Why Google Should Buy The Recording Industry http://tinyurl.com/3r2xmaz

Since the music industry seems to want to stifle every innovation, why wouldn’t Google, or Amazon, or Apple, just simply buy them!  I’ve explored this idea before focused on visual content but it makes perfect sense here.

Another article I read today pointed out that the old industries – Record Labels, Studios, Networks – see themselves as gatekeepers so their immediate response is to say “no” until they can have ultimate control. Instead they should be seeing themselves as the enablers of any service that makes money for them, and more importantly, for the artists they represent. (Yeh, right!)

The fact that this is literally true tells us something that is often overlooked: the music industry is economically quite small and unimportant compared to the computer industry. And yet somehow — through honed lobbying and old boy networks — it wields a disproportionate power that enables it to block innovative ideas that the online world wants to try.

Why not fight the cartel with another cartel?

But that throwaway comment also raises another interesting idea: how about if Google *did* buy the music industry? That would solve its licensing problems at a stroke. Of course, the anti-trust authorities around the world would definitely have something to say about this, so it might be necessary to tweak the idea a little. 
How about if a consortium of leading Internet companies — Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Baidu, Amazon etc. — jointly bought the entire music industry, and promised to license its content to anyone on a non-discriminatory basis?

However, as Chris Adamson said in response to my Twitter post of this link:

Hard to imagine a Google or Apple takeover of the music industry passing antitrust review, though.

And that’s a very fair point.

Why ‘Big Media’ Was Just a Historical Blip http://tinyurl.com/68wq5o7

The question isn’t so much that Big Media is giving way to New Media, but rather that the era of Big Media – i.e. mass media, is a historical anomaly.

Before mass media all media was small, serving local audiences or (with books) very slowly distributed over wider territories. Then came an era of mass capital and limited airwaves that allowed broadcasters to build mass audiences, up to the 130 million Americans that saw “Roots” during its first broadcast.

The movie studios once owned all the production technology, talent and distribution channel – the movie theaters. That structure was forcibly broken apart, but the broadcast industry has fragmented due to the proliferation of cable channels, and now direct Internet distribution.

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Here’s The Truth About The Future Of The Media Industry http://tinyurl.com/2627upb

The presentation takes a very liberal view of media – essentially anything that is presented with ads beside it to support it (and I’d disagree with that definition but whatever) – but makes the point that “new media” companies are as large and important as “old media” companies.

Slide 8 of the deck shows the relative sizes (market cap) of new and old media and the companies that are included.

Slide 12 introduces the question of “the next battleground: Video” and shows that the trend to IP-delivered video entertainment is “real”.

Good stuff – hard to copy and past images of graphs but clicking through is worth the effort.

Four Ways Social Media Will Change Television http://tinyurl.com/25zp6ar

Instead of the metaphorical “next day” water cooler of history, which was a social component to Television even then, we’re moving the conversation online and into Twitter (and other social conversations). I tend not to watch sports events – it’s just not my thing – but I’m rarely uninformed about the progress of games because my friends tweet constantly about the progress! Social media changing Television.

NewTeeVee identifies Social Viewing, Measurement, Curation and Commerce as the dominant trends in social media support for Television. I tend to agree: I discover new show from recommendations from friends.

Broadcast Networks – On Death And Dying http://tinyurl.com/2w3dcfo

For Broadcast Networks, the end is coming and it’s time for them to Accepttheir fate.

Kind of premature because Broadcast Networks(and cable) are still dominant,still making the money and still have the premium content, but it’s also equally obvious that status will not remain static in the future.

According to a model developed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying”, there are Five Stages of Grief.  
Over the past 20 years or so,Broadcast Networks have bounced around the First Four Stages in an effort to fight off the inevitable:

If you can type, you can make movies…http://tinyurl.com/57y7b2

Simple avatars and typed text-to-sound does not make a “movie”. It makes something that’s mildly interesting but it’s not a “Movie”.

