The first draft of our programme is live. To fill four parallel tracks is a challenge but allows maximum content as well as space for lots of great speakers!

We're proud to publish the first draft including speakers like Steven Erich, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Matthias Lüfkens of the World Economic Forum or Rafi Haladjan, Violet. The Call for Participation has created a great resonance and we've received a bunch of good applications, some of which we're now happy to present in the programme. Amongst others Simone Brunozzi, Amazon, Tim Leberecht, frog design and Henriette Weber, Toothless Tiger as well as Lenz Grimmer, Sun Microsystems are going to be part of next09. Everyone else who handed in a speaker proposal and is not in the programme so far is now on our waiting list.

Feel free to also use sched.org to mark which sessions you would like to see and connect to others to see their schedule. Please note that the first draft is due to changes. We will regularly update the programme and fill the blanks soon as we're still in talks with a bunch of potential speakers.

Your chance to get more for less is now! Our Early Bird tickets for 490 Euro (plus VAT) are still available until March 15. On March 1 the prices are going up to the next category of 790 Euro (plus VAT) for both days or 690 Euro (plus VAT) if you won't participate in the pre-conference day on May 5.

Marc Andreessen on Charlie Rose

The Internet chews up media and spits them out again. Sometimes they get more robust. Sometimes they get more profitable. Sometimes they die.

Cory Doctorow has bad news for the media industry: Newspapers might just collapse, big-budget movies could turn into opera, music will probably move their business to live performance and long-form narrative books might turn into poetry. The Share Economy is clearly one of the driving forces behind the disruption of old media. User-generated content is increasingly becoming mainstream, reports mashable (kudos to Martin Kulik who sent me the link):

More than 82 million people in the US created content online during 2008, a number expected to grow to nearly 115 million by 2013 according to numbers released by eMarketer.

This content explosion simply leaves less room for classical media consumption, therefore adding to the long-term trend downwards that mass media faces today.

Meanwhile, the New York Times now has an API. Dave Winer likes it, but is not impressed:

At first it's a shock, why do we need another, and why is it coming from NY instead of Mountain View, Berkeley, Sunnyvale, San Francisco or Redmond? Well if their paradigms can be toppled why not ours? Indeed. But... Is that really what is needed from the Times? And what chance does it have to succeed? I thought of other successful once-new publishing paradigms -- Aldus, Quark, HTML, blogs, RSS, podcasting. Is the Times like those? No -- it's more like AOL or Compuserve, if it's even that open (I don't think it is).

And in another piece he writes:

Back then (and still today) the only things I knew for sure were: 1. People's thirst for news and ideas was going up, not down and 2. The professional news organizations were not expanding to meet the demand, rather they were contracting. Therefore: 3. Something must rise to fill the gap. Beyond that, I could only guess how it would make money. Maybe they will make money by serving lattes to bloggers who work in their newsrooms. Maybe once there's a glut of conflicted points of view out there, the public will re-hire them to act as arbiters. I don't know. But as I said to Jay Rosen in an email yesterday, "Asking about business models now is way premature. First they have to restructure, learn how it works, and then we can figure out where the money comes from."

At least the Times is using the right word these days -- open -- but not in the way that matters. They're willing to give away what we, in tech, have been giving away for a decade. Obviously that's not a disrupter. They need to give away what they have -- authority. The trick is to find a way to give it away without destroying it. If they can do it, then we will have cracked the nut, scale, massively more news, deeper coverage, and with it -- shifted economics.

What this probably means to print, in the words of Marc Andreessen, the guy who brought us a once-famous browser called Netscape:

Charlie Rose:
So to play offense for a newspaper for you means what?

Marc Andreessen:
Oh, you got to kill the print edition.

Charlie Rose:
You would stop the presses tomorrow?

Marc Andreessen:
You have to kill it.

Charlie Rose:
Stop the presses tomorrow.

Marc Andreessen:
You have to kill it.

Charlie Rose:
Stop the presses tomorrow.

Marc Andreessen:
Stop the presses tomorrow. I'll tell you what. The stocks would go up. Look at what's happened to the stocks. This investors are through this. The investors are through the transition. You talk to any smart investor who controls any amount of money, he will tell you that the game is up. Like it's completely over. And so the investors have completely written off the print operations. There is no value in these stock prices attributable to print anymore at all. It's gone.

Charlie Rose:
So you would recommend to the owners of the New York Times, stop printing papers.

