Social Media has created new challenges for many different industries and professionals. As more and more “amateurs” have become empowered to create, publish, and distribute their own media, it’s flooded the marketplaces with both new sources of talent and new sources of material.

It must be frightening as a member of one of these groups. Sentiments such as this probably don’t bring much comfort either:

Half a dozen lurid and splodgy pictures in the local paper brought home to me the death of an honourable profession this week. I took them. I am in my small way responsible for impoverishing an old friend, because he, not me, is a professional photographer, and his living has been more or less abolished by the changing world. Just as film has been replaced by digital, professionals are being replaced by amateurs. The changes are partly technological and partly economic, but the final blow to his profession has come from Flickr and similar Web 2.0 sites.

[…]

A picture-sharing site like Flickr contains the work of tens of thousands of talented amateurs, all of them capable of producing one or two photographs a year that could be published anywhere. A British photographers’ site, EPUK, has calculated that if only 1% of the pictures on Flickr are publishable, that would mean 1.5m usable pictures uploaded there every year. Most of the drudgery of identifying good, relevant pictures is also done here - by the photographers themselves, who tag them, and by the other users, who notice them and have their interest recorded by the software.

Source: The Guardian, “We all helped to speed the demise of professional photographers”

The irony is that, usually, the little guy is the one being pushed aside by the incumbent. We’re seeing a reversal in many ways, though. I venture the underdog has always had a sting to them, however small that might be, especially when there’s tens of thousands of them.

Technorati Tags: longtail, blogging, social+media

There’s some interesting chatter today regarding the future business models of the blogosphere - and other forms of social media - around the water fountain today. As usual, Scott Karp provides an interesting canvas for conversation. Over at The Blog Herald, he points to some analysis done by Sahar Sarid:

Sahar’s historical analysis is certainly compelling. If other media ultimately adopted a paid content model, why not blogging? I agree that there is fairly strong case that some blogs may ultimately be able to adopt a paid model, but there is an equally strong case why most blogs will not.

The case for paid subscription blogs is the same as the case for any other paid content:
1. Must have
2. Not available elsewhere or better than what you can get for free
3. No ads (although not necessarily)

Source: The Blog Herald, “Could Blogging Adopt A Paid Content Business Model?”

Of course, Scott is referring the public notion of scarcity. The reason that works are able to accrue value stems from the belief of others that there is unique value to the content created. The second part of his rules limits the nodes of creation in the network.

The difficulty with scarcity models in the domain of social media is that, well, there is no scarcity. The more important aspect of this market value is the distance between “good enough” and “not quite good enough”. On January 27th, I wrote about the Vanishing Point Theory of News. At that time, I proposed that there is a diminishing returns on my investment in media creation and consumption based on my ever-changing interests.

In the blogosphere, there is no shortage of individuals covering a specific topic. Let’s pretend that Engadget shut down - what do you anticipate might happen? Likely, there would be some moaning (where I don’t know) but millions of people are not going to give up their interest in technology and gadgetry. The built in social network will kick in and spit out another candidate for the go-to site for technology news. Further, some or several enterprising folks will make quick work of aggregating an experience in kind. What are the odds they would charge a fee up front?

This cycle seems impossible to break considering the economics at play today. The appeal of the Freemium model seems to fit much better in our current thinking. I’m willing to pay for that extra edge, for that extra shot of espresso. If I’m paying for content, doesn’t the promise of exclusivity get brought to the table? If I’m paying for gadgets, gizmos, networks or people - suddenly, the value is measure in other ways.

Give me my damn accessories!

Technorati Tags: freemium, longtail, paid content, scott karp, vanishing point theory of news

Guy Kawasaki provides us with some insight into his first year blogging:

1. 2,436,117 page views for an average of approximately 6,200/day.
2. 262 posts generated 6,961 comments and 1,937 trackbacks. That’s 25 comments/post and 7 trackbacks/post.
3. 21,000 people receive RSS feeds via Feedburner and 1,457 receive emails via FeedBlitz.
4. Total advertising revenue: approximately $3,350 = $1.39 cpm. (This assumes that I can get Google to pay me. I’ve tried several times during the year to get my snail mail PIN so that I can get paid, butI’ve never received it. I don’t mind Google getting the float…)

How to Change the World: A Review of My First Year of Blogging

Over the past year, when asked why the SocialRoots Marketplace was needed, I’ve often used Guy Kawasaki as a prime example of just what’s wrong with our advertising-only centric view of social media monetization. Consider Guy’s example: a regularly udated, top 50 blog with significant traffic by a well know speaker and author squeezes out a slim $280 a month. Sounds lovely, no? Sign me up.

Some will be quick to point out that many people are able to monetize their online publications with less traffic and notoriety. I might counter that I am not interested in writing about home theatre, HDTV, mortgages, or other gadgets, but that would just be me making a point.

