1. Meld je aan bij Google Engage (http://www.google.nl/ads/engage/)
2. Na het doorlopen van de beginnerscursus ontvang je coupons voor gratis Adword-tegoed á €100. De controlecodes die je hiervoor bij Google Engage moet invullen zijn G001999, G002999, G003999 en  G004999.
3. Meld je aan bij Google Adwords (https://adwords.google.nl/)
4. Gebruik een couponcode uit het Google Engage-programma om je tegoed te verhogen met €100.
5. Maak een campagne met de naam Dropbox en stel een tweetal pakkende advertenties op.  Kies voor zoekwoorden gerelateerd aan dropbox. Stel een maximum CPC in van €1 en een dagbudget van €50.
6. Gebruik als doel-URL in de advertenties de referrerlink van Dropbox (vind je hier: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals). Voor iedere persoon die zich via die link aanmeldt ontvang je 250MB extra ruimte (tot een maximum van 8GB).
7. Heb geduld (een nachtje slapen was bij mij genoeg).
8. Nadat 32 (wildvreemde) mensen zich via jouw link hebben aangemeld kun je de Adwords-campagne stopzetten.

Verder vergroten van je Dropbox kan ook via https://www.dropbox.com/free en https://www.dropbox.com/gs.

Happy syncin’!

But what makes this concept of crowdfunding so brilliant? Are there other products or services that can be crowdfunded and how can this concept be successful time and time again?

SellaBand

In one of my previous posts I wrote about an initiative called SellaBand. That site made it possible to invest a small amount of money into an upcoming artist. Together with a lot of other shareholders (or ‘believers’), you could make it possible for the artist to have enough budget to record and distribute an album or EP. When the recorded material made a good sale, investors also received a little profit from it. This idea is brilliant. Who knows better what music to invest in than the public that listens to it? Unfortunately SellaBand went bankrupt last week. Luckily a German group of investors jumped in and continues the company and website.

In an interview on Dutch Radion 1, one of the founding people made clear that he believed that the project failed partly because the artists sold physical CD’s. The fact that artists also recorded a complete album, and therefore needed to find a total of $50.000 invested from ‘believers’, made it even worse he says. Nowadays, artists should record just a couple of songs and sell them on iTunes. This saves a lot of money, and cuts the ‘risk’ of investing (in only a couple of songs at a time) a lot smaller.

Invest in a book

Another Dutch initiatives (yes, we’re good at this!) is called TenPages.com. It works the same way SellaBand works, but now with books. The name of the website refers to the number of pages writers publish to convince shareholders to invest in their manuscript.

The power of crowdfunding

These initiatives make me wonder why crowdfunding is so brilliant? People invest small amounts of money in a band or a writer, because they admire the artist’s work. Investors also hope to make a little profit from the money they invest. People who consume the product a writer or musician makes, knows best what they like. Not the big publishers or record labels.

I invested some money in 2 artists from SellaBand myself, as an experiment. Both artists, Civilized Tears and Inge M, reached their target and are now recording their album. I believe that changing the distribution model into a digital one can revolutionize the music industry. The same goes for the books at TenPages.com. Distributing a digital file is much cheaper then creating physical CD’s or books and sending them around the world to your investors.

Conclusion

What other products can be funded by the crowd? Movies? Already has been done. TV or fashion maybe? Has been done as well. Investing in a great idea or invention can be worth your money. People have to be able to prevent their unique idea from being stolen though. I truly believe ideas like SellaBand and TenPages.com can work. Giving the power of investing back to public is a very logical step in this online age of transparency.

Is this traditional model of broadcasting companies still sufficient, or are there other possibilities to enjoy media?

Watching and listening on demand

Now things have changed, because most programs can be watched or listened to on demand. When I look at the way I consume media myself, I can’t remember the last time I stayed home to watch or hear a certain program. Instead I download the program from usenet, watch it on demand or listen to the podcast. There are a few radio shows I enjoy: Radio Online (Dutch Radio 1), BBC Digital Planet and WNYC’s RadioLab. The only program I can actually listen to on live FM radio is the Dutch program, but I rarely do. Instead I enjoy the podcast, which I consume at a moment and place I choose.

Public broadcasting as we know it

The question is: why is there public broadcasting anyway? Dutch public broadcasting for instance exists of 3 TV-channels and 6 radio stations. Several broadcasting organizations receive the right to broadcast a number of hours per week, based on the number of members they have. Because of this, all channels have a weekly schedule with programs from various broadcasting organizations. There was a discussion in Dutch politics concerning new broadcasting organizations who wanted to enter the public broadcasting system. Since there were more aspiring organizations than needed, a selection had to be made. Only a few organizations can enter the public broadcasting  channels. The programs they make are then scheduled amongst other programs, maybe even at a very unpleasant time of the day. A lot of people then don’t see the broadcast on TV, but look it up via internet then.

This system is quite weird to me, very limited. It’s like visiting your favourite blog, but only being able to do so on Tuesday night from 9pm to 10pm. That would be completely ridiculous.

The future

It would be much more logical to make all programs completely on demand. People can then pick their own favourite shows and watch them when it suits them. Paying members of broadcasting organizations can then finance the programs they make, together with government money that’s usually spent on public broadcasting. It has to be possible to watch everything from the comfort of your living room, but also with the comfort of planning it yourself.

The song that features this line, Music by John Miles, was written 10 years before I was born. It is therefore quite old. Some songs will never lose their power, but the way music is being sold and distributed will change.

