Category: News

Developments in the new media space that impact independent content producers.

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Creative Commons Doesn’t Cannibalize Sales

NIN Frontman Trent Reznor (Photo by Capital M)
NIN Frontman Trent Reznor
(Photo by Capital M)

Chris Anderson recently posted “The best selling MP3 album of the year was free” on The Long Tail blog. Apparently, Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV was the best selling MP3 album of 2008 despite being released under a Creative Commons license that allowed for free, legal sharing.

The album grossed more than $1.6 million in revenue duing the first week in release.  Creative Commons blog has more:

NIN fans could have gone to any file sharing network to download the entire CC-BY-NC-SA album legally. Many did, and thousands will continue to do so. So why would fans bother buying files that were identical to the ones on the file sharing networks? One explanation is the convenience and ease of use of NIN and Amazon’s MP3 stores. But another is that fans understood that purchasing MP3s would directly support the music and career of a musician they liked.

This would seem to be another big win for proponents of alternative models to the traditional intellectual property attitudes stemming from the physical goods economy.

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CodeKindness Pairs Nonprofits with Technology Volunteers

CodeKindness Logo
CodeKindness: Mobilizing Technology Volunteers for Social Good

CodeKindness is designed to help technologically skilled volunteers support nonprofits by working on projects of a variety of flavors including social networking, web design and development, hardware, and databases.

Nonprofits can create an account and post a request, which is then approved by CK. Word then goes out by RSS, email, and social networks, as well as on the website itself, about the opportunity, and volunteers can sign up to show interest in the project.

Once the nonprofit’s project manager picks a volunteer, CK helps them keep track of progress and encourages the project manager to check in with their volunteer once a week until the project is completed. After completion, the project manager is encouraged to thank the volunteer by sending them a CodeKindess t-shirt, whose purchase supports CK.

The nonprofit then rates the volunteer and statistics are shown on the site. Currently there is a relatively small amount of activity, with 2 projects completed and 4 more in progress. There are 20 open projects and 24 technology volunteers, so the balance seems to be working out well so far.

I like CK’s approach to social entrepreneurship and I encourage you to head over there and browse the projects if you are technically inclined, or register if your nonprofit needs technical assistance. Time will tell whether this model will be successful, but I applaud the effort and I imagine that both the developers and the nonprofits that get involved will realize substantial returns.

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RIAA Strong-arms ISPs Instead of Customers

Image by chazlarson
Image by chazlarson

TechCrunch today reports that the RIAA is changing tactics:

Instead of dragging music downloaders and file-sharers into court, it has somehow convinced ISPs to take on the role of digital policeman (and jury and judge).

The original story in the Wall Street Journal has full details, but the gist is that the RIAA will provide ISPs with IP addresses of file sharing offenders.  Those offenders (or accused offenders) will be warned and, after three strikes, have their internet service disconnected.

It beats sueing “several single mothers, a dead person and a 13-year-old girl,” but details are unclear as to the appeals process.  At least the court system is set up to handle disputes like this.

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Twitter Shapes Advertising

Forbes has an article, Twitter Moms Sink Motrin Ad, covering the recent events in which general outrage among mothers on Twitter caused Johnson & Johnson to pull its advertising campaign about using Motrin to treat pains from carrying babies.

Twitter Bird Image from Twitter.comWould the backlash have gained such momentum so quickly without Twitter? The speed with which news and opinions travel is astonishing to marketers who are unfamiliar with the micro-blogging space. What are people saying about your brand on twitter? Try out search.twitter.com and subscribe to an RSS feed that updates whenever a new tweet matches your search query.

Keeping tabs on your brand on twitter and responding, especially when people have a complaint, is a great, inexpensive way to interact directly with your audience and manage their perception of you.

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Obama Considers Options for FCC Chairman

Ethernet Switches Image from twenty_questionsBusinessWeek reports that President-Elect Obama’s transition team is hard at work considering options for FCC Chairman.

“The new Administration is expected to give greater prominence to emerging providers of communications products and services, such as Google (GOOG)—a departure from the Bush Administration, which has tended to favor traditional providers such as AT&T (T).”

This is not unexpected, as Barack Obama has gone on record before supporting net neutrality, but it is certainly good news for internet companies and the new media producers who rely on them.

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Governing in a Web Savvy World

HELLO, MR. PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Image from On Bradstreet’s PhotostreamAs if in answer to my last post, it seems that the office of the President Elect has just rolled out www.change.gov, a site not dissimilar from the original Obama campaign website, but dedicated to the lead-up to the January 20th inauguration.

Thus far, the blog only has one post, but there is a wealth of information on Obama and Biden’s plans for their administration. You can even send in “Your Vision” and “Your Story” about the campaign. The word that leaps to mind is “transparency.” While our government is required to release information to us about its activities (according to the Freedom of Information Act), this is an entirely new approach to creating a flow of information. We’ll have to see how far this extends into the actual term in office – but it will be very interesting to watch.

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Apple’s Insomnia Film Festival

Apple is sponsoring something called the Insomnia Film Festival on November 15th. You have 24 hours to complete a film that uses three items out of a list of required elements. Then, some famous folk (Masi Oka! Jason Bateman!) judge your movie, and you can win nifty prizes (such as a MacBook Pro and Final Cut Studio 2 for your whole team).

Are contests like these exciting for you? One of the folks at Boston Media Makers said that a recent video contest that involved winning a Vespa had under a dozen entries. What would motivate you to do a short film contest? A cool prize? Great judges? Creative demands on story or casting? Joss Whedon sending a personal email to the top contestants?

That last one would probably do it for me. . . but I’m sure there are other things that would float your boat. . .

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Radiohead’s Pick-Your-Price a Success?

In Rainbows Album Cover Image from WikipediaThe Chicago Tribune has a good set of numbers from the Radiohead “In Rainbows” release. As you may recall, Radiohead offered the album as a download in advance of the physical release and allowed fans to choose what price to pay for the album (if at all).

A few highlights:

  • $8 million from 100,000 box sets sold
  • 1.75 million CDs sold (on top of box set sales)
  • 1.2 million fans on the concert tour
  • 3 million copies sold overall (including digital)
  • Web sales alone exceeded the total sales from their previous album
  • Upon physical release, “In Rainbows” debuted atop both the U.S. and U.K. pop charts

What do you make of this? Do you think the experiment was a success? Are theses numbers indicative of a good business model despite the number of users who downloaded the album for free, or is this the effect of a quality album coupled with Radiohead’s previous popularity?

Is this evidence compelling enough to make you consider a similar model for your own work?