In Free Ride, Robert Levine, business journalist and former Executive Editor of Billboard, details how Congress helped create this situation, how tech companies convinced politicians not to regulate the online world, and how the media business can save itself (in spite of itself).

Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back

Piracy?  It’s only part of the problem.  While piracy obviously has an economic cost in addition to its cultural consequences, the real problem is that an Internet without restrictions is an Internet without a functioning market. Some technology pundits see this as progress – but many of them have made valuable businesses out of information and entertainment funded by the media companies that have been devastated by their actions. In the long term, this can’t last: Google won’t be nearly as useful without newspaper journalism, and Spotify won’t work without major label music.

Levine presents some revolutionarily new, yet simple ideas that could reverse the current situation — demonstrating how European Internet regulations present some hope for the media business, especially since countries like France and Germany aren’t afraid to regulate Google. But, ultimately, the solution is both as simple and as complicated as the fact that we can’t have an online economy without some kind of property rights – and some way to enforce them.

Program Descriptions

Free markets and free information: an anatomy of an unsustainable economy

The Internet promised an “information economy,” but information is worth less than ever. While the companies that move information are thriving, those that actually create it – movie studios, record labels, newspaper companies – are struggling. Over the long term, this can’t last: Google won’t be nearly as valuable if there isn’t as much professional content to search for.  Levine’s thesis is a simple but powerful one: We can’t have an working online economy without a market, we can’t have a market without property rights, and we can’t have property rights without some means of enforcing them. This isn’t just about protecting a few media businesses – it’s ultimately about preserving the value of the work that the prosperity of advanced economies depends on.

At what price success?

In 2010, when record companies raised the prices of the most popular songs on iTunes, most bloggers thought it would be a disaster, and sales declined more than 10 percent. But since the most popular songs were selling for about 30 percent more money, record companies made more revenue – and more profit. Although the digital world seems to demand lower prices, in order to hold back piracy, most of the evidence shows that this isn’t a good strategy. Instead, media companies need to adopt more flexible pricing and introduce different products aimed at different consumers – much as airlines do. Levine offers practical advice on how to maintain pricing power in the digital age.

Regulation in an age of free information (and free access)

Technology executives often say that the Internet can’t be regulated, that the spread of open communications technologies is inevitable. But that’s not exactly true: While technological advances are inevitable, the ways we use them are up to us – specifically, network designers and the governments that mandate what they can do. In the case of the Internet, we have an open system with no enforceable rules. Ultimately, that’s not nearly as good for users as it is for technology companies – which are running rampant over copyright, but also privacy, antitrust, and consumer protection laws. Levine takes audiences through the history of network regulation, and, more importantly, lays down a blueprint for what its future should look like.

Bio

Robert Levine has been covering pop culture, technology, and the awkward dance between them for 15 years. Most recently, he was the executive editor of Billboard, charged with running the influential music business trade magazine. He has also been a features editor at New York magazine and Wired. His first job was at HotWired.com, the Wired Web publication, where he was hired several months after it sold the first online banner ad.

His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Fortune, Rolling Stone, and the arts and business sections of the New York Times. He has offered commentary on the media business for CNN, CNBC, and VH-1, and spoken at the CMJ music conference and the World Copyright Summit in Brussels. He holds a B.A. in politics from Brandeis and an M.S.J.  from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

His first book, Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back (Doubleday), was called “brilliant if depressing” by the Times (U.K.) and garnered praise from the Guardian and the Financial Times. He now covers the culture business from New York and Berlin.

Program Description

The Internet is a Brain:
Predicting the future of technology and business from the inside out

In his multimedia lecture, Stibel demonstrates how networks (professional, social and otherwise) have changed and what that implies for how people connect and form communities; What the Internet-and online business opportunities-will look like in the future; What the next stage of artificial intelligence will be and what opportunities it will present for businesses.

