Attention is the new currency is one of my favorite memes. So: simply tweet about my 2009 book Music 2.0 (even if you already have it, in print or as PDF) and receive the link to the free download. Use this link to PAY WITH A TWEET and spread the word. If you really must get a dead-tree edition, the print version can be ordered via my bookstore at Lulu.com
About Music 2.0 (from the free mobile site): "This book was self-published in 2009 and is an edited collection of my best essays on the future of the music industry, and continues the work I presented in my first book, The Future of Music, co-written with Dave Kusek. It further describes what I think the next generation of music companies will actually look like – hence the term Music 2.0, a description derived from the now increasingly popular “Web 2.0.” I have been writing and blogging about digital music and the next generation of the music industry for almost four years now – in airplanes, taxis, trains, busses, hotel lobbies, conference halls, and at home. In Internet time (and it certainly feels that way to me), this is almost forever! In many ways my message and my opinions may have evolved a bit but the bottom lines and visions have not changed a whole lot.
Looking back at some 1,000 blog posts and over 20 essays it is evident that by far the most often covered subject is indeed what I (and many other people – I make no claim to having invented this moniker!) have come to call Music 2.0, the new principles that define the next iteration of the music business. All of this is also closely connected with a few other terms that I have co-coined and have come to be associated with: Music Like Water (MLW), the Flat Rate for Music, Feels Like Free (FLF), the Usator, Friction is Fiction, and the People Formerly Known As Consumers. In this book, I aim to just fine-tune the best of my writings from the past four years, while not altering the content too much, in order to preserve the timeliness and context of when it was actually written..."
You can also read the book on pretty much any mobile device just by going to MusicFutures.com.
Also, be sure to follow my music-business specific tweets via @music2dot0. To see all my blog posts on the Music 2.0 book (and the topics covered in the book) please go here. For the music-business specific videos, visit my Youtube channel. Slideshows are here.
"I am a longtime commentator on how the digital, mobile and social-media revolution has left Publishers reeling and in a state of total change or even disruption. This is a call to action to transform your business to embrace and conquer the digital age. Failure to do so will mean inevitable friction, market confusion and possibly a dysfunctional content ecosystem, when on the other hand you could stand to profit from long term revenue generating opportunities.
It is often said that where attention flows money follows (*Kevin Kelly kk.org), but the question is how, where and when to convert them. Today, digital natives are viewers, users, followers, friends, co-creators, co-producers or crowd-sourced collaborators, all-in-one. Going forward, data is becoming the new oil, and understanding, analysing, predicting and staying ahead of your ‘connected consumers’ is quickly becoming a MUST for your business in 2012 and beyond!
So far, technological content protection measures have not been successful. Instead, future ‘protection’ will need to come from the business models and from social cohesion. Delivering tangible value and inventing new free, freemium, feels-like-free models will be crucially important. Just look at Skype, Spotify, Amazon and the undisputed master of ‘free’ – Google. You need to asses the role ‘free’ will play in your business. How will you monetize your content and which new and innovative revenue generating concepts will transform the commercial prospects of your business? Yes, methods of monetizing content are fragmented, but also much more powerful, immediate and liquid than ever. This industry, this transitional period and the World e-Reading Congress 2012 are all key opportunities to harness your digital footprint and develop strategies that will pay dividends in solid revenue. I look forward to meeting you all at the World e-Reading Congress next May.” Gerd Leonhard, CEO, The Futures Agency – Opening Keynote Speaker 2012.
This Quickfire Storytelling session brings together some of the world's leading futurists (see below) to share bold ideas and conflicting predictions of how the world might look in 10 years' time. This video (which we shot ourselves using a Kodak HDCam and Sony bluetooth mic) shows the first 10 minutes i.e. Gerd's introduction, the 5 minute talk and brief discussion with the other speakers and the audience. Twitter buzz is here
You can download the 10MB PDF of my presentation (unfortunately, the slides are not visible in the video), here.
Kevin Kelly is a major influence on my work, and this video from Wired's Network conference is one of his best. Dive in and you'll see why. All of his books are worth reading, as well.
Here are both parts (90 minutes plus 35 minutes) of my keynote speech on The Future of Content at Colombia 3.0 October 7 2011 see http://www.colombiatrespuntocero.com
The panel discussion afterwards can be viewed here, as well (all in Spanish). Note: even though I am actually presenting in English the overdup is Spanish and very much in the foreground. I will try and get an English version, as well - stay tuned.
