Apps and the Mad (Middle) Men

Kevin Rose (Digg.com) posted this on his blog: "This will change everything" Apple is throwing again one of its regular "Event" this September, and aside from the highly anticipated iPod line revamp Kevin and others are speculating that Apple will launch a revolutionary product that will turn AppleTV from an hobby ( Steve Job quote ), to potentially one of the strongest revenue streams for the Cupertino company."

Apple TV is currently running a streamlined version of FrontRow, a viewing application to playback iTunes files on a home TV; what Kevin is forecasting is that the new AppleTV will instead run on a new version of iOS (currently running on iPods, iPads and iPhones ) and will introduce the concept of "product based Apps" instead of "iTunes centered playback".

This is a revolution because it will allow content producers the possibility to create their own Apps for streaming shows directly to consumers, bypassing the traditional local distributing companies. So in theory I can buy House MD episodes ( produced by Fox ) without having to subscribe to an OSN Network package. In all honesty, I don't want to pay for a bundle of channels I am not interested in. I want to decide how and where I watch my content (TV, my iPad, my computer) rather than it being restricted to my television and digital decoder.

Content producers will eventually prefer to pay a small cut to Apple (and directly interact with their audiences ) rather than selling entire seasons to local broadcasters and have them generating revenues through their advertisement. Apple is also intensely working on their iAd solution that will give Apps producers the opportunity to generate extra revenue through targeted advertisements.

Apple has already revolutionized the music industry and there is no doubt they are willing to do the same with the TV business. The main opponents to this new model are without question the local telecoms and broadcasters who are the "middle-men", "the one-stop-shops" of the industry. They have been surviving for years by simply redistributing (usually old) programs produced by principles. The only other player that can suffer from this innovation is BitTorrent, but then again, this is something that content producers will also see as a great opportunity.

Here's a simple analogy: Instead of going to Carrefour to buy groceries, you'll have a range of Apps, each specializing in its own specific product. These Apps will then give you the possibility to purchase products directly from them and have it delivered to your doorstep. It is really looking like we are moving towards an economy where big conglomerates that offered one point of sale for a vast array of products (in Carrefour I can buy onions and a big chainsaw, if I need one) to an economy where producers can go directly to consumer via an App and cut out the middle men. Mass distribution is becoming more and more accessible over the web (Just look at viral content); therefore, the added value will be in the expertise that niche providers have to offer.

The local media industry will then need to change accordingly and only FTA ( Free To Air ) broadcasters will survive either via government subsidizing ( Dubai Media Inc ) or via specific revenue generating models ( MBC ) that are still somehow sustainable because they target emerging markets with limited access to technology.

Pay per View will be strong for live events ( sport, the Oscars etc..) where the Apps model still can't work due to bandwidth limitations, but for all other content where the live component is irrelevant, consumers will prefer to purchase single programs rather than having to subscribe to a entire packages.

The App model allow independent producers to bypass the existing local media landscape and self publish themselves directly to consumer. As I type these letters, there are thousands of A list music artists that put their music on iTunes and don't pay a single cent to Virgin and other mass distribution outlets.

This is a fantastic opportunity for Middle Eastern based independent producers. No more knocking on the office doors of the VP Pf Acquisition as the only entry point.

Also this will push local telecoms to start looking into content production rather than acting as simple pipes to distribute data and I am sure Etisalat and Du are already looking into this avenue.

Some might argue why people would buy a product via an App when they can acquire it for free on file sharing platforms? In 2008, Kevin Kelly posted an entry on his blog listing eight things that are better than free, and one of them was "immediacy"; I totally agree with him.

Why we still see masses of people going to watch movies in theaters when they know that if they wait a little time they can download the movie for free (or buy it cheap via a DVD lady) ? It is not simply because we want to enjoy the experience on a big screen or share a night out with friends, it is because we want to be the first to see it so we can then share our opinion with our peers: we want to be the first to know, that's part of being human.

The same psychology will work with Apps : I am ready to pay a premium to be the first to see an episode of Dexter perfectly knowing that I will be able get it for free after two weeks. The proliferation of social media tools will also foster this behavior. I will not only be able to tell my close friends how the last Entourage episode went, but also share it with my entire extended (Facebook, Twitter) family.

So, locally who is against all this? The middle-men. Those who have centered their media business on monopolizing the distribution chain. Its time to reinvent themselves and start producing original, home made content. Either this or they will be destined to disappear while we, the consumer, become the winners of this revolution.

