Sam Walton’s wife’s deal with Sam when they got married was that he could do whatever he wanted - he wanted to be a retailer - but she would never live in a community that had more than 10,000 people. So his constraint was to build an epochal retail system but in the boonies. Look at what he accomplished with this as a restraint! He also found on his path that being in the boonies also gave him a defence against the huge competitors such as Kmart and Sears. No one took someone who worked in the boonies seriously. That is until it was too late!
My point is that, no matter what you think of WalMart now, that we are predjudiced about the boonies. Smart people in all fields - not the least in Social Media - tend to have a big city bias. We too often over look the boonies and those that live and work there - how could they affect us? We all know that you have to be in the big city to know what is really going on. Of course that is why Warren Buffett is the richest man in the world!
My story today is about a man that you likely have never heard of - who lives and works in a small town that you also may never have heard of. We can never know today if he may become the Sam Walton or the Warren Buffett of media, but my bet is that if he does not then someone like him will be.
My bet is that at the heart of the real social media revolution is that if we do indeed move to a networked world then small communities will be able to stand toe to toe with the big cities.
Meet Brian Hurlburt who lives in Yarmouth Nova Scotia a small port on the southern tip of the province where the high speed ferry comes in from Portland. Brian owns a runs a Web “Something” (Yarmouthcounty.com) that tells the aggregated story of everything that happens in Yarmouth. I call it a web “something” because it is more than a web site - it is closer to the old style of really local newspaper that you might see in a western.
Until Brian, everyone had ignored Yarmouth. The fact that the domain was available told Brian that no one cared. The Province did not care - Yarmouth is off the radar in Halifax. Tourists from the US got off the ferry and drive through town and onto other more exotic places that were better known. (Nothing is really exotic in Atlantic Canada but you know what I mean) The B & B’s were all separated and isolated and could not get their message out. So were all the social groups such as Church groups. Small business struggled to get noticed and worried about maybe a WalMart coming to town. The social capital of Yarmouth was draining away. At some point, it would no longer be a community at all.
So who is Brian Hulrburt? Is he some flash young techhie? No Brian is a regular guy who knew next to nothing about the web. Everything he now knows about how the web works he has learned by trial and error. All the fears that a church or a B & B may have about the web - he has experienced himself.
Fear is the great barrier that we all have of the new. So how Brian learned and how he is - an open and vulnerable man - is an important key to his success in bringing so many parts of his community together online. He can describe what has to be done in language and in a tone that does not judge or appear mysterious.
He also did not try and monetize the site until it was ready. He had faith that if he was able to reach a critical mass that the money would come. So he also did not carry a lot of costs himself. He could not afford to have costs involved that would force him to force the economics before the time was right.
Is this not the Craigslist model?
What he has been able to do is to aggregate the life of Yarmouth online. Aggregation in a safe and trusted place is going to be one of the key value creation processes in a world of infinite content. By not pushing the economics he has built the trust and now “owns” the space.
The underlying metrics are also emerging that will drive an economic model that benefits not just Brian but all those who inhabit the site.
In 2007 the site had 100,000 visits. Not hits, over 1 1/2 million of those, but real visits. Because of the power of aggregation, all those that live on the site have now access to al this traffic that they could never have reached on their own. The local paper reaches about 20-30,000. So Brian is reaching more and at a fraction of the cost of the paper. He also enables a growing interaction between all parties which is not possible in a paper.
This is more than Google Local or Craigslist - this is a personal aggregation that includes a filtering that is part Brian and part the client. It can therefore be trusted more than a simple mechanical aggregation. It will over time therefore have more value than a simple algorithm.
A growing part of what Brian can now offer his family of clients is the kind of measurement that conventional advertising cannot. Brian is becoming expert in analytics.
Here I think is part of the core of the new economic model. Mass Marketing needed a mass market as there was so much leakage. With no precision possible, as in WWII, only area bombing was possible. So what could a small place do like Yarmouth. Their feeble sums of money wouldn’t even be noise in the larger scheme of trying to get noticed. What Brian can offer is precision - the Long Tail in action. A B & B can see exactly who it is reaching online and can adjust to get a better focus and hence result.
