There are many predictions about for 2010 and one of them is that publishers are all going to at least experiment with putting some of their content behind a paywall over the course of next year. Rupert Murdoch has been the most vociferous about this, but many other publishers are looking at similar models. I have already commented about how I don’t believe Murdoch’s ploy will work, but then it is no secret to anyone who knows me that I really don’t regard any of the ‘journalism’ (I use the term incredibly loosely) in The Sun as ‘quality’ and I have serious doubts about the rest of the rather biased Murdoch press (and I make no apologies for that view). So I for one won’t pay.

However…

There is a lot of utter rubbish on the internet. I don’t think any of us can deny that the user generated content movement has been a good thing and a bad thing at the same time. It has been good because it has given everyone a voice, but it has been bad in that some of those voices perhaps ought not have been offered the platform. As an advocate of free speech, I won’t deny anyone the right to speak. But I reserve the right to ignore it if it isn’t well written, well thought out or well argued. We all have to filter as there is far too much information available for any single person to possibly take in. And I try and filter by quality.

The irony is, in doing so I actually pay. That is because I regard things like Prospect Magazine and The London Review of Books as quality, and in order to access their online archives, I subscribe to the paper magazine. I also subscribe to Skeptic Magazine and Scientific American as I rate both of them highly. As such, I pay out fees every year to receive what I regard as quality writing. So if they all went purely online, would I pay?

See, there’s a dilemma and I am afraid I am going to have to contradict myself from a previous blog post having spent a lot of time thinking about it. Yes. I would continue to pay for these publications. I won’t pay for ‘newspapers’ online as I don’t like reading them offline, but for the information which I trust to provide me a less biased and far less sensational view of the world I would continue to open my wallet.

My biggest problem is I still prefer my quiet reading time to be spent with paper and print. My eyes get tired from reading for too long on a screen and I find there are just too many distractions when you have a browser opened. I may, of course, be forced to change in the future and as such, I will find myself paying my subscription for online content. So be it.

2010 is going to be an interesting year for the internet. I think the halcyon days of everything free and everyone giving everything away to anyone who wants it are coming to an end and things will fall back into balance. In this new world, some of the existing publications will succeed, and others will fail. And until I am proven otherwise, I will retain my idealistic view that quality will prevail.

Thank you to ES for the image

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I took great pleasure in seeing the sour expression on the face of Simon Cowell when Rage Against the Machine took the Christmas Number 1 last night. That’s not because I am a particular fan of the winning song (I have to admit I don’t really care for it that much) but it was really good to see cheesy, commercialised, keep-the-masses-happy pop beaten by something alternative. However, it wasn’t just the fact that the alternative track won the coveted prize – it was how it won that provides the crowning message for 2009. Social media is a powerful force and it is a force that is changing the way we communicate, interact, express our opinions, learn, shop and connect.

The online movement for the Rage Against the Machine for Christmas Number 1 was huge and although not ‘coordinated’ in the traditional sense of the term, was driven by word of mouth, networks and the power of the crowd. This isn’t the first time this has happened this year. Earlier in the year we saw the embargo on the Trafigura story ripped to shreds by the crowd who saw a story that had to be told. The old fashioned stalwarts of censorship and only telling the people what those in power want them to know started to look shaky. The same can be said of the Iranian Elections which were followed and discussed around the world in a manner in which a closed country such as that one would never have sanctioned and would have prevented at any cost if they could.

These three incidents – three amongst many – show that the way people communicate and gather information and the way they express their opinion has been fundamentally changed by social media. Whether it is Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, podcasts or other social networks, many people are no longer content to sit and blithely accept what marketing, propaganda and PR tells them. This is a good thing, and it has far reaching consequences for our everyday life, whether in business, personal relationships or consumer activity. It means that to maintain an edge, it is all the more important to gain at least some understanding of social media for business and for communication.

