1st February 2007 - If new media is now old media, what is new, new media? (the subject I was asked to discuss at a conference last week )
Another year, another month of internet blah. MySpace in China, YouTube sharing revenues with uploaders, and US judges using Wikipedia as a source. Yawn, aren’t they missing the point? Surely the internet’s about pointless stuff like this:
I know how much everyone likes to sit back with a cup of tea and browse my list, so to start you off, here’s a site that recommends biscuits to go with your beverage. When IS the biscuit of the month going to be the legendary Jaffa Cake…?
http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/
Back to work grrrrrr? This guy shares your pain:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v422/zoltan66/?action=view¤t=officework.flv
At least you are back at work. Here’s a site which tests your knowledge on who popped their clogs in 06. Tasteless always did play well on the web:
http://www.deadoralive2006.com/
Confession time. I have a strange obsession with cover versions of songs. The more random the better (Radiohead does Carly Simon, U2 sing Abba, Tori Amos is Nirvana – stars in their eyes style. But new media takes this to a whole new level. Mashups are the new covers. Muppets do Goodfellas anyone?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiKBoLXg5Cw
Remember the fascinating science site "will it blend?” well here is a site that should probably be called "will it microwave?":
http://www.wontonway.com/microwave/microwave.html
Right, I think its time I sprinkled some good old “new media trends” in amongst the pap. Profero came in last year and predicted two big moves for 2007. The first of these was people getting paid for stuff. As we’ve all heard, YouTube seem to be following the Revver model (see my blog for mention of Revver some months ago), but now it appears everyone’s at it, and it makes sense. Why shouldn’t people get some return on all their content generation, creative thinking, brand promotion and all the other things they’re doing online? Ok, often the revenues are small, but as we all know, something’s better than nothing!
Daytipper is a tip-sharing site, rewarding consumers with $3 for every published piece of advice. Tips range from “how to take screenshots on a Mac” through to “how to use dog biscuits to trim hamster teeth”. Don’t even ask how the site creators are making money, I’ve no idea, but as you’ll see, the “provider gets paid” model is on the way up even when the content provided is of questionable quality:
http://www.daytipper.com/
Turn Here shows short, online videos that give viewers an insider's look at destinations around the world. Created by experienced filmmakers specifically for Turn Here, the website's videos offer an alternative to travel books, with obvious benefits to consumers: they're up-to-date, very local, highly personal, free, and they communicate the sense of a place more directly than traditional guidebooks ever could. TurnHere emphasizes the high quality of its videos, which are 2-5 minutes long and professionally edited. Filmmakers are paid $500 to $1000 if their video is featured. Imagine this rise in video happening on a site like TripAdvisor on a big scale, imagine transferring these video guides onto your i-pod. Take a look at the map mash up on the page and picture being on holiday somewhere, and able to access on-demand video by location with footage of all the restaurants nearby recommended by someone who’s profile matches yours. Its not as far fetched as it seems:
http://www.turnhere.com/city/new_york.aspx
The second trend that Profero mentioned was widgets. A widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed on a web page or on your desktop by an end user. Widgets can be alarm clocks, calculators, can tell you your WiFi signal strength, will fetch the latest stock quotes, and even give your current local weather. Apple reinvigorated the trend, Yahoo are at it in earnest http://widgets.yahoo.com/ , but third parties have created these too such as the fantastic Musicubes from Radio 1 (well done Charlie!) http://www.radio1musicubes.co.uk/constructor1.shtml
But imagine mashing up these two mega-trends. Welcome to Favorite Thingz where consumers create a badge/ widget of their favourite artist, film, team, stores, service and brans, which they can display as a slideshow on sites like MySpace, LiveJournal, Xanga, Friendster, Tagworld, Typepad, Blogger and hi5. If someone clicks on a product in the slideshow and decides to buy it, the badge creator earns a commission of 1.5% - 4.0%:
http://www.favoritethingz.com/
My Pick List offers a similar service:
http://mypicklist.com/
But its not just creativity that you can get cash for. If you have unsecured WiFi at home, chances are someone else is taking advantage of it and using up some of your bandwidth. I know more than one person who has never paid for wireless broadband and relies on scanning for unsecured networks in the area. Well get them to stop taking the piss! With the Fon network, if you “share” your bandwidth, you get free use of any other Fon bandwidth in any location, and if a non-Fon user wants to log on, they pay for the pleasure and you, the provider of that particular bandwidth gets 50% of the fee (plus a personalised page access page where you can advertise your business). Nice one:
http://en.fon.com/
So how else can you make money out of your stuff?