El suizo GerlLeonhard, líder futurólogo experto en modelos de comercio electrónico, medios de comunicación e innovación fue el encargado del cierre de la Primera Cumbre Nacional de Contenidos Digitales, Colombia 3.0, realizada por el Ministerio TIC entre el 5 y el 8 de octubre. Después de cuatro días de análisis en los que se reunieron emprendedores, inversionistas, animadores, desarrolladores de aplicación y representantes de la industria de los contenidos digitales del mundo terminó Colombia 3.0. En la cumbre participaron 30 conferencistas nacionales y 50 internacionales, quienes se reunieron en 14 eventos simultáneos.Las distintas actividades y conferencias fueron seguidas en línea en 23 ciudades del país y 15 países. De igual manera se tuvo la participación de Siggraph, una asociación mundial de animación gráfica y técnicas interactivas, espacio en que 19 expertos en animación compartieron sus experiencias exitosas en las firmas más importantes del mundo de esta industria. Bogotá 7 de octubre de 2011.En su intervención GerlLeonhard, realizó un detallado análisis de los cambios que han sufrido los medios tradicionales al migrar a los medios sociales como Facebook, Twitter y otras redes sociales. Además,Leonhard anotó que en la actualidad se vive una cultura de la banda ancha y son los “prosumidores”, consumidores activos, los que producen contenidos digitales.
Mencionó el experto suizo que el mundo digital está regido por la relevancia y no solamente por la distribución, según Leonhard, los contenidos digitales deben ser depurados antes de ser distribuidos a los distintos públicos y subrayó que la nueva economía digital que se está viviendo en la actualidad debe iniciarse desde Internet y especialmente desde los dispositivos móviles. Anotó también Leonhard, que el usuario es quien genera los contenidos digitales en la actualidad através de distintos dispositivos móviles. En su intervención, señaló además que la tendencia actual se desarrolla a través de lo móvil, lo social y lo local. Ademásindicó, en este sentido,que para el 2015se esperaque 7.1 trillones de dispositivos móviles sean usados en el mundo.
We certainly live in challenging and exciting times. Disruption is a constant companion; permanent beta the default. Tablets, now-ness, social commerce, alternative currencies, multi-platform story-telling, augmented reality - every week something new may end up remixing our business plans.
Globally, telecoms and mobile operators are moving up the food-chain into media and advertising (someone coined this development 'TeleMedia':)), and social networks are quickly becoming the next global broadcasters – but without owning the cables or the satellites.
Soon, most of the world's Internet traffic will be generated by a huge variety of mobile devices instead of computers, and 'the other 3 billion' users aka consumers in the BRIC countries are coming online at a very fast pace. Remember: 10% more broadband and / or wireless equates to 1% growth in GDP – but also a 1000% percent increase in disruption:)
Give it another 3-5 years and it's very likely that almost 5 billion people will be connected with fast and very cheap (if not free) mobile devices - and they will not 'consume' media and so-called content in the same way that we did when renting a movie still meant getting a piece of plastic that embodied it, or becoming a faithful and constant visitor to the quite beautiful but nevertheless super-walled iTunes garden.
Most importantly, these digital natives, those pesky millennials, the inadvertent micro-pirates of our cherished digital files, are people of the screen, not people of the book, as Kevin Kelly right summa-rises. To them, the world looks and feels different and many pre-screen, pre-networked rules seem hopelessly antiquated - they won't buy if we don't change how we sell.
To add to Kevin's meme, I think 'people of the screen' are people that increasingly prefer access (i.e. not copies); they are people who want total and unfettered control over when and how they use their media and who they share it with, and they are people who often co-create and participate, as well.
We must embrace the reality that we are at the beginning of a global shift from copy to access: many of us will be happy with just having access to content, anytime, anywhere, on the best screen available, rather than wanting to 'own' (i.e. download) it. If 'the cloud' proves that it works we will make the switch - just like we switched from printed maps to navigation devices. Sure, it may take longer if you don't live in a major urban centre, but we are going from broadcast to broadband - or better, plus- broadband, from wired to / plus mobile, from 'the network' to / plus 'the networked' - and our world is no longer linear, it's not yes or no, it's… an ‘it depends’ world. Fragmentation, aggregation, curation - but not mere distribution.
