Everyone will be charging for content – really?

July 28, 2009 by

I have to admit to it – I am obsessed with this topic.  I was watching this morning on MSNBC when they mentioned that USA Today is coming up with a for fee version of their online product.  They followed it up with the “brilliant” comment – “Everyone should charge” and that “if everyone charged, people would pay”.  Sure – if everyone charged there would be no choice, but that sounds like the death statement of every industry right before the final nail was struck – “I do not understand, what we offer is great, what that guy offers for free is a sub-standard product in my opinion, why won’t people pay for what I offer???????”

Keep up that spirit – please.   Keep pushing in the direction of futility, hoping that the entire world will follow the way of the media and publishing giants who cannot figure out a different business model to support their business that is stuck in second gear.  What are you doing – creating opportunity.  Look at Zappos – which just sold to Amazon for $800 million plus – when everyone else was looking at an industry and saying the consumer could not change and we cannot allow them to change and we cannot adapt to their change, this company came along and embraced that change, supported that change, and lived within that environment.  And look at the end result – $800M.  Not bad.

I see the door opening, and with every crack and comment like this, the door is just gettting wider and wider.  Someone will come along with a lower cost, more efficient, consumer embracing model and will emerge the winner.  Mark my words.  Maybe the stars will not make as much money.  Maybe the “Journalists” will not be as rich.  Maybe the “personalities” will not be as famous.  I am not sure.  But will the consumer move backwards in behavior?  Please tell me one instance where this has happened successfully in an industry.  My bet – it will never happen in this one.

So who is going to grab the opportunity?  Who will be the winner?

Filed Under: General

Facebook – Did you know??

July 12, 2009 by

I was looking around facebook the other day and came across this strange bit of functionality that I am guessing very few people know about…

I had a “friend” who was tagged in a photo taken by a “friend” of his.  I took a moment and checked out this photo.  While there, I discovered that I could browse not only the picture of my “friend” but the entire “album”.  This album was loaded with photos of people whom I did not know but were in some interesting and potentially compromising positions.  There I was, able to view the photos of people that were posted by someone who had assumed that they had posted them only for “approved” people to see.

In the new online world – the definition of privacy and permission has taken on a whole new meaning.  Now, you could be at a party, someone you did not know could take a picture with you in it, that person could post in on facebook or some other online social networking site, and then people that person does not even know could be able to view that picture.  Sound complicated?  It is.  Sound scary?  It is.  Particularly scary is the fact that few people know the permissions associated with what they post.

So then – can I avoid it?

I often hear people who say – “that is why I am not on facebook” or “that is why I will not allow my kid to be on those sites”.  Well…  that is not good enough.  Can you say “that is why I am not going out” or “that is why I am not going to be around people” ?  No.  But that is what it will take.  In time, like everything else, regulation will take over once some people are sued over this.  But interestingly, I do not think the regulators are smart enough to think through this problem.  I am not sure who is?

So what do you do?

My recommendation is – 1) don’t avoid – participate – get smart by being a part of the new wave, understanding it, and then teaching yourself and others how to manage within the new paradigm, 2) educate and inform – help others to learn what is really going on – don’t fight it but educate so that people are more aware.

Your thoughts?

Filed Under: General Tagged With: ,