News aggregator

What if you took everything you had and made it publicly available on the Internet? What if you opened up your most secret of secrets and encouraged your customers, friends, family members, peers and, yes, even your competitors to play with, tinker and devise that better mousetrap?

It sounds a little insane. Welcome to crowdsourcing.

"For the last decade or so, companies have been looking overseas, to India or China, for cheap labour. But now it doesn't matter where the labourers are - they might be down the block, they might be in Indonesia - as long as they are connected to the network. ... Technological advances in everything from product design software to digital video cameras are breaking down the cost barriers that once separated amateurs from professionals. Hobbyists, part-timers, and dabblers suddenly have a market for their efforts, as smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd. The labour isn't always free, but it costs a lot less than paying traditional employees. It's not outsourcing; it's crowdsourcing."

That's how Jeff Howe first coined the term, "crowdsourcing" in the June 2006 issue of Wired Magazine for the article titled, The Rise of Crowdsourcing. He followed up with the book Crowdsourcing - Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business (Crown Business), and he also blogs where he includes another definition:

"Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call."

It goes by many other names as well. Some call it "mass collaboration," others call it "the wisdom of crowds," and when money becomes a part of the play, best-selling author and technologist Don Tapscott wrote about it and called it Wikinomics.

And with a new way of looking at and doing things comes with it all of the usual controversy as well. While there are some obvious and inherent benefits to crowdsourcing that include cheap (and sometimes free) labour, the exploration of business problems at a fairly low cost, and payment (if there is one) happening based on results, many feel that there are also many bigger issues with this type of channel. According to Wikipedia:

"The ethical, social and economic implications of crowdsourcing are subject to wide debate. ... Some reports have focused on the negative effects of crowdsourcing on business owners, particularly in regard to how a crowdsourced project can sometimes end up costing a business more than a traditionally outsourced project."

There are even some slight nuances to the nomenclature according to Wikipedia as well: "The difference between crowdsourcing and ordinary outsourcing is that a task or problem is outsourced to the public rather than another body. The difference between crowdsourcing and open source is that open source production is a co-operative activity initiated and voluntarily undertaken by members of the public. In crowdsourcing the activity is initiated by a client and the work may be undertaken on an individual, as well as a group, basis."

Threadless is a new type of clothing company. The wildly popular e-commerce website sells a unique brand of T-shirt. They are designed by you, for you - literally. Instead of working tirelessly with a slew of designers or spending time in Europe trendspotting for the latest fashion craze, the owners of Threadless decided to crowdsource their product. Anyone is welcome to design a T-shirt.

The designs are then posted and voted on by the community on its website. The designs with the most amounts of attention and votes get produced and sold on the website. Threadless does not design T-shirts. Threadless crowdsources the design and then produces and sells them.

Threadless manages a community. The community creates the product. What do you think their annual budget is for new products development and design? How do you think that compares with American Apparel or Old Navy?

Wikipedia is one of the best and most popular examples of something that is crowdsourced. And, what could be nobler than leveraging a vast network of individuals to curate, edit and crowdsource the knowledge of the world?

Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia that anyone and everyone can edit. The technology is based on a wiki - which is a simple Web page that anyone can write on or update. You can type in any kind of information you would regularly find in an Encyclopedia Britannica, and Wikipedia will return an article (or Web page) that has content that has been created by the entire Internet community.

The percentage of contributors pales in comparison to the users (about one per cent of Wikipedia's traffic edits the actual pages), but the spirit of this content is astounding if you consider that no one is paid anything to contribute or edit, and the company itself - created by Jimmy Wales - is a non-profit organization made up mostly of volunteers. To date, there are over 2.6 million entries in the English version alone.

What does all of this mean to business? Everything. Companies as diverse as Dell (Ideastorm) and Starbucks (My Starbuck's Idea) have embraced crowdsourcing on various levels. Both companies have deployed specific websites that are asking their consumers for their thoughts, ideas and suggestions on what the company can be doing better, or what they should be looking at.

In essence, they're using the power of the Internet and the wisdom of the crowds to get immediate, real and actionable insights from their consumers.

If you needed one question answered about the future of your business, what would it be, and could you open it up to see what a crowdsourced answer might look like?

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation. I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here:

- Montreal Gazette - Let crowdsourcing do your R&D.
- Vancouver Sun - Crowdsource your research.

