Several of my readers asked for my analysis of it, but if you haven't yet seen what it's all about, take a look at the videos below:

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So, let's talk about this from a trend perspective.

First of all, what we are seeing on Google+, and on several other sites (think Facebook and Twitter) is an increasing focus on being the place where users gather and organize all the content and people they follow.

All the social networks talk about (or in Google's case, secretly hints at) how they want to be the future newspapers. Not in being the creators or even editors of the content, but being the platform for content.

This is exactly the same trend that we see, for instance, with Flipboard, Instagram or Feedly.

The new Google+ design is all about that. Instead of being a stream, it's your constantly updated newspaper. Especially if you are on a big screen where you can see all the columns.

A lot of people are complaining about these columns, but I like them because of this trend. I also think the design is quite nice (except for a few things), but more about that below.

It made sense to have separate content sites back when information was based on people only subscribing to two newspapers and three magazines. But today, we follow several hundred sources directly, and through them we are exposed to several thousand different sites every day.

It makes a lot more sense to use a service like Google+ to follow the people and sites that you care about, categorized in circles, which allows you to stay on top of everything.

So that's what the new design is all about. It's that service. That platform for following everything you love.

It's the same thinking that goes behind the new automated hashtag feature. It's all about content discovery, i.e. being that unified content service across sources.

Another element of this is what Mike Elgan wrote about. Google+ is now all about 'cards'. The idea being that these cards are not limited to one place in time. We can take them and reuse them anywhere. It's the same concept that Twitter is working on.

It's all about not becoming a destination. They want the platform for content sharing, and to do that you need a unified element that can be used across destinations.

All of that is very interesting. It very closely aligns with the future trends of content consumption, and it will be interesting to see how well Google can implement this going forward.

Of course, it's not just about posts and content. It's really about people and how we communicate. And this is why we see so many new features too, for instance, Hangout, photos and so forth.

If you think of it as just content, you are likely to miss the larger trend.

However...

As I was looking at the new Google+, there was also a number of things that really concerned me. One thing we don't want is for Google to start closing us into the platform, like what we see with Twitter and Facebook.

The reason I'm so excited about Google+ is because it seems to be designed for the purpose of not being a destination. But the new design... well... it kind of takes us in the wrong direction.

First of all, the new card design reveals a lot less information upfront than before. It's designed to be more about snacking than real content consumption. This is a 'disease' that is prevalent on all the social networks.

To get more social interaction, you dumb down the content into shallow snack sized bits, and then you visually create an environment where snacking is the only usable form of communication.

Let me give you a few examples:

The new compose post form can only contain ten lines of text without scrolling.

You might not think this is a big deal, but what it does is discourage people from writing more than one paragraph of text. I used to love writing longer post on Google+, but with this new layout, the compose box is so small that it just kills your motivation to go in-depth.

In fact, this is a common tactic that every blogger knows about. If you want shorter comments on your blog, make the comment form smaller, and vice versa.

This form is designed to encourage short social snacking instead of more comprehensive writing.

Added to this, the new card design contains a lot less content upfront than before, once again encouraging people to keep things short. Here is an example from a recent post from +Avinash Kaushik.

Yes there is a 'read more' link underneath it, but it's very light grey so that you don't easily see it. You can't tell when people are just posting a quick snack, or when they have something insightful to say.

A simple way to solve this would be to create a subtle fade out effect that would illustrate that there is more content further down the post. Like this:

It's such a tiny change, but it makes a huge difference.

And if that wasn't enough, the new design also discourages you from using links as part of your content. In the past, I very often added several links to my post. But with the new design, links are deemphasized to the point where people would rarely click on them.

Here is a post from +Mike Elgan.

In this post, he added two links as you can see below. The problem here is that they are visually deemphasized to the point of looking like the rest of the text. As you read his post, your eyes see the link, but because they don't look like something you can *act upon*, you skip them and read the next line of text instead.

This is a terrible design decision, because it means that it's less effective to use inline-links as a call-to-action.

Look at my post as an example. This is how I used to post many of my articles. I would write a semi-long intro with a link to my article, and then use an image from the article to make it more it valuable in your stream.

But now, I can only hope that people notice the 'read more' text, and when they do they get a link that doesn't look clickable.

This used to be the best and most valuable way to engage with people. But now it's a lot less interesting from the point of conversions.

Google didn't do this specifically to discourage linking. As Fred Gilbert, lead designer for the new Google+, told Om Malik:

This new philosophy is reflected in this new version of Google+, which is marked by simplicity and fewer distractions. For instance, unless you are ready to engage with a piece of content, the links appear as regular text, without the distraction of the blue link

In other words, without the distraction of a call-to-action to something a brand or a publisher wants people to see.

I like the overall design of the new Google+ and the new design direction that we see across all of Google's services. Just look at the new Maps, which is absolutely stunning! Or the new Google Play Store.

Google's new sense of design is amazing.

But Google is also suffering from the same social shallowness that we see on all the other social networks. The overall design is great, but the details take us in the wrong direction.

When Google first announced Google+, I was really excited about it. Unlike all the traditional social services, like Facebook and Twitter, Google+ seemed to be thinking of social media as more than just the social snacks.

I envisioned a future where Google+ could be the social layer that connected people and content together. A tool that we could use to connect with content as much as we would connect with people.

And this trend is important for brands because it's all about communicating your message in the most efficient and engaging way possible, as close to where people are, while eliminating as many unnecessary steps in between.

But with these changes, Google+ is doing the same thing we've seen on Facebook. Instead of bridging the gap between people and content, they make it worse.

The new design distinctly discourages us from thinking of Google+ as more than just a social snack where you post a short message with a single link/video/photo.

I want to give you an example of what happens when you do this. Take a look at the +New York Times Google+ page:

Notice how most of the posts are all shallow social snacks about food, celebrities, or other lightweight topics.

It just makes me sad to see such a great newspaper, like the The New York Times, reduced to something as shallow as this.

We can do better than this. A lot better. And Google seemed to be right place to do it.

Social should be about more than just what people share when they have a moment, and it should be about more than just links and images. Social should be about the communication itself, and a big part of that is to support and enhance valuable and in-depth content.

I used to use Google+ to post articles like this one, which is 1,187 words long. It's full article. And my followers loved it when I did this.

I want to keep doing that.

But when I'm limited to only ten lines of text in the compose window, and when people don't see that there is more to read, I kind of believe it would be better to just post it on this site, and then post a short summary with a link on Google+.

I don't want to do that. I love Google+, I love the concept of it. But it needs to be designed for more than just snacking.

This is post a post from +Jeff Jarvis. How many people do you think realize that it's actually two pages long?

Google, You need to help us bring all that value to the forefront of people's minds. How can you help people see when someone takes the time to write really wonderful content on Google+?

Links from the outside world

So far we have only talked about links from Google+ to another site. What if the link was the other way? To Google+ from Twitter for instance?

I do this all the time, and like all the other social networks, what you end up seeing is an empty page like this:

What's this about?

No blog would ever do this. We know that the individual posts are more important than the front page. So we create engaging experiences at an individual post level.

But somehow the social networks haven't gotten that message. It's not just Google+, it's the same problem on Twitter and Facebook. Here is how they look when you link to them from another site (again using Mike Elgan as an example):

This illustrates more than anything else how disconnected the social networks really are. This is probably one of the most important pages for getting new followers (via individual posts). This is what you would link to from your site or another social network.

You don't post on Twitter. "Follow me on Google+", you give people value by posting a link to an article that you have written on G+, hoping that people will in turn decide to follow you there.

But how are they going do that with an empty page like the one above? Look at Mike's info box. It's not even big enough to display his full description, despite all the empty space below.

So Google, here is my concept for a page of individual posts. Feel free to be inspired by it (full size):

Let's turn Google+ into more than just a social network. Don't make it about people and their snacks. Make it about people and content.

Both the New York Times, Elle and CNN has created news apps for Google Glass, and they all work pretty much the same way. They interrupt you by being based on notifications.

As the Verge wrote:

Before Twitter and Facebook showed up, New York Times was the flagship third-party launch app for Glass - which was a little sad. Not that there's anything wrong with the app: once activated from your MyGlass page, the Times will give you a new card once an hour with a roundup of new stories (there aren't any preferences, so you can't lower that frequency), along with an occasional lone breaking story. Inside the card you can scroll through the stories, and tap to have Glass read you a summary out loud, but that's all there is. A share button wouldn't go amiss, nor would an option to filter out subjects you just don't care about when you're wearing Glass - like politics, for instance.

The problem is that news is not a product compatible with hourly notifications. There is no person in the entire world that needs that kind of information, that often, or in that way. None!

They are completely missing the boat with this one.

Right now, people are excited about it because it's new. But after a while, every single one of these apps will be seen as the most annoying thing on their Glasses.

• Imagine you are talking to someone, and right at that moment the one-hour cycle is up, and NYT notifies you: "U.S. and Europe Set to Settle Chinese Solar Panel Cases".
• Imagine you are in the middle of listening to a good audiobook, and NYT notifies you: "2 F.B.I. Agents Killed in Training Accident in Virginia".
• Imagine you are driving your car, and right then NYT notifies you: "Hezbollah's Role in Syria War Shakes the Lebanese".
• Or you are sitting at work, trying to get that project done that you have been stressed out about, and NYT notifies you: "Knicks Offer a Blunt Assessment of What Went Wrong".

See the problem here?

First, news is a non-necessity. I know that newspapers think they are the only important thing in the entire world, but to anyone else they are non-necessities.

