Last night at Midnight MySpace launched MySpace Music which allows you to, for free, stream millions of tracks from all sorts of artists (e.g., I’m streaming Prince while writing this). It’s perhaps the most ambitious step in the “Content is Free” direction since YouTube starting getting traction a few years back. So I know what you’re about to ask…
What the heck does this have to do with eduFire and education?
I’ll offer a simple answer: Everything.
For decades music has been predicated on you having to pay to access content. Sure you could listen to the radio for free but if you wanted to listen to something of your choice then you had to buy the record, 8-track, CD, mp3, etc.
Now, with sites like Imeem and MySpace Music, you can now listen for free. That’s big.
For decades education has been predicated on you having to pay to access content. In the case of education the content came in the form of university lectures and what not. You paid big bucks for the privilege of consuming this “content”.
Now, with stuff like iTunes U you can watch this content for free. That’s big.
These changes have far-reaching implications. More far-reaching than just about anybody realizes.
So as the price point for content falls closer to zero (ultimately all music will be available for free) does that mean content has no value?
Actually, it’s more likely to be just the opposite of that.
Huh?
Just because you’re not charging for content doesn’t make it lacks value. What MySpace has done in one fell swoop is just re-focused the Attention Spotlight back on itself. It may never be your social network of choice but it just became the best (if not perfect) place on the Web to consume music. So if you’re a music lover you are probably going to find yourself giving more of your attention to MySpace in the coming months than you did in the past.
And that gives MySpace an incredibly competitive advantage in terms of creating community around content, attractive advertisers and building its brand.
So again…how does apply to education?
Right now most of the folks in the education space are still trying to build the best silos. Instead, they should be viewing the industry the same way that MySpace is viewing the music biz. By leveraging the power of “free” content. By building brands around their All Stars. By creating fantastic user experiences that leverage th “3 Cs” of context (Why am I here?), content (What am I doing?) and community (Who am I doing it with?).
MySpace gets this. They are taking something that is free and creating $2 billion worth of value from it. If that ain’t alchemy I’m not sure what is.
Silos seems to work for decades and alternative strategies seems entirely counter-intuitive. And then someone comes in and drops a bomb and in the matter of a short decade your industry has been entirely transformed. And music isn’t the only industry that’s being radically transformed right now.
A lot of people don’t think this applies to education. A lot of people didn’t think it would apply to the music industry either. But when these changes happen they tend to happen faster than almost anyone realizes. And my sense is that they’re about to happen pretty fast in education.
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