Simonsays

The Longtail: reports of its demise are greatly exagerated - a clarification

As an update to my excitable post below announcing the demise of the Longtail, it's worth directing people to Chris Anderson's post which responds robustly to MCPR-PRS's claims.

Rather than being "thoroughly debunked" it seems that a real interpretation of the The Longtail's validity depends on the type and scope of data used, and presumably the methodological approach taken by the researchers.

Now I should have checked my enthusiasm at debunking, especially as I am only too aware of the different results thrown up by different approaches to research. In fact I suggested as much in response to Jed Hallam's comment below!

Sorry to Chris Anderson for being to hasty to snack on an internet scandal :)

Technorati tags: Longtail, Research, debunking

The Longtail is thoroughly debunked by empirical research

I posted back in July reminding those of us who take current Internet theories such as The Wisdom of Crowds at face value that many of these ideas are primarily marketing tools, rather than tested, research-based approaches.

As a fascinating follow-up to this, Alan Patrick from Broadsight has posted a fascinating analysis of Internet uber-theory, The Longtail, titled: 'The end of The Longtail?'

Alan posts about a recent presentation given by an MCPS-PRS Alliance economist, Will Page, which argued that The Longtail is "fairly completely incorrect".

Page apparently helped Chris Anderson write The Longtail thesis, but has since carried out empirical research on a huge volume of global online music sales. The research found:

"while there was a long tail, it was extremely poverty stricken and much of it is moribund [...] even Free doesn’t work - when Radiohead gave away their music for free, there were still 400,000 illegal downloads in the UK. Not only that, they have found that illegal services focus on the “hit head” even more than the average."

Hypothesising further, Alan reckons that most demand curves are Log Normal rather than Pareto Power Law Curves, an opinion strongly supported by one of the researchers.

A full and thorough debunking of The Longtail based on the research can also be found by Andrew Orlowski over at The Register.

As a footnote to this, it is maybe worth adding that the researchers work for an organization that enforces commercial copyright on behalf of composers, songwriters and music publishers.

Technorati tags: The Longtail, Internet Theories, Power Law, Log Normal

Interpreting Media Trust: The Devil is in the Detail

Claire from media measurement firm, Metrica, sent me some survey findings that reveal the "pulse" of the UK's trust in media.

Claire pulls out two interesting findings for discussion: the increased trust in national media (up from 46% last year to 70%) and the extremely low levels of trust in social media (only 5% trust blogs; 1% trust forums).

These findings interestingly echo Edelman's Trust Barometer results for the UK published back in January.

Back then we summised that the increased trust in media was due to a 'bounce' following the media's public contrition after its dressing down last year over the numerous vote fixing and competition rigging scandals.

The low trust in 'bloggers' (bottom of the pile, I believe) was due to people responding to a concept rather than personality. After all, trust in "someone like me" (argubly exactly what bloggers are, compared to formal media channels) topped the rankings.

However, Claire offers an alternative analysis, indicating that the public want more objectivity:

"my personal opinion is that the consumers of media, having so much more content to choose from, have become more savvy about their options. When choosing your news channel, the objectivity of the source is the key.  Generalising massively here, I would say that while social media is often authentic, it is less likely than traditional media to be objective.  Many blogs tend to focus on  'opinion' rather than 'reporting'.  And there's the issue - how much do any of us trust the opinion of someone whom we know nothing or very little about?"

But I'm afraid I must argue with Claire's interpretation here (no offence!).

My (personal) reading is that objectivity has always been a delicate lie which is being increasingly exposed as the internet offers us more and more conflicting accounts of (news) events around the world. For example, type in a top news stroy in Google news and you can get numerous different accounts of the event from a range of opposing - yet supposedly 'objective' media outlets.

Claire asks "how much do any of us trust the opinion of someone whom we know nothing or very little about?" But in a way this overlooks the point. Blogs and forums are not populated by strangers, but rather once you have spent time getting to know the people that contribute to blogs and forums you realise they are "people like me" - and as Edelman's Trust barometer indicates, the most trusted source of information.

