Category: Lars Bredahl

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” or so the saying goes. But in Chris Anderson’s book, Free, he talks about the revolutionary new business model of using ‘free’ products to still make incredible profit. A strategy that web giants, such as Google, have employed to find great success.

Earlier, I had posted some questions that came to my head as I explored the ideas of Anderson. In response to those questions, I came up with the following:

1.) Why is it that many newspapers are still struggling with the idea of a free online edition when the main reason they are trouble is because they refused to evolve and adapt in the first place.

When I heard that a well-respected paper like the Boston Globe was switching from a free online edition to paid online edition, I was perplexed. It is common knowledge that newspapers have suffered the most in response to new advancements in communications technology but the rise of the internet was arguably the nail in the coffin. As stubborn news organizations clung to the traditional business model, they complained about reliability of internet news, amateur reporters, and end of “the good old days.”

However, many papers, like the New York Times, have since wised up and come up with new solutions such as beefing up their online editions with multimedia and content, and becoming news leaders online like they were in print. They have found that they cannot charge for these online editions because people will just use other free news sites so instead they have implemented new ad placement ideas and are beginning to get the idea that Anderson is preaching.

It seems strange to me that some papers, especially well-respected ones like the Boston Globe, still don’t get it. They have delusions that many people will have no problem paying for an online edition just like they did for the printed copies. But we have seen time and time again that this is not true. Unless the Globe implements some new business model when dealing with its site, people will go elsewhere. They need to utilize the idea of free content to attract a loyal following of readers who see them as a premium news source and will become reliable audience for online advertising.

2.)What kinds of things can sites like Twitter do to increase their profits? Obviously they would lose many users if they charged for accounts but is online advertising the key to keeping sites afloat?

Social networking sites like Twitter can obviously not charge people for its services because they will lose a large amount of users who do not see it as a crucial part of their life. However, Facebook has proved that by practicing Anderson’s ideas about providing ‘free’ products they still find great success. Twitter has tried to implement sponsored tweets but these are often met with hostility because people don’t like to have their news feeds broken up by commercials.

However, there are still ways to monetize the site without directly charging for the product. I have seen companies use popular celebrity “tweeters” to casually mention their products. Also, twitter can offer premium ad-ons such as desktop Twitter apps for small fees. The key to adapting a ‘free’ business model is to think outside of the box. It seems that, so far, they are on the right track.

Chris Anderson is my hero. Yes, who wouldn’t agree with a guy who believes in a ‘free’ business model? But it is much more than that. Anderson is a true forward thinker who is helping to drive our nation’s economic system to let go of it’s old ways and evolve to better fit in a digital world. Some of the questions that I still have are:

1.) I heard that the Boston Globe is changing it’s online edition from free to paid. This baffles me. It almost seems like going backwards. Why is it that many newspapers are still struggling with the idea of a free online edition when the main reason they are trouble is because they refused to evolve and adapt in the first place.

2.) As Anderson mentions, software giants, like Google and Facebook, are able to make billions without charging a penny for their products. However other popular sites, like Twitter, are still trying to figure out the best way to make a profit without charging for their service. What kinds of things can sites like Twitter do to increase their profits? Obviously they would lose many users if they charged but is online advertising the key to keeping sites afloat? In that regard, can the Hulu model of ads in streaming video work as a more widespread idea for all free “premium” video?

Earlier in the week, I posted a couple questions regarding Lawrence Lessig’s book, Remix. In response to those questions, I thought of the following…

1.) With “illegal” downloading still a prevalent part of our culture, I still think there is much more work to be done. What kinds of changes need to be made in the new music industry that will help structure a new system in which everyone wins? A better price model perhaps?

Legal music downloading sites like iTunes, Amazon, or even Walmart have revolutionized the music industry by offering artists online outlets for their music and giving consumers a legal and convenient place to buy music legally and on demand. However, I still think the prices could be altered. Walmart offers song downloads for 94 cents and iTunes famously charges 99 cents. However, recently many new songs are being sold for $1.29. I definitely think some of  these prices are a little steep. Considering that these downloads are intangible items with no production costs (regarding compact disks), I feel like these could be priced lower. Even 99 cents is a bit much. I know that iTunes and other download sites have to pay royalties to the record companies for the music so they obviously need to charge enough to make a profit. However, I feel like if song downloads were maybe 50 cents, more people would download music legally and it could drive people away from the illegal file-sharing sites. So it’s a matter of lowering the price for more consumer downloads and less illegal industry-killing downloads. Instead these sites are raising the prices for downloads and driving people away to cheaper (and often illegal) options.

