I see many parallels to the recorded music business. Some people might download music for free while others are willing to pay. Today we have the luxury of trying music before we buy it. If we download from p2p and we don’t like it, we never were a lost sale. But if you like the music enough, you want to buy special physical items (like vinyl) , go to shows, and become an evangelizing fan.

Most news organizations that are paying to syndicate AP’s content are probably advertising based. They depend on traffic for their business model. If people are willing to give traffic to the AP’s customers, the AP should be willing to ignore a “copyright violation” in order to help it’s customer reach it’s goal of receiving traffic.

There are companies who’s business strategy encourage would-be offense, such as the dreaded deep linker, or the free and open source software hacker, or the Creative Commons music sharer. But if your lawyers are not crying foul, ruining your business model for heir own short term gain, for you, you carry on as you wish. Threatening potential customers is no a sustainable business model. Laws are made by people, and the spirit of laws can be rationalized by people. The way to behave on the web (which came from the way the web was designed) existed before the arrival of traditional news organizations, and they need to play by these rules.

If the AP really want bloggers to buy a license in order to quote them, they need to do two things. First, They really need to improve their offerings, giving something more than just permission to quote them. Sites like Reddit and Digg encourage linking as part of their business plan and they give blogger tools that help them accomplish their own goals rather than fight against them (granted they are not sources, but they leverage exiting behavior). AP does not do this. Second, they need to understand the the resources to police the use of their quotes is going to cost for more than it is worth, and they are better off not doing it at all. People will link and/or take entire articles wholesale. This is not your target customer. Google will eventually figure out that a site is spam and ban it, and then the motives for scraping are gone.

If the AP wants to play with bloggers on the internet, it needs to play by the bloggers’ and Googles’ rules. We link to sources, and we quote as much as we see necessary. Where we come form, respect is earned, regardless of the interpretation of copyright law or fair use. Help us kick ass, and we’ll be your biggest fans. Figure out how to monetize that, and your golden.

Sean‘s opinion.
Profy takes AP’s side and choose to site the part of fair use that cannot interfere with “potential market value.”
Arrington says: AP is banned.

Do you need a web developer for a Drupal or WordPress project? A marketing strategist to manage your social media profiles, search ads, or SEO? Contact me here or call +1-562-285-7029.

But for now, the transition is rough for music industry veterans. Almost every week for the past two years the music industry manages to make one puzzling move after another, while independent artists are free to make decisions who’s only stockholders are themselves along with their artistic and commercial aspirations. Increasingly, independent artists commercial strategy is not in selling CDs, but in the more scarce goods such as early access to new releases, performances, and limited edition vinyl or DVDs, reliable discovery and immediate access to files on iTune or Amazon MP3 . They now they need to sell their fans something they cannot get for free.

People love to talk about the music they love. Allowing them to share it easily and legally, and talk about it online, and put it in new contexts is the new path to commercial success.

Do you need a web developer for a Drupal or WordPress project? A marketing strategist to manage your social media profiles, search ads, or SEO? Contact me here or call +1-562-285-7029.

Right now, there are a bunch of SEOs listening to what Danny Sullivan has to say about social media strategy because they trust him. But some SEOs refuse to re-evaluate what brings value to their clients, (note: this Sphinn user was not in attendance) even saying that Jason should not be allowed at conferences. These sentiments just prove to him that what he is doing is right. It is innovators dilemma. SEOs got where they are today by being great at SEO strategies. Asking them to adopt social media as a new strategy is new and foreign. As Danny tries to lead his followers to new territory, some think he is betraying them and the strategies that made them the stars they are today. Some might be too afraid to go back to their clients to tell them they are going to try some new strategies to help their clients succeeded. They should remember that this does not mean the work they did in the past did not allow for successes or was a bad idea. SEO definitely has been one of the main ways to help clients succeed on the web for the past 10 years. But, there is no need to defend past actions with future ignorance. They need to redefine their metrics. The longer they wait, the more likely they will get their lunch eaten.

Thus, the knee-jerk reaction to Jason Calicanis’s rhetoric that SEO is a dying or bad strategy. Yes, let’s admit that Jason loves to agitate people by rubbing strategy decay into SEO’s faces, bad Jason . No one is going to tell an SEO that they are not giving value to their clients using SEO techniques. It just that the tactics they are using need to evolve.