Especially the kind of news that newspapers write about, which, when you think about it, is extremely narrow in its focus. There is not a single person in this world that actually needs to know about any of the above stories.

It gets worse when these news apps decide to create extra notifications in case of some kind of breaking news.

Newspapers have a completely distorted idea of what a breaking news story is. For instance, all the big national newspapers in my country ran a 'Breaking News' story that a newborn child had been found in a hedge somewhere.

That's not breaking news. I would even go so far as to say that it's not even news. It's just noise (carefully disguised as a reality drama show)

Breaking news to ordinary people has nothing to do with what's happening somewhere else in the world, or to people they don't know.

• Breaking news is when there is a car accident 10 miles ahead of you so that you can take another route before it's too late.
• Breaking news is when the CEO of a company you are working with is arrested for fraud so that you can halt the project before it's too late.
• Breaking news is when your local grocery store notifies you that the product you just purchased has been found to contain dangerous chemicals and has been recalled.

That's breaking news, and, depending on what people are doing, might be worth notifying people about.

As a newspaper, especially in combination with an up-close-and-personal product like Google Glass, you have to align yourself with the three vital elements:

• Intent
• Context
• Relevancy

And for 99.9% of all news stories, notifying people that "Massachusetts G.O.P. Hopes Lightning Strikes Again in Senate Race" is not relevant for people to know. It has no context to what people are doing at that moment, and nobody had the intent of wanting to get that information right there and then.

These Google Glass news apps are just completely missing the boat. Sure they are fancy, but that's also all they are.

Instead, focus on creating a Glass experience so that you give people what they actually need when they *intent* to need it. Make it contextually aware to whatever situation they are in. And, for the love of all that's holy, make it relevant!

Flip the whole idea of news on its head. Instead of giving people random stories, give people what they ask for. For instance, this morning I wanted to know what had happened in Oklahoma. Wouldn't it be nice if I could say, "OK Glass: What's the big picture about the Tornado in Oklahoma?" ... and the New York Times app would spring to life, summarizing what had happened with links to more specific topics, photos gallery and video clips?

Or what if I, as I'm walking down the street, notice that the police has blocked it. Wouldn't it be cool if I could say, "OK Glass: What's going on here?" ... and the NYT app would tell me that it's because the the Tour De France riders and teams will come through here in about 20 minutes - expanded with news stories about what had been going on so far, the standings, and commentary.

That would be so cool!

Don't think of news as some random event that people just absolutely has to know about (the traditional model). It's the other way around.

Baekdal Plus: Read the rest of this article in Baekdal Plus

The answer is that they all use the same argument about tax evasion. The problem is that these big US companies are all channeling most of their profit to countries with low tax rates, causing European politicians to feel like they are not getting the taxes that their countries deserve.

So newspaper organizations approach the European politicians with the notion that punishing Google is a way to get some of that money back. This is then backed up with positive posts about how politicians are trying to stop evil US companies from cheating Europe, and negative stories about how tax evasion by US companies is bad and unfair.

Here is an example from the German association of magazines publishers (roughly translated):

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The campaign by Google against the introduction of a neighboring right is a delusion.

It is preposterous that the search engine company, with its tax avoidance strategy largely elude financing of government and public infrastructure, uses its dominant position for its own economic goals. The scaremongering by Google is without merit. The claim the search engine company makes that the search and retrieval of information in the network is made difficult by an intellectual property right is untrustworthy. The private use, reading, linking and quoting remain possible as before.

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Did you notice how they added that bit about tax evasion? That's what is called lobbying.

Isn't it also curious that when you read articles about Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Starbucks they are mostly negative (in European press) ... especially the ones about Google, Facebook and Amazon who are all disrupting the monopoly of the traditional press.

Here is one from the Guardian:

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David Cameron: We'll ensure foreign firms pay their fair share of tax

David Cameron accused the likes of Starbucks, Amazon and Google of lacking 'moral scruples' for seeking to trim their tax bill.

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Notice how they are, once again, using tax evasion as the main point, combine with a positive endorsement of the politician. Again, this is lobbying

Now, we can all agree that tax evasion is a problem. It removes a huge amount of money from entering the market, which, in turn, raises the tax level for everyone else.

Amazon, for instance, paid only $3.7 million tax on $6.5 billion sales in the UK (which is misleading since taxes is paid on profit, not revenue). Apple has $144.7 billion in cash, of which $102 billion is in offshore accounts.

Tax evasion should be stopped. It's just wrong on so many levels!

But there is another side to this as well, one that we never hear about from the press. It's the reason why we have this problem to begin with.

Why are all big companies doing this?

Many people believe, especially after reading about in the press, that it's caused by greed and lack of moral scruples. But that's not really true. That is what it has turned into, but it's not why it started.

The reason why it happens is simply because that you have no choice as a global company. Tax evasion is the only way that you can prevent Governments from double or even triple taxing your income.

Take Google as an example:

Google is a US company. For various reasons they have set up Google Europe in Ireland, and in the UK they have sale/consulting office.

So let's pretend that Google paid taxes the way the European politicians want them to do it. What would happen?

We start in the UK.

1. Let's say that Google sells advertising for a profit of $100 million to UK based companies.
2. The UK Government then demands that Google pays 30% of that in corporate income tax. Leaving $70 million in profit after tax.
3. These $70 million is then transferred to Ireland, where it is taxed again, this time at around 24% (Ireland has two corporate tax levels, one for profit made in Ireland at 13%, and another for profit channeled to Ireland). Leaving Google with only $53 million in profit after (double) tax.
4. These $53 million is then transferred to Google in the US, where, again, they have to be taxed, this time at 35%. The result is that Google's profit is only $34 million after (triple) tax.

If Google was to do it the way the politicians want, they would have an effective tax rate of 66%.

Yes, tax evasion is wrong, but being triple taxed by greedy Governments is much worse.

The ones who are without moral scruples are the Governments who believe that global companies should be taxed again and again on the same money. Is it then really that surprising that these global companies try to avoid this? Wouldn't you do the same?

Back in 2012, I wrote about my own problems with foreign taxes. Because I'm a Danish citizen and I'm selling my books via Amazon (a US company), the US Government wants me to pay 30% income tax on my profit before the Danish Government wants me to pay another 41% in Danish income tax.

I'm being doubled taxed because I'm global, causing my effective tax rate on my books to be 58%.

In other words. A book selling for $12.5 only generates an income of $2.4. The rest (more than $10 per book) is eated up by taxes or fees (including local sales taxes, which in Europe is 15-25%).

It's just insane.

The way tax laws work today is that each Government believes it is entitled to a piece of the pie, and that the size of that piece has no relation to how many other pieces you have to give to other Governments.

So the solution is obvious. We need to change the tax laws so that the effective tax rate is fixed regardless of how many countries a global company operates with.

Let's say it should be fixed at 30%. Then, in Google's case, they pay 30% in the country a product was sold (but not anywhere else). It would work like this:

$100 million sold in the UK

• Google USA: 0% tax
• Google Europe (Ireland): 0% tax
• Google UK: 30% tax

Same as if they sold for $100 million in Italy:

• Google USA: 0% tax
• Google Europe (Ireland): 0% tax
• Google Italy: 30% tax

That would be a fair way to do it, right?

Another way could be that Google should pay taxes based on their operations, like this:

• Google USA: Research, Development, Administration, Data Center = 80%
• Google Europe (Ireland): Development, Data Center = 15%
• Google UK: Sales = 5%

Meaning that their tax rates would be:

• Google USA: 24% tax
• Google Europe (Ireland): 4.5% tax
• Google UK: 1.5% tax

Again, this would be a fair model. The effective tax rate is still fixed at 30% of Google's total profit, but each Government gets their piece of the pie in relation to the size of the operations.

Or we could simply leave it up to the corporations to decide where to pay taxes, by saying that 30% of your profit must go to taxes in any one of the countries of which you operate. Often this would then be the home country of which the company was founded.

This would encourage competition between countries, which is always a good thing.

And, again, this would be a fair model.

Or even better, let's get rid of corporate tax altogether and instead create laws that force corporations to share their profit with their employees. Take Apple as an example. They have 72,800 employees globally, and made $41 billion in profit last year.

But instead of giving their employees all that money, it is now sitting in an offshore bank account. If we were to say, for instance, that 80% of a corporation's annual profit must be shared with its employees, each Apple employee would get an annual bonus of $450,000.

If that was how it worked, we would never have a financial crisis ever again. That's 72,000 people who suddenly have an extra $450,000 per year they could spend in their local stores (and that's just Apple's employees).

Just think about that for a second...

Of course, none of this would ever happen as it requires the world's Governments to agree on a global tax law. And that is the essence of the problem. The reason why tax evasion exists is because each Government is still operating within the notion that the world ends at the border.

When you start to operate in more than one country, you are faced with the dilemma of either having to be double taxed, or having to use some form of tax evasion. It's the only way to avoid having to pay an unfair amount of taxes to greedy Governments who don't understand the global world.

Of course, that doesn't make tax evasion right. It's wrong, and it should be stopped. But we have to solve the cause of the problem, not the result.

We live in a globally connected world, but our tax laws are based on a local and disconnected market. If we sell a product with a global mindset, we should also pay taxes with a global mindset.

That's the real problem that we have to solve.

BTW: If you want to see just how absurd this whole tax evasion problem is, I invite you to watch the UK Government's select committee on tax evasion, when they interrogated Google, Amazon and Starbucks.

