Gatekeepers and the organization.

Gatekeepers and the organization.

This is were it gets hard. One thing is dealing in theory with the challenges content owners have in this new media age. Another thing is to actually develop and deploy working and meaningful marketing plans in the organization. 

The human is arranged in such a way, that changes from something comfortable or at least familiar to something completely new is seldom done willingly. And giving up control in order to let anarchy rule is on one hand something that in the first place is hard enough in itself, on the other hand, if you are working in a organization where your job have a value based on your placement in the organization - your not going to give up that control, not by a long shot.     

And here we have the paradox of the content owning organization - here we have why it takes such a long time for the four majors to come to terms with how the media landscape looks today. 

This is not very healthy for the content owning business - caught between and old organizational structure, and users that have access to your content all the time. Their access is free, legal or illegal, often they do not care. And the users have no respect or need to follow your. The reason? The company had neither respect nor heard the needs of the then-consumers when it were in control. 

So in reality what we get, is an organization that changes very slowly, with gatekeepers everywhere, that are very reluctant to give up control, both internally and externally, because that their value could disappear.  I do understand why product managers are so hard to figure out, and why they will put them self's in between the artist and the rest of the organization. Control and fear of losing your job. I the meanwhile, Nine Inch Nails exploded on the marked, simply went from huge to gargantuan in no time, because they gave up the control to the fans. And this is another problem, because of the slow turn of pace of the record companies, the artist take control over what should be something that the record companies should own. The answer? On a high level we need change, change in the organizational structure, on how the artists are perceived and what the core product is, and not just in words, in action as well. And this is not and never had been easy. 

The Mobile (R)evolution in music 2.0

The Music Cellphone (R)evolution 2.0

The year 2005 - a few years ago, but eons ago in the digital age. Sony Ericsson introduced the W800i (prior to the almost identical k750i) - and cellphones were changed forever. At the time, brilliant specs - 2 mp camera w. auto-focus and flash, even today that's god specs - the iPhone cant muster that specs 4 years after the w800i/k750i were introduced. It held the at the time massive 512 MB on again at the time tiny Memory Stick Pro Duo. Since it were the first of the Walkman phones it came with the first instalment of the Walkman Player software with MegaBass. These are just words - the hands on experience back then were no less then a technological revolution - I fell in love - here were a cellphone non only with a brilliant camera (i have printed several of the pictures taken w. this phone) but we had a phone that sounded and felt like a mp3 player, the sound were (and am) crisp and it even had a flight more option were you could turn of the phone ability. I would call that a mobile music revolution - after the w800 - it became "normal" to make a music phone - and the race is still on - the walkman brand is a very strong brand for SE today. 

Generally speaking the hardware race is raging as ferociously as it ever had. A lot of hardware producers are spitting out high-end handsets in a very high speed, but at the same time, the market is getting saturated by even more handset producers. New as well as old, eg. palm has rethink their whole existence and come up with a handset that is the first one so far I have seen that is being called a iPhone killer all over the board, besides the imminent HTC Hero  (I started this blog so "long" ago that the hero has emerged as more the just a concept- and regarding the pre - unfortunately only an American handset so far, because of the net it uses). The main point is that the profit margin is shrinking for the produces, and i guess the quality of the musicplayer in the handsets have reached a level of such high quality that in order to improve it, we have to totally rethink the concept mobile handset music player, if I knew how, I wouldn't be sitting here. 

But there is another aspect to mobile music, which we are seeing being created right now, this time spearheaded commercially by Nine Inch Nails (earlier praised in this blog for their amazing ability to be innovative in the music business). If you haven't heard of their iPhone App - it is in due time you march over there and see what it can do (http://bit.ly/yE619) - before NIN ends their tour and is defunct. 

What we are experiencing here is the mobile revolution part 2 - now it is the form of the music that is negotiable from the content owners point of view. You can give your fans your own platform with the content you want them to see - you can give the fans much more then the music or the (quite boring) wappage push. This is yet another medium in which the artist can take up the conversation with the fans. Which is the future of music, quite simple - not only the power and control to give (emphasize here - the power to sell is dead, if not that - then dying) content to the fans -  but also make a dialogue with them - see my blog about the death and life of the album http://bit.ly/11f6Gv for more on this.