If you unpick Metrica's survey results there are some more findings that are worth investigating.

For instance, the survey showed "the internet in general has gained four percentage points [of trustworthiness], with 34% of UK adults now saying they trust its content." With most adults unlikely to differentiate between a blog, forum, UGC site and 'general internet content'  - not to mention newspaper sites with comment features - how does this square with the overwhelming number of those that distrust specific tools like blogs and forums?

In addition: "News sites as a specific online media type though do fair a lot better with 54% - more than national newspapers!" I think this finding needs further delineation: national newspapers *are* online, aren't they. How exactly is the Times online more trustworthy than the Times in print?

So I suspect that if you can unpick the survey data or carry out a similar survey with a specifc focus on online then the results may yield even more interesting interpretations.

*****

As a footnote to this post, the advertising firm Universal McCann has just published a report examining the rise of "trusting strangers" - as it puts it. I haven't read it yet but judging from it's slightly negative title I suspect it will come at peer-to-peer communications from an adland perspective - i.e. how can advertisers mimic the trust generated through word-of-mouth.

The answer is simple: build deep relationships. But this is something the ad industry has never been able to do. Will we see this start to change?

Technorati tags: Metrica, Universal McCann, Research, Trust

Clay Shirky and The Heart of Darkness - Copyright and Here Comes Everybody

I’ve seen a load of good reviews for Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody published earlier this year and I have to confess I haven’t yet got around to reading it (spare review copy anyone?).

However, by far the best review I’ve read came to my attention this week in the journal Metamute (“culture and politics after the Net”).

The first half of Felix Strader’s review follows the well-worn path trodden by other reviewers. It outlines Shirky’s basic premise and uses a couple of his case studies to illustrate these points.

But it is the second half of the review where Strader really reveals the gaping hole at the heart of the book:

“For a book that claims to analyse a revolution that ‘cannot be contained in the institutional structure of society’. we get extremely little on politics or power. […] This lack of depth is the result of the single most problematic aspect of the book. It focuses almost exclusively on aspects that are entirely uncontroversial.”

Stalder uses this gaping void to explore what he calls the “tension” at the heart of web 2.0. This tension exists between the growing number of decentralized ‘amateurs’ creating and contributing value and content to the network and the spaces in which this creation unfolds which are largely centralized and possess vested interests in maintaining control over the public spaces online.

This has a number of clear implications that Stalder believes Shirky must be aware of but keeps quiet about; perhaps given his role as a consultant to the same companies.

As a result, the book’s one glaring omission is about the battle over copyright and DRM:

“Tussle over copyright? Reading Shirky, you wouldn't know there is one. This is probably the most glaring absence. Number of entries for copyright in the index of the book? Zero! In my view, this is inexcusable because it cuts right to the core of why 'boring technologies' are currently so ‘socially interesting’. File sharing, in particular, demonstrates most clearly the power of ‘organizing without organization’ so radical that, for the moment, nobody knows how to contain it within current institutional structures. Number of entries on P2P or file sharing in the index? Again, zero!”

This omission is a monumental failure on Shirky’s behalf and “an indication”- to Stalder  at least – “of how constrained discourse has become, particularly in the US.” Damningly, Stalder concludes that this narrow view of the power and potential of Web 2.0 is “Self-censorship at work.”

While this makes total sense, I can’t offer a critique as I haven’t read Shirky’s book. Rest assured it’s an issue I want to return to once I have.

Technorati tags: Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, Felix Strader, Copyright, DRM

Bausola, Benkler and understanding the new digital economy

My Edel-colleague, Jason Mical, recently caught up with creative technologist (and former Head of Insight (Strategy) for Digital Communications at Imagination, David Baesola Bausola. It sounded like a great meet and I was pretty gutted I couldn’t attend.

But reading David's biog really got me thinking again about some ideas from within the digital economy that I’ve been mulling over in recent months.

