content vs object - short version.

When digital information storage and transfer became the norm, businesses (really, almost all of us) made the same, erroneous assumption: that the content was the value, and the object was waste.

As in, music = product, CD = trash.  Or book = trash, story = product.  The problem with this, however, is that purchase is about the transfer of ownership.  People like to buy things they can gain ownership of.  It's hard to feel like you own a digital file, even as you enjoy the text or the music.

Most of us bought into the glorious lie of the internet age, the belief that production costs would plummet, that even at reduced prices income would skyrocket.  We forgot that the cost of a book included a durable, attractive copy on your shelf for as long as you like.

In the past, the only way to transfer information without physical form was a mixture of senses and memory.  The only way you could charge for this, was to charge for the time of the person re-telling.  Charging for performance, you will note, still works.

Digital information equates to augmented memory.  Charging for it is counter-intuitive, if you think about it.

look to the webcomics.

I've been reading webcomics for about a decade, now, and every year I get more convinced that no one has figured out the new economic reality better than webcomic creators.  And I'm not talking about the Penny Arcade level death-star goldmine webcomic creators.  I'm talking about the one-and-two person operations, and the 'collectives'.

I'm not arguing it's an endless goldmine.  I'm just saying that a notable number of hardworking, talented artists are making a living on their creativity.  I'm not an expert or an insider, but I am impressed.

Business models I've observed include donations, subscriptions, advertising, sponsored content, but mostly a mixture of some of the above with merchandise sales (books, tshirts, tote bags).

All of this comes down to three stages: Make something good. Give it away. Offer the people who care about it a way to support you, and to own a piece of something they have come to love.

This can be merchandise sales (the Topatoco army wins at this, in my opinion), or donations (which have supported Something Positive for a couple of years now, if I'm not mistaken), or most recently, beautiful handcrafted books, sold at a well-justified premium (a la Dresden Codak.)

The important thing is the understanding of the new model of business.  It works the same as a new relationship - you give something of value, because you want to.  Because you love it.  Not with an expectation of return.

If you give something that enough people value, then they will give back, not only to support you, but to own a piece of what you've created.  To pull a little more of something they love into their lives, whether as a status object, or as a reminder that this thing they love exists.

The best part? Commerce has another layer of separation from the art.  The art is created to be art, to build a following, and to show something of value.  When the art is created to build a connection, there's no need to water it down - you want something that people will be connected to, not just unoffended by.  Selling tshirts doesn't diminish the art of a cartoonist, web or otherwise.  It separates the art from the product.

[Seriously, read webcomics.  The quality, humour and consistency of these people is clearly the biggest element of the success they've had thus far.  You will not regret it.]

open standards vs. proprietary formats.

I don't buy clothes online.  I love clothes, and buying things online is cheaper and more efficient, generally.  But, sizes aren't standard, and I need my clothes to fit me properly.  So, generally, I buy things in person.  Sizes could easily be standard, but a mixture of appeals to vanity, and lack of rigorous agreed-upon meanings, is the current system.

It's the same deal with web browsers, as came up in a recent conversation.  They don't all read the same code in the same way.  A page might be programmed to say one thing, but when you get there, you see another.  On a wider scale, you can see why this would appeal to some companies - a closed process, or a proprietary one, combined with other market advantages (popularity, some unmatched feature) can equal dominance.  This is the same logic as one retailer making size 40 jeans labelled 34.

But when everyone does it, and there is a wide marketplace of comparable products each using the same system with different meanings, the industry in question is inherently fragmented.  This can result in greater brand loyalty, but only as a form of stockholm syndrome.

Proprietary systems make you, and your competitors wrong at least some of the time.  There's no incompatibility that doesn't go both ways.

So I have to go into the store to buy my pants.  Which means I keep buying my pants from the same places, because there is less inscentive to find new places, and have to learn the meanings behind each label there.

Open standards only seem like a bad idea if you can't understand the basic tenet of enlightened self interest - making your entire industry / ecosystem / world better inevitably makes things better for you.  It also lets you compete on something other than entrenched market position, which is always transient.

the unrestrained data shadow.

A discussion with Angus of Ghostrazor about the point of Halo novels got me thinking. I support brand extension, and building a larger history to interact with, but do I support the creation of stand-alone consumables that exist expressly for this purpose? I'm still trying to figure out where I stand.

The example that came up was Star Wars, and how the expansion of the universe through games, comics, novels, action figures, etc, is what kept the brand strong until Lucas released episode one - three, and ruined all of it. Unquestionably, there was a lot of crap involved in that endless stream of product, but it served a purpose - films that were decades old remained relevant, discussed, and in possession of a fandom that is hard to argue with. That fandom is a pretty solid justification for why most sci-fi or action films immediately have a companion novel, video game, and graphic novel waiting on store shelves at release.

