I spent last Wednesday and Thursday (March 21-22) at the IMG World Congress of Sports conference at the Pierre in New York City. The WCOS is perhaps the most prestigious sports business conference and consists of luminary panelists and attendees within the sports business industry. Naturally, this conference is held annually in New York City as almost all major sports have their league offices in NYC and many major corporate advertisers and media agencies operate their sports divisions out of the city. Speakers included MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, NCAA President Myles Brand, ESPN head man John Skipper, NBA COO Adam Silver, and former press secretary Ari Fleischer, who has clients in sports.

I was especially excited to learn how the leading executives in sports media plan to utilize the innovative technology and trends in digital media to enhance their products and brands and create cutting-edge sponsorship solutions for their corporate partners. I’m a firm believer that sports are a perfect platform for the convergence of media and technology. The live aspect of sports combined with a passionate consumer base makes sports a catalyst to change consumer behaviors and drive innovation in media. In addition, two recent web 2.0 success stories have come from the sports realm as both fannation and maxpreps were acquired by major sports media companies for hefty eight figure acquisition prices.

I came away with mixed feeling on how innovative the sports world is in regard to new media progress. Part of this is because the sports industry is thriving in many facets all across the globe. Traditional media and attendance numbers are at an all-time high and corporate advertisers are flooding the market with dollars. Unlike other media industries, most people in sports seem to be doing ok. Therefore, there is less of an urgency to innovate and to try and figure out the future of sports. Combine that with the fact that the sports industry is a close-knit fraternal bunch that is somewhat weary of outsiders and it becomes even harder to crack the shell.

The major media issues at the conference surrounded MLB’s pending Extra Innings package with DirecTV in which all MSO’s would be shut out from carrying the out-of-market subscription package. MLB also restricts web site the right to provide fantasy baseball. Closed off distribution? Limiting access? Doesn’t sound like the future of media. But the Extra Innings package is a $700 million deal. It’s a bit tougher to experiment with new media when you are throwing around those kinds of numbers.

Executive used the words Facebook and Myspace like they were enigmas and fads that were too dicey to embrace. ESPN exec John Skipper stated that “We are a content company trying to figure out how to deal with a generation who doesn’t understand what they’re putting up [on the Internet].” Many do see the value though as sports executive Dave Checketts (former President of MSG) believes that social networking is the language of a new America. Overall, I get the sense that many sports executives are deathly afraid of user-generated content. After all, there brands and relationships are too valuable to jeopardize with experiments on social networks.

There was a panel dedicated to digital media called “Digital media: content, distribution and the business models that make sense.” I was pumped to hear some of the experts dissect the industry but thought most of the conversation to be lackluster. All the panelists admitted competition is stiff and that they must innovate to survive. It seems like they are trying new things more as a defensive tactic than an offensive maneuver. All parties were very conservative in regard to digital rights (for good reason as that is a main revenue source in sports media) leaving the Google representative squirming a bit uncomfortably. Finally, there were gripes about traffic reporting and indifference to digital sponsorship opportunities. It was almost as though the panelists could have been having a conversation about the television space.
I still believe that sports will be a driver of new media in the future but it might not happen as fast as I would like or expect. Unlike publishing, and news and entertainment media, sports is thriving in traditional media. Motivations and dollars are still flowing from television, event sponsorship, franchise ownership and event operations. I’m pretty sure that digital media will grow. Actually, it must grow for sports to remain on top.
For a full recap of all the panels and to get a great recap of the conference check out the Sports Business Journal All-Access Blog.

I was recently poking around on Google Trends and Alexa and ran a few searches that provided surprising results.

