Just as the Long Tail has made niche markets viable in many businesses, it is creating a new social ecology in education in which “virtual niche learning” is feasible. People who are passionate about a niche topic can have opportunities to truly engage in the topic and learn more, in collaboration with other passionate learners.

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2008: Edge Principles - Think Bigger



OK.

Why else did almost no value get created in 2007?

A massive reason is that media players aren't thinking big. There's no scope of vision.

Consider one of my favorite lame plays - Honeyshed. A portal for branded entertainment.

Lulz. Are you kidding? Honestly - who cares?

The industry is crashing and burning, it's structural fabric has to be rebuilt, that means: new value propositions, new value chains, new market space, new industry boundaries, new revenue streams, etc.

And, instead, we keep getting stuff like Honeyshed: the same old lame thing.

It's kind of amazing.

Look. You can't be a revolutionary unless you're, well, revolutionizing something. Offering not just something new - but something audacious, big, sweeping, grand, epic.

The size of the things we're focusing on just don't cut it. Even if they're successful - so what? The marginal value they're gonna create is tiny.

Part of the problem is venture guys. They're so trapped in either glad-handing or spreadsheets, they seem to have forgotten what truly radical innovation looks like.

But a huge part of the problem is entrepreneurs. The current crop of entrepreneurs just isn't thinking big enough.

There are no shortage of massive problems next-gen media plays can help solve. Global hunger? Check. Healthcare? Check. Moral hazard across the financial system? Check. The loss of social cohesion? Check. The massive shift of global labour from town to megaslum? Check. Exploding demand for energy? Check.

Simple example. Subprime crisis, global mortgage meltdown, etc. But all Zillow's doing is pricing houses. That's now a knock on the Zillow guys - I think Zillow rocks. But I think the opportunities open to it are far vaster than the opportunities it's pursuing. How about fundamentally redesigning the way houses are bought and sold?

The point.

"Branded entertainment" - and all the other puny ideas we've had - are failing to create value because they solve no real economic problems.

In fact, they're non-ideas. Compared to the above - which are very real, very pressing economic problems - they're lame, nothing, nonexistent, tiny.

In 2008, everyone across the venturescape and mediascape, I think, would do well to think much (much) bigger.

In fact, there's a deeper economic principle at work here. In a discontinuous world, incrementalism is deeply toxic. It plunges us more and more deeply into competence traps, and leaves us more and more vulnerable to competitors who are busy revolutionizing industries, markets, products, services.

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The basis of copyright law is Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution:

“To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries”

Copyright protection is for a “limited time” to “promote progress,” not for an excessive time to enrich publishers. A long copyright period was justified 200 years ago when book sales were extremely limited. What is the point of a copyright of 120 years for a popular movie or for Word 97, when the return on investment is recouped in a few years, not a century? How many fewer movies would be produced if the copyright lasted only 20 years, instead of 120?
Science and the useful arts would be better promoted with a much shorter copyright period. Having the copyright lapse on Word 97 would encourage Microsoft to make a new product that people would want to buy (instead of a new product that people have to buy because the old version is no longer sold and not compatible with new products, even though the vast majority of users do not need or want the “enhancements” in the new product.)

Like subsidies to corporate agriculture and tax breaks for oil companies, music and software publishers have convinced Congress to increase copyright term for their own greed, even though the increased terms run counter to the purpose of the copyright law, “promote the arts.”

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There are many reasons why sales are slipping in the entertainment industry, none of which have been addressed. People got tired of going out to buy an album with a song on it that they heard on the radio, only to find out that this song is the only good one on the album, and the record company obviously didn’t put an money into any other songs. People got tired of building up entire collections in one format (VHS, tape, etc), only to have it go obsolete in a few years when a new format is released, forcing them to re-buy their entire catalog (with no discount for trade-ins). People got tired of having to re-buy up to 25% of their collection each year because the format was cheap and inexpensive, breaking or scratching easily and needing replacement. Digital files eliminate all of these lucrative secondary sources of income that companies have relied on. Why don’t we see these facts accounted for in any statistics? Or - how about weird stuff like this: 10 digital songs equals one album? Nope - 1 digital song equals 1 entire CD not bought because that song was the only good song on the CD.

Or maybe, people (like me) finally discovered that it’s cheaper to wait a few months and buy stuff used on eBay or Amazon. You never hear companies bringing that up…..

Is there empirical evidence for the proposition that the availability of pirated music causes increased CD sales?

Look at the US Album Charts. No. 1 is the new album from Radio Head, that could be downloaded legally for nothing before the sale. (actually, as people could pay for it also, it seems that the group made a mean profit of 3$ per download - more than they make in selling the CD)

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