promise of “crisis content” in which the Twitter feed becomes a primary channel alongside the official website for up to the minute guidance and advice in the event of a major incident.
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block is that in true Whitehall tradition everything that goes out has to be approved and cleared first. So news releases are to be cleared for use only if they have first been paraphrased for Twitter. All other tweets have to be cleared by staff at information officer grade in the digital media team and colleagues in ministers’ private offices and communications units have to be consulted as well.
The guidelines recommend that “light-touch controls” will also be needed to prevent “inappropriate content” being published in error such as embargoed news releases, information about the location of ministers that could put their security at risk, or other commercially or politically sensitive content. Steps are also to be taken to avoid hacking or vandalism of content.
But it is perhaps the “tone of voice” that is most troubling about the idea of Whitehall twitter stream. “Though the account will be anonymous (ie, no named officials will be running it) it is helpful to define a hypothetical ‘voice’ so that tweets from multiple sources are presented in a consistent tone (including consistent use of pronouns),” recommends the official template.
“The department’s Twitter voice will be that of the digital media team, positioning the channel as an extension of the main department website ‑ effectively an ‘outpost’ where new digital content is signposted throughout the day. This will be implicit, unless directly asked about by our followers,” it advises.
Williams, the author of this template, launched the first ever blog by a British cabinet minister. He admits he once ran a comedy website called idiotica.co.uk but the Cabinet Office confirm that his Twitter guidelines are genuine.
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Whitehall’s 36,215-character guide to Twitter
July 27th, 2009 |
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Guidelines suggest tweets should be frequent, timely and credible
Even its author admits that a 20-page strategy paper for government departments on how to use Twitter might be regarded as “a bit of over the top” for a microblogging tool with a limit of 140 characters a message.
Indeed, the 5,382-word official “template”,which translates into 36,215 characters and spaces, would need roughly 259 separate tweets to put the word around Whitehall using Twitter.
But its author, Neil Williams, who describes himself as head of corporate digital channels at Lord Mandelson’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, admits that when he sat down to write a proper plan for his department’s corporate Twitter account, “I was surprised by just how much there was to say ‑ and quite how worth saying it is.”
Whitehall’s official use of Twitter was pioneered by Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Communities and Local Government department.
Their low-profile experiments have grown into a regular feature of their official digital output.
Now Williams, a self-confessed web geek, has turned his template into an official Whitehall Twitter guide and posted it on the Cabinet Office’s digital engagement blog.
He suggests that nothing too onerous is involved. Each department’s “digital media team” should only need to spend less than an hour a day running their Twitter streams. A quick discussion of potential tweets at the morning press cuttings meetings should be followed by emails to minister’s private offices to gather more material, and any incoming messages should be replied to.
However, the idea of official government use of a tool that provides a confidential and confessional glimpse into somebody’s personal life and views appears at first sight to be something of an oxymoron.
The official guide seems to acknowledge this when it recommends that exclusive content such as “insights from ministers” and “updates on their movements” in a light or humanised style will be needed for the Twitter stream beyond the “business as usual” content of daily press releases and announcements.
It also concedes there is a problem with one of the basic Twitter features, the ability to “follow” any other users. It admits that if government departments start following individual users on Twitter uninvited, this may well be interpreted as “interfering ‘Big Brother’-like behaviour”.
However, once anyone does follow a Whitehall Twitter stream it recommends they should automatically be “followed back” on the grounds that it is not only good etiquette, but could result in a poor Twitter reputation if not done ‑ and in extreme cases could lead to the account being suspended.
In urging his fellow Whitehall civil servants to use Twitter, Williams sets out several grounds rules for the kind of content that needs to make it work:
• Human: He warns that Twitter users can be hostile to the “over-use of automation” – such as RSS feeds – and to the regurgitation of press release headlines: “While corporate in message, the tone of our Twitter channel must therefore be informal spoken English, human-edited and for the most part written/paraphrased for the channel.”
• Frequent: a minimum of two and maximum of 10 tweets per working day, with a minimum gap of 30 minutes between tweets to avoid flooding followers’ Twitter streams. (Not counting @replies or live coverage of a crisis/event.) Downing Street spends 20 minutes on its Twitter stream with two-three tweets a day plus a few replies, five-six tweets a day in total.
• Timely: in keeping with the “zeitgeist” feel of Twitter, official tweets should be about issues of relevance today or events coming soon.
• Credible: while tweets may occasionally be “fun”, their relationship to departmental objectives must be defensible.
Alongside the promised tweetable content of minsters’ thoughts and reflections following key meetings and events is something rather more sinister sounding called “thought leadership”. Also known as “linked blogging”, the idea is that by highlighting relevant research, events, awards and other action elsewhere on the web, the department’s Twitter feed gets a reputation as a reliable filter of high quality content.
It even holds out the promise of “crisis content” in which the Twitter feed becomes a primary channel alongside the official website for up to the minute guidance and advice in the event of a major incident.
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block is that in true Whitehall tradition everything that goes out has to be approved and cleared first. So news releases are to be cleared for use only if they have first been paraphrased for Twitter. All other tweets have to be cleared by staff at information officer grade in the digital media team and colleagues in ministers’ private offices and communications units have to be consulted as well.
The guidelines recommend that “light-touch controls” will also be needed to prevent “inappropriate content” being published in error such as embargoed news releases, information about the location of ministers that could put their security at risk, or other commercially or politically sensitive content. Steps are also to be taken to avoid hacking or vandalism of content.
But it is perhaps the “tone of voice” that is most troubling about the idea of Whitehall twitter stream. “Though the account will be anonymous (ie, no named officials will be running it) it is helpful to define a hypothetical ‘voice’ so that tweets from multiple sources are presented in a consistent tone (including consistent use of pronouns),” recommends the official template.
“The department’s Twitter voice will be that of the digital media team, positioning the channel as an extension of the main department website ‑ effectively an ‘outpost’ where new digital content is signposted throughout the day. This will be implicit, unless directly asked about by our followers,” it advises.
Williams, the author of this template, launched the first ever blog by a British cabinet minister. He admits he once ran a comedy website called idiotica.co.uk but the Cabinet Office confirm that his Twitter guidelines are genuine.
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Is Spotify iPhone app too like iTunes?
