For everyone widely using social media, RSS Feeds are a blessing. They have revolutionized the way we gather information and expand our knowledge and interests. We comfortably let data come to us; an attribute of utmost importance, when we imagine what vast constellations of data are inhabiting the streams of cyberspace. All we have to do, is to decide the sources, that will send us these information. So RSS Feeds are a very comfortable service, indeed.

Mainly due to my master thesis research, I have been using RSS Feeds extensively and have enjoyed its assistance. I have mentioned before, that I have been following almost 100 blogs and news sites; and I wasn’t just scanning the information coming, I really read them - and I still do. I don’t think the curse of RSS Feeds lies on the fact, that it provides too much information. I actually don’t believe there is such thing as too much information.

The Curse

No, the problem lies somewhere else. RSS Feeds are too comfortable. What does this mean?
Depending on our time and engagement, we settle down with 50, 70, 100 or more subscriptions. We read the news daily and get enough input and inspiration for our next blog posts. We also participate in most of the communities we are involved in and we have in a way succeeded in making our presence felt and even established a connection with the fellow bloggers.

But then the curse emerges, a curse we actually do not realize.
We stop worrying about other blogs, we stop worrying about new subscriptions, we have developed our nice, warm environment and we are satisfied with it.
This is bad for 3 reasons:

1. We forget the strength of weak ties

Strong ties are our close friends, while weak ties are mostly people we are acquainted with. Mark Granovetter’s research on people looking for a new job in 1973 concluded, that 27,8% of them found on from their weak ties, while 16,7 % from their strong ties. He didn’t disregard the value of strong ties, but he pointed out the importance of weak ones.
Having a steady, well established network of subscriptions constitutes a well founded, strong base, but it also makes us forget the value of weak ties.
How many of these subscriptions are actually well established connections of yours?

2. We lose the sense of a challenge

The fact that we are mostly participating in the blogs we are subscribed to, establishes our prestige in these communities. The author knows who we are and other regular commentators are also aware of our positions. But this evolves in a routine behavior: reading the same blogs, writing comments, starting an interesting discussion with (almost) always the same people.
The challenge of writing a great comment, of saying something really insightful is lost. These people know you, you don’t have to prove yourself. You are allowed to say something silly or not well researched; they will understand.

3. We disregard diversity

People have a natural tendency to start relationships with like-minded people. That is absolutely logical and understandable. But online diversity plays a fundamental role. It brings new voices into the discussion and helps in the correct aggregation of information.
When we constantly find ourselves in the same circles of discussion, we tend to associate with a biased group. That is not necessarily wrong, but it might not be that thought provoking.

Removing the curse

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the RSS curse. I’m very satisfied with the small network I have developed in the past months and definitely don’t want to lose it.
But when I remember on the first times I was blogging, things were much more intriguing. I was searching for new cool blogs, trying to decode the bloggers. I was cautious of my comments and remarks.
Now things are much more comfortable.
So I thought, that it is time to make things more interesting; to get ride of the RSS curse.

• I will start doing guest posts on blogs I like and of course am also opening my blog for guest posts. I’m already preparing an article for superbloggingtips and if you have any writings on your shelf you want to show to another public, contact me.
• I will delete all my subscriptions; by all I mean most of them. I can’t unsubscribe from my strong ties, I like their stuff and I like their feedback.
• Consequence of the above is that I will start searching for new blogs. This will expand my network and pose a challenge to me.

The RSS curse is like smoking. You get it out of your system for a month, but in the end you get hooked up again.
So I’m still thinking on new ways to use RSS in its full potential without getting stuck with its negatives.

As always I’m open for suggestions, feedback and from now on your articles.

I had a post the other day about Facebook and one of its rivals “Kaioo” and the discussion came to the subject of data portability.
M@ri@nn@ expressed her skepticism on the project. This short video (found at Partcls.blog) sumarizes the concept of data portability very well. Enjoy.

Sorry, I had to remove the video because it really messed up with the look of the blog…

Get involved in data portability.

Trent Reznor gave an interview yesterday, where he states his thoughts on music in the digital age and his Saul Williams experiment. Here are some points he made, which I found very interesting. (A full version of the inteview can be found at news Blog.)

On his disappointment over the sales

I’m not disappointed with the numbers with Saul at all. I think, particularly looking at what he’s done historically and in the climate of today’s music scene, that’s something to be proud of….here’s the record in as great a quality as you could ever want, it’s available now and it’s offered for an insulting low price, which I consider $5 to be, I thought that it would appeal to more people than it did. That’s where my sense of disappointment is in general, that the idea was wrong in my head and for once I’ve given people too much credit.

On the future of music

• In my mind, I think if there was an ISP tax of some sort, we can say to the consumer, “All music is now available and able to be downloaded and put in your car and put in your iPod and put up you’re a** if you want, and it’s $5 on your cable bill or ISP bill.

• If I could redo everything and start again, I think having a physical product is a good thing. I think that having some more coordination on our part–and I’ll take the blame on that because there was an urgency to get this done and get it out that I was the ringleader for–I think if we could wave a magic wand and do it again I think being able to offer an inexpensive version in addition to a premium physical product that could be shipped out afterward.

On the Radiohead Project

I’ll name check Radiohead on this–they’ve done a pretty suave marketing plan on this new record. I think generally it’s been a pretty cool thing, but what they’ve done is used those (sales) numbers in a way that they can spin them anyway they want cause you don’t know what they are.

Two points drew my attention at most:

• “…in my head and for once I’ve given people too much credit.” The sales percentage seems to agree with that point, but is it really so or is it just the public that Saul Williams adresses to?