Marc Andreessen:
Yeah, absolutely. You have to. You have to -

Charlie Rose:
And take your losses -

Marc Andreessen:
Yeah. You have to.

Charlie Rose:
Like a courageous person.

Marc Andreessen:
Chronic pain? Acute pain. How many years -- music industry, same thing. How many years of chronic pain do you want to take to avoid taking a year of acute pain?

Early Birds have always been better off and we're not going to break with the rule. Tickets for next09 are now available for 490 Euro (plus VAT). Save your Early Bird ticket until February 28!

Among other inspiring web conferences, like The Next Web, LeWeb or the Picnic, next09 is one of the largest conferences in Europe. We're expecting up to 1700 participants and you can be one of them! Check out our speakers, which are going to share their expertise. Share that you're attending the next conference with a badge on your website. To see who is attending so far you can have a look at our participants list.

On March 1 the prices are going up to the next category of 790 Euro (plus VAT) for both days or 690 Euro (plus VAT) if you won't participate in the pre-conference day on May 5. So, don't hesitate, register now!

As newspapers see a decline in their traditional revenue streams, they are increasingly looking online to find new income sources. But that endeavour turned out to be difficult as consumers constantly refuse to pay for news, and online advertising sales are way below their offline counterparts.

As their audience moves to the web, papers are forced to follow but didn't find a viable business model yet. Subscription models usually don't work, with the one exception of the Wall Street Journal. Some have managed to grow a self-sustaining online business, but that doesn't pay the bills for their offline editors.

Most papers face a difficult situation: Their traditional business is shrinking and layoffs are inevitable while online would require significantly higher investments to grow. For many, it might be already too late. They missed the opportunity to invest in better times and now can no longer afford to cross-subsidise their online activities.

Which essentially means they are doomed, at least in the long run.

I think we can expect some more efforts to put the content behind a pay wall. In this case, media brands risk losing their own brand value as they essentially disappear from search result pages and Google News. Is there a way to make the consumer pay without sacrifying the Google traffic?

In short: No.

Subscriptions don't work because there is no reason for it. In the offline world, I have to choose which morning paper I want delivered to my postbox. On the web there is no such need. My bits of news can easily flow from as much different sources as I like. There is no limit but one - my limited time, attention and intellect.

With an abundance of supply and limited demand, prices for news inevitably fall to the bottom, i.e. zero. There are only two possible ways to go: give your news away or go out of business. Publish or perish.

For newspapers, the Share Economy is a strong force that will put many of them out of business. The question is: Will we miss them?

You've registered for next09 and are looking forward to May 5 & 6 as much as we do? Here's what we have for you to let everyone know you're attending one of the most relevant trend conferences in the Internet industry.

You don't have a ticket yet? Save your Early Bird ticket till February 28 for 490 Euro (plus VAT) only!

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Last week, I posed a supposedly tough question:

Why not let all the doomed banks rest in peace and create good banks instead of bad ones?

Well, at least the first half of my idea is gaining support. Günther Oettinger, premier of Baden-Württemberg, said today he would consider insolvency for Hypo Real Estate (HRE), a German property lender. The government already provided more than €100 billion as financial aid for HRE.

In the US, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner this week proposed a plan to pour more than $1.5 trillion in the economy and the financial system to restore the flow of credit. But more and more voices demand "not to pour more scarce resources into troubled banks that are still run by the executives who got them into trouble in the first place".

Instead, they say, the government -- confronting a deteriorating economy and a cast of financial executives that's largely unchanged despite the near collapse of their industry -- should be setting up incentives to create a healthier and more sustainable financial system down the road.

That means finding a way to cut the too-big-to-fail crowd down to size. [...] If the government actually owned common stock in banks, it would allow regulators to have more of a say in how the banks are managed going forward.

That could make it easier to break up the big banks, which some experts think makes sense.

Economist James Galbraith said in an interview that bailed-out banks should be declared insolvent.

The little bit of checking that has been done appears to reveal that a very large fraction of these securities contain, on the face of it, misrepresentation or fraud in the files. And so, we are looking at an asset which nobody, no outside investor doing due diligence on behalf of a client for whom they have some responsibility, would touch. And that is the issue. That's the problem.

If that is indeed the case, then I think it's fair to conclude that the large banks, which the Treasury is trying very hard to protect, cannot in fact be protected, that they are in fact insolvent, and that the proper approach for dealing with them is for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to move in and take the steps that the FDIC normally takes when dealing with insolvent banks.

