John Battelle's Searchblog

(This is cross posted from the launch of CrowdFire)

Back in June of 2007 I had the pleasure of attending my first Bonnaroo, one of the most mind-bending music festivals on the planet. Anytime you get nearly 100,000 rabid fans together with scores of the best bands in the world, there’s bound to be magic. And for me, a lapsed fan just re-engaging with the world of live music, it was a revelation.

I don’t want to age myself here, but I’m not exactly in Bonnaroo’s core demographic, if you know what I mean. But so many bands I loved were playing there - the Flaming Lips, Ziggy Marley, Spoon, Bob Weir, Fountains of Wayne - and so many bands I'd heard of but never really heard - Kings of Leon, Lily Allen, Mavis Staples, Paolo Nutini, Brazilian Girls, Mute Math, Ween - the list went on and on and on. And oh, yes, I’ll admit, the band I loved when I was in the demo was also playing: The Police.

And I was fortunate enough to not only see most of these bands, but to also see how a festival like Bonnaroo gets created - from the backstage load ins to the incredible ballet of literally hundreds of staff and volunteers who create, in three days, a mid-sized city in the center of a 700-acre farm in the middle of Tennessee.

The reason I had such access? A good friend (thanks, Martin) had hooked me up with the festivals’ producers, an outfit called SuperFly. As I got to know them and watch the fruits of their work, I came to realize I was watching something far larger than a music festival. In short, I was watching a new culture emerge, a culture fueled in equal parts by the timeless connection between musician and audience, on the one hand, and the breakdown of the traditional music business thanks to new technologies of personal media, on the other.

It's not like I wasn't familiar with these trends, in theory, anyway. After all, there's a reason I named my company "FM" - it was clear that on the web, "musicians" (talented folks who were creating independent websites) were connecting with their audiences in new ways outside traditional "top 50" distribution models (ie, outside the old school models of major media companies like Time Inc., Yahoo, Viacom, etc.). This mirrored the rise of the counter cultural music movement of the 60s and 70s, a movement that leveraged another new technology - the FM radio band. The rise of the album and the explosion of creative freedom which resulted - well, that resonated with me when I saw talent like Dooce, or Boing Boing, or Digg start to redefine the Web.

But as I was building FM (and even before, while I was working on a book and a new conference), I managed to lose touch with the visceral, emotional connection that live music represents. And live music, it turns out, was undergoing its own incredible evolution.

Then I spent those three days at Bonnaroo.

And there, well, BAM, it hit me. Everyone says the music business is in collapse, but that's not true at all. The old industry may be dying, but the connection between fans and bands is stronger than ever. Thanks to the web, more and more acts can find their audiences, more and more fans can find music they love, and together they are changing the world of entertainment forever. It's nearly impossible to make money as a musician using the old system of record labels and Top 50 hits. But if you tour, if you are smart about what festivals you play, and if you use the web to connect directly with your base, well, there's clearly a great living to be made, doing what you love to do. And new companies like SuperFly and Red Light and Another Planet were springing up to help artists do exactly that. It felt a lot like what I was trying to do with FM, the only difference being the medium. One was live music, the other was the conversational web.

Over the past year I began a conversation with the folks at SuperFly about their business and ours, and we kept an eye out for a way to connect the two. Then Rick Farman, one of the partners at SuperFly, called me and told me about Outside Lands, which they were doing in partnership with Another Planet. He said he wanted to figure out something cool to do there that had to do with technology and Bay area culture, and he thought FM might have some ideas. We agreed it could be some kind of digital campfire in the center of the festival, one informed by the same vibe that informs social/conversational media - something of and about the audience's experience of the festival. In essence, we wanted to create a place where folks could mix their love of music with all the potential of personal and cultural technology.

Now those of you reading this already know what an incredible event Outside Lands is going to be - basically, it's Bonnaroo west, with the first ever nighttime concert in Golden Gate Park (and it's Radiohead, for goodness sakes) and three days of incredible music (Wilco, Jack Johnson, Tom Petty, Widespread, Beck, Broken Social Scene, Ben Harper, Jackie Greene, and about 40 others? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???!)

