broadstuff

Was with Simon Torrance, Chris Barraclough and the STL Telco 2.0 team workshopping through the notes from their recent survey, all fascinating stuff - but that is for another day, and it is their thunder.

Also there were some other very sharp netheads / bloggers whose stuff I have read and enjoyed, and it was very good to meet them.
Like many others (1,000 apparently) I have appreciated the “10 things investors hate about you (Telcos)” post from mega-uber blogger and analyst James Enck's EuroTelcoBlog.

I think he started it with his comment about big corporates drones killing new ideas like white corpuscles kill viruses, but a blog on (Corpulent) Corporate Corpuscles is on the Cards.....

Also had a good but all too short chat to the Telepocalyptic Martin Geddes - I found a kindred soul who has also thought deeply about the differences between scale free and small world networks in emerging telemedia. Respect!

Over lunch Dean Bubley (Disruptive Wireless), Mac Walters of Moriana, Jason Gillot of STL and I started to debate the convergence of the multiple comms devices around the home. We all had divergent views about convergence (amazingly!), but then we started kicking around the idea of different "tribes" who use the comms devices differently. For eg, some people are talkphone people by preference, others are sms'ers, I am a 'nethead. Some of this is economic (more than the mobile companies would like I think, I watch students drop sms like a hot potato when they get to use our DSL and IM for example), some is circumstantial (no wifi access for eg), some is age group related (I guess - though I think that is less clear these days).

We also came to the conclusion a lot will be simple preference, we have different "most comfortable" modes of communication (is it related to NLP modes I wonder), so any definition of what a "converged" device will be is probably moot. What is more clear to me though is that services will converge - ie will have to be used over multiple devices.

So which Tribe are you?

(Mac was wondering why, given a trend to retain specialised devices there is not a pure sms phone - I don't know but on reflection I suspect the on-cost of the voice gear is tiny compared to the total cost of phone system...and you may just be tempted to make a nice profitable phone call!)

Also met Malcolm Matson of the Oplan foundation, which is dedicated to building open public access networks across the world. This is a subject for another post, but growing up in Africa and seeing what comms is already doing to free up people there now, I think this is an idea whose time cannot come too soon.

A fascinating group over a good lunch on a wet cold friday just before Xmas...who could ask for more.

And it would seem the deal was done a while ago in all but ink, as we reported then.

John Hauxwell pinged me a few hours ago about this story in The Register

Its 2 am and I'm finishing a report, so will not call my sources just yet

I like the Register's comment:

Nobody is likely to guess a figure higher than the £4.2bn originally paid by Hutchison for the UK 3G wireless spectrum, however. And several guesses will be that China Mobile is spending substantially below that. One insider, involved in one of the other bids, said that "the figure is not unrelated to the name of the company, but you can't quote me..."

Heck, it used to be a pound and the debt...thats inflation for ya

Next set of deep pockets found....but, may not happen till cup meets lip, so I'll keep the humble pie plate around a bit longer.

Postscript..Nope, not for sale, according to the Register this pm.

Went along to the Advertising 2.0 Mashup last night, as Interactive Advertising is something we have done quite a lot of work in so its always interesting to hear other people's views.

As an evening it was best described as Good but Curates Eggy rather than Excellent (do I have to fire myself for printing that now

The Good Bits were:

- A good tramp over the modern interactive media scene by Dave Burrows of Yahoo

- Esther Dyson - didn't get to say a lot but was very sharp in her observations

- Some of what the other speakers said - or in some cases didn't say in response to questions

- The chat afterwards as always

The Not - So - Good bits

- Not really enough time to answer audience questions or tease out some of the issues

- Some of what some speakers said seemed a bit platitudinous (hard to avoid I'm sure)....and sometimes a bit arrogant I thought - the customer is clearly still seen as a mug to be flogged mercilessly in some segments of Adland, rather than interacted with. My favourite – from a guy who popped up off the floor (who were those guys, couldn't see them)….”assuming we can get over privacy concerns, a (describe your bright new world here - large campaigns I think) emerges". I think Privacy is going to bite a lot of these plans very, very hard.

- Simon Grice (eTribes) telling me that Mashup was going to go to TechCrunchUK after this - with all the other hoo ha going on its not just TCUK that is being impacted here in the UK, its quite a few of the other social networks.

