The future of news: to pay or not to pay?
This evening I gave a speech as part of a panel debate about the future of news – and, in particular, whether anyone will ever be convinced to pay for the news in this post-paper era. The debate was, funnily enough, organised by online news aggregator fingertips.net.
As I sat down to think about what I was going to say tonight, I was struck by the parallel with the music industry. For the past decade, I’ve been writing about the way the music industry has failed to embrace digital, and crumbled as a result. – like many journos I’ve been sitting in the sidelines lobbing bricks at The Man.
And now, we journalists are facing our own digital waterloo, and despite furious work, we find ourselves as under the same threat as the record companies. Except we have no Fergeal Sharkey to wheel out on TV – he can get away with saying that you’ve got to pay for music because if you don’t the artists won’t get paid. But who cares if the journos get paid? Most people couldn’t even name a journalist, or if they could it’s because that particular writer’s bigotry has put them on the front pages.
Video: talking convergence on BBC2′s Working Lunch
I went on BBC’s Working Lunch today, to talk about the Pure Sensia with Declan Curry.
The Sensia is a DAB/FM/Internet radio that looks a little like a B&W Zeppelin with a large iPod Touch taped to the front. Unfortunately, the BBC hasn’t quite joined the Wi-Fi revolution yet, so we weren’t able to test out the Sensia’s web apps.
We talked about convergence instead. In something that looked a bit like a shed. But only a bit.
Facing the post-media world
Today’s Observer (in print form) alerted me to an excellent essay on the future of media – Post-Medium Publishing, by Paul Graham.
The jist of his theory: Rupert Murdoch’s belated attempts to charge for online ‘content’ is doomed to failure, because the publishing model only works when you’re producing physical formats – when you’re buying the Observer, you’re buying a sheaf of paper. It’s been marked up to £2 because it contains some interesting words, but the words themselves don’t have a monetary value. Ditto music: it’s the physical disc that gives the music value. People value the physical.
There are notable exceptions, particularly if those words lead to generating more money – which explains why the Financial Times can get away with charging online, while the Sun really can’t. But hell, maybe Murdoch’s a visionary. Or maybe he’s just playing hardball with Google, and is hoping to walk away with an income from the search giant rather than internet users.
I don’t agree with all Mr Graham’s points – I find his argument that iTunes is a stealth tax rather than a successful publishing business is a little hard to swallow – but it’s hard to argue with his conclusion:
“I don’t know exactly what the future will look like, but I’m not too worried about it… When you see something that’s taking advantage of new technology to give people something they want that they couldn’t have before, you’re probably looking at a winner. And when you see something that’s merely reacting to new technology in an attempt to preserve some existing source of revenue, you’re probably looking at a loser.”
I really liked two other parts of Post-Media Publishing: its title, and Paul Graham’s disdain for the word ‘content’:
“I don’t like the word “content” and tried for a while to avoid using it, but I have to admit there’s no other word that means the right thing. “Information” is too general. Ironically, the main reason I don’t like “content” is the thesis of this essay. The word suggests an undifferentiated slurry, but economically that’s how both publishers and audiences treat it. Content is information you don’t need.”
Which exactly why the tagline for my post-media creative agency Flying Leaf is ‘Creating stuff you’ll love. Just don’t call it content.”
Like Paul Graham, I’m not worried about the future. The slow death of old media creates hugely exciting opportunities for those of us interested in the way that brands communicate with people. But I’m worried about this word ‘content’. It’s time for us arty farty creative types to come up with a word that’s more engaging to describe our craft.
See my previous posts:
Pirates don’t kill music: lawyers do
Facebook costs business £1.4bn? Absolute rubbish
There’s a survey doing the rounds today saying that social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are costing UKPLC £1.4bn in lost productivity. This sort of narrow-minded reactionary drivel really scuffs my nostrils.
The survey says workers spend an average of 40 minutes on social networkings sites every week, which amounts to a ‘almost a week out of every year’. I’d love to work somewhere with 32 hour week. But that’s not the point – I’m not protesting about the sums. Nor even the ludicrousness of the claims (though I wonder what affect more roughage in our diet is having on the length of toilet breaks? And how much time is lost to blinking?).
What really annoys me is that the survey fails to recognise the way our work patterns are changing. If we check social media sites at work it’s likely we also check work email at home. In fact, now that we have smartphones, we’re constantly connected – and for many people, that means constantly on the job.
Work isn’t always binary thing: it doesn’t switch on at 9am and off at 5.30. It doesn’t pause for exactly 60minutes at lunch. It’s a flow, and one that all-too-often threatens to overwhelm everything else. Social networking is a lifeline, a sanity check. It’s also a great way for a business to connect to its employees and its customers.
What’s needed is a sophisticated approach to technology and work patterns that can be beneficial for all involved – something that almost every board and IT manager is struggling to understand. But pernicious little surveys like this one provide an excuse to reach for the ‘off’ switch.
