Future of Curation Networks

One of the hottest social networks right now is Pinterest. It his a nice spot at the need for organising huge amounts of information and our look out for beautiful inspirations. One important aspect is a high rate of female adoption, that continues to drive the adoption of eCommerce. Hence Pinterest is interesting for commerce, as some sources indicate that every click to an webshop site is worth an average of $5 in purchases.

What I am interest is the communal aspect of the service. It heavily focuses on recipes, travel imaginary and to some length fashion. For anyone interested in these, the site is interesting. However, the huge and growing adoption of Pinterest might eventually be the downfall. It might not be able to hold up to its community and therefore loose users to more highly niche focused communities. Curation is not curation if will not be able to edit out the unnecessary noise. Even following feature will not be enough eventually.



So what if we look this from another perspective. What is we think curation as a disruption to marketing, rather than just another social network. Currently online marketing is push with high volumes of banners. What if marketers would enable cashpools for users to create curated contents around topics, and earn real revenue from their curation work.

I think by creating well operating service that enables focus around nodes of interest or brands, we can enable these nodes to create actions that are fulfilled by the crowd. This crowdsourcing will boost highly focused and curated content for relevant target groups. All evolving around the node, rather than in a huge mass of different content. That is the real disruption potential of curation.

Marketers, remember. This could also make the world better by distributing revenue around to the best users. Do not think people are willing to work for free forever. I’m most certainly going to look at niche-curation content platforms as a powerful way to encourage a meaningful interaction with prospects and buyers.

About saving the magazine industry

Everybody wants to be digital today and most magazine executives today seems to be building iPad apps. Yet the user experience of a print magazine is unmatchable: they’re cheap, never out of battery charge, not a target for thieves and they have twice the screen space when spread as an iPad screen.



The concept of magazines is great and without bringing it to the same level on digital, the executives are running a losing war. Lets consider the recent experience of one of my favorite magazines, The Economist. I subscribed to their iPad mag. First of all, the subscription takes me away from the app, to website with 2 options. €32 13 weeks and 125€ for 51 weeks. But I'd like to pay monthly as is the status quo on most of my subscription services. Sure I could pay per issue, but then there would be no auto-renew.

Granted, this is a small issue in the grand scale. But come on, take a que from something like Spotify, where I do not need to renew, they have my credit card info and its conveniently everywhere I go. That is a well done subscription service. Secondly, most successful magazine concepts in digital media are blog communities. No fees, no limits but high quality accessibility, funded by quality and relevant advertising.

I believe the key on saving the magazine industry is accessibility. Whether it is magazine subscription or advertising funded, the key is to provide seamless accessibility. Let me work a little at the beginning if needed, but aim to guide me to a state where I have the magazine when and where I want to, without forms to fill. This obviously needs security matters, but that I trust you've taken care, right? That is accessibility.

So remember that:
- Monthly fees appear lower than yearly fees
- Cancel anytime feature will enable easier testing
- Have auto-renew as default
- Advertising should be relevant and considered part of the content

If this is taken care, all you really need to focus is having great content.

Photo by: Teppo Hudson

Mark Cuban's 12 rules for Startups

These are reblogged from Mark Cuban's post on Entrepreneur.com site. Love the suggestions. Embody these.


1. Don't start a company unless it's an obsession and something you love.

2. If you have an exit strategy, it's not an obsession.

3. Hire people who you think will love working there.

4. Sales Cure All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.

5. Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them. Pay up for people in your core competencies. Get the best. Outside the core competencies, hire people that fit your culture but aren't as expensive to pay.

6. An espresso machine? Are you kidding me? Coffee is for closers. Sodas are free. Lunch is a chance to get out of the office and talk. There are 24 hours in a day, and if people like their jobs, they will find ways to use as much of it as possible to do their jobs.

7. No offices. Open offices keep everyone in tune with what is going on and keep the energy up. If an employee is about privacy, show him or her how to use the lock on the bathroom. There is nothing private in a startup. This is also a good way to keep from hiring executives who cannot operate successfully in a startup. My biggest fear was always hiring someone who wanted to build an empire. If the person demands to fly first class or to bring over a personal secretary, run away. If an exec won't go on sales calls, run away. They are empire builders and will pollute your company.

8. As far as technology, go with what you know. That is always the most inexpensive way. If you know Apple, use it. If you know Vista, ask yourself why, then use it. It's a startup so there are just a few employees. Let people use what they know.

9. Keep the organization flat. If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics.

10. Never buy swag. A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo-embroidered polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, it's okay to buy for your own employees, but if you really think people are going to wear your branded polo when they're out and about, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money.

11. Never hire a PR firm. A public relations firm will call or email people in the publications you already read, on the shows you already watch and at the websites you already surf. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them a message introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communication with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you.