July 27th, 2009 |
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Streaming music service Spotify submits iPhone app to Apple, but analysts say it might be too close to iTunes to be approved
European streaming music service Spotify has developed an application to use their service on the popular iPhone, but it must first submit it for approval to iPhone maker Apple, which could reject it on grounds that Spotify competes with its own iTunes music store.
Apple has approved applications from streaming music providers Pandora and Last.fm and satellite broadcaster Sirius XM, but those services are more like streaming radio, with Pandora and Last.fm allowing people to listen to a specific genre of music or music similar to listeners favourite artist. Spotify allows people to choose specific songs to listen to and create playlists of those songs.
Speaking to paidContent, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said he expects Apple to approve the application in the next few weeks, and he added, “Apple has already approved several other music services such as Last.fm, Deezer and Pandora. We very much look forward to people being able to access their Spotify library wherever they might be and we’ve spent significant time and resources to ensure we’ve stuck to Apple’s developer guidelines point by point.”
Apple might be more open to approving Spotify’s application because it is in talks with music companies and could be bringing out its own streaming music service, although such a service has been rumoured for years. Apple and the music industry might be trying to increase revenues from digital music by offering value-added bundles of content including video, interviews and streamed music.
Spotify has two services: a free service supported by advertising; and a premium service that allows users to listen to ad-free streams for £9.99 a month.
The iPhone application will be restricted to Spotify’s premium users. Some iPhone applications such as voice over internet service Skype are restricted to only working on Wi-Fi, but the Spotify application will work over Wi-Fi and also 3G mobile phone data networks.
One of the biggest draws for Spotify’s application will be the ability to listen to one’s favourite music even when no internet connection is available.
With advertising supported businesses coming under pressure during the recession, Spotify must convert more users from the free model to its premium model to succeed where others have failed, says Mark Mulligan, vice president and research director of consumer product strategy at Forrester Research.
The problem is that the premium streaming music businesses have a dismal record of failure in the UK, he said. Virgin and HMV shuttered their premium music streaming businesses, with HMV relaunching a new offering. Napster has between 50,000 and 60,000 UK subscribers, numbers so modest that it shifted its European headquarters to Germany.
Although Spotify has not discussed publicly how many premium subscribers it has, Mulligan estimates that the figure is in line with the industry standard 1% of its user base. “You have to really detest ads to pay £9.99 a month not to get them,” he said.
To survive and add more paying customers, companies like Spotify must launch value added-services like this mobile application.
Spotify is currently not available in the US, and the application will likewise only be available in the west European and Scandinavian markets where Spotify operates. However, this could be an important step towards a US launch.
Pandora and Sirius XM saw great success with their iPhone apps. Pandora executive Tom Conrad said they were adding a new listener every 2 seconds in the weeks after their iPhone application launched. Having the application ready for the US launch could be key to Spotify’s expansion plans.
On Spotify’s blog post announcing the availability of the application, many users are asking when it will be available for other major mobile phone platforms including Nokia handsets running its S60 smart phone operating system and handsets running Google’s Android OS. The company has already showed off a demo of the application running on Android earlier this summer.
The question remains whether Apple approve Spotify’s application. Adding the caveat that one should never try to second guess Apple, Mulligan said he would not be surprised if the application was rejected.
Apple already rejected the Podcaster app because it duplicated functionality of iTunes. While Spotify have been quite clever in releasing a video demonstration of the app to whet customers’ appetite, Mulligan said it might be too good, too similar to Apple’s own iTunes store experience to win approval.
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‘The democratisation of intimacy’
July 23rd, 2009 |
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Anthropologist Stefana Broadbent says that modern communications aren’t expanding our circle of friends but are strengthening our most important relationships
Modern communications are not expanding our social circle, but anthropologist Stefana Broadbent says that mobile phones, instant messaging and social networking are actually strengthening our core relationships.
Research has shown that with instant messaging, if there are 100 people on your buddy list, you’ll only chat with at most five people on your list. Eighty per cent of phone calls are to four people. With voice-over-internet service Skype, that number drops, with most people calling only two others.
Initially, sociologists thought people were cocooning, closing themselves off from public life, but she said that modern institutions were more responsible for isolation than modern communications.
Fifteen years ago, factory or office workers were cut off, having no contact with the “private sphere”, she said. If you were lucky, there might a public phone, but isolation was the norm in professional life. Now, modern communications has “democratised intimacy”, she said.
Through their communication channels, they are breaking an imposed isolation that institutions are imposing them. They can call their mom from work, using IM or texting under the desk.
Young factory workers on night shift will sneak out of the sight of CCTV cameras to call their girlfriends. Migrant Filipino mothers are using Skype to remotely parent their children.
This is why she is concerned with legislation that leads to the dismissal of bus drivers in New York if they are seen with a mobile phone in their hand on the grounds of safety and security.
This is not about security and safety. This is institutions trying to determine whether people can decide whether to be isolated. They are trying to block this greater possibility of intimacy.
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‘The democratisation of intimacy’
July 23rd, 2009 |
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Anthropologist Stefana Broadbent says that modern communications aren’t expanding our circle of friends but are strengthening our most important relationships
Modern communications are not expanding our social circle, but anthropologist Stefana Broadbent says that mobile phones, instant messaging and social networking are actually strengthening our core relationships.
Research has shown that with instant messaging, if there are 100 people on your buddy list, you’ll only chat with at most five people on your list. Eighty per cent of phone calls are to four people. With voice-over-internet service Skype, that number drops, with most people calling only two others.
Initially, sociologists thought people were cocooning, closing themselves off from public life, but she said that modern institutions were more responsible for isolation than modern communications.
Fifteen years ago, factory or office workers were cut off, having no contact with the “private sphere”, she said. If you were lucky, there might a public phone, but isolation was the norm in professional life. Now, modern communications has “democratised intimacy”, she said.
Through their communication channels, they are breaking an imposed isolation that institutions are imposing them. They can call their mom from work, using IM or texting under the desk.
Young factory workers on night shift will sneak out of the sight of CCTV cameras to call their girlfriends. Migrant Filipino mothers are using Skype to remotely parent their children.
This is why she is concerned with legislation that leads to the dismissal of bus drivers in New York if they are seen with a mobile phone in their hand on the grounds of safety and security.
