I just came across two great Web-only music video series:

Black Cab Sessions:  They get artists to do a song in the back of a London black cab, often after they've just played a gig.  It's great to see artists like Lykke Li and The Walkmen in such a stripped down form. I like the touch of having the cabbie do the intro.

The Takeaway Shows:  In a similar vein to the Black Cab Sessions, and in their own words: "Every week, we invite an artist or a band to play in the streets, in a bar, a park, or even in a flat or in an elevator, and we film the whole session. Of course, what makes the beauty of it is all the little incidents, hesitations, and crazy stuff happening unexpectingly. Besides, we do not edit the videos so they look perfectly flawless, instead we keep the raw sound of the surroundings. Our goal is to try and capture instants, film the music just like it happens, without preparation, without tricks. Spontaneity is the keyword.

The Take away shows exist since April 2006. There was Chryde, who wanted to shake things up and find another way to share music, and there was Vincent Moon, who wanted to film music differently. Chryde offered Moon to go and film musicians in the city, Moon seized the idea and glorified it. Since then, other directors across the world joined this project, and we plan to extend it worldwide."

I love seeing bands up close and stripped down.   In the case of the latter, I like the story behind the shoot that accompanies every post and the unguarded moments - like Zach Condon of Beirut walking the streets of Paris.  The Sigur Ros performance in the Paris cafe is surreal and spectacular.  This is what the Internet video is all about.

[Hat tip to my gigmate Lisa for pointing these out to me.]

It's not surprising that the UK is the first major economy where this is the case given that the BBC's distorting impact on the media landscape.  It has a lot of viewership (and listenership and readership) but is of course non-commercial and so there the ad £ will naturally look for other outlets.  It is also a valid point that the internet actually comprises several mediums including search, display, email, online video and other formats, and so comparing 'internet' to TV is not a fair comparison.  Nevertheless, it is a milestone worth noting.

Paul Graham writes another typically coherent piece on post-medium publishing.  His point is that publishers have based their business models on their distribution medium of choice as opposed to explicitly charging for content.  As he writes, "Economically, the print media are in the business of marking up paper", and goes on to say: "What happens to publishing if you can't sell content? You have two choices: give it away and make money from it indirectly, or find ways to embody it in things people will pay for."

He rejects iTunes as an example of people paying for content comparing it to a toll rather than a store.  I'm not sure I agree.  Just because someone pays a small amount of money for content, they're still paying, no?  In the UK, there is a true tax in the form of the TV license that funds the BBC and other broadcasters, but that's still a form of payment - it just feels different to us.  Actually, I think we'll see more of these types of models - say a fee that's bundled into your ISP bill to cover access to content or a service like spotify or hulu.

It's such a time of change and uncertainty for the content industries.  But I'm sure we'll look back upon this period a few decades hence and shake our heads about all the hand-wringing and find it hard to believe that we had such a hard time figuring out the model. 

Btw I found Paul's definition of content to be the most succinct I've seen thus far:  Content is information you don't need."" 

Tomorrow marks my 2-year anniversary of having moved to London.  It has been a wonderful blur: making new friends, seeing new places and getting used to the life here.  Don't get me wrong, living in London has its downsides:

• London is the most cosmopolitan place I've ever been.  You meet people from all over.  But it also means that your fellow ex-pat friends may move on before too long.  (On the plus side, it means you have friends in other parts of the world)
• It's hard to be spontaneous.  People book social appointment weeks and even months ahead of time because they travel so much and because London is so spread out that it's harder to get about town to do something spontaneous, unlike a place like Manhattan.
• The weather.  Talking (and complaining) about it really is a favorite parlor game here.  There certainly is a lot to talk about.  The weather really is as terrible as they make it out.  When it's nice, it means people really appreciate it and you basically get inured to the fact that it will be gray, chilly and rainy much of the time.
• It's expensive.  London is on par with New York.  You probably get more flat for your money here but other things are more expensive with the exchange rate.
• Customer service.  The culture of service that we're used to in the States hasn't quite made it here.

On the other hand, it has a lot going for it:

• The cosmopolitan mix of people means you're always meeting people with interesting backgrounds.
• It is easy to travel to some great spots and the culture is very much open to seeing new places.
• The Premier League.
• The social life.  There's always something going on and people up to do stuff, whether it's going to a gig, a show or just hitting the local on a sunday evening.
• The mix of urban and green spaces makes it feel less claustrophobic than Manhattan.
• The work/life balance.

Thanks London, for a good two years.

All the rumblings about newspaper sites charging for content and getting their peers to do the same is effectively a multi-party Prisoner's Dilemma.  The incentive to cheat will be high.  So the trick for the newspaper execs will be to figure out what incentives/rewards can be put in place to discourage cheating (ie giving content away to get market share and ad dollars), all while not being anti-competitive.  Good luck to them.

I read Michael Malone's WSJ editorial about "The Next American Frontier" with interest.  He writes about the younger generation's rejection of traditional notions of job security and suitable jobs.  Instead, they are embracing entrepreneurship and also the idea of doing something socially meaningful.  Being on the cusp between Gen X & Gen Y, I can relate to both and his observations seem spot on.  The stats to back it up are particularly notable:

Those are startling and encouraging numbers and would bode well for America's future. 

It also reminds me of India, another nation of entrepreneurs as descrbed by Nandan Nilekani in Imagining India, my current read, which I'm greatly enjoying.  But India has a lot of work to do from a policy/reform perspective to further enable its citizens to unleash their entrepreneurial instincts.