Bill tweeted:

To which Jay responded:

Jay Rosen brings up a great point. The Internet didn’t suddenly make niche channels popular, it suddenly made niche channels possible. That’s a huge difference. Before the web came around, consumers never had the choice: in order to get the content they wanted, they also had to pay for [thus finance] the content they didn’t care about. As Chris Anderson so ably pointed out in The Long Tail, the media economics of the time simply didn’t make anything else possible. That’s changed!

The web broke 20th century media economics, thus enabling the rise of what Jeff Jarvis called the “mass of niches”. On the web, it became economically feasible for anyone to create/embrace niche channels and content. In such an environment, consumers are no longer strapped to the stuff they don’t care about. Relevance becomes available to everyone, at no extra cost. Once anybody has experienced the pertinence and flexibility of the later, it becomes hard to see why anyone would be expected to settle for the former [with all its inefficiencies] as their primary source of content ever again.

]]> http://www.alexanderlynn.com/blog/the-fall-of-bundled-media/feed/ 0 http://www.alexanderlynn.com/blog/the-tablet-conundrum/ http://www.alexanderlynn.com/blog/the-tablet-conundrum/#comments Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:33:39 +0000 alex http://www.alexanderlynn.com/blog/?p=486 By now, most of us have heard of the new Ipad 2, which was released earlier today. It has been cooking up a storm in the blogosphere for some time now and both bloggers and analysts have been keeping busy by trying to predict its new features or market impact! While there is nothing wrong with this per se, many analysts tend to micro analyze the situation and eventually loose track of the trends in the industry as a whole. Thus, while everybody continues talking about the Ipad 2, I’d like to take the opportunity to take a step back, and discuss the Amazon Kindle.

About two years ago, John Walkenbach a Microsoft excel guru was one of the first people to notice that the Kindle’s price had been dropping at a consistent rate since its release. As Kevin Kelly recently put it in a blog post of his own: its price has been lowering “almost on a schedule”. Walkenbach went on to remark that should this trend continue, the Kindle would essentially be free around July 2011. Since then, several have concurred with his hypothesis. With the summer of 2011 not too far away, this raises some significant questions for the Ipad or any other product competing for some e-reader market share. As Mike Auraz, strategy director at Undercurrent put it on Twitter: “The Kindle doesn’t sound so bad compared to the iPad…if it’s free”

Kindle Price Forecast according to John Walkenbach

While many analysts have hopped onto the Ipad bandwagon and called it a winner, I urge them not to preemptively jump to any conclusions. A fulfillment of John Walkenbach’s hypothesis would readily dismiss the numerous analysts that believed that the Ipad would be a ‘Kindle Killer’. In fact, it would most probably have some dramatic effects on the e-book market, increasing e-book consumption (and Amazon revenue) exponentially and assuring Amazon a significant lead as an e-reading platform-note my use of the term e-reading platform rather than tablet. One can also suppose that this would compel many publishers to back Amazon energetically. While it is certain that the Ipad will continue doing well (and it deserves to as it is a pioneering product) I don’t think the Kindle will be disappearing anytime soon!

In fact, should things unfold according to Walkenbach’s predictions, I believe this would drive a systemic shift in the tablet/e-reader market. We would once and for all stop lumping e-readers and tablets into the same product category. There would be an e-reader market dominated by Amazon (and fueled by publishers) and a tablet market dominated by Apple (fueled by apps & programmers). Tablets would be perceived more as computers (that can also read e-books) and e-readers would be perceived for what they truly are: book-reading devices. I personally think this shift is long overdue, because as Steve Jobs proved (once again) today: with applications such as Imovie or Garage Band, the Ipad is much more than an e-reader!

While I remain doubtful that the kindle will ever become completely free (as in 0.00$ and absolutely no costs attached), it might very well attain some form of what Chris Anderson described as “20th century free” in his book Free: the Future of a Radical Price. In other words: some form of agreement that the retailer will provide the product freely if the consumer agrees to certain terms. One of Anderson’s examples of this phenomenon was 20th century disposable razors: the consumer would receive the disposable razor freely and then have to purchase his own blades. A more contemporary example to think of would be cell phone plans (as Kevin Kelly discusses in his post), where one has to sign up for a significant period to get a free phone. Thus, as Anderson points out, it’s really about “giving away one thing to create demand for an another”. In Amazon’s case, distributing the Kindle freely would enable it to generate enormous growth and scale in its e-book sales (thus compensating for the fact that it distributed the technology freely in the first place).

Kevin Kelly suggest that they might propose to give the Kindle freely if if the consumer agrees to purchase X number of e-books. Michael Arrington from Techcrunch thought it could be a plausible gift for their prime customers only. When discussing the subject with a friend, he suggested that they might choose to provide it freely to people that sign up to specific book clubs or packages. While all of this might never happen, one thing remains sure: a continued downward adjustment in the products price would definitely help it gain valuable e-book market share. What do you think? Does the strategy make sense? Is it realistic, utopian or delusional? As always, your thoughts, comments and feedback are welcome!