With over 91% of all the population having their mobile device within a meter of them 24/7 and 95% never leaving home without it - this is not only a music revolution - but also a quite natural evolution, when the handsets become more and more powerful - and easier to adapt to the demands of easy consumable and accessibly content that the fans demand. 

Your CyperBullying days are over

BigBrand: your (Cyper-)Bullying days are over

So - as i go deeper and deeper into what social media is, there are one key element that keeps poping up. How bigbrands keep undersestimating the power of social media, and how fast and strong this power can be. 

Lets take a couple of examples of how bigbrands have suffered on their value because of they missing ability to cope with the power of social. First of, a very pressent and very big one - United Breaks Guitars - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo - today, it have been online a week - one week and 2,7 million views. Besides the fact that they have worked on making things right http://twitter.com/UnitedAirlines/status/2522271993. It is to late now, the word is out, and the brand is suffering more then any apology or refund for the guitars ever would do, and they are not trying to extinguish the online-fire anyway that would make up for this seemingly small mistake. They should have a good political communicator that promises that inquiries will be made in these cases, and the result would be to make a disclaimer that is so loud and clear that you would be a moron to check things in that is of value and fragile on their flights. But so far they have done none of the things - and their brand is bleeding. A rule of thumb for your brand is "your brand equals what a google search on you brand says it is" 

A second and rather new example of stupid branding strategies is this one: 

http://failblog.org/2009/07/13/omg-u-fail-so-hard/

This could potentialy blow up in their face, if it goes viral - but it has already been exposed on their own site - a site with app. 50 mill. pageviews - this one is already hurting Guiness.

What you have to be aware of as a bigbrand, is that right know you are being scrutinized by the people that consume and use your products - if your are doing it right, you have a lot of fans out there fighting for your brand (eg Apple Fanboys) - but if you are not very aware of what you are doing, you have a very big chance of doing it wrong - if one with a little following feels offended by you, he might tell the world though a video, a song, a podcast, a picture, a flame on a forum - and if others sympatize, they join in - it goes viral, and suddenly a small thing becomes a major thing that surpasses your homepage in searches in google or bing.

Your uses choose you, you don't choose them. 

Twitter - more than just another narcissistic way of communicatin

Actually - I were going to write a quite lengthily blog about music, mobile and apps - a work still in progress - but due to the last couple of days of chaos in Iran - I will write a short praise of Twitter.

Many people I meet in my day to day existents as a digital frontline consumer, a geek and a person, continually question the legitimacy of twitter. That must be clarified right now - via the one to many or the one to a channel communication, the Iranian people have a vital way of communicating to the outside world, when the dictatorial
priest in Teheran have shut down all basic means of communication, even texting on the phone have been stopped. In the past week I have continually been following numerous channels and single people in and about Iran – this has actually touched be quite deeply. One thing is the distance you will get to any conflict in the world by distant proximity effect of TV (a news anchor that tells you what is happening in a monotonous voice, sedating us as media consumers – we are as far away from the action as we possibly could be) another thing is “listening” real time to real people in real peril, right now – this is on one hand quite inspiring to act in favor of these poor people, on the other hand frightening – I have seen quite gory stuff - captured on mobile phones, pictures and movies, real people really dying, fighting for their basic right to vote – to let their voice be heard – you would have to be made of stone not to let these things touch you. And this is where twitter really has proven its worth. I have heard hands on what is going on.

This is actually a movement “backwards” in the sense that it is the one to many communications and the almost chatroomish communication we are experiencing with twitter.. but it works. And that is the essence of it. I will elaborate on the implications of this kind of communication later on – and the importance of syndication of information.

If you still are doubting go se here
https://twitter.com/#IranElection

The life and death of the album

The life and death of the album

A reoccurring discussion is the life and the death of the album. It seems ever present - and generally the idea is that the album is dying a slow and pain full, and an expensive death - an example of this is Bob Lefsetz @ http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/page/4/ - more albums. And I must admit that I to a certain extent have to admit that the man is right. But only at a certain level. I think the concept of an album is dying, when the understanding of an album is one static size, be it a CD or a download from iTunes. We, the consumers, are interested in two tings, the easy consumable content aka the single or an insight in the artist life and doing, the process of creation, or the possibility to interact and be updated continually on the doings of the artists. We have two examples of this, and a bit of history. 