The buzz on the blogosphere (and elesewhwere) is that we are in a “bubble.” VC’s investing like crazy, people spending money they don’t have, etc…

Well people say “numbers don’t lie,” so I decided to investigate…

If it were a true bubble I would expect that the term “web 2.0” would be getting more and more airtime as the ‘dumb masses’ begin to learn what it means and write about it. Unfortuntaley Web 2.0 is in a major correction pattern (see major dip in 2007):

Next, if it’s true that everyone is starting a company and every MBA wants to be a VC wouldn’t you expect that the number of people searching for and writing about the term “venture capital” would be through the roof? Well, actually the opposite is true:

Finally if we were in a bubble, people flush with excess cash and higher risk tolerance would be all be investing in the market, right? And if the internet generation were investing, wouldn’t it make sense that they would be using an online brokerage like Etrade? Thus Etrade must be getting traffic like crazy, right? Well, no:

So what does all this mean? I don’t know.

But, maybe this whole ‘bubble thing’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. What do you think?

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One of my favorites things about NYC is its unlimited resources for designers. We have great museums, a lot of galleries, way too many hip bookstores, and weekly design conferences (or so it seems). This past weekend I went to an AIGA NY event, Body/Language. It was a full day of interesting design talk. Here are some notes/thoughts:

• There were a lot of girls.
• I wish they had left the lights on in the auditorium, so we can take notes.
• Debbie Millman was the host. She was funny and very well-spoken. Ms. Millman also keeps a blog and hosts an international radio show called Design Matters.
• Isaac Mizrahi came on stage with a cane. He wore all black. He was funny. I don’t remember what he said.
• Paul Boudens is a Belgian graphic designer. He’s very good. He said that design with Photoshop is not as ‘timeless’ as designs with physical material. Millman asked him how his design has changed as he became older, and his answer was that his design has become more classic, but not boring. I like Boudens’ earlier, non-classic designs better. You can see some of his designs in my flickr set of blurry pictures.
• I was looking forward to hear the talk by Bumble and Bumble’s Alexander Brebner, because I like BB’s design - especially the black & white illustration style adverstisements. He didn’t talk about graphic design at all. It was a 40-minute presentation of important hair dressers. I was bored.
• Marketa Uhlirova is the curator for the recent Fashion in Film festival at the Museum of the Moving Image, and she gave us her dissertation on photographer William Klein. The film clips she picked were interesting, her presentation was dry.
• Pentagram’s Abbot Miller gave us a mildly interesting analysis of fashion brands and their typeface (Armani’s Didot-like typeface versus Channel’s Futura versus YSL’s in-between : female vs male vs sexual). I’m a fan of Miller’s work, and I wish he would’ve talked more about his own work.
• John C Jay + Jeff Ng/Staple + Gordon Hull and Daniel Jackson of Surface to Air. This was an entertaining panel that I wish could’ve gone on longer. John Jay pointed out a common thread of both Staple and Surface to Air - both groups are artists and designers first, business men second. My observations: both groups have their own products, retail spaces, and both consult for big corporations such as Nike, Adidas, and still maintain their street credibility somehow. I’ll write a separate post about this later.
• Etienne Mineur is a skinny French designer, and co-founder of Incandescence Studio. I first heard of them a few years ago when I was looking at the amazing Issey Miyake’s website, which made my stomach turn. And this afternoon I could not believe my ears when Etienne said that he did each of those Flash pieces by himself, with just one other music production person. This is the presentation of the day, and I lost count of how many times during the presentation I said, ‘Holy shit…’ and I was not the only one. I’m very aware of the good Flash designs out there these days, and this skinny French man who worships John Maeda is on a whole different level.
• Ruth Ansel and Yolanda Cuomo came on to gave a presentation on the legendary art director, Alexey Brodovitch. It was painful. First they used a terrible picture of Brodovitch, old and drunk (incidentally, Benedict Fernandez has taken a great series of Brodovitch, old, but much more dignified). Then they just kept going on and on about Brodovitch and Dick (Richard Avedon). This is one of those occasions where I wished people can be more narcissistic and just talk about themselves. Ansel and Cuomo were art directors when women did not take such large roles in the design field, and I would like to hear more about that (and to hear their perspectives on the glass ceiling).
• Andy Spade. I had a Jack Spade bag on, and so did half of the men there, I suppose, and that was embarrassing. It was a weird presentation. It started off with this short film about the Spades that was a video montage of clips from movies and music videos they like (2-3 clips from Bjork/Spike Jonze’s It’s Oh So Quiet, a lot of Godard’s, a lot of technicolor), and he said that the short film represents who they are. What popped in my head was - stealing and cheesy? What made me feel most uneasy about the presentation was how contradictory everything is. Spades want to be cool and hip, but they are clearly making bags for rich people - rich white people with big houses, as their new ads suggest. The strange feelings aside, I think the Spades are amazing in building their own little empire, and I applaud them for caring about art and staying “indie” (even though it comes off rather phony). An elaborate and well-written analysis + thoughts of the presentation on five and a half’s blog.