This is not about security and safety. This is institutions trying to determine whether people can decide whether to be isolated. They are trying to block this greater possibility of intimacy.
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‘iPods won’t end dictatorship’
July 22nd, 2009 |
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The TEDGlobal conference began its second day with views of the internet as a fragile network running on the kindness of strangers and as a force for spin and repression
The second day of the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford began with contrasting optimistic and pessimistic views of the internet.
Internet: The fragile but functional network of people
Jonathan Zittrain, who recently wrote the cautionary book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, decided to paint an optimistic view of the internet and its future.
Discussing the creators of the internet, he said that they built the foundation for this global network despite facing a huge difficulty:
[They had no money to build it] but they had an amazing freedom. They didn’t have to make any money from it. The internet has no business plan. There is no firm responsible for building it.
In many ways, the internet should not work. As late as 1992, IBM said that it wasn’t possible to build a corporate network using internet protocol.
Zittrain said the mascot of the internet is the bumble bee. It shouldn’t be able to fly, but a recently government-funded programme discovered how bees fly: They flap their wings really fast.
The internet works on a process that Zittrain compared to passing a beer to a person in a mosh pit. “This system relies on kindness and trust. This makes [the internet] rare and vulnerable.”
Wikipedia also shouldn’t work, according to Zittrain. “Wikipedia is an idea so profoundly stupid that even Jimbo [Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales] didn’t have it,” he said. Wikipedia was originally a way for editors of another project, Newpedia, to collaborate. But the backroom eventually took over the front room.
He showed how Wikipedians debate issues, and said that they are making their own law democratically. They decided to remove the real name of the boy who appeared in the Star War Kid YouTube video after his parents requested it.
“At all times Wikipedia is 45 minutes away from utter destruction. It’s a thin geeky line that keeps it going,” Zittrain said.
He believes that the lessons of how the internet works can applied to real world and also back to the technology of the internet itself.
I think that we can build architectures online so that such human requests are easier online. It represents human emotion, endeavour and impact. We can decide how we want to treat it.
Why iPods won’t topple dictators
From that optimistic view, Evgeny Morozov countered some of the cyber-utopian ideas that the internet, new media and technology were an unalloyed force for good and democracy.
Morozov, who is from Belarus, worked for an NGO using new media to promote democracy, but he found:
Dictatorships do not crumble so easily. Some get even more repressive.
He started studying how the internet could impede democracy. Cyber-utopians believe that with enough connectivity and devices that democracy will inevitably follow, he said. It was an assumption that underlies what he called “iPod liberalism” that everyone who owns an iPod must be a liberal.
If you believe ‘Drop iPods, not bombs’, the problem is that it confuses the intended versus actual uses of technology.
Governments are learning that censorship doesn’t work but spin does. They are actually encouraging people to share information online. Blogs, Twitter and Facebook actually allowed the Iranian authorities to gather open-source intelligence on networks of anti-government activists.
The KGB used to torture people for weeks to get that information.
Also, he said that while many assume that technology is a catalyst for change, it might also be an opiate for the masses. Governments can engage in meaningless exercises that allow their citizens to believe they have a voice when the exercise itself is meaningless or it gives a government a scapegoat – the public – if the policy fails.
For technology to really be an agent for change, he said we need to stop thinking about computers per capita and start thinking about empowering NGOs and other members of society.
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Microsoft and Yahoo deal rumoured
July 17th, 2009 |
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After almost 18 months of increasingly bitter negotiations, Microsoft is said to be closing in on a deal to buy technology rival Yahoo’s web search business.
Several reports emerged late on Thursday suggesting that late-stage talks were under way between the two companies, opening up the distinct possibility that Microsoft could finally take control of Yahoo’s search engine division.
An analyst with institutional investor ThinkEquity was quoted by investment website 24/7 Wall Street as saying a deal was “imminent”, while sources told influential Silicon Valley blog All Things Digital that an agreement was close to being completed.
It is not clear what the precise terms of the deal on offer are, but according to 24/7 Wall Street, it could see Microsoft shell out around $3bn (£1.8bn) to take over Yahoo’s search advertising operation. The deal, it suggests, would also see Microsoft agree to share revenue from the search business with Yahoo for several years.
Such a pact would bring to an end the tortured negotiations between the two companies, but it would be an incredible climbdown for Yahoo – which turned down the possibility of far more money when Microsoft launched an unsolicited $45bn bid to buy Yahoo in its entirety last February.
That offer was largely seen as an attempt by Microsoft to gain control of its rival’s search business, since the Seattle software giant has been desperate to increase its share of the lucrative search advertising market for several years. But Yahoo rejected it, saying that it believed it was worth far more money.
In the interim, relations between the two companies have been cool – and both sides have rejected rumours of reported negotiations.
However, with the two companies’ chief rival, Google, appearing not only increasingly powerful but also apparently immune to the worst effects of the recession, things could be changing once again. Microsoft’s attempt to claw back market share with its relaunched search engine – now called Bing – has failed to make immediate inroads, leaving the Windows giant still looking for a way to make its mark in the industry.
Taking control of Yahoo’s search business would give Microsoft almost 30% of the American market, more than trebling its sphere of influence.
According to figures from ComScore, Google controls around 65% of the search market in the US, with Yahoo 19.5% and Microsoft trailing in third with a little over 8%. Internationally, Google is even stronger.
Such a deal would be a further hammer blow to the reputation of Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, who led the charge against Microsoft and sparked a war of words with rival CEO Steve Ballmer.
Since the negotiations between the two collapsed late last year, however, Yahoo has brought in a new CEO, Carol Bartz – who may take a more pragmatic view of the situation given Yahoo’s financial struggles.
The company is due to release its latest quarterly results next week, and may be hoping that any agreement with Microsoft could take the edge off a disappointing fiscal period.
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Jackson scoop gives TMZ 24% traffic boost
July 15th, 2009 |
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In month of world exclusive on Michael Jackson’s death, TMZ.com is measured at 11.7 million unique users by comScore
Breaking the news of Michael Jackson’s death saw traffic to the celebrity gossip website TMZ.com jump by almost a quarter last month.
TMZ.com, which late last month was the first to break the news of the King of Pop’s heart attack and death, saw a 24% increase in web traffic to 11.7 million unique users.