Tags: american apparel blog business canwest community crowdsource crowdsourcing dell development don tapscott ecommerce employee encyclopedia britannica future business human resources ideastorm internet internet culture jeff howe jimmy wales labor labour marketing mass collaboration montreal gazette my starbucks idea old navy online community open source outsourcing rd research rise of crowdsourcing starbucks talent technology threadless vancouver sun website wiki wikinomics wikipedia wired magazine wisdom of crowds

If you had to choose your #1 rule for what it takes to create a successful Blog, what would it be? Mine is: create real interactions between human beings.

Finding your passion is one thing. Uncovering a unique niche is another. Attempting to turn a six-figure income from your Blog might be what drives you, but what will really keep the momentum going and your readers engaged is if you create a platform to not only share your own insights and personal thoughts, but use it as a place to really connect with those readers and enable that to turn the entire Blog into a thriving community.

It's something that will take a lot of internal and personal struggle (especially if it's a business Blog).

There will be moments where you will want to self-promote. There will be instances where you will wonder if you are betraying your clients or your employer for some of the things you would like to Blog about. There will even be instances where you will want to see if you can monetize the property as your popularity and interest grows. It's not a question of ignoring those impulses, it becomes more of an exercise in returning to your roots. Always focus and cherish that first moment where you came up with the name of your Blog and published that first post in the first place.

If everything you do Blog about has an end-game of making you slightly more famous, how does that help, grow and nurture your online community? 

Without question, one of the best quotes recently about Blogging was from Hugh McGuire (LibriVox and The Book Oven). In the comments section of this Blog, Hugh said: "Don’t Blog to get known, Blog to be knowable." It's not about Blogging with a tone of "look at me, look at me!" It's about Blogging and sharing who you are, how you connect to your passion and what you think about that will (hopefully) get others excited and want to contribute, join or (hopefully) even start their own Blog.

The conversations are everywhere.

You can find some gems on Twitter and you can see some flashes of brilliance on FriendFeed. There's something warmly beautiful about a well thought-out editorial piece in the newspaper and real modern literature can be found in some of the best business magazines. Blogs fill another arena of media culture. Blogs give every individual the place, space and environment to really dig down deep or blast something out furiously. It shows a different side of an individual and how they flow into their work. It makes people stand-out and be original.

Blogs are one of the few (and only) places where words do, indeed, become real interactions between real human beings. A great Blog is personal and displays the humanity. A great Blog can move and inspire people and teams. A great Blog takes words and makes them human. A great Blog is not doing it because there is a schedule to keep or ads to sell. A great Blog is published when it is published. No sooner. No later.

What is your #1 rule for creating a successful Blog?

Tags: blog blog marketing blogger blogging book oven business blog business magazine conversation friendfeed hugh mcguire human being internet culture librivox media newspaper online community publishing twitter

Come see Brian Storm, proprietor of the much-loved MediaStorm at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism tomorrow, Thursday, starting at 6:30. It’s open to the public but space is limited, so sign up here.

Avec le tout numérique et une conscience généralisée d'être plus écologique, ce pourrait-il que nous assistions à la fin du support physique du contenu en tout genre (musique, nouvelles, etc.)?

Quelques liens sur le sujet

The End of Tangible Media is Clearly in Sight (Steve Rubel - Micropersuasion)
La fin de supports matériels (CD, jeux, livres, journauxc) serait en vue selon lui, aussitôt que 2014 (aucune idée pourquoi cette date). Aux États-Unis il voit certains signes de ce déclin: Microsoft vient d'ouvrir une boutique en ligne de téléchargement de logiciels; Apple vend des jeux sur iPhone et iPod; Oprah promeut le Kindle; des livrels apparaissent pour le iPhone; etc.
Il pose la question qui tue: quand avez-vous acheté pour a dernière fois un CD, ou lu un journal, une revue?

Do newspapers have 6 more months? (Steve Outing - journaliste)
Il constate qu'après la rencontre entre 50 agences de presse américaine cette semaine sur la crise actuelle, que la conclusion soit de se retrouver dans 6 mois pour continuer à en parler constitue un acte de déni mortel: constater qu'il y a un problème, aujourd'hui, c'est faire le jeu de l'autruche à l'aube d'une implosion imminente.

Google Signs a Deal to e-Publish Out-of-Print Books (NYTimes.com)
L'industrie du livre semble prendre note de l'effondrement de l'industrie de la musique qui a laissé passée sa chance. De multiples initiatives commencent à voir le jour et on se demande où cela va finir.

