Social Media Magnates Speak
High-tech author Kara Swisher sat down at the Tech Policy Summit with some of Silicon Valley's most prominent social media tycoons to get their opinions on the technology policy issues of the day.
Swisher asked Jonathan Adelson, founder of content rating site Digg.com: "If you were an artist today, what would you do?" He said most musicians are "looking for exposure and if they can get exposure, the revenue will come." Fans are finding new artists through sites like MySpace and bypassing the old-world record label dependent model, he said.
"We will continue to see the coexistence of traditional distribution supply chains and dis-intermediated ones," Adelson said. There will be "a few survivors on the big media side but there will be a lot of new guys on the block," he predicted.
Technorati founder David Sifry echoed Adelson about the ease with which Internet users can create and distribute their own music. "We're leaving the world where you need to have a big production facility that presses lasers onto plastic and big distribution capabilities," he said.
On digital rights management, panelists said the technological protection measure will stick around for some time whether "fair use" activists like it or not. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of networking site LinkedIn, said DRM is "already irrelevant." Friendster creator Jonathan Abrams predicted that content creators will continue futilely to enforce it.
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Tech Policy Summit
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