David argues (from a specifically creative industries perspective) that:

“Data and User-Centric design define the poles between technology and communication. Whereas Data Centric models lean towards ‘Manufacturing’ architectures, User-Centric will lean towards ‘Network’ aesthetics. […] Data is possession driven; collectivity occurs within communities with degrees of ‘openness’."

This sparks off some thoughts linked to what Yochai Benkler has to say about the radically new economic models - specifically nonmarket models - being shaped by the Internet.

In The Wealth of Networks, Benkler discusses rival and nonrival goods:

“When economists speak of information, they usually say that it is “nonrival.” We consider a good to be nonrival when its consumption by one person does not make it any less available for consumption by another. Once such a good is produced, no more social resources need be invested in creating more of it to satisfy the next consumer.”

Benkler’s perspective is important because it maps nicely to David’s idea of a manufacturing focussed ‘data centric’ model and a network focused ‘user centric’ one.

Rival goods are predominently manufactured commodities that rely on scarcity and - in accordance with David’s observation – possession to drive commercial value. Nonrival goods (in Benkler’s example, information) rely on sharing via open networks as a commercial model.

I suppose what I am doing here is little more than articulating my own understanding of Benkler’s hard economic theory through the prism of David’s perspectives on the emerging business and economic model of the creative industries, and trying to catalyse thoughts about the spaces where we can bring traditionallt data centric industries mroe towards networked production and equally how we can help encourage user centric industries to look to the digitally connected networks arpiund their organisation, its brand and products to improve their offering in contemporary nd future society.

Perhaps, these thoughts and ideas illuminate the (perhaps obvious?) notion that there is no one-size fits all model to help busiensses adapt to a digital market (or nonmarket) place. It definitely helps us begin to chart the routes down which we - as digital strategists - can help take our clients.

For what it's worth, these ideas – the changes taking place in the contemporary business and organizational landscape and how we deal with them – seem to be occupying more and more time in my thoughts at the moment.

I suppose it makes sense. The logical next step from understanding how organizations communicate in a digitally empowered environment is seeking to understand how businesses need to think and what they need to do in a digital world.

Technorati tags: David Bausola; Yochai Benkler, digital strategy; creative industries; manufacturing

Thoughts on Havas Media Lab's The New Economics of Consumption: User Generated Context

I downloaded Havas Media Lab’s latest strategy paper, The New Economics of Consumption: User Generated Context, a few weeks back but only got around to reading it last night.

And what a nice little strategy paper it is too. It’s fair to say it is more of a thought starter than a fully fleshed out document which tells businesses and investors how they can adapt to the ‘new economics of consumption’ – but that’s what Havas’ clients pay for I suppose.

The authors’ (I presume Umair Haque must be in there somewhere) argument is that business models based in user-generated content are failing. This failure is based on the idea that value doesn’t reside within user-generated content, but in fact within user-generated context.

To illustrate the point, Havas suggests:

“The vast majority of blog posts are context for newspaper articles. Connected consumers on MySpace spend much of their time discussing and connecting with bands … consumers aren’t creating content: they’re creating content for goods.”

Furthermore:

“it’s by letting connected consumers contextualise content that tsunamis of new value can be unlocked (just ask Google)”

In conclusion, Havas pulls out three general observations that reinforce how context is very different from content.

1. Context is not really ‘generated’ in the sense of simple creation, but evolves in a more complex way, often linked to specific cultural references that can often make no sense to outside audiences.
2. Context is not produced by single users, but only emerges when the views and information produced by users is aggregated.
3. The production of context does not open up direct competition with existing content producers – e.g. the advertising industry

I really like the paper and its challenge to conventional thought about socal media and UG content, however I think we need to put some its ideas into a wider framework.

For example, based on an analysis of Techmeme Havas argues that the most talked about and viewed content online is produced by professional content producers e.g. Techcrunch, CNET, New York Times, while amateur users produce context.

While I absolutely agree with their overall argument, the strategy paper does seem to ignore the fact that non-professional content producers exist... and produce compelling content.