[ajout 20:22] Le défi numérique du Québec (Geneviève Lefebvre - Journal de Montréal)
"Ce n’est pas que pour les beaux yeux de l’écologie que la notion de développement durable s’impose en édition. C’est maintenant une nécessité économique." [fin ajout]

Hum, le fond de l'air effraie
Il est toujours difficile de faire des pronostiques, mais pour ceux qui sont sur le web depuis longtemps et qui savent comment l'ordinateur permet un accès 1000 fois plus aisé au contenu, la venue d'un ultime outil, maniable, flexible, pratique et portable qui permettrait de retrouver le plaisir de lire à l'écran sonnera le glas pour le monde de l'imprimé. Pour le monde la musique c'est déjà terminé. L'audio-visuel suivra.

New micro-sharing platforms are everywhere. Be it Twitter, your status on Facebook or even FriendFeed, there are many (more places) to drop little notes, thoughts or insights. Couple that with a Blog and/or Podcast and your ability to publish your message is simple, easy and free (if you have the time). But, how are you handling the comments?

Have you noticed that people connected to you on Facebook can now comment on your status updates? It's not that new of a functionality, but it should give you pause to realize just how much your content is constantly and consistently being scrutinized. As one of the ways to manage all of this micro-content, you can even set yourself up so that when you tweet on Twitter that content becomes your status on Facebook. If you thought that might make your life more manageable, think again. With people adding comments on your Blog, on Twitter, on FriendFeed and on your Facebook status, being available to curate and manage all of the comments on top of the content you are creating is time consuming.

Getting lots of comments is a good thing. It means people are interested in the content you are creating. Having said that, the more places and chances that people have to comment, the tougher it is organize from a personal stand-point, but more importantly, the tougher it is to archive the information in some kind of manageable format.

The whole idea behind commenting was to create a story - one that has the thoughts of the content creator and those of the community and audience in the same space. How is one supposed to keep the flow and logic going when the comments can appear in any one-three locations?

How do you manage your comments and keep the flow of the content going?

Tags: blog comment facebook friendfeed micro-sharing podcast publishing twitter

Good on Richard Perez-Pena for reporting on new sites doing strong local reporting and investigations — and good on The New York Times for playing it on page one: “As America’s newspapers shrink and shed staff, and broadcast news outlets sink in the ratings, a new kind of Web-based news operation has arisen in several cities, forcing the papers to follow the stories they uncover.”

OK, so there was one reflexive snipe at the internet: “Their news coverage and hard-digging investigative reporting stand out in an Internet landscape long dominated by partisan commentary, gossip, vitriol and citizen journalism posted by unpaid amateurs.” Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What Perez-Pena’s story makes clear is that there are new models for creating reporting, that there is a demand for that reporting, and that there are journalists who will do it.

The business angle bears further investigation — and we’ll do that at the CUNY New Business Models for News Project (finishing a MacArthur Grant and starting on a new McCormick Foundation grant).

Perez-Pena says that “publishing online means operating at half the cost of a comparable printed paper, but online advertising is not robust enough to sustain a newsroom.” Actually, the cost is way less than half; I refer you to Edward Roussel’s chart from the New Business Models for News summit.

Revenue is also way less than half — and much or all of that is coming from contributions in the sites Perez-Pena profiles — but it’s also important to measure how much is spent on such reporting from big organizations today — how much are we trying to replace (or increase!) — and how this fits into a bigger ecosystem of local news, the new press-sphere.

News will not come from one organization anymore. It will come from a collection of organizations, networks, individuals, companies, technologies, and collaborative projects each operating under different business models. What Perez-Pena profiles is a slice of the new news pie. It will take other slices from other players to add up to a whole.

Still, the recognition by the Gray Lady of these new girls in town is an important moment in the evolution of news.

It’s barely worth dignifying with a link but Howard Witt writes a letter to Romenesko wondering whether, Mark Cuban has been brought up on insider-trading charges, his Sharesleuth.com would cover the news. Witt uses this as an opportunity to dismiss any value from all bloggers: “I’d say this is yet another example of why the nation cannot possibly expect to rely on all these pseudo-journalistic blogs that are supposed to become the future of journalism when all the newspapers disappear.” Oh, jeesh. OK, you play the Cuban card. I’ll see you with a Jayson Blair and raise you with a Judith Miller.