The figures, measured by comScore Media Metrix, represent a record for the Hollywood gossip site.
TMZ.com, a joint venture between AOL and Telepictures Productions, also saw a 10% month-on-month increase in page views by users to 279m.
The site, founded by managing editor Harvey Levin, said that its mobile website and iPhone application also set new record traffic levels with over 11m page views on 25 June, the day of Jackson’s death, as the public hunted out updates and information on unfolding events.
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Twitter, teenagers and tech trends
July 14th, 2009 |
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The world seems all a titter that teens don’t use Twitter
Was the whiz-kid correct? Two teens give opposing views
Teens spurning Twitter was one of the bombshells from 15-year-old Matthew Robson that the media highlighted in a report he wrote for investment bank Morgan Stanley.
However, it wasn’t really breaking news that teens don’t use Twitter.
• Last November, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found the median age of Twitter users in the US was 31, higher than 26 for Facebook and 27 for MySpace.
• In April, web metrics firm comScore reported that the majority of Twitter’s 10m or so users were over 35.
• In June, comScore reported that 11.3% of visitors to Twitter.com in the U.S. are ages 12-17. Internationally, only 4.4% of visitors were younger then 18, according to comScore data from May.
• In June, Pace University said that while 99% of 18-24 year olds have profiles on social networks, only 22% use Twitter.
In a battle of the teen prognosticators, 16-year-old Daniel Brusilovsky, writing on TechCrunch says that teens don’t use Twitter because it’s a completely open network and anyone can see your status updates. Teens prefer the privacy of closed networks such as Facebook. Brusilovsky said it makes teens feel “unsafe”.
It’s probably more about teens wanting to establish a privacy perimeter from the prying eyes of adults rather than a safety issue.
That’s not entirely true. Twitter users can protect their updates so only followers they approve can follow their updates.
Also, as David Meyer points out on ZDNet, Robson only referred to updating Twitter via SMS. However, as Meyer points out, Twitter is now used mostly via a range of desktop applications and internet apps on smartphones. Also, up until recently Twitter was MIA in the UK via SMS because Twitter and the carriers couldn’t reach an agreement on pricing.
A number of bloggers, including my wife Suw, took Morgan Stanley and the media to task for mistaking anecdotes from a 15-year-old for hard data.
Neither Morgan Stanley nor the media seem to be able to tell the difference between anecdote and data. This “research note” is more note than research, and it should not be taken to be representative of all teens. A teenager in a rural setting, or in an inner city estate, or one who feels socially excluded from web culture will have a very different experience than a teen who’s well-connected enough to get himself an internship at Morgan Stanley.
Beyond criticising Robson’s methodology, there is something more interesting going on here. As comScore’s Sarah Radwanick pointed out, as technology becomes more common, teens and college students aren’t the only people in the population that can be considered “technologically inclined”. She said:
…trends are much more prone to take off in older age segments than they used to.
It challenges the idea that the youth are the only people who are “digital natives”. Charlie Beckett, director of journalism thinktank POLIS at the London School of Economics, challenges the whole idea of the digital native:
As Matthew Robson describes, most teenagers use a variety of digital devices, but when you talk to people who work with teenagers they describe a much more complex picture of what they actually do.
The same teenagers who have literacy problems have media literacy problems. Many of the teenagers apparently comfortable with new media are in fact only using a very limited range of applications and in a very limited way.
Other researchers indicate that teenagers are getting just as frustrated as the rest of us with the complexity and cost of many online and mobile applications.
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TwiTrip to Brighton
July 14th, 2009 |
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Follow Benji Lanyado as he travels around Brighton using tips gleaned from Twitter. For a little explanation… click here
Track Benji Lanyado’s Brighton #TwiTrip by…
• Following his Twitter profile
• Following his @replies
• Watching the #TwiTrip hashtag
Benji’s latest images:
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Collapse in illegal sharing of music
July 13th, 2009 |
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• Teenagers switching to streaming sites – survey
• Spotify and YouTube lead the way as habits change
They are the record companies’ bogeyman: the 15-year-old in their bedroom ripping off a star’s latest album and sharing it with their friends has been blamed for bringing an industry to its knees.
But new research shows that the number of teenagers illegally sharing music has fallen dramatically in the past year.
The survey of 1,000 fans also shows that many14 to 18 year olds are now streaming music regularly online using services such as YouTube and Spotify.
At the same time less than a third of teenagers are now illegally downloading music, the survey suggests. In January this year 26% of 14 to 18 year olds admitted filesharing at least once a month compared with 42% in December 2007.
The research revealed that many teenagers (65%) are streaming music regularly, with more 14 to 18 year olds (31%) listening to streamed music on their computer every day compared with music fans overall (18%).
The picture may be more complex than a simple shift from filesharing to streaming, with people sharing music in new ways such as via bluetooth technology, on blogs, and through copying, also known as ripping content from friends’ MP3 devices.
Even though users of streaming services are not necessarily buying more music, the industry benefits by learning more about fans’ tastes. Steve Purdham, CEO and founder of We7, a music streaming service and download store, said: “They may not buy an album, though they have that opportunity, but you can sell them tour tickets and a T-shirt of their favourite band.”
We7 has 2 million users a month and works with artists including Florence and the Machine and Jarvis Cocker to stream new albums before they are available to buy.
Paul Brindley, CEO of Music Ally, which carried out the survey with media and technology research company, The Leading Question, said: “These figures challenge the idea that filesharing will just continue to grow. While we don’t think for a second that it shows the war against piracy is won, it does at least suggest that there is encouraging news for the music industry.”
The government has pledged tougher measures to crack down on illegal filesharing, including sending warning letters to people making illegal downloads of music and films. Repeat offenders could also have their internet connections slowed down.
Music fan Dominique Wakefield, 24, said she had stopped downloading music because of concern that it would infect her computer. “I didn’t even realise it was illegal for a long time, until I heard that the government were trying to stop it. That did put me off, but one of the big reasons I stopped doing it was because I would get viruses, more pop ups on my computer. While I was at uni I started listening to streamed music using MySpace. Bands would be friends with other bands and it was a great way of discovering new music. I don’t really feel the need to own all that music, I know it’s always there.
“I still buy the occasional CD, and sometimes use iTunes. If I find myself loving a whole album and listening to it again and again, then I will buy it. But it has to be quite special.”
