BUILD ON OTHERS WORK
- about building media services and content on work that has already been done
a pocket guide from Media Evolution
Media Evolution This publication is published by the media cluster Media Evolution. We are working to boost growth in the media industries in southern Sweden. One of our key areas is gathering intelligence to monitor what’s going on in the media industries across the globe. We take that information and use it to highlight opportunities and business models that our members, and media industries in general, can exploit and develop. www.mediaevolution.se
INTRO by Media Evolution
More innovations faster
T
he spirit in Malmo, where we have our base, is open and generous. Companies in the media industries share contacts and ideas, look for unholy alliances and view collaboration as a path to faster growth.
”new services can be created more rapidly and less expensively”
The same trend is found in the media landscape in general. Use of open APIs and Creative Commons is constantly growing, which means that new services can be created more rapidly and less expensively. To take a closer look at this trend, we asked contributors such as Kristina Alexanderson (Creative Commons Sweden) to write about where to find CC-licensed media and Johan Brissmyr (Popdevelop) to talk about how they build services on open APIs. In addition, Catherine Mulligan (University of Nottingham) writes about why it’s a good idea to share data even from a financial standpoint.
4 More than we can create 6 APIs as marketing channel 8 Here’s where you’ll find the media to build on 10 Let others do the work 12 Why foursquare has an API 14 From autumn vacation to bestselling book cover 16 The impact of open APIs on Economy and Society 18 Open the door and innovation rolls in 20 Hoist the sail and harness the new force of nature 22 Glossary
Build on others work October 2011
Publisher: Media Evolution Editor: Sara Ponnert and Martin Thörnkvist martin@mediaevolution.se Design: You Us and Them
WHAT by Martin Thörnkvist
More than we can create
W
Today’s media industry is driven by collaboration and the realization that shared information is not lost information. More people realize that if we share, we’ll get something in return –in terms of contacts, information and media content.
Jonathan Hadiprawira CC BY
e live in a world with more information than we can make sense of, where ideas have no value until they are sorted and implemented. We live in a world where the possibilities are more than we can manage. Meanwhile, the use of open APIs for data access and Creative Commons-licensed media is becoming increasingly common, making it easier than ever to build on already existing data and content.
We are all potential building blocks.
Creative Commons
By giving a work (image, text, video, music, etc.) a Creative Commons license, a creator can tell the world that it is OK to share, remix and create new media based on the original, but still retain the copyright. The creator decides exactly what the license will look like by using the four pre-defined conditions. Attribution (tell who the creator is, the title of the work—if any—and which license applies), Share Alike (it’s OK to remix, tweak and build upon the work as long as the new creation is licensed under the same terms), Non-Commercial (it’s OK to remix, tweak and build upon the work, but not to distribute it commercially) and No Derivatives (it’s OK to copy and distribute the work, but don’t make any changes to it).
Practicing what you preach Thoughts about open innovation, open data and “sharing is caring” are nothing new. But talk has seriously become action; we’ve reached a point where transparency is the norm and companies that make their content inaccessible provoke raised eyebrows. More and more companies and organizations are taking the tough, major step of opening up their data for others to build on. Similarly, when creators add a license, powered by Creative Commons, to their copyright, the works created can be shared and built upon.
”talk has seriously become action”
Open API
An API (Application Programming Interface) is an interface that allows different services to speak the same language and share data and content. This set of rules makes it possible for programmers other than the creator of the original code and content in the database to create new services on top of the existing one. Companies that have open APIs allow anyone to build new services on their data and content without any existing relationship or special written contracts; the rules are defined in the API.
We are active in industries that is taking the for new innovative methods and is by that creating a deep understanding of how open APIs and Creative Commonslicensed works can create new values, both social and financial.
Martin Thörnkvist is a market intelligence advisor at Media Evolution.
HOW by Andreas Krohn
APIs as marketing channel
D
o you have a Twitter app on your iPhone? If so you are using Twitter’s API. Do you check the weather on the website of the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan? If so, you use the Norwegian weather service API. Do you use your Facebook user name to log in to any websites? That means that you are using Facebook’s API. APIs are everywhere and today it is almost as important for companies active on the internet to have an API as it is to have a website. API as marketing channel Last year Ethan Beard from Facebook said that “Spotify is Facebook music.” What he meant was that Spotify is so integrated into Facebook’s own platform that Facebook does not need to develop their own music service. This integration is built with the Facebook API. The recent updates from Facebook that enable people to play Spotify music from inside Facebook and see what their friends are listening to in realtime shows that these were not just empty words.