This will kill the mass media alternatives. Niche + precision = high return.
For me the lessons that I have gained from looking at Brian are these:
Niche is where the energy is - the Value will be on the right hand side of the Long Tail
Aggregation around niche is where the value is - the more personal the better
Precision about what happens in the aggregated niche is what drives the economics and the return
Power will shift from the large and diffused to the small and concentrated
I asked Brian “where is it going?” He replied by saying that “The web is changing the world. It is helping us help each other again. We can take charge of our own lives again. I want to be part of this.”
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The other day I was driving with my 16-year-old at a certain speed down the highway. We needed to get her to her new job at the pizza parlor on time, and were making the usual desultory conversation along the way. She had opened her Macbook and started editing photos taken earlier that day. She was also surfing six or seven radio stations looking for songs she liked, and texting three or four friends.
Suddenly her dispersed attention sort of gathered itself into a rising column of interest. Her neck craned, her body turned, her eyes peered intently as we passed what seemed to me to be a perfectly nondescript van.
“Did you see that?” she said excitedly, adding that the vanity plate said something about Elvis — I’d not noticed. She was peering intently into the van. I tried for a quick look, but entirely missed seeing the driver — a woman, according to my daughter, encumbered by one of those giant hairdos of yore, brilliantly blond, genus fanatica, species elvisia, ca. 1958.
All I saw was the van. All my kid saw was the Elvis attributes — Elvis happens to be one of her longest running crushes — on the license plate and inside. The thing is, given the way her attention had been deployed moments before, I have no idea how it pulled that particular bit of data from the parallel lines of traffic we were passing at 84 mph.
This jogged my memory of a theme surfacing at FASTForward08: How JP Rangaswami, Don Tapscott and others had talked about how multi-tasked kids are, how their synapses seem to have been rewired to do things we can’t do.
We — ok, I – am of the generation of the single node receptor, the seemingly receptive eye/I, waiting idly to be served up something whole to look at, to take in. I turned off my TV off in 2000 and have not looked at it for more than 210 minutes in toto since; nevertheless, I remain a sort of virtual reclined potato, lying in wait for something to actively consume my vacancy.
My daughter and her peers are not like this. They seem constantly pre-occupied, moving between ongoing processes — mySpace, texting, photoshopping, searching — and yet, somehow, they catch more. Not “more” as in all that is going on, and perhaps more worryingly, not more as in the big picture. More within that ambiance that is vital and relevant to their current and ongoing passions and curiosity.
One other thing that seems worth noting: we Boomers are voice-oriented — we listen to voices, discourses, “messages,” till we grow utterly sick of them. Kids excel in tuning voices — and not just those of their parents — out, and in. They instead have selected conversations, not via the paths of the larynx, tongue and ear — exchanges proceeding against a silent, or music-filled, background. The “openness” of the couch potato is not their openness, but they aren’t closed, either. Just differently available.
To address this sort of optative “user,” a mode of address that attempts to fill up all the space with its active, grandstanding, vocal presence is probably not going to get far.
Something moving sidelong and not so showy — less big, less direct, less controlling — might be more suitable. Something decentered, linked to or associated indirectly to what is already moving them.
The battle-cry of this mode of address could be, “It’s the metonymy, stupid!”
Where are these links to be found? In the messiness of what David Weinberger calls the “unowned order” — the unpredictable realm of data and metadata, or, in his metaphor, amid the wild hedgerows before the topiarists arrive — the realm of advanced search.
I should mention that my five-year-old, who has not yet begun to surf, twit, or google, demonstrates thinking and attentional processes that are linear, Aristotelian, and complete. We have great old-fashioned conversations, as humans once did, in the wayback days. It’s pretty cool.
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I have a sister-in-law who just turned 50 who has been until recently remarkably (and determinedly) resistant to online activities. She has basically not ever used the Internet for anything but email, and even that sparingly. Part of her reluctance and resistance is lack of familiarity (beginner’s embarrassment) and the other equally strong aspect has been her clear sense of how online can encroach on or steal time from what many will call "real life".