2.) What exactly can be done to streamline and simplify the convoluted mess of copyright laws? What already has been done to adjust an outdated system for this new era of connectivity?

I don’t know a lot about law, but there need to be better copyright laws in regards to music downloading sites like iTunes. It frustrates me when I purchase a song on one computer and try to bring it to another and I’m met with resistance and obstacles thrown at me by iTunes. I understand that it is very difficult to monitor such intangible products as digital music but when I PAY for a song (or any product for that matter) I should be able to use it how I want (within reason). If I want to play it on another device this should be a simple transfer. If I want to burn it on a disk, this should be no problem. However, certain laws that cling to the post-digital past make it difficult for iTunes to allow me complete freedom. This is just one small example of why lawmakers need to take a good luck at our copyright laws and change the way ownership rights are handled. The artists and record companies have become so possessive of their creative content that it is becoming frustrating for fans who want to share and offer free promotion. I definitely think that Lessig had some great ideas about decriminalizing and deregulating to make these laws simpler. Right now, copyright law is a mess but there’s still hope. With people who think like Lessig we could have a system in which everyone wins.

It’s refreshing to hear the sensibility of Lawrence Lessig coming to the rescue in a world gone mad with copyright lawsuits and intellectual property fiascos. While reading Lessig’s book, Remix, I thought about the following questions:

1.) The music industry is a classic example of what can happen to corporate giants when they stubbornly cling to the outdated copyright rules of the past. As Lessig mentions, sites, like iTunes, have found ways to balance access and control, and be equally attractive to creators and consumers. However, with “illegal” downloading still a prevalent part of our culture, I still think there is much work to be done. What kinds of changes need to be made in the new music industry that will help structure a new system in which everyone wins? A better price model perhaps?

2.) Lessig says that the copyright system needs to be simplified. If a child is expected to comply with copyright law, they should be able to understand it. I’ve taken classes in media law but I often still find myself baffled by the ins and outs of copyright law. What exactly can be done to streamline and simplify the convoluted mess of copyright laws? What already has been done to adjust an outdated system for this new era of connectivity?

In response to my questions that I posted earlier…

1. Is it possible that we may be moving towards are more humanistic internet experience with a heavier focus on user customization and social collaboration?  Is it possible that we are in the process and making the internet into a more humanistic experience?

I have to disagree with the doom and gloom predictions of Lanier. Although in the early days of the internet, there was much more rigidity and control with the “small group of software engineers” making most of the decisions but I believe that the entity of the internet has evolved beyond that. Now, more than ever, each individual user has a voice and a say in how something is presented or discussed online. People are interacting and collaborating with people all over the world, people that they would never have interacted with in the past. The internet is taking the things that make us human and amplifying them over  a global network. I don’t see this as some form of insidious mechanization but rather an aid to bring us closer as a global human community. We are now able to build community, support causes, witness and report news, and build a better world through the collaborative nature of the internet. If this is not a more humanistic internet, I don’t know what is.

I feel that Henry Jenkins has a much better idea about what is going on. He compares our evolving internet culture of collaboration and mash-up “folklore” to going back to our roots as early humans who worked together and shared our stories for the purpose of others taking them and retelling them. In his view, we are becoming more “humanistic” internet users and the Web 2.0 ideas of collaboration are making it all possible.

2.) Although Wikipedia has its share of hooligans, is it possible that it is a site that is managed by a more or less “intelligent” crowd and can be seen as a more reliable source than some of the individual experts being “drowned out”? Is crowd sourcing really as negative as Lanier seems to believe? What about the positive effects of people putting their heads together to collectively solve problems?

As we discussed in class, Wikipedia is often a hotly debated topic. It’s an encyclopedia of knowledge that almost anyone can contribute to. It relies on the “wisdom of the crowds” and this can make many people, like Lanier, uneasy about its reliability. Lanier talks about how many of the voices of true “experts” are being drowned out by the influx of everyday people inputting information in such sites as Wikipedia. However, as we saw in class this “crowd” of people who create a page on Wikipedia is more reliable than we may think.

As we went through the evolution of the umlaut Wikipedia page we observed that even when one person tried to sabotage the information, other people (many who probably could be considered “experts”) were able to repair the damages with minutes. It is this global team of experts, in countless different fields, that keeps Wikipedia as reliable as possible. Instead of drowning out the experts, sites like Wikipedia are giving voices to experts who may not have had an outlet before. This team effort can often be much more reliable than simply depending on one so-called “expert” who may be nothing more than a Wikipedia saboteur himself.

