I finished my Age of Conversation article. It’s titled “The Creative Multiplier,” and is about how new media can change creatives’ perspective on creativity and influence.

And yes, somewhere along the way the advertising industry totally nouned the word “creative.”

In order to get my mind right and have some conversation on the topic, I asked several good friends the following question:

New media has democratized large-scale expression. Because there is now access to tools (like iMovie, GarageBand, digital cameras) and distribution (creating a podcast is free, blogging, youtube, etc), more people can be “writers,” “designers,” “film producers” than ever before.

How do you think this affects creativity, in practice and in perception – both as a job and as a lifestyle and a hobby?

The responses varied a good bit, but were all insightful. Here are some favorites:

Doug Williams from Trabian -

It’s smashed distribution channels and smashed production barriers. So, it’s created kind of an anarchy of creativity. It’s good in the sense that creative people can have their voices heard on the exact same platform successful creatives can have their voices heard.

For some it’s good, for some, they’re just rehashing fart jokes.

The downside is that those barriers held within them revenue streams and profits that allowed companies to assume the risk in developing truly talented individuals.

It also helped filter out the good from the bad – of course, some really good things got filtered out…and the “mainstreaming” of creativity was a downfall to that system. So…in a sense, it’s empowered creatives.

However, it’s removed a fundamental distribution channel designed (although it can be debated how effectively it worked) to reward creative people, put them in front of thousands of people, and to invest in them.

Ches Campbell from SWA Group -

I think the more access we have, the more creativity can take place. Without the tools to do things, we can’t create……the best example for me would be digital cameras and photoshop. I can do all the photo imaging I want on my own in my house, or at a coffee shop or anywhere without having to own a bunch of equipment or going to a studio somewhere. Same with other forms of digital media.

It inspires me to actually go for it and do somethign instead thinking “I should do this,” because I actually have the means to do things

Charlie Trotter from Trabian:

One interesting side-effect I’ve experienced lately is how that affects people who make their living being creative. I can jump on Vimeo or Flickr or LOLZIES! and post my latest fit of creativity to rave reviews. They are pieces I feel good about, am proud of, etc.

When people do those kinds of things for fun, I think we get some really interesting, organic pieces of creative work. But when I try to bring that energy into my professional work, it’s more challenging because now I’m trying to please several different people with several different subjective views.

I wonder how this generation will react to professional pursuits having grown up with the creative enabling social media offers, because many of them will have spent so much time creatively only answering to themselves.

Brad Garland from The Garland Group -

From a business perspective, it allows the small businesses of the world (AKA the mom and pop’s) to compete on a level playing field with any other company, no matter the marketing budget. SmBs have the ability to promote themselves and share and connect with other that they once couldn’t afford before.

For example, our company is essentially created a television station for viewers of the financial services world. Yes, it wouldn’t show up on the top 1000 channels on your cable box but we are able to connect, network, and share with those that are interested in that field. We’ve had over 22K views of our content over the last 3 months and because of that content, it has turned into magazine articles, speaking engagements, consultant jobs, and connecting with people that we would not had the opportunity before.

Cheryl Doerksen from Currency Marketing -

Well on one hand I think that it definitely serves to encourage and stimulate creativity. With such easy access and easy to use tools, people are able to work on their own little projects without feeling the often creativity-constraining pressure of the cost factor. On the other hand one could argue that it begins to dilute creativity because people start to put everything up as ‘creations’ that may or may not have originally been dubbed as something born out of creativity as much as boredom.

As a job I think that more and more people are (or should be) being encouraged to exercise their creativity and access to these things enables that movement and increasing prioritization of the importance of expressing and fostering creativity.

Chad Gowan from All Speeds -

I think it opens up a lot of doors to dabble, maybe effects ones focus on what they really excel in. But another perspective could be that it doesn’t limit people from finding that one niche or the creative outlet that makes them all fuzzy inside.

Daniel Miller from The Leet World -

It sets the talented people apart, content is king. If your content is good, the theory is that it should rise to the top. Thats not always the case (unfortunately), thats what the internet brings to the table.