It's three hours long, but it demonstrates the politician's complete lack of understanding of both tax laws and the globally connected world. On the other hand, Starbucks, Amazon and Google did a very poor job of explaining it (especially Amazon), so we are back to the status quo.

But it's an enlightened view into a world of opposites.

Update: Eric Schmidt (from Google) responded to the increasing level of misinformation in the UK with "At Google we aspire to do the right thing. So we welcome a debate on international tax reform": http://goo.gl/LU1L6

Yeah, right...

Or as Mel Karmazin, president of Viacom said:

You buy a commercial in the Super Bowl, you're going to pay two and one-half million dollars for the spot. I have no idea if it's going to work. You pay your money, you take your chances.

Today, of course, we live in a very different world. Not only do we now have far more (and better) sources to choose from, we also have far more advanced advertising models that can both be targeted and measured in extraordinary detail.

But the advertising world is still trying to play the game of hide and seek.

Google recently came out with a study telling us that 'Users are up to 21 times more likely to click on viewable ads'.

When you read a result like that, your brain should immediately go into hyper-alert mode. How can people click on ads that they don't see?

Of course, when you then dig into the numbers, you quickly realize that this study is not really about viewable vs unviewable ads. Rather they are measuring what percentage of the ads that are visible on the screen, and for how long an ad is visible.

And when you measure that, we find that the more of an ad that people can see, and the longer it is visible on the screen, the higher the click-through rate is -- and that is not surprising. It's really common sense.

We also learn (which is nothing new for people in the industry) that the definition of a viewable ad is "at least 50% on screen for one second or longer" ...as defined by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

On one hand this is great, as it's far better than the highly misleading impression count that we had before.

But on the other hand, it's still not good enough. If I, as a brand, pay for advertising, I expect to get what I'm paying for. And I'm *not* paying to have only half my ad displayed for about a second. I'm paying to have my full ad displayed for a long enough time that people actually have a chance to decide upon it.

We are moving in the right direction, and Google is one of the few who are showing the way forward. But we still have a very long way to go before the world of advertising delivers what it sells.

It's interesting to see how big the difference is between view rates, but we are focusing on the wrong problem. I don't care that viewable ads (50% visible for 1+ sec.) are 21 times better than non-viewable ads. I want my ads to be 100% visible for long enough that people see them.

At this point you are probably thinking, "I know, we should just drop CPM based advertising and instead focus on CPA or CPC based advertising" (CPA is when you only pay when people act and CPC when they click, regardless of how many times it is displayed).

But there is a problem with this kind of thinking. Think of it in terms of call-to-actions.

The purpose of any type of advertising is to make people aware of what you do and translate that into a sale. And we also know that, for every obstacle you put in people's way, you lose a substantial percentage of that sale.

You want your path to sale to be as direct and as effective as possible, and that means using the right type of advertising for the right type of sale.

For instance, if you are the WWF and you are running a campaign to save the BlueFin Tuna, putting up a CPM based ad asking people to do something, maybe tomorrow, isn't going to work. Instead, you need to do a CPA based ad (actions) where you ask people to "Call to donate", paying only for the number of calls people make.

CPM (views), or CPC (clicks) is not very useful in this case.

However, if you are H&M and you are running a campaign with Beyonc for bikini outfits that people can buy via their website, you want to do a CPC (click) campaign. The action that you want people to take is for them to go to your web shop (a click).

A CPA or a CPM campaign wouldn't make much sense.

And, if you are Stride, selling chewing gum in local stores, and via gas stations, you would want to do a CPM based campaign (views). In this case, your product cannot be directly linked to or acted on online, so you want to optimize for awareness and recall rates.

Of course, if it's a social campaign, where your purpose is to get people to connect with you, we are back to a CPC campaign (a 'Like' is a click).

You have to choose the right type of campaign for the right type of product. And this also means that we have to live with the rather odd definitions that the advertising industry use

But as brands, we have to put higher demands on our advertising partners. I don't think it's acceptable to pay for an ad that people don't see. Most advertising providers don't make any promises to how an ad is viewed. They are simply counting how many times it is rendered on the page (regardless of where that is). And even the new definition of 50% viewable for one second, is not good enough.

It's better than the complete bogus advertising metrics of the past, but it's still based on a deception.

Also read: Magazines Still Try To Hide The Real Impact of Advertising.

It's the same with native or social advertising. Native advertising, where a brand posts an article in a magazine, is currently paid for per pageview (or worse, a fixed price for which you have no idea what you get).

Pageviews is a hopeless metric. It tells you nothing about how many people actually see your article, let alone read it. If there is a link, you can measure clicks. But many brands don't need the click. They need to spread the word.

Same with social ads (sponsored or promoted posts). At the moment, we don't really know what we are paying for. Promoting a post on a Facebook page (boosting) is charged per view... but we have no idea what the CPM actually is. You might pay $10 and reach 6,000 views, and the next day you pay $5 and only reach 2,000 (real example).

We are back in the old world of "I have no idea if it's going to work. You pay your money, you take your chances."

Sure, we can measure it. But if we can't use our past measurements to estimate our future, what good is it?

We are moving in the right direction, but, as a brand, be mindful of how you advertise. Demand more from the advertising providers, measure the results, and repeat.

Baekdal Plus: Read the rest of this article in Baekdal Plus

What are your thoughts on your own stuff being pirated?

That is a great question. So let's talk about it.

First of all, we all know why piracy exists. It's the result of clueless publishers thinking that limiting and discriminating against their customers is a viable way to do business. We see it all the time.

For instance, if I want to watch 'Finding Forrester', I just search for "netflix finding forrester" and I immediately find what I want:

But when I then click on this, I end up on the Danish Netflix site, where Finding Forrester is not available for streaming.

How dare Columbia Pictures do this to me? This is discrimination against me as a person, simply because of where I live. I can get so pissed off about this, and unfortunately it's a growing problem.

Four years ago I created this comic to illustrate the problem:

When it comes to piracy, I feel the same way as anyone else. Piracy is a fight for freedom against those who seek to oppress our ability to do the same as anyone else.

I know this sounds a bit strong. But that's what it is. And media companies need to understand that.

However... It all went terribly wrong

As the media industry spent more and more time limiting and discriminating, via tools like DRM and organisation like the RIAA and MPAA, piracy changed from being a fight for freedom, to the new normal.

Most people I know, no longer realize why they pirate content. They do it because that's how it's always been done, and that's what all their friends are doing. Piracy today is done for the sake of piracy.

We have ended up in this terrible place where people steal other people's work, without even thinking about it.

Take my books. Yes, you have to pay for them (about $8 - or free via a subscription), but once you have done that, you can download them either as a PDF, Kindle or an ePub file.

There are no limitations for how you can use them. There is no DRM. You can use it on any device, in iBooks, Kindle, Kobo, Nook, in the browser ... anywhere. And you can copy it to as many devices as you want.

In fact, it's so open that, if you wanted to, you could unpack the ePub file and convert it into whatever other format you desire. Just open it in Calibre, and save it as whatever you want.

If you want the raw HTML (ePub is just a packaged HTML file), just rename the ePub file to zip and double click on it.

So when people start to pirate my books, they don't do it because I'm limiting them. They do it just to be annoying. This is just hooliganism.

I feel really hurt when I see that my books are being pirated. I spent months writing them. I spent months trying to figure out how give my readers the highest amount of value. There is no ethical reason for pirating them.

It's just... ouch!

It's really sad that piracy has evolved, from being a question of ethics, into a state where people can't tell the difference between right and wrong.

It's the same when Louis C.K. made his show available to everyone online, in a non-DRM format, for $5. Within seconds the torrents sites were filled with pirated copies of it.

Here we have a guy who is sticking it to the RIAA and MPAA, and as a thank you, people still pirate his content. Sure, he also makes a lot of money, but the problem is that piracy has turned into a 'new normal' for no other reason than to pirate.

I understand why people pirate a movie if the movie studio is blocking you from seeing it on Netflix. Or if they delay the release for six months in one country while all your friends can see it today in another. I fully understand that. And I do not see a problem with it.

But it's bad when people are pirating the good guys content. Those who spent time creating value for you, and giving it to you just the way you want.

There is no excuse for that.

The real problem

This leads us to the real problem with piracy today. Because people pirate just to pirate, the market is getting skewed in favor of the past.

Let me explain how this works:

Imagine that you have $200 left to spend, and you want to buy a new pair of shoes, a new iPad bag (because you feel your old one is looking a bit out-of-date), a couple of books, a movie, an XBOX game, a magazine subscription, and Will.I.am's latest album.

Clearly, you can't do that because the total sum is more than the $200 you have. So you have to make a choice. And because of piracy, this choice is suddenly very simple. You buy the physical goods, and pirate the digital ones:

Do you see how piracy skews the market? Instead of people making a decision on the value of each product, the physical products win by default, as you can always get the digital products for free.

This is a huge problem, and one that most pirates don't realize that they are causing. Pirates force us to live in the old world, where the only products worth buying are the physical ones. It's preventing the digital world from being a viable business model.

I don't mind piracy if it was equal for all. If we had 3D printers and replicators capable of pirating iPad bags and Nike Shoes, then it would be alright. Because then people would choose what to buy based on what they really like.

Media analysts (including myself) keep telling people to 'make yourself worth paying for'. And that's true. But not even Louis C.K. could convince everyone that $5 was worth paying for, while thousands of people are perfectly willing to pay $45 to go to a theater ... a place where you also have to pay for beverages, the trip on the subway, and so forth.

