ning

Digital Consultant links for April 19th through April 20th

These are my links for April 19th through April 20th:

The iPad isn’t a computer, it’s a distribution channel – Interesting take on the phenomena of the iPad and iPhone representing a shift to a closed network for laptop usage, where users engage in tasks within constraints, putting the power into the hands off producers and software/content distributors, rather than the free network of the web. This is an interesting space in monetizing content (the iPad is essentially web content without a URL, that people are forced/willing to pay for) but one which seeks to constrain the open possibilities of the interest, trading this off against the convenience and reliability of a closed network.
Michael Porter : What is Strategy? – This is great – Michael Porter, one of the top 20th Century business strategists, in a one page nutshell including a summary of the 'five forces' theory affecting a business in the market. I like his take on the internet:<br />
`In our quest to see how the Internet is different, we have failed to see how the Internet is the same'
Ning Exodus | This group is set up to make your transition as smooth as possible – Got an existing Ning website but don't want to pay when the paywall comes up? Grou.ps have set up a transition service that is suppose to let you port a lot of your data and community from Ning directly into Grou.ps

These are my links for April 15th through April 16th:

Election 2010: what the manifestos promise for media and creatives – Here's one to interrogate your election door-steppers with: what the three main parties will do for the UK's creative industries. There's some reasonable differentiators, particularly in Lib Dem/ Conservative pledge to (perhaps) diminish or cut the Regional Development Agencies. Some hopes still on the horizon for a (too little too late) games industry tax break.
Is ‘free’ finally falling out of favor? – Sad news today that Ning, the social network tool that lets anyone set up a niche social network in a few minutes, is adopting a pay or leave model. It's sad: I'm sure a lot of the networks I'm in will go (even a small cost is not always easy to achieve) and the critical mass Ning had with setting up one account to access multiple online communities, particularly in the non-profit space, will whither away. But it's also more symptomatic that this 'poster child' for web 2.0 free communities cannot survive endless free lunches: with Meetup.com steeling a march on real world communities by charging annual fees, we may now start to see the gradual 'pay or die' monetisation of many online services.
5 Ways to Reduce Social Media Distractions and Be More Productive – Some help we all need right now! Productivity tools to avoid getting carried away with 'real time' data (from bank accounts to social networks) just because it's there.