Taking out some interesting observations from the evening - David first:

- Some of the stats behind Behavioural Targeting - making ads relevant increases takeup by up to 350% in some cases

- "Indirect Advertising" - Flickr is advertising cameras by exposing what people use...I can see this going to several orders of indirectness

- "Giving something back" - Nike teaches dance steps on Ad via current pop stars / slebs, everyone wears Nike in the ad - inference only. Content built for product placement.

Esther Dyson's description of Adland was pithy - built on 15% of user billings, costs are going away and users are picking the Ads now - this changes where the power lies in the supply chain. People will soon start / are starting to realise this, and will sell or barter their attention data. This means that you have to have something worth having - w(h)ither Branding of the me too products?

Andy Bell of Islandoo noted that the Web is lousy at Brand Building, as it tends to disaggregate customer demand to many small specifics - hence the need to create brandable events on-web (which of course is what Islandoo does).

John Taysom of Mediagraft noted that in 1995 we were all going to be journalists when Mosaic came out, didn't happen, why do we think it will happen today with blogging - good quality wins in the end. Not sure about that - Websites were still intrinsically "megaphone media", but as blogs are interactive, they are possibly a new type of social network - see my comments on this here

He did make two very good points though, that I think need to thought through in a later post:

- ads are essentially 3rd party micropayments (I agree, we did some work on this for mobile ad funded micropayments, and they don't attract the friction of real micropayments)

- advertising is a contract, and interactivity is changing the terms - you have to trade something for attention (shades of what Esther said)

- Christina’s (didn’t catch her surname) main line of thinking was the issues of finding all the content out there, but she did add a twist I haven't heard before in that she suspected it this was more about the brands having the problem finding us, not us finding the content via our recommend / rate / review social media.

Ably compered by Michael Bayler, some sharp questions but the Q & A was quite rushed I thought (note to organisers - I think most people who come to these things on a wet, cold winters evening are very engaged, so let the Q&A flow), but its interesting about the gist of the questions:

Gist 1 - what do the various components in the Ad Value chain do now, what are there new roles - clearly some worried people - will PR agencies rule in a social media world?

Gist 2 - Long Tail vs the Middle...does Google rule the Long Tail for ever, and is there any money between the heads and tails?

Gist 3 - Ad quality in an interactive world - how will the 30 second pre-roll work etc etc. Answer - the structure wont change radically overnight, we will still have banners, pre-rolls etc - but we just won't watch cr*p ads anymore, period - and its a good idea to make sure the good ones are relevant

Saw Marc Cantor, was going to talk to him about not being able to connect a PC to a big TV....but he'd gone

I'll finish off with Esther Dyson, asked about her view of the US vs EU Venture Capital community. In essence, US VC's back "insane ideas" like, oh, YouTube or MySpace early and often - you get funding, but so do lots of other people. Its far, far harder to get funding in Europe for any New New Thing, but if you can its great as there is usually no competition.

Hmmmm...take all the froth about Web TV now, yet it was hard to get people in Europe to look at it a year ago. I think systemically the US approach is far more likely to breed winners in any space as their plays will be out there gaining customers and doing the Darwinian evolution thing.

The LeWeb3 / Sam Sethi / TechCrunch / TechCrunchUK thing will run and run, in a way I feel sorry for all the parties involved, I'm sure none intended this furore.

However, the biggest casualty out of this is the blossoming UK "New Internet" scene, and for that I am a bit grumpy - TechCrunch UK provided one of the the main central blogsites for it to occur, and we now have nothing to fill the gap. As I blogged earlier in The Networks of Social Networkers, it is crucial that a set of main nodes exist to network around.

For this reason we need to create a new one - pronto, before all the energy withers away.

ADDENDUM TO POST ON 20/12/2006 - Sam Sethi and Mike Butcher have set up on their own over here at Vecosys . Thus I think the stuff below is fairly moot now, though a p*ss up is always a good idea.

As I was involved (albeit only as a contributor) at TCUK, I am happy to offer up this blog as an organising point until everyone finds their feet and a proper site is set up.

I also suggest the collective We (the London 'Net 2.0 scene) find a place early next week where we can meet to discuss what we want to do, celebrate the Christmas spirit(s) and have a wake for what TCUK could have been. Anyone who thinks that is a good idea add name to this blog and I will try and ping some of the other Web 2.0 Social Nets to see if we can sort out a place to meet up.

