The power of the web has been that it has given us permissionless publishing. Want to publish your opinion? You no longer need to submit a letter to the editor of a newspaper in hope of it being published – you can just put it on your own website. Through additions to the original web specifications we have managed to extend this permissionless nature of innovation from content to entire applications. But the web specifications have been missing a crucial ingredient. We don’t have a standard ...

Two days ago I wrote a post explaining why I am bullish on crowdfunding and skeptical on micropayments as an alternative to funding content, especially journalism. The explanation was a bit dry and abstract, but in the comments I provided a more concrete example that seemed to resonate, so here it is:Would you pay $2 for a joke you haven’t heard yet? No because you don’t know if it will be funny. What is your incentive to pay after you have heard the joke? It is much diminished. What about 1 ...

The rollout of iOS 9 and along with it adblocking plugins for mobile Safari has re-ignited the debate over the ethics of removing ads from pages. Marco Arment who released the paid Peace adblocker previously wrote a piece laying out his views arguing that publishers have crossed a line with ads and trackers that are too intrusive and disruptive. In response there are now pieces bemoaning the end of independent publishers and the web altogether. And inevitably micropayments are proposed as an ...

I have written a lot about the challenges of charging for content as digital content production and distribution has skyrocketed. The fundamental problem from here on out is that the supply of content far outstrips the demand which means that at the margin the price for content will be zero. That doesn’t mean people won’t pay for content at all, for instance, blockbuster movies or books by well established authors can likely continue to be sold for a price. But what about emerging authors? Th...

Comedians get to say what most of us think but don’t have the courage or circumstance to say. Louis CK has a fantastic new special out (warning: if you are easily offended this is definitely not for you) that is full of hilarious but also poignant observations about the human condition. That special also marks a critical breakthrough in the future of content: it is a paid direct to consumer distribution. If you like his style of comedy (as I do), head on over to LouisCK.net and pay your 5 buc...

Recently, someone (I believe it was Nicholas Carlson) said to me: “what most people forget about the iPhone is that it is also a very capable iPod." This was said in the context of a discussion of how successful Android will be this year. Now this is an interesting alternative view to Bill Gurley’s assertion that the head-on comparison is wrong because Android aims at the much broader market of folks who have feature phones today. But: for everyone who wants to upgrade from a feature phone an...

Had a great discussion at dinner last night about the future of publishing and the role of authors and agents. My believe is that agents have to start providing content capital. The idea behind content capital is pretty much the same as that behind venture capital. Content capital puts up the money, the author creates the work(s) and all proceeds are shared. These would be what the music world has started calling “360 deals,” where many different revenue streams are generated. In publishing, ...