Futurismic

Another pair of sturdy nails were hammered into the coffin of old media business models yesterday.

First of all, Cory Doctorow released his new YA novel Little Brother …

“… as a free, Creative Commons BY-NC-SA licensed download (in many formats).

It’s my first young adult novel, a book about hacker kids who use technology to claw the Bill of Rights back from the DHS. Neil Gaiman said of it, “I’d recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I’ve read this year, and I’d want to get it into the hands of as many smart 13 year olds, male and female, as I can.”

There’s a bunch of cool stuff to accompany the downloads, including a remix gallery and a simple system for donating copies to libraries and schools.”

And on the same day, almost as if they’d conspired together*, Trent Reznor dropped The Slip - an entirely new Nine Inch Nails album - on an unsuspecting world.

No build-up, no fanfare; just every flavour of audio format you could ask for (well, OK - no OGG), and a Creative Commons licence just like Doctorow’s book:

“… we encourage you to remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc.”

So that strange noise you may have heard yesterday was the sound of a thousand overpaid record executives wailing in horror; the sound of old business models crumbling under the weight of change.

This is the point where someone asks how it’s possible to make a living for the average artist without Doctorow or Reznor’s niche-superstar status. And I’ll be totally honest - I don’t know yet, though I have some ideas.

But I’ll tell you what I am sure of; I’m going to learn a lot more by watching what Doctorow and Reznor are doing than I’d learn by listening to the old guard complain that they’re not playing fair. I suspect you will, too, whatever you may think of their art.

[ * Doctorow protests innocence on this one; Reznor was unavailable for comment. ]

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What the hell is a “smart grid city”? [via Worldchanging]

Well, maybe you could call it “Infrastructure2.0″, but whatever you call it, it’s a new (and hopefully more sustainable) way of looking at the issues of providing utilities to urban areas. According to Xcel Energy:

“The next-generation electricity grid will allow our company to better meet growing demands, address environmental challenges, maximize available resources and optimize the entire energy system. Ultimately, a “smarter” grid helps us serve our customers by creating more options for managing personal energy use, habits and costs.”

All hot air and sales jargon, you might be thinking. Well, Xcel seem to be walking the walk as well talking the talk - they’re going to make Boulder, Colorado into their first Smart Grid City, with the first phase predicted for completion this August. [image by tanakawho]

I’m pretty pleased to see the energy industry acting on these sorts of ideas instead of just paying them lip service, and I hope something similar starts appearing over here in the UK. Perhaps where Xcel leads, others will follow and surpass.

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The WGA writers’ strike rolls on, pitting the justifiable desire of creatives to be paid a fair deal for the fruits of their labour against the same sort of grasping tactics that are causing the music industry to eat itself like a cancer. [Image by NoHoDamon]

While I’m supportive of the writers’ position on this issue, I’m intrigued by the outsider opinions. Techdirt points us to an LA Times article discussing the rise of alternative financing models in the movie industry, and suggests that if the big studios stick to their guns they will actually hasten their own demise by creating an environment where smart and talented writers can bypass the traditional system and take their scripts straight to the market, funding their productions using a venture capital process similar to that used by technology startups.

Now, I’m not an economist or a script-writer (and nor do I play either of them on television), but I find the underlying logic of this idea appealing - it seems to be a business model that fits the internet age. But then TechDirt, as fascinating a read as it is, is very much biased toward the independent operator/startup philosophy (as demonstrated by its previous coverage of the WGA strike). Perhaps this idea places too much of a burden on the writer - whose job is, after all, to write. But then again, it’s an accepted truism that novelists must self-market if they hope to be successful, even with the support of a publisher.

I guess only time will tell. But from my personal point of view, a significant lessening of the corporate homogeneity of Hollywood could only be a good thing - it might result in a movie industry that produces more than one film every year that I can actually be bothered to go and see.

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Fast Company have a great collection of 50 things companies are doing to ‘green’ their business. From Cheerios and Coors converting their waste food to biofuels to computer servers using their excess hot water to heat the buildings, a lot of big names are getting onto the trend. It’s easy to see why - reducing costs whilst increasing customer satisfaction is a rare combination. With the current way of business producing plenty of waste, it makes perfect sense to use unused food, silicon, heat and So long as the reductions don’t just lead to increased use, we should reward these companies applying the idea ‘work smart, not hard’ to their energy usage. Executives like Mike Brown are helping big companies to think more about every facet of their business. In time governments should implement a lot of these guidelines but its hard not to admire many of the businesses working ahead of the curve.