Chris Anderson points out on his Long Tail Blog:

Just another reminder that the reason to be a Long Tail producer is not direct revenues. Instead, it’s exactly what Guy uses it for: marketing for his books, VC firm, speeches and consulting. For which he’s exceedingly well paid. Indirect revenues rule!

The Long Tail: Don’t quit your day job

Lead generation and referals are definitely another viable option for extracting value from your personal publication. Of course, we’re not all consultants either, but it’s a step in the right direction.

If all goes well, we’ll share another interesting model with the world in the next couple of months.

technorati tags:long+tail, chris+anderson, guy+kawasaki, blogging, monetization

paidContent points to a Bear Stearns report titled “The Long Tail: Why Aggregation & Context and Not (Necessarily) Content are King in Entertainment” recently released that takes a hard, analytical look at the way media has transformed in the past and what that might imply for the future of the Long Tail in th media landscape.

Spencer Wang lays out several key points in the presentation. I’ll summarize them here, to the best of my own understanding:

1. Entertainment Supply Chain (seen below) is transforming based on various competitive forces (technology, economics, regulations).
2. Internet has truly blown the doors off of the Content Distribution mechanism, yielding more power to the Content Creators (though less than might be expected due to simultaneously decreasing costs of Content Creation).
3. An increase in choices will lead to an increase in demand, with one major caveat - hits get smaller. While there still will be hits, they will occur in a form different than before: smaller in scale (and potentially revenue). Today, we still think of our personal media properties in terms of Mainstream Metrics - hence the quest for “eyeballs”.
4. The ultimate penetration and reach of new, smaller niche audiences cannot be overlooked, but don’t expect it to happen overnight. TV took a significant amount of time to make these adjustments.We’re still in the infancy of the social media landscape - hills have yet to form.
5. Infinite Choice = Overwhelming Confusion. Amen. The problem with choice is someone has to make one. This has been evidenced in the perpetuation of phrases such as information overload, continuous partial attention, and others in that family that all allude to our decreasing attention spans and increasing river of data to consider.Information overload is a problem for not just servers but people.
6. Systems that serve to filter the river will ultimately prove invaluable to the wider population. These systems include Brands, Editorial Discretion, Ratings, User Recommendations, and Software.In reality, these seem all like citizens of a wider Reputation Economy.

I’ve added a number of my own comments to the end of each of these points. While there is a great deal more that can be said about this particular topic, I’ll return to these topics over time. Considering SocialRoots‘ ultimate goals, this topic is particularly of interest.

technorati tags:socialroots, long+tail, bear+stearns, paidcontent, spencer+wang, rafat+ali, greg+narain

[sponsored post] I’m giving the new ReviewMe service a try. Some might be wondering why bother doing this - it’s not really that much money when all is said and done, however, I think the experiment is worth a shot.

Today during brunch, we had an extended conversation about this specific topic. One fellow felt that any form of paid post was a betrayal of the publication’s authenticity. This is in stark contrast, seemingly, to the walled garden of the traditional world of publishing. The point being made was that the people who are writing are expressing their opinions but it’s not biased in any way - bias is a measure of commercial interest.

My point was three-fold. First, authenticity and commercialism need to be separated. I firmly believe that any individual has the ability to remain authentic and truthful, despite their financial interests. I know that this is not a simple task, however, and perhaps the work I have done for years as a consultant where I am asked to often tell my clients things that they don’t want to hear despite my fee.

Second, the “long tail” makes it possible for you to vote with your attention. If you don’t like the writing or feel that you can’t trust it anymore, leave. There are more than enough options cropping up in a variety of verticals meaning increased options and variability of opinion. This, of course, is in stark contrast to the old landscape where we had just a handful of publications that we could turn to for information.

Third, extremism will make things more and more difficult and force underhanded actions.  I think there is a growing awareness and need to fund our efforts as media creators.  If our audience scorns us (in the form of criticism, defection or refusal) for seeking a livelihood that we desire, we have one of two optionis - quit or take the action secretly.  A solution somewhere in the middle seems like the only sustainable option.

So this is my review of ReviewMe.  There’s nothing much to see there at this poiint in time.  You’re ability to earn is tied to a variety of metrics that are somewhat telling and give the advertiser some context about their investment.  I think that the issues raised above really are the critical issues surrounding ReviewMe and its potential for success.

I’ve been listening to the Gillmor Gang in spurts this morning and stumbled upon a part of the conversation that was quite salient as regards the future of SocialRoots. In Part III of the Harpo Gang (can I contest this multi-part thing formally here). I think it’s Mike Vizzard (but I could be mistaken) that brings up the topic of IT publications changing media topology.

