Venture Creators Blog

An interesting movement that has been bubbling up to the surface in the last few years is that of using movies to *really* educate.

Movies like The Insider (1999), Erin Brokovich (2000), Super Size Me (2004), Syriana (2005), Lord of War (2005)and more recently An Inconvenient Truth (2006) have an increasingly serious and dramatic tone, trying not only to entertain but also to educate. In an era of multimedia and entertainment, what best way to reach an increasingly educated and demanding audience other than in their “leisure” time with thought provoking, eye opening movies that are closer to reality than ayour typical Hollywood mega-production?

This trend has finally found a serious voice in Participate.net.

A reverse approach to one of our main pillars here at the VCN - collborative business idea development through a trustable community - is introduced by Dorai’s LearnLog, in Blogs for Idea Mining.

Blogs are a great source of ideas. Some of the bloggers are the smartest people I know. They comment about products. They track trends. They predict future products. They compare and categorize. And they share it all free.

Yes, you can track new trends via blogs. In fact, if you watch carefully, most innovations end up coming out out sooner in the blogosphere than in traditional media. (The veracity and accuracy of what's reported in the blogosphere is another, hotly-debated theme).

For those that believe this kind of mining to be unethical because blogs are in nature "personal web logs", "private thoughts" of a blogger that souldn't be mined, think again: blogs are starting to be used for business in all sectors, the very same businesses that now are starting to understand the influence of the blogosphere and therefore starting to mine personal and corporate blogs for ideas and trends.

This same line of thinking is behind the rationale for the VCN. How do you see it?

So, the music industry is going digital. iTunes surpassed its 1 billionth download. Hurrah! Piracy issues seem to be on the verge of resolution and sales seem to be recovering. Hurrah!

Does this mean that any meaningful new business venture should focus on the recent technological developments so eagerly implemented by the music industry? In my view, this is not necessary - in fact - I would like to go back to basics. The idea: create a web-based community for players in the industry to interact, collaborate and exchange artists.

Have you ever heard a tune in your home country and thought "WOW! I cannot believe this has not been released all over the world"? I have, several times. And it happens time and time again (maybe Norway is a special breeding ground for talented artists, but i seriously doubt it!).So why are they not internationalised? I believe there are two main reasons:

1) Most indie's are very small and make very little money. They are run by passionate music lovers whose only aim is to record and release music they love. They are not in it for the money, they are in it for the passion and (hopefully) the break-even.

2) Related to the previous point: small labels cannot internationalise even if they wanted to. It takes money and a good international network. Therefore some artists are only released in some countries. Take the example of Osito Records, releasing one artist under their own label in Norway, licencing it out to some friends in France and FULL STOP! There the network ends, and so does the distribution of the album. There is no way to release it further, unless they are discovered by a label in another country… it is a slow process, and takes too much time and networking for it to be remotely efficient.

So these are the limitations indie's face in the non-digital world: physichal barriers. To paraphrase Guy Taylor (another member of this blog): "it should not be like this. One should be able to":

1) have an international community of independent labels in which labels who produce in the same genres can meet and exchange artists, ideas and collaborative projects.

2) draw on this network when releasing an artist. Although you know where and how the lo-fi phunked up electro crowd moves in Paris, you might be hard pressed to know that about the same crowd in Budapest or Helsinki. With a solid network, this knowledge is at the reach of your fingertips.

3) release good music regardless of who makes it. If a good punk album is made in France, i should be able to contact the label and come to an agreement to release it in Norway. THE SAME DATE AS IT IS RELEASED IN FRANCE! Not only that, but I should be able to closely coordinate my release without having to travel back and forth to Paris (which costs money that i don't have), coordinating marketing efforts and promotional material.

4) unite these labels under one umbrella in order to increase their collective bargaining power towards service providers (internet distribution, physichal distribution, printing, artwork) reducing their production costs.

Is this too much to ask?

While you contemplate this, i have uploaded a song (Minor Majority - Dancing in the Backyard) which has so far only been released in Norway and France. The band: Minor Majority, and this song is from their second album (they have made 3 albums so far). Enjoy!