ScoreStream - User Generated Sports Clips

This last year has seen our company get to a point where each week we get some amazing amount of photos and videos each week. Here is an example of last week's nationwide Top 10 clips:



The volume and quality of content that users can create when given a platform never ceases to amaze me. If you want to see all 14 weeks you can find the full playlist here:

Personal Exploitation

When I was in New York this week I had lunch with one of our company advisors who was one of the pioneers in interactive advertising. We were talking at length about user generated content, fame, and personal exploitation. My thesis is that there are two things driving the current generations expressive behavior, 1. The idea that entertainment requires a persons direct involvement to make it personal and worthwhile and 2. A desire for fame or status.

We talked around the topic a bit and he said something to the effect that it is fascinating that people both appear driven to and desirous of exploiting themselves. That is, they either don't understand or in fact don't mind exploiting themselves if they gain some kind of recognition, fame or notoriety. I don't like to think of it that way necessarily but I think a lot rings true to those words. I brought up the Jackass films and he said that although that was exploitation, it was brilliant and what we are seeing is a broad commonness to self exploitation on some of these websites. It was an interesting talk.

That evening as I sat in my hotel in Boston, I sat dumbstruck as I watched the footage broadcast by NBC of the Virginia Tech killer. I couldn't believe that NBC felt compelled to release something that not only provided no real value or insight, but also at some level validated the actions of the killer, at least in the eyes of others who would pursue similar actions in the future.

One of the most interesting things about user generated/edge of the network/consumer media is the potential for media that originates outside of the center of the network to be able to harness the massive reach and distribution of mainstream media. At it's best you have the Adam Stacy subway bombing pictures which provided a haunting and visceral image of news as it happens, at it's worst it is a news organization taking advantage of it's selection by a killer to broadcast his rants and insanity. I have great respect for NBC Universal as a company and I can only hope in the future that they make the decision to avoid these sorts of missteps.

Media Next - Introduction

I am not a long form blogger but for the last several months, maybe even almost a year there have been a number of ideas and issues swirling around in my mind that warrant a long discussion which is not something that I am prone to do. I like punchy or personal. Sometimes that isn't the right approach to address a topic or some specific subject matter.

One of the things I started pushing on at work over the last year wasdoing outreach to colleges to talk about the lessons I have learned over the last several years and to talk about the things that I think are important to share with those who will hopefully determine the future of media and content. I have spoke at a number of schools and have a handful set up for this semester that have really been the catalyst for this post and a series of posts that I want to write in the coming months.

Although different classes have different subject matter and I generally try to tailor what I am saying to the specific audience, there are some recurring themes that I find myself repeating over and over and I realized in the process that these are things that I assume other people consider and that I have never formally put structure around my thoughts. Acknowledging that there is not an original thought, I think we do each synthesize a combination of our experiences as well as material we have encountered in our journeys. The things I plan to cover in the coming weeks or so will be a combination of my experiences and things/thoughts I have encountered in the past. I hope to give proper attribution where I can remember.

So here I am four paragraphs in and I haven't made any meaningful points...

CDs were an incredible invention. As a consumer I recall that I was excited about the idea of a form of media that wouldn't get eaten by a tape machine or melt on the dashboard on my car. So much for vision on my part. What I didn't get at that time way back in the early 80s was that the promise of crystal clear digital sound was the seeds of massive change in what the future would hold for the media and content businesses.

Over a decade later while working at MP3.com I would experience firsthand the intersection of technology and content and watch as both sides grappled with what would come next and what would the future hold as consumers marched rapidly into unchartered territory. A big reason for this was that very same digital CD format that was transformed by the rise of personal computers.

Again almost a decade later the changes continue to come and still the clear cut impact or rather the clear outline of what is to come next is not obvious to me or many others who watch the media and content space. To me there are a number of historical things that are worth exploring and discussing as they give hints to what has transpired and hopefully may give some indications of what the future might hold. I don't pretend to have any answers but I think that a good hearty discussion of the issues might point to some future possibilities.

My goal in the coming weeks is to hit on the following specific topics: The role of scarcity in the creation and maintenance of value in media and content, the rise of personal distribution and publication platforms, the rise of inexpensive content production tools, the differences between open and closed networks, and possibilities for future business models. I don't expect to have any divine revelations but I do hope to get a handful of people engaged in a conversation, if not now, hopefully soon.

MP3.com Data Mining Revisted

Over two years ago I wrote a post about some of the data mining we did at MP3.com and then Vivendi Universal that you can find here. To this day I find that entire exercise fascinating and one of the things that I enjoy the most is that the story only gets better with time.

Back in that post I referenced Rick Walker who worked with me trying to identify opportunities to sell data to the record labels back in 2003-2004. The previous post talks about some of the mechanical specifics but it doesn't really do a good job showing what he had developed.

Around the end of the year last year we needed to bring in a new finance person for our current company and coincidentally Rick became available. It's been great having him on the team and we like to talk about how cool that project was and how far ahead of it's time the data was. This is especially poignant as we have seen bands that were essentially baby bands at that time that have blow up in a big way. On the other hand there are also a bunch that became roadkill. This morning I uploaded a sample of the report that we were sharing with A&R folks before Vivendi divested the assets of the various music properties I oversaw. Here is a link to the National chart and some of the larger markets. You can find three other pages here, here, and here. Take a special note of the top band in Chicago in 2003.

Thanks to Rick for dropping this blast from the past on my desk this morning. I have been chewing on a post for a couple of weeks ever since I had a pint with a BBC producer in New York who spoke with me at length on the challenges they face in the future in terms of getting paid. I don't know that I have any answers to that question but I think the framework of my thinking to describe the key drivers and point to some potential ideas is almost complete. As there are a lot greater minds than mine thinking about that problem I don't expect to break any new ground but I think this past experience when colored with some of my current experiences will at least be worth sharing or start some discussions.