Comments on: From value creation to value bestowal

By: Finance Geek » Enterprise 2.0 and the economics of abundance

Finance Geek » Enterprise 2.0 and the economics of abundance — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:15:33 +0000

[...] From value creation to value bestowal (confusedofcalcutta.com) [...]

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:27:41 +0000

JP, a thought provoking post – and surely a fine example itself of how value can be added through provision of an ‘editorial’ window onto the web – I don’t think I would have stumbled onto many of the links on my own and they’re all gems.

By: jack

jack — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:38:24 +0000

Very interesting thoughts. The consumer/customer is also a creator of the product in many ways.

By: JP

JP — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:08:16 +0000

Arun, what Bill says about the editorial function required some analysis. I think the traditional editorial function was placed bang in the middle of a content *and* distribution chain. You can’t do that any more, so new forms of editor will emerge, probably tied to the content rather than the distribution.

This divorce of content from distribution is painful. But it is happening.

By: Arun Anantharaman

Arun Anantharaman — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 07:31:55 +0000

Great post…Thinking about value as being bestowed upon something by the user/listener makes for a fascinating construct. Quite different from the idea of “user generated content” which has typically been my rote thinking mode when visualizing how someone/oganization can monteize/benefit from social media.

I also find Bill’s comment interesting. The Net was supposed to do away with the “editorial function”, but truly as content swamps us, the value of the editorial function can only increase, but becomes something that that has to be truly earned/bestowed.

By: JP

JP — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:00:50 +0000

Thanks for stopping by, and for the comments. I particularly appreciated the pointer to the John Perry Barlow piece, which I hadn’t read.

Do you know when it was written? The best link I can find is this one, which places it around early 1994 as far as I can figure out.

http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/EconomyOfIdeas.html

By: Bill Ralston

Bill Ralston — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:14:09 +0000

Very perceptive. It reminds me of John Perry Barlow’s piece “Selling Wine Without Bottles on the Global Net.” Distribution of digital information is so easy, providing the distribution is of little value (unless the legal system is used to create artificial scarcity). In modern times, artists pay has been relatively low, suggesting that there is an excess in creativity over demand for creative works. Perhaps the real value is in what my dad calls “filtering” (an engineering term and perspective), or what journalists might call the “editorial function”. An editor filters through a large volume of content, and provides selected material of interest to his/her “subscribers.” The interesting question is whether the traditionally paid “editors” (music industry execs, magazine editors, web site publishers, etc.) provide enough “value” to continue to economically justify their existance, or will social and informal networks evolve to the point that they displace this function? I think the latter. Increasingly, I am finding a few blogs that I follow to be more focussed, relevant, and interesting than the traditional journals and magazines that are supposed to keep me current in my profession (IP attorney). And bookmarking your blog is much less of a committment that subscribing to a new magazine. Thanks for writing.