The Bloor Perspective: the football portal play, Napster and P2P, and web content for profit

A couple of weeks ago, as a part of a football sponsorship deal, a portal was set up for all the official websites of English Football League clubs. The aim was that the sponsorship money, totalling £9m, would be divided among the clubs according to the number of hits they achieve on their official sites and the number of users that register for other features, such as quizzes and gaming. Now, after only a very short period, it seems to be going horribly wrong.

The problem seems to be that only 27 out of the 92 football clubs involved actually got their official sites properly prepared in time for the start of the monitoring period - even though they had months of notice.

Then, it turned out some clubs were actually becoming innovative in their use of the web. Bolton Wanderers set up a competition with a £10,000 prize requiring users to visit their web site to take part. Links to football websites started appearing everywhere along with bogus news stories that would attract wider interest. As a result of this poor organisation, it seems the monitoring process has been postponed for a short period while things are sorted out.

What is clear is that the scheme sponsors, NTL and PremiumTV, have failed to recognise how their audience would react to the situation they found. Certainly, they seemed to ignore the blind loyalty of the football fan who will go to almost any lengths if there is a belief the club will benefit in some way. Stories of fans spending 20-30 minutes at a time hitting pages are not uncommon and one club was chastised for encouraging fans to get their friends, relatives and pets to access its site at least once every day.

Here we have a salutary lesson for any organisation thinking of setting up public access sites. This example shows the importance of understanding your audience and being prepared for any type of behaviour. This is a situation where the blind really are leading the blind. The creators of the Football League Portal appear to have no idea how to get the best from web technology - or how people want to use it. On the other side, there are none blinder than football supporters.

*Napster and a can of P2P worms*

Napster's trials and tribulations, very much in the news recently, took a new turn last week. But Napster itself is only part of an important and growing peer-to-peer (P2P) picture and the future of P2P itself is being thrown into doubt. Last week, the European Parliament effectively endorsed the previous rejection of an appeal by Napster.

Copyright law still allows some copying for personal use only, where no commercial activity is associated with it, but seems to rely on un-stated assumptions as to media and the pervasiveness with which copies are loaned.

The law still does not forbid me or you lending a book or CD to a friend next door or sending it to a friend on the other side of the world. Emailing it is probably not forbidden either but advertising the fact that you've got a copy to lend to a group of friends probably is. This suggests advertising the fact you have something that can be borrowed, as effectively happens with public libraries, is at the heart of the issue. But that point doesn't seem to be addressed directly by copyright law.

Caught up in all this is P2P itself, which is a much larger issue than Napster. The internet is the perfect medium to allow formation of special interest groups and the sharing of information among group members. It's already a vast sub-industry that has opened new vistas for a multitude of niche interests. And the Napster saga places this sub-industry under
threat.

Speaking at a meeting of software developers in San Francisco last Friday, a law professor made famous by the Microsoft anti-trust trial, Lawrence Lessig, was quoted by CNET as warning that the Napster case implies "existing economic interests get to decide what forms of technology get allowed, not just for Napster but for any new technology".

In P2P, big issues such as freedom of speech and freedom of information are intimately tied up with the technology used to hold and disseminate the information. If we're to have an equitable society, we urgently need a much more creative approach to formulating laws to address this complexity.

*Money in that there content?*

It seems many of the web content brands set up specifically to exploit the new media opportunities are not doing as well as expected. Businesses such as Salon, TheStreet and Slate have all developed individual styles but they have used investors' money to carry on operations and it is starting to run out.

Stock values are falling as these businesses continue to report weak revenues. At the same time, established news brands such as CNN, USA Today and washingtonpost.com are still attracting plenty of visitors, although it is unlikely that they are making any money from their online activities. They just have the support of the broader businesses behind them.

It's just like the real world - you have to have a business plan based on achievable goals. There is no room for guesswork and you cannot just jump on a bandwagon in the hope that somebody else will get you rich somewhere along the way.

What will be interesting to watch will be how the internet media businesses get themselves out of trouble. These organisations will need to find new ways to generate revenue in order to stay afloat. The US is generally a year or so ahead of Europe and so we can learn by watching.