And it warms my heart to know that I am not the only person who find the X-Factor objectionable…

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The LeWeb Conference in Paris is one of the longest running social media conferences in existence and, although this is my first one, is said to be one of the leaders in discussing the future and where technology is going. This year, the talk is all real-time, geolocations and…mobile.

I can’t disagree with the trends, but I would like to raise a point about mobile and mobile platforms. As many of you know, I am an Android user. The reasons for me not adopting the iPhone were pretty simple – in the UK, the only mobile carrier offering the iPhone was O2. I am an ex-customer of O2 and nothing in the world could make me shift back to them. Their customer service was truly awful, they were expensive, and as soon as you were no longer a ‘new customer’, they didn’t actually care one iota about you until the time you said you were going to leave. I actually did leave (despite their protests and promises of gold plated handsets and millions of free minutes) and won’t go back.

But – back to the subject – the iPhone. At that point I decided to try one of the early Google phones and I really love it. I am now an Android fan and although I have had the opportunity to see, use and experiment with the iPhone, and although there are other carriers in the UK which have the iPhone now, I am not shifting for the forseeable future.

However, when the question was asked here at the conference, approximately 75% of the audience held up their hands to affirm that they had an iPhone. I certainly knew I wasn’t part of the ‘in-crowd’ then!! But I wondered – with the popularity, hype, number of applications and developers (of the sessions this morning, almost all of them were iPhone-centric) will the iPhone become the VHS of the mobile world and will everything else be the Betamax?

I would hope not. Mobile technology gives so much scope for innovation and difference. From a pure fashion point of view, your mobile phone says a lot about you (I have a black HTC Android phone – suggesting I am a geek who is super-uncool?), but more importantly, not all platforms are equal. I think the only way that things can continue to develop and grow is for the competition to keep competing and for the out-crowd to continue to make a noise. That will keep the iPhone on its toes and it will continue to improve, along with all of its competition. Once VHS won the war, did it constantly strive to better itself? Not really. It took DVDs to do that.

I get the sense that it will only be a few years before everyone will have shifted from desktop computing to portable computing and much of that will be via mobile. And I hope I will still be happy with my Android based phone because they will still be a major player in the market. Even if I am the final out-crowder left…

Thanks to Ninja M for the image

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“Hi. I’m new to social media, but I am really excited to be here. So, to start, why don’t you have a look at my amazing widgets for sale for you at a discount price if you buy within the next 20 minutes at [insert link here]”

Honestly, do people really do this kind of thing? Still? Sadly, they do – and the more people who get involved in social media there are, the more we see this or some variation of this. Whether on LinkedIn Groups, in Twitter, on Facebook or anywhere, the die-hard marketers abound.

Perhaps the word ‘conversation’ is a little too difficult to get to grips with? Or maybe there is a sense of laziness involved? (I want results and I want them now and I don’t really want to have to put the hard graft in) Or perhaps it is a lack of understanding? Whatever it is, the people practising there are rapidly finding themselves out in the cold, wondering what it was they did to get there.

I don’t know about you, but I will always spend a bit of time looking, listening and learning before I embark on any kind of marketing, interaction or relationship. If you just met someone at a party who looked nice, would you walk up to them and say ‘wow, you look great. I am single, available and well worth it so why don’t we just forget everything and go back to my place now?’ And if you did, would you expect them to fall at your feet and agree, or slap you across the face? Unless you were at that kind of party, chances are it would be the slap. Why would you do that, if the person really was gorgeous and you really did want to establish some kind of a relationship? I mean, you are destroying your chances before you even start.

But, that is what a lot of people do. They seem to see business as completely separate from the rest of human interaction. But business interactions are as much a part of human condition as anything else. If it doesn’t work in any other relationship, what makes you think it is going to work in business?

I wish people would realise that everything they do will have repercussions and unless they are selling their products and services to a machine rather than another human being, bowling on in with a message of self promotion isn’t going to win you friends or loyal customers. Honestly, I don’t think social media has actually changed things – I think it has made it more public when you get it wrong.