This shift is impacting all media, starting with music (see Spotify, Simfy, Rdio etc), movies and TV shows (see Netflix, Amazon, Youview etc), to books, newspapers, magazines, games and software. This 'from ownership to access' trend is even visible in the physical domain of ‘stuff’ such as in the rise of car-sharing, home-swapping and 3D printing: if we can use it why do we need a copy of it, for ourselves? I believe that the switch from 'owning to accessing' will be an extremely lucrative turn of events for creators and their various middlemen and industries.
Once we have overcome the need to package media in expensive physical formats we will see tremendous growth here. In a digital world, our costs will be much lower, marketing will be done via those that love what we do and are yearning to tell others, and many new revenues will be generated via many new combinations of I Pay, You Pay, They Pay (to quote Shelly Palmer). We just need to allow it.
Be ready: value is shifting from distribution to attention, and while this is happening we are also swiftly moving into a complete reboot of advertising, i.e. to with-vertising not @vertising, to engagement rather than interruption, to conversation rather than yelling. I predict that between 30 - 40 % of the entire global advertising, marketing, PR and promotion budget (currently approximately $1 trillion) will merge to digital, mobile and interactive means of reaching consumers: advertising and marketing (and selling!) are being reinvented along with media. Exciting times.
In a totally networked and always-on society, skills, creativity, curation, filtering and expert-ship will be more important than ever before - and if we keep our eyes on what the 'people formerly known as consumers' really want rather than follow our own assumptions and outmoded orthodoxies, the media business has a great future.
I am delighted to be involved with PressPausePlay, a movie about digital creativity, funded and promoted by Ericsson, featuring people such as Hank Shocklee, Seth Godin, ZeFrank, Sean Parker, Larry Lessig and Mike Mesnick. And it's finally out and available! Here is what it's all about:
"The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities. But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world's most influential creators of the digital era"
From the blog: "we have had so many people ask "Where can we see your film?" and this week we are very happy to say our digital distribution has begun! PressPausePlay is now available online in many countries around the world, with more coming soon. You can now find PressPausePlay on iTunes US, iTunes Canada and iTunes UK. You can also purchase PressPausePlay on Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Vudu.com, CinemaNow.com, Xbox, and Playstation. Or put us on your Netflix cue where we will be coming soon..."
Can't wait to see her new movie. "Honoured by Newsweek as one of the "Women Shaping the 21st Century," Tiffany Shlain is an award-winning filmmaker, founder of The Webby Awards and co-founded the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences. Her award-winning new feature documentary " Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology" premiered at Sundance 2011. Tiffany Shlain's keynote will be followed by a screening of "Connected: An autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology" (Official Selection 2011, Sundance Film Festival)"
This is one of my main topics, and most of the crucial stuff is covered in this 30-minute video. I hope you like it - if you do, please share it widely. Many related slideshows can be found here. Here is a low-res version of the actual slideshow: Download DES wiggin Gerd Leonhard Public low res
A few weeks ago I went into a local studio and recorded about 15 new videos on my key topics and favorite memes. In the coming few weeks, I will release them gradually, via my Youtube channel, my Blip.tv channel (which allows for downloads to iTunes), via the new FuturesAgency Youtube channel, and via Facebook; and I hope you will enjoy them.
Here is the first one, on the perennial topic of "Free and Freemium" business models.
From today's event in London, my latest slideshow on the future of 'monetizing' content - hopefully we will have a video soon, as well. In the meantime, check out my list of recommended videos in my last newsletter.
I was invited to do the opening keynote at Ericsson's 'Shaping the Networked Society' event at this year's mobile world congress (MWC) in Barcelona, on February 14, 2011, see my blog at http://gerd.fm/i9Dh9I. Some of the topics I covered include the challenges and opportunities of convergence (TV-Web, Mobile-Fixed, real money - virtual money), new currencies and paying with facebook credits, companies becoming platforms not empires, what is beyond the current social media enthusiasm, the new paradigm of 'interaction before transaction', the tough but inevitabe switch from ownership to access (both in content / media as well as in general), the rise of the 'following paradigm', how the media and content industries are changing, and much more.
Take a look and please spread the word if you like it. Thanks.
Absolutely brilliant and fascinating stuff by one of my favorite thinkers (and a great influence on my own work), Kevin Kelly. This is one of his most concise talks and he really covers IT ALL in here so... be sure to spend 25 minutes on this video; it's well worth it.