Over the course of several brainstorming sessions, including with Marc Ruxin at McCaan and folks at Microsoft, an idea began to take shape based on a single insight: personal media is changing how we all experience music. Remember, it had been a while since I had been to a concert. A lot had changed. Everyone there had a cel phone with a camera, for one. Or a Flip. Or a digital camera. And when an amazing moment occurred, more folks held up their digital devices than they did lighters. At Bonnaroo this past June, I took a picture that nails it for me - the image at left. A woman capturing an incredible personal memory of an incredible shared experience (in this case, it was Metallica literally blowing people's minds), the three screens reflecting the integration of physical, personal, and shared experiences. That image informed our logo, as you can see.

So - where did all those experiences go (Searchblog readers, of course, know I've been thinking about this for a while)? What could be done with them if they were all put together in one place, at one time, turned into a great big feed by a smart platform that everyone could access? In short, what might happen if someone built a platform to let the crowd - the audience - upload their experiences of the music to a great big database, then mix, mash, and meld them into something utterly new?

Well, we're about to find out. Thanks to some pretty visionary folks at Microsoft, our presenting sponsor, and Intel, a Platinum sponsor, today marks the launch of that idea realized: CrowdFire. The idea is pretty simple, really: Live music has always been a major production from the stage out to the audience: one to many, in essence. But with CrowdFire, we hope to provide all of us music fans a platform for doing with the experience of music what we're already doing with the experience of the web: a place where all of us can share and produce our experiences: a many to many celebration of live music, in real time, as well as as an ongoing, living archive of what has happened, and what might happen next.

Sound a bit...out there? It is. Today marks the launch of our beta, and I am sure there will be bugs, blips, and general screw ups. But that's how the web - and music - works. You get out there and you play (link to main site). The more you play, the better you get. And the more folks you play with, the faster you get better. So join us today (link again). Set up an account (link), upload some of your favorite memories around music (images, blog posts, Twitter or flickr streams, video, we're ready for pretty much anything (link).) Take a tour around, and help us (link to suggestion box) make this thing really sing.

You might have noticed we've already got some pretty cool "kindling" in the CrowdFire, including photos from Jeff Kravitz, an amazing talent who recently joined the blogging world (that's one of his many incredible images at left), as well as leading voices from the music, technology, and culture worlds.

But we need your input to really light this thing up. Browse and rate the stuff that's already up. Add your own (there'll be some pretty cool contests and prizes for stuff that the crowd rates as the coolest). And coming up very soon, in the next rev of CrowdFire, you'll be able to remix all the content in the CrowdFire database, creating your own feeds, videos, and mashups.

When the festival starts, the CrowdFire really gets going. We'll all be able to send SMS, email, and uploads of our media directly into the CrowdFire database, and we'll have media jockeys creating streams of CrowdFire imagery in real time, which we'll send back out into the festival grounds through a network of LED screens. We'll also send them out into the ether of the Web, for anyone to experience. And anyone can do the same - which is pretty cool.

Big thanks to the folks who helped realize this vision - Marc Ruxin and Matt Nessier of Universal McCaan, Bill Capadanno, Laura User and Aaron Lilly of Team Microsoft, the teams at Superfly Productions, Another Planet and Starr Hill, Martin Shore and the tireless FM Team.

Thanks for coming to check out our first version of CrowdFire. Now let's go make something cool together!

An interview with me on Imedia....

If you want to know what I'm up to, read my Twitter feed....back to posting when I'm back in the US...

In case you wonder what I do at my day job...

A month or so ago I sat down for a strategy briefing from Kevin Johnson, the then-president of Microsoft responsible for Windows and online services. I never did get around to writing what I thought of that meeting, partially due to a request from Microsoft PR that the session be on background.

I enjoyed my time with Kevin, but wondered a bit about whether his strategy, outlined somewhat in this Fortune piece, was going to be enough to sate Steve Ballmer's appetite for competing with Google.

Now we know. With Live Search, share has been lost, and with Yahoo, the deal is not closed. Here's the spin:

REDMOND, Wash. — July 23, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that the Platforms & Services Division (PSD) will be split into two groups: Windows/Windows Live and Online Services, with both groups reporting directly to CEO Steve Ballmer. Microsoft also announced that PSD President Kevin Johnson will be leaving the company. Johnson will work to ensure a smooth transition.

“Kevin has built a supremely talented organization and laid the foundation for the future success of Windows and our Online Services Business. This new structure will give us more agility and focus in two very competitive arenas,” Ballmer said. “It has been a pleasure to work with Kevin, and we wish him well in the future.”