Amie Street aims to make it easy and affordable for consumers to discover new independent music. What makes it unique? Every song sold starts off being free and the price increases to a maximum of 98 cents depending on how many people download it. The more popular a song, the faster its price will increase to 98 cents. Besides giving early buyers a better deal, the market price system gives them the added pleasure of seeing they've discovered a song or artist before everyone else has. Members are also rewarded for recommending music. As explained by Amie Street: "We know music is social, and the process of music discovery is stunted by traditional digital music retail sites because they are not social (or fun). Music discovery is best catalyzed by communication between people, so we reward fans for recommending songs to their friends by giving them credit to buy more music." If a member reviews or otherwise recommends a song, they're credited with the song's price increase. So, if you recommend a song while it's priced at 10 cents, and the price goes up to 90 cents, you earn 80 cents worth of credits. Promotion isn't left solely to the community, though. Amie Street does its part, from interviewing bands and posting their videos, to organizing showcase concerts in New York. Artists maintain full ownership of their work and receive 70% of every sale after a first $5 to cover storage, bandwidth and transaction costs for that song. All MP3s sold through the website are DRM-free, so can be used on any music player, without restrictions. Combined with the knowledge that artists are getting their fair share of a song's revenues, this is a creative way to make consumers more willing to pay for music downloads:
http://www.amiestreet.com/
And what if your skills are aren’t music based, but you offer some kind of phone support (PC help, homework clues, legal advice etc…). In the US you can sign up for a free Ether (1-888) number, which is forwarded to a phone number of your choice, be it mobile, home or work. You can then decide how much your time is worth, per hour per minute or per call. Customers will only be able to call the service provider when they've prepaid the set rate. Ether bills their credit card and will then send you your fee via direct deposit or cheque. Ether's commission is 15%, with no monthly fee, no setup fes, and no connection fee. You have to take responsibility for spreading the word about what you’re selling, set the hours you want to take calls and then just wait for the calls and money to roll in! Now see if you can think of sensible services to offer other than phone sex and psychic hotlines!
http://www.ether.com/
So what else is going on right now? Here’s a selection of the good, the bad and the downright awful…
The good:
Igglo combines large amounts of property information on a customer friendly site that could alter how the housing market operates, by letting potential buyers 'pre-order' houses that aren't yet for sale. The Finnish company has photographed every building in Helsinki, with more towns to follow, and combines these photographs with satellite images and maps. Every property is listed, not just those that are currently on the market. (Their tagline is: "Your house is already on Igglo."). Potential buyers can earmark a building, street or neighbourhood they're interested in, and post offers online. This lets potential sellers find out how desirable their property is, even if they weren't actively considering selling. Buyers also receive an alert when a property in their earmarked building or area comes up for sale. If demand and supply meet, Igglo handles the transaction for a lower fee than is charged by regular real estate agents (less than 2%). Lower fees are made possible by the fact the Igglo agents don't get involved until buyers and sellers have found each other. The company is looking to expand the service to other big cities. Wow
http://www.igglo.fi/
Back in good old London, three designers are setting up a system whereby you will be able to send tracks (via Bluetooth) to and from your mobile to a wall mounted unit on the tube. The idea was based on the fact that people leave newspapers on the tube for people to read all the time, so why not extend this offering to music? Clearly licensing restrictions are an enormous problem however, this is a great concept that deserves to catch on
http://www.undersound.org/
Another great new concept isn’t about online, but is about portable devices. The iFood terminal at a Swedish food hall (think Selfridges or Harvey Nics) lets customers hook up their iPod and download audio recipes. After choosing from a wide range of recipes and downloading audio instructions to their iPod or other mp3 player, shoppers can purchase all necessary items from a colour-coded deli area.