Jaron Lanier sparks many interesting and controversial discussions in his book, You Are Not a Gadget. Some of the questions that came to my mind while reading were:

1. Lanier often makes a case for “a new digital humanism” in which people live and think much more like cognizant individuals and less like mindless cattle that are forced to act a certain way according to decisions made by software engineers. Although, he is critical of social networks, like Facebook, I have to wonder that if the social networking revolution is ALL bad. Is it possible that we may be moving towards are more humanistic internet experience with a heavier focus on user customization and social collaboration? Now, more than ever, the direction of the internet is less influenced by a handful of engineers and much more driven by the masses. Is it possible that we are in the process and making the internet into a more humanistic experience?

2.) I also question Lanier’s ideas about the “wisdom of the crowds.” He talks about sites, like Wikipedia, that drown out the voices of the true experts with the cacophony of the masses. He says that the wisdom of the crowds can be used selectively but should not be over glorified.

When reading about this, I kept thinking about a book I read in undergrad called, The Wisdom of the Crowds, by James Surowiecki. In this book, Surowiecki argues in favor of crowd wisdom and says that if a “crowd” is made up of a diverse group of independently-deciding individuals, it can be much more powerful than any individual experts. Although Wikipedia has its share of hooligans, is it possible that it is a site that is managed by a more or less “intelligent” crowd and can be seen as a more reliable source than some of the individual experts being “drowned out”? Is crowd sourcing really as negative as Lanier seems to believe? What about the positive effects of people putting their heads together to collectively solve problems?

I decided to respond to another person’s questions this week. In response to Jenna’s questions…

1. How much peer-to-peer sharing is okay? In terms of what should be open source and available for free to users?

I believe that in this day in age, we are learning more about the power and advantages of collaboration. I believe that without collaboration in the past, software would not be what it is today. Science is a collaborative field and I see no reason why software can’t work the same way. This is why I believe it should be free for users to download and improve upon in order to make a increasingly better experience for others.

Music and movies are part of a more complicated issue. Although peer-to-peer file sharing is a great way to promote new bands and get material out to the masses, it also takes away from the money artists make for a living. I really like the way that bands like Radiohead handled their album, In Rainbows. They offered it online with a pay-what-you-wish system. They still made money with many fans even paying more than a typical album. But they were also able to avoid using the archaic record company system.

Agree with it or not, P2P is not going away so it’s important to rethink the system and get creative with how people can make money in this new age of collaboration and sharing.

2. What can motivate us, as designers, to produce information, knowing that other people are going to use it? Should we be okay with wanting to inspire other people from our work?

As we become more and more skilled in digital and interactive design, we have to consider our own intellectual property and what we should do about making it public. I know that I would not be where I am today with out the availability of free online tutorials, inspirational art on sites like DeviantArt.com, and free fonts and software packages. I would feel hypocritical not to share my work online. I would feel honored if someone was inspired by my work and took it a step further. However, the positive motion of peer-to-peer is stalled when people are simply copying and not building upon. I would not be ok with straight-up plagiarism.

3. Is everyone really capable of “publishing” in today’s culture? How can we truly define publishing and the art of being a professional?

I think it is fantastic and somewhat intimidating that these days anyone can be a ‘published’ author. With a simple free WordPress account when can write anything for the entire world to read. However, I think what our generation has learned (sometimes the hard way) is that many of these authors should be taken with a grain of salt. Although blogs and Twitter posts are faster than traditional news sources, we still look to the CNN’s and Brittanica’s of the web to give us fact-checked information. So this shows that we still often need that big “trusted” corporate name behind us if we want to truly be taken seriously. Though this is rapidly changing and we could see a much more level playing field in the future.

In regards to the Wealth of Networks reading, I had the following questions:

1. I keep thinking of the Bing.com commercials in which people are spouting off random facts and creating a cacophony of information overload. Is it possible that with everyone having a public voice there is indeed too much information being shared and most is getting lost in the crowd? Is the Babel objection actually a reality?

2. It was interesting to read about the history of music as an informational good. It was mentioned that in the nineteenth century music was a relational good. “It was something people did in the physical presence of each other.” The advent of recording technologies transformed music into a more profitable good that was easier to package and copyright. However, now is it possible that we are slowly moving back towards a world in which music is once again, a thing of the people? The collapse of the record companies and bands connecting directly with fans through live performances and online seem like they both are signs of a new age.

