1. Mike Arrington doesn’t want to be thought of as a guru — he wants to be first to report things. Being outrageous helps him, but why are you paying attention to him or what he’s saying? He’s not a guru or anything.

2. Tom Williams and Austin Hill *are* inspiring.

3. Loren Feldman is a funny guy and has a uniquely sharp talent of cutting through the BS in a funny way. That’s valuable. And funny. But I mentioned that already, didn’t I?

4. Paul Sullivan is a smart guy who knows a lot about journalism — and who is as enthusiastic as hell about it for being in the business as long as he has.

5. Steve Herrman has never been to Toronto or Canada until Mesh. I hope he had a good time. ;)

6. Ethan Kaplan is wicked smart. The way that he talks so smartly and so abstractly about — let’s face it, pirated music — makes it sound like thesis material. And it probably is for someone somewhere.

7. Richard Edelman, in spite of the Wal-mart fiasco, seemed really genuine about a desire for transparency and authenticity in public relations — in a this-guy-isn’t-faking-it kind of way. I mean it.

8. Jim Buckmaster only had one thing to say: “we do what the users want”. In spite of the wonder that is Craigslist, there wasn’t a lot of sophistication to his message. On the other hand, is that any surprise from someone described as a social anarchist or a communist?

9. Jeff Howe seems like a cool dude, and whose message about crowdsourcing was interesting and important: crowdsourcing is good for filtering. Not so much for certain kinds of content creation — like journalism.

10. Will Pate, in spite of his youthful looks, knows a hella lot about creating and maintaining community. How old is this guy anyway? :)

11. Lionel Menchaca was so down-to-earth and self-effacing about Dell’s community initiatives its a wonder that he’s a face of Dell. But he is. Which is amazing.

12. Ted Murphy isn’t the most evil man in the world, and PayPerPost isn’t. Well, probably isn’t. But he’s actually a pretty personable dude who really believes in what he does.

13. Mike Masnick is also wicked smart. I’m not sure who would win in a face off between him and Ethan Kaplan, but one thing’s for sure: *my* brain would explode.

• EK on DRM: Its a very small piece of a very large problem. I don’t think that the removal of it will make a difference with respect to revenue at EMI. The larger problem is that people have a free alternative and there’s no way around that, including DRM. The issues around how artists are compensated around the value chain, towards and through agnostic devices. I don’t have the answer to it, but its something we’re trying to deal with.
• MM on DRM: DRM is like the war on drugs. Things are moving so fast that it makes no sense to try and enforce DRM.
• EK on DRM again: The removal of one thing won’t improve the condition of another — DRM as it is a reactionary behaviour towards consumer behaviour? Is it fair to the consumer? Not really — but its a similar answer to what software industry has right now. I don’t know if DRM is the future of protecting content. As a consumer I’d love it removed. With respect to artists getting paid … I would love to sell music on any device.
• AM on DRM: We’re trying to give away the content in every format possible (with my own podcast Command N). We don’t make a ton of money, but if we give away content, it’ll be up to you to develop revenue and it’ll be easier to do that. I’m working at CityTV, but in the future I will probably go out on my own, and Command N currently has a better viewership than most mainstream podcasts
• “Mclean — how are you going to remonetize copyright?”
  • MM: There are lots of ways to do this, for example crowdsourcing and so on. We give artists a way to monetize their own music, whether it be pre-roll ads on video, watermarks, as well as product placement. I think media companies have to be creative ways to monetize these media formats — and I think its good to shake off that sense of complacency that’s been in the industry for so long
• “What *ELSE* is the future of entertainment?”
  • EK: Gaming is something that has a future as a multifaceted thing for content creators, extending into music and movies. We are trying to remove ourselves from the music and attaching ourselves to brands, whether it be ringtones, websites, and access — rather than just selling music. Engaging the consumer to create content they feel has value, and if they have monetary value in there perhaps that’s important and that has value. The file (of music) represents something greater that means the mode of experience — the iPod, the TV and so on … we need to focus on what these files represent.
  • MM: We are at the beginning of a mast shift in entertainment to make things a richer more immersive experience
• “When will the audience who recommends stuff be recognized into the value chain?”
  • EK: There is a lot of discussion around — DRM focuses on Machine to human –but there’s been talk about moving that back between recognizing the packets as they move through the ether. There should be and could be a way of creating economy around the consumption AND sharing of music. We need to track performance so that things could be paid properly. It’ll be important to think creatively when it comes to technology
• “In other countries you can’t even get original works even if you wanted to — what’s the flipside of developing that kind of content, and what happens when corporations start funding the art?”
• “How many people will have switched over to things like Joost?”
• “How do you think it would be if 80% went into the Internet and 20% into broadcast television — would there be a DRM problem still?”
  • EK: It doesn’t require a rocket scientist to create the tools for social networks around artists. It does create a social brand around the artist. We’re trying to do something smart, like the Grateful Dead. We’re trying to be smart, decisive, and forward thinking rather than reactive.
  • MM: We want to be able to monetize our artists in all kinds of ways, such as product placement, ringtones and all kinds of things. Monetizing emerging platforms is a challenge for everyone, and its more than just selling songs.