The rise of streaming sites is far from assured. Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify – an ad-funded streaming site which also offers a premium subscription model – recently admitted that the service, which launched in October 2008 and now has 2 million registered users, was not on target to make its revenue forecasts.
We7, which launched six months ago and relies on selling adverts of between three to seven seconds before each song, is yet to break even. But Jim Butcher, a spokesman for Spotify, said the company was confident that the quality of the product would win over users, premium subscribers and advertisers. “One of the fundamental aims of Spotify was to develop a service that was better than piracy,” he said. “We’ve always maintained that music fans don’t want to fileshare illegally but they do want to have everything at their fingertips instantly.”
Legal digital sales are also seeing an unprecedented boom, although sales are far from making up from the shortfall created by the collapse of the physical market. Digital singles were up 41.5% in 2008, while physical singles sales plunged 43.5%, according to the BPI. Last year three albums – Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, Kings of Leon’s Only By Night and Duffy’s Rockferry – sold more than 100,000 digital copies, and the impact of digital is nowhere more apparent than in the UK singles top 40, where Michael Jackson has 12 posthumous entries in the current chart.
The new research – which involved 1,000 face-to-face interviews and a series of focus groups – also revealed that a fraction more music fans are regularly buying single track downloads (19%) than filesharing single tracks (17%).
Geoff Taylor, CEO of the BPI called the figures “absolutely encouraging”. He said: “The industry has worked hard to licence new services, they are great music discovery tools and a new way for artists to get paid and drive new sales.”
Francis Keeling, vice president of digital at Universal, welcomed the news but said streaming had to be combined with new services, such as the company’s new deal with Virgin Media which will offer broadband users unlimited downloads for a monthly fee. “We are confident that the numerous legal alternatives to filesharing will result in a long term reduction in piracy,” he said.
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Collapse in illegal sharing of music
July 13th, 2009 |
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• Teenagers switching to streaming sites – survey
• Spotify and YouTube lead the way as habits change
They are the record companies’ bogeyman: the 15-year-old in their bedroom ripping off a star’s latest album and sharing it with their friends has been blamed for bringing an industry to its knees.
But new research shows that the number of teenagers illegally sharing music has fallen dramatically in the past year.
The survey of 1,000 fans also shows that many14 to 18 year olds are now streaming music regularly online using services such as YouTube and Spotify.
At the same time less than a third of teenagers are now illegally downloading music, the survey suggests. In January this year 26% of 14 to 18 year olds admitted filesharing at least once a month compared with 42% in December 2007.
The research revealed that many teenagers (65%) are streaming music regularly, with more 14 to 18 year olds (31%) listening to streamed music on their computer every day compared with music fans overall (18%).
The picture may be more complex than a simple shift from filesharing to streaming, with people sharing music in new ways such as via bluetooth technology, on blogs, and through copying, also known as ripping content from friends’ MP3 devices.
Even though users of streaming services are not necessarily buying more music, the industry benefits by learning more about fans’ tastes. Steve Purdham, CEO and founder of We7, a music streaming service and download store, said: “They may not buy an album, though they have that opportunity, but you can sell them tour tickets and a T-shirt of their favourite band.”
We7 has 2 million users a month and works with artists including Florence and the Machine and Jarvis Cocker to stream new albums before they are available to buy.
Paul Brindley, CEO of Music Ally, which carried out the survey with media and technology research company, The Leading Question, said: “These figures challenge the idea that filesharing will just continue to grow. While we don’t think for a second that it shows the war against piracy is won, it does at least suggest that there is encouraging news for the music industry.”
The government has pledged tougher measures to crack down on illegal filesharing, including sending warning letters to people making illegal downloads of music and films. Repeat offenders could also have their internet connections slowed down.
Music fan Dominique Wakefield, 24, said she had stopped downloading music because of concern that it would infect her computer. “I didn’t even realise it was illegal for a long time, until I heard that the government were trying to stop it. That did put me off, but one of the big reasons I stopped doing it was because I would get viruses, more pop ups on my computer. While I was at uni I started listening to streamed music using MySpace. Bands would be friends with other bands and it was a great way of discovering new music. I don’t really feel the need to own all that music, I know it’s always there.
“I still buy the occasional CD, and sometimes use iTunes. If I find myself loving a whole album and listening to it again and again, then I will buy it. But it has to be quite special.”
The rise of streaming sites is far from assured. Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify – an ad-funded streaming site which also offers a premium subscription model – recently admitted that the service, which launched in October 2008 and now has 2 million registered users, was not on target to make its revenue forecasts.
We7, which launched six months ago and relies on selling adverts of between three to seven seconds before each song, is yet to break even. But Jim Butcher, a spokesman for Spotify, said the company was confident that the quality of the product would win over users, premium subscribers and advertisers. “One of the fundamental aims of Spotify was to develop a service that was better than piracy,” he said. “We’ve always maintained that music fans don’t want to fileshare illegally but they do want to have everything at their fingertips instantly.”
Legal digital sales are also seeing an unprecedented boom, although sales are far from making up from the shortfall created by the collapse of the physical market. Digital singles were up 41.5% in 2008, while physical singles sales plunged 43.5%, according to the BPI. Last year three albums – Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, Kings of Leon’s Only By Night and Duffy’s Rockferry – sold more than 100,000 digital copies, and the impact of digital is nowhere more apparent than in the UK singles top 40, where Michael Jackson has 12 posthumous entries in the current chart.
The new research – which involved 1,000 face-to-face interviews and a series of focus groups – also revealed that a fraction more music fans are regularly buying single track downloads (19%) than filesharing single tracks (17%).
Geoff Taylor, CEO of the BPI called the figures “absolutely encouraging”. He said: “The industry has worked hard to licence new services, they are great music discovery tools and a new way for artists to get paid and drive new sales.”
Francis Keeling, vice president of digital at Universal, welcomed the news but said streaming had to be combined with new services, such as the company’s new deal with Virgin Media which will offer broadband users unlimited downloads for a monthly fee. “We are confident that the numerous legal alternatives to filesharing will result in a long term reduction in piracy,” he said.