We will be able to buy what we like and enjoy the content on our terms.

So, Apps anyone?

TEDxChangeDubai

10 years ago, in year 2000, the United Nations (UN) defined 8 major goals to reduce extreme poverty in the globe by year 2015. Those goals were named as: “Millennium Development Goals” (MDG). Which are as follows:

1 - Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2 - Achieve universal primary education
3 - Promote gender equality and empower women
4 - Reduce child mortality
5 - Improve maternal health
6 - Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7 - Ensure environmental sustainability
8 - Develop a global partnership for development

The United Nations defined for each of these goals measurable targets that are regularly visited and evaluated to ensure the progress. Those goals are essential for any nation’s sustainability & continuity. Placing those goals was very essential by the UN with so many nations being at risk because those goals were compromised at their end.

This year, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has a parallel vision to the UN’s MDG, decided to co-host with TED a TEDxChange event on the 10th anniversary of the MDG commandment. This TEDx will reflect on the MDG achievements that happened during the last 10 years and what still needs to be done. All of this will be under the slogan “The Future We Make”.

This event will be on 20th of September 2010. The speakers will be from across the community, thinkers & doers who are contributing with changes that reflect in a way or another on the MDG, and to the wellbeing of humanity.

This TEDx will be live streamed to all the TEDx partners across the globe. TEDxDubai will be partnering with TEDxChange and to shed some light on the people from Dubai’s community who are contributing in a way or another to the same causes.

Iman Ben Chaibah and Uzma Atcha will be co curating this edition of TEDxDubaiChange that will take place on September 20 in a venue still tbc.

To get involved you can contact directly Iman and Uzma at tedxdubaichange@gmail.com.

The Future we Make, September 20 2010

To register to attend TEDxDubaiChange please fill the form HERE

Please notice that only registered delegates will be able to attend

TEDxDubaiLive : TEDGlobal Live Webcast in Dubai

I am off to TEDGlobal2010 in Oxford. It is the tip of the iceberg after the adventure of TEDxDubai.

After importing the TEDx brand to the UAE we succeeded in reverse engineering the process exporting two of our speakers to the main TED event: Jamil Abu Wardeh and Dr. Naif al Mutawa will be addressing the audience at TED Global and the will surely carry with them a little bit of TEDxDubai.

Here are the links to their talks at TEDxDubai2009 :

Dr.Naif al Mutawa at TEDxDubai2009

Jamil Abu Wardeh at TEDxDubai2009

Furthermore I will also have the opportunity of speaking at another TEDGlobal panel specifically tailored for all the TEDx licensees worldwide, and I will share with them the story about the passion, commitment and devotion of the UAE community making TEDxDubai2009 the global success that it has been.

TED is all about Ideas Worth Spreading and the entire TEDxDubai team is extremely proud to have contributed to spread ideas coming from the Middle East.

The TEDGlobal2010 edition runs under the the theme " And Now The Good News " and we are also very happy to share another Good News : TEDxDubaiLive , the live stream of the TEDGlobal Conference directly to Dubai.

TEDxDubaiLive is made possible by the kind support of AlAanTV, Dubai Media City and the collaboration of TEDxDubai and TEDxDuctac.

TEDxDubaiLive is a free event taking place in the Dubai Knowledge Village auditorium during the days of the TEDGlobal event.

To access the venue you will need to register here and bring with you an ID to access the auditorium.

The detailed program of the speakers is here

TEDxDubaiLive will run from the 13th to the 16th and after the registration you can come and go at your convenience.


Don't forget to register and again many thanks to ALAanTv, Dubai Media City and TEDxDucatc to make TEDxDubaiLive possible.

Please tweet the event under the #TEDxDubaiLive hashtag,

UNTOLD - NEW MEDIA | NEW STORIES

On June the 30th we are celebrating the UAE Social Media Day at the Shelter in Dubai.

During this one day event UAE residents with different backgrounds will gather and explore how they are living this new revolutionary new age of communication.

There will be also a list of speakers that will address the audience on specific projects and activities they are passionate about.

On the back of my previous blog post about the UAE being a new frontier for creative content productions, I will be sharing my view with the audience and throw some ideas on the opportunities that might be worthwhile exploring.

UNTOLD is all about stories and audiences, and I am absolutely confident that we are living in a time and age where fresh and original content is highly in demand.

Can the UAE community cater for these demands? Is the Arabic mainstream media industry ready for all this? Where do we start?