”Today it is almost as important for companies active on the Internet to have an API as it is to have a website”
Behind the interface
When Spotify first began using Facebook’s APIs, traffic quadrupled and a similar surge in traffic for Spotify is quite likely with the new deeper Facebook integration. Spotify does not only use APIs; it also has its own API that developers can build on. It is used in many interesting music services, for example to help music lovers to discover new music. A very creative service is Automatic DJ, which plays music you enjoy when you get in front
of a webcam. The music comes from Spotify’s streaming API; you are identified via the face recognition API from face.com and the music recommendations come from Hunch via their API. Naturally all this innovation drives traffic to Spotify. Furthermore they are building the Spotify brand as the de facto music service. The API is a perfect (and relatively inexpensive) marketing channel for them. Suddenly Spotify can be seen in places where they never would have been seen otherwise and with all this publicity, more and more people are becoming interested in Spotify and paying for its premium services. Take advantage of the ecosystem There are two ways to take advantage of the amazing ecosystem of APIs currently available: either by publishing an API or by using one of the many available APIs. By publishing an API you can take advantage of all the innovation that developers have to offer, you can build your brand and, if you charge for your API, earn more money. By using APIs you can quickly create something that just a few years ago would have required a small army of programmers. Still not convinced that APIs are for you? The next time you see a map somewhere online, remember that the map probably comes from the Google Maps API. The world is full of APIs and now is the time to take advantage of it.
Andreas Krohn is an API specialist at Dopter.se and blogs about APIs and API news at mashup.se.
”You can quickly create something that just a few years ago would have required a small army programmers.”
HOW by Kristina Alexandersson
Here’s where you’ll find the media to build on
T
Creative Commons is a licensing system that operates within copyright law. It means that the creator of a work who holds the copyright for it allows you to freely distribute, copy, and build upon the work that he or she has created without your having to ask for permission first.
Kristina Alexandersson CC BY-SA
here are loads of images, music, text, videos, etc., online that are licensed under Creative Commons and are free to use.
Creative Commons
The creator of the work still retains the copyright and those who want to use the work must comply with the conditions that accompany the work under Creative Commons licensing. The various Creative Commons licenses explain how work may be distributed, whether or not derivative works are allowed, and whether or not the work may be used in commercial contexts. Where and how do you find Creative Commons content on the web? The easiest way is to use the Creative Commons search function atsearch.creativecommons.org, to help you find materials, various types of work that are licensed under Creative Commons. You can use CC search to limit your search to works that you can modify, adapt or build upon and use for commercial purposes. You can also limit the search to specific sites you want to search for works from, or if you are looking for a particular
”The creator of the work still retains the copyright”
media type. You can search on one or more services such as Jamendo to find CC-licensed music, Wikimedia Commons to find media, YouTube to find video content that you may modify, Flickr to find pictures and other sites that offer their users the opportunity to license their works. Making a choice is the hard part. I often search for images on Flickr, a web service that has a huge number of licensed images. On September 23, 2011, Flickr had over 200 million images under Creative Commons license.
Use with responsibility Use of works licensed under Creative Commons is based on trust and users accept the responsibility to actually comply with the conditions creators impose on their works, and attribution to the creator is the most basic.
Kristina Alexandersson is a Creative Commons school ombudsman
�On September 23, 2011, Flickr had over 200 million images under Creative Commons license�
HOW by Johan Brissmyr
Let others do the work
O
ne basic rule we live by is to focus on the creative process, rather than spending time reinventing the wheel. That’s why we always try to avoid storing information on our services when other players are available who specialize in storing and searching just this type of information. This thinking is also good for our users, who aren’t limited because their photos, texts and login data can only be accessed through our services. Their photos end up on Flickr, their music is stored on Soundcloud and they login via Facebook. Here’s how APIs work When we use other players’ services, we usually do so through their web-based APIs. These APIs are designed so that information can be retrieved from them using a browser without any additional tool, which makes it easy to quickly test what data is accessible. Each request to the API is made by visiting a particular link as described in the documentation. This link differs from a regular link because it leads to completely unformatted data with neither color nor shape, which is a requirement for data to be used in software. When you go on to develop your own service based on the data, the requests are then made automatically to the API, which eliminates the need to go through a web browser. For a more advanced application that reflects large portions of an API, you need to learn how the service’s data is structured in greater detail, how often you can retrieve it and how often it is updated. Unfortunately APIs often lack some
“This link differs from a regular link because it leads to completely unformatted data with neither color nor shape”
functionality required to make an application that is as complete as the service’s own application. Either you accept these limitations, or you work around them by trying to find the information elsewhere. An example The information downloaded from the API usually has to be saved to avoid unnecessary multiple queries and to remain within the permitted usage limits. When we designed kollektivt.se we realized we could not query Skånetrafiken’s API each time a visitor enters the site since it would run slowly and result in too many queries. Instead, we save static information such as positions for routes and stops in our database and query Skånetrafiken about new delays once a minute. In other words, visitors entering our site do not generate any traffic directly to Skånetrafiken’s API. Don’t reinvent the wheel A plethora of services are out there to store, search, filter and take responsibility for your material. Unless you have a really good reason, you should reconsider your solution if you’re trying to decide whether to build the next great photo, file or music service. Most respected services have an open API that allows users to read and publish content. Collaborate with these services and focus on the creative aspect of your concept!