Effective immediately, senior vice presidents Steven Sinofsky, Jon DeVaan and Bill Veghte will report directly to Ballmer to lead Windows/Windows Live. The Windows organization recently announced strong annual sales, with more than 180 million copies of Windows Vista sold globally, and it has driven more than 100 million installs of its Windows Live suite. The organization’s innovation pipeline includes a new version of Windows Internet Explorer, the next version of Windows and the next generation of the Windows Live product suite.

In the Online Services Business, Microsoft will create a new senior lead position and will conduct a search that will span internal and external candidates. In the meantime, Senior Vice President Satya Nadella will continue to lead Microsoft’s search, MSN and ad platform engineering efforts. Microsoft recently announced a strategy to redefine search through innovations in the user experience and business models. As an example, the company’s cashback search program, announced in May, is already generating strong momentum among online shoppers and advertisers.

In addition, Senior Vice President Brian McAndrews will continue to lead the Advertiser & Publisher Solutions Group (APS). APS has great momentum, having signed more than 100 new publisher deals in the past year. McAndrews will continue to focus on the display advertising opportunity for Microsoft, driving execution and integration of advertising assets, including recent acquisitions such as Massive Inc., Navic Networks, ScreenTonic SA and YaData Ltd.

“Our Windows business is firing on all cylinders,” Ballmer said. “We see tremendous opportunity in search and advertising, and we have a clear strategy for investing in success today and growth in the future.”

Have a fair amount of traveling to do today, but once I settle in, late tomorrow, I'll be in a place to write far more...

It had been a week since I saw the fail whale. Damn.

Five dollar gas? Boing Boing reminds us that it's not just gas that's a precious resource in many parts of the rest of the world with this photo.

Wow.

Susan Bratton interviewed my on any number of topics, and her interview and transcript is here. Thanks, Susan!

The headline in the Wall St. Journal.

Google Inc.'s second-quarter net income rose 35%, but the results disappointed investors and shares fell nearly 10% in after-hours trading.

Update: If you want snark, but worthy analysis, read SAI:

GEORGE REYES takes over. Grab the coffee.

AdSense DOWN sequentially. First time ever. Attributed to quality control, seasonality.
Paid clicks DOWN sequentially. Again, first time ever. Attributed to quality control, seasonality.

UK DOWN sequentially. No FOREX benefit, seasonal weakness. Again, first time ever.

Operating margin down sequentially.

Interest income down (some of the EPS miss here). Lower cash balance from DoubleClick deal, and lower yields.

Free cash flow again hammered by massive CAPEX: Up modestly sequentially, but has essentially been flat for 4 quarters.

HAL VARIAN:

Queries in many sectors weak: autos, real-estate, finance, etc. Real estate down year over year. Y/Y auto ad spend up, but not on financing side (consumers hit). Consumers cautious. This is the first time Google has acknowledged weakness. Revenue performance remarkable in light of this.

SERGEY:

Boring product details.

Said it here. Proof points piling up, see this and this:

Today our US Search Engine Performance Report: Q2 2008 was released. Analysis of data from our client index showed that Google took more than its fair share of the overall increase in search spending: for every new dollar spent on search in Q2 2008 versus Q2 2007, $1.10 went to Google. Yahoo lost $0.09, and Microsoft lost $0.01. In other words, advertisers are putting all of their new search dollars into Google, and pulling money out of Yahoo Search and Microsoft Live Search.

If I were at Google, I'd be more than a bit worried. Why? Because once you've vanquished your competition, then what?

Thanks to Lost Remote, I found this post from a fellow who found an interesting Google experiment in crowdsourced SERP personalization, what they call "Edit Search Results."

From the FAQ:

This feature allows you influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again while you are logged in to your Google account, you'll continue to see those changes. If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you've made.

Note: This is an experimental feature served to a random selection of participants and may be available for only a few weeks.

This is probably one of the most important things that Twitter has done in its young history. Search is not good at Twitter, but Summize is a pretty good Twitter search service. It also could be a lot more. And there are many, many more things Twitter could do.

This is also the glimmerings of a business model for Twitter, in that the service needs attachment points of declared intent which may make sense for marketing. Search is certainly one.

A while back I announced the theme of this year's Web 2 Summit: "The Opportunity of Limits: Sustaining, Applying and Expanding the Web's Lessons."