Two years ago, The Radiohead example where all the rave, everyone where extremely interested in they business model, and how it were going to go - it wasn't really that big a deal, looking back at it. Because today we have two examples of bands that have taken the idea, and putting depth on the concept. First of the most recent, Depeche Mode and their subscription based information - http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/02/apple-republic.html  this is brilliant - this will be the way people who are interesting in a artist will want their information from now on, when I were in my late teens, my approach to an artist where that, if i liked the artist, i Loved the artist, and wanted everything that the artist ever made, eg. i have some really rare marilyn manson and foo fighters singles today - but that were prior to the digital age, where everyone can get everything anytime free (and illegal) - the way to fight that is to make everything available to does who are ready to pay a small fee, in return you will get high bit rated and mastered content exclusively, when it is conceived. The other example i have is the (big surprise here) Nine inch nails case, Trent Reznor et al have really taken the digital possibilities seriously and are approaching mass digital marketing on a almost googlish fashion. Everything from different products (from free download to the mother of all boxes), incorporation Gerd Leonards Music Like Water Theory into their business model, with so big success that NIN were the most legally downloaded artist in 2008 @ amazon http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_7866952_18?ie=UTF8&node=1240544011

The point here is that if your a band that's interested in making conceptual albumish experiences, don't fret, the albums may be dying, but the album experience will certainly live on. 

And I have to say that these two models will without any doubt be the models a lot of artist will incorporate in their strife for success in the years to come, the thing is, there are a big difference between the two models, and this is were you really have to listen up if your corporate music, Depeche Mode is signed to EMI and it is EMI that's is making the micro-subscription available, but NIN releases their own material and are not signed to any major label (http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/burn/nine-inch-nails-dumps-record-labels-going-direct-to-fans-308409.php), they release their content under the creative commons licencing and is doing all this with enormous success. So what is it that I am saying? I am saying - change to the better Majors, or be left behind, the movement has started and there is nothing to stop it. http://www.featuredartistscoalition.com/

Ps. I could talk about Madonna stopping @ majors, or how coldplay (another EMI band btw)  also have learned to harvest user interaction - but i have to go to work @ my corporate  job

Making the blog work 2.0

Making the blog work 2.0

Finally I beginning to see sense in revive my blog again - clean slate - everything deleted and start again. The reason for the reset and the restart of something that haven't been posted anything on for 2 years? Well I just realised how well connected the different social medias are. I can import info from digg, delicious, last.fm, youtube, twitter and this, my blog to my facebook profile. The seemingly randomised yelling on different social medias is beginning to take a more standardised form, or you can say that there is a shaped a form in the way you can use your information in a structured way. You can make all your media point one way, instead of a lot of different ways. 

Actually I am writing this blog in docs.google.com - which will publish the content to my blogger account. Another example of how the media works for you. This will increase dramatically in the near future. Right now there is an information war going on. The battlefield is new and old communicators, the aggregators of information. Newspapers and news sites are implementing the different kinds of profiles, and you can use the profiles to either comment on the content, or to use the content on one of your social media sites. There are three of the logins that I think will be the runner ups for the most attention on the net right now. Facebook Connect http://tinyurl.com/6kpcsm, which is Facebooks take on a login. The Google Friend Connect http://tinyurl.com/6hogds that is googles response and finally Open ID http://openid.net/ - which is an open source approach to a online identity. 

The implications of the ID (or IDS) you chose to communicate to the world goes well beyond "just" posting entries from newspapers to your profile on either FB or Google. You have a possibility to make an ID for each of the media or social sites that you use. And that ID is in is core identical, but only from you view. This means that if you log onto a social network page - lets just call it www.socialnetworkx.com - the profile and the way you react on this page could be completely different from how you react on, say, your FB profile, even if its the same ID you use. This is a natural development for social medias. The way I perceive FB today, is it has turned into a shouting contest, it has even moved well beyond the narcissistic page it were just a year ago. Personally it went from a few friends and some networking, to that I have everyone - everyone on FB - coworkers - family (even my mother) all friends, all old school buddys, every single girl I've kissed. The content that I put out there has now turned into innocent nothing. I don't want to be fired, I don't want to upset my family and I don't want to tell my exes about my current love life. But with the IDs - I have a possibility to return to the narcissisme, no one but me know that the ID i use on other social pages are the same as my FB profile. The shouting stops - the talking begins - welcome to social media 2.0