If you work in media or just want to discuss your point of view please do come along; it will be a fun night , you will meet some of the most open minded people living in the UAE and you will also understand why we need to preserve our local superhero fish, the Hammour..

If you can't physically attend you can tune into the live stream here.

A big thanks to Mita and the team of volunteers for making this happen.

See you then.

Links
Meet up page
Google site
International Facebook page
UAE Facebook page

UAE : the new frontier of on line content creation

A couple of weeks ago was announced that Google was working together with Sony, Logitech and other blue chips on a project under the name of GoogleTV. The new device will be powered by Android 1.5 and will "bring the Web into the living room through a new generation of televisions and set-top boxes"

Now this is by far not the first time that somebody is trying to bring the Web to the living room, but we also know that when Google decides to go towards one direction, they might be in beta for quite some time, but they will get there; furthermore as Google is the largest advertising agency on the planet there are no doubts that this move is both strategic and inevitable.

Bringing the Web on our TV sets is clearly a move generated not only by the efforts of generating more ad revenues but also a sign of the big failure of mainstream content producers and broadcasters that have "ignored " the new medium and its potentials.

Mainstream producers have experienced a constant loss of revenues due to the raise of file sharing and broadband's growth and instead of rethinking their business models they have focused their efforts in developing new controlled distribution models that could contain their losses. This is exactly the same mistake that the music industry made through the DRM ( Digital Rights Management ) model: it did not work because on a technology point of view there is always a " way around ", and once this way around is of public domain the copy protection model becomes immediately obsolete.

TV is also responsible for generating tremendously "lousy" content in a run to provide quantity and hardly never quality. The reduced costs of satellite bandwidth together with the developments of highly performing compression codecs have sparked the growth of hundreds of satellite channels; the quality of content in these channels is known to everybody with a satellite decoder.

Not long ago, the ownership of a Satellite TV channel was seen as a political and financial statement, but not anymore; the recent merge of Orbit and Showtime is another sign of the failure of the traditional model because the running costs surpassed largely the potential revenues. It is also my strong conviction that this failed model is not only a consequence of the reduced audience ( migrated on line) but also due of the failure in delivering quality content.

The Middle East has been constantly flooded with western content, mostly subtitled and poorly edited to fit the local cultural environments; media buyers never doubted that local markets will die to watch The Sopranos or Desperate Housewives, but also never hesitate in considering Dr Phil, Oprah or The Bold and the Beautiful as equally appealing products. Now quality series such as the Sopranos do have an international appeal due to its high standards in the story-line and production elements, but I still need to be convinced that local audiences are still craving for The Bold and the Beautiful.

The late nineties have also witnessed the spread of the formats where the " one size fits all " rule developed monsters such as the Middle Eastern version of Big Brother and similar decontextualized amenities. Although some of these productions were initially interesting on a social point of view they did not stand one chance compared to what I can access browsing YouTube in any given day.

Digital multi channel bouquets packages are dead, and if I subscribe to one of any given offer is simply because I am interested in "one" product, whatever that is, a sport event, a documentary or a cartoon channel whose content I cannot retrieve (still) online.

So legions of user are migrating to "random access" virtual places where content is available at any time, for free; mainstream is counter attacking by implementing 3D in any possible sauce, but this will only slow down the inevitable death of its model.

So if the future is online and Google wants to "bring the Web into the living room through a new generation of televisions and set-top boxes", what is going to happen in the Middle East where, according to many TV executives I know, " Change in this part of the globe happens very, very slowly.. "? Well, as a start, it is very entertaining to witness the "digital media convergence" plans of various Middle Eastern broadcasters that believe that attaching a Facebook page and a twitter feed to individual production will do the trick; number one it does not do the trick because digital convergence it's not at all that easy, and number two because the key word for these kind of operation is "conversation" and the only conversation Arab broadcasters are interested into are the ones with advertisers.

The game is much more complicated than this because listening is not a technique you can learn overnight and especially after decades of one way conversations such as "we know better what content you will like, we are the experts after all.. " it is even more tricky.

On the other hand I do strongly believe in a new media renaissance originated also from this part of the world; after decades of importing media goods as if they were commodities like cereals or pharmaceutical products the times has come to start exporting locally generated media contents online and towards the outer world. The internet is offering many opportunities, and couple this with the fast growing generation of young media savvy consumer - producers, it is not a blasphemy to predict that many interesting production will flourish from the Middle East and North Africa.

