From one of the founder of the world famous Pirate Bay comes a new venture, Flattr. What it does is literally making web clicks into a currency, were you click on the content you want to give money to. I have attached a video explaining the concept better.
I really think this can be something. Clicks are already a way to get paid today with system such as Google Adwords and other advertising tools. We like to “Like” things on Facebook and just pressing a button to join a group. The big question mark is the man behind it, Peter Sunde famous from operating and defending Pirate Bay. Debating heavily in Sweden that things on the web should be free, its a bit strange that he develops a system for paying content creators on the net. Just a bit contradicting.
Yesterday when I was searching through all the system and account preferences on my PS3 to see if I could somehow change my account name, I found some hidden Facebook settings. Just out of curiosity I inserted my Facebook account information and then left it. And to my surprise, when I earn a Trophy it gets posted on my Facebook page. Amazing! A feature I really like and hope to see more of. Have been searching today on the web if Xbox have anything similar, but it doesn’t seem they have.
I knew Facebook and Twitter had come to Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 but didn’t find it to be that exciting. Just using the services on my console, with no extra or special features? But this PS3 Facebook connected thing was really neat!
Today it was time for me to receive the new Facebook interface design. Didn’t know it was coming until a few days ago when I recieved an invite to a Facebook group against the new design. That’s how my generation gets update on what happens in the world, Facebook groups invite.
Discussed it with some people at work today. They thought it was quite messy, but I don’t see it as that big of a deal. Facebook probably have a good reason behind the new design and they won’t change back now. Everytime they update their site, people complain, but then we don’t hear them anymore after a while. I don’t rememeber the old designs I lived through.
Now finally Facebook and Twitter on Xbox 360 have gone live. Downloaded them today and just briefly tried them out, and I don’t feel that blown away. How I understood it you have to enter the both services separately, and you can’t do anything else when you use them. Thats okey I guess, but it would be much more powerful it they accessable also when playing games. We don’t want to exit the game to access social services. For example wouldn’t it be great to be able between matches in Modern Warfare 2, to tweet the result, or tell everyone on Facebook the score? I haven’t explored the Xbox version completely and to connect with Xbox Live friends, it seems they have to “activate” the applications.
Its interesting to see how the social sites like Facebook, Twitter and even Last.fm is expanding to new territories such as the video game consoles. Companies start (or already have) understood the power of working with the social sites. For example at GamersGate I created our Facebook group and our Twitter feed (@Gamersgate). Its a great tool to communicate with our fans and followers. And its wonderful how we can connect all the services together. For example how every time I write a Tweet (which doesn’t happen often) it automatically generate a Facebook “what am I doing?”. And I am just learning more about Facebook Connect and the possibilities it offers. I look forward for the time when we only need one account that’s connected to all different services.
Chris Anderson - Free: The Future of a Radical Price
On my way to Germany last week I finished reading Chris Andersons book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. The expectation from the Long Tail have been sky high, and though not as good, or revolutionary as the Long Tail, its still a must read. Some part very rather slow to get through while some chapters I found felt more valued in my opinion. What I like about is how Chris don’t claim that everything should be free, rather how the concept of Free can be utilised to build business from scratch or even for big companies to stay competitive. Even some example when the big boys have to adapt to the changing digital market, thanks to the spread use of free software and services on the web. How Google is one of the biggest forces pushing and expanding free.
I really like the part were he write about combining Free and Paid, with a lot of great examples.To use Free to build a potential customer base, and then charge for a premium service for those who want more advanced features or more storage.
Maybe what I missed was a discussion of which companies that can benefit from Free, and those who don’t. I think it would be great to try to criticise his theories to strengthen them.
It is great to see that Chris take this concept into reality by giving his book away for Free in either Audio book and eBook. This isn’t new, to give away as many books as possible to get interest up and build his own brand. He doesn’t make his money on book sales, but rather on people booking him to come and speak and going into details about his theories. The same way music artist start to give away their music, broaden the fan base who then will pay for other things such as concert and merchandise.
By reading this book, after many fictional books recently, it got my business mind and thoughts start working again. It really inspired me, which is a good thing!
One of the biggest news today in Sweden (and on the web as well) is that Swedish file-sharing site The Pirate Bay have been bought by Global Gaming Factory, another Swedish company. GGF claim to wanna turn the site into a legal company and platform. In an interview by Swedish television he said we wanted to change the business model and pay! for those to share files.
“We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site,” said Hans Pandeya, CEO of GGF
“The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most visited internet sites in the world. However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary.
“Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File-sharers need faster downloads and better quality,” he added.
