Traditional business models have scarcity at their core: when something is scarce, it becomes valuable. Online, this notion is challenged: in a world where every one of us can copy and distribute content at the click of a mouse, notions of ‘scarcity’ become more and more distant from reality. Several commentators have suggested that scale – i.e. providing more access to ‘valuable’ content rather than less – is actually a more scalable business model for the online economy. This session will look at ways in which content can be freed, and will also examine some of the issues which follow around control and authority.

1. quot;if you love your content, set it freequot; ?

2. I am Mike Ellis
I have spent 10+ years working on the [content] web
I am a user experience zealot, strategist, social(web)-ist
I work for a not for profit IT company called Eduserv

3. first of all, a couple of things

4. these slides will be online
(and available under CC)

5. this session
is based around a question:

6. “ if you love your content, set it free ”
quot;
?quot;

7. ..I’m not going to try and answer that question.

8. instead, I'm going to consider
the content and user landscape

9. try and find some connections...

10. ...and avoid getting into too much detail

11. (yes, I’m a chicken)

12. let's start right at the beginning
..and ask: “where does value come from?”

13. even this isn’t straightforward

14. for the most part, value is about scarcity

15. rarer + more sought-after = higher value

16. which means: if you have it, hide it

17. ...and only provide when people pay

18. this has been the value model for generations

19. then the web came along.

20. now the entire value landscape has
literally been blown away

21. the effectiveness of the network has
devalued the distribution chain
“It makes increasingly less sense even to talk
about a publishing industry, because the core
problem publishing solves - the incredible
difficulty, complexity, and expense of making
something available to the public – has stopped
being a problem.”
Clay Shirky / “Newspapers and thinking the unthinkable”
http://bit.ly/YoqJi

22. networks are getting faster / more ubiquitous,
DRM is dead,
hidden content is unpopular

23. not to mention radical
changes in users, too

24. 1. search and find is everything
2. fickle, shallow, agile users
3. quot;digital nativesquot; (ug!)
4. quot;free is 'normal', right?..quot;

25. models of ownership and
consumption are changing
“..for my generation you partly constructed your
identity around what you owned - your bookshelf,
record collection and DVD archive were important
aspects of who you..but for the digital generation
this strong link with ownership has been broken.
It took time and money to build up any of those
collections. Therefore they demonstrated a
commitment which was worth exhibiting. In a
digital world this effort is greatly reduced, and as
a result so is the emotional attachment one feels
towards them.”
Martin Weller / “Ownership ain’t what it used to be”
http://bit.ly/2vU1oB

26. the music industry...

27. less CDs, more digital music being sold
“17 million fewer CD buyers
in 2008 compared to the prior
year”
ZDNet UK: “CD sales drop, digital downloads on the rise”
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=14758

28. new (business) models are rampant

29. ..illegal? yes. available (via Google)? yes.

30. quot;Even ferocious litigation
would be inadequate to
constrain massive, sustained
law-breakingquot;

31. newspapers..?

32. according to Clay Shirky
“When someone demands to
know how we are going to
replace newspapers...they are
demanding to be told that old
systems won’t break before
new systems are in place. They
are demanding to be told that
ancient social bargains aren’t
in peril, that core institutions
will be spared, that new
methods of spreading
information will improve
previous practice rather than
upending it. They are
demanding to be lied to.
There are fewer and fewer
people who can convincingly
tell such a lie.”

33. which demands a radical(ish) response

34. books?

35. Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist
“ In 2001, I sold 10,000 hard copies. And
everyone was puzzled. We came from
zero, from 1000, to 10,000. And then the
next year we were over 100,000. [...]
I thought that this is fantastic. You give
to the reader the possibility of reading
your books and choosing whether to buy
it or not. [...]
So, I went to BitTorrent and I got all my
pirate editions… And I created a site
”
called The Pirate Coelho.
http://torrentfreak.com/alchemist-author-pirates-own-books-080124

36. cultural heritage?

37. similar issues around ownership,
authority and tone of voice

38. but really starting to understand
the huge benefits of “we is better
than me”

39. ..and adding value for users

40. the point?

41. this isn't just a brief blip, after
which we'll carry on as before

42. this is serious, serious change

43. revolution-style change

44. what does living through
a revolution mean?