And if we accept that there is professional and less professional content being produced online how does this fit into the idea that connected consumers produce solely context, rather than content?

Technorati tags: Havas Media Lab, Umair Haque, user generated context, digital strategy

Spot the difference: academic theory or marketing concept?

Ian Delaney has a great quotation from Lincoln University's Dr Brian Winston from the MediaFutures08 conference the other week:

"We are in a condition where we conveniently forget the years of discovery, exploration and mistakes that lead to whatever is in today’s headlines. We’re also conditioned into accepting the rhetoric of marketing as fact. Web 2.0 favourite theories like ‘the wisdom of crowds’, ‘the hype cycle’ and ‘crossing the chasm’ are actually commercial products, not independent academic studies."

This is something that a lot of digital, marketing, PR and advertising types should really take into account - and I mean *really*.

We all need a reality check from time to time and this is the best I've read for long time.

The significant point here is that we are all quick to grasp concepts that shore up our prespective on the marketing and communications industry, but how often do we check to see whether what we evangelising is 100% proven.

I'm not suggesting that there is no truth behind the Wisdom of Crowds or The Long Tail. However, I am saying that empirical evidence can easily be misunderstood or misrepresented to make an argument. This situation is compunded where there is a financial or commercial imperative for specific results or results that support a particular world view.

UPDATE: On looking up the Wikipedia entry on Wisodm of Crowds I discovcered the following Wiki-warning:

"This article is written like an advertisement. Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view."

Which seems to me a clear enough reminder - if one was needed - of the theory's commercial purpose.

Technorati tags: Ian Delaney, Dr Brian Winston, marketing theory, PR, Wisdom of Crowds, The Long Tail

Royal Holloway keynotes - Micah Sifry: Open source politics

I spoke at Royal Holloway University's Web 2.0 Politics conference on 18 April and had planned to live-blog the two keynotes by Micah Sifry and Michael Turk but unfortunately didn't manage to. But I did make notes and have now re-worked them so they are sort of a deferred live-blogging stream-of-consciousness.

First up is the keynote by Micah Sifry, titled Open Source Politics:

Micah began by stating that political communications must move from being egocentric to network centric. That is, becoming less about individuals and more about loosely connected networks of supporters that coalesce and self-organise around specific issues.

This allows voters to become co-creators of the candidate’s political campaign and network effects, Micah argued, are the key to this.

Funding – we are seeing small, but significant revolutions in political funding taking place:

• For example Ron Paul opened up his funds by putting all his campaign donations online

• The database of donations was entirely searchable

• Building on this, supporters started building useful tools that displayed fundsina useful and meaningful way

• For example, they started making graphs that displayed funding from specific places, organisations or people – they then set-up the website ronpaulgraphs.com where you can view the most interesting results [Edit: think of that resource as a journalist as well as a supporter!]

• Apparently Obama is considering running an online to raise $1m in 1min – which may or may not be a good/successful idea!

• Micah’s concluding point was that with micro-economics emerging on the web, big money doesn’t go away – but now there is a counter-veiling force. People can now say if that if the party does follow this or that route with policy or selection etc then they will donate cash to a rivel candidate etc. The micro-funding revolution makes parties/candidates etc more accountable

Micah also addressed, what he termed as, the Economy of Abundance:

• This arises – in essence - from the easy and cheap availability of storage on the web.

• Micah says that – politically, at least - the sound bite is being challenged by abundance of space online to have upload, store and search etc other messages, speeches, communications material etc

• The media presentation format of 20 or 30 second glib or catchy but meaningless snapshots is being onverted

• As an example: Barack Obama has approximately 900 videos on YouTube, and most of these videos are about 13mins long

• The Race Video has had 4m views and as YouTube only counts a full play-through of a video as a view then there’s a lot of people who are hungry for quality, in-depth content that they can’t get from MSM. Where do they go to find it? Online.

