These are my running notes of the Lift conference (Workshop: From virtual to real world value — Collective Intelligence as an alternate source of media power). May contain errors, omissions, things that aren’t quite right, etc. I do my best but I’m just a human live-blogging machine.
Collective intelligence: gathering to put bits and pieces of the story together.
Obama campaign. Radiohead In Rainbows (in addition to the “pay what you like” promo they sold over 100K box sets at $80).
Massing old media companies are now in trouble. Well-crafted, manicured message. Different from the grassroots culture. Jenkins: media producer and media consumer interact in unpredictable ways.
New media: no barrier to entry as long as you have the technology (phone, internet connection, camera…)
Media convergence surrounds us. Participatory culture and collective intelligence prevail.
Convergence is not about a big black device that will do everything. Different sources/tools coming together, gathering. Industrialized process, cultures, social communication, etc — everything is changing in the convergence world. (It’s happening now!)
Scary process for some (media organizations in particular). Confusion in the marketplace. New media does not stop old media, but forces it to reinvent itself or find a new place. All these things can exist side-by-side, but the power is shifting.
We now have the ability to participate in the creation on culture — and we do it every day. (On Facebook, for example!)
Convergence is about how people use the devices — not the devices themselves. The platform is just a delivery mechanism. When media consumption occurs within social interactions, it becomes collective.
Some facts:
- 11M e-readers to be sold by end of 2010 (Kindle $1 billion worth of sales)
- Nintendo, MS and Sony are in a video console war. Wii 67 M units, DS (simple device!) 127 M units worldwide. If something is device-independant, the important thing is delivery. Nintendo have made the rules in this war, all the competitors are trying to implement motion-control.
- iPad: 1M in one month (another example of a device where its limitations are also its strength)
- 65M users accessing Facebook through mobile (and these people spend twice as much time on Facebook as anybody else)
Convergence world jargon fest.
Media actives comment on media, etc.
This is not a Western cultural shift. It’s worldwide. Fan fiction (Revelations, Star Wars, 45 minutes) which horrifies franchise holders (let’s go out and get the fans who built this!)
The cost of producing media has diminished dramatically. HD camera for $99.
Video game franchises: great way of stamping our logo on something and expanding over other media channels. Star Wars Galaxies is an interesting case study of this. Consumers have a stake in the survival of the franchise/community.
Like in WoW, you end up with people focusing more on secondary characteristics of the world, e.g. having dance parties instead of blowing up planets.
Sony got it wrong: don’t try and battle with your grassroots fan base… They alienated everybody who loved the game.
Harry Potter fan fiction. Publishing story coming down on fans. (Oh, and the Church. The Studio is promoting “satanic worship”.)
We’re all storytellers (maybe not good ones). We tell our stories on Facebook all the time.
Copyright laws are antiquated… *steph-note: if you read a bit of French, my take on that*
Photojournalism is dead. Clearly, the profession is under attack. Long live photojournalism!
Huff Post. Of course journalism is not dead. These things exist side-by-side. Burn Magazine (run by a Magnum photographer). Verve Photo. Photojournale (John Horniblow‘s baby): content aggregation, editorial work, community behind it (over 400 professional photographers).
Print on demand publishing (Lulu, Blurb — for high quality photography, Amazon Creative Space, Lightening Press).
With less analog stuff around, it’s intrinsec value will finally go up. Not everybody can do it exceptionally well. *steph-note: cf. Hugh‘s prints, for example.*
Now listening to Jay Z (some mashup). Soundcloud: producers and writers come together. Fairtilizer, Last.fm, Spotify… *steph-note: I need to get into Spotify, looks really exciting — damn, not available in Switzerland*
Important thing: corporations now need to be media entities themselves. Brands are forced into content production. How do they deal with that? And with the grassroots, and the shareholders?
Brands example: Cokestudios. Virtual world (music, games, digital economy, etc.). Coke as facilitator rather than message.
Other example: Being Girl. P&G. Choice of brand for feminine sanitary products => stick to it their whole life. Worth catching teens immediately. The site/community is not about tampons, but about the life experiences of teenage girls. Not about the brand, but about the girls. *steph-note: bugs me that I’m force-redirected to my country site, though, I’d like to see what the .com site looks like.* => P&G are now competing with the classic teen girl’s magazine on the stand. Business model: narrow audience => advertising on the magazine. P&G are shifting their money from advertising in magazines to their own. *steph-note: the question of independance of advertising and editorial, taken from the other end… food for thought here*
Pour tout vous dire. Another of these brand-driven magazines. Originally: all about the brand. *steph-note: hey, this reminds me of the origins of soap operas — designed so housewives would watch them so that they could place soap ads.*
Starbucks. My Starbucks idea. You tell us how to fix our corporate problem. Let us know what we should do and where we went wrong. Interesting stuff on Facebook too.
Harley Davidson: people’s stories, it’s all about the experience.
Nestlé: Creating Shared Value. How about that for a very traditional and controlled corporation?
Remain local but communicate in a global context.
Stephanie, thanks for this overview.
You’re welcome. Hope I didn’t make too many big mistakes 🙂