I see many parallels to the recorded music business. Some people might download music for free while others are willing to pay. Today we have the luxury of trying music before we buy it. If we download from p2p and we don’t like it, we never were a lost sale. But if you like the music enough, you want to buy special physical items (like vinyl) , go to shows, and become an evangelizing fan.

Most news organizations that are paying to syndicate AP’s content are probably advertising based. They depend on traffic for their business model. If people are willing to give traffic to the AP’s customers, the AP should be willing to ignore a “copyright violation” in order to help it’s customer reach it’s goal of receiving traffic.

There are companies who’s business strategy encourage would-be offense, such as the dreaded deep linker, or the free and open source software hacker, or the Creative Commons music sharer. But if your lawyers are not crying foul for you, you can carry on as you wish. Threatening potential customers is no a sustainable business model. Laws are made by people, and the spirit of laws can be rationalized by people.

If the AP really want bloggers to buy a license in order to quote them, they need to do two things. First, They really need to improve their offerings, giving something more than just permission to quote them. Sites like Reddit and Digg encourage linking as part of their business plan and they give blogger tools that help them accomplish their own goals rather than fight against them (granted they are not sources, but they leverage exiting behavior). AP does not do this. Second, they need to understand the the resources to police the use of their quotes is going to cost for more than it is worth, and they are better off not doing it at all. People will link and/or take entire articles wholesale. This is not your target customer. Google will eventually figure out that a site is spam and ban it, and then the motives for scraping are gone.

If the AP wants to play with bloggers on the internet, it needs to play by the bloggers’ and Googles’ rules. We link to sources, and we quote as much as we see necessary. Where we come form, respect is earned, regardless of the interpretation of copyright law or fair use. Help us kick ass, and we’ll be your biggest fans. Figure out how to monetize that, and your golden.

Sean’s opinion.
Profy takes AP’s side and choose to site the part of fair use that cannot interfere with “potential market value.”
Arrington says: AP is banned.

But for now, the transition is rough for music industry veterans. Almost every week for the past two years the music industry manages to make one puzzling move after another, while independent artists are free to make decisions who’s only stockholders are themselves along with their artistic and commercial aspirations. More often than not, independent artists commercial aspirations are not in selling music, but in the more scarce goods such as early access to new releases, performances, and limited edition vinyl or DVDs. They now they need to sell their fans something they cannot get for free.

People love to talk about the music they love. Allowing them to share it easily and legally, and talk about it online, and put it in new contexts is the new path to commercial success.

However, regimes such as patents put an artificial price on ideas and slow down innovation. One great example is the push-back on copyright by artists who license their works under Creative Commons. They are aware that someone else might be able to execute on their ideas better than themselves, and the license grants these permissions. Open APIs (application programming interfaces) allow 3rd party developers to use applications in ways the original application developers did not yet imagine. Execution is the natural and scarce barrier that differentiates competitors. It should not be an artificial price on ideas, methods, abstract processes, or the discovery of naturally occurring mathematics, physics, or biologies. The patents that are most dangerous to innovation are software patents. When patents first came on the scene in the US, it was intended for mechanical processes or methods, not necessarily for abstract ideas. Patents on software methods and business process are more akin to abstract ideas.

All of the money spent on patents and the barriers they creates for others is useless in “promoting the useful arts and sciences” unless you can successfully execute on them. And failure for one party to successfully execute holds everyone back, thus prohibiting the promotion of the useful arts and sciences. Your R&D resources are also a waste if you fail to execute. But this is the risk business must take. Even if you have a patent or a copyright, you can fail in the execution.

One might argue that there is a cost to making ideas, since you need to pay for R&D. This may be a leftover thinking from the industrial area. Sure, even for the development of abstract systems such as software applications and business methods, the time resource of engineers and the scarcity of their skills are necessary. But in a situation where one party has spent resources to come up with the same ideas that someone else might develop with fewer resources, and without any influence for the first party, it is as if the act of spending any resources whatsoever means that the idea deserves exclusive rights to execute. The context for protection comes from the belief that party A can “steal” ideas or the fruits of research from party B. These protectionist schemes make no room for the fact the two parties can come up with similar solutions independently nor ability for some to ideate at no cost, and they are anti-market. It is as if the shareholder value for a couple individuals or firms is more important than the health and well-being of the world over. Or, the appearance that the executioner is following protocol covers some of the liability and the false stigma of failure.

