The audience are the actors in writer Tim Kring’s latest adventure. In his famous creation, the TV show Heroes, people discover they have superhero powers, and go off and battle Evil. In his latest, people go and battle Evil, and discover they have been given Nokia smartphones.

The ambitious, Nokia-sponsored interactive extravaganza began this weekend, and it’s an interesting experiment. In Kring’s own words, this series of events, called Conspiracy For Good, is “not quite a drama, not quite a flashmob, not quite an ARG [alternate reality game]“.

What is it, then, and how did it come about?

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The Beggars Group office in a suburban street in Wandsworth doesn’t look much like a media corporation. There’s no chocolate ice sculpture in reception, and no giant video screens or inspirational slogans. It does look a lot like you’d expect a real independent record company to look, though: behind the receptionist’s desk is the kitchen sink. Boxes of records are strewn everywhere. Chairman and founder Martin Mills sits in the cramped, buzzing open-plan office, along with everyone else.

And there’s something else unusual. Here’s a group of record companies that are doing well, both critically and commercially, which think the internet has helped them to this success, and can’t wait for the future to get here.

Beggars’ four labels XL, Rough Trade, 4AD and US stalwart Matador Records scooped up a fifth of the Times Top 100 records of the decade. The company recently scored the first indie number one for twenty years (Vampire Weekend), looks to have the critics choice for 2010 sewn up (Gil Scott Heron), and with The Xx has a band whose music suddenly seems ubiquitous, sprouting from every trailer and advert, as well as the BBC’s Election coverage.

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“The technology was sort of there. That software was there, and it was good – I wouldn’t do it that differently now. The basic model was just as appropriate then as it is now.”

– Chris Castle.

Read more at The Register

…Read more at The Register

Read more at The Register

Don’t judge a book by the title. Especially if the title is something like Cyburbia. James Harkin, who worked with Adam Curtis on The Trap, has produced the first proper full-length critique of Web 2.0 – tracing the daftness back to the cybernetics pioneers of the 1940s.

It’s odd that something with so much hype as Web 2.0 has received so little intelligent criticism. Half of Nick Carr’s The Big Switch, looked at the social and psychological implications, and he’s following up at length in The Shallows.

But Cyburbia takes a different approach. By looking at the mania for feedback in a historical context, Harkin finds a common thread in subjects as diverse as military strategy, TV shows like Lost, as well as the interwebs.

Q. We’re used to cyber-everything but can you define cybernetics for us?

Harkin: There are a lot of definitions but the simple idea I use is this idea that what distinguishes human beings, or what’ smost important about humans, is that they exist on a continuous information loop defined by a constant stream of messages we’re sending or receiving.

Now you can interpret the world in that way – me picking up a glass, say – but it is just a metaphor. The story of my book is how this metaphor, created by Norbert Wiener, because of its beauty, became the inspiration for a new medium and influencing how we live. It’s given rise to all this incredible technology, but the idea of fitting ourselves into that mould will mean we’re the losers.

The central image of the book is Cyburbia, this strange alternate world where we watch each other and the minutiae of each others’ lives.

You might have stared out of your window in suburbia in the 1950s and seen a few people across the street, but now you can stare at millions of other people. The danger is that when you spend all your time deciphering what other people are up to, you never get around to doing something original on your own, because you’re so swamped by opportunities to go onto other people’s lives on blogs, social networks and Twitter.
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bullient lawyer Chris Castle has a unique perspective on the Music Wars. A former Sony and A&M executive who “switched sides” to Silicon Valley, then found himself defending the original Napster, which he called one of the greatest inventions of the 20th Century. His clients range from technology companies to major recording artists.

So to introduce the first of some regular specials from Chris, here are his views on the music business’ biggest errors – and whether there’s any cause for optimism. He’s never dull, it’s mostly Chris in his own words…

Read more at The Register.

Billy Bragg interviewed. With audio, it’s all here.

Serial entrepreneur Michael Robertson is embroiled in a legal fight against the recording business – and not for the first time. His MP3Tunes locker service has raised the ire of EMI in a case that continues this week. But isn’t it weird, he asks, how the Big Four divvy up the litigation against music start-ups between them so neatly?
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Feargal Sharkey needs little introduction. A chart-topper in his own right, and as the lead singer of one of the greatest pop groups of all time, The Undertones, he subsequently crossed into regulatory and policy work – constantly agitating for musicians, songwriters and performers. At the start of the month he joined British Music Rights, which represents music publishers, composers and songwriters – and an important counterweight to the BPI, which predominantly represents large record companies.

With the music and broadband businesses at a historic crossroads, Feargal gave us a glimpse of some of the closed-door discussions we might see next.

[ full interview at The Register ...]