And the sooner that you get to that and the sooner that you take these steps, which every administration, including the Bush administration, actually took in certain cases--replacing the management, making the risk capital take the first loss, reorganizing the institution, guaranteeing the deposits so that there isn't a run, reopening the bank under new management so that it can begin to function again as it should have all along as a normal bank--the sooner you get to that, the more quickly you'll work through the crisis.

Photo: Jacques Grießmayer

The best-selling music album of 2008 on Amazon was Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I-IV. This may be a surprise to some because front man Trent Reznor personally uploaded the album to the Pirate Bay and the private music tracker What.cd earlier last year. He also offered a free download from the band's website and licensed it under a Creative Commons license.

It was pretty clear early on that those free releases didn't harm the commercial success of Ghosts I-IV. Fans paid more than 1.6 million dollars for downloads and deluxe edition physical releases of the album in the first week after its release alone. The album also got nominated for a Grammy award just a few weeks ago, and Reznor followed up Ghosts I-IV with another album that got released via the band's own Bittorrent tracker. [P2P Blog]

So giving the music away ultimately led to a huge sales success. That's the Share Economy, applied to the notoriously slow and stupid music industry which, according to Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig, has nothing better to do than criminalise an entire generation of kids.

The video above is a case study talk given at MIDEM by Michael Masnick, who edits the Techdirt Blog and is also President & CEO of Floor64. [via]

It's the week of start-up competition announcements. But we're especially proud to present the Webciety Start-up Competition which is powered by next09 on March 7th, 2009.

The competition is a contest for ten start-ups and is open to anyone who would like to participate. Register here to present your business idea and concept in a short and convincing presentation. A question session by a jury will finalize the competition and the audience is going to decide on the three best start-up ideas.

We're happy to welcome these three at the next conference, including the chance to present in our start-up track! By the way, if you happen to be a start-up you can still apply for a slot in our start-up track. While the Call for Participation is officially closed now, we continue to look for inspiring start-ups.

Webciety is this years theme of the CeBIT exposition taking place in Hannover from March 3rd till 8th, 2009. The start-up competition is part of the six day programme. A first draft is already online. More information is available at the Webciety@Mixxt community.

Let's be honest. Nobody knows right away how to use Twitter, what to twitter and how to create relationships on Twitter. Brian Solis, Principal of the PR agency FutureWorks, has put together the do's and don'ts of how to use Twitter. A special focus lies on our participation and interaction to share relevant information with others. Giving back is the new black.

In fact the true technique for building relationships, regardless of volume, is the genuine act of earning and investing in them. It's rooted in selflessness and rewarded with a rich stream of relevance and a network of valuable contacts that can also help you in the real world.

The Twitter culture evolves and matures though the greater collective of those who invest in the caliber and meaningful dynamic of the micro exchanges and relationships that we earn and forge everyday. Our experience is defined by what we share, learn, and discover, what and who we follow and spotlight, and how we give back to those who help us and others. So, to give back to the Twitter community and invest in building more mutually beneficial relationships.

To read more check out Brian's blogpost Finding the Tweet Spot - Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships. He is a member of our Advisory Board and we're happy that he's going to speak at next09 this year.

Sun Microsystems is organizing its first Start-up Camp on March 6th, 2009 in Cologne. Workshops, start-up presentations, networking and of course the award ceremony Start-up Champ of the Camp will be part of the programme. Venture Capitalists, Business Angels as well as investors and Web 2.0 specialists will be among the 200 expected participants.

Registration is open to everyone, especially start-ups of the Web 2.0, IT, media and technology sector. Different categories on ticket choices are available. As a member of the Sun Start-up Essential Programme you have a chance to register with a discount ticket. Please check out the website for further information and details.

We are happy to call Sun Start-up Essential one of our next09 sponsors. Of course we are offering special sponsoring packages to start-ups as well! Check out your sponsoring opportunities including a slot to present in our start-up track!

Lift09 will look back to look ahead on February 25-27, 2009 in Geneva. We were told that the future would be about mechanization and computerization or complete with 3D flying virtual assistants. We now realize that long-praised vision of the 21st century may not materialize.