In the web app space, new entrants continue to appear, competing with each other and incumbents, each tweaking their strategy slightly. One thing that will separate each app is the quality of the user experience and user interface. Thus, users of these apps are increasingly spoiled. The best-in-class app emerges in a Darwinian competition. The web app space has to be the most fast-paced example of this paradigm, but it could be true of other products, services, or experiences who’s design can be constantly re-iterated.

I know I am spoiled. I have Google apps (search included) at my fingertips. I can use 37Signal apps to communicate complex ideas around my projects. I can communicate back and forth with web power users in an instant from almost any location without e-mail by using services like Twitter.

However, as I look at other apps I have no choice to use such as the web interface for my bank, government websites, or the CRM software at my last job, I am very intolerant of old, bad software. I expect that this software should not make me think. I only want to think about how to solve hard problems once, and then have have a software solve the problem when it comes up. In other words, I think software should do the repetitive mental heavy lifting.

When a great design ecosystem along with a great feedback channel to the designers and developers is available, we become even more spoiled. But I don’t think the spoilage is a bad thing. It creates an awareness for good design. It creates an awareness for the need for UI and UX designers. It creates awareness of the advantages of user feedback channels. It creates an awareness that rapidly releasing new code helps designers make better choices.

Right now, there are a bunch of SEOs listening to what Danny Sullivan has to say about social media strategy because they trust him. But some SEOs refuse to re-evaluate what brings value to their clients, (note: this Sphinn user was not in attendance) even saying that Jason should not be allowed at conferences. These sentiments just prove to him that what he is doing is right. It is innovators dilemma. SEOs got where they are today by being great at SEO strategies. Asking them to adopt social media as a new strategy is new and foreign. As Danny tries to lead his followers to new territory, some think he is betraying them and the strategies that made them the stars they are today. Some might be too afraid to go back to their clients to tell them they are going to try some new strategies to help their clients succeeded. They should remember that this does not mean the work they did in the past did not allow for successes or was a bad idea. SEO definitely has been one of the main ways to help clients succeed on the web for the past 10 years. But, there is no need to defend past actions with future ignorance. They need to redefine their metrics. The longer they wait, the more likely they will get their lunch eaten.

Thus, the knee-jerk reaction to Jason Calicanis’s rhetoric that SEO is a dying or bad strategy. Yes, let’s admit that Jason loves to agitate people by rubbing strategy decay into SEO’s faces, bad Jason ;). No one is going to tell an SEO that they are not giving value to their clients using SEO techniques. It just that the tactics they are using need to evolve.

Less attention is going to be paid to traditional SEO because (especially in the creation of static pages) now it is so much easier and valuable to create site with an open source blog, CMS, wiki or other application platform that may or may not rely on search engine traffic. Sure, even with these there are some ways to tweak them from an SEO perspective, but not as much as you might have needed to do 10 years ago. This is disruptive technology, bad news for the traditional SEOs that build sites from scratch, sprinkling in their elusive, magical SEO code. But, the developers of these open source CMS apps have figured out how to do the complicated SEO work for you (why else would Matt Cutts speak, attend, and endorse Wordcamp?). Here (along with social media application designers) is where good SEO needs to happen, and smart web strategists will realize that this is where it should continue to happen, because it scales and eliminates redundant work. You just need to wait for the search engines to spider your site. Now, traditional SEOs (which should now be called web strategists) should have more time available to add additional types of value for their clients by either engaging in social media on their behalf, or teaching them how to engaging with their prospects in a way that will help them efficiently meet their goals over the web. This is done by creating “meaningful relationships” (for lack of a better term) with people. At this point, SEO is just one of many tactics used by a web strategist. So calling a person an SEOs or SEM will soon be a way to show how outdated or limited that person’s strategy toolbox is. SEO competes with other value-adding strategies if all you do is SEO. Thus, SEO people see social media strategy as a threat. Being a web strategist is where it’s at.

