Mash up model - Buzz around Xobni

A mash up is extending the capabilities of an application, usually you mash up application together to create your own application. It's a powerful technique for web site publisher s to improve the capabilities of their own service, the flip side though is that revenue of the used application is not not always shared with the integrator... That might be why is not so popular in the professional publishing industry but well used by entrepreneurs that want to increase their traffic.

Having said that, I need you to test and add-on, which is close to a mash up in the sense that it's adding capabilities to an application. Interesting about the one I need you for, Xobni, is that it's an add-on for outlook that automate the classification of your inbox in a GMAIL style. It's using a viral technique to promote the launch of their beta (again the beta syndrome I mentioned previously!) and I can be invited quicker if you click on the button and sign in for the free account... So please, act now ! You are one click away of participating in a viral action :-)


Thanks

Business Model evolution in the music industry

2007 is a cornerstone year in the music industry. Various business model have been tested and I guess that 2008 will see some trends emerging. Let's take the Radiohead example, no figure have been officially released but simply the fact that a well established band can produce, market and distribute his own music is already a revolution. The perception of the workload (and cost) is not always reflected in the price the people wanted to give away for the In Rainbow Record (average of 2.5£). Now that this action is closed and that the album is regularly distributed through I-tunes and XL recording, I'm wondering if it was just not a marketing action....

Madonna is another example, she signed an all in contract with the concert promoter Live Nation (Clear Channel), valued at 120m$ for 3 albums, concert organization, selling merchandising and Licensing her name. That contract is also unique because behind live Nation, clear channel owns a full supply chain for the music industry from Radio to ticketing and venue. The value add of such deal for Clear Channel is huge !

The open source model is also applicable for another segment of artists. Smaller artists (in term of audience ,not in term of quality !) can benefit from free distribution and social platform like Jamendo with their 2530.000+ users to create a buzz and get noticed by professionals.

To conclude, many other alternative where elaborated but in essence to go back to the primary objective of this blog (publishing industry), the value chain is not changing in the music industry. The content (the music itself) is more and more accessible for free on the web and the value added of the actors need to be refine to establish new business models. Orgnaization like the Rolling Stone (not sure if I can still call them band :-) needs a new record to promote a worldwide tour, the money is defenitely not generated by that new album. I can see similar trend in the publishing industry, the information is more and more available for free and adaptation are needed to monetize new value added.

ACAP - Automated Content Access Protocol

Have you heard about the ACAP initiative ? Funded by the World Association of Newspaper, the international Publisher Association and the European Publisher Councils, this projects aims to create technical framework that enables content publishers to express permissions in a format that search engine can interpret. ACAP is currently a project that aims to :
(a) create the technical framework, re-using as much as possible existing mechanism (like robot.txt, robot metadata tags, ...)
(b) communicate to the industry and create awareness to use this protocol
(c) create a governance framework to manage the protocol in the future.

It's an interesting initiative to follow because it provides publishers a tool to expose more high value content in a managed way. So far, the major public search engine didn't show big enthusiasm to participate but I guess it's more a wait and see position than a pure rejection. Having in mind all the pending case they are facing, ACAP might bridge the gap of copyrighting interpretation between Publisher and search engine. The status details of the mid term conference are on the-acap.org. The next progress status are reported in December 2007.

Be connected all the time - Virginia Tech example

The Virginia Tech shooting is horrible and I don't understand how such situation can occurs nowadays. Politics is not the purpose of this blog, so I won't elaborate on the shooting facts but it triggers an new expectation : We'll need to be connected all the time !
- The University has sent e-mail to warn every student that a shooting was taking place.
-Instant Messenger was used to explain the modus operandi to student in the Norris Hall, IM was a workable alternative to the overloaded Mobile network (Verizon claims a 400% volume increase during the shooting)
- Video shooting from Phones is more and more used in press coverage, Vtech drama video are visible on YouTube, even If it has no added value in terms of information
- Websites have been created to provide assistance to Vtech student
- Journalists used Myspace, Facebook or community site to find their information

We are really in a connected world, Internet social community plays an active role, Vtech is a dramatic example.

Image credit : planetblacksburg.com

Copyrighting and Google News Services

I didn't elaborate on this before but you all have read elsewhere that a court in Belgium has upheld an earlier ruling against Google that prevents the search provider from copying newspaper headlines in its Google News service and search index. The case was introduced by Copiepress, an association of 18 Belgian newspapers. The sentence is confirmed but the penalties are reduced to 25.000€/day, which provide me material to estimate the revenue generated by Google on the Belgian market. In the US Google can refer to a fair usage to populate their service, in Belgium it will not be the case any more.

Google must remove all citations to newspaper article from his search index and from his cache because that can be subject to copyright. OK but.. By doing that, it's not only the search indexing that is sentenced, Any reference to cached content is considered : the formatted cached version but also the relevance ranking, Keyword in context, ... It's also funny to see that the publishers know the rules of the game. if you don't want to be indexed, fill in the robot.txt file. Have a look at one of the newspaper member of copiepress, le soir... lesoir.be/robot.txt is quite empty. Go to the homepage of this site and guess what tool they use for their statistic :-)

The beta syndrome - When does startup cross the chasm ?

Have you read Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the chasm ? To move from a technology driven to a customer driven model you have to cross the chasm of an early adopter community to a model where you address the "mass market". In short to move from R&D to a real product in operation.
For the web2.0 is often the time where thing goes wrong for Entrepreneurs and they tend to extend the happy days where they served geek without too much consideration of operational excellence, even if the product is already adopted and often top of mind. Google is a good example, did you notice that Gmail is still in beta ? I call it the beta syndrome of the web2.0, check in your own startup list and you'll notice how much are in beta mode... Why do I care ? Well the blog platform you are reading this post from just cross the chasm ! Congratulation Blogger...

Take over rumors in the business publishing world

It's funny to see how cyclic the rumors of take over bid are in the business publishing. In the industry, there is only 3 global players : Thomson, Reed Elsevier (mostly known for his brand Lexis-Nexis) and Wolters Kluwer (mostly known as CCH in the US market). Every 2 years there are rumors of either merge between 2 of the three or acquisition of one of them by the others. this time the market place was expecting Wolters Kluwer to acquire Reeds. Their Share event rose with 2% on the London stock exchange... In the mean time, EU regulation have already stated in 1998 that it would contradict competition rules and that merging those 2 dutch rivals in the same group, with the current set of activities was not possible. Now, WK put his education division for sales. You can apply for a price of 700m€...