Economics Economics Economics

Have I mentioned that I love the planet money podcast?  Today I listened to a piece about punctuated change, pretty much what is happening as industries transform (or collapse?) all over the globe in the face of this recession.  The piece emphasized the need for creativity, innovation and experimentation to redefine the rules of the game for the major global industries- and see what will shake out as the next standard competitive advantage.  I don't see why 'open' couldn't or wouldn't be that trend.

Two other 'economy' type things I came across this weekend.  The long tail theory by Chris Anderson (Ed put this one up on our wiki)- and Lawrence Lessig's descriptor of the hybrid economy.  Too brain dead to elaborate much more now- but seems like at the least we can start tackling definitions of these theories for our glossary- as theories that could support/describe an economy where collaboration flourishes.

What can WE do for you today?

I'm finding it difficult not to be an idealistic youth. I don't think I want to stop – we've been learning that holding vision is what will help us move forwards, that pragmatism and old ideas lead to incremental change, but that we can do better. I am from the Net Generation. The generation that thinks it can have anything, do everything, can have its cake and eat it.

I recently read in the economist that us Net Gen kids are a pain to employ. Selfish, divas and poor team players, that need masses of support. In my first job, you could definitely have got that impression from me, but the truth was, my whole office was on constant procrastination mode - surfing the web and delivering the bare minimum. Staff were unenthusiastic, projects were accomplished sloppily and when I asked for guidance to make sure I was doing the best job I could, the management answered a different question to the one I asked.

I'm curious: Do we Net Genners threaten the Biro Generation because we are raring to go? Because we want to go FASTER than old habits and systems will allow us? Whilst we're all bored and itching in the office do you see us as lazy and uncommitted?

As a member of the Net Generation, I have at my fingertips the collaborative knowledge of MILLIONS of people and if you can handle me properly, through me, they can work for you.
Its time for managers to learn how to make use of the Net Gen.

Our business systems are not geared up for the information age just as society is not geared up for the Net Generation. Like it or not, the Net Generation ARE the future and the information age is here NOW. Perhaps you, as a manager can learn to help me fulfil my potential which, with tools like the internet is getting bigger every millisecond because I don't only use my brain. I can collaborate using the internet and access thousands of other Brains – what can we do for you today?

Toyota wants your ideas...

http://www.toyotawhynot.com/#/home

By encouraging this exploration and sharing of ideas, will Toyota build itself a resource that can eventually provide a return on investment?

How do the participants of these collaborative concepts make money from their collaborating, begging the questions:

Does business just want their work done for free?

How will individuals 'earn' in the future?

How about a pay - per - collaborate site (a bit like pay per click?)

Another angle of web-collaboration we haven't gone in deep with yet...

xxx

Joost Abandons Desktop Software, Peer-to-Peer Video Model

peer 2 peer as a business model, cutting out the producer all together, but not quite right....

 

 

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Joost Abandons Desktop Software, Peer-to-Peer Video Model

via Epicenter by Scott Gilbertson on 12/18/08

The online video service Joost has killed off its desktop software client, telling users to instead access the service through the website — much the way Hulu, Tv.com and others are doing.

The demise of the Joost desktop client (which will officially shut down Friday, Dec 19) is in many ways very predictable, after all, why require a separate download when the very same video can be seen the in the browser elsewhere?

But part of the buzz surrounding Joost's launch (aside from the fact that it involved the creator of Skype) was that the company planned to use peer-to-peer networks to distribute video, rather than the client-peer network it has switched to now.

So what does that mean for peer-to-peer (P2P) distribution? While many have been quick to seize on Joost's move as a sign that P2P distribution will ultimately fail, the concept is still quite healthy.

It's the ability to make money off of a P2P business that, thus far anyway, is not quite as healthy.

While the darknet of bittorrent file swapping continues largely unabated, and many large open source software manufacturers rely on P2P distribution, so far, outside of Skype, there aren't many financial success stories to be found in P2P technologies.

That said, don't count P2P out just yet, its real success might be exactly where Joost is headed — in the browser.