I was at the Advertising 2.0 mash tonight, but the conversation (after a glass or 3 of wine) was about the new blog opera going on over at TechCrunch. I have written the odd article on TechCrunchUK and know Sam Sethi (and Mike Butcher), and was aware of the brouhaha brewing this pm, but coming back to my PC tonight, I am left gaping.

You can read about this all over the web right now, you really couldn't make it up!

Try here at TCUK, here at Mike Arrington's own blog here, or at Drew B's here.

The bit that I don't understand was that Sam was apparently fired not for the menagerie a trois with the US and French connections over Le Web 3, but for starting to organise a whole string of events with people like British Telecom's Ralph Cochrane (who I have also worked with and would rate highly) next year.....

Whatever the reasons, I wouldn't have done it like this I don't think...the blogosphere is proving very good at washing its own peanut butter stained laundry and Sam is pretty well respected and connected in the UK webscene (as is Mike), it makes things harder for someone to take TCUK over in the glare of all the publicity (and probable hostility).

But then the fat lady has yet to sing....I look forward to Act 2!

On the LeWeb 3 thingy...I wasn't there, but I do think it is an amazing feat to get a bunch of senior politicians at such an event. However, I think they clearly misunderstood the audience...these aren't just little people, they are little people with serious access to new media and boy are they accessing it - this was the new media equivalent of sh*tting on 1,000 small (and not so small) town newspapers - apres moi le deluge, as Marie Antoinette said!

Anyway, Dave, Gordon, we are having a little soiree at a pub down Soho way next week, if you fancy coming along......

Postscript....my access to the TechCrunchUK backend story editor is down, hard to tell if its Wordpress glitching or not. Mike Butcher also appears to be locked out. Darn, just when I was assembling a bevy of groucho-marxist politicians to flood the blogwaves

Post Postscript as of 15/12:

Mike Butcher has a written an open resignation letter outlining the facts as he sees them. Also condolences to Mike for the turbulent time he is clearly going through. Looks like he and Sam have a few plans going forward.

Post Post Postscript - the curtain goes up on Act 2......Sam and Mike have now set up independently at Vecosys

On Saturday we attended the BBC Backstage Bash....great party, kudos to Ian Forrester and team who organised it, and the Bar Cuban staff for manning the vittles in the face of the ravening horde.

But the BBCBB was also interesting as it was an event to tie together a number of the London groups of people (aka social networks) doing Social Networking / Web 2.0 / Mobile2.0 / etc 2.0 stuff into one place at one time - was this the first London Social Media MetaNet?.

Groups participating were:

Swedish Beers
London Girl Geekdinners
Geekdinners
London Perlmongers
London Webstandards Group
London Ruby user group (didn't realise they called themselves LRUG on the night......darn)
Open rights group
London 2.0
Mobile Monday
LondonSEO

I also met people I had seen from other Social Network networks such as NMK and Beers and Innovations, and I even saw Sam Sethi and Mike Butcher from TechCrunchUK too (we must stop meeting like this guys, people will talk...). There are a number of other groups I know of who need to get dragged in such as the Drupal User Group (DrUG?) and the London Social Media Club. (Whaddaya mean you’re not doing your site in Drupal?)

These MetaNets interest me a lot, allow me to delve (briefly) into Social Networking theory. Most human social nets are overlapping small world networks. (essentially networks where many of the nodes are interconnected - aka know each other - mostly local with a few long distance links so you can skip continents etc). However, bigger Social MetaNets are in fact a different type - scale free networks - where a few nodes are extremely well connected and most nodes have little contact with each other. In many areas human society seems to work this way, Human “power networkers” are these sort of meganodes – fashions, ideas (and diseases) are broadcast by these highly connected people. If you want to get ahead, get noded.

These types of networks tend to reinforce the connected, leading to "hit based" dynamics.

The Internet is just such a net, where a few major nodes get many links – and attract more because they have many already (until they get too many and performance suffers etc etc of course…). In theory these are the MegaNodes in the ‘Net. Does this mean that these are the “best” nodes in the space? If you think yes, then that’s essentially how Google works so you are one happy bunny. If you think not, then you have proved the need for new Search approaches.

Even the supposedly democratic Blogosphere is such a major “hit based” system (just graph the links to the top 100 nodes on technorati for example). In theory it should be moderated by user connections, as this argument from Keith Teare at Edgeio articulates, and this by Fred Wilson strangulates with De-Portalization (should be deportalized for a word like that!).