That said, change happened but not necessarily where we thought it would. What can we learn from the predictions that didn't happen? How do we better imagine the future? Lift09 will explore this topic with three intense days of inspiration and networking. Join in and meet speakers like Vint Cerf, the father of the internet and inventor of the TCP/IP protocol, Dan Hill of Urban Consultancy Arup, Juliana Rotich, a Kenyan blogger and Digital Activist and Baba Wamé, a Yaounde-based researcher who studies the impact of dating websites on Cameroonese society.

Part of our team, in this case Mark and Martin, is happy to participate at Lift09. Together with us you can look forward to an inspiriring conference and take advantage of the 20 % discount we like to share with you! Register here using the code next09.

We've told you about our press accreditation a while ago. Next to the common press area, we will also have a blogger area, especially blocked for writers and bloggers. Here's the place to be if you want to blog about any programme highlights and event happenings. Lounge interior and writing desks will be at your disposal.

We have limited contingent of free tickets for the blogger area. Hence, please pre-register at this form, so we can collect your contact details. Of course, we will be happy when you support next09 on your blog with one of our badges. And going with our motto Share Economy, we would like to see you sharing your ideas and thoughts about the theme on your blog. What does it mean to you? What does it mean in the beginning of 2009? Will it change the way we relate to brands, consumers, companies and others?

We are curious about what your next thoughts are!

With all the daily news about banks and bailouts, one thought comes to mind: Why not let all the doomed banks rest in peace and create good banks instead of bad ones? Well, it's not an easy thought as SinnerSchrader works for two important German banks.

As food for thought, a few weeks ago we asked the Jeff Jarvis question: What would Google do? And we applied this question to banking. As it is still an ongoing project, I can't yet tell you the answers we found. Have a look at these notes instead.

But it's worth to note that Jeff Jarvis himself encountered a somewhat similar experience last week at Davos. He ran a session on mass innovation in which he charged groups to pick an industry and bring the benefits of open collaboration to find an opportunity or repair a problem. One group took on the toughest assignment they could today: banking.

They proposed the Open Bank. It would feature radical transparency: full disclosure of performance and compensation. The group decided that a banker should not sell a product unless he could pass a test about it. They even decided that there had to be a means to confirm that customers understood what they were buying. They proposed collective risk assessment, creating a means for its constituents to select and perhaps vote on investments. They explored how to offer transparency on each product and customers' performance with them so that you could compare your returns with fellow customers. And they argued that bankers should be compensated on profit. It wouldn't be an easy business to run; being answerable is hard. I said later that its slogan should be, "the only bank you can trust." That is what would make it successful. When I asked, most in the room said they would be such a bank's customers; many said they'd work for it; almost everyone said they'd invest in it.

I think that is just what we need. Jeff argues that we should invest in ideas like the Open Bank instead of bailing out the incumbents who are circling their wagons, refusing to take responsibility, and change.

We should, instead, be investing our money in entrepreneurs and technologists, the people who will change old industries, reimagining them under new rules with new people - us, in the long run - in charge. I leave Davos thinking that more often than not, we need to look at replacing rather than just repairing these broken institutions. Entrepreneurs and educators do that.

We are bailing out the past. Instead, we must bail out the future.

Our speakers list is growing continuously and we are happy to welcome further prominent names at the next conference!

Amongst one of the latest commitments is David Armano. He is working for Critical Mass, a veteran digital agency focused on the creation of extraordinary experiences. Also presenting at next09 will be Rudy De Waele of dotopen, Chris Messina, Open Web Advocate and Founder of Citizen Agency, Chris Heuer of the Social Media Club and Stacey Seltzer, who is managing the International Business of Joost.

We've received a lot of feedback to our Call for Participation. The evaluation has started and our Advisory Board is reviewing more than 100 proposals. Don't worry, all of you will hear from us again but please give us some time to look closely at every submitted suggestion.

The forms for applying as a speaker or start-up are still open but every proposal we receive now will be on the waiting list.

At the Inaugural Youth Ball, the new President of the United States and the First Lady Obama salute the crowd.

Ángel Luis González Fernández aka Bohoe posts this photo (original from VentureBeat and writes:

While the event is happening, we the audience indulge in its consumption by recording it, rather than experiencing the event itself. We engage the media, the channel, the interface, and not the message. This image speaks volumes about how we experience reality, about our relation with the image world, and about ownership.

He then cites Kevin Kelly's essay (see earlier post) and continues:

It is hard to chew a way forward in terms of a Photographic share economy, though while it seems excessive for mankind to record the same event with millions of cameras, we all want to have one, to take one. Maybe the issue is there, in the sharing.