3 BIG Hurdles To John Battelle's Internet Nirvana

1).

Respect:-

You've cited the potential assumption that brands are 'publishers of content'. Actually in a social world, my view is that brands are the subject of the conversation, not the owners of it, however much the platforms and brands themselves are deluding themselves and/ or us to the contrary. The graph owns the conversation and the graph is made up of hundreds of millions of people still trying to define their digital homes in an environment where the same respect, ownership and privacy afforded their physical ones is being ignored.  Current business models presume the platforms and the advertisers own the graph, a colonial right to enter those homes by stealth, digital rape or force and so that model needs to flip 180 degrees. The Customer is always right and the emphasis in my opinion should be for brands to work out how to earn our respect, such that they become increasingly part of our conversation. You are right about the end game, but note the subtle difference in the journey. Respect cannot be taken, it has to be earnt and that works both ways.

2).

Trust:-

If I suddenly woke up one morning with a hangover from hell and in the middle of some saharan desert and there was just a stall selling Coca Cola, I would feel perfectly happy opening a bottle, safe in the knowledge that it would taste as I expected and not cause me any harm. I would suggest that the majority of internet users do not currently trust any of the main platform providers. (Some of whom, have been so abhorrently flagrant in their abuses of what trust we have vested that I'm not sure they deserve a resolution) I am also staggered for instance that Coca Cola would risk the brand value earned over generations by aligning themselves anywhere near those organisations in their current guise. However, I do think that if the business models of social networks were flipped 180 degrees and replicated the principles of one's physical homes, villages and towns, based on common interest instead of location, then the creation of content, value and aspiration would both allow for monetisation through underpinning that with a digital currency and likewise encourage a new age of global optimism and sharing. (It would also make Hyperlocal make sense of course and either make AoL's investment in Patch an embarassing mistake or help them redefine it into a content creation facility that has true value.)

The battle is for a Digital democracy vs the Digital Socialism/ Dictatorship path we are following. I don't 'like' anything on Facebook because I see that as offering the world a free camera into my own home. I think everyone else is starting to realise that they are all naive entrants to a Truman Show world where all the upside is in the hands of a few people who are repeatedly proving they cannot be trusted. Once we establish that our digital homes are ours to trade and our content is our currency, then some of us who enjoy creating and contributing might like to open up and deliver the advertisers wet dream. (The fabulous, but poor, train loving photographer in Chicago, might like the idea of a few cents from every person that enjoys his images and articles about trains) If consumers could trust the platforms and the latter weren't fuelled by a misguided business model and valuation driven greed, then perhaps the trust they require could start to be achieved. In the meantime, they, the media and politicians who are increasingly beholded to the dark machine are all losing our trust and just because 700m users have proven we all like to be connected, it doesn't mean the wheels of the machines they inhabit are really turning in a sustainable way or that you can treat brand loyalty as irrelevant or hide behind 'failing forwards fast'.

What if for example, the big brands who have entered the black hole of 'creepy social 1.0' on faith alone came to realise that a few million 'likes' is totally meaningless and even counter productive if the platform suffers a catastrophic viral rebellion based on a trigger we haven't yet seen signs of, or that in fact their long-standing cache has suddenly started to spiral downwards and out of control. (See Aspiration below) A new entrant into the market could turn up like Facebook did and with the benefit of hindsight, do it better, faster and with a more tangible consumer tie-in maybe; or perhaps one privacy abuse too many that touches a global and political nerve, brings the whole house tumbling down or at least sets all the world's decent politicians to unite in protecting their once held personal democratic values, they are themselves apparently now treating with the same contempt, the platforms are treating us.

3).

Aspiration:-

Because we have a three way mexican stand-off between Apple, Google and Microsoft effectively dominating the world's digital engine rooms with companies like Facebook, Twitter etc. using their supply of fuel (social graph) to try and arrest a position at a higher level with the aforementioned or looking to create a new ship of their own on the one hand. And media conglomerates, who blinked and misssed them leaving port on the other; I believe your nirvana is fundamentally screwed until the final battle is fought and won. Traditionally, power has always resided with the world's most successful brands; Coca Cola, Ford, Disney, BBC, Time Warner, Viacom, CBS, Fiat, GE, Wal-Mart etc. etc. Now we are seeing the ever so subtle pressure developing which was the inevitable result of the fact that one or more of the big three is supporting the digital fibre of those businesses and as we know, the bigger the reliance, the larger the control. Collectively though, they all should be reminded that they are only in existence as a result of human aspiration. The founding entrepreneur's aspiration to change the world and the consumer's aspiration to want to be better. Social networks are destroying aspiration in my opinion and as brands succumb to 'the light' like flies to a UV lamp and in pursuit of short-term gain, they are no longer standing out from the crowd and increasingly, where once people looked up to them, the new flat environments simply force people to look across. How long before the only brands with any 'reluctant' reverance are the ones controlling the platforms and once glorious names are merely categories within a super-brand like Skynet or AGM?

