Charging for Online News Content
Everyone in the print publishing world is thinking about how to get consumers to pay for really good content. Interesting article on paidcontent.org: NYT’s Keller: We’re Looking For Ways To Charge For Online Content Again.

I really like the idea of "Cable Channels for Content" proposed Carolyn Kay. Tim O'Reilly supports that concept and points to the Safari model for books. You buy a monthly subscription and get access to 100s of books. He claims that this accounts for 20% of O'Reilly books revenue (second after Amazon).

The question is how will the currently free content be taken to a paid model. It was easier for books as books were never given away free on the internet. However, it is very hard to charge for something that the customer has received for (practically) free for over 100 years. Maybe, the magazines need to start on this model?

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
Have worked my way though this very engaging book over the past couple of weeks. Here is how Clay describes his book on his blog:

Here Comes Everybody is about what happens when people are given the tools to do things together, without needing traditional organizational structures.

In a very well thought out and nicely presented work, Clay describes the evolution of personal (one to few and few to few) and broadcast (one to many) communications to the same platform - the web. He explains why, I, a blogger with an audience of hundreds and with an ability to respond to every interaction from my readers, am different from GigaOM and TechCrunch, modern day tech news publishers. The technology infrastructure for us to publish is, essentially, close to free and the audience geographically dispersed and infinitely scalable.

The Big Switch - rewiring the world from Edison to Google
Just finished reading the latest book by Nick Carr (his blog), who revels in the thought that he is enemy #1 of us IT types. His article IT Doesn't Matter in 2003 and book Does IT matter? in 2004 made him very famous in IT circles.

He makes an interesting case that a significant move to cloud computing and to software as a service is leading us towards the creation of a World Wide Computer. He paints a relatively dark picture of the future where the World Wide Computer become smarter than humans. He also feels that instead of it being able to do what we humans can do, we will transform to behave and work more like how computers do.

The first part of the book describes the rise of computing as a utility. I fully agree with the belief that this is where we are headed. It is obvious that virtualization and services like Amazon S3 and EC2 are moving us in that direction. However, some very complex issues need to be resolved. The most important is that of the standardization of interfaces. Nick draws a lot of parralles from the evolution of electricity as a utility.

The second half paints a dark picture of the future. I have a hard time getting to where Nick expects us to reach by 2020.

All in all, the book made an interesting read while enjoying the wonderful weather on the beaches of St Martin.

Books by the Drink
Just read an interesting article in WSJ about the test program from Random House to electronically sell a book (Made to Stick) by the chapter. Each chapter sells for $2.99 and is delivered on Adobe Digital Editions. I will try this.

I do feel that with recent advances (Kindle from Amazon) a lot of people will start reading electronic versions of books. It is hard to replicate the experience of reading a book on paper but, for some books, eBooks will be the right solution.

Finding e-books on-line
I always wondered where I could get content for my iRex reader. Found an list produced by the folks at mashable today. Have not tried any yet but did not want to not find the list when I am ready to try. Here is the link: 20+ places for public domain e-books.

Wikinomics - the art and science of peer production

Don and Anthony have done a great job of describing the enormous change in how people and businesses collaborate on the new Web to inform, to entertain and to create value. A few takeaways:

• The web is fast becoming a giant computer that everyone can program
• Public squares are being created on the web where people meet or congregate just to hang out (How about this future business? travel agencies that help you visit interesting web destinations. Wild, eh!)
• Open source software was just the beginning, people are collaborating across the globe to innovate and create new stuff in all sorts of domains (analyzing geological data to identify gold mines in Canada, produce cheaper motorcycles in china, ...)
• Marketplaces (Ideagoras) for ideas, innovation and uniquely qualified minds to sell their expertise are sprouting everywhere. Check out: InnoCentive, yourencore, InnvovationExchange (search Google and the list is long), eureka medical, Innovation Relay Center, etc. WOW ... I know what I will be doing when I retire
• Consumers are actively participating in enhancing existing products and creating new ones

This book is a must read!

Wikinomics - citizens recording history

Just finished reading the book. I was amazed by the story of how quickly wikipedia entries recording key world events are created. A few stats say it all:

• The first wikipedia entry was created within 18 minutes of the london bombings on July 5, 2005 at 8:50 am
• By the end of the day 2,500 users had created the most detailed 14 page account of the event

There are numerous recent incidents of incredible news recordings (Saddam hanging video being one) that did not come from the traditional media or even bloggers but from citizens. The media business continues to evolve extremely fast.

I listened to a very interesting panel on technology and politics at a meeting organized by The DC Technology Council:

The Intersection of Politics and Technology
Carol Darr – Director GW's Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet
Jack Kemp - Founder and Chairman, Kemp Partners
Joe Trippi – Veteran campaign consultant and author
Moderator: Mark Walsh - Managing Partner Ruxton Ventures LLC

The challenge of getting your voice heard and dealing with the speed at which negative messages get out is going to be key in 2008. The net result is going to be that the candidates will need to be more transparent as they will be under the microscope all the time. Traditional strategies based on closely controlling the message are bound to fail.

Innovating in the 70s

I just finished reading iWoz (the story of the uber geek Steve Wozniak). Steve single-handedly built the first personal computer. I was struck by the number to times Steve and Steve (Jobs) had to go looking for information. Lack of access to information created near insurmountable roadblocks. Access to information helped solve big problems quickly.

It is remarkable how the internet and search have empowered 100s of millions of people to innovate by providing quick and easy access to information. The rate at which new products (especially software) are being delivered is fueled by the ease of access to information. I wonder how things will be 30 years from now. It is very hard to even start imagining. I am sure that a smart mathematician can figure out the law describing how the rate of innovation is dependent on the time to get to the right bits of information.

The book took me back to my early days as a software engineer. I was hooked to computers and software. I could feel what Steve had to go through to enter programs in machine language. The first program I wrote was for a programmable relay that I had built using the Intel 8080 microprocessor for my Engineering Degree Project. I would sit for hours trying to debug problems with my code. Mistyped HEX characters were the most common reason my programs failed.

Once I finished school, I joined my first job and got a chance to work on an Apple IIe computer. I used dbase to write programs. I was hooked - a software engineer was what I wanted to be.