Buying and owning music

First of all there’s the question who owns the music and who has to pay for it. Since the rise of illegal downloading people started to believe that music is supposed to be free. Back in the days people would copy cassette tapes too, obviously. But downloading makes it even easier to grab some new tunes before going on the road. An interesting film on this subject is RIP! A Remix Manifesto.

This documentary deals with issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers. The film is made by Brett Gaylor. The films central figure is Girl Talk, a mash-up musician topping the charts with his sample-based songs. But is Girl Talk a paragon of people power or the Pied Piper of piracy? Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow are also along for the ride.

This discussion always fascinates me. I believe people should pay for music. It is a product they buy and own. You can only own something when you buy it or when it’s given to you, not when you steal it. Since digital music is easier to distribute than a CD, prices should be much lower though. Some artists believe that sharing their music for free will encourage fans to come to their concerts. That’s very plausible, but the artist then decided for himself that the music will be free of charge, not the consumers.

Entrepreneurs are now trying to find new ways to distribute music. One of the new methods is a subscription based model. You get access to a huge database of music by paying a fixed price every month. You can listen to all the songs in that library as many times you want, but cannot download them. A well known example is Spotify. With this model people still don’t own songs, as soon as you end your subscription all your favourite songs are gone. I won’t say that this model will not succeed. It might be sufficient for some people to just stream there music and not own it. Personally I wouldn’t like it though.

Who needs a record company nowadays?

Another interesting issue is managing investments in music. There still are big record companies that believe that they exactly know which artist will be successful amongst the audience and only contract those artists. I believe there are other ways.

Wouldn’t it be more logical to let music lover decide what they like? It sounds logical, but it’s not the way it works yet for every artist. But luckily there’s SellaBand. This website gives artists the opportunity to raise money amongst fans, so-called ‘believers’. These believers invest a small amount of money, e.g. $10. When you sell 1.000 shares like this, you have $10.000, to record, distribute and market your music. When the musician starts making profit from record sales, believers will receive a small percentage of that money. They also receive the music the artist made with that money, either as a physical CD or digital download.

At first the site was being used by small bands only. A few weeks ago rap formation Public Enemy joined SelaBand and raised over $70.000 since then. Dutch artist Hind joined last November and raised €40.000 (+/- $50.000) in 12 days. These sites really give the power back to the people. If fans like an artists’ music and their willing to invest in the artists career and music, there now is an easy opportunity.

Conclusion

I personally believe music should be paid for. The problem is that most people don’t share that opinion, because they are used to getting it for free. I don’t believe that one day people all of a sudden start paying, but record companies will have to find other ways to sell their music, for instance through subscriptions.

That is, obviously, if there will be record companies around then. When the audience grabs the power to decide which artist has talent and is worth your money and investment, record companies might be in trouble.

The Neighbours campaign was developed at Tillmanns, Ogilvy & Mather, Düsseldorf, Germany, by ceative directors Volker Kuwertz, Andreas Steinkemper, art director Marc Zinnecker, account director Birgit Gosda and photographer Michael Stemprock.

Via the Inspiration Room

The commercial centers around a young black woman who loses her mobile phone. She totally freaks out as she realizes that by losing her mobile phone she also lost all her friends’ phone numbers. She starts looking all around town, yelling at her boyfriend that she needs to call and now can’t because she lost everyone’s phone number.

Things take an unexpected turn when the actors from the commercials that’s being played on the cinema screen show up in real life in the theater and start looking for the phone amongst the crowd.

To me this turn is quite brilliant, since the action is taken from the screen directly to the crowd. People can’t miss this, and the unexpected guerilla ending will generate buzz. People start clapping and making pictures right from the start, so it definitely got their attention.

Agency: Jung von Matt/Neckar

Via Cc:Live (Dutch)

Advertising Agency: Kastner & Partner, Sydney, Australia
Art Director: Darryn Devlin
Copywriters: Luke Simkins, Darryn Devlin
Photographer: Mat Baker

Via Ads of the World

In this particular video the thoughts of the people in the room pop up right beside them. The graphic design is very well done. It reminds me of the way tv shows like Heroes and Fringe use text inside scenes, not on top of them.

Ikea is one of the most well-known furniture companies in the world. On my blog I already mentioned two of their creative ideas, the assembly service charts and the Ikea Drömkok website. But this one’s completely different. To be precise, these ideas aren’t even Ikea’s.

Usually the term ‘hacking’ is immediately associated with computers and networks, in a negative way. But hacking is a quite generic term for changing stuff. Since Ikea is known for their do-it-yourself furniture, people really started doing it themselves and started hacking the original designs. They didn’t stick to the regular Ikea table anymore, but started making changes to it to make it their own unique piece of furniture. The table to the right is just one of the many examples. This table still is a table, but a lot of designs turn into something completely different then what they were meant to be in their original shape.

On the web blogs and communities started to appear around Ikea Hacking. The most influential are these two: a blog called Ikea Hacker and a subsite of DIY community Instructables called Ikea Hacks.

A lot of companies would now start complaining that their designs were being abused and changed, but that seems a quite an unnatural reaction to me. The Google philosophy starts to kick in right now. These sites offer an opportunity for Ikea enthusiasts to share their ideas. Ikea itself offers the ‘bricks’ for these redesigned pieces of furniture. They delivered designs unassembled, which makes it almost impossible to withstand the temptation of making alterations. The pieces of furniture are the actual platform, the communities are just there to share along ideas and suggestions and make contact with fellow Ikea enthusiasts.

Ikea could make great use of the many ideas their customers offer. Make improvements to original designs, make products useful for completely different purposes and reward the new ‘designers’ for their cooperation by taking these designs into production.