A Citizen Journalist is no more of a Journalist than someone who gives you good personal advice is a Citizen Psychiatrist. It might well be time to ditch the idea of Citizen Journalism and call it what is: a witness with a recorder.

That was the overarching sentiment brought forward by David Simon the author, journalist and writer who is best known as the writer and producer for the TV series, Homicide - Life On The Streets, and the executive producer and head writer for the HBO television series, The Wire. In what could well be one of the better pieces of Internet video content that I have seen in years, Simon speaks candidly in his presentation titled, The Audacity of Despair, at Berkeley University's Townsend Center for the Humanities on September 10th, 2008 about the newspaper industry, publishing, media and the Internet.

Journalists are trained professionals and add tremendous value to our society by doing more than just reporting on the "who", "what", "when", "where" and "how" of Journalism (Simon says any five-year-old can do that), by asking and seeking out the all important question: "why?" He questions why most major newspapers no longer explore the "why," but instead offer up filtered news that does not address the real issues. His conclusions are a stunning indictment of an industry more concerned with selling widgets over real journalism.

Yes, people can act as witnesses, and now with modern technology they can record text, images, audio and video and publish it, but this does not make them Journalists. Even journalists who no longer work at a newspaper and have chosen a self-publishing route still follow professional rules, values and ethics that are created and nurtured after years of practicing their profession and not bestowed to all simply because publishing is easy and free (and yes, we all know that this does not apply to all Journalists and that there are more than few rotten apples).

If you're at all curious about media and the publishing industry, Simon's take is very different and fascinating. The topic of what a Journalist is in today's society versus what Simon considers a "real Journalist" is coupled with his take on citizen journalism and makes this presentation well worth the watch. Back in May, I posted this: Is Witnessing The Same As Being A Journalist? asking similar (but not as direct) questions about who, really, is and should be considered a journalist in this day and age.

Final thought: after watching this presentation it made me realize (once again) how amazing the Internet truly is. Anyone is able to take part in a Berkeley University special presentation, share their thoughts and enjoy a piece of content that is probably only valuable to a very small segment of the overall population. The true power of the Internet is this: content finding the exact people it was meant to touch, move and inspire.

You can watch his presentation here: David Simon - The Audacity of Despair - Townsend Center For The Humanities (unfortunately, there is no "embed video" link).

Then, feel free to comment on whether or not you agree that Citizen Journalism is a farce?

(hat-tip to Hugh McGuire).

Tags: berkeley university blog blogging citizen journalism david simon hbo homicide life on the streets hugh mcguire internet internet culture internet video journalism journalist media newspaper newspaper industry presentation publishing self publish technology the audacity of despair the wire twonsend center for the humanities witness

I was with David Carr until he got to the classical music critic.

Using Circuit City’s ill-fated decision to get rid of its veteran clerks as a metaphor, Carr laments newspapers getting rid of their experienced talent. Kicks to my groin aside, I’ve also lamented that. I’ve argued that when newspapers offer buyouts - and when it’s often the best and the most experienced who choose, often wisely, to take them - they should at least offer to help set up these journalists as independent agents with blogs and ad networks (which I’m seeing happen in one market; more on that later). But I’ve also argued that newspapers must focus on their key value and can no longer afford ego and commodified news.

So when Carr takes on the Tampa Tribune for laying off its editorial page editor, a columnist, the movie critic, and the classical music critic, he loses me. Of course - regardless of what the groin-kickers say - I have sympathy for those jobless journalists, just as I will for the GM SUV assembly-line workers sure to lose their work and even a few of the Lehman Brothers veterans.

But if newspapers are to survive as news organizations, they must focus on their key value and fast. And the key value of a local newspaper is, on its face, local reporting. Says Carr:
But there is a business argument to be made here. Having missed the implications of the Web and allowed both their content and their audience to be scraped away by aggregators and ad networks, newspapers are now working furiously to maintain audience, build new ad models and renovate presentation. But they won’t stay relevant to readers with generic content ginned up by newbies with no background in the communities they serve.

Well, my first quibble is that aggregators are sending them traffic and ad networks are sending them revenue, if they want. My second is that movie reviews are pretty much generic content unless your name is Ebert.

I’ve argued that newspapers should have spent these last five years retraining all these people to take on new-media skills, inventing and promoting new products, and focusing intensively on local value. Then, perhaps, they might have been in control of their fates. They didn’t. Now they’re in a crisis.

When a bunch of newspaper executives gathered last week - behind closed doors - to recognize their crisis, they said the might get together again in six months. Steve Outing asks whether they have six months.

