INTERNET
INFORMATION
PAYMENTS
EXCHANGE COLLABORATIVE
Strategic
Discussion Convening
9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Tuesday, June
19, 2007
Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
Cambridge,
Mass.
(BUILDING TBA)
CO-CONVENERS
·
Prof. Henry Jenkins, comparative media
studies, MIT;
author, “Convergence
Culture” (NYU Press, 2006)
·
Geneva Overholser,
faculty, Univ. of Missouri School of Journalism, ex-editor Des Moines Register; ombudsman, Washington
Post; editorial-page writer, The New
York Times
·
Tom Stites,
Unitarian Universalist Association;
Center for Public Integrity (ex MSM editor)
-- (may not be present June 19) SPEECH
·
Bill Densmore,
Media Giraffe Project, UMass Amherst
(and founder, Clickshare Service
Corp.)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Internet needs a
system for tracking, exchanging and settling value (including payments) for
information commerce (text, video, music, game plays, other entertainment,
advertising views etc.)
One challenge might be to create a system that can be ubiquitous
yet never be owned or controlled by either the government or a dominant
private, for-profit entity. It should to be massively distributed and -- in
some fashion – might ideally be collaboratively owned.
On June 19, 2007, we are assembling for a few hours a small group
(no more than 10 people) - -
representative of of technology, entrepreneurship, academia, social theory and publishing -- to
brainstorm a solution and consider an agenda for a larger fall event, also in
Cambridge. For June 19, MIT is merely
providing the meeting venue.
The session is by invitation only. The participants should
understand the proceedings may be summarized generally (without direct
attribution) in public and are not proprietary.
SOME ASSUMPTIONS
·
Advertising is not covering the expenses of many information-vending web sites,
especially the news that is needed to ensure a vibrant participatory democracy.
·
Some content is unique and proprietary enough that it can be sold
·
Lack of consensus on sub-$2 incremental payment mechanisms or
multi-site subscriptions:
-- Discourages most publishers from
selling premium content digitally
-- Prevents "network effect"
from taking hold (as with credit cards/long distance)
THE OPPORTUNITY
A creative and compensation tsunami is underway which is washing
away the foundations of intellectual property exchange.
Those who represent and profit from the legacy arrangements see it
as a crisis. (Most recent example: Column of Doug Clifton, retiring editor of
the Cleveland Plain Dealer: http://newshare.blogspot.com/2007/05/retiring-cleveland-editor-says-readers.html
)
Many who are outside of it see it as a welcome change. Two things are certain: The emergence of
social networks and so-called "crowdsourcing" - using the Internet to
assemble the reporting and research of many people on a common subject -- are bringing new voices into the public
sphere.
The Internet has upended the economics of intellectual property
and disrupted the newspaper, music and entertainment industries while creating
new opportunities in software, games and multimedia. The old paradigm of
subscription bundling in physical media is giving way to a new option - the
creation of custom packages, on demand, by the consumer. But the Internet lacks
a mechanism for the tracking and paying for information found and aggregated on
the fly from many rights-holders and from the edges of the network..
Rights-holders are struggling to find new compensation schemes and the
challenge has turned from the initial desire to protect (i.e., through DRM) to
wanting to share with the option for compensation.
There is an opportunity to develop a universal system for the
authentication of content users, and for the anonymous tracking of their access
to digital information, so that they can easily pay discretely as their bundle
is assembled in time or space, or receive compensation when they agree to use,
view or listen to sponsored content (such as advertising). Such a system would need to be ubiquitous,
but also open to a plurality of rights holders as well as users and their
service providers.
There is a need for a system that will make it trivially easy for
consumers to purchase digital content in small pieces, across multiple websites
(by subscription or per-click), without having to use multiple IDs, passwords
or credit facilities. The marketplace perceives this need now and it is time to
create the service.