The part that I'm not so sold on is the apparent irrelevance of quality, or 'fit', to the benefit of this enterprise. I'd argue that Halo doesn't have enough plot, or character depth, for a novel to be of real value. I think webisodes, or ARG, or even comics could make an excellent extension of the brand, but I assume a Halo novel ignores the only non-character of note the franchise created (Master Chief) and sets up a completely separate group of characters, dealing with alien war on ring-shaped worlds. There's nothing inherent in the book that makes it connected to Halo, other than the cover. There's not really justification, excepting the value of brand extensions in building a dedicated fandom.

What depressed me, is that brand dilution isn't really a worry with creative properties like video games, because everyone already accepts and expects the cash-grab extensions like novels, regardless of how crappy. The quality of the core property carries it, as long as the fandom is 1) slightly underground, and 2) not too critical.

I include those caveats because, well, Tom Clancy. The man has written several solid books, but now his name (and brand) is pasted on anything, because someone will buy it. In my circles, at least, this has made Tom Clancy a joke. I'm wondering how much longer until brand expansion is something carefully considered, because any sub-par offering, anything done only for the financial return, will discredit an entire product line.

I think we've already reached this point in music, because there is an (absurd) expectation of authenticity in that medium. When will crap like the 24 magazine, the Lost magazine, the Heroes Magazine, novels, etc, be abandoned, because the potential influx of cash isn't worth the risk of the brand becoming more known for it's endless desire for easy money, than for the creatively viable core product.

Context is great and powerful, but injecting crap into the mix to increase the data shadow is, to me, the same as re-writing the core product to make it worse.

persona management: wal-mart.

Wal-Mart, to put it bluntly, has an image problem. Sure, they offer great selection, and prices that are difficult to match. But they also exemplify the sheer force that a dominant business model can exert over all related industry. Wal-Mart knows that people think of it as an evil, faceless corporation.

And, because the standard solution to a corporate issue is whatever the big trend was 10 months ago, they have turned to blogging. They've even made the big step, and moved to a more transparent model, because 'The lesson seemed clear: Create an authentic blog or do not create a blog at all.'

Authenticity, in practice, means persona management. But no one wants to admit that, because the whole point is making the enterprise seem guileless.

While Wal-Mart has made the important distinction that some actual transparency has a positive effect on the overall image, what's embarrassing is that the IHT has bought in whole-heartedly. This isn't a daring stunt, or a reversal of corporate policy. This is the same thing as buying a bunch of rainforest and declaring it a reserve, while clear-cutting in B.C.

It looks like a job half done, from my perspective. A better, more curated experiment, would have the bloggers ('authentically', but generally nicely) comment on issues in the Wal-Mart store, and business model. Certain issues could be hilighted, and then the company could take into account employee/blogger input, and make actual changes to the way the business works.

Obviously, the greater model couldn't be changed. And some of the alterations would, of course, be nothing more than lip service. But it would fight allegations of empty talk, and would more or less guarantee a spread of awards and cover stories about Wal-Mart moving beyond market dominance, and now creating a shared culture between the business and the people who make it great, both inside and outside the store.

The glowing coverage, however, is an excellent example of why persona management, or artificial (curated) transparency is a good plan. Social media is unavoidable, if you want a meaningful media strategy. And artfully curated work is substantially more beloved than 'thinly veiled extensions of Wal-Mart's public-relations department'.

Both links are to the International Herald Tribute story mentioned above. This post directly dovetails the artificial persona and transparency: revisited.

adbusters, authenticity, and the inherent insult.

Kalle Lasn thinks everyone is a moron.

Reading his most recent editorial, where he states "Suddenly, people are waking up in droves from the dreamland of corporate cool. We’re realizing that ever since we were little babies crawling around the TV sets in our living rooms, we’ve been lied to, propagandized, and told incessantly, day after day, that we can find happiness through consumption. That’s why, like rats in a Skinner box, we’ve kept on pressing that BUY button – millions of us marching in lockstep, all dreaming the same consumerist dream." it becomes clear that he thinks we're all morons. Lasn, and the entire ethos behind Adbusters, buys into the idea that 'authenticity' is something that the chosen few counterculture warriors can understand and identify, and that the rest of us are so worn down by advertising that we cannot possibly understand it.

If you've been reading for a minute, you know that I think the concept of authenticity, as it applies to consumerism, is really code for 'continues-to-represent-consumer-identity-over-time'. The same concept can be applied to music, as bands 'sell out' when they stop being a signifier for the kind of identity that the fan wants to project.

I would submit that the assumption that authenticity is like taste, and only a certain, dashing, revolutionary few can locate it, is a bigger endorsement of the capitalist mindset than anything else. Adbusters advocates consumer action, a lifestyle, and more or less a uniform (blackspot sneakers, a no blood for oil pin, and a keffiyeh) in it's fan base. And it tells you to do this because it is supposed to suggest you are better than other people. This is the core of the suggestion that everyone else (who isn't buying the magazine) is being duped.

The idea that consumers don't realize the separation between the corporately created and the 'authentic' offends me. Because it's the companies that lose touch with consumer needs that fail, and it's the ones that identify a niche and change with it that succeed. But anyone who assumes that the consumer, that the society is composed of mindless sheep should, and will eventually fail hard.

