Re: XML, ad revenue and the future of the Internet.

["Laird Popkin" <laird.popkin@sothebys.com>]

--- In syndication@egroups.com, "Dave Winer" <dave@u...> wrote:
> Kevin, none of these arguments lead anywhere, imho, if the business 
model is
> Get-VC-Then-IPO, there are no interesting arguments about business 
models.
> For all we know Amazon and SlashDot would be more highly valued if 
they
> disappeared, after all the losses would stop then, right? Forgive 
me for not
> understanding the rules here. In the meantime I hope Amazon does 
support
> XML, even though I would boycott it because of their insidious 
patents that
> keep coming on line every day it seems.

Reacting to the statement about Amazon supporting XML, we should be 
careful not to equate XML with giving data away (e.g. RSS). XML (and 
the Internet) is a great data format and transport that allows people 
to much more fluidly exchange information than older mechanisms. But 
there are plenty of uses of XML that have nothing to do with giving 
information away for free. And while giving information away is cool, 
there's no particular reason to restrict XML to promotional data 
feeds, when there are a near infinite number of other applications 
where XML is a great technology. So it'd be better to have said 
that "I hope Amazon decides to give their content away."

> To Laird, I've been trying to think of a response that hasn't 
already been
> said, somewhere sometime. Factor this in, the people and companies 
who
> publish RSS *want* people to replicate their links. Further, I'm a 
believer
> in the Internet routing around outages. So if the stock exchanges 
own the
> stock data, and they want to be paid for them, then eventually the 
Internet
> will invent a new stock exchange that is willing to take advantage 
of that,
> zig to their zag, route around the outage. I wouldn't be surprised 
if the
> new European and Asian stock exchanges which are all-electronic, 
take a
> different view of this. They see NASDAQ, NYSE and SEC as behemoths, 
kind of
> the same way all-electronic publishers view ones who want the Web 
to work
> just like print.

Of course I agree that people who publish RSS want to give away their 
content, or links to their content. And I think that is a good thing, 
and probably a winning model for all sorts of content. I simply sait 
that if people want to get paid for their content, it's probably a 
good idea not to spider their web sites and take the content anyway.

I disagree, though, with your implication that anyone who wants to be 
paid for content is a dinosaur who just doesn't get it. For example, 
look at Reuters. Their entire business is in creating a timely, 
reliable content stream (news, stocks, etc.). This clearly has value. 
They could either attempt to make money by keeping their content to 
themselves and run a web site that attempts to drive all traffic to 
itself (i.e. RSS' model), or take what I believe is the more 
enlightened approach and syndicate their content out to thousands of 
web sites, each of whom does whatever they want with the content. And 
the world is better off because Reuters gives up control over the 
presentation of the content, rather than just links to the content. 
But then, Reuters knows that they're in the content business, not the 
web site business.

Personally, I don't want to attempt to pick the winning business 
model -- all of the models appear to have value to me. Instead, I 
want to support all models.

Of course, someone with a promotional angle will give links to their 
content, and that's cool too. CNET, Slashdot, etc., give away links 
to their headline news in order to drive traffic to the site. I think 
that Meerkat is doing some wonderful stuff, adding value by 
aggregating and organizing those promotional feeds! If I were PR News 
Wire, for example, I might be a bit worried about the ease of freely 
syndicating content, since everything they get paid to distribute is 
promotional. For a time, their value was that they were the only way 
to get information into the right people's hands, with a large, 
expensive infrastructure to back it up. Now, any web site has the 
physical infrastructure, so PR News Wire's edge is more abstract: 
relationships, brand, etc. (of course, those are very real things in 
the world of business, even if they are hard to quantify).

My point regarding stock quotes, and by extension, "pay" content 
sources, is simply that their revenue stream is to sell those feeds 
to people who see value in buying that content. If they can't count 
on getting that revenue somehow (remember UPI?), they'll shut down 
and then the only content sources will be those that produce content 
for promotional reasons. I think that there's room in the world both 
for promotional and pay content sources.

> Dave

- Laird