19 October 2011

Posted at 11:49h in content, donation, dvds, ebook, free, game of thrones, micro transactions, payment by

I don't pay for most of my content, and I haven't for a long time.Even my once beloved DVD collection has been replaced by torrents. My music and television shows have long been downloaded and most recently, I've even started torrenting my books and reading them on an iPad.It's fair to say, I don't pay for content. But I want to.I do realise that someone needs to pay for it, and I'd be willing to do so if it was easy and 100% of the money went to the team who produced it.I'd happy throw a few dollars to an author of a book if I knew it was going directly to them (and their editor, etc.) Likewise for a band, and it could even for movies and television shows. What I don't want to pay for is the unnecessary cost of middle men, distributors and physical production. I've just finished reading five Game of Thrones books. I didn't pay for them, but seeings how they kept me busy for the best part of two months, I'd happy give a good amount of money to George R. R. Martin and his crew if it was easy. But I can't find a donation button anywhere, and the only way to 'pay' is to give a large proportion of the money to the likes of Amazon and Angus & Robertson.At the end of an ebook, television series or album, there should be an option to donate/pay, with the proceeds going directly to those who produced it. I know then I'd pay for content instead of 'stealing' it....

22 September 2010

Posted at 22:24h in content, digg, discovery, facebook, google, search, search engine, twitter by

Google changed everything. Suddenly, everything became about search. You could find anything with Google.But this is changing. It is no longer about search. That takes time. Time to decide what you're looking for. Time to find the right key words. Time to filter the results.Instead, it's now about discovery. Where the content finds you.Where is this most prevalent? Your Facebook News Feed and your Twitter stream. And with the recent implementation of Facebook's Open Graph, content will come better recommended to us, with more relevance, drastically reducing the need for us to search.Eventually, everyone will have their own personalised Digg where the content is almost perfectly relevant, recommended from the people you want on the topics you want....