My Guardian column this week argues that we’re witnessing not just the collapse of the financial (and auto and newspaper…) industries but the birth of a new economy best seen through - you guessed it - the lens of Google:

The financial crisis might be damaging countless companies around the world, but last month Google announced another quarter of growth, with profit up 26%. When it reported similar results two quarters before, The New York Times’ headline proclaimed, “Google defies economy.” It should have read, “Google defines economy.”

In this crisis, we are witnessing more than the failure of mortgages, derivatives, banks, and regulation. We are also seeing the dawn of a new economy; one best viewed and understood through the lens of Google, the one company that – by design or by luck – is built for the emerging world order.

Google’s first advantage is being digital. Who wants to be in the business of stuff any more – building cars, printing newspapers, selling CDs, growing food? Owning and controlling stuff was the basis of most business. And the reflexive response to a collapse in finance and equities used to be to return to the real: buy property. No more. Now the best retreat is to the value of knowledge.

In a sense, Google itself is built on a derivative: its data on data. Like the derivatives that got us into this mess, Google’s are based on creating abundance. But unlike those corrupted financial products, Google’s metaknowledge creates new and real value.

In Google’s economy, small is the new big. Of course, big is still big — Google itself is gargantuan. But it doesn’t grow by borrowing capital to buy companies (likely no one will for some time to come). Instead, Google created a network for an abundance of new advertisers and a platform for countless new businesses, all independent of Google. Indeed, Google does not want to own the assets — content to commerce — upon which its empire is built.

To succeed like Google, companies will build networks and platforms as it does. eBay’s platform enables thousands of merchants to sell more than America’s largest department-store chain, Federated. In Google’s era, the mass market is replaced by a mass of niches. So by continuing to track and measure only the biggest businesses — as the FTSE, the Dow Jones Average, and Nielsen ratings do — we miss sight of the small economy.

Another hallmark of Google’s economy is transparency. Even as Google remains opaque about details of how it does business — its ad commission, for example — it demands transparency of the rest of us. For without openness, we get no search-engine optimization, no precious Googlejuice. Regulators, customers, and citizens, too, surely will demand more transparency in business now that we have been so badly burned by secrets hidden in what are now glibly called toxic assets. Online, the truth is often just a link away.

This link economy that is the real basis of Google’s success, can also bring business benefits for other industries. Struggling and rapidly shrinking newspapers can now specialize—a local paper becomes more local and links to national coverage. Do what you do best and link to the rest, I tell editors.

Marketers are also beginning to learn that with direct links and relationships with customers, they may reduce ad spending. But relationships between companies and customers must be built on trust, and trust comes from handing over control. David Weinberger, author of Everything’s Miscellaneous, puts it this way: “There is an inverse relationship between control and trust.” Post-meltdown, the public will demand control — the internet and Google provide tools they will use to seize it.

Trust itself is becoming the basis for new business. eBay’s systems enable customers to anoint merchants with trust; Amazon demonstrates that we trust the opinions of fellow customers over critics; PayPal and Prosper help us make trusted transactions; Google knows which sites we trust with our links and clicks. We don’t trust banks anymore; hell, they don’t trust each other. In Google we trust.

Google manifests the business of trust in its famous decree, “don’t be evil.” Etch that over doors on Wall Street. If enough people had asked whether getting and issuing toxic mortgages, and making and selling toxic assets was evil — instead of someone else’s problem — I wonder whether we’d be in this mess. Our meltdown was not inevitable. But the transition to a Google economy is.

Welcome to episode #130 of Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast. Back for another week of interesting audio comments, some personal ramblings and a bunch of stuff I promise to be paying more attention to (and you should be too). Enjoy the conversation...

Here it is: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - Episode #130 - Host: Mitch Joel.