Last night I attended a mixer sponsored by Jeff Pulver and the guys at Network2. Jeff graciously poured out the booze and even provided snacks over at Proof Bar & Lounge near Gramercy Park. I saw a couple NextNY'ers in attendance and spoke with Steve from Magnify.net and Gregory Galant of Venture Voice fame. Network2 is aggregating video-based RSS feeds into one central location for users to

Union Square Ventures hosted Matt Flannery of Kiva.org two nights ago. Kiva is a website that enables anyone online to engage in microfinancing of individuals in third-world countries.

Microfinance is obviously a hot topic in the wake of Dr. Yunus winning the Nobel Peace Prize for work on microfinance. It was a fruitful and entertaining night. I learned a ton about Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and the infrastructure that needs to be built in order to support Microfinance in rural communities.

A few interesting gems from the night:

• There are approximately 10,000 MFIs, but Kiva can only work with MFIs that have internet access, which reduces the number of MFIs that Kiva can do business with to 300. In other words, this is still a significant digital divide.
• Kiva actually had interest rates on the site for awhile, so you could actually make money with Kiva… but they had to remove interest rates due to legal issues.
• The motivations behind someone investing in a person via Kiva are incredibly diverse. Some people use Kiva in the same way they use a charity, even though it is technically a loan. Others use Kiva because it is NOT charity, and it forces people to pull themselves up on their own without giving anything away. Others do it for novelty/entertainment value. Some people could be pessemisticly described as interested in creating a portfolio of people they own a stake in… driven by voyeurism. There are many other reasons too, and I find it really interesting that there can be so many diverse/conflicting motivations for the same action.

We at Union Square Ventures had no prior connection to Matt Flannery, but Art Chang of Tipping Point Partners had a connection to Kiva’s President and offered to organize the event. Thanks to Art for making this happen!

If you’re working in independent media or “new media” or The Internet, and you live or work in Brooklyn, please come to nextNY’s rooftop BBQ.

Who: nextNY Brooklyn members, anybody else working in new media/internet stuff
What: Rooftop BBQ, I’ll grill some food and get drinks, take donations from participants.
When: Saturday, April 21, 6pm
Where: 55 Lexington Ave, Clinton Hill (MAP)
Why: Why not?

We’re about half-full right now, so if you want to come be sure to sign up on the WIKI.

Jay Rosen (Newassigment.net) talking about Assignment Zero

When Tim Berners-Lee designed the web, he created a platform for people to collaborate, so scientists could share data. It is a giant collaboration machine. but it has developed more as a broadcast media, print, tv, cable to web.

so what are the consequences for journalism, investigative reporting, when we have falling costs to locate people, share info, collaborate. so like-minded people can find each other, collaborate and make stuff for value. see OSS, Wikipedia, others. So with NewAssignment.net what are the consequences for journalism,

this is a research project; to spark innovation, to develop new knowledge, to push forward platform of open source reporting.

So how do you do reporting under open conditions? the fist attempt is Assignment Zero, joint project with Wired magazine, they have shared some costs, e.g. hiring an editor to carry project to the end.

So can you take a big trend story, out there in 100s or 1000s of places, break it up into parts, develop online, assign to people, write stories and publish the best of the results. an open invitation to participates to join in that behaviour. can you do stories with 100s instead of 2-3?