• “All music is now available and able to be downloaded and put in your car and put in your iPod and put up you’re a** if you want, and it’s $5 on your cable bill or ISP bill.” So many questions emerge from this thought: Would you be willing to pay such a tax? How much would you be willing to pay? Would you think that such a tax, would be the beginning of an internet tax in general?

The tax issue

• On the one hand it seems unfair to tax the whole internet community for something (downloading music) that just a percentage of the users does.

It also seems hard to imagine all the participants (artists, industries, government) trying to share the income of this tax. How would be the percentage divided?

• On the other hand it could be just a tax on subscribed downloaders. Only users who download the music, would pay a certain amount. But it is something we have already witnessed (Napster, Rhapsody) and it doesn’t work. But Reznor also talks about the physical product. I would gladly pay 5$ tax or registration to get the original cd shipped to me, instead of just the digital version.

An interesting discussion on the subject goes on at Matthew Ingram’s post “Hey Trent - a music tax is a dumb idea“. I wouldn’t go that far, to say it’s a dump idea, but surely there are many-many parameters we should take account, in order for such a proposal to be successful and fair.

It would be dumb, if it were to start an avalanche of internet taxes in general (in youtube videos, online books, radio stations etc).

Trent Reznor posted the other day the sales results of the label-less album of Saul Williams he produced, “The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust”. He wrote:

Saul’s previous record was released in 2004 and has sold 33,897 copies.

As of 1/2/08,
154,449 people chose to download Saul’s new record.
28,322 of those people chose to pay $5 for it, meaning:
18.3% chose to pay.

Of those paying,

3220 chose 192kbps MP3
19,764 chose 320kbps MP3
5338 chose FLAC

Keep in mind not one cent was spent on marketing this record. The only marketing was Saul and myself talking as loudly as we could to anybody that would listen.

Before discussing what other bloggers have said about the subject, lets take a look at the numbers.

The facts of the industry

First some facts:

• The average cd price of the time was 14,92$ (according to RIAA; pdf file here)

• more RIAA numbers (a *pdf file again). Between 1996 and 2006 we have an increase of concert ticket prices of 86%, while cd prices fall only 9%.

• and according to musicBizAcademy
  

  A new act usually gets somewhere between 10-15% of the suggested list price of a recording. (Remember too that out of your percentage, you must pay your producer their percentage, for producing your record.)

What do the numbers say?

• 2007: 28,322 people payed 5$ for the album, this means a profit of 141,610$ (remember the album is label-less; I suppose out of that profit, the artist has to pay the producer too).

• 2004: Saul’s previous record sold 33.897 copies. This means a profit of 505,743.24$ (the album distributed by Fader Label). Out of the se505,743.24$, Saul receives 15% (lets suppose 15% according to the information of MusicBizAcademy; probably more, since he wasn’t a new act – but lets say 15% without counting the payment to the producer), which equals for the artist to a profit of 75,861.476$.

So lets compare the numbers: without a label, Saul Williams earned 141,610$ and with a label 75,861.476$.

These numbers are more or less hypothetical (especially the 2004 numbers), but you get my point. Correct me if you find anything strange.
This means, that Saul – supposedly – had a pretty good profit from his independent debut, while also gaining considerable amounts from his concerts (don’t disregard that Saul’s independency and collaboration with Trent Reznor has also increased his popularity; and of course the price increase of concert tickets).

The blogosphere’s points

• Mashable, commenting on Trent Reznor’s disappointment wrote:

First of all, Saul Williams isn’t exactly a name brand. For someone with one other album having been produced before this one, I personally would be thrilled with the distribution they received on word-of-mouth.

I agree, Saul Williams isn’t a brand name. But I think Reznor is disappointed from the pure numbers; 18,3% willing to pay just 5$ seems disappointing indeed. Especially, when you think that you are actually encouraging the beginning of an artist

• If we consider that the sole marketing used, was just word-of-mouth and Reznors fans, I would agree with Andrew Baron that 18% is a pretty good percentage. Lets not forget that
  

  culture has shifted from following the crowd up to the top of the charts to finding your own style and exploring far out beyond the broadcast mainstream, into both relative obscurity and back through time to the classics

  as Chris Anderson notes in the Long Tail.

• One more interesting point is that Saul Williams, reached a wider public. 33,897 people listened to him in 2004 (officially) and 154,449 in 2007 (still officially). That’s a growth of almost 450% in just 3 years. That’s big (and without marketing!)

I don’t know if you have followed the creative force of Trent Reznor. But if he wants to market a product, he has fascinating ways to do it (remember the Year Zero Project?)

• Finally, as Marshall Kirkpatrick notes, we still don’t know how the concerts of the artist went. Do we have a similar increase? If so, I would say, Saul’s experiment was a huge success.

Conclusion

It seems to me that the independence of the artists from the (at least big) labels is on the way. We still have to wait for the results of Radiohead and Madonna to see the subject (a bit) more spherically, but the numbers about S. William’s album speak for the transformation of the traditional music industry. Recent news are giving us a hint. Philips joins forces with Rhapsody and labels in general are looking for new options.

Update:

Some thoughts on the Radionhead album are out. Noone knows the profits for sure, but the whole concept looks like a combination of traditional and modern promoting. In a way like the Reznor-Williams experiment, but in a more secure way.

Radiohead used word-of-mouth to get the attention of the public (which is certainly online) and then went ‘traditional’ (removing the internet download version and moving to the ‘physical’ stores).

Lets wait for the numbers, to get some more conclusive results.