As explained, recently a conference for IT publishers, the acknowledged and increasingly accepted content mix of the future was something like this:

• One-third staff content
• One-third user content
• One-third vendor content

This is a really interesting admission, for a couple of reasons. Vendor contributed content has traditionally been frowned upon or quickly thrown into the Advertorial Bin for most traditional publications. User-contributed content has often been relegated to Letters to the Editor and other pre/post-roll commentary (geographically associated with the “Corrections”). Increasing the diversity of content creators can, potentially, increase the breadth of the writing itself. Additionally, the expansion seems to include other forms of media like audio and video that serve to enhance the experience of that information.

Aside from the change in the landscape, another area that seems worth considering is who the new leaders in this generation of publications will be. It stands to reason that entities like CNet and ZDNet are well prepared as they have established channels to collect this information from all three sources. Social media entities like pure-play blogs, like TechCrunch, already reap a tremendous amount of knowledge from the interactive nature of blogging and commentary. Of course, that still leaves the traditional publications (mainstream media, if you will). Perhaps Gannett is out front with their crowdsourcing efforts, but it seems to reason that all the “regular folks” out there still need to be aware that the conversation is now bi-directional. It is, isn’t it?

One point that was raised during the podcast was that vendors would actually, and most likely, pay for this content to be created with the hopes of getting their name, and potentially message, in front of the audience they most desire.  This point inspired this post.

SocialRoots (which I am happy to say is back on the tracks and steaming forward) has been developing the marketplace that will make this sort of activity frictionless by bringing the vendors and the creators together.  As an entrepreneur, it’s always nice to hear affirmation of your beliefs.  It also looks good on slides during investor presentations ;)

Jeff Howe has some breaking news about Gannett’s plans for the future. It seems that they are taking the next step in social media integration - this time outsourcing story research to the masses. As Jeff reports:

Of all the pilot projects the company has conducted over the last few months, the most promising would seem to be the crowdsourcing of in-depth investigations into government malfeasance. Crowdsourcing involves taking functions traditionally performed by employees and using the internet to outsource them to an undefined, generally large group of people. The compensation is usually far less than what an employee might make for performing the same service. Well-known examples include Wikipedia and iStockphoto.

“We’ve already had some really amazing results with the crowdsourcing element of this,” said Jennifer Carroll, Gannett’s VP for new media content. “Most of us got into this business because we were passionate about watchdog journalism and public service, and we’ve just watched those erode. We’ve learned that no one wants to read a 400-column-inch investigative feature online. But when you make them a part of the process they get incredibly engaged.”

Source: Wired.com, “Gannett to Crowdsource News”

I have to commend Gannett for experimenting with this medium. While they’ve made a firm committment to this direction, it is still largely experimental in nature. As one executive notes: “We’re serious about this… Do we have it licked? No. But we’re ahead of the curve. By maybe half a step.”

Ahead of the curve indeed. I’m curious how much of an advantage this truly provides. Ultimately, the medium we’re attempting to wrangle provides quite a bit more transparency into the processes involved. While Gannett might have the largest body of experience - that experience is not necessarily exclusive nor proprietary. I am sure that there is some advantage, but perhaps there’s more to learn from the establish players who are actively tackling these problems.

Naturally, I think that the largest problem still is on the input side rather than the output. The key challenges revolve around managing a workforce and providing the storytelling experience the traditional media consumer’s palette is adjusted to. Like it or not, we bloggers, as journalists, still have a lot left to learn.

The question is who will learn the right lessons first?

technorati tags:crowdsourcing, media, social+media, social+news, gannett

I’ve quickly posted some thoughts on the increasing trend towards parallel entrepreneurship over at the Blue Whale Labs blog. Read The Rise of the Parallel Entrepreneur.

Since I’ve moved out to San Francisco, I’ve made it my personal mission to try and bring as many people together as possible - mostly just to see if I can. To further that agenda, I’ve been working with my partners at the Lab and good friend Brian Solis to organize something new and interesting.

The Crawl will take place on November 10th, 2006 at 5pm.
Here’s the details:

The Bubble-Free Bar Crawl is a celebration of our sacrifice. This event is for everyone toiling late at night to launch their own startup and take a piece of the pie. Most importantly, it’s a time for you to bring all those who are supporting you out for a good time and a thank you.

The Crawl will focus on the emerging tech corridor in downtown SF. There seems to be a huge number of startups cropping up and down 2nd Street. We’re starting at the Embarcadero and moving our way towards Market.

We’ll be hitting these places:

5:00 pm - Web 2.2 Conference / Citizen Space Open House
6:00 pm - Momo’s
6:45 pm - Nova
7:30 pm - Bacar
8:15 pm - Thirsty Bear
9:00 pm - House of Shields

We welcome anyone and everyone, just bring a friend, a happy disposition, and be on time.

Hope to see you there. RSVP here.

I’m in the process of putting together the Bubble-Free Bar Crawl for November 10th in San Francisco.  I’ve identified a number of bars that I want to put on the list but thought I would check with anyone who’s got some insider information on where we might want to target.

The plan is to make our way from the Embarcadero up to Market (or somewhere near there).

I’ll have more on the event once we finalize the list of bars.