• Running time: 41:10.
• Audio comment line - please send in a comment and add your voice to the audio community: +1 206-666-6056.
• Please send in questions, comments, suggestions - mitch@twistimage.com.
• Hello from Beautiful Montreal.
• Subscribe over at iTunes.
• Please visit and leave comments on the Blog - Six Pixels of Separation.
• Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook.
• or you can connect on LinkedIn.
• ...or on twitter.
• Facebook Group - Six Pixels of Separation Podcast Society.
• In a perfect world, connect with me, directly, through Facebook.
• Check out the other Podcast, Foreword Thinking - The Business And Motivational Book Review Podcast.
• Foreword Thinking - Episode #11 featuring Michael Gerber - E-Myth Revisited and Awakening The Entrepreneur Within.
• The Road to Six Pixels of Separation – The Book – coming soon.
• Books to check out:
• Born Standing Up by Steve Martin.
• Content by Cory Doctorow.
• ProBlogger by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett.
• Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki.
• Remix – Lawrence Lessig.
• Technology Review – a great new magazine by MIT.
• Audio Comment – Sebastian Kiel – Speaking English Podcast.
• Audio Comment – Shel Holtz – For Immediate Release Podcast.
• Audio Comment – Robin Browne – Being Buff.
• Audio Comment - Chris Goward – Wider Funnel Marketing.
• Six Points of Separation – Six Tools And Channels To Check Out:
• 1. FriendFeed.
• 2. Sphinn.
• 3. Delicious deep dive.
• 4. RoboForm.
• 5. Camtasia or SnagIt (or both).
• 6. TweetDeck and/or Twhirl.
• Music as suggested by Sebastian Kiel – Speaking English Podcast:
• Monkeeman – ‘The Last Ones’.

Please join the conversation by sending in questions, feedback and ways to improve Six Pixels Of Separation. Please let me know what you think or leave an audio comment at: +1 206-666-6056.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - Episode #130 - Host: Mitch Joel.

Tags: advertising awakening the entrepreneur within being buff blog blogging born standing up business camtasia chris garrett chris goward content cory doctorow darren rowse delicious digital marketing emyth revisited facebook facebook group for immediate release foreword thinking friendfeed google guy kawasaki itunes lawrence lessig marketing mass media michael gerber mit monkeeman motivational books online social network podcast podcasting problogger reality check remix robin browne roboform sebastian kiel shel holtz six pixels of separation six pixels of separation book snagit social media marketing speaking english podcast sphinn steve martin technology review magazine tweetdeck twhirl twist image web 20 wider funnel marketing

Craig Stoltz does a masterful job summarizing the Farhi-Jarvis-Rosenbaum fest in six Twitter-sized bites. His 2 cents at the end: “Blame doesn’t matter. Journalists unwilling to think and work differently to save the profession should take the next buyout.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

*

           Jason Kottke calls it “the most information-rich paragraph I’ve ever read online…it’s like an entire film class in 12 lines”. It’s from a column named How to read a movie written by the great movie critic Roger Ebert: In simplistic terms: Right is more positive, left more negative. Movement to the right seems more favorable; to [...]

"I want to make a bet with you today. By January 2014 I will wager that in the US almost all forms of tangible media will either be in sharp decline or completely extinct. I am not just talking about print, but all tangible forms of media - newspapers, magazines, books, DVDs, boxed software and video games."

That is how Steve Rubel started the post, The End of Tangible Media is Clearly in Sight, on his Micro Persuasion Blog yesterday (BTW, if you're not reading Rubel, you really should).

After running through a bunch of recent news items about how certain media are shifting to digital-only platforms, he continued to say:

"Finally, if you need further proof, when was the last time you bought a CD? Exactly. For me it was back in 2003. I haven't purchased a newspaper in at least two years and the number of people who I see toting them on my morning train have declined too. I cancelled my last print subscription this month and I am now living 100% 'media green.' Also I recently signed up for Safari Books Online and I am liking it a lot, though it's pricey and their iPhone client needs a lot of work."

We all drink from the same water cooler, and it's important to not fall into the, "I haven't bought a magazine in two years... so everyone else will stop too," line of thinking. If you are reading this, odds are you are a very early adapters and while the Web, RSS and digital-on-demand is part of our DNA (or, at least, slowly taking over), take a long hard look at the overall mass population (even look are family, friends and colleagues), and what they do. RSS is not exactly cracking through mainstream (as Steve pointed out), and as much as we all love Twitter, most people do not get it.

Media will shift and it will evolve.

There's also little doubt that as technology gets faster and more readily available, more and more content will also be available through the existing (and soon-to-be-coming) digital devices. As Blogged about a couple of days ago here: Digital Is The Great Disrupter, every industry that has seen their physical products shift to digital have gone through tremendous turmoil. Won't it be interesting to see which types of "physical" devices we'll need for all of this digital media?

Lastly, how "green" will this really be? The last time I checked, there are no organic battery farms anywhere and electricity and electronics are a huge part of our ongoing challenge to truly be a little greener. For us to consume all of this mass media is going to create a new kind of waste, which is going to have an environmental impact on all of us.

