Deb's SM Survey:

With the news reported earlier this week that Apple’s iTunes will be carrying millions of DRM-free songs by the end of the quarter, it’s safe to say that DRM has now been officially abandoned by the music industry.  This is great news: while it won’t smooth the rough waters the industry has been going through, it will allow them to make a clean break from the illusion that they can prevent file-sharing and instead focus their creativity on new ways to create value and to connect with fans.

I hope the death knells of music file DRM will  serve as a wake up call to the TV and movie industries as well.  It’s too late to putter about with a few shows streamed here, some downloadable here, a few there, and international licensing agreements that air the same shows months later in different countries (long after the most dedicated fans have found and dowloaded the torrents).   The TV and movie industries need to wake up to the reality that they, too, will need a different business model - and they need it now!

A couple of weeks ago I read some of Jonathan Trenn’s thoughts about “community” as it is used (or overused) in the social media world:

Social media is overhyped because we’ll often view and describe disparate members of a company’s customer base as being “communities” when they are too dispersed and too disjointed from one another to have a connection…

As much as I love social media, and think it has great potential for marketers (and everyone), I have to agree with Jonathan’s general premise.   Your typical company is not going to get an online “community” going.  And even for those companies who could, the nature of online communities is going to be frustrating to many traditional marketers.

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I’ve been reading Daily Kos for years, and though I rarely comment or post anything of my own, the site is a favorite of mine because of the quantity – and often quality – of content relevant to me both about politics and about the world. There have been some excellent user-created diaries about the floods in Iowa this week, for example, providing a compelling mix of personal stories, coverage of the extent of the problem and links to donate for help.

But any site with Daily Kos’ size and with the ability for anyone to post comes the occasional excuse for those tasteless or cruel to show themselves. The death of Meet the Press host Tim Russert on Friday became one of those occasions. I avoided, and am not going to rehash, the offenses of some and the responses of those who took offense. But it did make me think about community.

There’s the common perception that people will say things via cover of internet anonymity that they’d never say in person, and I’m sure that’s true, but it’s an overstated excuse. When any community reaches a certain size, there are going to be people who stir up trouble or say things they shouldn’t.

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I’m going out of town for a few days, but I’ll throw out links to a couple of interesting articles I’ve read to keep you busy while I’m away.

First, a student’s Facebook group to track progress on a civil unions bill in Illinois has become an effective tool for activism. The group now has 9,000 members. Like many of these online activism efforts, it wasn’t started by anyone formally affiliated with any organization. Which makes these efforts both more amazing and, possibly, more ephemeral. Without the collected wisdom of an organization behind it, will these spontaneous efforts eventually reach a limit to their effectiveness? We’ve barely begun to harness the power of the web for activism, but many people much smarter than I, like Clay Shirky, have begun exploring this question already.

Second, via Slog, comes an item about a new web 2.0 initiative for writers. Authonomy (now in private beta), run by Harper Collins, allows aspiring authors to post excerpts of their work for voting and commenting by the community. I may have to give this site a try. They can’t be more critical than some members of writing groups I’ve been in (yes, it was constructive criticism). You can read more at the Authonomy blog.

This morning I grabbed the laptop and walked a few minutes to a local café. One strawberry smoothie and a free wi-fi connection later, I was working. I’d already planned to write about the Economist’s recent special report on “the new nomadism,” but it’s even more appropriate after spending the morning living it. (OK, I’m actually writing this blog post from home, but I’m still on wireless on a laptop.

The general premise of the Economist articles wasn’t new to me (or to anyone who’s read Smart Mobs or is generally familiar with internet culture). Nevertheless, it was a fascinating speculation on how this new way of working — and living – will impact many aspects of society. The fact that office space may move away from the “cubicle farm” into a more fluid setup with shifting walls and multi-use spaces was fascinating.

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“Hulu-baloo” has been used already many times, even though the site has been officially live and open to the net-surfing public for just over a month.

I’ve been watching BattleStar Galactica (and other things) on Hulu, the new NBC and News Corp online video site, and enjoying it, even with the ads. I ditched my cable a long time ago, and get my TV from the net and DVDs. But when you want to really engage with a show and the fan community, you need to watch it as close to the time of original airing as possible. BSG comes out on Hulu a day or so after it aired on the Sci Fi channel, which is the way it should be.

Or maybe it needs to be sooner, as this Wall Street Journal blog post suggests. In my opinion, the goal is to make the online content not just available, but convenient. Streaming is faster than downloading and more convenient (provided your computer is set up correctly), so get them hooked on your online site and hopefully they won’t go seeking out the torrent anytime soon.

Things change very quickly, and who knows where online TV will be by the time Hulu celebrates its first birthday. But finding the right mix of easily accessible content, carefully targeted ads, and possibly special perks for members should make it possible for networks to keep a decent share of the online TV viewer. Make it easy, and they will come.

… and she is 8 years old.

We were visiting friends Sunday, and their daughter – along with most of her classmates – has discovered Webkinz, the pet-based virtual world created by toy company Ganz. Buying a Webkinz toy provides you with a code to enter this virtual world, where you must keep your pet healthy and entertained. There are things to buy, games to play, and limited chat and social networking features to allow interactions without creating privacy concerns.

Of course kids (who have access to them) are using computers younger and younger, and they’ll grow up not only familiar with technology but expecting certain things from it. While virtual worlds exist for adults today – ranging from Second Life to game-based worlds like World of Warcraft – I think we’ll see a fundamental shift in the way these worlds are used as the Webkinz generation grows up.