This is important to rights holders in music, video, photography,
gaming and news, for starters. It's also becoming an issue for Google and
Yahoo, and anyone who points to content and would like a way to earn referral
fees for doing so. (See: http://newshare.blogspot.com/2007/05/strategic-european-publisher-says.html
CONVENING GOALS
·
Identify needs and requirements for an Internet information
payments infrastructure
·
Consider structure and ownership of a proposed integrated
web-infrastructure service that would enable multi-site user authentication,
transfer and sharing of user preference information, and logging (for later
aggregation and settlement) of small content value-exchange (video, text,
audio, multimedia, games, advertising views)
·
Consider next steps on how to create the needed infrastructure
·
Establish a working group to convene ongoing interest in
solution(s)
POSSIBLE LONG-TERM GOAL
·
Achieve consensus on an infrastructure for Internet information
payments which is easy to use, allows sharing of users and content, maintains
ownership of user bases for publishers, and is capable of supporting
multi-media copyright-protection mechanisms.
INTERNET
INFORMATION
PAYMENTS
EXCHANGE COLLABORATIVE
Strategic Discussion Convening
9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Tuesday, June
19, 2007
Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
Cambridge,
Mass.
(BUILDING TBA)
HALF-DAY AGENDA
(SUBJECT TO
CHANGE AT CONVENING)
9:00 a.m. |
Coffee, Danish: Reach consensus on agenda – Densmore /
Jenkins |
9:15 a.m. |
Roundtable – individual
intros, what do we each bring as agenda, what do we want to learn and take
away; proposed outcomes |
9:45 a.m. |
A short oral history of
Internet information payments, user management and loyalty/advertising
systems / Densmore and others |
10:00 a.m. |
Discussion: Defining the
problem/opportunity |
10:45 a.m. |
Bio/coffee/phone call break |
11:00 a.m.
|
Whiteboard possible solutions |
11:30 a.m. |
System ownership: Existing
models analysis |
noon |
WORKING BOX LUNCH: -- Consider
impediments to success -- Select options for structure/ownership to be explored |
12:45 p.m. |
Seek consensus on how to
advance including possibly: --- Research agenda --- September
summit convening --- Consensus
building within publishing, technology, advertising --- Who takes the lead? |
1:00 p.m. |
Adjourn / future conference
call date? (informal discussion among
some participants can continue after 1 p.m.) |
A call to
action . . .
“The evidence is mounting that the news
industry must become more aggressive about developing a new economic model. The
signs are clearer that advertising works differently online than in older
media. Finding out about goods and services on the Web is an activity unto
itself, like using the yellow pages, and less a byproduct of getting news, such
as seeing a car ad during a newscast.
The consequence is that advertisers may
not need journalism as they once did, particularly online. Already the predictions of advertising
growth on the Web are being scaled back. That has major implications, (which
some initiatives such as .Newspaper Next. are beginning to grapple with). Among
them, news organizations can broaden what they consider journalistic function
to include activities such as online search and citizen media, and perhaps even
liken their journalism to anchor stores at a mall, a major reason for coming
but not the only one.
Perhaps most important, the math suggests they
almost certainly must find a way to get consumers to pay for digital content.
The increasingly logical scenario is not to charge the consumer directly.
Instead, news providers would charge Internet providers and aggregators
licensing fees for content.
News organizations may have to create
consortiums to make this happen.
And those fees would likely add to the bills consumers pay for Internet access.
But the notion that the Internet is free is already false. Those who report the
news just aren’t sharing in the fees.”
-- above
excerpted from “Overview-Major Trends,” in:
“The State of the New Media 2007: An Annual Report on American
Journalism,”
by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, Washington, D.C., found at:
http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2007/narrative_overview_eight.asp?cat=2&media=1
An earlier convening . .
.
In June, 1999, the Bank of Boston, IBM, the University of
Massachusetts and a group of technology companies sponsored a three-day summit
called the “Internet Information Payments Collaborative.” The goal was to spark establishment of a universal payments infrastructure for
digital content. The effort failed; the
marketplace wasn’t ready. A
description: http://users.crocker.com/~newshare/email.html
·
The 1999 event program:
http://users.crocker.com/~newshare/conference/program.html
·
The 1999 vision statement:
http://users.crocker.com/~newshare/email.html
ADDITIONAL RECENT COMMENTARY (2006-2007) FOR SKIMMING:
1.