Piracy is keeping us in the past. It's preventing the digital world from being able to stand on its own.

We all understand why piracy exists. We all agree that many media companies are behaving idiotically by limiting and discriminating markets (and devices). We get that!

But piracy is not killing the music industry. It's killing our digital future. I don't care about the RIAA or the MPAA, or the publishing associations who are trying to prevent us from being connected.

I care about the rest of us, the digital natives. People who want to embrace the digital world 100%. People who want to give you everything they have, any way you want. And it's these people who are hurt the most by piracy,

The RIAA is never going out of business (in fact, it's growing). But the digital natives are struggling because we need your support to create a digital-only business.

My mom, for instance, runs a small knitting and tea shop. As a part of this, she creates knitting patterns that teach her customers how to create their own clothes. It takes days, sometimes weeks, to create these instructions, and she had to hire someone to test them out to make sure it's perfect. And each knitting pattern costs only $5 to buy.

But her knitting instructions are, like my books, being pirated on knitting sites. And when she confronts some of the worst offenders, they tell her that she is an idiot and that she should give them away for free.

It's just sad.

Piracy is killing the wrong people, for all the wrong reasons. It's not destroying the traditional publishers. In fact, it's helping them by keeping us in the past. Piracy is really destroying the new world of digital creators. People who want to do it right!

Think, before you pirate!

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In the analytics world we call this correlation versus causation. But it's just a simple principle that whenever something happens, your first impulse is to take a step back and ask yourself: "What is really going on here?"

One very simple example of this:

Last week someone hacked into Associated Press' Twitter account and posted a fake message saying that there had been two bombs in the White House:

Apart from getting a ton of Retweets by people who were just reacting to this fake news, Wall Street apparently noticed it too. Because within seconds, the Dow Jones Industrial Index dropped as automated systems started selling shares in US companies.

The combination of the fake tweet and the knee-jerk reaction reaction on Wall Street caused the press (new and old) to start spewing out their pageview optimized stories, telling us how one tweet could destroy our economy.

Or as Reuters wrote:

A single fake tweet from the Associated Press account that briefly roiled financial markets on Tuesday, driving the Dow Jones industrial average down about 145 points, vividly reaffirmed the fearsome, near-instantaneous power of the 140-character message.

Hacker communities were celebrating, telling us much of an impact they can really have. And traditional newspapers used this incident to point out that old media, like the AP, is still important. Not to mention all the articles blaming Twitter and social media in general, in the usual technopanic way.

Okay, I agree that it's interesting that the Dow Jones could drop because of a single tweet. But let's take a step back and really look at what this is.

Duration

Let me start with how fast the market reacted. The duration of this drop, from the time it started dropping, to the time it had recovered, only lasted 7 minutes. That was it.

So... no, one hacked tweet cannot destroy our economy (sorry hackers). This is the connected world. Sure, someone can send out a fake tweet, but it will be caught and corrected just as quickly.

There is no lasting effect here. And as a result, the economy was never in danger. Sure, a few traders probably lost a bit of money. But who really cares about that?

At the most, this is relevant as an article about the problem with automated trading systems, but those stories are only relevant to be published in the financial press, not in mainstream media.

Impact

Let's go back to graph above, which was the one most news sites used. The drop looks scary, doesn't it. As the CNBC wrote:

Stocks ended a volatile day with strong gains Tuesday after taking a sharp nosedive in midday trading, following a false Twitter post of two explosions in the White House.

But this graph is highly misleading. They are not taking a step back.

Here is the very same graph, showing the Dow Jones for 2013:

Do you see the drop? It's that tiny little dot up at the very corner of the graph. Let me zoom in a bit:

That was all that happened...

There is no danger here. Nor any cause for a technopanic. Hackers can't control our economy via a tweet. The market didn't really quaver. It didn't rocket the stock market. Nor did it send the Dow Jones plunging.

This is a non-story. Nothing really happened here from the perspective of the public. In fact, this incident was so insignificant that it didn't even register on the daily averages.

At the most, this is relevant as an article about the problem with automated trading systems, but those stories are only relevant to be published in the financial press.

This is the kind the story that we get when people just react to news without thinking.

So far we can find more than 10,000+ articles about this on Google News, and most of these articles are just knee-jerk reactions causing completely unnecessary panic for the public.

Is there a problem with how Wall Street works? Oh yes, a big problem! Is this caused by automated trading systems and fake tweets? No, that's not the problem at all.

We hear about these dangers all the time. But the reality is that for anything to ruin the economy, you first have to have a lasting effect, and automated systems and tweets are expressly designed for short term reactions.

There is no lasting effect here and, hence, no lasting damage (or even a noticeable one). The problem with Wall Street is at a completely different level. Write about that, instead of non-stories about a fake tweet.

But above all, the point of this article is to illustrate the importance of always taking a step back before you act.

We don't need 10,000 articles about something that really doesn't matter. We don't need to make people scared of tweeting (as one newspaper wrote, "be careful what you tweet"). We need value, perspective, insight, and experience, and not knee-jerk reactions. And this is not just about news articles. We see the same thing with studies that people make and with the type of content that brands posts online.

It's doesn't take a longer to think. It's simple a frame of mind. You need to train your mind so whenever you see something you ask yourself: "What is really going on here?"

Whether you are a newspaper or a brand. People are going to love you for it!

But before we go into that, let me tell you a story of something that happened to me ten years ago. At the time, I was working for one of the largest fashion companies in the country, as their 'digital manager'.

This was back when the TV series "Sex and the City" was in full swing and extremely popular. And since one of our brands (we had several) was right smack in the middle of that target group, our marketing team thought it would be a great idea to get one of the 'Sex and the City' actors to model for us.

The result was that we hired Kristin Davis to be our model for three months.

It was a brilliant idea from the perspective of advertising. We have the right products, the right target market, the right celebrity, and it was all done at the right time and place. In terms of ROI, this campaign was a huge success.

...except for me.

You see, when the CEO and CMO arranged the deal with Kristin's agent, they completely forgot about the web. The result was they only bought the print-only rights to use Kristin Davis in our advertising.

They came back with all these wonderful pictures, I started working on creating a plan for how to create the best digital campaign imaginable. Until someone remembered to tell me that I couldn't use any of the pictures online.

Wait... what??? Are you freaking kidding me? I can't use this? What the heck I'm supposed to do then?

I ended up being forced to create a digital strategy that used none of the pictures, nor did it mention Kristin Davis or Sex and the City in any way. When people went to our websites, we were only showing our normal (and very boring) model pictures.

Can you imagine how surreal this must have seen for our customers and shops? Here we had this brilliant print campaign, but when people went to our website to learn more, there was no mention of it. All because the images were licenced for print only.

Actually, it was even worse than that. The images were not only restricted to a single format, they were also restricted for use within a specific time. Which meant that we had to point out to the press that they couldn't use them in their magazine if the next issue exceeded that limit.

It was just awful. And I don't blame the CEO or CMO for this. It's wasn't their fault. The fault was in how media licensing works in the world of print. It's designed around these limitations. That's the business model.

Of course, even with all these limitations, the campaign was still a huge success. But just imagine how much more we could have done if we had been allowed to use it digitally as well.

Surely this is not how it works today, Right?

It's now been ten years, so surely in today's connected world where digital is taking over everything, this *must* have been fixed? But no.

These forms of licensing limitations are just as much a problem today as they were 10 years ago. The world of media licensing is still operating as if digital was never invented.

Take Getty Images. It's a wonderful photo site filled with perhaps the best pictures you could ever want. The quality of the pictures on Getty Images is often far higher than what you will find anywhere else. But the licence for Getty Images' rights managed photos are impossible to use in the digital world.

Last night, as I mentioned, I needed to find a photo and, after failing to find anything useful anywhere else, I turned to Getty Images. Within seconds I found just the photo I needed, and decide to buy a license for it. Except, this was what I got:

First I was asked to define what the image would be used for. It makes sense to differentiate between advertising and editorials. With advertising, you imply an association with the people or places in the images and the brands using it, and that not always acceptable.

With editorials, you don't have the same association. So it makes sense to define that some images can or cannot use for one or the other. But Getty Images goes a step further and demands that you define whether you are a newspaper, magazine, broadcast, or electronic... in other words, what format it is.

What if I'm doing a broadcast that is used on more than one channel? Getty Images still lives in the old world of single channels. That world doesn't exist anymore. Look at New York Times. They have a printed, web and app newspaper. But on Getty images you have to choose only one.

Secondly, when choose 'editorial - electronic', you are only allowed to archive this image for up to five years. In other words, after five years, you are required to delete the article from your site.

I don't delete old article. Why would I do that? This a print mentality where the use of the material is limited to the print cycles. On the web, our content doesn't have an expiration date.

Next I had to define the specifics of how I'm going to use the image:

First they asked me about circulation, yet another thing that only exists in print. I have no idea what the circulation of an article is before I publish it. In print, you know because you define how many magazines you are going to print before you put them on the market.

In the digital world, we publish the article and the circulation is then determined by how popular the article is, and how much it is shared. I have articles on this site that has been seen more than one million times, and others that only reached a couple of thousand people.

I cannot define my 'circulation' because circulation is a print metric.

Even I choose to define it as, for instance, 100,000, it would completely wreck my site. Imagine if I purchased a license for 100,000, and the article then became so popular that more than those wanted to see it. Once I had reached 100,000 page views, I would be required to delete the article.