My background for most of my career was as a Manager of some not so well known and some iconic Artistes/ Producers and I watch in horror as I see kids think the only route to fame nowadays is by getting their tits done or queuing in line for a TV show, where a back catalog song is milked for yet more life and money and a dumbed down public pays to choose it's fodder for the coming year until we start all over. All routes via traditional sweat, A&R and truly lasting global talent all but closed off. Will kids aspire to a viral hit on YouTube and being 'liked' on Facebook if they're still working the checkout at Wal-Mart and how will any of us be able to find talent outside of the machine if the only place it is distributed is within it and dominated by the big three and the media companies they can bring into line around or beneath them.

In a world of so much noise, there is only so much human capacity for infinite choice and we need to have places where real talent can reach us honestly and organically. I think there is a gaping hole on the internet for a platform where technology meets media and that would provide the absolute safety valve we need to prevent the big brands dying in the social vortex and the three 'Mexicans' carving up the world between them and killing the oxygen supply to everyone that doesn't comply. Aspiration only works when the top of the mountain is worth attaining.

The absence of a truly elegant environment on the internet where brands are revered instead of made to look ordinary and where kids can believe that however they express themselves creatively, they may achieve heights unparalleled in history, is becoming a critical necessity to preserve and encourage respect, trust and aspiration. The best way of persuading them has always been and will always be to buy music, art etc. and watch people get really rich. Facebook are currently focused on everyone knowing how rich they are getting on our content not encouraging a platform where the content we create is ours to share, trade and benefit from. Why should we create value for Facebook? Personally, I think it's time for Mark to go and Sheryl to take over leading up to and after the IPO, when the beneficiaries of the business done right should be the pension funds of our children. At the moment Mark can still claim rightfully the creation of the world's biggest change since the internet itself and even perhaps be forgiven for some of the ways he got there. But as an ongoing role model and safe guardian? No, certainly not... Facebook could provide a democratic mechanism to help the world discover talent, but trying to build, control and retain the media 'head' within their 'long-tail' technology platform is both an oxymoron and for reasons people can explore by visiting my blog, potentially also tresspassing on my IPR.

Always appreciate more followers and RT's etc. on http://www.twitter.com/famebook for those that think my humble ramblings are worthwhile!

What should Google do to completely overhaul its social strategy?

Google's biggest problem isn't social, it is sex! - Great sex starts of course with trust, but also that simple attraction factor and I highlight the word simple.

So much of what Google does frustrates me, because in many ways they are at least aesthetically becoming the lesser of many evils, especially in terms of their inherent two way financial relationship with users and the presumption of ownership of one's digital identity. (Demand Media gets heavily criticized, but again has a genuinely two way mechanism and is also in its infancy imho.)

The problem is, they can't seem to turn me on. I use iGoogle to create my snapshot stream of news and it's great functionally, but totally mundane in look and feel. I simply wouldn't use any of Google's hosted products for any personal or business activity because as far as I'm aware there isn't any strong enough protection I can buy over the counter to make me feel safe enough and to be honest in the absence of that lustful, churning desire in my tummy to progress the relationship, I see little point.

Thousands of genius minds at the Plex is great, but they are so clearly not representative of the other 99.9% of the rest of us and how we like things and in my opinion they ought to be hiring more stupid people to help convert the back end awesome breadth of technology into front windows that we don't have to work so hard to buy into, can totally trust and benefit from and that have us begging for more. If I were Google, I would also have a whole department focused on how to make Jonathan Ive an offer he couldn't refuse to join them or to find an alternative person. (I would do it for slightly less if you are interested ;-)

I think Joe Greenstein's answer sums up things pretty well otherwise, but I'm skeptical that any are achievable, unless the leadership stops treating their slide as a technical or product failing, rather a blindness to the fact that whilst they may have everything else in abundance, they've never actually had 'it'. The latter being the one thing that would reverse current trends and realize their long held ambitions.

