broadstuff

There is a fascinating story on TechCrunch today about how they are changing their approach to news embargoes (where you are pre-briefed about a story that is due for release at Time X.). The issue ostensibly is about the heinous tactics of the PR Flacks and Other Blogs:

As the economy turns south, PR firms are under increasing pressure to perform and justify their monthly retainers which range from $10,000 to $30,000 or more. In short, they have to spam the tech world to get coverage, or lose their jobs.

One annoying thing for us is when an embargo is broken. That means that a news site goes early with the news despite the fact that they’ve promised not to. The benefits are clear - sites like Google News and TechMeme prioritize them first as having broken the story. Traffic and links flow in to whoever breaks an embargo first.

And so, to stop this Bad Practice, TechCrunch will righteously refuse to take embargoed news from hereafter - except if it is offered exclusively:

We will honor embargoes from trusted companies and PR firms who give us the news exclusively, so we know there won’t be any mistakes. There are also a handful - maybe three - people who we trust enough to continue to work with them on general embargoes (if you are a PR person and wondering if you’re on that list, you’re not).

In other words, this has got absolutely nothing to do with embargoes per se - it is to do with jockeying for pole position in the inevitable coming consolidation of the Tech Blog-for-Money game, and its quite a clever play by TC.

What they are bidding (in game theory terms) is that they will play by the rules - and use their extensive reach - if they get near exclusivity. What they are also bidding is that if anyone wants non exclusivity and an embargo they miss out on thet TechCrunch reach (and - mention it who dare - the story may not be so favourable)

Whats a poor PR hack to do - TC is a One Transaction bullseye, but if you don't hit them you have to flap around getting a bunch of lesser blog mortals together for the same bang (ie more bucks) and know you may get trashed by TC.

Play by TC rules, and TC gets all the GoogleJuice, the other blogs wither on the GrapeVine.

So, what are Mashable, Ars Tech etc going to counterbid? We wait with eager anticipation

Update...and here it comes - ReadWriteWeb will respect embargoes. So, good news for the PR flacks - except of course that RWW is no kingmaker. If I were "the bunch", I would put some form of common policy so that the PR people could place once with similar reach to TC.

Update 2 - Kara Swisher's BoomTown also puts in a counterbid:

....it is increasingly less important as the economy withers and a lot of the less sustainable start-ups fade away. There are big important stories happening in tech right now about major public companies, the state of innovation and the future of the industry, which require more serious journalism.

She also goes on to say that big echo chamber blogs will be outmanoeuvered by smaller blogs who know what they are talking about....hop for us yet!

(Hat tip to Drew B for link)

This comes out of a discussion last night with "heavy duty" Network Tech bloggers James Enck, Dean Bubbley, the Telco 2.0 bloggers and economist Keith MacMahon, all of whom have been working on evolution of various bits of the (networked) tech industry.

We have all been noticing one thing:

(i) The world has changed, in a major and irrevocable way.

(ii) Most companies are still basing their business plans and models on work and research done pre crunch.

From our side, we've been working on strategies in Online Video, Cable TV, Mobile Data and Online Advertising. All these industries have had many of their underpinning axioms and assumptions completely changed in the last 3 months - yet many are continuing on paths laid down beforehand.

The talk with the above gang last night confirmed it wasn't just us seeing this.

So - you want Black Swan thinking, this is it - look at the current biz plan, look at its date, look at the date of the supporting data, and then think about which of those underpinning assumption may not last in the current environment.

And then give me a call

PS Loving the cr*p karma - always a sign that we've hit a nerve

Saw an article that fascinated me re the Modern concerned Green citizen. They have higher carbon footprints than un-Green people according to research by CACI - says spokesman Jonathan Burston:

An enthusiastic green is likely to be well educated, with high levels of household income, generally likely to be professional or senior managers, often middle-aged, generally has older children; the family home is likely to be detached and larger than average ... and they generally read broadsheet papers,' said Burston. 'They are likely to take more flights [and] have a company car or luxury car with a slightly larger engine. They have begun to recycle more, they are likely to compost their garden waste, use energy-saving light bulbs - but they have a relatively high carbon footprint.'