That simply isn't acceptable in the digital world.

Next they asked me about distribution, yet another element from the print world. This is the same print mentality that causes so many magazines to create iPad only apps.

The digital world is not defined by a single channel. It's defined by multiple channels. Imagine if I limited the image license to tablet and mobiles only. I would be required to disable sharing because, once people start to share an article, they are doing on the web.

This is just ridiculous.

Finally, I'm asked to define the duration, again another model from print. it makes a lot of sense when you are publishing monthly magazines. A monthly magazine needs a license for a monthly duration.

But the digital world doesn't work this way. We don't operate with durations. We don't know when something is going to end. The digital world is endless by default.

As you can see, not only do I have to define the duration (which I can't), I'm also limited to a maximum of two years. This just makes no sense from a digital perspective. It only makes sense in the print world where keeping something alive means doing extra print runs.

Next, Getty images ask me to define the target market, and yes, you guessed it, it's yet another thing that only exists in print.

In the print world, where you are limited to geographic regions (usually defined by country borders), it makes sense to only buy a photo for the country where you are selling your publication. But in the digital world, we don't have the limitation of geographic boundaries.

When I publish an article on this site, it is seen by people from more than 150 different countries. In the digital world, we don't define target markets in geographic terms. We define our target market in terms of the interest of people.

So the only way for me to license this picture is to buy a license for every single country on the planet. It's highly unlikely that I will get any visitors from Bhutan, I still have to buy the rights for it. I don't get to decide where you are coming from.

Also, if I have already defined my circulation, why do I have to define the country? If I buy the license for 100,000 views, what does it matter if it is in Germany, France, or both? It's just a useless limitation ... even in print.

But because print is naturally defined geographically, they insist I define it. They are creating limitations for the sake of limitations.

Yes, I could just buy royalty free images, but those are often more expensive and not as good as the rights-managed ones. But the problem here is that these licenses are impossible to use in the digital world.

I didn't understand this 10 years ago, and I certainly don't understand this today. But this is the fundamental problem with the world of media. Whenever a newspaper create an iPad only app, when a TV station limits a show to US viewers on HULU only, when a book publisher insists that a book cannot be purchased from Amazon.com by a person living in the UK, or when brands limits shipping to only a few countries, it's the same print mentality there is at play.

What people need to understand is that the digital world doesn't revolve around the format. That's not what this is about. The digital world is eliminating the limitations of the past.

• We don't have a single channel
• We don't have circulation figures
• We don't have a limited publication cycle
• What we publish doesn't end after one month
• And we are certainly not defined by a country border

If you want to succeed in the world of digital, you have to let go of the limitations of the past. And when you do, you will realize just how much of today's media world that is defined by those very same limitations.

It's the limitations that prevent you from embracing the digital world. Stop defining your business around them!

Disclaimer: I was hired by Google as an adviser on this report.

I want you to specifically look at the media vertical. As you can see, most sale requires several days of decision making, compared to the other industries where most sale happens on the first day.

What is really interesting about this study is just how big a difference there is between verticals.

Consumer packaged goods, travel and finance are almost exclusively based on instant sale. And this is where you need to understand the purchasing funnel. People don't just buy financial services on impulse. Instead, it's far more likely that what we are seeing here is that people are researching what to buy before they go to their bank or other financial service.

The same with travel. People don't just buy a trip to Taiwan. Instead they spend a long time deciding if they want to go, and then once they have decided what to do, they go to the travel site, find a good offer, and take it.

On the other hand, people probably don't think too much about what groceries to buy. They check their kitchen before they leave and buy what they need as quick as possible. You don't need to spend four days of interactions to decide what milk to buy.

BTW: In the future this is likely to change. Once people start to buy groceries online, many will add products to their shopping cart as their run out (instead of managing shopping lists), and by the end of the week they will order all the products in the cart.

With media products, however, people do spend a lot of time going to the store contemplating if they should or should not buy that new tablet or TV.

This study helps you see these patterns. But it's up to you to figure out why people are behaving in one way with one type of products and another way with another type of products.

We also see that average order value goes up with longer purchasing paths. There can be several reasons for this. It might simply be that people buy more expensive products and because of that take longer to decide.

We can't really tell from this data, but it's something that you as a brand should look into. Why do some people take longer to buy some products? Is there a correlation between the time spent and the cost of the product? Is there a correlation between time spent and the type of products?

You need to answer 'why' ... because the data can only tell you 'what'.

But it's a very interesting study, and it's part of the shift to the next generation analytics where 'multi' is the new normal.

Really? It took them this long to do this?

Aron Pilhofer, who also runs the Times's interactive news team, social media team and communities team said:

We know next to nothing in the newsroom about how people consume our content, whether we're publishing in the right way, whether all the time and effort we're putting into creating these interactives actually work

Although the metered paywall has been in operation for two years now, this data stays on the business-side of the company, which is kept separate from editorial.

Now, with a dedicated analytics team for editorial, the aim is to help the newsroom "make data-driven decisions" where appropriate, Pilhofer said.

I don't think everything should be approached that way. I'm not even sure most things should be approached that way, but having the ability to make data-driven decisions, I think is super important.

How could they set up a paywall without sharing the usage data with the people who had to bring value to it? And they are not even sure that most things should be approached this way? Are you kidding me?

This is just surreal. I'm absolutely shocked that the NY Times is only now starting to bring analytics into their newsroom. This should have happened 15 years... shocked. In fact, this should have happened 50 years ago, back when they were only doing print.

Of course, this is nothing new. Pretty much every single newspaper I have worked with over the past two years are separating their editorial teams from their 'innovation teams'. The people designing their digital future have no influence over the editorials of the newspaper, and the editorial teams have no insights into why or how people are consuming content differently in the digital world ... except for page views.

For instance, I do not know of a single newspaper who can tell me which type of articles that create the most amount of new subscribers. I have yet to come across anyone who can tell you what articles create the highest level of loyal readers, or what type of articles that creates the most valuable form of sharing. Most newspapers are not even measuring actual readers.

It's just shocking.

In the same sense, last month Huffington Post talked about how they were planning to use reader engagement to influence what is displayed on the front page (and how), as if that was something new.

How do they think Amazon works?

It's shocking!

The simple truth is that the newspaper industry can no longer exists by default. In the past, people would a buy a newspaper for the same reason they bought a TV. It was just something you needed to have. But in the connected world, this is no longer true.

The reality today is that newspapers have become brands. Brands that has to sell a product. And like every other brand, you need to understand what is that your customers want, what they need, why they need it, how they need it and when they need it. This means you need to look at your analytics.

I'm not saying that you should just follow the numbers. That's not it. The thing about analytics is that it only tells what happened in the past. It's your job to analyze this in such a way that you can identify the patterns, the trends, and the needs and desires for what your readers want you to do in the future.

But analytics is the key to all of this, mixed with your expertise and your influence.

I have written two reports about analytics specifically for publishers:

The first one was in 2011 called "The Future of Analytics for Publishers". It's a good starting point, but it's also somewhat traditional in its approach.

So in 2012, I took this a step further with the report "Modern Analytics for Subscription Based Media".

And if you think this is only a problem for newspapers, think again. We see the same problem with most brands. Analytics from a brand's webshop is often only shared within marketing and possibly sales. But the product team, the ones responsible for coming up with new products, rarely (if ever) see the data.

In a world of abundance, data is what helps you understand how to distinguish yourself from your competitors. Use it to win.

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Anyone who has ever been writing more than just an article knows exactly how this feels. While writing is probably one of the most rewarding activities you can do (you are the creator), it's also excruciatingly hard.

But then one her followers, a CEO, wrote this:

Wrap it up and then polish it later. You can spend forever waiting for the perfect ending...

This the typical extrovert business thinking that we see almost everywhere in the business world. Don't fuss about the end, just put something out there. Fail fast and all that nonsense.

You see, the ending is the most important part of all, especially as a writer and as a storyteller.

The 'Beginning' is what sets the mood. That's where you put people into the right frame of mind. The 'Middle' of the story is when you build up tension. This is where things get complicated. Where the perfect world starts to fall apart, and where a crisis emerge and people fight.

And you use the middle to slowly make things even more desperate. It's where you get people to sit on the edge of their chairs almost at that point where they can't take it any longer.

And then... we come to the 'End'. The 'End' is where you release all this tension. With one scene, you remove all the stress, all the anxiety, and all the discomfort. And your show your readers/viewers what truly matters.

The end is the most important part of all. It's what makes people cry. It's the part that burns the story into people's brains, causing them to want even more.

For instance, in the movie 'The Hobbit', after a long and dangerous journey filled with drama and conflicts, the end goes like this:

--

Thorin: "You! What were you doing? You nearly got yourself killed! Did I not say that you would be a burden? That you would not survive in the wild and that you had no place amongst us?"

Thorin advances until he is face to face with Bilbo, who looks worried and frightened.

Thorin: "I've never been so wrong in all my life!"

Thorin grabs Bilbo and embraces him deeply. The other dwarves cheer loudly and slap each other on the back. Gandalf smiles. Bilbo, looking quite surprised, hugs Thorin back.

Thorin: "I am sorry I doubted you."

---

Or what about the ending scene of Batman - The Dark Knight Rises? Batman has just been killed saving the city, and millions of fans don't know what they should do about themselves ... and then comes this:

We see not only the potential for another Batman, but we also see that the original Batman who, after so many struggles, have finally found peace ... true peace.