Johan Brissmyr is a developer at Malmö-based concept agency Popdevelop.
“Most respected services have an open API”
WHY by Naveen Selvadurai
Why foursquare has an API
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ver since we launched foursquare two-and-a-half years ago, we’ve focused on our platform and our developer community. We’ve long believed in the idea of an open API: one that will give users access to their own data, one that will give developers access to our crowd-sourced venue database (so that they don’t have to create one from scratch) and one that will enable other developers in building great experiences on top of foursquare. Our own official applications run on top of our platform, so you know we’re incredibly vested in its future.
help people discover new places (by augmenting user’s history with goings-on in a city); create virtual games on top of the real world (for instance, a zombie game that’s built on and reacts to real-world movement of people); develop visualizations that show how a city evolves and changes; and so on.
Martin Thörnkvist CC BY-NC-SA
What you can do with the foursquare API The API has allowed developers to create a wide range of applications to:
”our own official applications run on top of our platform”
Playing foursquare IRL
The power of the developer community Recently, we hosted our second official foursquare hackathon. A hackathon is an event that brings together developers so they can collaborate and work non-stop on an API project in order to win prizes and recognition. It took place over a weekend in mid-September. This one was a special event because it was so global in a way not many others are. Four official cities (Tokyo, Paris, New York, San Francisco) and dozens of crowd-sourced cities took part in the event around the world. We saw some incredible work come out of the weekend: Plan your next trip: to help you plan a step-by-step itinerary for a two-day weekend in a new city Sqavenger: to help you create scavenger hunts in your city Intersquares: to help you see all the places you and a friend might have overlapped The value of an API As foursquare grows and becomes more valuable as a product for users, my hope is that these applications too will grow in number and value. We’re just at the start of creating a real ecosystem of tools on top of the real world.
Naveen Selvadurai is co-founder of foursquare
”we’ve long believed in the idea of an open API”
HOW by Pelle Sten
I
n 2009, my girlfriend and I spent our vacation on Gotland. We took a weekend trip in mid-September after all the tourists went home – the perfect time to visit Gotland. One place we had decided beforehand that we had to visit was Fabriken, the austere modernistic hotel located on the islet of Furillen off the island of Gotland. Furillen Autumn vacation was previously a military protected area and before that it was home to a quarry. The hotel has built up an imaginative environment around this industrial ruin. We swung past the hotel area while we were out on a drive and I took a ton of pictures. Before we even left the site, I knew the photos would be perfect for tilt shift effects, where you use blurred and clear colors to create a dollhouse feeling. A few weeks later, in autumn 2009, I received a message through Flickr from designer Sofia Scheutz, who was working on the cover of Mari Jungstedt’s new mystery in her bestselling series of books that takes place on Gotland. Right to build upon a work My goal is to have as many people as possible share my photos, so I’ve chosen to license my public photos on Flickr under a Creative Commons license. When trying to decide which license to choose, I picked the most permissive license. I had several reasons for
Pelle Sten CC BY
From autumn vacation to book cover
doing so – it’s still pretty uncertain what not allowing commercial use of the work would really mean. I also appreciate the remix culture and know that others can create works that I might not have thought of with my own material. Since I’ve licensed all of my Flickr photos with a free Creative Commons license, I can’t prevent anyone from using them, as long as they comply with the license terms. That’s why I really appreciated the fact that the designer contacted me before the book was printed. A lesson from this and other collaborations is that many users still don’t really know what applies for Creative Commons-licensed content. For instance, there is no consensus about what it means that images can’t be used for commercial purposes. The fact is that information about what to do is more accessible for CC licensors than it is for CC licensees, those who will use the works. Meanwhile, some informal additions to the rules have evolved; for example, it’s always good to link to the original work (even in paper editions) and it is encouraged to print the type of license an image has. Personally, I was thrilled last year when the Berlin-based music site SoundCloud gave all musicians the opportunity to license their creations under Creative Commons. I’ve used it several times when I created both short and long videos, including Sweden Social Web Camp. It’s called karma.