Shel Holtz over at the always-amazing, For Immediate Release - The Hobson And Holtz Report Podcast, is known to say, "new media doesn't kill old media."

What do you think? Will all media be digital by 2014?

Tags: blog book digital digital media dvd electronics environmental impact for immediate release green internet iphone magazine mass media media media green micro persuasion newspaper podcast print media rss safari books online shel holtz software steve rubel twitter video game

Tuesday night, I’m joining in an NPR Intelligence Squared debate - Oxford format - on the motion, Google violates its “don’t be evil” motto. I’m speaking against - surprise, surprise. Esther Dyson and and Jim Harper of CATO are on my side; on the other are Siva Vaidhyanathan of the University of Virginia (who’s also writing a book on Google), Randal C. Picker of the University of Chicago, and Harry Lewis of Harvard. Gulp. (The debate will be aired later. They’re charging $40 for tickets to the live event.)

Here are draft notes on my opening. I’m writing it out but will treat this more as an outline. As always, I would be grateful for your thoughts.

My opponents have a high bar to get over. Google should be presumed virtuous until proven evil. Just because it could be evil does not mean it is. Just being big and powerful does not make it evil. In this country, we tend to value success until one becomes too successful, and then we become suspicious. How much success is too much? That is our problem, not Google’s. No, my opponents must bring the evidence of Google’s misdeeds to prove their case. I don’t envy them.

I grant that Google could be better.

* In China and in other nations where free speech is attacked, Google should use its power and influence - which are greater than even it seems to know - to refuse to issue censored search results. I wonder whether the risk of life without Google could lead to revolution. But in its defense, Google argues that a hampered internet is better for the Chinese than no internet at all.

* I also wish that Google were more transparent about the business arrangement in its ad networks. Google demands transparency from the rest of us - if we want Googlejuice - but it is too often opaque itself. But opaqueness has long been standard procedure in business.

Evil? No.

Leavening the impression of - or fear of - evil is Google’s virtue. Google does good. Our world is a better place because of Google. Consider:

* Google has opened up the world’s digital knowledge to everyone. We can answer any question, satisfy any curiosity, fix any error of fact in the blink of an eye. I wanted to know just how fast that is, so I asked Google how fast an eye blinks and in .3 seconds it told me that a blink takes .3 seconds.

* Google respects the wisdom of the crowd - that is the essence of the PageRank that determines which search results are most relevant. Google also enables us to recapture our wisdom, as it does with its analysis of flu trends based on our searches for related words.

* Google connects people. Young people today will never lose touch and I hope that will lead to better friendships and better behavior.

* Google’s ads are helping to support the creation of the next generation of content. I made $4,500 in Google ads on my blog, Buzzmachine, last year. Granted, I shouldn’t have quit my day job but Google made my blog profitable.

* Edward Roussel, digital head of the Telegraph in London, has argued that declining newspapers should consider handing over the work of technology, distribution, and ad sales to Google so they could become efficient and profitable and do what they do best: journalism.

* Google created platforms on which others can create products, companies, jobs, value, and wealth. About.com, Platial.com, Outside.in, EveryBlock.com exist only because Google made them possible. With Google’s ads, maps, hosting, services, and promotion, new creations bloom.

* Google shows us the way to a new economy that will be built out of the wreckage of the financial crisis. No longer will companies grow to critical mass by borrowing huge amounts of capital to make huge acquisitions. In the Google age, they will grow by creating networks on platforms. We have much to learn from Google’s ways.

One might say that its vow not to do evil is the height of hubris. Google is undeniably arrogant. But its executives say the evil motto is valuable inside the company because it allows any employee to question any decision. It’s not a bad rule. Indeed, I wish Google’s covenant had been chiseled over many a door on Wall Street. If only, in the poisoned process that led to the financial crisis, enough people had asked whether seeking and issuing toxic mortgages and making and selling toxic assets were evil—instead of someone else’s problem—I wonder whether we’d have reached this nadir.

As we try to understand and navigate a new world built on links, connectedness, networks, openness, transparency, publicness, trust, generosity, efficiency, niches, platforms, speed, and abundance, we would do well to ask ourselves, what would Google do? Google is not evil. Google is an example to us all.

As more and more social media channels like Blogs and online social networks expand, consumers are discussing, reviewing and engaging with brands more than ever before. This newfound connection and communication is forcing a unique evolution of the CMO - Chief Marketing Officer.