Oh... and BTW, the last scene where both the butler and Batman look directly at you is an old a proven technique to connect with the audience. It makes you as a viewer feel important. They are not just greeting each other. They are saying thanks to you.

Eric Kandel, the Nobel Prize-winning Neuropsychiatrist, explained this well in this video:

You don't just 'wrap-up' the ending. The ending is what makes the thing worthwhile.

Wait-a-minute, you say. That's for movies and books. We can't do that as a brand. We don't have a story, at least not one that is 'ending'. But you are wrong. Because you do!

Let's say you want to present something at a meeting. You start by setting the mood, then you build up tension by highlighting the challenges, the obstacles, and the dangers ahead ... and then, you end it by illustrating how you intend to solve it.

The 'Start' sets the stage. The 'Middle' makes it impossible. And the 'End' gives people hope. It's what makes them believe.

Same with writing articles. You start by quickly explaining the problem. You dive in deeper to get people to understand the complexity. And you end by showing people that if they just realign their thinking there is a remarkable simple way to solve it.

And every single form of advertising is based the same concept. Start: Here is the situation. Middle: Here is the problem. End: Buy this to solve it.

The 'End' is what makes the sale!

Even with apps we can use the same pattern. The difference with apps is that they are not linear So instead of having one story, you have hundreds of tiny stories happening every day.

Take Instagram, as an example. When you open the app, the other photos set the mood for what this is all about. You then decide to post your own picture, which builds up tension. You are unsure about what your friends are going to think about it. If they are going to like it. If this is really what you wanted to do. But then, as people start to 'hearth' and 'like' it, you reach the end of that photo's story as you see people's reactions.

It's the same thing as in the Hobbit movie. You are thinking: "Maybe I will be a burden? Maybe I have no place on Instagram?"

But when your friends then see your picture, many of them say: "You are so wrong to doubt yourself. We love this photo. Please show us more!"

It's the end, in this case facilitated by the social connection, that makes every single social app work.

Don't skip out on the end. It's the hardest part to make, and you are often worn out from doing all the other things that came before it. But it is also the most important part of all.

It's the end that allows you to have a new beginning...

Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.

The data shows the same old pattern. Print is down. Digital is up and so is circulation revenue. And then we have the increased focus on alternative income streams (ecommerce and events), a great concept but also one that is faced with danger. I wrote more about this in "Someone Has To Pay, Right? The Business Models after Print".

The numbers reveal that while advertising revenue continues to decline-down 6% in 2012-several other categories of newspaper media revenue are now growing. Circulation revenue grew 5% in 2012, while a host of new revenue sources not tied to conventional advertising and that barely existed a few years ago grew by 8%. These new revenue sources, which include such items as digital consulting for local business and e-commerce transactions, now account for close to one-in-ten dollars coming into newspaper media companies.

There is, however, one big problem. We are not actually seeing any changes yet. It's still the same old business, doing the same old thing, for the same old demographics.

We see this when we look at digital only. Yes, digital advertising now accounts for 11% of the total, which is great. But that's not the new market. The new market is the digital natives, and if we only look at them the numbers are terrible.

Only 1% of the revenue comes from mobile, and only 1% of the circulation revenue is digital-only. The rest is either from print or print+digital ... as in the old demographic.

And as I wrote about in "The Shift from Single Consumption to Multi Consumption Behavior", what we are seeing here is the wave of the digital natives.

The newspapers, with only 1% digital-only, are still only relevant to the old people on the wrong side of this wave. And if they don't find a way to fix this, it's game over.

The sad thing about old people is that they die. And if you as a newspaper even in 2013 can only reach 1% of the digital natives, you got a big problem.

It's fantastic that the circulation figures overall are growing, and that print+digital has increased almost five times in size. That's wonderful. But you are still reaching the old demographics.

Digital natives don't consider print to be a viable option. Why subscribe to something that is always a day old, when you can get exactly the same when it happens right at your fingertips? That makes no sense.

So the people who subscribe to print+digital are the old demographics, who do so out of habit.

The problem here is one of relevancy You can't solve this problem by simply creating a digital version of your newspaper (if you could, the digital-only number would not be 1%).

The problem is the product. The news articles themselves. They are simply not relevant for people to pay for.

The older generation haven't realized this yet because they are used to a world with information scarcity. In the old days of scarcity, where the newspapers were the only form of outside information, anything is relevant. For instance, in a food shortage, you are happy to buy any kind of bread. It doesn't matter what it is, any kind of bread is better than no bread.

But in a world of abundance that just not good enough. What the connected world has done is that it has raised the bar for what can be considered relevant news.

To the older generation, any news is relevant. But in the connected world, with thousand of sources, and millions of articles, most news simply isn't news at all. For instance, yesterday in the Chicago Tribune, the top story was that a 14-year-old child was gunned down and killed. That's a sad and terrible thing that should never have happened.

But it's not relevant news. All the people who live in that area already knows about it, and for everyone else this death is just one of the 2,200 kids who are gunned down every year.

As sad and cynical as this might sound, it's not relevant news to read about one child. It's 'just' yet another sad thing among the millions of sad things that happen every year.

What is news is the bigger perspective. For instance, how is this changing over time. What is being done to fix it? Of course, those type of article won't attract as many page views. When you write that a 14-year old kid has been murdered, thousand of people will click on it to see what it is about. Not because it is relevant for them, but because a title like that naturally attract people's attention.

You are not creating relevant news. You are creating entertaining news, and people don't feel the need to pay for that. There are so many other ways to see something of interest in the connected world. And why would anyone pay to read entertaining news that only focuses on what makes you sad?

This is why sites like Buzzfeed is winning, while newspapers are losing. Buzzfeed also doesn't make relevant news, but at least it something you can laugh at.

The bar has been raised. Today, most newspapers are not even reaching the basic level of relevancy. That's the problem that you have to fix!

You are no longer creating relevant news.

Read also: 98% Can't Identify With The Newspaper.

Baekdal Plus: Read the rest of this article in Baekdal Plus

Everything I do on this site, I do for you. Each Plus report is about 20 pages long. I publish about 35 of them per year. Each one is filled with in-depth and highly valuable insights about the changes and trends of the media industry. Things that make you smarter. Things that help you make better decisions. Things that will help boost your business or your career.

So how much should that cost?

• On Econsultancy, the price is $445 per year
• On GigaOm Pro, it's $299 per year
• On INMA, it's $695 per year
• On eMarketer, the price is so high that you have to make a corporate inquiry.
• On MarketingProfs, it's $295 per year
• And on Baekdal Plus, the price used to be $135 per year.

There is one big problem with all these prices. They are too expensive for individuals or small businesses.

The high prices work just great if you are working for a big or medium sized corporation. But the people who really need this stuff are often the ones who are working for smaller and more nimble companies. The startups and individuals who need that critical insight that can turn them into thought leaders at the office.

So today, I'm announcing that I'm lowering the price of Baekdal Plus to just $9/month or $99 per year.

This way it's much more affordable for individuals to get the insights that you need to help you in your job and your career. At $9/month it's also better for often cash-strapped small businesses that need that extra edge.

But there is more...

Reducing the price also means I have to grow even more. I need 40% more subscribers just to make up the difference. That is a lot of people. And when you have a pay*gate* like mine, the only viable way to grow is via sharing.

So I need your help to grow in order to make this work, and I want to reward you for doing so.

Everything on Baekdal Plus is designed around sharing. As a subscriber, you can freely share any Plus report with anyone. And the people you share it with can read it without having to pay.

When you share an article, a special share bar appears on the page so that everyone you share it with knows that it came from you -- complete with an active Twitter follow button to give you a bit of extra social exposure.

Here is how it looks and works:

All of this is 100% automatic. You don't have to do anything to make this work. All you need to do is to share the article. And you can do this any way you like. You can share via your social channels, via email, via a link on tumblr, on Pinterest ... anywhere.

The way Baekdal Plus works is that the sharing information is part of the URL itself. So no matter how you share it, you still get all the credit.

But, starting today, I'm extending this system so that you also get a $1 reward per month for every new subscriber you bring to this site.

In short, if you share a Plus report and that convinces someone to subscribe to Baekdal Plus, instead of paying $9 per month, your new subscription will be just $8 per month. If you convince more people, it will become even cheaper ... all the way down to $1 per month.

And again, this is 100% automatic. You don't have to create a special URL. You don't have to do anything extra. If you share a Plus report the system knows that it came from you, and it will discount you $1 for every new subscriber that your share creates.

And it's not just direct sharing. This is the connected world, and we all know that when you share an article it takes on a life of its own. People are retweeting, resharing, liking, hearting, thumbing, and blogging it. So if an article is reshared, retweeted and reshared, you will still get the discount.

Let me illustrate how this works. Imagine if you decide to share a Plus report with your Twitter followers. The link is then retweeted and reshared, reshared some more... and some more, until eventually someone decides to subscribe.

At this point, you will get a $1 discount off your monthly subscription... even though the person who subscribed is not following you directly.

This is how social media works and because of that it's also how Baekdal Plus works.

The path to profitability

The reason I'm doing all of this is that I need your help to grow. Baekdal Plus is still running at a loss, and with the new price the path to profitability just became even longer. In fact, I need to double the number of subscribers over the next 8 months, and that's a tall order.

But Baekdal Plus is not about me. It's all about you. The reports are written for you. The analysis is made for you. The insights are designed to help you.