I found the topics we covered this week to be very interesting. Earlier this week, I posted a question regarding paradigm shifts and asked whether or not we were on the cusp of another groundbreaking shift. Our current paradigm focuses on individual effects, critical/cultural theories, and social level effects.

However, I feel that these ideas will be reevaluated as we develop into a Web 2.0 society driven by collaboration, globalization, and social networks. Now, we need to think less about how the media is affecting society and more about how society is affecting the media.

As some of my classmates have already mentioned, social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter are quickly becoming go-to sources for people to find and report breaking news. Blogs are also serving as an outlet for the growing phenomenon of citizen journalism. Although major news corporations, such as CNN, also have blogs and Twitter feeds, they still have a slower reaction time compared to citizen journalists. Instead of trying to compete, these traditional news sources are slowly beginning to realize that they need to embrace these changes. They even have their own outlets, such as iReport, that allow people to report stories on their official site. This shift away from traditional news sources changes the way we think of such things as agenda-setting. It opens up a whole new set of questions as to the reliability of these new sources of news and who is influencing who. This is a key aspect of what may be a whole new paradigm in communication theory.

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My other question concerned the idea of propaganda and the techniques that are used to influence others. Even in this age of information, where consumers are more wary of marketing tricks than ever before, we still have these propaganda techniques being used effectively.

For example, the book mentions how the bandwagon technique is still heavily used to market movies and books. Before the internet, when people saw “America’s #1 Movie!” they would just have to take the commercial’s word for it. Yes, they could go and read different publications and try to find reviews but, more often than not, people were compelled to see something that everyone else was seeing. Now, we can easily Google a movie and find thousands of reviews to decide if we want to see it. Yet even if the reviews have been bad, we still have to urge to see for ourselves what people are talking about.

I think, to answer my own question, even with increasing amounts of information at our fingertips, there are still those sociological forces that drive us. We still have that unquenchable need to belong and effective advertising uses propaganda techniques to tap into those innermost desires. Whether or not we feel that this is ethical, is a whole different issue. However, it is safe to say that although we may be more aware of the fact than we have been in the past, the media still has a very powerful influence on our lives.

For my research paper, I am very interested in the location-based services and how they can be applied specifically to marketing and advertising. The ability to directly target potential customers in a certain area is obviously a very appealing aspect for many companies and with increasingly advanced mobile phones, there are many more ways to leverage this technology.

Foursquare, of course, is the “hot” application right now. It has already garnered over 3 million users and has companies, like Starbucks and American Eagle, utilizing it to offer promotions to those who “check-in” with the software.

However, Facebook and Twitter are getting into the game as well and this opens up even more possibilities. Facebook’s Places application has only been rolled out recently but I see the potential power of having a pre-built network of Facebook friends that you can find, and offer suggestions to, in your area. It also encourages business owners to establish “places” in which they can advertise directly to users in the area, especially those who have previously “Liked” their businesses.

My motivation for studying such a topic would be that the idea of location-based marketing not only personally interests me also is being heralded as a game changer in, not only marketing world, but to social theory as whole. Steve Hall, creator and editor of industry blog Adrants was quoted as saying,

“With the ability to target people only when they are within purchasing distance, brands will be able to come that much closer to targeting nirvana. Offers can be made only to those meeting certain location (and even demographic) requirements, reducing waste and actually saving a brand a lot of money by minimizing its old school spray-and-pray mass marketing techniques. In a nutshell, mobile will, once and for all, make it possible for a marketer to target without waste.”

I plan on pursuing a career in advertising and this technology will clearly be a critical part of the job that I want to be familiar with.

As it develops and spreads, this technology will reshape many current social theories and even open up a whole new set of potentially controversial issues such as the idea of having businesses and peers being able to literally “track” us and know our location anytime that we carry our mobile phones. With social networks, our lives have clearly become much more public but would this people-tracking technology and direct marketing finally cross the line?

My methods for studying this topic will be to first research the location-tracking system itself. I want to learn much more how it works and how it has been used in the past. I also want to look more into which applications (Foursquare, Facebook, etc.) are utilizing the technology and what they are planning for the future. I want to conduct some in-depth case studies on certain companies, such as Starbucks, that are leveraging the location-tracking apps for marketing purposes and evaluate their success. I also want to try to predict how it will be used for future marketing endeavors and how people will react as it continues to spread.

Hopefully, in the spring I can use my research to develop a location-based marketing campaign for a client as a part of my Capstone project.

As you can see, this topic would be fascinating to learn more about because of the immense impact it has on the sociological and marketing worlds.