Microsoft has a little bit of it, Apple definitely has it, Facebook used to have it but to the consumer none of them have the whole package and they certainly don't trust any of them, especially the current incumbent. Some are starting to look the part, but there's always this nagging worry that you could decide to get intimate and then have your heart broken when you realize you were just another notch on the digital bedpost or worse!

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Afterthoughts... (Please go wild with your comments ;-)

Extending the analogy:-

If Apple is a love affair, Google is asexual and Microsoft is a teenage crush, then what do you call Facebook and others who keep on cheating on you and who, if any, would the 'digital you' actually marry?

"America’s innovation is reliant on sustaining a demand from the global market. On current balance and with Obama stating at Facebook that he doesn’t want bright Chinese kids building the next Intel in China, but coming to the US to build it I believe that innovation isn’t your problem, rather your global public image is what really needs massive investment. Given that Facebook state that 70% of their users are outside the US and they show little or no respect for their rights as digital persona or their privacy, Apple are now found to be stalking every iPhone and iPad owner and Google also not squeeky clean, then it does look a bit like brand US and screw the rest of you whatever the moral cost.

I recognize that innovation is at the heart of growth, but when 70% of users wake up and realize that they are feeding an attitude of domination not free market globalization and integration, then they and the rest of your world markets are going to start ‘unfriending’ you at a staggering rate.

I love America, but what Facebook, Google and now Apple are doing would, in the days of a free media and unfettered journalists, be the stuff of Pulitzers and ‘….gates’ and for your President to stand next to them and imply his endorsement because he’s beholden to the machinery for re-election makes many of us around the world both anxious about the future and very disappointed with brand US. And rest assured we will also innovate twice as hard against it!"

America as the 'beacon of the free world' used to have a nice ring to it, but the light for me is fading... 

Lest my faith is suddenly restored, you can follow me on Twitter or sign up for alerts using the appropriate links.

Why Facebook Town Hall Shows Obama is Missing the Point on Innovation

Taken from 'A Few Good Men'...

Zuck: *You want answers?*
Blodget: *I want the truth!*
Zuck: *You can't handle the truth!*
[pauses]
Zuck: Son, we live in a world that has privacy walls, and those walls have to be destroyed by stealth. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Obama? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Privacy, and you curse the facebookers. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Privacy's death, while tragic, is the only way we can make money with our current business model. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, makes that possible. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you like connecting with people. We use words like fail forward, opt out, plunder. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent building our valuation. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a global population who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the connectivity that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a keyboard, and hack away. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.
Blodget: Did you steal people's ideas and trample over our privacy?
Zuck: I did the job I...
Blodget: *Did you steal people's ideas and trample over our privacy?*

to be continued... (Fill in Zuck's answer via the comments below):

Zuck: ..............................................

*Note: This is my own personal opinion and does not imply statements or comments actually made. I don't hate Facebook, I just think their business model is all wrong and believe their actions on many things are reprehensible and in the absence of evidence to the contrary just don't trust them or the press who are becoming beholden to them. If you read the comments on any articles relating to Facebook, it would seem to me that roughly 60-80% of their users don't either. That's a shame when it's our content which is underpinning it! To that end, I make no apology for poking a little fun at them above!

Remember; YOUR home is YOUR castle and you are the king of that and your personal identity and you choose how to portray both. You choose who to let in and what you want them to see when you are there and the brands on display are ones you've selected, not someone else. The B&O TV, Jimmy Choo shoes and Prada handbag speak to who you are or want to be... you're not sponsored to like them, you just do. Likewise, you know you can say what you want in there and it is private. There's no risk of it being used to define you by any third party and when friends come over you may barter some of your value; the cakes you made, a dress that doesn't fit or theatre tickets you can't use. If you recommend a plumber, you do so honestly and get the same value back when you need something. That's social interaction and unless as a brand you are in at that level, then stop kidding yourself that you are engaging socially with your customers. It's just bullshit!

Now let's say you as an individual really own your 'digital' you. Not as a joint venture, but 100% and you want to replicate your 'social' life online. The start point has to be the ability to own your own home or lease it in a way that ensures everything that happens behind the front door is yours first and foremost. Some people rent their 'castles, some buy them and some live with their parents but have their own bedroom with the same rules applying; and you can pay for that privilege in numerous ways which is of course your perogative and down to your own circumstances.