Some will argue that this is not beneficial to PR, as skipping the gatekeepers also does away with the opportunity to benefit from “3^rd party credibility”. While this might seem like a valid point, I tend to believe that the shift in the landscape hasn’t completely altered the phenomenon of credibility and that the benefits brought on by the changes firmly outweigh the disadvantages. Remember that any new medium also brings new producers, and that it is inevitable that some of these producers will become more trusted than others. Hence, contrary to public belief, organizations can still benefit from 3^rd party credibility in new media platforms on the Internet. The credibility just doesn’t belong to the same people they used to deal with. Chris Brogan, a media consultant, author and respected marketing expert calls these new sources of online credibility ‘trust agents’. He defines them as: “people who use the web in a very human way to build influence, reputation, awareness” (Brogan, Smith) While they can take many forms, trust agents are most commonly bloggers that gain high amounts of authority & trust on the Internet and subsequently develop a huge community of readers.

Engaging with and using such new sources of credibility is part of the changes companies must make. As a matter a fact, in some cases it may be more beneficial for organizations to get online ‘trust agents’ to preach their message than to use traditional large-scale media outlets. This is due to the fact that their (trust agents) communities are extremely targeted, specialized and dedicated to the subjects they follow. This relevance is crucial. In other words, speaking to 1 million people is useless if only 50 are interested in your cause. Ultimately, the goal is to get these dedicated followers to preach the organizations messages as well. It becomes a virtuous circle of word of mouth.

While some might want to stick solely to traditional media, I would argue that developing relationships with ‘trust agents’ is a compulsory part of corporate public relations in this new media landscape. Not engaging with these agents and their communities could very well be fatal. Consider the following: “A recent PEW study found that nearly 40% of Americans say they have doubted a medical professional’s opinion or diagnosis because it conflicted with information they’d found online. If users put that much faith in what they learn on the Internet, what will they be willing to believe if members of a social media forum start trashing your organization?” (Kane, Fichman, Gallaugher, Glaser) The reality of the current situation is that people will be talking about brands and companies online whether they like it or not. Chris Anderson, a bestselling author and the chief editor at Wired magazine comically expresses this idea when he states:  “Your brand is not what you say it is, it’s what Google says it is.” (Anderson Chris) Consumers have been voicing their ideas, thoughts, concerns, worships and complaints over these online media channels for years. It is now up to companies to do the same. Doing so will ensure that they remain in control of their image and reputation while portraying engagement. In the end, this will also enable them to develop better relationships with their stakeholders; which was the goal of public relations in the first place.

The basis of their idea is to make music video’s interactive. It didn’t seem like much to me at first, but, I checked it out and it blew me away. They have essentially created a fully interactive (and entertaining) marketplace. This place is like Youtube meets Amazon!

Their technology lets them tag anything within a music video (places, people, products) and link content to that tag. You can click on any tag while the video is playing and it will give you product information, let you comment, let you purchase the item, tell you in witch other music videos this product place or person appears, let you share your find with friends and much more! It brakes the boundaries of interactive shopping and totally merges entertainment, with shopping and the power of tribes.

At the click of a mouse, you can now find out what product your favorite artist is wearing (or using) and effortlessly purchase it for yourself. You might have thought that product placement in movies was good, but these guy’s have brought the game to a whole other level. The product that is placed in the music video is not only seen by many, it can be purchased and shared on the spot.

While many might dismiss the idea that such a concept might work, I believe that it truly has a chance. I encourage you to consider the following idea: for centuries, humans have aspired to ideals. They have always looked up to others. At first it was people in their geographic region (family, friends, people in their community) but, at the dawn of the 20th century all this changed. With the arrival of mass media, the 20th century saw the rise of pop culture. A culture that created stars, glamour and a whole lot of fans. People started following others on a global scale. As chris Anderson so brilliantly states in one of his best  selling business books entitled: ‘The Long Tail”: “We are a gregarious species, highly influenced by what others do. And now, with film, there was a medium that could not only show us what other people were doing, but could also endow it with such an intoxicating glamour that it was hard to resist. It was the dawn of the celebrity age.” This idea of stars and fame has been engrained in our society ever since.

Several (including chris Anderson) argue that the star & blockbuster era has reached its peak and started its downfall. Whether you believe this to be true or not, one things remains clear: the mass media that we consume continues to place several individuals (mostly musicians, artists and actors) in a spotlight that the whole world can see and look up to. Music videos are a big part of that world. They define the artists image. The public relates to the image that is portrayed within those videos. What is the best way to try and become that person that you look up to? Follow his lifestyle (portrayed image).  Get where I’m heading now? If you know exactly what you’re favorite artist wears and uses and that you can conveniently buy it, it becomes easy to imitate his lifestyle. All you need is the money to do so!

The guy’s at Clikthrough have established a user friendly way of following your artist’s (presumed) lifestyle and interests. They seem to understand that humans look up to ideals, and that this isn’t going to change. They are giving consumers a way to follow these ideals. Furthermore, they have produced an efficient and brilliant way for fans to connect and discuss the latest on their favorite artist (fully integrating the power of tribes within their product offering). It will be interesting to see what effect services such as this one will have on the value of product placement. If I where a company, I’d be willing to pay a lot more money to sponsor an artist if I knew that people could instantly & conveniently copy his style.