Have 700 members in 2 weeks, they expected 250 in 2 months, with 100 or so real contributing. biggest problem is organising all of these people. Thye have joined, got blog, have email address. have said intend to contribute. Most members have put photos, They are known.

The heart of the site is the assignment desk (very crudely designed). List all the topics under the big story about the spread of crowd-sourcing.

There are forums to discuss new stories, complaints, a survey, the survey is open to all- looking at motivations across the various types of open source projects.

Most of the editors are professional journalists. we have a Director of Participation. to do this, you need a traditional editor and then you need someone to organise the people..the Director of Participation.. One drives the story, the other solves the people problems. We are deluged now under the cost of interactivity, we have 3x as many people as expected. we do not have the staff to manage this at the moment. then you have to organise volunteers to absorb this costs, to add to the solution, to organise more people. to keep the people there.

The Dir. of Participation’s background is in political campaigns, have understanding of organising people horizontal. The equivalent roles in tech companies are community managers.

We think it will be a 2-3 month project. so what do we get? Wired will have a big feature about everything we will do, and newassignment.net will also publish an editors cut of everything that came in. a big package of stories here, a big feature on the mag. everything is CC, so things can be published elsewhere as well,.

Also (today) starting a second project with Huffpost, following 12 Presidential candidates; create a group blog, with networks of 50-100 people, feeding material to one blog, doing a microbeat. there will be backstage forum for the network to discuss the news, sort out things etc.

Audience Questions

Q: how do you accommodate for standards of journalism, from writing to vetting stories.

A: we are trying to practice open platform, capture the benefits of openness but we know there are cots. the tricks are to have benefits and reduce costs. one of costs is about knowing the credibility of the participants. we are not going to prevent people joining, but have strict controls on what we will print. exercise controls at the final gateway. if we can’t reach you by phone, then unlikely to give you stuff essential to do. there’s no single solution to it. you have overlapping measures that add up to a workable solutions

Q: Dan Gilmore had Bayosphere for a while, the main difference here is there is an editor, far more of a focus.

A: this is a second wave attempt built on what happened the first time round. the first was about building platforms for people to do their own thing - that is what blogging is This is far different - one story into 100s of parts. we can do stuff that are as good, and stories that they would not attempt, that would not be feasible.

Q: what is the business model

A: this is not a business; the costs for this project are over 40k for one this one story, but we do not know what will come out of it. the costs for the first may not be the same as the second. will you get costs savings? not sure, but will get increases in quality and volume. the crowd become a way to make the crowd reliable. it is no a cheaper journalism, but a better one that is done on bigger subjects

Q: how about faster?

A: Last weekend the Justice dept, dumped 3k page of emails, see how talkingpontsmemo.com spread out the work, asked readers to help them out. posted 100s of pdfs, asked people to analyse and find the stuff. they did it overnight.

A: Sunlight foundation got people to check members of Congress employing family members- took a weekend - then all were fact checked and there was a high degree of accuracy.

Q: in terms of wikis, how would you describe the difference?

A: in starting this, we could learn from first wave of projects. take a step beyond that. 2ndly he biggest gains would be in hybrid forms, where you have openness and also some controls. there is structure and chaos. if anyone can sign up, this is the opposite of a controlled newsroom. it is going to be a mix of openness and controls, professionals and amateurs, order and entropy. the only way to find it is through practice, not ideology nor theory. I’m a tenure professor of journalism - who’s going to tell me I can’t. the cost of trying things is plunging so the cost to learning new things is plunging. no paper will do this. most journalists are very protectionist about this, defensive. I don;t have to care at the moment, we can do it without them. I put out an appeal for pros to help with it, when we got to 450, got 25 people interested. we have some problems, we did not design the pages properly. we are redesigning now, so you will find info and who the editor for the pages who is the contributor is, you can join a topic when you want to work on it, and you will know who your collaborators are. we add a blog for the editor to address the contributors.

Q: will we see the reporting that has gone on?