Less attention is going to be paid to traditional SEO because (especially in the creation of static pages) now it is so much easier and valuable to create site with an open source blog, CMS, wiki or other application platform that may or may not rely on search engine traffic. Sure, even with these there are some ways to tweak them from an SEO perspective, but not as much as you might have needed to do 10 years ago. This is disruptive technology, bad news for the traditional SEOs that build sites from scratch, sprinkling in their elusive, magical SEO code. But, the developers of these open source CMS apps have figured out how to do the complicated SEO work for you (why else would Matt Cutts speak, attend, and endorse Wordcamp?). Here (along with social media application designers) is where good SEO needs to happen, and smart web strategists will realize that this is where it should continue to happen, because it scales and eliminates redundant work. You just need to wait for the search engines to spider your site. Now, traditional SEOs (which should now be called web strategists) should have more time available to add additional types of value for their clients by either engaging in social media on their behalf, or teaching them how to engaging with their prospects in a way that will help them efficiently meet their goals over the web. This is done by creating “meaningful relationships” (for lack of a better term) with people. At this point, SEO is just one of many tactics used by a web strategist. So calling a person an SEOs or SEM will soon be a way to show how outdated or limited that person’s strategy toolbox is. SEO competes with other value-adding strategies if all you do is SEO. Thus, SEO people see social media strategy as a threat. Being a web strategist is where it’s at.

Update 4/25/08: Oh yeah, add semantic web to the list in the title.

Do you need a web developer for a Drupal or WordPress project? A marketing strategist to manage your social media profiles, search ads, or SEO? Contact me here or call +1-562-285-7029.

The first book in what as become a long series of books about the changing media and business strategy landscape was that I took an interest in was Naked Conversations around the time hit the shelves in January 2006. I found out about it because by I been following Steve Ruble at MicroPersuasions which I discovered from TechCrunch, which I found from a Google search around the first couple weeks that it (TechCunch) launched. I had gotten to know who Robert Scoble was around March 2005. I had heard so much about this book from blogs building up to its release date, and I was curious to read about what they had to say. I think is was after this time that I found Shel Israel’s blog. If had committed to subscribing to a feed and reading posts everyday, it was easy to make the transition to buying blog author’s book or a book recommended by a trusted blogger.

Sometimes I tend to notice books in pairs. The World Is Flat and Freakonomics are one pair that comes to mind. Not only were they mentioned on a lot of blogs, but they were also best sellers. I can’t say it was any one particular post or blogger that got me interested in these two, but the buzz was enough. I bought TWIF Expanded Edition on CD. I bought the Freakonomics from Audible.com an received the hard copy as a gift.

The same with The Tipping Point and Blink. These I paired because they are by the same author, Malcolm Gladwell who I took an interest in after hearing a couple of his talks on ITConversations: Human Nature from Pop!Tech 2004 and his SXSW 2005 Keynote. He did one of these talks he did for free. As a result of this talk, he went on to become one of the most in-demand speakers for tradeshows, conferences, and corporate presentations in the pas couple years, not to mention selling books to those who want to hear more about his ideas on how ideas spread(The Tipping Point) and how people make decisions (Blink).

Naked Conversations mentioned many times that The Cluetrain Manifesto was its catalyst, so I had to check that one out, not to mention Tara Hunt‘s repeated references to it. This lead me to discover Doc Searls (one of the authors of Cluetrain) and his blogs.

When I discovered that Steve Rubel was doing a podcast back around November 2005 called Across the Sound, I just had to check it out. That is when I discovered Joseph Jaffe and his book Life After the 30-Second Spot. Rubel did the podcast for about 5 or 10 episodes with Jaffe and then he decided to spend time with other projects.

From Jaffe, I was turned on to Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell, authors of Creating Customer Evangelists, and then to John Moore author of (check out the TribalKnowledg blog and the 47 Tribal Truths). John Moore’s blog is where I first read about Mavericks at Work from this post and I picked up the hard copy and Audible.com versions soon after.

Eric Mattson of the Marketing Monger Podcast turned me on to Jeremiah Owyang. Jeremiah is one of my favorite bloggers on the topic of marketing and social media, so when Jeremiah suggested The Starfish and the Spider, I just had to check it out. Jeremiah pointed to Ben Casnocha’s blog where he has reviewed many business books. Jeremiah also pointed to Jennifer Jones’s interview with Seth Godin on his book Small is the New Big a couple months after I read it. One of the many podcast and blog mentions of this book was the Joseph Jaffe’s interview with Seth. This book is a collection of blog posts and columns Seth wrote for magazines on the changing face of advertising, marketing, and strategy.

Blue Ocean Strategy is another book that I cannot say there was one place I saw it that lead me to believe it would be a good read. I have the hard copy as well as an Audible.com download.

