Hey Big Business: You Listening?
Do you read blogs? Do you pay attention to what your customers are saying — not just to you directly, but everywhere else? On the Internet? Hope so.
Recently I’ve been thinking a bit on the impact that forms of mass-communication have been having — or, perhaps, should have been having — on big business.
Isn’t it word-of-mouth that’s the ever-so-desirable form of spreading the word on a product? Isn’t that the same thing that often helps those in the know to shy away from an offering that doesn’t deliver? Blogs are an amplification of word-of-mouth, where one user can have a water-cooler type conversation with thousands of other ones — so why aren’t more people paying attention?
Slashdot posted on Longhorn’s support for monitor-based DRM restrictions (misleading title and all; yeah, I enjoy Microsoft bashing some too, but could you at least try not to sacrifice too much integrity to do so?) and, needless to say, this is a discussion that’s picking up a lot of heat. The vast majority of users, as a casual search of forums and blogs will show you, are opposed to such an implementation.
But it’s not really like Microsoft and the media giants don’t know this; it’s that they don’t care. The little bit of their market (and it probably is small enough) that’s likely to pay attention to the blogs that attack DRM and copy protection that inhibits fair use gets filed under “acceptable losses,” since we already know Average Joe’s Dell PC will have Longhorn preinstalled and come with a new monitor. And he won’t have a clue that the awesome 1080i DVD she’s buying wouldn’t have played on his old computer — hell, maybe he would and that would just get him to blindly upgrade in the first place.
Hopefully what bloggers can do is eliminate that false impression. Not everyone is fortunate enough to get thousands of readers daily, but the rising influence of the blogosphere is readily apparent to anyone willing enough to pay attention — any number of political scandals blown open by e-pundits can demonstrate that fairly easily.
Eventually the value of blogs and live user input will become more clear, and some companies have already realized that. HP has some blogs (but Dell doesn’t). GoDaddy’s Bob Parsons has a blog, though some might argue that’s an example of a corporate blog gone horribly wrong. Microsoft actually has a whole evangelism team (fronted by Robert Scoble) plus some developer blogs, which is where they deserve some credit for not underestimating the influence that blogs can have.
So, given that… hey, Microsoft. Right now the ball’s in your court. You’ve got the advantage. Keeping this monitor-based DRM out of Longhorn will do damage to the content providers in their quest to end fair use and hinder the law-abiding user’s ability to use what they buy (I know my monitor and video card don’t even do DVI, so with an analog only connection I’m somewhat screwed). Longhorn is what the media needs to ensure their content is widely protected yet accessible, and if you guys support it I’m sure the blogs can tell you what’ll happen.
Of course, in the end it’s really the consumer who votes with his wallet. Let’s at least hope it’s sooner rather than later that we all catch on.