Since announcing that initial theme and lineup, an amazing group of folks have agreed to come and participate, and if you peruse the list, you'll note that it's not just the regular coterie of Internet leaders. Sure, we've got those folks coming, and yes, we'll be focusing just as intently on the opportunities in our industry. But we're also going further afield. As we wrote in the overview:

In the first four years of the Web 2.0 Summit, we've focused on our industry's challenges and opportunities, highlighting in particular the business models and leaders driving the Internet economy. But as we pondered the theme for this year, one clear signal has emerged: our conversation is no longer just about the Web. Now is the time to ask how the Web—its technologies, its values, and its culture—might be tapped to address the world's most pressing limits. Or put another way—and in the true spirit of the Internet entrepreneur—its most pressing opportunities.

As we convene the fifth annual Web 2.0 Summit, our world is fraught with problems that engineers might charitably classify as NP hard—from roiling financial markets to global warming, failing healthcare systems to intractable religious wars. In short, it seems as if many of our most complex systems are reaching their limits.

It strikes us that the Web might teach us new ways to address these limits. From harnessing collective intelligence to a bias toward open systems, the Web's greatest inventions are, at their core, social movements. To that end, we're expanding our program this year to include leaders in the fields of healthcare, genetics, finance, global business, and yes, even politics.

Last week (while I was on vacation, so I missed posting on it) we announced the focus of our annual Launch Pad program, where we focus on promising startups. This year, we've aligned Launch Pad with our theme, and I am very excited by the result. From our description:

For Launch Pad 2008, the focus will be on startups in the fields of alternative energies, social entreprenuerialism, microfinance, developing economies, political action, renewable technologies, and the like. We'll be particularly interested in where these companies display significant cross over with the web, of course, but this will not be required.

Tim wrote a great post summarizing the idea:

This might seem like quite a departure for the Web 2.0 Summit, the conference that made its name by celebrating the revolution in the consumer internet caused by the move to the internet as platform, service based business models, and social media. Or is it? After all, I've argued all along that the real heart of Web 2.0 is the ability of networked applications to harness collective intelligence. Yes, you can harness collective intelligence to build amazing internet businesses, as the past five years have shown us.

But what good is collective intelligence if it doesn't make us smarter?

In an era of looming scarcities, economic disruption, and the possibility of catastrophic ecological change, it's time for us all to wake up, to take our new "superpowers" seriously, and to use them to solve problems that really matter.

Submissions are now open. I hope you can help us spread the word!

I've been watching the developments over the past week, and honestly feel like it's a bad tennis match - back and forth, back and forth, but no aces, no amazing backhand winners.

Here's another volley from Microsoft today:

Microsoft Sets the Record Straight

REDMOND, Wash. – July 14, 2008 - On the evening of July 12, Yahoo! Inc. released a statement relating to recent discussions involving Yahoo!, Microsoft Corporation, and Carl Icahn. Microsoft believes the statement contains inaccuracies that need to be corrected. Among other things, the enhanced proposal for an alternate search transaction that we submitted late Friday was submitted at the request of Yahoo! Chairman Roy Bostock as a result of apparent attempts by Mr. Icahn to have Microsoft and Yahoo! engage on a search transaction on terms Mr. Icahn believed Microsoft would be willing to accept and which Microsoft understands Mr. Icahn had discussed with Yahoo!.

Specifically, on Thursday afternoon, July 10, Mr. Bostock called Steve Ballmer’s office to arrange a call. On that subsequent call, Mr. Bostock told Mr. Ballmer that “with substantial guarantees on the table and an increase in the TAC (traffic acquisition cost) rate, there are the pillars of a search only deal to be done.” Mr. Bostock encouraged Mr. Ballmer to submit a new proposal to Yahoo! for a search only deal reflecting these terms.

After considering Yahoo’s request and taking into account Yahoo’s previous feedback about our prior search proposal, Microsoft determined late Friday to propose an enhanced search transaction. This proposal included significant revenue guarantees, higher TAC rates, an equity investment and an option for Yahoo! to extend the agreement over a 10 year period.
Microsoft’s proposal did not include changes to Yahoo’s governance.

At the time Microsoft submitted its enhanced proposal, Microsoft asked that Yahoo! confirm whether it would agree that the enhancements were sufficient to form the basis for the parties to engage in negotiations over the weekend on a letter of intent and more detailed term sheets. This discussion has been mischaracterized as a take it or leave it ultimatum, rather than a timetable in order to move forward to intensive negotiations. Yahoo! informed Microsoft on Saturday that it had rejected the proposal.

That's what I am, of Google's "traditional media blog," launched early this month.