Similarly at Schiphol airport, travellers can download travel guides, music, audio books, tv shows and movies to their MP3 players and other digital devices. Located in Schiphol's departure lounges, the Fuel for Travel stores feature listening and viewing stations for travellers to browse digital content. Once they've found what they want, they can dock their device, pay by credit or debit card, and download the material. Pricing is similar to that of online music and video downloads. A wide range of devices is supported, including MP3 and MP4 players, phones, and PDAs. Unfortunately, iPod owners are out of luck: due to Apple's DRM protection boooooo….
The bad:
New York restaurant booking service PrimeTime Tables - "specializing in impossible reservations" - has created a bit of a storm. The service, touted as a very exclusive dining club, can procure members short-notice reservations at the hottest restaurants in New York, Miami, Colorado and The Hamptons, many of which are booked weeks in advance. Membership costs $450 per year, plus reservation fees (free for reservations acquired the same day before noon), while non-members pay between $35-45 per booking, depending on how far in advance they book (48 hours - same day). What this effectively means is that you could be thrown off your 6 month booking at The Ivy in a matter of seconds. Hmmmmm
http://www.primetimetables.com/
The completely excruciating:
Canadian site Tailored Music now offers customised love songs performed by professional musicians. Customers pick a vocalist and genre, ranging from experimental to folk waltz. The website then shows the default lyrics for the song they selected. While a demo of the song plays in the background, customers edit the lyrics in an easy to use online word processing tool. Some lyrics must be customised (the love object's name), while other fields are written for easy customisation, allowing users to add personal experiences, locations, events, colours, etc. Any words or lines can be changed, and TailoredMusic's singers can adapt to varying numbers of syllables and different rhyming schemes. Once the right words have been selected, a customer can choose to receive the song as a web download (compressed MP3 and CD-quality WAV), or a gift-wrapped CD in a metal case with a printed lyric sheet. Delivery time is 1 to 2 weeks, and songs are priced from $99 to a whopping $250.
http://www.tailoredmusic.com/
So how do I finish this first (and long) mail of the new year?
Well, naturally with something kind of light and pointless I guess – the world’s first coloured bubbles. Enjoy until next time …
http://www.zubbles.com/
I know how much everyone likes to sit back with a cup of tea and browse my list, so to start you off, here’s a site that recommends biscuits to go with your beverage. When IS the biscuit of the month going to be the legendary Jaffa Cake…?
http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/
Back to work grrrrrr? This guy shares your pain:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v422/zoltan66/?action=view¤t=officework.flv
At least you are back at work. Here’s a site which tests your knowledge on who popped their clogs in 06. Tasteless always did play well on the web:
http://www.deadoralive2006.com/
Confession time. I have a strange obsession with cover versions of songs. The more random the better (Radiohead does Carly Simon, U2 sing Abba, Tori Amos is Nirvana – stars in their eyes style. But new media takes this to a whole new level. Mashups are the new covers. Muppets do Goodfellas anyone?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiKBoLXg5Cw
Remember the fascinating science site "will it blend?” well here is a site that should probably be called "will it microwave?":
http://www.wontonway.com/microwave/microwave.html
Right, I think its time I sprinkled some good old “new media trends” in amongst the pap. Profero came in last year and predicted two big moves for 2007. The first of these was people getting paid for stuff. As we’ve all heard, YouTube seem to be following the Revver model (see my blog for mention of Revver some months ago), but now it appears everyone’s at it, and it makes sense. Why shouldn’t people get some return on all their content generation, creative thinking, brand promotion and all the other things they’re doing online? Ok, often the revenues are small, but as we all know, something’s better than nothing!