Besides all of the blog hype that had been building up for a year around Chris Anderson‘s The Long Tail, one moment where I definitely could not wait to get the book was after hearing his talk on IT Conversations titled The Economics of the Long Tail. The Long Tail and The Wisdom of Crowds are another set of books that I pair together in my mind, maybe because I read (listened) to them around the same time. What really got me turned on to The Wisdom of Crowds was James Surowiecki’s talk at SXSW 2006. I do not have the hard copies of either of these, just the Audible.com downloads.

When I first blogged about books I found through blogs and podcasts, Todd at 800CEORead blog linked to it. That was the first time I had heard of the 800CEORead blog. When I went to read other posts at this great blog, I noticed a post about a book that talked about the different strategies of XM and Sirius. It was Get Back in the Box by Douglas Rushkoff. I found this title intriguing since recent conventional wisdom was to think “outside of the box.” When Rushkoff popped up again in and episode of Boing Boing’s Get Illuminated podcast, I knew there must be something to him and his book so I bought it and could not stop reading it. I think this is definitely my favorite out of all of my recent reads. It is about how some companies have wandered so far outside of their core competencies that they are no longer doing what they did best. This had some of the most diverse ideas out of all of my recent reads. Another book mention on the BoingBoing’s Get Immuminated podcast is Stven E. Landsburg More Sex is Safer Sex:The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics. I am also interested in David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous and Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert because of these two BoingBoing posts.

IT Conversations has been the source of many book purchases and whishlist additions (as mentioned above). Moira Gunn’s show TechNation (featured on IT Conversation) if a great place for me to hear book recommendations as interviews with the authors, most of which are right up my alley. Her interviewed Gerd Leonhard, author of The Future of Music prompted me to find that I was able to download the first 5 chapters as a podcast at the books blog. This prompted me to add it to my Amazon wishlist and it was ten purchased for me as a gift. I downloaded Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath from Audible.com minutes after hearing Moira interview Chip. In her interview with Peter Navarro on The Coming China Wars (ITC interview part 1 and ITC interview part 2). I added it to my Audible.com wishlist. Next was an interview Robert Sutton on his book The No Asshole Rule along with a review on Guy Kawasaki’s blog along with an interactive self test. I purchased this book at Audible.com. Next, Moira interviewed Nassim Taleb on his book The Black Swan which sounds fascinating, so I added to my Amazon wishlist. On Open Source Conversations (an IT Conversations Channel) I was turned on to Scott Rosneberg’s talk on his book Dreaming in Code about how designing and programming the perfect software application can a nightmare. Phil Windley interviewed Howard Moskowitz about his book Selling Blue Elephants on how to manipulate the senses with the right product design. I added it to my Amazon wishlist. Another talk heard on ITC was by Richard Florida at Pop!Tech 2004, author of Rise of The Creative Class. I added it to my wishlist and it was purchased for me as a gift. My last audiobook purchases was The End of Faith by Sam Harris because of his talk at Pop!Tech 2005 on It Conversations.

Brian Oberkirch‘s podcast is another cool source for book recommendations. First was an interview with Michael Ryanor about this book The Strategy Paradox. Guy Kawasaki interviewed him as well. On the SXSW 2007 podcast I was awestruck by Tim Ferriss talk on his outlook on life regarding how to beat the 9-5 system and get your life back, The Four Hour Work Week. He was then interviews on Brian’s podcast a couple days later. I downloaded the Audible.com version that same day and then bought the hardcopy book a couple of days later. Going back to Guy Kawasaki, he recommended Elegant Solution by Matthew May which I am reading currently.

The ChangeThis Manifesto is the site to find out about books that dissect the massive changes going on in culture, media, and business strategy. They have short, free PDFs, some of which are by authors of newly released books that either sum-up the book or focus on one key point of the book. Almost every author that writes a ChangeThis Manifesto is one who’s books’ subject is right up my alley. One of the most popular is Rajesh Shetty‘s 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself where he suggests Let’s Get Real or Lets Not Play by Mahan Khalsa, a great book on negotiating sales. I have both the Audible.com and hard copy versions.

Thanks to this episode of The Negotiation Tip of the Week podcast, I was turned-on to Beyond Reason by Daniel Shapiro and Roger Fisher, featuring an interview with Shapiro.

