This post is by Michael Pollock, the original owner of Small Business Branding. Yaro Starak now owns and produces the latest content for this blog.
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Fred Wilson writing in A VC:
Here is the future of media:
1 – Microchunk it – Reduce the content to its simplest form. Thanks Umair.
2 – Free it – Put it out there without walls around it or strings on it. Thanks Stewart.
3 – Syndicate it – Let anyone take it and run with it. Thanks Dave.
4 – Monetize it – Put the monetization and tracking systems into the microchunk. Thanks Feedburner.
Erick Schonfeld writing in The Business 2.0 Blog:
"We, the media (professional and citizen journalists alike) need to
figure out how to get paid for our content at the point of consumption."
Ray Ozzie, CTO of Micrososft (an internal memo reported by Dave Winer):
"Today there are three key tenets that are driving fundamental
shifts in the landscape – all of which are related in some way to
services. It’s key to embrace these
tenets within the context of our products and services.1. The power of
the advertising-supported economic model.Online advertising has emerged as a
significant new means by which to directly and indirectly fund the creation and
delivery of software and services. In
some cases, it may be possible for one to obtain more revenue through the
advertising model than through a traditional licensing model. Only in its earliest stages, no one yet knows
the limits of what categories of hardware, software and services, in what
markets, will ultimately be funded through this model. And no one yet knows how much of the world’s
online advertising revenues should or will flow to large software and service
providers, medium sized or tail providers, or even users themselves.2. The effectiveness of a new delivery and
adoption model.A
grassroots technology adoption pattern has emerged on the internet largely in
parallel to the classic methods of selling software to the enterprise. Products are now discovered through a
combination of blogs, search keyword-based advertising, online product
marketing and word-of-mouth. It’s now
expected that anything discovered can be sampled and experienced through
self-service exploration and download. This is true not just for consumer products: even enterprise products
now more often than not enter an organization through the internet-based
research and trial of a business unit that understands a product’s value.Limited
trial use, ad-monetized or free reduced-function use, subscription-based use,
on-line activation, digital license management, automatic update, and other
such concepts are now entering the vocabulary of any developer building
products that wish to successfully utilize the web as a channel. Products must now embrace a “discover, learn,
try, buy, recommend†cycle – sometimes with one of those phases being free,
another ad-supported, and yet another being subscription-based. Grassroots adoption requires an end-to-end
perspective related to product design. Products must be easily understood by the user upon trial, and useful
out-of-the-box with little or no configuration or administrative intervention.But
enabling grassroots adoption is not just a product design issue. Today’s web is fundamentally a self-service
environment, and it is critical to design websites and product ‘landing pages’
with sophisticated closed-loop measurement and feedback systems. Even startups use such techniques in
conjunction with pay-per-click advertisements. This ensures that the most effective website designs will be selected to
attract discovery of products and services, help in research and learning,
facilitate download, trial and purchase, and to enable individuals’ self-help
and making recommendations to others. Such systems can recognize and take advantage of opportunities to
up-sell and cross-sell products to individuals, workgroups and businesses, and
also act as a lead generation front-end for our sales force and for our
partners.3. The demand
for compelling, integrated user experiences that “just workâ€Â.The PC has morphed into new form
factors and new roles, and we increasingly have more than one in our lives – at
work, at home, laptops, tablets, even in the living room. Cell phones
have become ubiquitous. There are a myriad of handheld devices. Set-top
boxes, PVRs and game consoles are changing what and how we watch television.
Photos, music and voice communications are all rapidly going digital and being
driven by software. Automobiles are on a path to become smart and
connected. The emergence of the digital
lifestyle that utilizes all these technologies is changing how we learn, play
games, watch TV, communicate with friends and family, listen to music and share
memories.