Category: Social Networks
Mesh 08 Keynote with Ethan Kaplan
May 21, 2008
I'm going to give live blogging a try for Ethan Kaplan's keynote at Mesh 08. Apologies in advance if I screw this up. I'm really not a reporter/blogger-type. I'll probably forget to write or inject my own opinion in places making for a total mess.
9:15
Stuart MacDonald making announcements and thanking organizers/sponsors.
Stuart is the CEO and founder of Tripharbour.ca.
9:25
Announcing MeshTV for this year's Mesh conference, for video content uploaded by attendees. That's interesting. Not sure the value of it considering that they will be posting edited versions of the conference to the site as well. I personally like having edited video as a consumer. I loath having to wade through video for the "good stuff".
9:30
Mathew Ingram introducing Ethan Kaplan VP Technology for Warner Brothers Records as a True Geek.
9:35
MI: Is this a good time to be an artist?
EK: Good time. In the past 15 years there is more fluidy in creating art that has multiple representations. A statement of being.
MI: Experimentation By NIN et al. imply the end of the Big Record Label.
EK: Labels are like VCs. hmmmm... interesting comparison. NIN/Radiohead started with the old model. Record labels put a certain amount of risk upfront to get reward back: patrons of the art. Labels invest a lot upfront in order to reduce the stress on the artists in hopes of getting better results. Similar 10 to 1 ratio. Labels looking for 1 success out of 10.
9:40
MI: NIN/Radiohead?
EK: Radiohead: the distribution story has overshadowed the fact that it's a really good album. agreed.
NIN - what Trent is doing fits his modus operandi.
MI: Were they stunts? What does a new artist do?
EK: All artists need to address: How can a I retain of what I produce (Good lawyer), How can I control what I represent (Website, modes of experience), How can I control what is represented (marketing, writing good songs, etc.)
9:45
MI: Artists seem to be losing control?
EK: Not really. We have reduced control back to the artist and their work and relationships with the fans. It's gone back to what A/R was supposed to be.
9:50
MI: Do we need government mandated fees to compensate artists (ISP tax)
EK: Difficult question. I choose not to focus on this (I know Ethan did not want to talk about this.) Free used to be radio and the upside was CD, now if the base line of free is hire above CD, then we should improve value of experience rather than value of artifact. If you get lost in the policy debate, you lose focus on what can be controlled or things that create value. Sounds like anti-ISP levy.
9:52
Audience: I wonder how artists can manage the process of social media - it's a lot of work. I worry how will this affect creative process?
EK: It's a lot of work. The first thing I did was get rid of all Flash Websites. (applause). We build social sites on Drupal for our fans. We want their registration. That's how fans claim their affiliation to an artist. Social website are supposed to connect the fans to fans and fans to artists. An good artists knows when to back away.
MI: Some artist feel that fans get too close. Don't want them to change. Try to affect their process.
EK: Advice: don't read the discussion boards of your fans. Good bands know when to back away.... that's the fan's world not mine. It doesn't need to be a one-to-one relationship. very interesting insight
10:00
Audience: How do big labels use social media to pick up success stories? How do you find new artists?
EK: Tech and A/R run differently. A/R people club hop to find new talent. Everyone is on the web 24/7 looking for stuff. Everyone in the company can act as A/R. There is no shortage of resources of finding any new artists on Social Media sites.
10:05
Audience: What are labels doing to push up the value chain
EK: Focusing on direct to fan experience. Starts with the way we create a website. Its not just a website it is the focal point of distributing music, merchandize, tickets, direct connection with fan. A 365 stream of content and monetization. The Website is the new album.
Audience: Will a label mean anything in the future like it
EK: With consolidation in the 90s we lost our histories. The days of IRS are gone. It has migrated to the indie bands - to indie - labels - to the major label. The labels identity doesn't matter as much as that of the artist. Labels have no personality - days of Iovine and Clive are gone.
10:10
Audience (Stuart MacDonald) - Have people stopped buying albums now that they can buy singles. Are they buying back catalog now that they can only buy one song readily from older music.
EK: I don't think we touched 10% of what can be done with catalog. I think there is interesting stuff that can be done with legacy music. People forget history we are focused on hits and immediacy - a la techmeme. This is a priority for me.
Audience: Is music going to free are you exploring other models.
EK: There will be multiple models. I like the music as application concept: APIs and SDKs on devices will open up some interesting possibilities for music . Curious. I'd like to know more about this actually.
Audience: What do you think of the LastFM
EK: It was foolish for Nielson not to acquire it. It's disappointing that the data is now walled-gardened.
Audience: RockBand Guitar Hero what are your thoughts?
EK: Games are important. Interesting to see how those two games are driving older music and singles. Good illustration that experience can drive more revenue than the artifact. GH and RB has fed back to artifacts have actually driven more downloads.
10:20
Audience: How do you price experience versus artifact?
EK: Easier to define costs and margins with artifacts. When you are pricing for experience, the pricing is determined by metrics related to traditional marketing rather than fixed costs processes.
10:23
Audience: Live music, will labels offer live concerts moments after its complete for sale.