The real cost of Free http://bit.ly/cd8njl

I read responses like these and I really wonder why anyone cares about mainstream media, with their lack of research, wholesale publication of press releases (without disclosure) and the tendency to push headlines (and page views).

Apart from Guardian columnist Helienne Lindvall publishing material with zero research, making claims that were simply not true about Doctorow’s speaking fees, but manages to completely misunderstand that no-one has ever said that “content wants to be free”. Many business models include free content: commercial radio, broadcast Television and newspapers have long used free content as part of their business model.

Doctorow makes the point:

The topic I leave my family and my desk to talk to people all over the world about is the risks to freedom arising from the failure of copyright giants to adapt to a world where it’s impossible to prevent copying. Because it is impossible. Despite 15 long years of the copyright wars, despite draconian laws and savage penalties, despite secret treaties and widespread censorship, despite millions spent on ill-advised copy-prevention tools, more copying takes place today than ever before.

As I’ve written here before, copying isn’t going to get harder, ever. Hard drives won’t magically get bulkier but hold fewer bits and cost more.

Networks won’t be harder to use. PCs won’t be slower. People won’t stop learning to type “Toy Story 3 bittorrent” into Google (NSDQ: GOOG). Anyone who claims otherwise is selling something – generally some kind of unworkable magic anti-copying beans that they swear, this time, will really work.

So, assuming that copyright holders will never be able to stop or even slow down copying, what is to be done?

What is to be done are that new business models must be created around free content and there have been any number of success stories, particularly in film and music. Remember that all Corey Doctorow’s books are available free under a non-commercail Creative Commons license. He has had two books on the New York Times bestseller list for the past two years. He knows what he’s talking about from his own experience.

Read the whole article, it’s well worth it.

How Social Media has Changed the Game for Documentary Filmmaking http://bit.ly/94hKV5

Case studies on how Social Media has changed:

• Outreach
• National networks
• Funding
• Connecting with other filmmakers
• Festivals.

The article concludes with “new approaches”. To me, Social Media in its many variations is key to building and monetizing audiences.

The golden age of web video is coming. http://bit.ly/bDL0dp

If TV history is any indication, a “Golden Age” comes next for original Web video. In the ’50s and ’60s, well-written long-form live TV dramas as well as comedy hits like “I Love Lucy” changed the way America consumed media (and helped end movie studios’ media domination). Eventually, content creators will develop long-form programming using interactivity to tell stories in new ways. Maybe we’ll see fewer 3-minute one-joke videos and more 12-minute masterpieces. And of course, no one will complain if a same-day Old Spice ad pops up to cover the costs.

Viral Video bad for producers and advetisers http://bit.ly/dqgBKi

Jim Louderback is one smart guy. Revison3 is doing well, building strong audiences and yes, getting enough advertising support to make a business. In this article he debunks the idea that going for “viral video success” is the wrong strategy for producers:

Let’s start with producers and show creators. Media is all about building habits. Successful producers bind an audience to their creation, building an insatiable hunger for the next installment, next episode, next post. But when you focus on viral success, you throw that focus on repeatability out the window. By its nature, viral videos are designed to surprise, titillate and entertain. They are, by nature, unique…

They do nothing for the producer long term (with some exceptions) but worse they’re not good for advertisers either:

Viral videos may be bad for creators and publishers, but they are actually worse for advertisers. Your typical viral video gets passed around, yes, and drives a lot of views. And yes, those can translate into impressions for an advertiser. But as we’ve seen at Revision3, advertising associated with viral videos has only a small fraction of the impact of an ad that runs inside, or alongside, an episodic video program. We’ve seen tremendous results from putting brands next to our long-running episodic programs — those with real communities, high comment-to-view ratios and predictable views. We’ve seen terrible results by associating the same brands and services with the few viral-focused shows we’ve tried out over the last five years. And if you try creating those viral-focused videos yourself, you are in for a real surprise. It is overwhelmingly likely that you’ll end up with closer to a thousand views than a million.

Concentrate on building an audience? What a concept.