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Collapse in illegal sharing of music
July 13th, 2009 |
No Comments
• Teenagers switching to streaming sites – survey
• Spotify and YouTube lead the way as habits change
They are the record companies’ bogeyman: the 15-year-old in their bedroom ripping off a star’s latest album and sharing it with their friends has been blamed for bringing an industry to its knees.
But new research shows that the number of teenagers illegally sharing music has fallen dramatically in the past year.
The survey of 1,000 fans also shows that many14 to 18 year olds are now streaming music regularly online using services such as YouTube and Spotify.
At the same time less than a third of teenagers are now illegally downloading music, the survey suggests. In January this year 26% of 14 to 18 year olds admitted filesharing at least once a month compared with 42% in December 2007.
The research revealed that many teenagers (65%) are streaming music regularly, with more 14 to 18 year olds (31%) listening to streamed music on their computer every day compared with music fans overall (18%).
The picture may be more complex than a simple shift from filesharing to streaming, with people sharing music in new ways such as via bluetooth technology, on blogs, and through copying, also known as ripping content from friends’ MP3 devices.
Even though users of streaming services are not necessarily buying more music, the industry benefits by learning more about fans’ tastes. Steve Purdham, CEO and founder of We7, a music streaming service and download store, said: “They may not buy an album, though they have that opportunity, but you can sell them tour tickets and a T-shirt of their favourite band.”
We7 has 2 million users a month and works with artists including Florence and the Machine and Jarvis Cocker to stream new albums before they are available to buy.
Paul Brindley, CEO of Music Ally, which carried out the survey with media and technology research company, The Leading Question, said: “These figures challenge the idea that filesharing will just continue to grow. While we don’t think for a second that it shows the war against piracy is won, it does at least suggest that there is encouraging news for the music industry.”
The government has pledged tougher measures to crack down on illegal filesharing, including sending warning letters to people making illegal downloads of music and films. Repeat offenders could also have their internet connections slowed down.
Music fan Dominique Wakefield, 24, said she had stopped downloading music because of concern that it would infect her computer. “I didn’t even realise it was illegal for a long time, until I heard that the government were trying to stop it. That did put me off, but one of the big reasons I stopped doing it was because I would get viruses, more pop ups on my computer. While I was at uni I started listening to streamed music using MySpace. Bands would be friends with other bands and it was a great way of discovering new music. I don’t really feel the need to own all that music, I know it’s always there.
“I still buy the occasional CD, and sometimes use iTunes. If I find myself loving a whole album and listening to it again and again, then I will buy it. But it has to be quite special.”
The rise of streaming sites is far from assured. Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify – an ad-funded streaming site which also offers a premium subscription model – recently admitted that the service, which launched in October 2008 and now has 2 million registered users, was not on target to make its revenue forecasts.
We7, which launched six months ago and relies on selling adverts of between three to seven seconds before each song, is yet to break even. But Jim Butcher, a spokesman for Spotify, said the company was confident that the quality of the product would win over users, premium subscribers and advertisers. “One of the fundamental aims of Spotify was to develop a service that was better than piracy,” he said. “We’ve always maintained that music fans don’t want to fileshare illegally but they do want to have everything at their fingertips instantly.”
Legal digital sales are also seeing an unprecedented boom, although sales are far from making up from the shortfall created by the collapse of the physical market. Digital singles were up 41.5% in 2008, while physical singles sales plunged 43.5%, according to the BPI. Last year three albums – Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, Kings of Leon’s Only By Night and Duffy’s Rockferry – sold more than 100,000 digital copies, and the impact of digital is nowhere more apparent than in the UK singles top 40, where Michael Jackson has 12 posthumous entries in the current chart.
The new research – which involved 1,000 face-to-face interviews and a series of focus groups – also revealed that a fraction more music fans are regularly buying single track downloads (19%) than filesharing single tracks (17%).
Geoff Taylor, CEO of the BPI called the figures “absolutely encouraging”. He said: “The industry has worked hard to licence new services, they are great music discovery tools and a new way for artists to get paid and drive new sales.”
Francis Keeling, vice president of digital at Universal, welcomed the news but said streaming had to be combined with new services, such as the company’s new deal with Virgin Media which will offer broadband users unlimited downloads for a monthly fee. “We are confident that the numerous legal alternatives to filesharing will result in a long term reduction in piracy,” he said.
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The web needs a highway code
July 6th, 2009 |
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Following the BT/Phorm saga, the government must clear up confusion over consumer protection and monitoring software
BT’s announcement that it is dropping its involvement with Phorm “for the moment” is unsurprising. The telecoms giant has a high level of trust among consumers, and pushing forward with the controversial web monitoring and profiling system would have been a very dangerous move for the company. It might have destroyed BT customers’ trust in the company had they felt that their web traffic was being intercepted in a way they did not understand. Even with reassurance that there would be an “opt-in” system, Phorm’s plans did not take account of public worry of just what this would mean in reality.
The government’s role in the affair has been dubious. It has never taken responsibility for ensuring that all players were clear about what protection consumers could expect from the law under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and whether it was enforceable over interceptions of the BT/Phorm kind. Despite constant questioning, the government would only say that “it was a matter for the courts” to decide. The Home Office may have its own use for deep packet inspection for intercepting web traffic, but it is mistaken if it thinks ambiguity in the commercial sector would help the technology develop unhindered.
One of the main opponents of the Phorm-type of monitoring is the web’s inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, who branded it as “snooping”. He has been appointed as a special adviser to the government. Leaving the government is Lord Carter, the erstwhile communications minister who was a Phorm enthusiast. The Information Commissioner’s Office remains in its Alice-in-Wonderland position of backing Phorm’s technology, provided it complies with data protection laws – which, of course, is the unresolved issue. Another player is Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom. The telecoms watchdog has a regulatory role but also an interest in ensuring some resolution to the parlous position that the media has found itself in regarding advertising.
One of the primary roles for the government is to create certainty for citizens and for business. In this sorry saga it has created uncertainty and it was left to the EU to take a line on the original trials, which were ruled illegal. The government knows that there is now an information superhighway where everyone is busy trying to put up billboards. When roads became very busy with cars, a highway code and a planning system was developed to prevent dangerous situations. What is needed now is a similar clear plan for the web highway.
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US investigates Google book deal
July 3rd, 2009 |
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American authorities are conducting a formal investigation into whether Google’s $125m deal with the US book industry is anti-competitive.