45. chaos, factionism, failure
and emergence are prominent

46. the prevailing direction of travel is
becoming more clear:

47. the evidence is starting to show that
scale is more important than scarcity
“There is more opportunity in leveraging the scale of the
Web than trying to create scarcity.
We’ve all been engaged in many attempts at creating
scarcity [in digital music] and none of them have worked.
Meanwhile, others have been leveraging the scale of the
Web with great success.
We should learn from this pattern and apply our energy
appropriately.”
Ian Rogers, ex-VP Yahoo! Music
http://www.fistfulayen.com/blog/?p=147

48. this means that letting go of the hold
you have on your content becomes
increasingly important

49. the rise of the API as an example

50. the world of linked data
http://bit.ly/QOi6T

51. this is hard. after all, control and
authority are what makes us...us, right?

52. well, maybe authority comes from
the real, from authenticity

53. and not (always) from a designed,
understood, moderated pathway

54. once we've realised that the important thing
is our content and not where it is consumed,
we should find it easier to let go..

55. systems that are user-focused
are the ones that will survive

56. systems that are institution or industry
focused are the ones that will fail

57. access (not necessarily free,
but it helps) is a Good Thing
quot;Where some people have trouble is that
those new opportunities may be in
different places than the existing...
...the total amount that any content
creator can capture is still much larger
than it was before. It's one of those cases
where getting 20% of a huge pie is much
better than getting 90% of a tiny pie.quot;
TechDirt: quot;The Grand Unified Theory On The Economics Of Freequot;
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070503/012939.shtml

58. let's be very clear:
good things are happening

59. Open API's
Open Access
Open Search

60. but they're often being resisted
“ sources suggest that
”
compliance [with open
access policy] remains low

61. and are often weighed down by
hugely complicated politics

62. ..if there's one thing that doesn't work,
it's complicated business models

63. maybe we need to forget the original models

64. ...or at least, radically simplify

65. and focus on loosely joined

66. if..
..giving away PDF's of books increases book sales
if..
..streaming music for free increases other revenues
if..
..having an open API increases content reach

67. where might we go?

69. thanks for the free stuff:
big finger me
don't panic http://flickr.com/photos/brighton/2153602543
question http://www.flickr.com/photos/drachmann/327122302
castle mine
trees and moon mine
landscape http://www.flickr.com/photos/24471966@N04/2851251413/
connection http://www.flickr.com/photos/29487767@N02/2855271953/
tag cloud wordle
chicken http://www.flickr.com/photos/slopjop/2476844826/
vertigo http://www.flickr.com/photos/anapinta/1324230318/
diamond http://www.flickr.com/photos/clagnut/233522021/
valuable http://www.flickr.com/photos/10ch/3347658610/
hidden http://www.flickr.com/photos/21173961@N07/2189341054/
cash http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/211399263/
crowd blur http://www.flickr.com/photos/victoriapeckham/164175205/
bifurcation http://flickr.com/photos/ethanhein/2292232215
suberbia
robots
fog
baby http://www.flickr.com/photos/ntr23/730371240/
lazy http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkumber/2645078671/
cds http://www.flickr.com/photos/joemad/2170846681/
web2
newspaper http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/172495285/
book http://www.flickr.com/photos/andross/3137926953/
sea http://www.flickr.com/photos/10589224@N05/3386776372/
bored dogs http://flickr.com/photos/bobilina/361415711
revolution http://www.flickr.com/photos/flickerbulb/53116195/
light http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/3199296759/
direction http://www.flickr.com/photos/b-tal/116220689/
easy
silos
opportunity http://www.flickr.com/photos/wasabicube/2270556458/
good things http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaplanbr/526326334/
openness http://www.flickr.com/photos/gauri_lama/3039881498/
resisted http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandj98/2931196061/
lights http://www.flickr.com/photos/mostafa/19172096/
telegraph http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericsetiawan/23293820/
forget http://www.flickr.com/photos/mfajardo/396104047/
zen http://www.flickr.com/photos/robnwatkins/113258509/
golden http://www.flickr.com/photos/da100fotos/490531799/
unknown http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahmedrabea/246570462/

70. and thank you for listening
mike.ellis@eduserv.org.uk http://slideshare.net/dmje