Methodical Madness

U2 and Foo Fighters usher in new era of interactive concerts

There’s no question the Internet has changed the way we consume music. Digital downloads have become a staple of our lives, but digital concerts? Is experiencing your favorite band perform live being claimed by the ever expanding Internet as well?

I don’t see bands ever forsaking the road, but they are starting to embrace the concept of concert via fiber optic cable as a way to get closer to their fans. Two weeks ago, U2 played a concert in the Rose Bowl which was simultaneously broadcast by YouTube to millions of viewers across 16 countries. It was a first for the world’s largest video provider, and, unsurprisingly, it was a major success. After all, what U2 fan wouldn’t go to the trouble of simply clicking a link from the comfort of their living room?

The roughly 10 million fans who tuned in were able to chat with each other via an integrated Twitter feed, many of whom simply posted thank you’s to the band. Never one to miss an opportunity to save the world, Bono slipped in a “donate to (RED)” button for the millions of viewers to contemplate clicking while in their happy spirits over the free show.

The event was another demonstration of traditional media’s decline in prominence. Those 10 million viewers showed up with zero promotion carried out in traditional media – the concert was promoted exclusively online. And while those numbers are pretty far off what the big network TV broadcasts get, it’s a major jump forward in seriously competing with them.

U2’s Internet extravaganza was well publicized and hard to miss, but did you catch Foo Fighters pulling an Internet first of their own last weekend? The alt-rockers broadcast a live show on Facebook (via livestream), becoming the first major act to do so. Even without much promotion, the 2 hour and 45 minute stream from their recording studio drew in 440,000 viewers.

The band played fan favorites in support of their newly released greatest hits album. During the show, fans were able to talk not only with each other, but with the band themselves who responded to comments and took requests. Imagine having that opportunity with your favorite band.

So are streaming concerts the wave of the future? Perhaps, but probably not the near future. The rights issues around concerts are far more complicated than broadcasting other media, as there are so many people who need to sign off on the project including managers, band members, the record label, the venue, etc. But the technology is there, the demand is there and there is money to be made, so expect the likes of Bono and Dave Grohl to be invading your living room more often in the coming years.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

Random Sitings

Here at the agency we come across some pretty interesting web content in the course of any given week. We thought we'd share some with you. This week we have helicopter fishing, a guide to world domination, a dancing baby and the secret to retweeting.

Chris Guillebeau has written a brief guide to world domination.  Not bad for a 30 year old whose goal in life is to travel to all 197 countries in the world. So far he’s visited 119 of them. His guide is very thought-provoking and contains a great deal of useful information. Check out his blog The Art of Non-Conformity.

 

Just when you thought you had seen everything, someone comes up with something unexpected. A man with too much time on his hands uses a R/C helicopter with an E-Flite blade 400 for fishing.  I don't know what that means but the video has had 1.6 million views to date.

 

 

 
Dan Zarrella is about to become a household name in social media circles. He spent nine months looking at 5 million tweets and 40 million retweets and may have discovered the secret to getting your post retweeted more frequently. His report “Science of ReTweets” is a 22 page document that breaks down the who, what, when, where and why of retweeting.

 

Sure Kanye disrupted the MTV Video Awards to tell everyone that Beyonce had the best video ever, but watching a baby dance to her video is even better.  1.7 million people agree with me.

 

What have you seen this week that others should see?

The Future Is Free

According to Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine and author of The Long Tail, the future is free, or as Chris calls it “Freeconomics.” It’s no longer about charging for a service but giving the base away and charging for the upgrades and extras. In other words, “giveaway the abundance, sell the scarcity.”

At the Media Evolution in Malmö, Sweden yesterday, Chris spent almost an hour giving us what amounts to basically an outline to his new book, “Free, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love $0.00.” While not groundbreaking, Chris gave an interesting lecture that had some comments that appeared to be a rude wake up for the panel that followed.

Today’s generation expects everything to be free. From games to music to movies, the expectation is it’s out there for the taking and you shouldn’t have to pay for it. That is in direct contrast to older generations where you expect to pay for everything.  The balance falls in-between.  You can see this happening with everything from video games to music sites. You give away the base service and then charge for the add-on or unique version. With Second Life, you get the basic online interaction but if you want house, that’s going to cost you. Spotify allows you to listen to free music all day, but if you want to avoid commercials, that’s going to require a credit card.

Chris has taken this model and applied it to his new book. You can get the mp3, pdf or any other online version for free, but it will cost you $24.95 to buy the hardback version. This is a great model for him because it is a quick and easy way to disseminate his ideas. His publisher thinks it is a horrible concept. Since they are in the market to sell books, just giving it away is not what they want to see.

Publishers of content (music, literature, movies, etc) are not prepared to handle the freeconomy. After Chris’ lecture, there was a panel filled with publishers and it was obvious they weren’t thrilled with Chris’ message. As more and more newspapers and magazines fail, it’s hard to compete with free online news and information. The solution is to build a following with free and then convert them to offline clients with good content. It’s not an easy sell to publishers but you either embrace the future or you fall by the side for those who can.

Overall, I would call the Media Evolution a positive experience. The panel at the end was well organized and it was interesting to hear the concerns of the panelists. Chris is a talented speaker and was able to hold the huge crowd’s attention. In the future, I would like to see it expand to a full day’s conference with a keynote speaker at the end. There are enough people in the Nordic region to fill six hours. For the price, hearing two and half hours worth of material seems a little steep. Sure there were other events (live singer and an after party) but they felt more like padding and didn’t add any real value.  Also, how do you not have free wi-fi at an event that talks about the value of free?

I hope they have more Media Evolutions. It was a good start and I met some interesting people. If you want to see Chris’s lecture and hear the panel, Media Evolutions has the entire event up to view.

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Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He love to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.