The 'environmentally unconcerned' tend to be male, be interested in science fiction and fantasy, generally read tabloid newspapers and are more likely to be football supporters and to have been refused credit. 'They have little or no concern for the environment. They are less likely to recycle or use energy-saving light bulbs,' said Burston. However, because they had less money to spend, they were more likely to cycle and use public transport, and less likely to have cars, or big homes to heat and multiple appliances to power, he added.

CACI's study follows similar national results from a study earlier this year by Exeter University, which reported that people who claimed to have the greenest lifestyles were often some of the main culprits behind global warming. Stewart Barr, who led the research, told the Guardian: 'Green living is largely something of a myth.'

In other words, to save the planet, you have to be a Chav

So next time you hear some proud person in a Pious warbling on, or someone extolling the virtues of the Organic Veg Delivery Man, or even better how they only use Green lightbulbs and toilet paper, slip that into the conversation

Some things in life are priceless.......

Prediction - in a year's time you are going to hear and see a heck of a lot less about Green Issues from the Chattering Classes.

Yesterday Twit or Fit (a sort of Hot or Not for Twitter, you rate the avatar of Twitter persons) launched with co-ordinated PR aplomb. I didn't blog it yesterday because the people behind it (Huddle) are a smart lot, and anyway EuroStartups need all the help they can get, but after chatting to a few people last night I felt I had to say something.

The reason I am not so sure it is such a good idea for use on a Social Media / Comms System is not, of course, because I'm a grumpy sod who doesn't "get it", you understand* ( Tim O'Reilly will be after them anyway ), but because of the sort of behavioural Game Theory it promotes on a social network, where building social capital is a key part of the game.

I can predict two games that will be played if this catches on:

(i) Migration to more beautiful Avatars, possibly even more attractive handles.

(ii) Increase in following "cute" avatars at the expense of uncute ones, irrespective of content

(2009 Prediction - £10 a pop for photoshopping beautiful Avatars is a runaway success Biz. Mind you, I suppose, being Twitter, if you have to listen to people wittering on about their lunch, they may as well be Gorjuss)

I've tried to describe this in the diagram above - in essence, the system will drive towards "A Listers" who are there because of avatabeauty, not contributions to the greater social capital. It will be not so much the Whuffie as Hottie Factor

(Followed via @hello! )

Thus over the longer term, it operates as a Social Media Ratchet - by allowing one to rate and then follow "beautiful people" (via the "Top 50 rated people etc) it turns social media into something more akin to TV, where content - even highbrow content - can only be presented by "beautiful people" today. I personally am thus concerned that the future "ratings" in social media will be based on attractiveness to a greater degree than is probably helpful.

For all of you who thus thought the 'Net would be a way of connecting the "Global Brain", of ensuring a new era of Aquarian Peace, Love and Understanding, for raising the Species IQ, this is all a bit of a let down. On the other hand, you can sell Ads against it and thus monetise it - another smart way to make money off Twitter!

( By the way, I am somewhat intrigued that the digital womenfolk - some of whom were quite upset over the recent T*tCrunch post, are not protesting that this too is demeaning - some things I will never understand.... )

Must go now, off to look for a hotter Avatar

* Hey, I set up the first AntiSocial Network on Ning you know!

Its time for Predictions about the Future of the Internet again, thought it might be interesting / amusing to collect them all as they arrive. Here are Pew Internet's plus some comments.

1. The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.

Note that a "mobile" in 2020 will not be what we mean by it today - that's 8 cycles of Moore's Law, so today's $500 laptop costs $5 and is the size of an iPod mini. Today's iPhone costs less than a buck and is a disposable item. However, unless we have new I/O devices, basic ergonomic limits for screen and keyboard sizes will keep primary 'Net connection devices above that size.

2. The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.

Indeed - at the moment social media is in la-la land because most early adopters have fairly high integrity and tolerance, it has not yet grown to encompass the mass of humanity with all it, um, features. As Howard Rheingold observes on evidence to date - "Can anybody ..... actually bet anything meaningful on declining violence, sectarian strife, bigotry, and hate? Whatever the growth of the Internet has done, it certainly hasn't solved these age-old problems." Or, as another respondent put it "I live in a small town where everyone knows everyone else. This does not lead me to believe that knowing more about people makes you forgive them"

3. Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.