Pelle Sten is a communications consultant at inUse.
“I appreciate the remix culture and know that others can create works that I might not have thought of.”
WHY by Catherine Mulligan
The Impact of Open APIs on Economy and Society
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PIs are far from a new concept. While their role within technology is well-known, their impact on the economy and society is less understood: APIs actually helped fuel globalisation since the 1960s. The current era of Open APIs is different, however: these interfaces highlight wider changes in both our economy and society. This is only the beginning and the impact of Open APIs will be felt in every part of the globe. APIs and Globalisation APIs originated in the 1960s to reduce development and testing costs by allowing for modular development of code. APIs on e.g. IBM’s 360 made code re-usable internally to companies. By the 1980s APIs were exposed to external developers, allowing them to create and sell applications on top of platforms. Companies could use APIs to develop software across the globe simultaneously; many even outsourced development. APIs were one of the drivers of globalisation during the 1980s helping companies to achieve new levels in the pursuit of economies of scale. Without APIs, the economy may have a different shape. From 2005 onwards the speed of technical change means companies must work closely together, focusing simultaneously on ‘core business’ and close interaction across industries to ensure compelling 3rd party product offerings on their platforms. Meanwhile, mobile devices allow for the capture of data about end-users in a manner that has never previously been conceivable, while new streams of data from NFC,
”From 2005 onwards the speed of technical change means companies must work closely together”
RFID and sensors are released every day. Market uncertainty is the result - it becomes too expensive to establish the business relationships and legal contracts with every company needed to develop compelling applications. Many sub-platforms need to be linked together to create a complex ‘network of platforms’, connected via Open APIs that function both as a technical and contractual boundary to reduce transaction costs and increase innovative capacity by creating dynamic ‘contracts’ between parties.
Developer
Developer
Developer
Developer
Open APIs create a market for innovative capacity Mobile Phone
Clothing Store
Social Network
Open APIs and Market Creation
Open APIs and Society Open APIs brings both technical and social opportunities and challenges. Open APIs create more equitable access to information, allowing access to data previously locked in libraries. Cloud-computing APIs create more equitable access to processing capacity. Access to information and the ability to process it is rapidly becoming a global human capability, not just a corporate one At the same time, however Open APIs create imbalance between regions as a large portion of the world’s population contribute their data to increase the revenues of USbased companies, e.g. Google. Open APIs are the basis of new organisational structures for companies as they did in the 1980s.
Catherine Mulligan is a Horizon Transitional Research Fellow in Innovation Studies at University of Nottingham.
HOW by Christer Månsson
Open the door and innovation rolls in To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself. - Sören Kirkegaard.
Mobile and handheld applications development has exploded in recent years. Today we have a vast number of apps that users can customize their own phones with that we could only dream about five years ago. Although the telecommunications industry has been saying that apps would be the wave of the future for over 15 years, it has been unable to drive this development. Instead they pursued— Mobile services are accessible from all platforms. especially the operators—a so-called “walled garden” strategy where the idea of growth was to restrict their own platform. And when business opportunities for developers were less than favorable, it’s easy to understand in retrospect why so little happened in all these years. An obsolete structure Many companies and organizations, especially the large ones, are stuck in an industrial structure in which they are absolutely convinced that they know what their customers want and demand. This approach curbs the company’s own creative abilities, and prevents development of new products and services. It is very similar to the mobile operators’ old “walled garden” strategy. Just imagine the new customer-oriented services that could be created by companies like MTG, Bonnier, EON, ICA and H&M, if only they took a new and leading role in opening up their content! Authorities and public organizations have the same potential. Their vast, exciting content could be placed in the hands of ser-
Johan Larsson CC BY
”
vice developers and converted into creative innovative services that would benefit the organizations’ customers and users. Only imagination sets limits on what services we would see if, for example, SVT, Svenska Spel, the Civil Aviation Administration and municipalities opened up their content, and took a leading role in this development. Opportunity for large organizations One way to speed up this development is to open up the technical interfaces (APIs) and create favorable business models for the company, the organization, and application developers. Give away the necessary tools, train the development companies in the company’s core values and strategy, but most of all, establish favorable business models. One brilliant example is the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, which created openaid.se to show what Swedish foreign aid is used for and allow others to build services based on the data. It’s all about allowing external developers to build on what has already been created – new services that the company would hardly have been able to come up with in the boardroom or executive offices. This approach releases a tenfold or hundredfold surge in creativity completely in the company’s direction. It is open innovation at its best. I am convinced that this kind of development will benefit all parties, especially NGOs and corporate clients. We therefore encourage all companies and organizations to contact us at Media Evolution to see how we can help make this trend your reality.