Feel free to argue with me – I would be interested to hear the opposing view.

Thanks to Cayusa for the image

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I started writing a post several weeks back immediately after Rupert Murdoch came out and told the world that he was going to change the internet back to the way media was in the old days by removing all of NewsCorp’s news from Google and hiding it behind a pay wall. I have to admit to being particularly scornful of this idea (and I am not alone) which, to me, smacks of an old man stamping his feet because he doesn’t like the way the world is going and insisting that he knows best and it should all go back to the way it was. I put a question out on Twitter to find out from my meagre following who would pay for NewsCorp news, and I received a resounding ‘no way’ from everyone who responded. OK, it isn’t a particularly representative group but it was interesting nonetheless.

Since then, the debate has raged and unfortunately, more of the ailing newspapers are following along and want to do the same thing. I think the quote was that ‘quality journalism doesn’t come cheap’ or some such (I am paraphrasing). If anyone has read Flat Earth News by Nick Davis you will probably find yourself snorting in disbelief when you see ‘NewsCorp’ and ‘quality journalism’ in the same sentence, but nevertheless, I can see the point.

The problem is, quality journalism can come ‘cheap’ – in fact it is the journalism that is undertaken through passion, desire to tell the truth and free from the partisan influences of the media corporations which is often the highest quality and quite frequently the cheapest. That is what social media and blogs has produced. That is the freedom that has come from readily accessed and gratis information, and no matter how high the pay walls they build, it won’t make it go away.

I did have to smile when I read that one of the reasons Murdoch assumes people will pay for online titles like The Sun is because that is the only place people will get ‘celebrity scoops’ (sorry, I feel a bit nauseous even thinking that but any of you who know me know how much I detest the celebrity culture that this country seems obsessed with). Really? Perhaps he has never heard of Valleywag and the multitude of other niche gossip and celebrity blogs out there. Does Mr Murdoch really think that he has the monopoly of everything happening in the lurid world of celebrities? Perhaps if the stories were stretched and made up he might (and goodness, a NewsCorp tabloid would NEVER do something like that, would they???? Hmmm???).

There are many other ways that the old media can monetise their offerings without this kind of toys-out-of-the-pram reaction, but like the music industry, they seems reluctant to explore them. Personally, I agree with most of the other online commentators I have read on this issue – this decision is a bad one and will not end as Murdoch wants it to. But then maybe that is what is required for the old media to realise that all of the things which they relied on to bring them their profits have changed, and they need to change with it, or fall apart.

Thank you to foxtongue for the image

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Download audio file (T2T012.mp3) This weeks podcast – actually the podcast to cover the last two weeks - is about CEO blogging. I briefly go over some errors, and what I see are the top five most important consideration for the CEO or MD who wants to blog. Chances are, adhering to these may mean blogging [...]
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Download audio file (T2T011.mp3) This week is the second instalment of The Importance of Traditional Marketing Concepts, offering the final five things that you should consider before you embark on any social media campaign. I have tried to keep this week a little bit shorter. I know it can be hard listening to a single voice for [...]
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Download audio file (T2T010.mp3) This week is the first part of the Feature on The Importance Traditional Marketing Concepts for Social Media. We also look at several articles from the Guardian and I am very excited about the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin, so I spend some time talking about that. News – 04:23 International bloggers http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/15/blog.politics The Sadler’s Wells http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2008/sep/17/dance.sadlers.wells The [...]
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Download audio file (T2T009.mp3) Today I am covering the social media newsroom. It is just a brief outline on what your goals for your social media newsroom should be and things to think about if you are planning on developing one. In researching this weeks episode, I came across several articles discussing the importance of traditional [...]
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Download audio file (T2T008.mp3) I’m a bit late this week! Apologies! And rather than talking about your social media newsroom which I will discuss next week, I thought we should look at the social media press release first. So today’s episode will consider how the social media release differs from the traditional press release, why you [...]
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