I spent 10 years working as a digital manager and one of the reasons I was so successful in my job, was because I spent a lot of time and energy learning about new things, analysing and identifying trends and patterns, and generally staying one step ahead of everyone else. This allowed me to accomplish things that other people couldn't do.

It's this concept that I'm now trying to give to you. I want to help you become a thought leader. That's what every single Baekdal Plus report is about. To give you insights and analysis that help you see the world in a different way. To see the trends that other people don't even know exist yet. And to become smarter and more successful.

But I can't do any of this without your help. I need your help to share the Plus reports with your followers because that's the only way that I can get enough subscribers to make this work.

Thank you!

Baekdal Plus: Read the rest of this article in Baekdal Plus

Thirty five arguments against Google Glasses

Here is the list (all crap):

1. It could destroy whatever shreds of privacy we have left.
2. It will turn the United States into a surveillance state.
3. It will hold more people needlessly accountable for easily pardonable activities.
4. It is remarkably easy to steal a pair of glasses.
5. It gives Google far more personal information than it needs to know.
6. It will open new possibilities for online sexual extortion.
7. It may increase violence.
8. It will discourage personal risk.
9. We have no idea what health problems Glass will create.
10. It may increase violations of doctor-patient confidentiality and attorney-client privilege.
11. It could be hacked.
12. It will discourage anonymity.
13. It isn't distinct enough from the body.
14. It could give the police far more details about you than you can possibly know.
15. It will discourage kindness and respect.
16. Artists will be held more accountable for material that "offends."
17. It may kill off what remains of the moviegoing experience.
18. It will create problems with consent.
19. Cool places will be outed by boors.
20. It will discourage people from paying attention.
21. It will turn more strangers into stalkers.
22. It will create more cyberbullying and stress.
23. It could make you more willing to believe lies.
24. It will create more needless distraction.
25. It will expand the Streisand effect to an unprecedented level.
26. It could prevent people from discovering themselves.
27. It will discourage people from seeking unfamiliar viewpoints.
28. It could create another place where advertisement takes over our lives.
29. It will create needless competition over who has the most worthwhile life experience.
30. It will discourage people from striking up conversations with strangers.
31. It could discourage companies from hiring people.
32. It will create unfair advantages for online retailers.
33. It could usher in a new form of vertical integration and that does not compensate talent.
34. It will make driving dangerous.
35. It could attempt to erase people in need from existence, as well as serious problems that we cannot ignore.

If you were nodding and agreeing with these points, you also suffer from Technopanic. Get help, please!

The problem with crap like this is that it's all made-up-pundit-speculation, which could just as easily be the opposite.

Take item 34, "It will make driving dangerous" ... wouldn't it actually make driving safer because we can keep our eyes on the road? Would it help us navigate and notice other cars because Google glasses could alert us of dangers ahead? Couldn't it be used to help us keep a safe distance to other cars, or detect of a child is about to step out in front of us? Or wouldn't it help us by alerting us if we are driving to fast but haven't noticed it?

Or take item 22, "It will create more cyberbullying and stress." ... but wouldn't it do the exact opposite. I mean, it's pretty hard to get away with bullying if the person you are bullying can record and share it with the school's principal. And wouldn't it help us to alleviate stress, by automatically taking care of things that we otherwise would have to worry about? For instance, you open your refrigerator and say "Glass, buy milk, avocados some salad, and eggs." ...or you show up at a meeting, and you have suddenly forgotten what the client's name is... but then Google glasses shows you her name.

People have a tendency to do pretty nasty things when they can hide behind the covers of anonymity ... just look at the many blog comments. But if we can record when someone is doing something bad, wouldn't that encourage people to think about the consequences of their actions first?

Or take item 23, "It could make you more willing to believe lies." ... but wouldn't Google glasses instead show us a list of author-ranked articles about it, through which you can immediately learn what the true story is? Imagine that you are watching a politician telling a lie, but because you are also following the event as a social stream, you immediately notice people pointing out when something isn't true.

I'm not saying Google Glasses is perfect, but there is an astonishing amount of technopanic in the world today. And just like how the newspapers are filled with negative stories, the real world is actually pretty safe, pretty comfortable and filled with mostly very nice people.

And yes, Google Glasses could be used for bad things, and it probably will. But Google Glasses can also be used for good things. And if you compare the good with the bad, I'm pretty sure that the good elements will far outweigh the bad.

We all have a choice in life. We can decide to be afraid of change and spend all our time trying to come up with excuses for sticking with the status quo. Or we can instead spend our time trying to make the future better than the past.

Yes, that does imply a change ... and we may have to redefine the concept of privacy. But the privacy discussion we have today are mostly the result of looking at the wrong things.

For instance, the new theme is 'Ban Google Glasses Stickers".

Think of this for a moment. What if, in 100 years from now, medical scientists will be able to scan your brain and play back any memory you have, what would we do then?

Would we ban people from entering the same room because our brains will remember what other people were doing? Would we require everyone who is walking around in public to wear a blind fold and noise canceling headphones?

Technology is not what is violating people's privacy. The violation happens when people is sharing what they see. 80 years ago, it was Kodak who was violating people's privacy, Last year it was the smartphone. Tomorrow it's Google Glasses that is to blame... and in 100 years, it's the human brain.

What then? Should we ban people's brains?

We are not focusing on solving the right problem. The problem is the culture of not respecting other people's personal spaces. For instance, when Kate Middleton went on vacation at a private house, a paparazzi photographer decided to use a high-powered zoom lens to snap a picture of her topless.

Should we then ban zoom lenses? No, of course not. Because most people use zoom lenses to take wonderful positive pictures every single day.

What we should act against is, not the tool, but the culture of disrespect. It was the paparazzi who violated Kate's privacy... not the zoom lens.

Solve the real problem! But most of all. Don't become another techopanic pundit.

I'm reminded by the movie Final Cut:

Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.

Often, that also includes work that they have done on their own without the client ever being involved. And very often this is something that the clients in question frown upon because they want to be in control of what is being shared about them and where.

Yesterday we saw a bad example of that, in the most damaging way possible.

One or more employees from JWT India, the advertising company used by Ford in India, created the following mock-up ads without Ford's knowledge or approval, and submitted it to the advertising showcase site AdsOfTheWorld.com.

The first one showcases former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in a car that has three curvaceous women tied up and gagged in the trunk.

Another ad, perhaps slightly less damaging showcases Paris Hilton tying up the Kardashians.

"The ads were created by JWT India, which is owned by WPP. Employees at the firm posted the mockups to the website Ads of the World to "show off their creative chops," reported Business Insider. The ads were not commissioned by Ford, nor were they approved by the company. The ads were removed from the site, but not before Business Insider spotted them and shared the images late Friday. "

The problem, of course, is that it depicts celebrity women being bound and gagged and thrown in the back of a Ford with the caption "Leave your worries behind with Ford Figo's extra-large boot.".

Remember, Ford had nothing to do with this, but their advertising company submitted the campaign to showcase their work.

Not surprisingly, this outrageous ad depicting women as someone that men can do whatever they want with, caused an instant social backlash ... and Ford has been in damage mode since Saturday.

And this kind of thing, where a graphic designer or art director uploads made-up campaigns to showcase what they can do, happens every day. You only have to go to sites like Behance or Ads of the World to see them.

Often, it's perfectly harmless and the mockups are actually quite good. But it doesn't change the fact that it's done without the brands' knowledge or approval. The last you could do is to very clearly label the ad as "Not made by Ford. Just a mock-up'.

That's not the only problem. The other problem is the irresponsibility of the media. Business insider posted the obvious link-bait title: "Silvio Berlusconi With A Trunk Full Of Tied-Up Women: Worst Ford Ad Ever?"

Again, remember. Ford didn't know about the ads... so it's not a Ford ad.

And PR Daily posted the article with the headline: "Ford 'deeply regrets' ads showing gagged women in trunk." Indicating that Ford was responsible for the ads... which they were not.

Both cases are obviously done for the purpose of link-baiting, as one commenter wrote: 'Of course, no one would click on the article if it said, "JWT India regrets print ad mock-up"... Cheap journalistic trick.'

And Buzzfeed wrote: "Amazingly, These Sleazy Ford Ads Are Real" ... eventhough the article then states that Ford had never approved them ... causing one commenter to write: "Great job misleading readers, Buzzfeed."

This is what happens when the media turns into a page view whore.

Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.

Baekdal Plus: Read the rest of this article in Baekdal Plus

We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.

None of this really comes as a surprise as there have been many signs telling us that Google was moving away from RSS. Just as a simple example, look at the Google Reader's twitter profile. It completely stopped posting messages on November 5, 2011.

Another example is Feedburner. During Google's last 'spring cleaning', In late-September, 2012 they announced that they were shutting down Adsense For Feeds:

AdSense for Feeds was designed to help publishers earn revenue from their content by placing ads on their RSS feeds. Starting October 2, we'll begin to retire this feature-and on December 3 we'll close it. Publishers can continue to use FeedBurner URLs powered by Google, so they won't need to redirect subscribers to different URLs.

Most people never realized the significance of this. Adsense for Feeds is the same as Feedburner. It's not a feature of Feedburner. It is actually the internal name for the entire Feedburner product line.

Another way you can see this is that the Feedburner blog, where Google announced all the new features in Feedburner, is actually called "Adsense for Feeds". And this blog was shut down in July last year after having been quiet since 2010, meaning that there is no longer any way for Google to announce new updates to Feedburner.

In other words, Feedburner too is already dead. Google just hasn't switched off all the lights yet.