12. Make the job fun for employees. Keep a pulse on the stress levels and accomplishments of your people and reward them. My first company, MicroSolutions, when we had a record sales month, or someone did something special, I would walk around handing out $100 bills to salespeople. At Broadcast.com and MicroSolutions, we had a company shot. The Kamikaze. We would take people to a bar every now and then and buy one or ten for everyone. At MicroSolutions, more often than not we had vendors cover the tab. Vendors always love a good party.

Fotoshop by Adobé

No surprise this went viral like a wildfire. Everything is spot on: concept, production, design (especially the package design), talent, voiceover, and most importantly the satire that is so true.

Top 10 Blogposts 01/2012

I will be curating 10 great blogposts each week. Published at Publishzer obviously! Below is the first one for this year!

The Demographics of Cool

Last week Harward Business Review had an article titled "The Demographics of Cool". It talks well about the waves that really make some products to become cool and how the message is distributed. Basically the question is about the fact that no longer can advertising lecture or dictate to customers; marketing to the group conversation must be seamlessly incorporated. Basically social media enhances the fact that once in the hands of the tastemakers, consumers gravitates en masse to the seller's offerings. Below is a video with more about this in the form of an interview.



This demographics of cool is a devolution away from segmentation of smart cross-cultural or multicultural marketing strategy. As a society, the western cultures are more and more melted culturally, and the meaningful identity is changing according to the situation you are at the moment. The categories are not relevant anymore and the identity is evermore complex.

Still, the demographics of cool is more than just trying to define a new meaning for demographics. Steve Stoute is arguing that out of hip-hop, a new culture has emerged, one "shared mental complexion" that no demographics can capture. Age, race and income don't matter. Only the mind-set matters. 34-old Indian bluecollar worker, 16-year old high school kid from the UK and 45-year old whitecollar from Japan worker are all the same demographics. In the modern world, urban has nothing to with place or race and everything to with attitude.



These consumers, choose what becomes cool and, more crucially, decide when something isn't cool anymore. Remember the champage Cristal's fall from grace, just because Jay-Z said so? When the importance is the psychologic, the demographic data and quantitative research become meaningless. Because when you define a market by how people in it think, not by who's in it, the definition process is far mor complex and expensive.

Just think of the Apple iPod's now-iconic silhouetted hipsters sporting white earbuds, striking poses. You can't tell if those silhouettes are 18 or 34 years old, rich or poor, black, white or asian, from Helsinki or from Tokyo. All you know for sure is that they're cool!

Christmas Calendar is Here!

Publishzer is going to publish a Christmas calendar for this festive season 2011. The calendar will be in finnish, as it is a testbed for some advertising features and the results will be published on January. I strongly believe that this kind of advertising will be highly valuable, as part of the content.

In the calendar, you'll find a magazine for each day leading to Christmas eve. There will be videos, photos, christmasrecipes and gift ideas. So go and check it out AND please follow the calendar facebook page.

Below is embedded the latest calendar, updated daily:

Are kids more tech savvy than parents?

Most, meaning 90%, of the parents think that they are more internet-savvy than their kids. But are they? In this video Lydia Leavitt and Leila Makki went out to find out.

Think About Your Metadata

This time I wanted to get a bit more relaxed from all the deep thoughts on the change of the digital media. I thought to give a little update on what we worked on lately. This category feature on Publishzer is not much obviously, but I would recommend thinking about categories and other metadata from early on.

Why? Metadata (metacontent) is traditionally found in the card catalogs of libraries. As information has become increasingly digital, metadata is also used to describe digital data using metadata standards specific to a particular discipline. By describing the contents and context of data files, the quality of the original data/files is greatly increased. That's why!

This sunday was another hackday for our team. We decided to focus on category feature. Now you can categorize your mags, which helps others to find them when we get all the social elements ready. Go creating some mags and register at publishzer.com




...and you can also define the magazine into subcategories. Helping readers to find it even better.





Happy Publishzing!

Social Curation and Evening at REVS Fashion Mag Launch Party

Yesterday I spent an nice evening first at BonnierDevCamp talking about Social Curation. There is more about it in this blog, but I thought to share the slides I used. My focus was five points to cover the current change in the media industry and what opportunities social curation brings. I'm happy that the 30min talk turned into a discussion with active interaction with the hackers. I all up for you guys hacking the media into the digital future.

The five points were:
1. Media is under digital revolution and will follow the fate of music.
2. Social Curation's value is in filtering out noise to focus on niche interestgroups.
3. Enabling readers to use their own voice has huge advertising opportunities.
4. Through these bloggers have opportunity to become a shaping force in the media industry.
5. Mobile is the most personal device and therefore very good for media consumption.

Also after the break you find a nice picture of REVS magazine launch party. It a rather artistic magazine coming out from few of my friends. Nice picture and all, but I see them having hard time making this into a business...well it is very artistic.

Social Curation and Mobile

View more presentations from Teppo Hudson.

Bonnier Lounge


Revs visuals

Moomins 3D

Searching the soul of

Last week, me and Helene have been touring the Golden Triangle area of India. This means basically the cities of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. These are the monumental and historical part of the old Mughal empire and Rajastan Maharajas. Words cannot describe the awesomeness of grand buildings like Taj Mahal or the colors and tastes of Jaipur's local markets.