Regardless of the way you pay, it's still YOUR place. If you are a social person and lots of people value your choices, then any benefit to be had for influencing your friend's choices within that place must rightfully be yours. Celebrities not only get paid for endorsing brands, they rarely pay for the brands themselves. Why shouldn't you deserve the same proportionate benefit however small? Similarly, everyone has an area of expertise nowadays, whether it's just being a mum or say as an awesome specialist photographer with a passion for trains. If I said that millions of train lovers or mums might pay you a few cents for your expertise if you allowed them into your digital home, then would you open up and be motivated to share 'socially'? I bet you would. Likewise if I offered you a selection of brands that you could choose, which you felt best reflected your personality and the likely choices of your friends and gave you the majority share of revenue for some elegant adverts adjacent to your digital home; would you spend some time to make that look as nice as you would your kitchen or dining room. I think so.

Your Facebook, Twitter, Google etc. profiles aren't social. They're just entertainment. Until you own your own home within those environments, you wouldn't and shouldn't really open up the real you to anyone. There are moves to trick you into installing mikes into your living room on an opt out basis and you should be well aware of that. If you like stuff on Facebook and RT brand messages for free, in my opinion you're a mug. Save that for when you meet in person, where you are still in charge and own the lion's share of your own value creation or until a platform which respects you as an individual and the sanctity of your own home comes along!

To brands; I understand the challenges, but if you want to stand out from the crowd, you shouldn't be dumbing yourself to a level playing field and being complicit in raping targeting data from people, will do you no favours in the long run. You're the guys who are paying the bills and if you treat the digital individual and their digital homes with respect, they will eventually welcome you in... and in a way which is meaningful.

Social media isn't social yet. It will become social though in my view. As my telephone as a utility enables me to work, socialise, be entertained and play so social networking platforms are equally a utility, but the conversation and content will always be mine and needs to happen within my own space, built on ground I can trust. It doesn't exist yet, but when it does, the next challenge will be fuelling aspiration and where you go if you really do stand out from the crowd. I'll leave you to guess who that landlord will be!

In the meantime and in the world of 'digital land', I want to own my own home and when I do, you're all invited to a party! ......and that by the way, is when we really know we are 'friends' and the supposed ambition becomes a reality and not just a smokescreen! ;-)

(BTW if you are a leading global brand, give me a call... our first few in are more than just Clients and Friends, they are major Partners.)

How will music labels make money, if at all, over the next five years?

As a manager for much of my career, who started literally in the back of a van with one act to working fifteen years later with some iconic names, I can say with some confidence that the big problem for the industry today is not the method of delivery and new ways to monetize this long tail model; it is the destruction of aspiration which has not been properly appreciated yet. Kids playing air guitar in their bedroom dream of being rockstars, living in mansions and ruling the world of popular culture. They don't dream of a viral hit on YouTube or Facebook, whilst they still pack the shelves at the mall and the former take the lions share of the meagre spoils of their effort. The idea that their page on Facebook will ever stand out from the crowd is of course an oxymoron by definition and if their only route is via a TV show and phone votes, then their music can never be considered a new wave, it will always be a sanitised and manufactured career based on back catalogue covers as a measure of their ability and not a great route for break out artists who are doing something original and creating their own momentum.

Artists need a head to the global long tail business of today to aspire to and it doesn't exist (yet - ;-), rather in the current evolution, the old ones are being destroyed & those 'mountains' are being flattened, to crowd level by those that would control the income stream via phone votes and social control systems.

We need a new break out wave of popular culture like Punk or Hip Hop which transcends all the current business mechanisms out there, driven by the consumer and on the back of which the industry re-aligns itself and does what art is supposed to do; which is to reflect the mood of generations not just line the pockets of those who think the chicken came before the egg, but the artists themselves and our cultures in general.

Do you really want your musical choice in the future to be chosen by phone vote and based on an architected selection of acts whose life expectancy will be in single digits in terms of albums if that? Fast food, fast music... what next? You may like the occasional Maccy D's, but what if that's all you could eat?

Personally I have faith that popular uprising in music is timeless and I would love to see an artist or band take off, that acts as an antidote to the current status quo and rather than see millions of people waste their dwindling money on phone voting, lotteries and virtual goods, they buy that artists' material directly and watch him/ her or them get rich. That is the only way you truly know you made that artist happen and make aspiration for future musicians mean anything.

