I am hectically preparing for 3GSM in Barcelona next week. A great venue by all standards. As a presenter, there is a mountain of collateral to prepare - the service overview, the technical white paper, the content provider offering, the mobile operator offering, the stand background, the poster, the this, the that.

So here I am trying to do what most people do before a show and then it strikes me what a waste it all is. We all know but hardly admit that most of these papers will be thrown away or at best looked at very briefly. And what do we do about it? Nothing.

This stupid (sorry, couldn’t find a better word) march of industry clones that exchange papers from one hand to the next and on to the closest waste basket. We often even deliver the paper overseas and back into our offices and then throw it or put it on some shelf to stand there as a silent testimonial “we were there” … but rarely look at it again. The one or two times we do take another look is come preparation time for the next show – then we pick it up and see what interesting ideas we can use for this year’s show – and so the paper parade continues and no-one is shouting that the king has no clothes.

It’s not that the information within is useless, it has some (limited) value. That too is usually filled with empty promises and a stack load of buzzwords. That I could take. But why for heaven’s sake do we need to kill so many trees in the process?

The same info, the same sheets should not leave their original electronic formats. They should stay on websites, PCs, USB drives, you name it – put please do not print it.

We can be very critical of our politicians for not doing enough to save the world BUT WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT in our closed garden? NADA.

I would like to see the first mobile / web / telecom etc. tradeshow pick up the challenge and declare – PRINTABLE MATERIALS ARE BANNED!

Simple and to the point. It will not harm the venue quality, even help it. All these carry-on bags are useless. You want to give me something – tell me where to look it up online, transfer me an electronic file. Anything but paper.

It is we that are destroying the forests in Brazil, not someone else! Its about time we put an end to this killing spree.

Gil Rosen

      

Like many of you I read Steve Job’s thoughts about music today.

I, for one, do not understand why he wrote this letter.

Steve Jobs main points can be summarized to the following bullets:

1. DRM is stupid.

2. It’s the labels’ fault

3. Apple cannot solve it

4. Apple will embrace a DRM free world, but for now will stick with the existing model.

5. If only the labels were all outside Europe.

And the point?

You could argue that Steve Jobs is trying to push the labels into a DRM free world. Such a world would definitely help Apple go beyond selling a lame 3% of the music on their iPods alone.

You could argue, but I doubt it. There are much more effective (and cleaner) ways to work with the labels then writing a naive letter. Steve Jobs is anything but Naive, so there must be a different motivation involved.

My guess is that:

1. Apple has taken a lot of heat and Steve Jobs is trying to gain “cheap popularity” by bashing the big labels.

2. Apple is renegotiating music distribution rights and these are PR tactics.

3. Steve Jobs wishes to highlight the fact Zune won’t work with content from iTunes.

I agree that the labels are rearranging chairs on their Titanic, who wouldn’t, but I think the solution is with the proliferation of direct distribution models (MySpace) and with independent, smaller labels who will realize the opportunity they have. If Steve Jobs really wants to change the world he should encourage artists to sign with DRM free labels.

      

MetaCafe appointed a new CEO today. Erick Hachenburg of Electronic Arts will be replacing Co-Founder Arik Czerniak. This move is the most recent in a series of executive recruits which included new VP of Sales, VP of Marketing and Executive Chairman. A quick look at Mr. Hachenburg’s resume reveals deep experience in online media executive and business management. Perhaps more importantly, Mr. Hachenburg brings along recent and successful experience from the Asian market for which he was responsible at Electronic Arts.  

According to Allison Campa, MetaCafe’s VP of Marketing, MetaCafe had 17 million unique visitors in December, an increase from 16 million unique visitors in November. Such volume must be monetizable, period, and no one should know better how to monetize it than an ex-GM Asia from a company that generated $3B from online media last year alone. 

I argued before that YouTube has not conquered the market, simply because the market is still at it’s infancy. There’s plenty of room for MetaCafe (and others) to grow. The Asian market may prove more promising in the long run and MetaCafe have already established good presence there.

In online media market share means a little less than absolute traffic. People watch more than one TV station and read more than one newspaper. The same logic applies to the Internet as well. If video advertising takes off, so will both YouTube and MetaCafe regardless of their respective market share. If, on the other hand, video advertising will not live up to the promise then both will need to get creative.

In either case, most of the critiques would happily trade places with MetaCafe. 17 Million unique views per month means huge potential. MetaCafe have built a great end user product and have succeeded in creating that potential.  Now it’s time to shift gears and take it to the next level - securing market positions and generating a profit. Right now my impression is that MetaCafe are doing exactly what the doctor has ordered.