Update 4/25/08: Oh yeah, add semantic web to the list in the title.

Likewise, you can spend engineering resources to make sure you rank well in search engines with SEO, or you can create value for your users/customers by allowing them to poll you presence with a social media strategy like blogging, Twitter, curated bookmarks, teaching them like Brian Clark at Copyblogger, or helping them kick ass like Kathy Sierra, until they are compelled to become a paying customer.

Is one better than the other? Those that made their name with one may downplay the other, but that is human nature. It is better to be a good sales person than a strategy picker.

The odd thing is that SEOs see SMO as an SEO strategy, and SMOs see SEO as a dying strategy. Let’s just call it all evolving web strategy.

If you are in town for SMX Social Media, we can discuss this further. Look for me at the bar at the Westin. Add me on Twitter if you can’t find me.

Big box electronic retailers control the consumer electronics industry more that you might think. In the US (and maybe elsewhere), Circuit City and Best Buy can pretty much tell consumer electronics manufacturers what to make buy telling them what they will buy in their buyers meetings.

Blockbuster can be influenced very easily by their primary vendors, the big Hollywood studios. If and when the acquisition occurs, Blockbuster could be a proxy from which big content content owners can exert control over consumer’s fair use and free speech rights. Hollywood studios could possibly push further anti-consumer efforts such as HDCP (high definition copyright protection), which is designed to stop piracy at a higher priority of satisfying paying customers. The false positives of anti-piracy mechanisms have a chilling effect, whether the content was fair use or if it was used to censor dissent at just the right time.

For this reason, this deal should not take place. Anti-trust watchdogs should take note. This is not “synergy.” It could be more infringements of free speech using consumer electronics. If the anti-consumer moves TiVo has recently made concern you, it is possible you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Update: Some think the merger is a joke because both companies are such weak players in their own marketplaces. I must admit that current with each companies financial positions until I read this post on CNet.

Jackson West approached Arrnington, saying “Hi, I am with Valleywag” as Bonny shot the reaction: Arrnington storming off to find bouncers, kicking them both out moments later. In case you are not aware, Valleywag does about one disparaging pieces a week on Arrnington, and I can understand why he would not want them at his private party. But Jackson and Bonny are new to the team. They could have remained at the party without stirring anything up, but that would not be in true Valleywag form. Stirring the pot and making the news happen, it seems, was there intention, and they accomplished their mission.

Do I mind the exposure for the part I took? Not really, but now it appears it was at the expense of Arrington’s nerves, and I am not completely comfortable with that. But perhaps it is just the tax Arrington has to pay for fame and success. It would have helped if Arrnington had explained all of this to me at the time, but emotions were running high with everyone, the club was loud and dark, and it was not possible. As for Bonny, she is a sweet girl, and I guess if she wants to work for Valleywag, that is her choice. I suppose neither Bonny nor Jackson were surprised that they were personally escorted out by Arrnington and the bouncers after what they did. By the time I became involved, Valleywag already made the news, I just helped to unknowingly sweeten it a bit. I don’t wish to downplay my “heroics,” but just to say that they were uninformed. So, I really was Vallywaged, not in a good way.

Photo by Bonny Pierzina.

I later learned that the ever-charming Pete Cashmore of Mashable was kicked out as well, presumably becuase his blog competes with TechCrunch? I just don’t get it. I guess the idea of friendly competition/”co-opitition” are dead. More details here along with the photos Arrington does not want you to see! Even more pwnage ensued after the event. Well, hopefully everyone can be friends afterwards. Loren Feldman, who made a name for himself by calling out Arrington, is now friends with him.

Update:
LA Times reporter David Sarno reports Pete may have fabricated the story of his ouster at the party just for fun (via Valleywag).

Update 2: The Truth Emerges: Valleywag at the TechCrunch/PopSugar Party