The Department of Justice has confirmed that it is looking into the internet giant’s agreement with authors’ groups to pay for the right to digitise and sell millions of books.
Rumours of the investigation had been circulating for several months, but the Department of Justice revealed on Thursday that it was running a formal inquiry in a letter to the New York judge who is also reviewing the terms of the deal.
“We have determined that the issues raised by the proposed settlement warrant further inquiry,” said the letter from deputy assistant attorney general William Cavanaugh.
The deal – which would rubberstamp Google’s project to digitise millions of copyrighted titles and make them available to search and buy online – was heralded as a possible “iTunes for books” when it was forged last year.
However, the precise terms of the agreement have proved controversial because it also gives Google the right to profit from so-called “orphan works” – books that are still under copyright but do not have a clear owner.
As part of the scheme, copyright owners will be paid a minimum of $60 (£37) per work – but Google would be able to claim a 37% cut of sales of those works online. Some campaigners claim it could be a mistake to hand over the rights of unknown copyright holders without careful consideration.
A federal court in New York is already examining the scope of the agreement, with a judge already extending the case by several months to allow all parties to examine the possible impact.
Google said it was confident that the deal would be approved, while the Authors Guild said it thought the scheme would meet the criteria for both the Department of Justice and the New York court that is considering the implications.
Despite such assurances, however, it was only in October last year that the Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers ended their own class action lawsuit against Google over the books project. They had originally argued that the scheme, which had already seen millions of copyrighted books digitised, infringed upon the rights of authors and publishers – a legal move that resulted in an agreement from the internet giant to pay for the privilege.
At the time, Google co-founder Sergey Brin called the deal a “great leap”, while Authors Guild director Paul Aiken said it was “the biggest book deal in US publishing history”.
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China’s web filter system to go ahead
July 2nd, 2009 |
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Government claims technology will curb access to pornography, but internet users say it blocks politically sensitive content and monitors behaviour
China’s controversial plan to install Green Dam internet filtering software on all computers will go ahead despite being postponement, a government official told state media today.
The official said it was only “a matter of time” until the software was installed.
The remarks – if they fully reflect official policy – will anger internet users, who mounted a vociferous campaign against the policy this week and hoped they had secured a victory against government censorship.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced a delay in the implementation of the programme late on Tuesday, hours before it had been supposed to come into force.
Officials claim the technology will help to curb access to pornography, particularly by younger users.
Internet users say the image and keyword filter blocks pornographic, violent and politically sensitive content and monitors behaviour and fear it will be used to curb access to information and keep track of users.
Green Dam has also come under fire for exposing users to security breaches, with experts warning it could easily be hacked, and a US-based software firm is threatening to sue the Chinese developers for copyright infringement.
Solid Oak warned computer manufacturers they would become “knowing infringers” if they included Green Dam.
Industry bodies, the US government and others had also called on China to abandon the project.
Some experts believed that countervailing arguments within the government might have prevailed.
But an official, speaking anonymously, told China Daily: “The government will definitely carry on the directive on Green Dam. It’s just a matter of time.
“What will happen is that some PC manufacturers will have it included with their PC packages sooner than the others. But there is no definite deadline at the moment.”
The official said the delay was necessary because some computer manufacturers needed more time to prepare.
“They have already spent around millions of yuan. If they don’t install it, people will ask why they spent so much for nothing, so they have to brazen it out,” Liu Xiaoyuan, a lawyer who has opposed the software, said.
“At present, there are too many questions and challenges domestically and abroad, so MIIT is in a dilemma.
“I believe they will carry it out after they have technically improved it and clarified the intellectual property rights.
“[But] if they really want to protect young people from porn, they should deal with the source – pornographic websites.”
Ai Weiwei, a leading contemporary artist and outspoken blogger who had proposed an “internet boycott” to mark opposition to the policy, said he was surprised to hear ministry sources say it would definitely go ahead.
“It was stopped just one day before the policy should be carried out – after preparing for such a long time and facing so much opposition from the public as well as manufacturers,” he said.
There has been confusion about whether the policy required the installation of the software, or whether manufacturers simply had to bundle it with computers.
“If it is true that installation has become party of the policy again, officials are limiting citizens’ freedom to choose and freedom of expression,” Ai said. “This is a backward step.”
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Free for all?
July 1st, 2009 |
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The debate about media revenue models is certainly creating revenue for some content – the thoughts of pop culture theorists
If you want to deepen your confusion over the future revenue models for media content, then look no further than the staging of the paradoxical debate between pop culture theorists Chris Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell.
Gladwell’s review, commissioned and published in a magazine you have to buy, is freely available online. Its subject, Anderson’s book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, could equally have been titled $26.99: The Price of Hardback Hyperbole. There’s nothing “free” about it, except perhaps its composition. Anderson has already had to apologise for lifting unattributed chunks of Free from Wikipedia including, irony upon irony, the entry on “free lunch”.
But the battlefield for this looking-glass war is the pricing of information, or what everyone is now obliged to call content. Information wants to be free, says Anderson, who elevates it to a principle, and says that free will be the business model of the 21st century.
Gladwell says information doesn’t know what it wants, but digital corporations do, and they want information to be free (from publishers and content creators) in order to make more money.
One of the examples of Anderson’s “free” thesis is YouTube:
All those random videos on YouTube are just dandelion seeds in search of fertile ground on which to land. In a sense, we’re ‘wasting video’ in search of better video, exploring the potential space of what the moving picture can be.
Still, as Anderson admits and Gladwell takes pleasure in ramming home, YouTube doesn’t seem to make money from the new “free” business model.
Anderson’s book began cooking before the credit crunch took hold. For a new media dispute this one doesn’t just founder on irony. It also plays out in the past. Anderson’s Free has all the limitations of a timely book which was dated almost before publication. Gladwell’s review was commissioned on the New Yorker’s print lead time.
This is clear when both Anderson and Gladwell ignore the latest analyses of YouTube and its role in its parent company Google’s grander strategy. YouTube’s losses are likely nowhere near as severe as Gladwell portrays. Google can well afford them.
Price-cutting, and giveaways have long been a favoured, and rather unradical, business strategy, as Rupert Murdoch deftly demonstrated in building up the Times in the 1990s. Murdoch, too, knows the power that comes from owning apparently loss-making businesses.