Christer Månsson, CEO at Media Evolution.
”This approach releases a tenfold or hundredfold surge in creativity completely in the company’s direction.”
WHY by Joakim Jardenberg
Hoist the sail and harness the new force of nature
T
here is widespread misunderstanding about a generation free. Superficial surveys say that kids today aren’t willing to pay for anything at all, which of course parents of teenagers know, isn’t true at all. New relationship to content However, we can see a new very special relationship with content, especially digital content. Paying for a TV license, buying access to content behind a paywall or even understanding that something that can be copied isn’t OK to copy – just isn’t included in the worldview.
Step back in history, way back. To the time when we lived in symbiosis with nature and we found our strength in solidarity. The resources around us were there for everyone to use. Nature’s wealth was owned by no one, but was used by the community. Each person contributed a share, for the good of everyone.
Cyber Slayer CC BY-NC-SA
But that doesn’t translate into being egotistical, immoral parasites or even “pirates”. It just means that these kids grew up in, and have adapted to, a brand new world. Or rather a world of ancient principles.
Copied
Without getting into politics, property ownership is its opposite, a semi-modern construction, with the emphasis on construction. It has been maintained through a number of regulations, with associated means to enforce, govern and control. But very little of the old mechanism works in a digital world where content is available in abundance, where global law is impossible, with technology that never allows itself to be limi-
ted and with an audience that is increasingly dissatisfied with anything less than everything. To paraphrase old Stenbeck: Technology wins over the law. Consumer, creator and co-creator The digital world is now seen increasingly as a commons. All creation is based on someone else’s work, and the strength is that the new ecosystem creates completely new opportunities. As the venerable British newspaper said in its digital strategy, “Weaving the Guardian into the fabric of the web.” No short-term gains there. By becoming part of the web you stake your claim for this role. Make sure you are relevant today, and would be missed if you should disappear. This foundation is crucial. If you are necessary and perhaps even loved, the rest is a relatively easy business development. But back to the digital generation. The base of their worldview is simple. They see themselves not just as consumers, but as co-creators. The roles are intertwined. The former consumer pays back with commitment, refinement and distribution. With such simple currencies as time and creativity, new values are created. You may think that it is possible to preserve the rules of yesterday. You may be tempted by tougher rules and more supervision as a viable approach. You may find it appealing that the trend can be blocked. But I promise: a force of nature like the new transparency is unstoppable. Joakim Jardenberg is a change advocate and participant in discussions of all aspects of the old, new, digital and social media.
”With such simple currencies as time and creativity, new values are created”
GLOSSARY by Media Evolution
Glossary API - Application Programming Interface A set of rules that make it possible for programmers other than the creator of the original code and content in a database to create new services on top of the existing one. Creative Commons A licensing framework that enables creators to allow others to distribute, remix and create new media from the original work, but still retaining the copyright. The Creative Commons initiative was founded in the United States in 2001 by law professor Lawrence Lessig and others. Open innovation Intentionally ensuring that others can participate in developing a company’s ideas and products to generate growth. The term was coined 2003 by Henry Chesbrough. Paywall A layer on a website that requires payment to give the user access to the content. Walled garden A concept in the media and technology world used to describe a service provider that only allows its customers to use the services it provides and does not allow developers to create products for the platform.
About this publication This publication comprises texts previously published at www.mediaevolution.se. The idea is to repackage our regular analysis as focused in-depth looks at areas that we think the media industries need to understand a little bit better. We release four publications annually. At our web site you can download or order mail copies of previous and future editions. Build on others work is published under the Creative Commons licence by-nc-sa. Read more at creativecommons.se
Contact Media Evolution info@mediaevolution.se 0706-37 28 47 (Pernilla Lavesson) Media Evolution Anckargripsgatan 3 211 19 Malmรถ Sweden mediaevolution.se twitter.com/mediaev facebook.com/mediaevolution
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