Adobe has already taken some preliminary steps to build P2P capabilities into its Flash Player. With a new developer framework called Real-Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP) Adobe is enabling developers to use P2P tools inside Flash. At the moment RTMFP isn't intended for large scale streaming (think video conferencing, not YouTube), but there's nothing to stop Adobe from moving it in that direction.

The only problem with P2P video in the browser is that it's unlikely to ever be a complete solution — sites will still need to host all those videos that currently have no peers available. In other words, P2P would make a nice fallback scenario, a way for companies to cut costs on the top 5 percent of their content — the most popular videos.

Given that Joost was very vocal about its early P2P model, it's possible will the company be offering some sort of P2P distribution through a browser plugin or the like, but so far Joost hasn't given users any indications of what to expect, save that now Joost looks a lot more like Hulu.

See Also:

• The New, Easier Joost Is Up
• Joost Raises $45 Million, But Still Not Quite Right
• Joost Beta Turns 1.0

 

 

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The ‘free’ business model

Yes I am addicted to RvB now, and yes I am addicted to the wikinomics blog. But this 'free' business model raises the question: if the only way to make money from the free sharing of ideas and creativity is through the selling of 'stuff' does this really address the sustainability problem?

 

 

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The ‘free’ business model

via Wikinomics by Ming Kwan on 12/18/08

The inspiration behind this blog post came when I was thinking of doing some Christmas shopping for my sister. (Hopefully she doesn't read this post…) I was looking to buy her the DVD Boxset of the first five seasons of Red vs. Blue – The Blood Gulch Chronicles. The Box set price is $69 USD which is reasonable considering you're getting five seasons, unfortunately for me I live in Canada so I also have to worry about shipping costs, duty & customs, and the exchange rate difference. (But that has nothing to do with my blog post). [Btw, if anyone knows where I can buy this in Canada, please let me know!]

For those of you who haven't heard of Red vs. Blue, it's a machinima series (imagine a movie or tv show, but filmed within a video game) based on the popular Xbox 360 game – Halo. I first came across Red vs. Blue when doing some research for work; I watched a few episodes and immediately fell in love with the show. I was also lucky enough to get an interview with Burnie Burns, Co-Founder of the Roosterteeth (RT) community – and producer of the Red vs. Blue episodes.
Burnie Burns and partners, Gustavo Sorola and Geoff Fink chose machinima because it's an efficient way to produce animation – 3 people can produce around five minutes/ week. They then immediately post the video on the Web – for free.

Some people may not immediately see the value in this business model – but in this case (and many others) it has proven to be very successful. Burnie and his team are able to do something they love full time, and still give it away for free free. The revenues they make just come from other, non-traditional or unconventional sources (so to speak).

This wired magazine article talks about 'How T-Shirts keep online content free'. According to the article Burnie started selling shirts and caps online (based on the show). "Within months, he was filling hundreds of orders a week, generating enough revenue to pay everyone a salary." – Pretty impressive. Now if you go on the RT community they've expanded their offering to include the aforementioned DVD box sets, calendars, books, music and accessories like mugs and messenger bags. You may think: 'why would someone buy something they can get online for free?' Well, I'm a perfect example.

After learning about Red vs. Blue I told my younger sister about the show. She loved it so much that, (no exaggeration) she has literally watched the entire series (all 6 seasons) at least five times over. The addiction to the show, quality of the video, the experience of watching it in your living room on your tv, the fact that you don't have to click on another link to watch the next episode are all good reasons (to me) to justify the purchase of the DVD box set. To prove that I'm not the only person willing to shell out some $$ to purchase 'value added' merchandise this blog post (Dec 17 - titled: Still Time to Shop) proves that the 'free' model is a viable business model and that many others are looking to buy the RvB DVD sets for the holidays.

One final note: T-shirts and DVDs aren't the only way the RT guys make money. They've gotten so good at creating machinima that other video game companies have approached them to create machinima TV commercials or promotional spots for them. So although they don't make money directly off of the product they spend all their time creating, revenue has come to them in myriad ways.
Here's the first episode of RvB – The Blood Gulch Chronicles to get you started. But please don't blame me if you get addicted!

for more please go here or here. I heart RvB!

 

 

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