Many of these kids will do the majority of their online social networking in these worlds, graduating from Webkinz to tween- and then teen- oriented sites, and eventually go looking for the “grown up” version. Facebook will seem dull to them, and my suspicion is even MySpace will look too, well, “flat.” Of course they will play games, but they won’t be looking for a MMORPG: they’ll be looking for a world where they can continue the relationships they’ve had with their (usually real-world) friends in other virtual worlds.

I don’t know what that world will be yet. Will Second Life overcome some of its difficulties
and become the virtual destination of these youngsters in 6-10 years? (Second Life already has a teen version.) Will one of the current kid or tween sites branch off a version for older users? Or will it be someone completely off the radar right now?

I do think we’ll see more – and more popular – virtual worlds. But when – and who – I don’t have an answer for.

Lisa Stone, co-founder and CEO of BlogHer spoke last night as part of the Berkman Center’s Berkman@10 event series.

BlogHer has grown from a 2005 grassroots conference with 300 attendees to an online network of women bloggers that gets 8 million unique visitors a month. They have 22 full-time employees, plan 8 conferences this year and run an ad network that shares revenue with participating members. Their growth has been facilitated by venture capital from Venrock.

Stone began her talk by emphasizing the power of women as consumers (they control the overwhelming majority of the household budget) and as users of social media, including social networks and text messages. Women use blogging not just to express themselves, but also to take action, responding to a wide spectrum of issues. Stone was especially excited to see so many bloggers who don’t normally write about political issues becoming engaged and excited by the current election season.

After surveying BlogHer members on how the Presidential candidates’ campaigns had (or had not) reached out to women, she provided four conclusions that are equally valuable for advertisers:

1. Reach out to established women’s networks, don’t start your own and force us to come to you.
2. Don’t market to women, talk with women.
3. Don’t use stereotypes to break women down into simplistic or offensive groups (soccer moms, sexy singles, etc.). We’re more complicated that that.
4. Health care is the new number one “women’s issue” – although women are concerned about all issues, including the Iraq war, the economy, etc.

Stone spoke about their advertising program, noting that about 40% of advertisers want to develop a customized program (like giving away free samples). The companies approaching BlogHer are much more savvy about online marketing than they were in the past and want to engage in an authentic interaction with the BlogHer members.

One of the 2008 BlogHer conferences will be in Boston in October, and I’m looking forward to it even more after this introduction to the BlogHer network. Will I see you there? (And yes, men are welcome!)

I went to hear Clay Shirky speak about his new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. Shirky explores the “ridiculously easy group forming” inherent in the internet, and how this has the potential to radically change society. Now that many groups can assume that all their members are online, these groups can use the internet to assist in more complicated activities.

Shirky sets up a hierarchy of online group function, with increasing levels of coordination required. The first is simple sharing, then conversation, then collaboration, with collective action the final rung on the ladder. In his talk, Shirky gave fascinating examples of online collective action, from a movement to create an airline passengers’ bill of rights to the use of flash mobs for political protest in Belarus.

This stage is in its infancy, however, and there is still no formula for successful online-based collective action. (In fact, as the subtitle of Shirky’s book suggests, successful online collective actions right now are not spearheaded by traditional organizations which might have the ability to formalize the process.)

The potential for new ways of initiating successful collective action was one of the dreams that got me interested in the internet and social media to begin with, and its exciting to think that the journey is just beginning.

Another beginning that I’m keeping an eye on is Totspot, a new social publishing site for babies and parents that just announced its private beta. I met some of the Totspot team through the local Web Innovators group, and its exciting to see their launch, complete with a write up yesterday in Techcrunch. Good luck, Totspot.

Reading the comments on the Techcrunch article, including parents who buy domain names for their babies and start blogs there (hoping the kids will take them over someday), really drives home the changes that are occurring. We already have a millennial generation with different norms around privacy, technology, and work. Once we have a generation in which online group forming and participation has literally been part of their lives from birth, will we see an even more radical shift toward constant networking, openness and immediate content gratification? What will the discussion of internet-based collective action look like in 2026, when the first Totspot kids are 18?

(Will they laugh at today’s fledgling efforts? Or celebrate today’s pioneers? I can’t wait to find out.)

I’ve fallen victim to the dreaded cold/flu season, so all my brilliant ideas have been blown out my nose in one of my multitude of sneezes. Instead, here are some quick hits from the week past:

Yahoo still independent as they turn down Microsoft’s bid, but pondering other offers.

The Boston-area Social Media Breakfast was great fun, with several local luminaries discussing how Twitter has changed their life. Tech PR gems has video. Also attending was videoblogger extraordinaire Steve Garfield, who has been experimenting with live streaming video from his cell phone using a service called Qik.  (Note: corrected the spelling of Qik)

Steve also caught video of the conversation between Berkman Center fellow David Weinberger and Canadian independent musician BradSucks about the future of the music industry that took place on Monday, February 11th. It’s fascinating to hear the opinions of people who have grown up with digital technology. Brad has a very different attitude toward his work – he’s not as possessive. If someone did a cover of one of his songs and made a it a hit, he would be amused, not litigious. And he may rightly consider that there would also be benefits coming his way from that kind of publicity. It was also exciting to learn that one of Brad’s songs, via a remix and a video, was the inspiration for the character Milgrim in William Gibson’s novel Spook Country.

In another transmedia twist, the Poetry Foundation has been asking graphic novelists to interpret poems. There are currently six installments of this project online.

Have friends who just don’t get what social media is all about? Bring them to NewBCamp, held Feb. 23, 2008 at Johnson and Wales University in Providence, Rhode island. I’ll be presenting some cases studies based on my “Marketing Your Media on the Web” project and demonstrate how they can be applied to anyone. Hope to see you there!