(Grumpy aside re the Scale Free Blogosphere – the whole point of blogging is that it allows the smaller nodes to get to know each other by leaving comments – ie to form small world networks from the scale free, “hit based” one - so megabloggers who turn off commenting are basically playing a “you make me a meganode” game. In game theory this is what is called “cheating” . We should boycott them forthwith!! They may as well just have websites to broadcast from, they are not bloggers even though they have blogsites.)

Now, knowing all that, I am actually a fairly cr*p "Networker".....I prefer to chat to fewer people in more depth rather than "work a room". Seems like I am not the only one, this post from Fredd Kambo (which I picked up from another SN aficionado, Hugh MacLeod's website here). Judging by the comments on both sites I am Not Alone. To repeat what Fredd wrote:

I don't bother "networking" anymore, instead, I try to build relationships with people I find interesting, and who I think are doing interesting things. And I make it my mission to help them in any way I can to achieve their mission. I find this much more satisfying, much more honorable, and much more fun. And this is the cool thing about people....When you help them out in this way, they help you out. Not because it's a tit for tat deal, but because both parties are engaged in a mutually beneficial relationship that extends beyond the next favor.

I actually suspect this is also networking, and it probably is a "High Quality" rather than "High Volume" approach. Many networked endeavours seem to have some form of tradeoff between volume and value of connections. From my point of view this Social Networking space is moving so fast that to try to keep up I need to have good, high quality conversations with people who also know what is going on. I suspect if one was in a field where the aim was much more limited, or more defined, then simple interactions along the lines of "hi, I am a node/player/whatever - have a business card" are sufficient.

Speed Dating comes to mind here....traditionally, Romance is (was?) a very High Quality interaction, whereas Speed Dating seems to be trying to move it to the other extreme - or is it that it is the optimal First Scan method - go high volume then home in on the high quality on a second cut. Disclaimer - have never done speed dating, so have not a clue about the relative efficiency of the process vis a vis more traditional approaches - but I do know a number of people (mainly men) who believe "it is all a numbers game" - I suspect it all depends what you want "it" to be.

Actually, this may not be an issue in this particular MetaNet – Playas like lapdances, Geeks prefer laptops .

(In fact Sarah Blow of GirlGeekdinner fame told me she started the whole GGD thing because of the paucity of women in the space. This is a subject for another time, but it is an interesting – and worrying – point)

And here does seem to be a danger in getting too many Social Networkers in one space, as this ding dong over Le Web 3 at TechCrunchUK seems to show - the antisocial network effect? (Postscript...I had to change the link after Sam Sethi's last post was pulled).

But I digress….the point is, can we build a Cool Stuff 2.0 small world MetaNet in London (ie where everyone is fairly well connected), and if so what is the best way to do this. Part of the answer is online, but part of it is in real time – Silicon Valley is small, there are only a few places to hang out and meet each other. London is huge, we need to get some MetaNet nodes agreed. Or do we club together and buy an Island on Second Life to hang out in?

And of course one cannot forget the facilitating role of beer in social networking, as I have blogged about on Broadstuff before....or even Cake (big thanks to the Trading Places guys)

Last night I chatted to a Bloke down the Pub about digital content, as you do (OK, it was a smart wine bar and the occasion was the World Forum Research bash - letting their hair down after a hard year's slaving over those most excellent mobile reports).

Anyway, what he said was very interesting.......rights is apparently not where a lot of the artists make a lot of their money anymore. T shirts, sponsorships, books and so on can make them a lot more profit, mainly because it all goes into their pockets - not the record label's. He wasn't clear on numbers, but it can be the majority of their revenues over time.

And the Internet is a great way to flog this stuff, you don't need to go on tour at all!

So by and large the whole DRM issue has been driven by the Rights Holders to hang on to their (declining) share of the total pie the Fans spend on getting into the Groove.

Only trouble is that DRM has gone down like a lead balloon with the victims - I mean customers - see John Hauxwell's very thoughtful post about iTunes and DRM.

Now it appears that the labels now want in on this loot as a condition of signing a band on too...I do in fact feel some sympathy, after all they made the stars who they were - they would have been nothing otherwise! (Tell that to the Arctic Monkeys, though)

But if the real money is not being made in actually flogging the music, w(h)ither DRM? Its expensive, instantly crackable, annoys the legal customers (and possibly drives them to piracy?).