But hey, the survey was commissioned by an IT services provider – that’s probably the way they’re used to solving tech problems.
In real life, the easy answer is usually the wrong one.
Video: talking Tory Spotify propaganda on BBC2
One of my more bizarre TV spots as a talking head on the highbrow Daily Politics show on BBC2. Read my thoughts in my previous post, Tories pick Spotify as the new political battleground
Some more of my videos:
Talking upgrade culture with Simon Armitage
Product tour of the B&W Zeppelin mini
Tories pick Spotify as the new political battleground
I’m on my way for my Daily Politics debut on BBC 2 this lunchtime, to talk about the Tories’ new ad on Spotify.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I haven’t heard the ad – I’ve been testing out the ad-free Spotify Premium for a feature I’m writing for Stuff – but according to reports it features Conservative chairman Eric Pickles doing a dad-at-the-disco routine. Except that he’s obviously had some savvy scriptwriters, as he apologies for interrupting your listening pleasure with something you don’t want to hear.
He then lays into Gordon Brown’s profligate public spending before suggesting that listeners will have their “chance to end the madness” at next year’s election.
Unsurprisingly, there’s been a bit of a negative buzz around the ad – unsurprising because all Spotify ads are annoying and Twitter has an undeniable a liberal bent – but I also sense a grudging respect. The Tories did Spotify first, and they didn’t do it totally wrong: they hit that youngish, media-savvy audience head on, and set reverberations around the media, old and new.
And many of those reverberations, like this blog, echo the Tory’s central message even if they don’t agree with it. Job done.
There’s been a lot said about Obama’s skilful use of social media in the US presidential election. Spotify – and other web 2.0 services – will be hoping that they will become a political battleground, drawing in much needed advertising revenue while simultaneously stoking demand for the ad-free premium version of the site for those who’d rather listen to Billy Bragg without interruption from Tory grandees.
Will Labour rise to challenge? I suspect so. But if Gordon Brown’s dalliance with YouTube is anything to go by, they could get it terribly wrong.
To Free or not to Free?
I’m confused. Is ‘Free’ good business or bad?
Last week, just days after the disappearance of one of London’s evening freesheets, the venerable Evening Standard announced it is going to be given away. A thousand forests shivered at the thought of circulation increasing from a quarter of a million to 600,000.
Bizarrely, the decision puts the Standard head-to-head with the paper that was launched to protect it from the threat of of Murdoch’s TheLondonPaper. There’s even a content sharing deal between the two papers – but while the London Lite is still owned by Associated, the Standard is now owned by Russian Oligarch Alexander Lebedev.
Meanwhile The Economist – which should know a thing or two about business models – today announced it will erect a paywall (a dread image that reminds me of Glastonbury Festival’s Superfence) in front of archive content.
Like The Financial Times, The Economist has the sort of information that helps shape financial decisions and therefore has value. But by giving away The Evening Standard for free, is Lebedev devaluing its editorial content? Or, worse (for us journos at least), devaluing ALL editorial content?
Video: talking iPods and upgrade culture with Simon Armitage
At the end of last year I was asked to take part in a BBC4 documentary, which involved being gently probed by softly spoken rock’n'roll poet Simon Armitage. How could I refuse (media tart that I am)?
Simon Armitage and talks tech with Tom Dunmore
The result was finally broadcast this week. It’s called Upgrade Me and I think it’s a rather splendid documentary – even the 56 minutes that don’t feature me. If you’re quick (and live in the UK), you can catch Upgrade Me over on the BBC iPlayer.
And for tardy or foreign visitors? Well, fear not. In flagrant disregard of copyright law, I’ve uploaded the chat between Simon and myself to YouTube. Fingers crossed it stays there. If we had a fair use law in the UK, I reckon this would fall under it. But we don’t, so i’m going to say this blog post is a review and the YouTube clip is nothing more than a quotation.
Albeit a self-aggrandising quotation. Click for more.
Video: launching Sony Ericsson’s motion-sensitive MH907 earphones
Last week I scripted and hosted (for Flying Leaf) a Sony Ericsson webcast revealing their new MH907 earphones.
The earphones feature a capacitive sensor that activates when in contact with skin – so you just insert both earpieces to launch your phone’s music player (or radio) application and begin playback. Take an earphone out, and the music stops.
Gloriously simple, button-free fun – unfortunately it only works with Sony Ericsson phones. For now.
Anyway, the webscast has finally surfaced on YouTube (in two pieces – part two below) – and includes a wonderful Kristoffer Ström animation. Enjoy!
Video: B&W Zeppelin Mini product tour
The B&W Zeppelin is the iconic iPod dock. So I was overjoyed when Bowers and Wilkins approached my new company, Flying Leaf, to script and present a product tour of it’s little brother, the B&W Zeppelin mini.
B&W Zeppelin Mini product tour
I worked with a really talented young director by the name of Matthew Watts, and filmed the product tour in Abbey Road studios. I’m really chuffed with the results – and it’s great to be working with a British company that’s producing world class products.