So, it's painfully obvious what is going to happen next. Google Reader will go away, followed by the remaining elements of Feedburner ... and with that, Google will have move completely away from the world of RSS.

And with this, I'm saddened to write, we are also looking at the end of RSS. If we look at the trend curves, RSS is in decline and there is nothing indicating that it will somehow have a triumphant return to it's former days of glory ... partly because it was never there to begin with. And with Google Reader and Feedburner closing, This is likely to be the death blow to RSS that it cannot recover from.

The problem here is that there are no true alternatives to RSS. RSS served a purpose unlike any other channel. It provided people with highly focused categorized view of selected sources, outperforming any other channel by a mile in terms of value.

Sure, you can follow the same blogs on Twitter and Facebook, but it will be filled with noise, and you can't do proper search within your sources. Here for instance are the feeds I subscribe to:

Notice how the sidebar lists all the new articles that I haven't seen yet, neatly categorized into groups just the way I want them.

And when I click on any of these groups, I get this wonderful experience of highly focused content, just the way I want it.

And yes, you can still do this. The screenshots above is from my favorite tool (after Flipboard), which is Feedly ... who last night announced that they will be ready to take over from Google Reader.

Another thing that most people don't realize is that RSS is the only protocol to support subscription based content, and as such could be the best tool for newspapers to embrace.

On this site, for instance, I offer a special personalized feed to all my Plus subscribers. Allowing you to read the full Plus articles in whatever newsreader you prefer (including Flipboard). I can't do that with any of the social channels, and this can only be done with RSS.

RSS also allows password protected content (like content behind a paywall), although most news readers never implemented it (including Google Reader).

Lack of support from the publishers also meant that RSS never become as useful as it should have been. Instead, the big publishers opted to 'partner with select channels' which is both costly and extremely limiting. For instance, the New York Times has partnered with Flipboard to allow people to read subscription based content.

But if both Flipboard and the New York Times had implemented RSS correctly, the New York Times could have done this without having to partner with anyone ... and if other news readers had implemented RSS correctly too you would have been able to use those channels as well, instead of being limited to only one app.

Think about how much money that would have saved the New York Times, and how much more flexible that would have been.

I'm not saying that RSS is perfect. It drastically lacks any form of two-way communication. It doesn't allow integration with payment systems, and it completely lacks the necessary flexibility in terms of embedded and interactive content.

Not to mention that the RSS protocol hasn't been updated since 2002, 11 years ago. Sure we also have ATOM, but that isn't much better.

So, RSS is dead. It's terrible to see it go because the concept could have made everything so much better. But I don't see how it can recover from the closure of Google Reader and Feedburner. The remaining RSS players and the lack of interest in the market are all pointing to its eventual demise.

What about the future?

Back in August I wrote "What Comes After Facebook? The Future of Social Media", in which I highlight the inherent problems with the closed ecosystems of social media, and why that is likely to change. If you haven't read it, I highly suggest that you do, because this has a lot to do with the concept of RSS as well.

And in the long term this is where we are heading. All the trends point in this direction, despite the fact that the social channels are becoming ever more closed and proprietary every day.

But, also in the long term, killing RSS might actually be the best thing that ever happened.

While the concept of RSS is great, it is also clear that it will never be more than what it is today. A rather outdated publishing protocol that is desperately out of tune with the times.

RSS has remained static for 11 years while the rest of the digital world has undergone tremendous changes. But because it was there, nobody has thought about creating its replacement.

Now that RSS is about to die all that might change. This might be triggering point that will get entrepreneurs to think up the future communication protocol. One that, unlike RSS, combines broadcasting content with communication between people ... and the communication of data.

In the short term, the demise of RSS is a disaster. But in the long term it is likely to be the best thing that ever happened. RSS was keeping us back, and it clearly wasn't going anywhere.

With RSS out of the way, we might finally see some real innovation. Innovation that combines all the elements of the new world of media, instead of just being about broadcasting pieces of static content.

And this is exactly the future that I wrote about in "What Comes After Facebook? The Future of Social Media."

Think of it like this. What if print newspapers (which are just as static as RSS) were to completely disappear tomorrow. What would happen?

Well, in the short term, the entire publishing industry would collapse and millions of people would be screaming in anguish (just like the reaction we are seeing to the demise of RSS). But if we no longer had print to worry about, the future of digital publishing would suddenly look much, much better.

And the same is likely to be true for RSS.

Solutions for the short term

The future has yet to come, and the next three years are going be painful if you rely on RSS. For instance, I have about 7.000 RSS subscribers, most of which is likely to use Google Reader in some form or fashion. When Google closes Reader in July, it's unlikely that my RSS readers will find an alternative in time. Some might, but most probably won't.

So what can you do?

There are three short term solutions. Alternative Readers, Social channels, and Newsletters.

Alternative readers

As for alternative readers, you can try to guide people to other RSS readers and that way keep at least some of your RSS subscribers intact.

The best tool out there, by far, is Feedly. It's works across devices (web, desktop, iPhone/iPad, Android apps), and it looks about a million times better than Google Reader ... and I highly recommend it.

Other tools are Flipboard, but without Google Reader their RSS support is terrible. We will have to see if this changes over the next couple of months.

And if you are technically inclined, we have NewsBlur. It's a very cool and fully featured RSS reader. But it doesn't have the nice magazine type feel of Feedly. If you are a techy, you will love it. If not, well...

There are also a ton of other RSS readers, but what you want is something that works across devices and in the cloud, which limits your options dramatically.

Social channels

Another option, which you should definitely do, is to create social accounts specifically for your site. This is something I have been doing for a long time.

For instance, on Google+ you can:

• Follow me via +Thomas Baekdal and get everything
• Follow +Baekdal and get only the updates for the articles I write.

On Twitter you can:

• Follow baekdal and get everything
• Follow baekdalarticles and only get the articles I write

On Facebook, you can:

• Follow Baekdal.com to get only the articles.

And if you are a publisher or a brand with a blog, you should definitely do this. Just keep in mind that your article feeds are likely to have far fewer followers. For instance, baekdalarticles has less than 1/10th the followers than baekdal.

Also, on Twitter and Facebook you are limited to having your content show up next to all other content, instead of being categorized as with RSS. So your posts are less likely to be seen.

Google+ is slightly different because of how Google has implemented 'Circles'. This effectively means that people could categorize the sites they care about just like they categorized RSS feeds in Google Reader.

Focusing on Google+ just became even more exciting (which is probably also one of the reasons why Google is dropping Reader).

Newsletters / Digests

Another solution is to move to emai,l and this has several other benefits as well. You might not want to do real newsletters, but merely do weekly digests.

The advantage is email is that it is a much more personal and upfront solution, which for many mean creating a much more loyal group of readers.

The disadvantage is that, unlike RSS, people are not going to suddenly subscribe to hundreds email digest from every single blog they like. For instance, I subscribe to about 350 RSS feeds, and there is no way I'm going to fill up my inbox with the same amount of email digests.

Email newsletters or digests are incredibly useful and valuable, but it doesn't have the same scale as RSS.

Overall though, the demise of RSS means you now have to work even harder to connect with people. The problem with both the social channels and newsletters is that they require more legwork than the anonymous and passive connection we got with RSS.

With an RSS feed, people could subscribe to it without worrying about what others might think, and without identifying you to the owner of the sites you followed. With social channels and newsletters, you have to identify yourself. Depending on your type of site, that is a limiting factor.

None of this is perfect and I hate to see Google Reader go. But in the long run, the future has just begun.

Head over to G+ to comment and discuss this article.

Most publishers track visitors as unique visitors. The problem is that it if you run a subscription-based site, it tells you nothing about your subscribers. So on my site, I measure unique subscribers.

And here is what I found (see the picture below):

On average, only between 30-40% of my subscribers see an article. And of those, only 60-70% actually read it. Meaning, only 22% read my articles.

That's just scary, but there is nothing really surprising about it. We can't expect all our subscribers to see every single article, nor can we expect that everyone reads everything they see.

(Especially not with Baekdal Plus where the average article is 20-25 pages long).

And then you have to ask, how many subscribers share an article? In my case, that number is about 15%. And then, how many non-subscribers does that attract? Which in my case in my case averages about 2000% (although it varies greatly depending the number of followers for that subscriber. Some only generate 300%, while others generate 100,000%.)

Think about that for a moment. Sharing done by only 15% of the 35% of my subscribers, drives 4x more traffic than the total number of subscribers who saw the article. This is why sharing is vital!

So why is this important you ask? Well, apart from understanding the behavior of your subscribers, this is very often the cause of your churn rate ... i.e. the rate of those who don't renew their subscription.

If only 35% of your subscriber ever see the article, the next time the remaining 65% have to renew their subscription, some might simply decide not to. And that's not good.

Of course, this is per article, so it's bit more complicated than that. You have look at it across articles as well to identify those that you have lost.

The point is that if you only look at unique visitors, you simple don't know what is actually going on. You will never know how important sharing is. And you never be able to identify those who have simply forgotten that you even exists.

Also consider how massively different this is from advertising based analytics. If your site is monetized by advertising, the quantity of traffic is the most important element. Meaning that for advertising-based analytics, the blue bars are more important than the green bars. But for subscription based analytics, the greens bar is what causes the blue bars.

And here is something even more profound to think about: If I could change the 35% (subscribers who see an article) to 50% ... and increase the sharing rate from 15% to 25%, I would double the overall traffic.

Of course, doing that is much easier said than done!

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