That there are forms of emergent social isolation and alienation, and addictive behaviours, that have developed as the online world has grwon and spread is irrefutable … just as the number(s) and types (s) of connections and interactions have multiplied and led to interesting behaviours and outcomes.
Back to my sister in law. She is also a very good cook (let’s say amateur gourmet chef) and a talented amateur photographer. As she has grown in her capabilities with a digital camera, she has also gotten more familiar with online environments. Bit by bit, her attitude has been changing. Recently she discovered StumbleUpon, and has almost become an evangelist, taking time out from conversations to show people who visit the interesting things that one can stumble upon just by clicking once. It was also interesting to see her and her girlfriends’ initial reaction to finding people they knew on Facebook.
Slowly and surely, more and more people will use services and tools on the Internet as it weaves its way into and throughout our lives. And as that happens, people will notice more and more the smooth sides and sharp edges of ways this spreading and weaving will impact the ways we live and work .. as will whatever the Cloud becomes.
"2008 is the year that sees Microsoft’s ambitions challenged" is a line halfway through the movie posted below. Eerily prescient, no?
What also seems certain is that even if Microsoft does not acquire Yahoo !, other acquisitions and mergers (and the concomitant convergence and integration) are sure to happen over the next decade
Maybe EPIC 2015 (originally released as EPIC 2014 in 2004 by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson) does not seem so weird or impossible today ?
Today I’d like to offer readers an example of new tools and web services operating in social networks that in my opinion make the concepts and observations in the report come alive. The example involves people using search, content, collaboration and sharing, which are all central elements of the ecosystems of commerce and culture in which we will all be living, working and consuming.
There’s a small company up here in Vancouver, British Columbia (the warm and beautiful part of the Great White North of North America) that develops social networking platforms and customized elearning solutions. The Donat Group is also creating a social music initiative (Project Opus), a part of which involves Mixxmaker, a web service that helps music lovers build playlists collaboratively. Building playlists collaboratively creates a "Social Object", offering people a means of co-creating value around music they like and want to share with others they know.
We all know that the music industry is in real turmoil, and is searching frantically for new business logic and new business models. The major participants have all been under pressure from free downloads, and the price of music is under pressure as never before. Where will additional value, and eventually revenue, come from ?
He also wrote about ‘who’ is involved in the co-creation of this new form of value … or in other words how the market for value associated with songs is being broken up and then co-created anew. Doing this around a playlist that is built in collaboration with others also helps mightily in creating connections and trust, and lays a foundation for putting the dynamics of word-of-mouth marketing into dynamic operation.
It’s important to note here that David and his colleagues at Project Opus and Mixxmaker put a lot of work into staying within the bounds of Fair Use, an all-important consideration when exploring new paradigms for creating (or co-creating in this case) potentially new economic value.
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Once people start building today’s equivalent of albums together with their friends, the changes to the ways music is distributed and acquired will continue to diversify away from purchasing CDs, as David has noted. But people will still want that unusual album cover from the old vinyl days, or the most recent YouTube video clip of a given band’s performance, or a series of photos from Flickr (carrying the appropriate Creative Commons license, to be sure) to add to their own personal collection of digital artefacts about that kind of music, that band, that group of friends .. and so on.
It’s a pity, really, that this fun and easy-to-use capability exists only as a Facebook application at the moment. I seem to be observing a rapidly-growing trend of people turning down invitations to add another Facebook application to their Facebook profile (I am one of those people). While supposedly Mark Zuckerberg is aware of the growing dissatisfaction .. and you’d think the Beacon fiasco was notice enough … it’s hard to shake the sense that Facebook and its partner applications are all really just looking for ways to maximize page views and ad impression.
That, for me, does not fall into the category of decentralized co-creation of value, no matter how you spin it.
But .. I suspect that in the coming months and years we’ll see many more examples of applications and services like Mixxmaker that let and / or help people co-create online things that they care about and enjoy.