[via Treehugger, photo by Ayton]

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According to an article in Entrepreneur magazine, second-hand books stores are one of a list of businesses that are on their last legs thanks to the all-pervasive interwebs. Amazon, eBay and abebooks have all played their part in the acceleration of this demise - it’s just so much easier to find specific titles online. [Via SFSignal]

Personally, I like to browse, sometimes with no intent of actually buying anything - and I find brick-and-mortar stores far more satisfying for that, as well as the public library. Maybe that luxury will not be available to me for much longer - but it’s fair to assume that the trade of books won’t cease, it’ll just move entirely online. [Image by dweekly]

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I think the most surprising thing about this is that it’s taken so long for someone to do it. Brooklyn medical practitioner Dr. Jay Parkinson offers a unique service to his young hipster-freelance clientele - for a yearly fee, they can get two home visits and unlimited consultations by text message or email. Not only does this make it far easier for his patients to get the advice they need at the time they really need it, it keeps Dr. Parkinson’s practice overheads nice and low, and leaves him time to indulge in his own creative pursuits as a photographer. The first practice in my town to offer this service will be getting my subscription fee in cash, with a smile. [Image by ElvertBarnes]

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The corporate love affair with Second Life seems to be fading, at least in some camps, as businesses realise that having a sim isn’t going to instantly develop them a massive revenue stream. Chris Anderson, editor of Wired and the guy behind the Long Tail hypothesis, wrote a short piece explaining why he thinks metaverse marketing is a pointless proposition, which developed into an interesting conversation with SL uber-pundit Wagner James Au. The jury is still out, I guess … but as Jason Stoddard says, it’s early days yet, and it’s a wise move to get on the train while there are still plenty of seats.

However, according to a report in The Australian [via], terrorist organisations are taking to the metaverse like ducks to water, and allegedly using virtual worlds as training platforms to dry-run attack plans. There may well be a grain of truth in there, but the story reeks of sensationalist over-hype to me … however, it’s given Charlie Stross the opportunity to pat himself on the back for predicting that we’d see just such a story. To be entirely fair, though, Edward Castronova discussed the same ideas in his excellent book Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games back in 2005 - which is well worth a read for anyone interested in the metaverse, whether as user or observer.

And your supplementary bonus link: Ian Hughes is one of the folk behind IBM’s big push into the metaverse, and he and a colleague are guestblogging over at TerraNova; his inaugural post examines the possibility of business becoming more like a form of emergent gameplay as interactions increasingly migrate into virtual spaces. Fascinating stuff. [Image by D'Arcy Norman]

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When you think about it, Drew Harry’s got a point. Developing a virtual world that slavishly apes the real is kind of stupid. His meeting spaces arrange people based on their allegiances, representing a person’s expressed opinions by aligning them physically in a wide open space. I don’t know if that’s what I’d choose to emphasize, but giving up the virtual Aeron chair makes sense. [kurzweil]

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Carrie Vaughn’s “Real City” is a modern Hollywood fable set in a post-post-modern future.

Real City

by Carrie Vaughn

Stalking around the party without her referencing link flashing names and stats at her felt a little like being drunk. It was Cass’s way of making an adventure for herself. Off-balance, senses muffled, she indulged in self-induced paranoia. Smiling faces, links hooked to their ears, nodded in greeting as she passed. They all knew who she was, thanks to their links, and she hadn’t a damn clue about two-thirds of the people here. She was working blind and stupid, and it made her giddy, along with the glass of wine she’d had.

It seemed like most of Hollywood had shown up for the RealCity Productions launch party. Probably because they all wanted to be able to say they’d been here and known the company was doomed from the start.

Vim had said they had to have a party to manufacture hype.

“We don’t have the money for that kind of party,” she’d told him.

“Oh, but we will! We have to throw parties like this if we’re ever going to have enough money to throw parties like this!” Continue reading “REAL CITY by Carrie Vaughn”

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“Better Sweets to Prove Than Sleep” by Lisa Mantchev is the story of a woman caught between men, between demands on her time, and between life as a microsleeper and the pressures of a comatose society.

Better Sweets To Prove Than Sleep

by Lisa Mantchev

Jenna retrieved four poems memorized in third grade, the capitols of the fifty-four states, and the molecular structure of hydrogen. She dumped them in the recycle bin, shuffled around her free memory and recategorized the Townsend project as High Priority.

Zach grunted above her but she couldn’t concentrate on little things like his sweating body and enthusiastic penetration with so much junk swirling around in her head.

Distracted by the look of gleeful concentration on his face, Jenna lost her grasp on the sorting process and slipped into microsleep. Finalization of the new changes. Rapid cell repair and regeneration on the soles of her naked feet. QuickDreams of Cinderella at the masquerade, frolicking in fountains and surrounded by pink and gold fireworks. Then she jerked awake to the panicked repetition of her name accompanied by gentle slaps to her face. Continue reading “BETTER SWEETS TO PROVE THAN SLEEP by Lisa Mantchev”

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