Some key take-aways: "We used to be people of the book, now we are people of the screen. Now we have TV we read and books we watch. We are in the cloud, indeed, but now the cloud is looking back at us, too, and social reading results in social writing. Access not ownership is where all content is going (yes, you have heard that from me before, too:). Flows not pages. New generatives are the new value..."
Great stuff indeed. To download KK's slides go here (thanks to OReilly for making it all available, too!)
I am delighted to be able to share this brand-new translation with all my friends, tweeps and colleagues that speak Portuguese. The essay was kindly translated by Paula Neves, Analista de Marketing Digital at Approach (Brazil); be sure to visit her blog or Linkedin profile.
Gerd Leonhard: Conteúdo 2.0: ‘proteção’ está no modelo de negócio e não na tecnologia (pensamentos sobre o futuro da venda de conteúdo).
Abastecido pelas agitações na indústria da música e, finalmente, com a transformação muito rápida dos livros para o formato digital, há bastante debate em torno do fato das pessoas compartilharem habitualmente isto é, redistribuírem conteúdo digital sem que os usuários paguem por isso. Como se pode monetizar o conteúdo se a cópia é gratuita? Essa pergunta é uma questão chave em todos os sentidos, seja com a música, com livros digitais, noticiários, editoração, TV ou filmes. Há o medo, claro, de que a partir do momento que um item digital foi comprado por uma pessoa, ele pode ser facilmente encaminhado para qualquer um se estiver num formato aberto, assim reduzindo significantemente a possibilidade de que outra pessoa pague dinheiro real por ele também (claro que o mesmo também é verídico para conteúdo digital supostamente trancado ou protegido – só demora um pouco mais). Não ter mais controle sobre a distribuição = não ter mais dinheiro. Certo?
Apesar do simples fato da GDD (Gestão de Direitos Digitais, ou Digital Rights Management em inglês) já ter se mostrado desastrosa no mundo da música digital (e agora já é praticamente o passado), medidas técnicas de proteção ainda vêm sendo investigadas como um método plausível de se garantir o pagamento, especialmente no efervescente setor dos eBooks. Isso me preocupa muito porque medidas técnicas de proteção são caras, atrapalham ou previnem a adoção em massa, encurtam ou matam o compartilhamento social, o que derrota o marketing usuário-usuário, normalmente limitam drasticamente o uso honesto, e são geralmente inúteis no combate aos piratas reais, isto é, os que têm intenções maldosas e criminosas de roubar conteúdo e vendê-lo para outros.
Não somente conteúdo – Contexto! A meu ver, o pensamento de que a distribuição de conteúdo tem de ser controlada para que haja qualquer forma razoável de pagamento é fundamentalmente equivocado por causa dessa percepção não-tão-futurista: numa economia aberta e enredada (nota: estou falando sobre hoje e não amanhã!) editores de conteúdo têm de oferecer seus bens de uma forma que não mais considere a distribuição como o fator central. Não deve-se vender (somente) o conteúdo (ou seja, meros 0s e 1s) e sim também o contexto, os valores agregados, os vários outros itens em torno do conteúdo. Venda o que não pode ser copiado.
A tendência irrefutável é que a janela de oportunidade de se ‘vender cópias’ (isto é, iTunes, música digital, Kindle, etc) está rapidamente fechando, pelo menos na maior parte dos países desenvolvidos. A próxima oportunidade, e já muito presente, está na venda do acesso e serviços de valor agregado, e no fornecimento de experiências ligadas ao conteúdo.
A partir do momento que abarcarmos que os usuários – as pessoas dantes conhecidas como consumidores – não podem ser reduzidas a meros ‘compradores de cópias’, poderemos investigar como eles gostariam de pagar por todo o resto também. Por exemplo, ao comprar um eBook os usuários não deveriam pagar meramente pela autorização da distribuição, ou seja, a cópia legítima das palavras, e sim também poderiam ganhar acesso a comentários altamente especializados, amigos e colegas que possam ler esse livro, avaliações, explicações, apresentações de slides, imagens, links, vídeos, referências cruzadas, conexões diretas com o autor ou o editor e assim por diante. Sim: conectar com fãs + motivos para comprar (como o Mike Masnich do Techdirt já resumiu sucintamente diversas vezes)....
Keynote Speaker, Think-Tank Leader, Futurist, Author & Strategist, Idea Curator, some say Iconoclast | Heretic, CEO TheFuturesAgency, Visiting Prof FDC Brazil, Green Futurist
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