Micah’s three conclusions were particularly insightful:

Conclusions

• The network is more powerful than the list

• Networks are resilient, but not nimble
  • If you have a network of 5,000 bloggers and one says something stupid then it’s not the end of world. However, if you take away the central point then they’re that not easily corralled

• Networks and campaigns can be allies, but they ultimately have cross-purposes
  • Campaigns share tasks but not authority with their supporters
  • To get to a position of open source politics we need to give supporters authority
  • Micah asks can we ever get there? Ron Paul supporters were given full authority to shape his campaign, but then they raised money to spend on a branded blimp – was a good idea and use of funds?

For Micah, the big (and most interesting) question is where will the balance of power lie in the future and what happens to the networks once the elections are over. Once you have given supporters/voters a sense of power, they probably won’t let it go so easily.

Technorati tags: Royal Holloway University, Politics 2.0, Micah Sifry, Open Source Politics

Lord of the Blogs - corny name but great blog

I thought Lord of the Blogs was a spoof at first… but a closer look reveals it is a group blog authored by 10 peers from the UK’s upper chamber, the House of Lords.

Despite the corny name and lacklustre design the site’s content is really, really good. Take for instance a recent post from Lord Norton. Responding to requests from commenters who want to know more about the bloggers, Lord Norton posts 10 interesting things about himself in turn achieving two really important things.

Firstly, he is responding to requests from users – creating a genuine dialogue. Ok, it’s not exactly about major policy issues at this stage, but if you set the foundations up right then it's only a matter of time before we get to that stage, surely?

Secondly, he is talking about himself, a member of the UK parliament’s upper (and traditionally most aloof and esoteric) chamber in an informal way.

To give Lord Norton his due he *attempts* to tell us 10 things about himself, but fails. He can only find nine – and one of these is: ‘trains’!

The other interesting thing is that the blog is part of a project being co-ordinated by the independent democracy think-tank, the Hansard Society. I intitially presumed that this would be part of their ongoing Digital Dialogues initiative, but a closer inspection of the DD website shows that it is a separate project.

More info about Lord of the Blogs can be found at the Hansard Society's website or in today's Guardian

Technorati tags: Lord of the Blogs, House of Lords, Hansard Society

I thought Lord of the Blogs was a spoof at first… but a closer look reveals it is a group blog authored by 10 peers from the UK’s upper chamber, the House of Lords.

Despite the corny name and lacklustre design the site’s content is really, really good. Take for instance a recent post from Lord Norton. Responding to requests from commenters who want to know more about the bloggers, Lord Norton posts 10 interesting things about himself in turn achieving two really important things.

Firstly, he is responding to requests from users – creating a genuine dialogue. Ok, it’s not exactly about major policy issues at this stage, but if you set the foundations up right then it's only a matter of time before we get to that stage, surely?

Secondly, he is talking about himself, a member of the UK parliament’s upper (and traditionally most aloof and esoteric) chamber in an informal way.

To give Lord Norton his due he *attempts* to tell us 10 things about himself, but fails. He can only find nine – and one of these is: ‘trains’!

The other interesting thing is that the blog is part of a project being co-ordinated by the independent democracy think-tank, the Hansard Society. I intitially presumed that this would be part of their ongoing Digital Dialogues initiative, but a closer inspection of the DD website shows that it is a separate project.

More info about Lord of the Blogs can be found at the Hansard Society's website or in today's Guardian

Technorati tags: Lord of the Blogs, House of Lords, Hansard Society

Can UK political bloggers influence the MSM?

I posted a few months back about the completion of a research project for my CIPR Diploma which investigated the ability of political bloggers in the UK to affect the MSM agenda of broadsheet newspapers.

I promised that once I had the final result I'd post up a version to share. Well, I'm pleased to say that the research project was awarded a distinction and so for your enlightenment here's a pdf version of New media democracy or pain in the RSS? An examination of political bloggers and media agenda setting
in the UK. [Download simoncollisterdiplomaresearchproject2008.pdf (383.8K)]

I'll also be presenting an updated version of the paper at Politics & Web 2.0: an international conference in April if anyone's interested.

Technorati tags: political blogging, research, CIPR