Digital Problem Solving & Inspiration courtesy of Mads Kristensen

Crowdsourcing is a nice concept, but it can be hard to practice. Because while the idea of getting people engaged and collaboration on a project is nice and good, it takes an effort to get to critical mass and actually make thing happen.

The new web service The Point has decided to do something about this. They have developed a service that lets you sign up to do stuff IF enough people decide to do the same - and you decide what that number should be. And that’s a concept, I like. [Read more →]

It seems like the world has gone mad with data portability. The other day MySpace announced their Data Availability Programme, and before you could say ‘Yeah’, Facebook followed it up with their version called Facebook Connect and now Google has joined them with Google Friend Connect.

Marc Canter has an excellent point about this essentially being another try by the major players (which of course also includes Microsoft) to lock people in. They failed with the portals - now they try with the social graph. I agree. But what is more evident to me is that yet again media companies are left behind. [Read more →]

Citizen journalism is something a lot of people within the media business talk about. Some think of it as a threat in terms of a malstrom of poor content from pure amateurs. Others think of it as an opportunity for redefining the role and relevance of media in society. And some again really don’t care.

No matter the fraction, one thing remains the problem: It’s hard to come by a definition of what ‘citizen journalism’ and media associated with it really is. And as long as that is the case, its hard to have a discussion between the opposing views in an effort to reach a consensus. That needs to change - and I’m part of a small group trying to give input to this change. [Read more →]

Nobody has suffered from the advent of the internet as the music business. Endless millions of dollars have been lost in revenue, as people have shared music among themselves free of charge. And it’s not getting better.

John Batelle links the music business to his childhood-memories of listening to vinyl records on his parents stereo, when he was a child. And he notices that his own children are using magazines the same way today, as he was using albums when he was a kid. Thus he asks the very valid question whether the magazine business will go the same way as the music business did? [Read more →]

A lot of media companies are talking about branching out into niches, but few have real stellar ideas about how to do that.

Well, just look at Kirtsy - the Digg-like site for women that mixes user contributed and voted for stories with editorially picked content within a number of different sub-niches. It’s beautifully done and should serve as a model for how niche sites can be put together.

(Via chrisbrogan.com)

Young people don’t read newspapers, and circulation as such for mainstream newspapers - local, regional and national - is trapped in a downwards spine. Put on the line you could say that if nothing efficient is done you can plot the day when the last newspaper closes down.

Desperate times calls for desperate measures. But are the measures newspapers are taking in getting to understand their audience desperate enough? [Read more →]