Addressing the forward-looking interactive aspects and potential predictive power of the Internet – which is evolving to mimic the brain’s own abilities – Stibel asserts that a more personalized Internet will emerge.  As Internet applications get to know the real “you,” the Internet will begin to tailor its opinions which will enable very personalized reviews and information, and it will be able to quickly match demographic, psychographic, and behavioral information.  And, as the Internet advances farther in this direction, the Internet will get better at interpreting subjective thoughts and opinions, and it will get better and better at making predictions and this will enable businesses to do a better job serving their customers.

Stibel also presents varied examples of how exceptional companies are using their understanding of the Internet’s brain-like powers to create competitive advantage – such as building more effective Web sites, predicting consumer behavior, leveraging social media, and creating a collective consciousness.

Even in such personal areas as healthcare, the Internet will be able to help medical companies like WebMD evolve to become a more interactive service, while significantly bringing down the cost of insurance.  The user’s experience will be more like being in a doctor’s office where the patient is being asked a series of symptomatic questions and offered medical advice.  People will have their own virtual doctors who will come to know them and their medical histories as well as their real doctors do.

Ultimately, Stibel predicts that the evolution of the Internet will fuel a new era of productivity where software advances will outpace the growth we previously saw in hardware; where intelligence will emerge not from brute force but from educated guesses — remember that the brain is a slow computer so we did not gain intelligence from sheer size or speed.  What makes us smart is that are brains are slow, and speculative in many respects.  When the Internet can no longer count on productivity gains from brute force or sheer peed, it will turn to other measures and that will surely come from mimicking the power of the brain.

Bio

Jeffrey M. Stibel is a brain scientist and entrepreneur who has helped build numerous public and private companies.  Currently Chairman and CEO of Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp, Stibel was President of Web.com, a public company that helps entrepreneurs launch and grow their businesses on the Web. He is also Chairman of BrainGate, a brain implant company that allows people to use their thoughts to control electrical devices. He serves on the boards of a number of private and public companies, as well as academic boards for Brown and Tufts University. Stibel studied for his PhD at Brown University, where he was the recipient of the Brain and Behavior Fellowship, and studied business at MIT’s Sloan School of Business.

What do all of these people have in common? Facebook

Program Description

Facebook Fairytales: Modern-Day Miracles to Inspire the Human Spirit

Having recently reached a milestone of over 350 million active users, Facebook has become not only a household staple spanning generations—from high school and college students, to their parents, and even grandparents, but Facebook, and social networking in general, represents a cultural revolution and massive shift in the way people conduct their personal and professional affairs. It’s opened up an international dialogue that didn’t exist five years ago, allowing members to connect in an efficient and technologically advanced way.

But what comes of these millions of connections? How can people better use this technology to their professional and personal advantage?

In her lecture/slide program, Liebert demonstrates how Facebook, in the short span of five years, has fostered an intricate web of amazing connections, the results of which have transformed people’s lives in ways they never imagined possible:  marriages, business successes, community service victories, and more.  Liebert addresses the ways in which commerce and communication are moving from traditional settings and onto the web, and how everyday people can use these tools to not only keep in touch with friends and make new ones, but to use those relationships to enrich their lives.  

Including separate interviews with with co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and co-founder Chris Hughes, Facebook Fairytales is a diverse collection of 25 of the most inspiring stories that have resulted from these connections.  The stories emphasize the real-life characters’ personal struggles and triumphs. Audiences will be able to personally relate to these stories and, at the same time, be inspired and by the possibilities of success resulting from a few clicks and the willingness to try.

Bio

Emily Liebert is an award-winning, internationally published author, writer, and editor. Her first book Facebook Fairytales: Modern-Day Miracles to Inspire the Human Spirit will publish in April 2010. She is also hard at work finishing final edits on her debut novel, Conversations with Friends.  Most recently, Liebert served as editor for Kerry Kennedy’s New York Times best-seller Being Catholic Now: Prominent Americans Talk About Change in the Church and the Quest for Meaning.  A graduate of Smith College, Liebert was Editor-in-Chief of The WAG magazine for five years and, prior to that, worked for ABC NEWS’ Peter Jennings Reporting. She received the Clarion Gold Award in Magazine Journalism and has made numerous television and radio appearances.