Part of the growth of audience for public radio has been the car. For many Americans, commuting can take up between 1 and 2 hours a day. NPR’s key shows Morning Edition and All Things Considered have been designed to meet the demand of thoughtful people who sit alone day after day in traffic. Many of the hosts seem to have become friends - after all for a 4 hour commute, the radio hosts spend more “talk” time with the commuter than any other person.
Until now, the car, like the plane, has been a “Web Free Zone” But all of this is going to change.
At the CES this month, Cars moved onto the spotlight. (AP)
Cars and automotive technologies from startups and established aftermarket makers are abundant at this gadget show. They’re coming in such variety that they encapsulate many of the advances seen elsewhere at CES in cell phones, TVs, video games and wireless Internet networking.
For example, one theme at CES is the development of touch-screen and voice-activated controls for portable devices. Cars are showing that off, too, with systems that let people make phone calls, navigate, choose music and have e-mails read to them without dangerously fumbling for manual controls.
Or look how CES overall is highlighting the widening availability of Internet content. Autonet Mobile Inc. offers a small box for car trunks that takes a cellular broadband signal and uses Wi-Fi to relay it to portable computers in the car, so people can browse the Internet in the vehicle. And while the car is parked near a home wireless network, people can beam music and video content to it for enjoyment on upcoming road trips.
“The car is a lifestyle product,” said Sterling Pratz, Autonet Mobile’s CEO. “It’s not just a car anymore.”
The clock is ticking for the car terrestial radio market. Wifi is not only seen as being key to car entertainment and guidance but also enables the systems in cars to be updated.
One reason for automakers’ increasing comfort is that powerful computers now found in cars can get software updates fired in by wireless networks, letting vendors fix bugs and keep features up to date, said Erik Goldman, president of Hughes Telematics Inc. His company is expected to begin outfitting Chrysler and Mercedes cars with a navigation, entertainment and diagnostics service in 2009.
Another change is that car makers have often sought to differentiate themselves with proprietary electronic systems, like General Motors Corp.’s OnStar, that operate independently from gadgets people regularly use outside the car.
But these days automotive electronics are being more closely integrated with standard Web technologies.
For example, the Hughes Telematics system will include a personal Web portal that lets people remotely lock and unlock their car doors, plan routes, check their auto’s emissions and engine status, select music playlists and even monitor their vehicle’s location.
Increasing ties to the Web could broaden the field of automotive-tech vendors beyond traditional players. Last year, OnStar began working with MapQuest.com, part of Time Warner Inc.’s AOL LLC, so drivers could plan their routes online and send them to the car.
At a CES panel on the interplay between cars and electronics, Eckhard Steinmeier, general manager of BMW’s “Connected Drive” initiative, showed a commercial in which a woman says she wants to investigate sushi options. So she heads out of her house, in the rain, to do a Google search from her Beemer’s dashboard.
Where and how we connect to the web and to each other is becoming ubiquitous. Finding the best interface is therefore shaping up as being very important.
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Hulu.com is an important experiment for how TV will shift from being available only when the broadcaster schedules it to when we want it - Having it My Way!
(From the NYT) Hulu is the new-media creation of two old-media rivals, NBC, which is owned by General Electric, and Fox, owned by the News Corporation. Since March, when the broadcasters announced their joint effort to bring free, ad-supported television shows to the Web, critics have pounced, predicting the venture would be doomed by diverging agendas, technical challenges and an all-powerful enemy: YouTube.
Skeptical bloggers even slapped Hulu with a derisive moniker: “Clown Co.”
Now the defense is ready to present its case.
Today, Hulu, now an independent company with more than a hundred employees and its own offices in Los Angeles, will begin privately testing its new service with select users at Hulu.com. It will also begin sending its videos to the sites of five distribution partners, Microsoft, AOL, MySpace, Yahoo and Comcast.
Hulu is presenting select episodes of some 90 television shows, including new and old programs from NBC (“The Office,” “The A-Team”), Fox (“24” and “The Simpsons”) and an assortment of smaller broadcasters like USA Networks. It has also added two new partners, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which distributes programs like “Chapelle’s Show” and “Reno 911,” and Sony Pictures Television, which will make selections in its archives like “I Dream of Jeannie,” available on Hulu.com.