A: will we see their notes, what they add to it. They post in their ‘notebook’. which shows on the front page. Open source code site is built in drupal, all code is there, we need to find developers.

Q: is there a back channels or open channel for the participants?

A: when we redo the topic page. you will find discussion and deliberation at the page - publicly. when we do other stories, we may add some confidential stuff. we do it story by story. if the best thing for the story is to be confidential, then we will.

Q: why do you need a professional at the top - does not community do it already? can’t you do it like that?

A: it’;s possible we will get there, but when starting this I could not work out how to do this without some pros. if we could get there, and have almost no pros, then that would be fantastic discovery..a self informing public, a wild idea. but right now I don;t know how to do it, how to create the controls. I think the biggest gains will be with the hybrid.

Q: At the moment, my reporters notebook is covered by laws to keep me out of trouble, what about this notebook, how is this handled?

A: it;s a complicated questions. I have thought it through with lawyers. write now, all we can do is differentiate the edited from unedited. there is a belief that the libellous material is in unedited material then some protection (common carrier). this is not yet proven, we do not know that the courts will say. it is not exactly clear. this is an experiment in shared responsibility and liability. if I had checked with all lawyers possible, then they may say I could not do it. but I have to innovate. you have to solve the practical problems that you run in,. the knowledge that you develop to solve the problems is the goal.

Thanks to Rafe Needleman for passing this on to me.

I’m focusing on getting ready for tonight’s innaugural WineTable, which focuses solely on Apple Inc. For those of you who do not know what a WineTable is, it’s part of darrenSalon which launched early this month to stimulate intelligent digital media and technology conversations here in New York City. Why is the topic of conversation tonight focused around Apple Inc.? The simple answer is because I’ve been a loyal and devout Apple/Macintosh fan for most of my life and even wrote a significant academic paper around the 1984 advertising campaign that shook the world. I am looking to foster conversation about where we feel the company is headed and why… but these are only guestimates and assumptions, but hopefully we can foster debate and come up with some good ideas. I will be taking notes during this evening and there is a chance we will be digitally recording it as well for audio podcasts for those who want to listen in. To learn more about darrenSalon and WineTable’s head over to the official site, and to to take part in the next WineTable which is about Virtual Worlds, sign up over here (make sure you’re registered on darrenSalon.org). To learn the difference between darrenSalon and a WineTable, read the official FAQ- located here.

I recently had the privilege of interviewing Nathan Kaiser the founder of nPost.com. nPost is a website dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship by offering niche job postings focused on the startup community. The site also offers numerous resources (see below) and serves as a gathering place for the startup community. nPost is the best site I have come across for job seekers or employers focused on early stage companies – clearly the best type of jobs out there.

Here’s why you should check out nPost.com:

Job Seekers: Job seekers will love nPost because it is niche and focused. The only job listings are for startups, so if that’s your area of interest, you won’t find better targeted listings. The resources are invaluable as well…

Employers: Employers will eat up nPost because it provides a community of self-selected talent. Whereas sites like Techcrunch Jobs or Craigslist have such a massive audience that you may get 100 resumes of 90% junk, at nPost.com you are more likely to get folks motivated and specifically focused on startups since nPost’s growth has largely come by world of mouth and referrals. Plus they offer very attractive advertising rates!

Everyone: By far the best resource of the site is the 167+ interviews with startup company founders and CEOs, including the likes of Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia) and Craig Newmark (Craigslist). Nathan and Nick have been conducting these interviews since 1999 and view it as the most enjoyable aspect of their jobs. Reading through many of the interviews provided hours of entertainment and exposed me to tremendous insights and companies I was previously unaware of.

Nathan is accompanied by his rocket-scientist come design guru business partner Nick. Apparently the duo has a few more tricks up their sleeves and nPost.com will be getting an “upgrade” in the near future. While the guys were hesitant to expose any of their next generation features, based on our talk, I suspect that in short order it will be Nathan and Nick who are the founders being interviewed and not vice versa.

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