Seems to me there is a new business model struggling to get out here, that may not actually treat the customers as criminals.

In the meantime, anyone wanna buy a T shirt down the pub - band of your choice, guv......never mind all the Chinese World of Warcraft goldminers, who is going after this gold rush

Those rumours that 3 is for sale just won't go away......John Hauxwell pinged me this afternoon with his post here. I had in the meantime picked up this one from the Inquirer picking up a Mail on Sunday story. (The Mail on Sunday also reported last last month that 130 managers were to be sacked at 3 UK, though 3 UK claimed that headcount will go up in 2007)

To be honest, I haven't heard anything about this, this time around, and was a bit wary of saying anything after the last time when the rumours of sale were immediately followed by that of a 3G price reduction to near 3G datacard levels - I thought I had got a bum steer.

Also, to try to crash the market just before you punt the company seems...errrm....odd?

Mind you, this is Planet Mobile where economic rationality is not always the first thing on the agenda (I will do a Big Blog on the Myriad Myths of Mobile Multimedia Moneymaking soon)

Still, you can't keep a good meme down......

Just released by New Media Age

To quote:

The study of 1,500 children found the tween generation to be avid consumers of mobile data like mobile internet browsing and mobile video, but with a reluctance to pay for content.

Almost a third, 29%, said they shared music via Bluetooth rather than paying for it. Almost half (45%) of those who didn't said they wanted to. This should be of concern to the music industry given that, of the 80% of 6-13-year-olds that listened to music on the move, 30% used their mobile as the main device for doing so.

I am astounded that those who use their mobile for music on the move are as high as 30% , frankly. Thats actually fairly hopeful for the mobile music industry.

The research also found that the youngest generation of mobile consumers are rapidly adopting the embryonic mobile internet. 29% used the internet on their phone once a month, 10% once a week and 7% once a day. Of those who didn't go on the internet, 24% said it was because it was too expensive.

Here was a scary piece - "The 29% figure tells me that more education is needed - from manufacturers, operators and content providers - to get this even higher, as the 6-13-year--old group is a natural segment for growth," said Mobile Data Association chairman Mike Short.

Six Years Old with a music / internet capable mobile - I must be getting old, but I really don't agree with this.....its bad enough with all the expensive toys and games that get lost / broken / eaten in a few days!

The full report, carried out with children's protected social networking company Intuitive Media, is available via the link here.

So, Sky will rebrand and onsell Google services to the Great British Public, it was announced on Wednesday. The Financial Times has a piece on it here and the Grauniad over here

But frankly yet another Old Media / New Search tie up is standard fare these days (though some people are getting excited about it implying Google is going into white labelling), and the details are fairly nebulous. Except for this one, and I quote:

The companies plan to extend the partnership to BSkyB’s core television platform, however, by replacing traditional 30-second television adverts with targeted commercials stored on hard drives in BSkyB’s set-top boxes.

Google’s AdSense technology, which brings up adverts relevant to search terms of users, would be deployed alongside BSkyB’s knowledge of its customers’ profiles and interests.

Now that is interesting. How to serve relevant online, interactive media ads (apart from the classifieds that are Google's stock in trade) has been a point of debate in the last 18 months, and getting it right will be critical.

So how will this work?

The Ads would need to be pushed down to Sky+ boxes (it will not work on a basic Sky box) using a "hidden" TV channel. The Ads will need to be tagged with some metadata, so that when you type in "Paris Hilton" or whatever, up pops the relevant Ad for you (a very nice 30 second clip of the Hilton in Paris perhaps) ?.

Sky will have a profile of its users, probably by postcode, credit card etc and some idea of what they like by the sort of deals they have, and (assuming they track this in detail) the programs they watch. In theory when they use the Skoogle services their digital footprint will be tracked and sifted, and this will trigger the Virtual Adman in your Set Top Box to pop into action with some relevant Messages from Our Sponsors.

Since the announcement, it has still not become clear if the STB infers the user profile from locally observed behaviour or if Sky "push" this information down to the box, having derived it from other sources e.g. credit card, postcode etc.

In the latter case, there's not a lot of bandwidth to play with - maybe a few 100 bytes per box.

In the former case, would the STB report this info back to the headend? It would seemingly have to, and possibly beyond.

But, when the Sky digital system was new, Sky specifically rejected claims that this would happen (and went so far as to say it was technically impossible).

Of course, way back then in the 90's most people thought they still had some privacy