Touch probably - Voice recognition has been disappointing for the last 24 years, lets see where we are in the next 12. Not holding my breath though.........

4. Those working to enforce intellectual property law and copyright protection will remain in a continuing arms race, with the crackers who will find ways to copy and share content without payment.

Absolutely - though we would note that up till now the media content online has been "small beer" - the really big industry is video/TV/movies and they will be motivated to spend a lot more than Music/Audio has been able to afford or justify

5. The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.

In the survey, while some people are hopeful about a hyperconnected future , others expressed fears that mobility and ubiquity will be a burden in an always-on world that causes stress and the disintegration of family and social life and may also include oppressive surveillance by bosses and government. It will be interesting to see if we adapt social norms to these intrusive devices, and start to take back some of our own time. Or will it be the opposite instead, for e.g. a large market in yard-long plastic penises so people can look like their Second-Life characters?

6. Next-generation engineering of the network to improve the current internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch.

It is noticeable that countries that have government backed Internet buildouts (Japan, Korea etc) are more advance than "Rest of World". We expect that more governments will force national upgrades as it becomes clearer that the Net drives massive competitive advantage. Picture will thus be mixed. Also, as the whole planet gets online it may well be necessary to build a "NextNet" - but probably not by 2020

I've been watching the hullabaloo over the weekend with Chris Brogan, who finally took the corporate coin and blogged for K-Mart - and unleashed a "sellout" blogstorm in response. Here is his justification of his activity (Twitter size abbreviation: They offered me money, I took it, my gig is social media consulting, this is it, I'm still a genuine guy so what are you all so cross about?)

Good point, and I think he's in the right. Man's gotta do etc......

Problem is - and its a lesson well worth learning for all Social Media people today I think - if one has built one's current reputation by rendering social capital (whuffie) unto the social media faithful, many of those same followers will not take it too kindly when one starts to pocket some of the hard capital that is Caesar's.

The flock perceive it as worshipping at a different god's altar, and react strongly if the transition is very sudden - they feel fleeced and shorn of their leader, and may move on to new pastures, but not before dumping a load of manure in the trough.

Wails of woe today as the Net Neutrality Fraternity wake up to find that Google is preparing to jump the fence and leave them to the sharks - its in the WSJ here. And, as SAI notes:

One of the most kneejerk Internet causes in recent years has been "net neutrality"--the absurd conviction that phone and cable companies who paid hundreds of billions of dollars to lay the cable that Internet data travels over shouldn't be able to charge different rates for different tiers of data service.

From the beginning, big Internet content companies like Google have fiercely championed this.

Until they could get into the position (traffic from YouTube, pipes from purveyors everywhere) to negotiate their own preferential deal, that is:

Now, however, Google appears to be realizing that net non-neutrality would actually be a boon to business--because it can afford to pay preferential fees that other companies can't. Microsoft, Yahoo, and others appear to be realizing the same thing.

Score a very rare win for the telecoms:

Rare perhaps, but predictable certainly, on 2 counts:

(i) The Telcos have been signalling for 3 years now that they will do this, as they want to make sure that those that clutter up their pipes help pay for building bigger ones.

(ii) Google strategy across most key areas in their value chain is to play a double game - support Open (You Name It - Org, Source, Access, ID, etc etc) until they can get their own beautifully Chromed assets in place.

There are 2 bits to Net Neutrality - the initial idea was to assme that you got Feedom of Access no mater who you were. This waslater conflated by some more Web 2.0 hippie types into Freedom of Assets - ie the right to pay no more for dumping shedloads of traffic into the pipes than a few bits. It suited the NN lobbies' interests to conflate the two.

And the GYM club were all at it it, they only supported Net Neutrality to give them time to get their assets into line, as is probably also the case with their strategies for Open (Most Other Stuff). Especially now that FreeConomic speculative funding is pretty much drying up and the hunt for real revenue is on.

If you look at the value chain, its clear that distributors will always (i) make money and (ii) control their pipes. Google knows this - it played Net neutrality until it could effectively peer at Tier 1 level, and it will now do that until it has built its own backbone network.

Some people continue to think of Google as the cute startup that can Do No Evil, not the huge public limited Ad company and Microsoft - in - waiting it now is, and the tend to be bamboozled by the doublespeak, but the above strategy is very clear once one takes off the Googleglasses.