Marketing is facing a new reality and the CMO is going to have to adapt like never before. This was the key message out of a study of global CMOs conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Google. The report, Future Tense: The Global CMO (pdf) was written about today on Marketing Charts here: Study - CMOs Must Evolve to Meet New Marketing Challenges.

"Marketers are increasingly able to reach out to consumers at all points along the value chain, not just at the moment a purchase decision is made. Because of this, global marketing of the future must engage all corporate stakeholders with consistent, constant and accurate messaging. At the same time, it must encourage and be able to respond quickly to customer feedback and involvement, pulling stakeholders closer to the corporate brand... In terms of progress toward this goal, 56% of the 263 marketing executives surveyed agreed that their company is highly customer-centric and that marketing functions are interwoven throughout their operations."

How can the CMO evolve? The report offers the following recommendations:

Balancing global brand awareness with local market relevance. Centralizing global marketing functions such as advertising development and production can create economies of scale and save money, but they must be guided by the needs of the local market and customer insights. At the same time, budgets must be freed up so that regional directors can make appropriate decisions based on market demands.

Integrating marketing with other forms of corporate communications. Both the interactive nature of Web 2.0 technologies and the transparency of corporate messages among different constituencies—such as customers, investors, media, regulatory bodies and employees (past, present and future)—demand the integration of various forms of marketing and communications. Businesses can no longer segment audiences and messages as if audiences don’t talk to each other.

Adopting new media. In particular, there should be a specific budget for experimentation with the newest Web 2.0 technologies. To remain competitive, companies must engage customers and fully exploit the interactive nature of digital media to create a stronger affinity with their brands among consumers and other stakeholders. The CMO should have the foresight to anticipate how different constituencies will respond to different events, messages and channels, and should be able to deal with the proliferation of new-media tools and expanded audiences.

Developing new skills, capabilities—and partnerships. CMOs must not only position their companies, but help define them. To do so, they need to understand the fundamental business model, brand, culture, policies and values of the organization. Equally important in terms of adapting to the evolution of new media are partnerships with vendors whose expertise can be used to get new initiatives to market faster—and more effectively—than a company would on its own.

Championing innovation. The need for greater accountability for marketing expenditure is pushing global companies towards digital marketing campaigns with higher returns than traditional media. The interactive nature of the latest digital-media vehicles provides the opportunity to develop deeper insights into customer dynamics and allows the CMO to become the corporate champion of customer insight.

Do you think that the CMO of today can either adapt or evolve to become the CMO of tomorrow that this report is recommending?

Tags: advertising blog brand chief marketing officer cmo communication digital marketing economist intelligence unit global cmo global marketing google innovation marketer marketing marketing charts marketing report media new marketing new media online social network social media technology web 20

The Obama administration has named two of the greatest brains online to its FCC review team: Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach. And there are few agencies that need review so badly. Bravo!

I can’t wait to get the Google iPhone app that answers questions asked by voice:

Tim O’Reilly called this one a year and a half ago, I think, when he said that GOOG-411’s core purpose or fringe benefit was that Google would harvest our voice samples and out of them create the best voice recognition online. Now Google can answer any question we ask (we’ll see how well it works sometime today).

This is about mobile, of course. Eric Schmidt told Jim Cramer a few weeks ago that in the future, Google will make more from mobile than from the web because it is a better targeting opportunity and targeting — relevance — is Google’s real business. This is also about the next real operating system of the internet. Microsoft has its voice-recognition software, of course, but Word isn’t where this battle will be fought. The sidewalk is the place.

Out of the dire need to cut back, news organizations are at last looking out and forming networks. Newspapers in Ft. Worth and Dallas are going to share news. Newspapers in Ohio have been doing that. Now TV stations in Philadelphia are setting up a separate company to make video.

It’s a start on a model that I think will be important in the regeneration of the news industry. And it’s a short step from sharing with fellow news organizations to sharing with independent agents in the public (starting with your own former employees who set up blogs and then working with blogfers).

Sharing will replace syndication, I think. That’s why I’m not confident in the success of CNN’s effort to set up a new wire service to compete with the AP, Reuters, and AFP. It might work for international coverage because it’s hard to share content with a source in another language and there’s a vastly different base of shared knowledge. But domestically and locally, I think that sharing and reverse syndication (a la Political) will win the day.

Piece by piece, new models emerge.