After writing a post about Seth Godin, a representative from Allworth Press left a blog comment about a book on a similar topic, Brandjam by Marc Gobé. I managed to get them to send me a copy. I have not yet read it, but the ideas are pretty solid. It features a lot of examples of stuff people are talking about in the marketing blogosphere, and documents some great examples of things like user generated content and “design is the new marketing/advertising,” but he was not on my radar otherwise becuase he was not leveraging social media in the way the rest of these authors are. The book does have plenty of Technorati mentions but there is no blog at his company site dga.com. Maybe he does not need the blog mentions as much as the others?

Do you need a web developer for a Drupal or WordPress project? A marketing strategist to manage your social media profiles, search ads, or SEO? Contact me here or call +1-562-285-7029.

The article notes that this might bring on entirely new forms of gaming, lobbying, and trolls in the patent system. However, they will continue to reiterate the system as gaming problems arise. The system sounds like it may work like a cross between Digg and Yahoo Answers. I hope is eliminates the number of patents granted, because really they stimulate laziness and not innovation. Competition stimulates innovation, monopolies on ideas retard innovation. Patents are the like the adult equivalent of child yelling “I called it first!!,” and then punching each of your competitors in the shoulder (as Ze Frank might say). At any rate, this system is very welcome to the tech community and anyone who cares about innovation and the conveniences they provide to everyday people.

Do you need a web developer for a Drupal or WordPress project? A marketing strategist to manage your social media profiles, search ads, or SEO? Contact me here or call +1-562-285-7029.

Imagine you are in the lobby of a VC firm waiting to give your presentation. You got the connection through a friend of a friend. Your business plan is thorough. You have all of your numbers worked out. Your PPT is only 10 slides. You have your 10/20/30 worked out. You strike up a conversation with a member of a team of other entrepreneurs also waiting, and one of them knows one of the VC partners personally, and they hang out. He tells you they do not have any financial projections because the area they are innovating in is too new and changing too fast, but there is an opportunity. Who do you think is more likely to get funding? (disclaimer: I don`t know that entrepreneurs hang out in lobbys of VC firms waiting to give presentations, just a hypothetical situation).

Guy Kawasaki riffs on other reasons business plans are not the key to a successful startup/funding (there are many other factors).

Do you need a web developer for a Drupal or WordPress project? A marketing strategist to manage your social media profiles, search ads, or SEO? Contact me here or call +1-562-285-7029.

powered by ODEO

Do you need a web developer for a Drupal or WordPress project? A marketing strategist to manage your social media profiles, search ads, or SEO? Contact me here or call +1-562-285-7029.

Do you need a web developer for a Drupal or WordPress project? A marketing strategist to manage your social media profiles, search ads, or SEO? Contact me here or call +1-562-285-7029.

Do you need a web developer for a Drupal or WordPress project? A marketing strategist to manage your social media profiles, search ads, or SEO? Contact me here or call +1-562-285-7029.

The two recent talks I enjoyed too place at the Fall 2006 Interop Meetup in New York City.
Scott Kriens, CEO of Juniper gave a talk titled “Keeping it Real” (sort sounds like getting real). He imagines a triangle of good, fast, and cheap.

Kriens says you cannot have all three, and it is dumb to try and sell SOA with all three, because it is just against the law of nature. This seems like some practical advice. So I Googled “good fast cheap” and found post written way back in 2003 by David J. Anderson , author of Agile Management for Software Engineers. Anderson says that according to Built to Last,

…companies which are built to last do not accept the “The Tyranny of the OR” but instead embrace “The Genius of the AND”. These business simply refuse to accept that it is not possible to do it all [good and fast and cheap].

So which is it?

The other talk at Interop that I liked was Ross Mayfield of SocialText and Andrew McAfee, associate professor, Harvard Business School on Web 2.0 for Enterprise.
They talk about the adoption of web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise: enterprise 2.0, such as using tagging, blogs, and wikis. Mayfield gives a great explanation on what a wiki is and how you might be able to explain it to your company.

But then at 39:20 McAfee notes the cultural barrier that can exist in enterprise wiki adoption verses e-mail blasts/thread following. The emergent behavior of projects like Wikipedia proves that this model works, but only some people contribute. It is a damn shame to hear this as I try to champion this type of system at the company I work at. He closes the talk saying that he does not know what the solution is yet. Well, at least the “MySpace generation” will thrive in this area when they come of age. I suppose getting rid of the top-down culture is a start. Is web 2.0 an advantage or a cost center in the enterprise? For the ones who think it is a cost and they cannot adapt, they will not survive. For the ones that think of it as an advantage, they will survive.

Do you need a web developer for a Drupal or WordPress project? A marketing strategist to manage your social media profiles, search ads, or SEO? Contact me here or call +1-562-285-7029.