What I find interesting is that I have been in contact with that company and even had a meeting in our old office. But they didn’t make a good impression and the GGF company feel like a real scam business. Its gonna be interesting to see were this is going. Now, what can you say, all the “philosophical” self-righteous people out there who claim that The Pirate Bay isn’t out for making money?
The most comical thing about this whole deal is how a company(site) that claims everything should be free, now sells it self for millions of dollars. If they should have stuck to their philosophy they should have given it all away, the way they proclaim content creators should do.
The talk of how the internet have changed our society and business work can’t be understated. In so many way, some we haven’t thought of yet. One of the most interesting opportunities the web brings is the easy and fast possibility of Self-Publishing. With the internet as our new open tool, a band, game developer or author doesn’t have to rely on a bigger company to (maybe) get published. The big record label might fear this more than others as medium to smaller bands have a platform to do distributing and marketing themselves through sites like MySpace, Spotify and IMEEM, they can reach out directly to their fans.
The role of the publishers, labels and big media companies have really changed. With all the new technology available for everyone and just a little bit of knowledge and common sense everyone can make it on their own. Okey, you probably won’t get into retailers like Wallmart and such, but with the web, you can have your own shop, opened 24/7. You can reach out to new or potential fans with your Myspace page, mod an open source game-engine to make your own game, and distribute you homemade video on Youtube. For those who aim to break it to the top you still need the knowledge, contacts and financial support for the big boys. But they should still be a bit affraid I believe.
One of those smaller studios or self publishers, can become quite the threat for bigger players. Example from the gaming industry is Valve and Blizzard. They began as small developers and are now both milion if not bilion dollar companies. Still, its the never ending loop, when small companies become big and they have to addapt to stay big and they often lose their soul. And with it their core fans. And it can take away focus from that spark and the creativity which made them big. Then companies grow to be really big, it becomes more business and the people and company have to addapt to survive. It sad in many ways but thats probably the price they are willing to pay.
Now its been a while since I wrote something here, but we have had a really busy time lately. Specially at GamersGate that have been taking most of my time and energy.
Among all the new things we have rolled out is the new design of the site. It feels great and fresh to finally open the new design along with some new features. Check it out!
New GamersGate Design
Also we now offer Mac games for purchase and download. Something that I have been a driving force on the office to implement. I have long felt that we have to cature the Mac market and there are lots of great games for Mac available. We just need to find them and offer them to our customers and new customers.
Besides Mac games we released digital game strategy guides. We still have a lot of guides we need to prepare.
And this weekend we will attend DreamHack to promote our site and company. Hope to show some pictures next week.
Found this video yesterday. In just three and a half minutes it illustrate the changes the society have gone through when it come to advertising and how we react to it.
In the past, advertising must have been much easier. A limited amount of brands, not to much competition. Today its another ballgame. The channels have expanded and so have the means of using them, as well as the competition. An evolution that have contributed to marketers re-thinking and becoming even more aggressive in how they push their message into our brains. One example is using “smart” (un-ethical?) methods to print brands in our brains at a very early age. Nowadays, even before we are borne, our parents get bombarded with messages and they try to get into our mind from the day we are borned. Those “Persuaders” won’t stop for nothing to reach us and lock us in.
Even with all the new theories and study s that show how marketers must be smarter and rethink how they reach people and build loyal customers, they still doesn’t seem to want to let go of they old ways of marketing. Banners for example is still a big part of the internet and its economy, but everytime I’ve through work tried it, its been a big disappointment. Instead I try to focus on building a top notch service with great content that people love and by them self want to recommend to friends. Building tools that enable loyal customers to easy tell their friends, instead of spamming and scaring potential customers away.
Also take the time and energy to go out and talk to your customer, on blogs and forums. Not just advertise, but truly talk to them about everything. And not only your products and brand, but everything. Be authentic and engage. The tools to communicate with, not just to your customer, is better, cheaper and easier then ever before. Use them, but don’t abuse them.
The years 2008 and 2009 are the years everyone talk about Twitter. Before it was blogs and social media like Facebook, but now its all about micro-blogging. Everywhere I look on the internet there is news about Twitter, on how to utilise it best for business, connecting or marketing. Everyone seems to tweet, but is anyone really reading them, or do we just want to send out messages and not read others? I have found that it can be a great way to filter what news I want to read and get it all sent to me. Also how I can connect all my different web service like Facebook, my blog and Twitter. I even setup one of GamersGate were that automatically create a tweet everytime we add a new game.
Twitter have definetly become the number one micro-blogging platform. To view a great presentation about Twitter go to TED.com. A form of extension of blogging were you simply write a 140 characters on what you do that moment. Now comes Flutter the next evolution of Twitter. Is it for real or is it not? Its up to you to decide