If we get a closer look at the internet penetration numbers ( Internet World Stats) in the Region we will understand that the UAE is at the top regardless the still costly internet access; furthermore the UAE has one of the strongest expat community in the Region making it the perfect ground for original stories to be generated and exported. If we look at the online social media scene in the UAE we will also be positively surprised by the numbers and depth of the conversations taking place every day; sooner than later one of these conversations will become a catalyst for a web series, a short movie, or a full feature film.

If mainstream media in the Region will still perceive all this simply as user generated content, produced by amateurs for amateurs without embracing the change, it will result into another nail in their coffin.

The UAE as the new frontier for on line content creation? Yes, why not? The signs are all there.


Above, Fujairah hills.

A small step for Apple, a giant leap for mankind.

I have a strong feeling that after Jan 27 2010 nothing will be the same anymore.

Can't really express why I do believe so so strongly, but I have no shame in forecasting that the advent of the Apple tablet will revolutionize the way we access contents, forever.

I am also very confident that this shift will be much more impactful than the Gutenberg revolution as it will involve also a big behavural change not only on the producer's side, but most of all from the side of the consumers.

If we look back to the introduction of the iPod in 2001 we will remember that the novelty of carrying all your music library in our pocket was seen as a tremendous improvement in the music and audio usablity, but nobody did predict that it would have also changed the entire music industry. Of course the revolution was caused by combining of the spreading of file sharing with the introduction, for publishers, of a brand new outlet/competitor such as iTunes.

The iPod and iTunes have set new standards to wich every musician, studio owner, record label , music executive and shop owners had to cope with. Many jobs were lost, multimillion contracts vanished and the only really beneficiary of all this ( apart from Apple ) was us, the consumer; only considering the freedom of buying one single song instead of the whole album is a clear sign of this.

CD will also vanish from shelves, and music will be purchased and stored directly on the cloud in order for us to also have the extra freedom not carry our personal ipod and laptop around the world. All we will will need is an internet connection and an interface to access our storage.

Now let's jump ahead to January 27 and let's pretend that Steve Jobs really pulls off the tablet, and that device will become the iPod and iTunes of publishing ; can you see the shift it will cause?

Let's wear the shoes of the content producers:

Book Writers - They will be able to publish their titles on the tablet . Hardcopy will be sold in the shops, but I have a feeling that soon enough if you will be seen carry a hardcopy book in the streets of NY you will be steared at the same way as smokers are perceived now.

Also as an author, I will be able to publish the book directly on the tablet in all the possible language version. If I want to add a latest chapter I will be able to do so without going to re print.

Magazine Publishers - Sport illustrated tablet edition will have international and local news ( dected by the internal GPS feature . I will be able to subscribe to the magazine and store it on the cloud in order to retrieve it ten years from now without having to search in my cellar. The E-Copy will also embed audio and video.

Advertisers- Their will be able to place multimedia location based ads ; I will be reading my E version of teh National sitting on a JBR bench, and if I am hungry the tablet will display all the nearby restaurants, I will be able to browse the menus, compare the prices and make my decision.

Now let's wear the shoes of the end user:

I will be able to carry my entire music library, books library, magazine library office documents etc, on a 10" screen device. I can copy paste and send links with a swipe of my finger, I will be able to do everything, I mean everything as long as that I have an internet connection. Live video chats, watching a movie, buy a song, e banking etc; the entire digital experience.

There will be no looking back, it will be the change of an era.

Who loses and who wins in this shift?

The consumer will win because more options will be available, many more options.

The media movers will lose. For media movers I intend all those entities that don't create but only buy, sell, distribute content ( Record Companies, retailers etc,)

We are going toward an age where creativity only matters, and we will be able to deliver our "content " autonomously without having to give a cut to the "Middle Man" ( Dubai , ouch ! ..)

In an enviroinment like this the pure talent and the innovators will emerge due to the natural selection that the internet has get us used to; the rest will slowly vanish.

And all this, to my belief will commence on October 27 2010 : A small step for Apple..

A Wave in the Cloud

Google Wave , conventional emailing and application based communication is dead, from today. A Wave in the Cloud is what we need.. Now this gets very interesting because a browser is all we need ( on the laptop , on the phone , etc ).

The timeline function in Waves is awesome and the common excuse" I did not receive your mail, maybe it was filtered by the spam firewall.." is gone forever.

Check the video, it is definetelly showing the way we are going to communicate in a couple of years time.