heute:pop:blog.  

During SXSW in 2010 I was interviewed by the guys behind the PressPausePlay documentary which they call ‘a film about hope, fear and digital culture’. I missed the film’s screening at this year’s SXSW so 18 months after it was recorded I saw my interview for the first time last week. I still stand by what I was saying last year.

You can download the full documentary in HD on their website.

As a side note, it’s because of PressPausePlay that I now have an IMDB page.

This year I have again submitted an idea for a talk at SXSW and the public voting process has now started. This time I have decided not to submit a panel idea like in previous years but I want to try something different: Ben Perreau and I will debate on the influence of Public Broadcasters on digital music innovation and its positive and negative effects, you can find the whole description below.

As always we appreciate your votes in the SXSW PanelPicker and feel free to leave comments about what we should cover in our debate.

This is the idea we suggested:

Public media & digital music innovation: a debate

This debate will consider digital innovation in an environment with public broadcasters. Jonas Woost (Executive producer for Radio 3 at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) will defend their role and Ben Perreau (Director of digital content at Global Radio / previously an entrepreneur) will consider the negative effects.

Public broadcasters have long played a vital role in media, not only by providing citizens with independent information but also through universal entertainment. Publicly-funded organizations like CBC and NPR have tirelessly championed new music, supported artists that struggle to find audiences on commercial outlets and helped provide a test-bed for innovation. On the other hand public broadcasters, free from the constraints of commerce, have strayed into areas where private enterprise might. As a result, countless innovations from the likes of startups and commercial businesses may never have come to light. To what extent does this inhibit plurality and the economies of places where public broadcasters operate?

Questions answered

• Should/shouldn’t public broadcasters develop digital music products such as streaming services, social music etc?
• How do public broadcasters compete with digital music services from commercial providers?
• With the difficulty in finding investment for digital music services should public broadcasters consider investing in this sector?
• With VCs and advertising clients looking for a quick return when dealing with digital music services, do public broadcasters and their ‘long view’ provide a useful alternative?
• How can public broadcasters continue to support niche or emerging music in a digital context that might not find exposure on commercial outlets?

Over the last nine months I have been working on a side-project called Nimbi, a cloud-based ebook reader that aims to be an open alternative to the closed ecosystems available. Now we have finally launched our invite-only beta version to gather some feedback. Below a copy of what I posted on the Nimbi blog last week.

We are ecstatic to announce that Nimbi’s 0.1 version (which we call Version Gutenberg) has now been completed. This version is available as a private beta and is the first time we open up Nimbi to anyone outside our team. This is a very exciting step and our small group is pretty proud. If we were living in the same city there would even be champagne but instead we have to settle with a Skype high-five.

The 0.1 version of Nimbi offers the basic functionality of an ebook locker: you can upload an .epub file to your account and access it from anywhere through a web browser. You can also read your ebook from any iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad using Safari on iOS. Standard e-reader functions such as highlighting, commenting and remembering the last page you were reading are fully supported.
Version Gutenberg is the foundation of what Nimbi will continue to deliver in the future: a convenient and open way to store and access all your long-form text with a focus on usability.

We are giving out invite codes for Nimbi to a selected number of people – if you think you should join this group please contact us at hello [at] nim [dot] bi. We’re looking forward to reading the feedback!

It’s been about two and a half months since I joined CBC Radio 3 as the Executive Producer and meant to write a few words about it for a while. I’m now slowly settling in at the Canadian institution that is the CBC and it’s taking longer than expected: working for a large organization is an unfamiliar territory for me, in the past I’ve always worked for small to mid-sized companies. And even though Last.fm was part of the huge CBS family for the last two years I worked there I always felt that I was working for a start-up in East London.

When I had my interviews I was repeatedly reminded that the Radio 3 team was a unique group within the CBC and often acted independently from the rest of the corporation. To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure I’d believed this as it’s one of those things you say to someone you would like to hire. However, once I met the team I realized that they hadn’t oversold: the Radio 3 team very much feels like a start-up within the CBC so I instantly felt comfortable with the environment I joined.

The fact that I’m working part-time and therefore can continue to work on my other projects (such as the transmission events) made me quickly realize that I joined the right organization.

The projects that I’m working on at Radio 3 are exactly the way I like them: challenging, unique and based around digital music. I’m mainly focused on a secret digital music project but am also helping to run the CBC Radio 3 station overall – wherever I can add value. The guys are already doing such a great job and the last thing I want to do it to jump into areas that are working well and then mess them up…

Working for a Public Broadcaster in the digital space made me think a lot about what the CBC’s role should be within digital music. I feel that a trusted voice like the CBC has a lot to add in a space that’s constantly growing but I’m keen to do something that’s different and not imitate existing ideas. I want to add value to the digital music ecosystem and Public Broadcasters with their unique funding model can do this differently  than organizations that are relying on income from advertisers and/or subscribers. More on that later, as dig in deeper to the world of the CBC.