Doc Searls, author, “Building a Relationship Economy.”
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000182
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/VRMcompanies
2.
Mark Potts, founder BackFence.com, formerly a WashingtonPost.com
editor:
http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2007/02/paid_content_pa.html
3.
Dan Kennedy, Northeastern Univ.,
MediaNation blog
http://medianation.blogspot.com/2007/03/paying-for-news.html
4.
David Lazarus, columnist, the San Francisco Chronicle: “ What if
online portals had nothing but 'digital fish wrap'?”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/12/EDGRMLJIGK1.DTL&hw=scheer&sn=001&sc=1000
5.
Dean Singleton, vice-chairman, MediaNews Group Inc., chairman, The
Associated Press:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2006/04/27/financial/f155717D68.DTL&type=business
6.
Elliott Spitzer's antitrust enforcer on antitrust implications of
wholesale/retail:
http://journalism-issues.blogspot.com/2007/05/pricing-spitzer-looking-at-wholesale.html
7.
Tom Hespos, president, Underscore Marketing Inc.
http://newshare.blogspot.com/2005/08/charging-tom-hespos-perhaps-its-time.html
8.
Martin Nisenholz, The New York Times:
http://newshare.blogspot.com/2005/07/times-nisenholz-suggests-premium.html
9.
Richard Siklos, The New York Times: “It's Like Selling Meals by
the Bite. And It May Work.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/business/yourmoney/13frenzy.html
10.
Jack Fuller, ex-president, Tribune Publishing unit of Tribune Co.
:
http://newshare.blogspot.com/2007/05/strategic-tribunes-jack-fuller-says.html
11.
John Battelle, MIT
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: A New Idea for
Publishing:
The advertising cost-per-influence network
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/issue/megaphone0105.asp
12.
Hank Barry, Hummer-Winblad Venture Partners on “self-expression”
payments network
http://newshare.blogspot.com/2007/05/strategic-napster-venture-capitalist-on.html
13.
Vin Crosbie, Digital Deliverance:
Online Publishing: Past is No
Prologue for Micropayments
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3365061
Also: The Long View Part 2: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3404451
14.
Robert Shiller, economics
professor, Yale University: “Electronic money changes everything.”
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2004/08/01/2003181286
15.
Steve Crocker, founder CyberCash on the concept of “reverse payments”
http://www.merchantseek.com/article9.htm
16.
Dee Hock, founder Visa, co-collaborator (with Greg Steltenpohl),
Interra card project
Http://users.crocker.com/~newshare/reports/visa_founding.html
http://www.interraproject.org/
17.
Big payoff for inventor of software metering?
http://newshare.blogspot.com/2007/05/strategic-big-payoff-for-inventor-of.html
RELATED LINKS:
The utility of the OpenID framework and how that might work if
combined with a payment mechanism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_id
TALKS AND ESSAYS
ON THE FUTURE OF NEWS:
1997: On why newspapers must secure an online financial
relationship with user:
http://newshare.com/interactive/
1996: The Hourglass and the cylinder: How newspapers can profit in
a free market for digital information
http://newshare.com/pnpa/speech.html
2002: Symptoms of childhood: The charge plate and the off-limits
Xerox machine
http://www.clickshare.com/news/update-02-05-02.shtml
2002: A tale of two industries: Music and newspapers could find
salvation together
http://www.clickshare.com/news/update-10-07-02.shtml
CLICKSHARE-SPECIFIC PITCHES:
A battle waged over consumers that everyone can win:
http://www.clickshare.com/news/shorttopics/thebattle.shtml
Three examples of real-world clicking and why per-click will work
http://www.newshare.com/News/clicking.html
Handling demographics and privacy in the Clickshare system
http://www.clickshare.com/news/shorttopics/demographics_and_privacy.shtml