There is a big change coming, and for businesses it isn’t one of the “free” business models that Anderson cheerleads. Content aggregation and distribution is in the process of becoming a global digital utility. The social and political consequences go far beyond pricing and the tech utopianism of Anderson. The point Gladwell makes in passing is in fact the most important – in whose interest will that distribution process work?
There is nothing free about server farms. Google’s digital factories may be hidden in Iowa and Finland but their management lies at the heart of its success. And in the meantime that success is having an impact on content creation at the micro-level. Yes, the writer. There is something very old-fashioned about a literary dispute.
Anderson makes – reportedly – a couple of million dollars a year in speaking fees. Gladwell has re-invented the book promotional tour as a paid-for event. A ticket to see Malcolm Gladwell Live! costs more than the book that the show notionally promotes.
So if the Anderson/Gladwell debate has a future, it’s one in which you’ll pay for ringside tickets to see them engaging in the intellectual equivalent of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation or, to be kinder, heavyweight boxing.
And perhaps a little feuding might add to the showmanship. Don King could probably advise. Still, live performance is once again a business model for writers. There might even be a book in it.
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Free for all?
July 1st, 2009 |
No Comments
The debate about media revenue models is certainly creating revenue for some content – the thoughts of pop culture theorists
If you want to deepen your confusion over the future revenue models for media content, then look no further than the staging of the paradoxical debate between pop culture theorists Chris Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell.
Gladwell’s review, commissioned and published in a magazine you have to buy, is freely available online. Its subject, Anderson’s book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, could equally have been titled $26.99: The Price of Hardback Hyperbole. There’s nothing “free” about it, except perhaps its composition. Anderson has already had to apologise for lifting unattributed chunks of Free from Wikipedia including, irony upon irony, the entry on “free lunch”.
But the battlefield for this looking-glass war is the pricing of information, or what everyone is now obliged to call content. Information wants to be free, says Anderson, who elevates it to a principle, and says that free will be the business model of the 21st century.
Gladwell says information doesn’t know what it wants, but digital corporations do, and they want information to be free (from publishers and content creators) in order to make more money.
One of the examples of Anderson’s “free” thesis is YouTube:
All those random videos on YouTube are just dandelion seeds in search of fertile ground on which to land. In a sense, we’re ‘wasting video’ in search of better video, exploring the potential space of what the moving picture can be.
Still, as Anderson admits and Gladwell takes pleasure in ramming home, YouTube doesn’t seem to make money from the new “free” business model.
Anderson’s book began cooking before the credit crunch took hold. For a new media dispute this one doesn’t just founder on irony. It also plays out in the past. Anderson’s Free has all the limitations of a timely book which was dated almost before publication. Gladwell’s review was commissioned on the New Yorker’s print lead time.
This is clear when both Anderson and Gladwell ignore the latest analyses of YouTube and its role in its parent company Google’s grander strategy. YouTube’s losses are likely nowhere near as severe as Gladwell portrays. Google can well afford them.
Price-cutting, and giveaways have long been a favoured, and rather unradical, business strategy, as Rupert Murdoch deftly demonstrated in building up the Times in the 1990s. Murdoch, too, knows the power that comes from owning apparently loss-making businesses.
There is a big change coming, and for businesses it isn’t one of the “free” business models that Anderson cheerleads. Content aggregation and distribution is in the process of becoming a global digital utility. The social and political consequences go far beyond pricing and the tech utopianism of Anderson. The point Gladwell makes in passing is in fact the most important – in whose interest will that distribution process work?
There is nothing free about server farms. Google’s digital factories may be hidden in Iowa and Finland but their management lies at the heart of its success. And in the meantime that success is having an impact on content creation at the micro-level. Yes, the writer. There is something very old-fashioned about a literary dispute.
Anderson makes – reportedly – a couple of million dollars a year in speaking fees. Gladwell has re-invented the book promotional tour as a paid-for event. A ticket to see Malcolm Gladwell Live! costs more than the book that the show notionally promotes.
So if the Anderson/Gladwell debate has a future, it’s one in which you’ll pay for ringside tickets to see them engaging in the intellectual equivalent of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation or, to be kinder, heavyweight boxing.
And perhaps a little feuding might add to the showmanship. Don King could probably advise. Still, live performance is once again a business model for writers. There might even be a book in it.
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Google wins search defamation case
Internet giant Google wins landmark high court libel ruling over forum comment displayed in search results
Google is not liable for defamatory comments that appear in news articles, blogs and forums displayed in its search results, a high court judge in London has concluded in a landmark ruling for UK defamation law.
The case, against Google’s US and UK operations, had been brought by London-based Metropolitan International Schools.
MIS runs distance learning courses in games development under the name Train2Game. MIS launched legal action over comments on the forum of a website that it claimed were defamatory and that appeared in Google’s search results.
The company claimed that Google was liable as a publisher of defamatory comments. Google responded that it has no responsibility for the words and comments.
Mr Justice Eady ruled in a judgment in the high court on Friday that Google was a “facilitator” and not a publisher of the content.
“When a snippet is thrown up on the user’s screen in response to his search, it points him in the direction of an entry somewhere on the web that corresponds, to a greater or lesser extent, to the search terms he has typed in,” Eady said. “It is for him to access or not, as he chooses. [Google] has merely, by the provision of its search service, played the role of a facilitator.”
An analysis of the decision by the lawyers Pinsent Masons also noted that the ruling said the Google was not liable as a publisher of defamatory comments even in cases where it had been told that its search results contained potentially libellous comments.
However, Eady did say that Google has a responsibility to block or take down content if it is notified with a legitimate complaint about libellous material.
Struan Robertson, a lawyer at Pinsent Masons, said that this was the first judicial analysis of search engine liability for defamation under UK law. “It is undoubtedly a brilliant result for Google and other search engines,” Robertson concluded.
“We are pleased with this result, which reinforces the principle that search engines aren’t responsible for content that is published on third-party websites,” said a spokeman for Google.
“Mr Justice Eady made clear if someone feels they have been defamed by material on a website then they should address their complaint to the person who actually wrote and published the material, and not a search engine, which simply provides a searchable index of content on the internet,” the spokesman added.
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