• JG: Sam the Record Man will close down, an icon for Torontonians. 20 years ago that was *the* place for music, making it there was a sign of legitimacy. 10 years ago, signing to a major label was a sign that you’d arrived. I aired a three part documentary last year, and in that last year, it seems like ancient history — YouTube had grown and was acquired, Pandora grew, Avril Lavigne sells more ringtones than cd’s and now its gone — that’s the subtext.
• “Last 12 months of entertainment — what does it mean?”
  • EK: There’s been a new focus and an admission that its not going back to how it was. There’s a renewed effort to create a new future for themselves with the technology that is available to many startups. The technology to connect with the fan isn’t rocket science, it isn’t expensive, while the desire for the brand is there. The desire to pay for things — in different areas — is still there.
  • AM: There’s credibility with new media technologies such as podcasting and blogging; people have more power to make a difference, and people believe that the Internet is here to stay, people are jumping ship, and there are more and more people are doing their own things — they’re “internet hippies”! :)
  • MM: Big changes with distribution, with regards to video conferencing, fatter pipes out west (32mb connections to your home), WiMax, and so on. They are quiet changes that don’t get a lot of press — but we’ll see changes with that in the next few months
• “I want to stick with Sam the Record Man … the relationship between the consumer and the producer; the audience isn’t passive — they want what they want when they want it … I want to test that: when I wanted to buy my favourite INXS record (chuckles), I’d have to physically get up onto the subway, and into the Sam the Record Man, and pay a fat price for a whole record, play one track at a time — it seems like I was invested in the record. That seems like a non-passive experience. Are people investing more in their entertainment or less?”
  • MM: I think they’re experiencing it more, because the selection is wider, deeper, and its easier to consumer and share more
  • AM: Attention spans have gotten smaller, and so we’re watching smaller tidbits. I question whether or not loyalty has become affected — does this have implications with social networks like Facebook? There is a difficulty in creating loyalty to certain things ,brands, applications and so on. The lifespan of entertainment may be less. I think they’re getting more content, but spending less time to that content. The relationship may be crumbling.
  • EK: Passive consumption was an illusion that was propagated by big media that exploded a few years ago. Companies are starting to come to grips with that; the active participation has always been there, such as the Punk movement, but what’s really happened is that content has become agnostic between different media and modality. Participatory experiences, auditory experiences — they have all crumbled. There is a movement towards a closer relationship between consumer and content producer … all it is is data through a pipe, and they don’t put value through data.
• “Is there something intrinsic in making something harder to get — does the ease of acquisition art, music, tv etc devalue it or make it more disposable?”
  • AM: Its a global audience, so get it out as fast as possible and think about how to make a buck later. You want to get as much content in front of as many people as possible, and that’s the new model for what success is going to be.
  • MM: With RapTV, there is a different way to build brand loyalty, with social networks supporting unknowns, and when it does succeed, you have that group identifying with that artist.
• “How do you get a kid, who has limitless choices, get hooked on to a given artist?”
  • EK: The notion of creating attachment is *fun*. We have to embrace the notion that the availability and duplicability of content means that we don’t have to strive for the original — but we should acknowledge that the originality is gone, but use what we have to create attachment.
• “Michael Bubble is an artist who is high on the charts — how have you marketed that album differently than 5 years ago?”
  • EK: You have to treat Bubble as a personality. We started 6-7 months ago as to how the album was going to go. Bubble has a core audience, and we wanted to build on that organically through social media, RSS feeds, cultivating fans and so on. In the past there was a process to create albums, but now we had to do things differently — we had to create a marketing plan in conjunction with the album being born … there is importance to the long release of the album and engaging the fans in the way they want to be engaged. Websites should be interactive and not brochures.
• “If you’re not an Avril or Michael Bubble, and with increased access, how does a smaller artist compete?”
  • MM: You take the tools that are out there and just work it — put it as many places as possible. Artists can build an audience feeds by going out an seeking an audience and using those tools. Some artists will rise to the top.
• “Have the responsibility of artists changed? ”
  • AM: Transparency is key, and its important for all artists to be as transparent and engaged with your audience — if they don’t like it, they’ll leave and go to the next big thing. Tom Green has his own blog, answering his own emails, doing a TV show out of his own living room — he said Iím going to take things in my own hands, and the audience is going to participate in that