The flip side to the coin is while making content is cheap, and its a great creative outlet, its hard to get noticed by someone who wants to pay you for your intellectual property. Its like finding a needle in a haystack the size of the Pacific Ocean. And i think alot of people want to say that creating something is a reward in itself.

When you have to work a day job for 9 hours a day, then go home and do a hobby for free it starts to wear on you. It’s a double edged sword.
/end rant

Carter Martin from CM Design -

• Competition is now in theory infinite
• There’s no excuse not to try
• The cream continues to rise to the top, no one is ignorant / ambitious enough to keep cracking away at creative things unless there is some form of audience or they’re making a living off of it.
• Most creativity is spawned from within, but its continuation is for the most part based on the positive or negative reaction of others. Any reaction is reason to continue, but silence kills the spirit.

Thanks to everyone I talked to for your perspectives. I feel lucky and thankful to have smart friends.

Care to weigh in?

Last week, social music network Last.fm said that since allowing free streaming of full-length tracks and albums through their site, just two months ago, they’ve seen a 119% increase music sales through Amazon.

Users can stream music and buy through Amazon in two ways:

1) Through their audio player (downloadable software):

2) Through their site:

Here’s a right-on-the-money reaction from ars technica:

If music sales as a result of streaming offerings show growth over a longer period of time (say, a year), then other services may also begin to push for full-track previews in hopes of increasing sales. Imagine if Amazon MP3 or iTunes allowed full previews on their respective services before buying—digital music could take off even faster than it already has. It shows how the very ideas that the music industry resisted for years have the potential to pay off financially.

Chris Anderson is saying “told you so” right now.

On April 7th, the always awesome and sometimes snooty music reviewers at Pitchfork will launch Pitchfork.tv, an online video music channel dedicated to indie music:

As a visual extension of the music coverage Pitchfork has provided for more than a decade, and a means of updating and advancing the music television format, the online channel will bring you closer to the artists you love, through original mini-documentaries, secret rooftop and basement sessions, full concerts, exclusive interviews, and the most carefully curated selection of music videos online. (from pitchforkmedia.com)

There goes any productivity I had left in me. I cannot wait.

If you’d like to read Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber get grilled on his true business motivations (“Q: If you had to make a comparison, would you say that Pitchfork today is more like MTV when it pushed the button in 1981, or are you Jann Wenner in 1970, building up the Rolling Stone media empire?”) check out this interview with the Chicago Sun-Times.

GumGum, a new way to license digital media, launched a couple of days ago:

Offline, content is licensed for a finite period of time to a predictable audience. Online, content lives forever and usage is unknown. This raises the question: How do you fairly monetize a license when circulation is unpredictable? GumGum distributes, tracks and monetizes every view a piece of content receives online. (gumgum.com)

GumGum’s licensing model makes money with CPM or ad revenue. It works like this:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znx_VWFrHi0]

Licensing is only available for images right now, but they have plans up their sleeve for audio, video, and text. Read a more in-depth analysis on TechCrunch here.

Rejected pun-laden post title: “Will GumGum stick?”

(via fluidesign_blog)

Fast Company, a business magazine with a heavy lean towards design and innovation (and a personal favorite of mine), has relaunched their website as a social network. Edward Sussman, President of Mansueto Digital, says this about the new FastCompany.com:

Starting today, we become the first major media website to tackle the following problem: Can a business publication blend journalism and online community to create something better than either by itself?

We think so. If done right.

For a publication who’s brand is ideas, I love this. Users who join the network can blog and comment, “befriend” other users, post videos, or even suggest questions to Fast Company. In opting to play equal parts mouth and mouthpiece, the new site is a big, fat, fascinating conversation. I’m looking forward to seeing how the user-generated commentary is used in the the printed magazine.

Conversations in motion include:

• Can good design save a bad product?
• How Social is “Social” Media?
• What is the role of the individual in corporate social responsibility?

Join the conversation by creating a profile here. And if you want, add me as a friend.

I just read a November New York Times article about 360, or “multiple rights,” deals. It’s an emerging music business model in which labels invest in bands for the longer haul.