If you think I'm wrong, then ask yourself which artists of today will be remembered by your great grand children. In my opinion they will still talk about The Beatles, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe etc. etc. but not many of this generation I venture. #saveaspiration - all roads lead to Famebook of course ;-)

...Apart from thinking that Facebook like cigarette co's should have a Govt. health warning words to the effect of 'what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, unless we decide to change our TOS's and use that information we now have on you'; I think it's ironic that the overwhelming majority of people commenting on tech publications like TC are negative on Facebook and ambivalent at worst on Google. This seems to be increasingly at odds with the publications themselves who seem to me at least to slant in the opposite direction. Is the rising prevalence of FB Connect pure coincidence?

Perhaps Facebook are playing neatly into Google's hand, because when push comes to shove the deal was we built our 'private' digital identity on Facebook's free platform in return for having adverts adjacent to our data. The subsequent and abhorrent 'opt out' rape of our privacy and implied ransom of our own data by Facebook's lack of an export function, has done nothing to create any brand loyalty and it seems to me Google has the aesthetic higher moral ground with the all important users. Should they overcome the simplicity, style, integrity, portability, longevity and privacy issues in a new social product under wraps or support/ invest in another start up version, I think the latent bad feeling Facebook seems so complacent about, could be catastrophic.

A persons' digital identity is their currency not Facebook's or Google's or any other providers either. Continued reliance on a business model or political ideology which trys to sustain a value out of ransoming that asset is both morally suspect in my view and simply not logical in the long term. The old adage that if you love people set them free, rings bells with me especially and I've been saying for some time (see blogs) that if each individual controlled their own digital identity, got paid for the ads on their pages and on a user-generated basis chose what categories those adverts should be to suit their social graph and to ensure maximum relevance, then noone would have to rape your privacy to achieve that by stealth and under the spurious excuse of 'failing forward fast'. Everyone would share freely and the social graph would be trustworthy and free in the spirit of the internet. I also think a platform provider like Facebook would increase revenues tenfold and the Kirkpatrick assertions of altruism might start to be believable. Everything else is just further evidence to the contrary.

Plus afterthoughts:

If I were Facebook and not forsaking the above, I would really question the Microsoft like approach to its corporate reputation. Even at its most greedy or arrogant, the prospect of Linux or Apple for most people was too much of a hurdle, but in Facebook's case, if a viable alternative arrives, Google or otherwise, you're really only talking about a refresh of your contact lists somewhere else. I keep a note of all my email addresses anyway, but if you don't, then as sites like Foursquare etc. demonstrate, the people most keen on communciating with you socially, will follow you werever you go.

I'm not frightened of sharing stuff and would love to embrace the social graph more freely. But it's my stuff and if anyone is going to make money from it, it's me. Likewise, it's noone's place but a parents to decide what private information their child, may have uploaded to the internet based on one set of privacy principles, should or should not be shared without notice by the host to that information. If you as the host abuse that trust then I look at you as I would any abuser, with a certain contempt and anger. If you don't understand that, then you really need to learn to, if you want me to respect you or your brand because in the abscence of that I just assume you don't care and certainly won't encourage my child anywhere near your platform.

If you genuinely just want the world to be more friendly and connected and that is your core philosophy, I guess it's time to prove it. Don't hold my digital identity and social graph to ransom, whoever you are! It's mine, not yours...and always will be!

Will Facebook Be Tomorrow’s Google, and Google Tomorrow’s Microsoft?

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Personally I don't see this working for two reasons:

Firstly the Idol format on network broadcast still gives the performers, judges et al an implied superiority and 'backstage' cache whereas the internet actually does the reverse. (Now we the audience are the judges as opposed to just the suckers who waste millions in call charges phoning in to vote. Similarly we're accustomed to everything on the internet being free!)

Secondly these kind of shows have so devalued celebrity that the reward of achieving it is being eroded away. When the show fails inevitably to make any of the participants famous (or in the unlikely event that it does but we all know that it is only for the immediate duration of the show and aftermath and is in our wiser viewing eyes an illusion with no material value) then how does it run to a second series or even survive the first? The TV formats still currently have the proven potential for success both in record sales and subsequent careers because the shows are able to garner popular attention and architect the marketing machinery accordingly.

These shows still cost money to produce and I think Simon Fuller is suffering from illusions if he thinks that this show will make ongoing sustainable profits wholly via the internet imho. What I think is much more likely is that Simon Cowell will use the springboard he now dominates to leak some of the Idol/ X Factor asset online in a controlled way and massage it to a successful formula online.

As I've said before.... all roads lead to Famebook! ;-)

Please let me know your thoughts and RT where poss!