EK: Live music is more popular than ever. The tour used to be not part of a traditional record deal. It now is. Live music is the root of the music experience. Official bootlegs drive demand for fan bootlegs to close to nil. There are cool technologies to service fans at shows UGC, photostreams, etc... There are lots of things we can do in that space.
Audience: You mentioned monopolistic behavior by concert companies is LiveNation now the labels' competition.
EK: There are a lot of competitors anyone who is servicing the artist. We should not get caught up with what - we should focus on our relationships and what we can do. Its a danger game to get caught in "the grass is greener" with us versus other companies like LiveNation. What can we do better than other companies we are one of the only companies with a tech department and that is an important advantage for us.
10:30
Audience: Why would I ever pay for music again?
EK: We hear music a couple hundred times on a daily basis (That's a bit much, actually). music is often consumed as a passive experience and that is being monetized via licensing. The question is will you pay for an artifact again? The traditional notion of paying to a CD is going to change. You pay for music for the same reasons you pay for anything other than the bare necessities of life.
10:35
Audience: IS Facebook beating MySpace?
EK: Different audiences. Bands are on both. Facebook is friends. MySpace is content.
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WHEW! This was very hard to do. Props to all you bloggers who live blog this all the time. I'm exhausted The content is not direct quotes. It's paraphrased and may be inaccurate in places. It was difficult to keep up. Especially for a two finger typer.
More on Open Data
April 15, 2008
More people like Bret Taylor are talking about the need for Open Data to spur innovation.
The interesting thing is, almost every internet company would benefit if this data were freely available. Most internet companies have embraced open source operating systems because every company needs an operating system, and no company wants their OS to be a competitive advantage - they just want it to work. I would argue we are all in the same boat with these factual data sources. No one really wants factual data accuracy and completeness to be their competitive advantage; we all want the best data possible to build the best products possible, and discrepancies in data quality are artifacts of the extremely inefficient economy of buying and selling data we currently live in. If everyone had the same, high quality data, all of our products would be better for it.
He's exactly right. I made this exact point about music in February, as well as on Fred Wilson's post on a new music economy. I also pointed out that the stable structure of these organizations need to be as a functioning non-profit (for clarity that is not a charity).
Bret's post title "we need a wikipedia for data" is exactly correct. We need timely (meaning easy to update), rich (a wealth of content), and accurate data (natch). That is Wikipedia. Open alone is not sufficient.
We are putting our money where our mouth is and trying to build this for music, we are keen to work with anyone who has similar interests - money or bodies are welcome. We've made amazing progress, and will be demoing where we are at SanFran MusicTech Summit
Strutta is fun
February 17, 2008
I dropped by the Strutta offices on Friday to say hello to my old office mates and check out their super secret website. Plenty of pleading and a bit of bribing was in order to get the super secret viewing. I brought over some beers to celebrate their internal launch, and to lubricate them sufficiently to weaken their resistance to giving me a quick demo of the site.
It only took one beer, before I was getting the full on demo, but hey told me that I was not allowed to talk about what the site actually did. That didn't sit right with me; so, I challenged them to Rock Band for the right to post about the entire product. Unfortunately, I got schooled. Horribly. I am now sworn to secrecy, but here is what I can say.
It's about video content. OK, everyone kind of knew that.
It has discovery and gaming elements.
The UI had me thinking, I'd love to play with this on my Wii. That's high praise in my books.
It's actually FUN, and that's the most important thing in my opinion. If, I'm going to be engaged into content on the Web, please make it fun. Make it an enjoyable experience.
Sorry I can't go into more details. Though if you bring over a few beers to their offices you are likely to get a sneak peak, too. Just brush up on your Rock Band skills first.
Techmeme for Twitter
February 7, 2008
Our very own Rochelle Grayson and her talented partner, Geoff Meredith recently launched Twemes, a kind of Techmeme for Twitter. It actually is really simple and really cool. It's perfect if you are interested in following a specific topic rather than specific people. Simply put a hash (#) symbol before your tag (topic), and it will aggregate on Twemes. You can follow a topic via RSS.
Simple and useful.
MIXXs are Social Objects and here are the first week's numbers
January 10, 2008
Jon Husband is calling MIXXs social objects. The term Social Object comes from Hugh MacLeod. It's such a clear concept, I was surprised that I hadn't heard it before.
Hugh has an interesting 15 point list of thoughts and principles of Social Objects. The last point is I believe Social Objects are the future of marketing. Hopefully he is right as that is the intent around Mixx Maker, and key to any business model around it.
So, after 1 week Mixx Maker has:
402 users (17% Daily Active)
489 Mixxs created
285 Active Mixxs
And Adonomics says Mixx is worth: $383.00
Other links on MIXX:
Kirsten Starcher thinks Mixx is "an addictive little app - I had to force myself to go to bed the other night when I was having too much fun putting together a Mixx of music that I was finding particularily resonant (starting with "Go Slowly" by Radiohead). There'll be more where that came from."
All Face Book says "there are a ton of crappy apps" but, " I found a very cool app called Mix Maker."
Sweet stuff!