It works like this: Labels bankroll more cash upfront, work more heavily in artist development, and in exchange get a bigger share of artist earnings. Traditionally, labels made money from artists based on album sales, but with 360 deals, artists share earnings beyond albums (a reaction to rapidly declining album sales) - including concerts, merch, and other revenue.

For new artists, these deals are supposed to provide for a little more breathing room to grow into stardom. Paramore seems to be the flagship example of a 360-deal-gone-right. Their label, Fueled by Ramen (an Atlantic Records partner and once-home of the ex-Impossibles from Austin Texas, a band I loved dearly in high school…but that’s neither here nor there), apparently nursed them along for a long time before they hit it. In an MTV article, their lead singer said this about the relationship:

I feel like we have a new kind of partnership with our label…

…a lot of bands on indie labels, they’re working their way up, but it’s slow…and so they don’t get the chances we got. We spent two years playing to, like, anywhere from nine to 20 kids, and it grew gradually over those two years, and it got to where it is today because of that. But I don’t feel like a lot of bands get that leniency, that patience, to just wait around for that big single to happen.

I’m split: Half of me is really skeptical, and half of me likes it. It certainly feels better than hearing about labels dropping artists after almost no time because album sales didn’t hit the mark. This new model almost ends up treating the album as a marketing piece for the band’s full experience, which is really going back to how the Grateful Dead did business. They gave away their music, rocked out, and merchandised.

I guess the bottomline is that success depends on the label - for it to work, labels have to follow through on their promise to nurture talent. I just hope “nurture talent” doesn’t end up being another way to say “convince the talent to become a sell-out hit-factory.”

What do you think?

Last night’s was arguably one of the best Super Bowls in a long time. To quote my highly-caffeinated friend Chase Jones, who’s a better sports commentator than I’ll ever be:

UNDOUBTEDLY THE MOST ASTONISHING UPSET VICTORY IN THE WORLDS GREATEST GAME ON THE WORLDS GREATEST STAGE IN HISTORYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

That said, the crop of ads this year was completely disappointing (except for CareerBuilder’s, which always grabbed the room). If you missed them - or just want to relive the dumb - they’re all online, organized by quarter, on the Super Bowl Ads MySpace Page.

It seems that lately, not just with the Super Bowl but across the board, media has overtaken creative as the cool kid on the advertising block. If so, that’s a problem.

Was this year’s sad lot reflective of changes in the ad industry, or was this just a bad year?

Starting today, legal file-sharing network Qtrax is opening up access to 25,000,000 free songs, all supported by relevant advertising (think Google ads). You’ll need the Qtrax player to access the songs, which sadly is Windows only (Mac OS version to ship out on March 18th).

This isn’t the first time an ad-supported music model has given it a shot. SpiralFrog launched at the end of 2006. So far, they’ve had huge losses. The company who will sell advertising for Qtrax is actually founded by two ad execs who left SpiralFrog (says the NY Times).

Qtrax’s target audience are users of illegal file sharing networks. From the New York Times article:

Labels hope that the legitimacy and convenience of services like Qtrax will help them compete with unauthorized offerings. “We hope this service will draw from the illegal P-to-P sites,” said George White, senior vice president, Strategy and Product Development for Warner Music Group.

My projection: This won’t catch on. Ad supported models rely on mass use. Qtrax downloads require the Qtrax player and won’t work on an iPod. The first ad supported music that works will be wildly accessible, and the music will be just as easy to download and use as any given song from an illegal file-sharing network. Right now this model offers an enormous value proposition for the music industry, but not much for their target user.

Dear music industry: you can’t stop piracy from happening, but you can compete with it. It’s up to you to be competitive.

Update (1/29/08): I just read on TechCrunch that Qtrax pretty much botched the job (from “Qtrax really blows its launch“):

In what may be the dumbest business move of the year so far, Qtrax announced its free music download service this weekend before bothering to sign contracts with three of the four major labels. Now the music companies are saying, “Wait a second, there is no deal yet. We’re just talking to Qtrax.” Without the labels on board, there is no service.

C’est la vie.

This week Trey and I are heading to Ol’ Milwaukee, Wisconsin to present at the Wisconsin Credit Union League’s Annual Convention. Here’s a little doodle on the life and times of connectivity from our presentation: