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Friction Is Fiction

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Friction Is Fiction Friction is Fiction Futurist Gerd Leonhard’s best Essays, Writings & Blog Posts May 2010 Black & White Edition 3.0 (constantly updated since January 2008) www.mediafuturist.com [email protected] Twitter.com/gleonhard www.gerdtube.net (videos) www.thefuturesagency.com Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution License: Gerd Leonhard Mediafuturist.com 1 The Future of Content: Protection is in the Business Model not in Technology If I received a dollar every time I get a question along the lines of "how can the content industries compete with FREE?" -- I would be traveling first class every- where I go. Underneath this question I often find my favorite toxic assumption: "less control over distribution means less money." This belief is as tired as it is poisonous: en- forcing control (when trust is really what's needed) will yield instant disengagement, which swiftly and surely will translate into dwindling revenues -- as the music industry keeps proving again and again. If you believe in control rather than value and trust, the con- tent business of the future is not a good hunt- ing ground for you. Take eBooks: despite clear and present proof that DRM has proven disastrous in selling digital music (and now is pretty much history), technical protection measures are still being looked at to 'secure distribution'. When will they ever learn? The thinking that the digital distribution of content must be controlled to achieve any kind of reasonable payment is fundamentally flawed because of this not-so- futuristic realization: in our open, mobile, social and digitally networked economy, content publishers need to offer their goods in a way that no longer centers on the distribution of units (digital or physical) as the key revenue factor. The idea of just selling copies is toast - selling (i.e. offering) access is where the money is. Kevin Kelly said it years ago: we must sell what can't be copied, what's scarce, not what is ubiquitous. The irrefutable trend is that the window of opportunity of 'selling copies' (be it iTunes, eMusic, the Kindle or the iPad) is rapidly closing. The real opportunity, the TeleMedia Future, is in selling access and presenting a constant stream of up-sells (i.e. added values and offering content-related experiences). Remember, as Mark McLaughlin so righly pointed out in the HuffingtonPost recently, con- sumers have never really paid for content - they paid for distribution! And now, distribution means Attention and Access. Imagine when buying access to eBooks, you wouldn't just pay for the authorized enjoyment of the authors' words, but you would also gain instant access to highly curated and socially-networked commentary, a fire-hose of meta-content pro- vided by your most important peers and friends that may also be reading these books, and their ratings, explanations, slide-shows, images, links, videos, cross- references -- and maybe even some direct connections with the author or the publisher. In an access-based, bundled and cloud-centric content ecology, being a legitimate and authorized user enables engagement, conversation, relevance, personalization, meaning... i.e. it unlocks really valuable benefits for the user. Connect with Fans + Reasons to Buy (as has been mentioned on this blog a few times, before, I believe) - that's where the money is. In music, streaming-on-demand will without a doubt be available 'for free' (i.e. bundled and packaged by 3rd parties) or advertising supported, while many added values above and beyond the mere reproduction of music will not - no Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution License: Gerd Leonhard Mediafuturist.com 2 matter whether WMG's CEO Edgar Bronfman thinks it's a good idea 'for the in- dustry' or not. Just imagine where an access-to-the-cloud model could go next: if I want a high- definition version of my favorite opera or that Blue Note Jazz Club concert from last night I could buy a premium package that provides it. If I want to share my personal play-lists, ratings and comments with my Facebook friends, and get ac- cess to their content, as well, I can add the 'social network option' to my package. If the price is right (micro-transactions, anyone...?), I'll buy - because I am al- ready hooked on the music. The music industry needs to ask itself this question: if a permanent, unprotected download of a song would cost only $0.10, or if an ad-supported version of a on- demand, all-you-can-eat music service would be seamlessly bundled into your mobile phone subscription - would anyone still bother to scour the web to find badly ripped, virus-laced tracks for free? Would we need 3-Strikes or HADOPI or Digital Economy Bills? Yes, I know, that price point sounds ridiculous for those record label CEOs that used to sell CDs for 15-25 Euros a piece, but hang on a second: if they can get 95% of the users to buy access at a much lower price (and almost zero cost of duplication and distribution!), and in that process really engage with them, the fans would also do the marketing for them - i.e. share the links. Sounds like a great model to me. But of course: selling access at a much lower (or feels-like- free) price to quite literally everyone only makes sense if it actually connects di- rectly and smoothly to a multitude of up-selling possibilities, such as interactive versions of eBooks, high-definition versions of online radio shows, albums or concerts, in-depth analysis and audio/video commentary for news, etc. Now, content storage is starting to move from my own computer or my hard- drives into the cloud - and I think this is very good news for content creators, pub- lishers and rights-holders because it makes it even easier to engage and up-sell to those new generatives. Crucially, the answer to the constant quest of moneti- zation is also in the cloud: I believe most people will soon stop sharing the actual media files (since they are getting increasingly larger and larger, and therefore more unwieldy) and will share only the links, the bookmarks, the metadata or the tags, and that should be a boon for the content industries. The perfect test bed for 'Media as a Service' (MaaS) may unfold soon, with Ap- ple's new iPad or Google's Tablet (hopefully). Extending the concepts mentioned above, rather than blocking my wife or my kids from sharing an eBook with me it would be much more logical if I could easily read her book, as well; but beyond the 'copy of the words' all else would not be available without a micro-transaction on my part, i.e. I would not have instant access to the cool video clips, the up- dated links, the footnotes, the ratings, etc; i.e. all that valuable context that will make eBooks so much more powerful would be out of my reach until I validate my own access. The bottom line: content sharing isn't the real problem: high price points, out- moded, pre-web toll-booth concepts, broken relationships and processes, low values for high prices, bad technology and service, and utter lack of conversation and engagement are. Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution License: Gerd Leonhard Mediafuturist.com 3 Here is my message to publishers and content owners: lower the prices for ac- cess to your content to the point of unanimous excitement, use open standards and technology platforms that work for everyone, everywhere; bundle and pack- age as attractively as you can (then: repeat). Team up with ISPs, mobile opera- tors, advertisers and device makers. Remove all the reasons that your users may have to avoid your new toll-booths and skip the desired conversion to 'paid' - the lower the hurdle for legitimate us- age and paid engagement, the higher the added values, the less you will have to worry about 'competing with free'. My iPhone & Android mobile apps: pay what you think it's worth! 2 weeks ago, I launched my free iPhone app, followed by the Android ver- sion just a few days ago, powered by MobileRoadie in LA. Now that I am very close to the first 1000 downloads I wanted to share how I intend to 'charge' for the apps and the exclusive content that I plan to make available there. So here it goes... as you may have noticed, almost all of my content is free, including this blog's full RSS feed, 65+ slideshows, 100+ videos, most of my books & PDFs, and, for now, the new iPhone and Android mobile apps. I make a living with speaking engage- ments, keynotes, think-tank events and seminars, advisory work, CEO coaching ses- sions, and various other, mostly fun things; and I am indeed very privileged to really en- joy my work and make a living at the same time (an usual combination, I hear). I want to continue to provide you with lots of great and free content even though many (if not most) people have suggested that I should start charging upfront for my content. However, instead of going down the road of requiring you to 'pay before you get' my content, i.e. to pay for my apps via iTunes or the Android Mar- ket I have decided to deploy my own version of the often-cited 'Radiohead Model' (borrowed from the group's (in-)famous approach to selling their music for 'what- ever you think it's worth'), i.e. you will continue to receive a lot of stuff for free but yes, you can indeed make a payment if you like what I do.
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