Update - a bit more clarification on this after reading Graeme Pieterz's comment below - my point is not that Google has jumped the fence yet (as Graham notes, this is Tier 1 peering CDN's) - but its not hard to imagine what comess next as Google backfills. Thus (in my view anyway) it is preparing to become its own distributor down the road and in the meantime ensure its content looks and feels like its coming from a Tier 1 player. Thusly, I think a lot of myopic Open folk are only now waking up to what Techdirt puts very well:

....people and companies, who used to rely on Google's legal team to fight their battles, now need to realize that Google is no longer the defender of Silicon Valley. While the company used to take the stance that what was good for the internet user overall would be good for Google in the long term, in the last year or so, the company has increasingly made decisions that go against that principle. Instead, it's done a number of deals that allow it to leverage its cash reserves to make life more difficult for others, but allow Google to protect itself.

They have followed a clever strategy - in areas where they have no hegemony, promote (and seek to influence) Open Whatever, as that way you get a lot of free resource - especially in the early days - and less resistance, in fact even some lurve. But when your chips are in place, start to replace Open with Google.

Update - El Reg has written a fairly scathing article a week alter after a lot of pixels were spilt...

Very interesting use of social media tools. Tuttlers Christan Payne and Mike Atherton worked with Reuters Head of Mobile, Europe Ilicco Elia to gather questions for David Cameron from the community (aka YOU, or those of us awake on Twitter in this case), asked (a few of) them in a briefing attended by many mainstream media journalists, then broadcast the replies over Web TV in real time.



This is then picked up by yours truly, who can watch it, write an Op-Ed blog post, comment to others via Twitter, or fire a question back to the team in the room. In Real Time:

@sizemore @documentally you can point out that broadband has only moved ahead in countries with major govt involvement (Korea Japan, France)

(those being the Twitternames of Mike and Christian respectively) - their blog presences are also:


Sizemore

Documentally

And I can link back to the recording after writing my piece de resistance over here....

Future of Media, this is it now.....................

Psst - anyone want to crowd-source the Op-Ed itself

This post by Fred Wilson on this paper, about Comscore research starting to showing how Display Ads actually work, makes fascinating reading. People have always known that Display Ads do increase traffic, but it has been hard to establish good data so Search Ads have tended to be favoured in recent years. The Comscore data is interesting in that it starts to build the story for display Ads:



The diagram shows the raise in attention, and the slow decay over 4 weeks. Also in the report is information about the difference in overall reach.

....in the studies conducted by comScore, approximately 81% of the consumers who saw an ad received only a display ad, while a much lower 8% received only a search ad. When the lift factors are weighted by the reach of the ad, display ads typically emerge as being able to generate a higher total lift in sales.

In other words, you can't build brands with Search, and Display Ads' economics may be far better than anticipated - maybe better than search even. This is quite timely, as there have been quite a few arguments advanced recently that Display Ads will suffer far more than search in the next few years.

One of the interesting assertions in the recent scrap about Le Web is the assertion that Europeans, and French in particular, are lazy and unproductive vs. the US of A. This is not actually totally true - below, for example, are the actual hours per GDP unit productivity figures (from Steve Hu):



So, as you can see the French, despite their "2 hour lunches" are actually the most efficient users of time - its just they use less of it in direct work. There is a discussion to be had about where those other hours are going, but it is worth noting that some of it may be used to build up (unmeasured) "social capital" - compared to the US, France has demonstrably lower abortion rates, longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality rates, and lower homicide rates. Health outcomes are also better.

In other words, the higher US headline productivity also operates at a higher level of population friction and lower net outcomes per person - a bigger hit head, a poorer long tail

Also, France uses considerable less energy per person to achieve a GDP per capita not far removed from that of the USA - ie the US headline rate again is "bought" by running at higher energy burn. Which is more sustainable?

This is not to say France (and Europe) do not have major structural problems, including those with the formation of small tech startups - though it is noticeable the french are no laggards at adopting technology once it is proven, and were in fact early innovators in online services with Minitel, funded CERN, and are second to none with military hardware, a classic high tech game. Its just more to argue that just looking at headline numbers is not always helpful.