Daytipper is a tip-sharing site, rewarding consumers with $3 for every published piece of advice. Tips range from “how to take screenshots on a Mac” through to “how to use dog biscuits to trim hamster teeth”. Don’t even ask how the site creators are making money, I’ve no idea, but as you’ll see, the “provider gets paid” model is on the way up even when the content provided is of questionable quality:
http://www.daytipper.com/
Turn Here shows short, online videos that give viewers an insider's look at destinations around the world. Created by experienced filmmakers specifically for Turn Here, the website's videos offer an alternative to travel books, with obvious benefits to consumers: they're up-to-date, very local, highly personal, free, and they communicate the sense of a place more directly than traditional guidebooks ever could. TurnHere emphasizes the high quality of its videos, which are 2-5 minutes long and professionally edited. Filmmakers are paid $500 to $1000 if their video is featured. Imagine this rise in video happening on a site like TripAdvisor on a big scale, imagine transferring these video guides onto your i-pod. Take a look at the map mash up on the page and picture being on holiday somewhere, and able to access on-demand video by location with footage of all the restaurants nearby recommended by someone who’s profile matches yours. Its not as far fetched as it seems:
http://www.turnhere.com/city/new_york.aspx
The second trend that Profero mentioned was widgets. A widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed on a web page or on your desktop by an end user. Widgets can be alarm clocks, calculators, can tell you your WiFi signal strength, will fetch the latest stock quotes, and even give your current local weather. Apple reinvigorated the trend, Yahoo are at it in earnest http://widgets.yahoo.com/ , but third parties have created these too such as the fantastic Musicubes from Radio 1 (well done Charlie!) http://www.radio1musicubes.co.uk/constructor1.shtml
But imagine mashing up these two mega-trends. Welcome to Favorite Thingz where consumers create a badge/ widget of their favourite artist, film, team, stores, service and brans, which they can display as a slideshow on sites like MySpace, LiveJournal, Xanga, Friendster, Tagworld, Typepad, Blogger and hi5. If someone clicks on a product in the slideshow and decides to buy it, the badge creator earns a commission of 1.5% - 4.0%:
http://www.favoritethingz.com/
My Pick List offers a similar service:
http://mypicklist.com/
But its not just creativity that you can get cash for. If you have unsecured WiFi at home, chances are someone else is taking advantage of it and using up some of your bandwidth. I know more than one person who has never paid for wireless broadband and relies on scanning for unsecured networks in the area. Well get them to stop taking the piss! With the Fon network, if you “share” your bandwidth, you get free use of any other Fon bandwidth in any location, and if a non-Fon user wants to log on, they pay for the pleasure and you, the provider of that particular bandwidth gets 50% of the fee (plus a personalised page access page where you can advertise your business). Nice one:
http://en.fon.com/
So how else can you make money out of your stuff?
Amie Street aims to make it easy and affordable for consumers to discover new independent music. What makes it unique? Every song sold starts off being free and the price increases to a maximum of 98 cents depending on how many people download it. The more popular a song, the faster its price will increase to 98 cents. Besides giving early buyers a better deal, the market price system gives them the added pleasure of seeing they've discovered a song or artist before everyone else has. Members are also rewarded for recommending music. As explained by Amie Street: "We know music is social, and the process of music discovery is stunted by traditional digital music retail sites because they are not social (or fun). Music discovery is best catalyzed by communication between people, so we reward fans for recommending songs to their friends by giving them credit to buy more music." If a member reviews or otherwise recommends a song, they're credited with the song's price increase. So, if you recommend a song while it's priced at 10 cents, and the price goes up to 90 cents, you earn 80 cents worth of credits. Promotion isn't left solely to the community, though. Amie Street does its part, from interviewing bands and posting their videos, to organizing showcase concerts in New York. Artists maintain full ownership of their work and receive 70% of every sale after a first $5 to cover storage, bandwidth and transaction costs for that song. All MP3s sold through the website are DRM-free, so can be used on any music player, without restrictions. Combined with the knowledge that artists are getting their fair share of a song's revenues, this is a creative way to make consumers more willing to pay for music downloads:
http://www.amiestreet.com/
And what if your skills are aren’t music based, but you offer some kind of phone support (PC help, homework clues, legal advice etc…). In the US you can sign up for a free Ether (1-888) number, which is forwarded to a phone number of your choice, be it mobile, home or work. You can then decide how much your time is worth, per hour per minute or per call. Customers will only be able to call the service provider when they've prepaid the set rate. Ether bills their credit card and will then send you your fee via direct deposit or cheque. Ether's commission is 15%, with no monthly fee, no setup fes, and no connection fee. You have to take responsibility for spreading the word about what you’re selling, set the hours you want to take calls and then just wait for the calls and money to roll in! Now see if you can think of sensible services to offer other than phone sex and psychic hotlines!