Here's the feed. Here's the mission:

The recent launch of our traditional media advertising platforms enables you to advertise on TV, radio, or in newspapers. We’ve created this blog as a place for you to turn for the latest in feature launches and tips to help you run effective traditional media campaigns.

I think the idea that Google, which most "traditional" media companies fear, "helping" samesaid companies execute is going to take some....finesse. The idea of having a voice that humanizes that relationship is a good one. Looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

I have a really long post in me about what Yahoo did last week - announcing Yahoo BOSS, the first step in a truly scaled, open search index. Well done, Yahoo. More to come.

The Journal pokes a beehive about YouTube's revenue, which is not what it should be and is a real thorn for Google. In light of the Viacom case, this is very interesting stuff. Then Cuban claims the porn issue means Google will lose - it only sells ads on non porn content, meaning it's filtering, meaning it's not a safe harbor DMCA defensible play. No matter what, this is going to be landmark stuff. The funny thing is to hear Google acknowledge it has a mess on its hands as it deals with the shift from search ads to brand ads, and not just with YouTube:

Mr. Armstrong, who is 37 years old, describes Project Spaghetti as an effort to fix the plumbing behind all of Google's ad initiatives. The inefficiencies, he says, are a product of Google's rapid growth and its innovation. Streamlining the systems and developing new ad formats, he says, should eventually improve the company's bottom line.

Funny to hear it put this way at a company that the world thinks has its shit totally together. It's never like you think it is, inside. I've been writing for years about this DNA shift - from engineering company to media company. It's great to see a well reported piece really dig into it.

I am finding it's taking a while to get my head back into all the things I have to do. The trip was fantastic. Here's a shot of the family heading up the final stretch to Holcomb Lake. We decided to take horses for all - the kids are pretty accomplished riders and my youngest couldn't do the whole walk. We're glad we did, it let us really roam out there in the Sierra.

I hope to be back at posting this week. I am traveling with my family for two more weeks soon, so posting will be light throughout the summer, and my focus is on FM. However, if you follow me on Twitter, I'll keep you updated there as best I can. Searchblog isn't the best place to post personal stuff, but I figured you might want to see what I've been up to...

My family and I are going into the backcountry this week - no email, Twitter, blogging, etc. Here's where we're going, in case any of you might be curious. Click the terrain or satellite tabs to see the amazing country - truly another world back there.

See you in a week!

The ruling yesterday on the merits of Viacom's data requests is worthy of review. Ars has more here. I am preparing for a vacation and can't elaborate, but trust me on this one...

In case you missed the CM Summit in NYC and want to see what happened, there were some great moments, and they are up on the site now. Don't miss Rich Silverstein, or Beth Comstock, or all the other goodness....

I am thinking hard about the impact of open search - the idea that a major search index becomes totally open to developers, an open API, etc. that allows search to become a true platform that people can develop on top of.

I'd love your thoughts on this....writing this soon....I'll update here with more thoughts but wanted to leave this as bread on the waters for the early risers...I know, I know, spam, but that can be routed around with business models and contracts...I've been noodling this for a long time and am close to saying SOMETHING....more background here (on Yahoo's search monkey) and here (when Amazon did it and no one seemed to notice...)...

Somehow, this felt fine on Twitter:

My Mac FAILED. After downloading a new OS (560 MBS!!!!) Rummaged around and found a four year old OSX disc...and MAGIC. It worked!

But wrong on this site. The magic was truly ... magic. I booted off the CD I found, it checked the web, downloaded the right version of the OS again, and after about 25 minutes of downloading and busy bee-ing, the damn thing booted up as if nothing had happened. This after my Mac was literally DEAD. FAILED.

I am so happy. Then again. What the fuck, Steve Jobs? What if I didn't know about how do to this? Oh, I hate to love you so much, Macintosh.

The DOJ is reviewing the Google/Yahoo deal. Expected, to be sure, but still, not a lot of fun for a place that has not had tons of fun lately.

Clay Felker, a legend in magazines and journalism, died today.

I had to honor to work with Clay Felker for a few years, making magazines and websites as part of my time at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He was in poor health for much of the time we worked together, but never lost his fire or his commitment to the core thesis of a great publication: Voice, Point of View, and Quality. He viewed great magazines as conversations, much of my own theories around FM owe a direct debt to conversations I had with Clay on topics of publishing, the Internet, and business models.

His legacy will live on and multiply in the work of the thousands he hired, worked with, and edited.

More here...