(photo by Helene Auramo)

However, the trip has made me think a lot about the essence our actions. Ayurveda treatments been part of our trip with both purchasing natural food supplements and having an insanely great Ayurveda massage that still after two days is energising my body. India overall is so much about balance in yourself and the surroundng ecosystems.

As well as looking for personal balance, the same balance is important for companies. Publishzer is all about high ambitions and willingness to change the world. Still this has to come with balanced methods, respecting especially the blogging communities. We have pinpointed the principles to the following ones:

- Empathy, the intimate connection with the feelings of the users and customers. We want know their feelings better than anyone else

- Halo, the signals that the company emits. People form opinions from the first moments, and therefore designs has to be perfect.

- Focus, we must concentrate the limited resources to the businesses we are best of, and eliminate unimportant opportunities. Learn to say no.

With these principles, nothing is impossible.

Publishzer about to launch

We are finalizing the first release of Publishzer.com - I am just embedding a couple of magazines here, but if you wish to read more about it go for the Publishzer Story.

Magazines are losing the publishing war to bloggers

Digitalisation hit first on the music publishing business. Currently similar impact is happening in the magazine publishing industry. The main reason for a distruptive change is that consumer are receiving and subsequently increasingly expecting to have content for free. For example, many bloggers do write and publish content online that include faster and even more relevant info than most printed magazines. My personal interest is in how can these bloggers get paid and be brilliant. Is there an answer to this in the disruptive changes on the markets?



The internet is a double sided sword, well, is if you look at it from the traditional publishing point of view. It has never been easier to reach large numbers of readers, but these readers have never felt more entitled to be informed and entertained for free. The market for books is continually shifting beneath our feet, and nobody knows what the business of publishing will look like a decade from now. Still many authors and publishers are still pretending that the Internet doesn’t exist. Some will surely see their careers suffer as a result. One fact now seems undeniable: The future of the written word is (mostly or entirely) digital.

I'm not a businessman, I'm the business, man! (Jay-Z)

Still, consuming blog content is more popular than ever. For example fashion blogs gather followers like fireflies, most of the are still run by individuals, not media companies. If added the average 5€ each click through is of value to eCommerce stores, the average 10.000 readers a mid-range blogger has, in a month, could earn substantial income for him/her. There however, are no polished processes and most of income is of low-engagement banner ads and endorsements. Beside a gallup involving 17.000 social media users concluded that "brand-sponsored social media initiatives have very little impact on consumer decision making. Nor do they drive prospective customers to consider trying a brand or recommending a brand to others in their social network".

Digital publishing is gathering some success in small printing of €1.99 stories, something similar as selling single songs rather than a full album. However, these third party objectives are gathering much less engagement than subjective blog posts where the blogger is the objective. The amount of engagement bloggers drive is about 10-20 times higher than advertising, based on the same gallup above.

So my argument is that rather than relying on producing magazines and hit ebooks (which thou are interesting from content point of view, but not from business point of view), magazine publishing should enable bloggers to earn revenue from issues that they are passionate about. Revenue could come from brands that wish to be included in this passionate conversation by providing content to reference, analyse or just do some shout-out. Results would be much more focused and much higher engangement, and would result in a better service for readers. Afterall, we all loath banner ads, right?

Digital is either Global or Hyperlocal

(This is an excerpt from an essay for the Community Media Expert Meeting's whitelabel)

Filtering is not a new phenomenon as news agencies have done this since the beginning of media. The difference is that now “we all can be small news agencies” and curate the most intersting content we find. Content is global and there is infinite amount of it, enabling easy cross-referencing and such.

This development requires media to look at their operations as global. National level is diminishing and readers are increasingly gaining influences from the global community through the networked societies. This will obviously be a long transition, but when national borders used to regulate the flow of cultural phenomenoms, today’s flow of information has no borders. Therefore cultures are most likely going to go global, and media will as well as an important mediator of it.

However, as the media will go global beyond national borders, it is fragmenting into niches. As the post modern society tends to categories everything in order to be functional, so will the cultural interests be categoriest. For example teenagers will listen a certain kind of music of their niche, not just from the national level, but from the certain niche on the global level. The media that will be able to focus on these niches will gain most viewerships from the fans. More than from the general focused media, because of the stronger community ties, feeling of belonging and enjoyment through sharing of similar ideas.

Beside cultural, this feeling of belonging on communities can be seen in the idea of hyperlocal. Media that focuses on cities, on the neighbourhoods or on the certain streets, will most likely gain interest of the locals regardles of their cultural interest. Locals are a part a community that is not bound by culture, but by physical location. News of what happens on your street is always interesting.

So, media organisations will face options to choose global niches, where viewers are bound by cultural interests, or hyperlocal communities, where viewers are bound by interest of their physical location. Communities, cultural or physical, are the most important aspect as no viewer will be interested of information on which they cannot relate to.