http://www.ether.com/
So what else is going on right now? Here’s a selection of the good, the bad and the downright awful…
The good:
Igglo combines large amounts of property information on a customer friendly site that could alter how the housing market operates, by letting potential buyers 'pre-order' houses that aren't yet for sale. The Finnish company has photographed every building in Helsinki, with more towns to follow, and combines these photographs with satellite images and maps. Every property is listed, not just those that are currently on the market. (Their tagline is: "Your house is already on Igglo."). Potential buyers can earmark a building, street or neighbourhood they're interested in, and post offers online. This lets potential sellers find out how desirable their property is, even if they weren't actively considering selling. Buyers also receive an alert when a property in their earmarked building or area comes up for sale. If demand and supply meet, Igglo handles the transaction for a lower fee than is charged by regular real estate agents (less than 2%). Lower fees are made possible by the fact the Igglo agents don't get involved until buyers and sellers have found each other. The company is looking to expand the service to other big cities. Wow
http://www.igglo.fi/
Back in good old London, three designers are setting up a system whereby you will be able to send tracks (via Bluetooth) to and from your mobile to a wall mounted unit on the tube. The idea was based on the fact that people leave newspapers on the tube for people to read all the time, so why not extend this offering to music? Clearly licensing restrictions are an enormous problem however, this is a great concept that deserves to catch on
http://www.undersound.org/
Another great new concept isn’t about online, but is about portable devices. The iFood terminal at a Swedish food hall (think Selfridges or Harvey Nics) lets customers hook up their iPod and download audio recipes. After choosing from a wide range of recipes and downloading audio instructions to their iPod or other mp3 player, shoppers can purchase all necessary items from a colour-coded deli area.
Similarly at Schiphol airport, travellers can download travel guides, music, audio books, tv shows and movies to their MP3 players and other digital devices. Located in Schiphol's departure lounges, the Fuel for Travel stores feature listening and viewing stations for travellers to browse digital content. Once they've found what they want, they can dock their device, pay by credit or debit card, and download the material. Pricing is similar to that of online music and video downloads. A wide range of devices is supported, including MP3 and MP4 players, phones, and PDAs. Unfortunately, iPod owners are out of luck: due to Apple's DRM protection boooooo….
The bad:
New York restaurant booking service PrimeTime Tables - "specializing in impossible reservations" - has created a bit of a storm. The service, touted as a very exclusive dining club, can procure members short-notice reservations at the hottest restaurants in New York, Miami, Colorado and The Hamptons, many of which are booked weeks in advance. Membership costs $450 per year, plus reservation fees (free for reservations acquired the same day before noon), while non-members pay between $35-45 per booking, depending on how far in advance they book (48 hours - same day). What this effectively means is that you could be thrown off your 6 month booking at The Ivy in a matter of seconds. Hmmmmm
http://www.primetimetables.com/
The completely excruciating:
Canadian site Tailored Music now offers customised love songs performed by professional musicians. Customers pick a vocalist and genre, ranging from experimental to folk waltz. The website then shows the default lyrics for the song they selected. While a demo of the song plays in the background, customers edit the lyrics in an easy to use online word processing tool. Some lyrics must be customised (the love object's name), while other fields are written for easy customisation, allowing users to add personal experiences, locations, events, colours, etc. Any words or lines can be changed, and TailoredMusic's singers can adapt to varying numbers of syllables and different rhyming schemes. Once the right words have been selected, a customer can choose to receive the song as a web download (compressed MP3 and CD-quality WAV), or a gift-wrapped CD in a metal case with a printed lyric sheet. Delivery time is 1 to 2 weeks, and songs are priced from $99 to a whopping $250.
http://www.tailoredmusic.com/
So how do I finish this first (and long) mail of the new year?
Well, naturally with something kind of light and pointless I guess – the world’s first coloured bubbles. Enjoy until next time …
http://www.zubbles.com/
posted by Blach at 4:41 AM
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