He and Darius prove that idealism and creativity can result in tangible progress. Part revolution, part revelation, this film proves to people of all ages how life, even when imperfect, is always worth the ride.

In this multi-award-winning documentary, fifteen-year-old Darius Weems and eleven of his best friends set off across America with the ultimate goal of getting his wheelchair customized on MTV’s Pimp My Ride. The result is a rarely seen testament to the explosive idealism of today’s youth, as well as a vivid portrayal of adventure, of brotherhood, and of the character and strength it takes to shed light on an uncertain future.

Not only does Darius Weems bravely face his own inevitable fate with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), but through his unflinching humor and his extraordinary laugh, he sparks a revolution in the lives of everyone who crosses–and then shares–his courageous path.

]]> http://verbatimlectures.com/smalley/feed/ 0 http://verbatimlectures.com/leonard/ http://verbatimlectures.com/leonard/#comments Fri, 13 Feb 2009 04:39:57 +0000 admin http://verbatimlectures.com/?p=314 In twenty years as a reporter and editor, Leonard has covered the emergence of the Internet, the dot-com boom and bust, and China. He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and is perhaps the first reporter who made his entire living by reporting about the Internet for online publications. Working for Salon.com in San Francisco during the 1990s, he had a first hand view of the Internet economy.

Three years ago Leonard began to focus, as a reporter/blogger/columnist, on the topic of “globalization,” using a fairly broad definition — anything that interconnects humans living on this globe is included. He is neither for it or against it — he only endeavors to understand it, and, hopefully, help explain it.

Program Description

How the World Works: The interconnections between globalization, energy policy, economics, the environment, and politics…and everything else in between

In his lectures, Leonard discusses how in the course of exploring the issues of trade, capital flows, battles over intellectual property, and the challenges of getting the world together to work on global warming, he gradually found his beat revolving around three absurdly large and inextricably interrelated axes — economics, the environment, and energy.  And, as his work has converged on those topics, the U.S. housing bust precipitated the greatest economic crisis the world has witnessed in our lifetime.  Leonard addresses the depth and breadth of the global financial meltdown, and digs deeper into the root causes and underlying interconnections that, unless broken, will continue to harm our future prospects.

Moreover, Leonard illustrates how one cannot understand the U.S. housing bust without understanding China. One cannot can fight global warming without understanding how U.S. politics work. One can trace connections from 17th century India to 21st century Berkeley, CA.  Trade-offs exist everywhere, and understanding emerges from nuance.

Leonard’s lectures are about the sense of connection and interrelatedness that is essential to globalization. It’s not always a positive relationship — just ask the Midwestern auto industry workers whose pensions and wages are being slashed as a direct result of foreign competition. And it’s not always an obvious connection: the digital technology advances (computers, the Internet) that push globalization are responsible both for vast intellectual property violations and the rise of the open source software movement (Linux, Firefox). They are flip sides of the same basic transformation. A core element of globalization is that information travels everywhere, more cheaply and more quickly than ever before. We’ve only just begun to understand the implications of this.  Leonard not only helps distill the ramifications of these changes, but more importantly helps us glimpse the the possibilities that the future may hold.

Bio

Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon.com who currently writes the hybrid blog/column “How the World Works” — a venue for exploring the interconnections between globalization, energy policy, economics, the environment, and politics. Prior to ‘How the World Works,’ he edited Salon’s Technology & Business department from 2000-2005. From 1996-2000 he was Salon’s lead technology reporter.

Leonard is the author of Bots: Origin of a New Species, published by HardWired in 1996, and described in a New York Times review as a “playful social history of the Internet.” His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Wired, Newsweek, The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, Sierra Magazine, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Chronicle and numerous other publications. Before becoming a journalist he studied Mandarin Chinese for ten years and lived and traveled extensively in East Asia.

His most recent career highlight came in early November 2008 when he was denounced by name on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Senator James Inhofe, R.-Oklahoma.