But Kalle Lasn thinks that everyone who doesn't agree with his interpretation of capitalist culture is an idiot. And people keep looking to him for ideas on how to kill this dominant culture that only tricks the unlucky morons who don't see the truth available to his chosen few.

music is already free

Dear Music Industry,

There's something you need to understand, and you don't seem to be getting it. Someone has to tell you, and they have to say it in no uncertain terms.

Stop arguing that music cannot be free. Stop it. It doesn't matter what your justification is, whether it's that the Radiohead model (as it is apparently now known) devalues music for other, less wealthy bands, or whether it's just plain thievery, and nothing else should matter, it's irrelevant.

I'll say it slowly, because I'm obviously not talking to the smart kids: MUSIC. IS. ALREADY. FREE.

We can't go back in time. Bandwidth and Compression made Apple a force in it's industry again. These technological changes made file sharing reasonable. And it made free plausible, not as a business model, but as a reality that cannot be ignored.

It doesn't matter if you can't work your old business model in a world where music is free. It doesn't matter if you feel it devalues your work. It doesn't matter if you think this paradigm only rewards the ultra rich, or those with a dedicated fan base who will spend money without needing to, or whether it just plain bothers you.

Music is already free. The genie is not going back in the bottle, because the holy triumvirate of bittorrent, bandwidth, and compression all have legitimate uses. And not in the NRA style 'guns are for protection, too' legitimate use, but there are entire business models that are only viable due to these innovations.

Music is free. You can't change that, you have to work with it. Radiohead decided that might be an idea - ACCEPTING REALITY - and hoping that, considering it would leak anyway, a portion of fans would be willing to give them a couple of bucks for something that, within minutes of release, WAS FREE ANYWAY.

I'm sorry that a lot of people, Music Industry, are caught in a transitional period where old ways are failing and new ways are undefined. I'm sorry that old revenue streams are falling by the wayside. I'm sorry that so many of you equate changing sources of money with doom.

But it doesn't matter if I'm sorry.

Because music is already free, and you can't change that will anything, even an endless parade of frivolous lawsuits.

With more than a modicum of disappointment,

The Broken Gentleman

i know, i know...

I am a terrible blogger. I've been working on a post on Helio's latest campaign for about 3 weeks, but I just haven't had the time what with renovations at home, and work, and upcoming crazy media event season type stuff.

But I have to make a simple comment on the new iPod touch - they are going to make a pile of money.

Things that sucked about the iPhone: U.S. only, AT&T only, no 3G, apparently unimpressive phone features.

Things that are still an issue on the iPod touch: no 3G, but it's a wi-fi iPod, not a goddamn phone, quit bitching.

Does it replace an iPod classic? Not in the least. First off, I can't imagine it'll be easy to use blind, and second, anyone with a 16 GB music / movie collection is not taking advantage of their hard drive space effectively. This is an additive product, and it speaks directly to the reptile brain of everyone who 1) really, really wanted an iPhone and 2) didn't care so much about the phone part.

I have a feeling this is a sector even larger than the people who were counting on Stevie J to save them from the tyrrany of Nokia, or whatever.

Time to start saving. Time to figure out what 16 GB of content is most essential for me to have at all times.

Time to swear to never, ever buy music at a Starbucks, just because it's the album or single of the month.

addressing my laziness.

For once, my radio silence isn't about looking for work. I'm currently putting in some intern time, and as such, haven't really had as much time as I'd like for things like brokengent.

But, I'm still posting when I can, and readying a few comments and statements about Pownce (hint; I compare it to livejournal).

Still, I want to draw your attention to two things.

One, is a post of the Freakonomics blog, asking a simple and powerful question, 'How well would the concept of libraries go over today?'

This is an important question to ask, because to me, the library is one of the low-tech examples of the kind of freedoms that digital information isn't really allowed to have, at least according to some corporations and representative bodies that push hard for tighter copyright laws. Is the library a good thing? I hope most people would argue yes. Is it an example of societal benefit being put before the concerns of an industry? Obviously. (This is the part where you wonder why that is supposedly a bad thing.)

Thing two is a company called 'Subvert & Profit', who's raison d'etre is selling influence on the Digg community, and trying to get advertisers on the front page.

I was listening to the CBC yesterday, and someone pointed out that there had been definite tension between market supporters, and those who were, if not anti-market, than pushing for an alternative to total market dominance. Obviously, the market won. This is why revolutions are so consistently profitable; the concept of revolution only exists within the market. Every revolution is really just a new product that changes the status of old products when it is introduced.

Social networks, user generated content, the blogosphere, whatever. It's revolutionary, yes, but it is also, at core, a new paradigm in a market framework. Everything is a medium through which to create a product. Everything will be, at some point, made into an attempt to turn a profit.

[To anyone who thinks this sounds dystopian, you are living in the wrong civilisation. Try harder next time.]