The below is one of the themes I wrote (with edits from the great Eric Leong) to be discussed at transmitCHINA this year. It has been posted on the trasmitNOW blog this morning and we are looking for feedback and questions for a Virtual Roundtable we are putting together over the next few weeks. Please add you questions and comments here.

While many may agree that the Cloud has offered huge conveniences for consumers to access content, it has also opened a new avenue for content distribution.  In many media and entertainment industries, content distribution was always restricted to carriers (eg. ISP,s CDs, DVDs, etc.).  With cloud-based content, some may argue that there is simply no need to ‘own’ discs, papers, or hard drives that contain content if it’s available easily through different devices.

Cloud computing does, however, expose a new range of questions regarding rights and ownership. When content is accessed across country borders, whose laws are governing this transaction? Are there any liabilities if the cloud provider’s service is being disrupted and content cannot be accessed? When consumers are adding content they have previously purchased to a cloud based ‘locker’, should content owners be compensated for any of those transactions?

When accessing cloud-based content and information, the device that acts as the information gateway is suddenly in a powerful position; device manufacturers may decide to block access to certain cloud content services or charge for it. They may insist on receiving parts of any revenue that content creators may generate through these devices.  Device platforms may also not support certain technologies and, therefore, directly influence how cloud-based content is distributed to the consumer.

The consumer’s relationship with their devices (and, therefore, their relationship to content) has been changing rapidly over the last few years.  With the continual innovation of more capable and compact mobile technologies, consumers tend to be much closer to their devices and, in many cases, have them nearby at all times. Consumers have become accustomed to having instant and constant access to information and entertainment as a result, and this places content owners under pressure to constantly ensure their output is available once it has been created. Unlicensed sources may be preferred if their legal alternatives do not yet offer the access to desired content. This may suggest that there has been a huge power shift between consumers and creators of content – with new devices occupying the space between them.

While lack of control may be perceived as an obstacle in cloud-based distribution, this isn’t a subject matter that’s out-of-the-ordinary with content owners.  In fact, consumers have been able to easily share digital content since the advent of network computers. Nevertheless, new and open channels of distribution can also be seen as opportunities to access new consumer bases and find new revenue streams for media, entertainment, and other content-based industries.

Discuss this topic as well as many others at transmitCHINA 2011 presented by BlackBerry, September 14-17 in Beijing.

This is a post I recently put up on the Nimbi Blog:

This story is not only interesting because it deals with a struggle of an industry moving their content into digital formats but it also highlights the battle between the interest of the content creator (the artist) and the content owner (the company that monetizes the art):

The book publisher HarperCollins wants torestrict the number of times their ebooks can be lent digitally through a library to 26 times. The reason behind this is that this is the number of times a physical book can be lent out in average is 26 times before it is ‘used up’ and no longer readable. This is of course a desperate measure to hang on to a business model that is changing due to transformation of technology and those kind of decisions (that we have seen many times in other content industries) are mainly driven by fear and lack of imagination on how to view new technologies as a business opportunity. It’s discouraging to see that the book publishing industry is making the same mistakes that businesses like the music industry have made many times over the last decade. An example is the fact that all big record labels used to insist that all their music is to be sold protected by DRM – a decision that has since been reverted (and regretted) as the disadvantages for the consumer outweight the benefit for the labels by far.

What makes this development even more complex is that the interest of the content creators is not always in line with what the industry thinks is best: various best-selling authors have spoken out agains HarperCollins e-lending policy (in addition to the more than 65,000 people that have petitionsed on change.org) and Ryk E. Spoor is giving a very good explanation on why lending of digital books should not be limited:

“Libraries — both school libraries and public libraries — are the foundation of true learning, literacy, and love of books. You can’t FORCE someone to love to read… but if you give them the opportunity, let them wander through the stacks (virtual or real) themselves, and choose their own path, they’ll teach that lesson to themselves.”

There is no doubt this struggle will continue over the coming years. But it will be vital for the industry not to alienate themselves from the creators and the consumers – otherwise they make themselves redundant within the ecosystem of digital content.

If you read my blog or you follow me on twitter you might have noticed that the transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT in Victoria last week has not only been taking up a lot of my time but also a large part of my ‘mental capacity’ since late last year. And this is a good thing.

Last week we got 150 leaders and thinker from the Creative Industries together and managed to produced an event that seems to have been not only inspiring also highly enjoyable. Even though I have attended and spoken at many conferences over the years I had never been involved so closely in organizing one. So I can honestly say that I’m not used the the sense of achievment I feel when I watch the video below. All this was taking on the 10th and 11th February in Victoria and I think it speaks for itself.

Next up: Beijing.

transmission: GLOBAL SUMMIT 2011 from transmitNOW on Vimeo.