All the shows are viewable inside a Web browser and festooned with advertisements.
However Hulu works out - they are on a track that is clear - people want video as they ant their music:
Easy to find
Available in chunks
Available ON THE WEB - when they want it and usable on a variety of platforms such as an iPod and a 50inch HD LCD screen
Who pays and how will still be settled.
Also what I think Hulu has missed is the value of creating community around a show - this is Hugh’s great insight about Social Objects - it is the Conversation around the object that is more important than the object.
3. The Blue Monster wine is also part of the “Smarter Wine” conversation. The main thesis is that it’s not the wine per se that is interesting, it’s the conversations that happen around the wine that is interesting. And that is true for all social objects. People matter. Objects don’t.
The advertising money is shifting to the web - so will the content - it will go there faster than we imagine. For the laws of exponetial growth are in force. I think that the Tipping point is here:
I think that Broadcast TV is now in the Titanic Mode - It is large and feels unsinkable - BUT - the ship has grazed the ice - at the moment no one feels anything - but the wound is fatal and it is only a matter of time before the ship sinks.
The Iceberg is the weight of money that is leaving conventional media and going to the web. My forecast is that 2008 will be the year - 2008 will be the year where the web/digital will become where the ad money will go - the work for all providers of all types of content then will be to reset their universe.
Today most people in TV and radio see the web as a growing and important channel. In 2008, the smart people will see the web as the primary channel and that their old channel is now the supporting channel. Of course most will not see this and they will be lucky to find a life boat.
You think I exaggerate? Here is Chris Anderson on the “Music Industry” I quote him in full:
At a speech last week I was asked a question that has come up every day since the Radiohead (and Madonna, NIN, Prince, etc, etc) announcement: What’s going to happen to the music industry?
To which I answered “Which music industry?” You don’t mean just the one that sells CDs, do you? Because it’s a big mistake to equate the major labels and their plastic disc business with the industry as a whole. Indeed, when you stand back and look at all of music, things don’t look so bad at all.
Indeed, it appears that every single part of the music industry except the sale of compact discs is up.
And, if you include the iPod in the music industry, as I’d argue a fair-minded analysis would: UP, UP, UP! (+31% this year)
Only CDs are down (-18%). They’re around 60% of the industry not including the MP3 players, but just around 25% if you do include them.
So the problem with the music labels is not that music is an industry in decline, but that they have a too-narrow view of what business they’re in. Madonna’s switch from a label to a concert promoter should be a clue. This quote from an excellent article (it’s worth reading it all) in Entertainment Weekly says it all:
”Soon a lot of these companies won’t define themselves as record companies,” says Steve Greenberg, the former head of Columbia Records who now runs the independent record company S-Curve. ”They’ll define themselves as artist development companies. If you’re involved in an entire career with an artist, then everyone’s interests can be aligned.”
I think most music will soon be free, as artists give away the product as marketing for their performances and licensing, and as a celebrity accelerant that creates more opportunities to make money than just from the sale of a record.
And for those who say that this avenue is only available to artists at the head of the curve, such as Madonna and Radiohead, I’d point out that the other group poorly served by the labels are those at the bottom of the curve, the many thousands of bands who fall below the radar of the hit-driven majors. I’d argue that they, too, have nothing to lose by letting their music go free, nothing to lose but the prospect of becoming indentured to companies stuck in last century’s model of monetizing music.
Most people see TV and Radio like the people who make CD’s. All the forces that are turning the music industry upside down are coming to TV and Radio - for after all - a video and an audio file are the same as music - they are in reality all digital now.
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This site is a companion blog to the FASTforward conference and summit series and is sponsored by FAST. The blog, like the conference series, aims to drive and deepen conversation about how today’s companies can use technology to place users in control of information, and is home to ongoing discussion about the user revolution and Enterprise 2.0 opportunities and challenges. More info here...
