The Way of the Otaku?

December 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In some ways I may have made a mistake in naming TheWayoftheWeb a few years ago. Because the Web isn’t the important element, and neither is mobile, print, radio, television or pigeon post.

Any Japanophile videogame or anime fans will already understand the Otaku reference, but the best explanation comes from brilliant author William Gibson:

‘The otaku, the passionate obsessive, the information age’s embodiment of the connoisseur, more concerned with the accumulation of data than of objects, seems a natural crossover figure in today’s interface of British and Japanese cultures. I see it in the eyes of the Portobello dealers, and in the eyes of the Japanese collectors: a perfectly calm train-spotter frenzy, murderous and sublime. Understanding otaku -hood, I think, is one of the keys to understanding the culture of the web. There is something profoundly post-national about it, extra-geographic. We are all curators, in the post-modern world, whether we want to be or not.’

That’s from a column he wrote almost 10 years ago for The Guardian. It was shortly before the release of Pattern Recognition, which I highly recommend and recently re-read.

In the book, his heroine wears a Buzz Ricksons jacket, – a Japanese firm recreating American military clothing with the kind of passion for detail which particular Otaku appreciate.

But there is a group of Otaku for every subject imaginable. Individually, each one may be an expert, a maven, a connector, an influencer. But for all the talk of reaching out to ‘influencers’ – I worry we’ll miss the society that allows those people to have influence in the first place.

Filed Under: Digital Culture, social media marketing, strategy Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Passion is why Nine Inch Nails and vinyl are succeeding

January 7, 2009 By 1 Comment

There’s already a lot of commentary on the fact that Nine Inch Nails topped Amazon MP3 Album sales for 2008, despite the fact the first nine tracks of the  album had already been released by the band for free under a Creative Commons licence.

And the fact that vinyl album sales doubled in 2008, hitting a 17 year record of 1.88 million in 2008.

As Matt Mason points out, both examples show that ‘the physical souvenir of a digital idea still has value‘, and legitimate purchasing is becoming easier and more cost effective – for instance, Apple dropping DRM from iTunes and introducing variable pricing (although you’ll have to pay to remove DRM from tracks you already own). Om Malik nicely outlines the reasons why even the bonus from that DRM removal isn’t necessarily a good thing for the music industry – mainly because the three-tiered pricing structure being introduced could lead to more people expecting music for less.

And analysts are backing the idea that mobile music has to be free, for example.

Are there answers?

Going slightly further than Matt, I’d say buying an album already available for free, or investing in vinyl, shows something more than the benefits of better legitimate music stores or physical souvenirs.

I’d say it’s a direct result of passion.

The people most likely to download and spread NiN’s Ghosts I-IV are the passionate fans of the band. The people downloading from Amazon were aware of the album but either didn’t want to make do with the nine free tracks, didn’t want to download directly, or, possibly wanted to spread the word by purchasing via Amazon and propelling NiN up the charts.

Meanwhile to be a vinyl consumer you have to find a record player (hard to do offline outside of specialist hifi shops),  invest in needles and fluff removers, and actively seek out releases.

But what paying for NiN or vinyl does, is it elevates you from those people enjoying music as a diversion or convenient entertainment – it makes you someone who displays there passion for the band or format.

You don’t just like NiN enough to listen or download for free – You love them enough to pay $300 for the limited edition ultra-deluxe box set, and then buy the songs again via Amazon to promote them.

You don’t just have a convenient CD of new dance music or classic soul – you have the original vinyl with the ritual of selecting it from your shelf, sliding out the album carefully, putting it onto your record deck, and gently lowering the needle with the precision of a surgeon.

And anyone who witnesses either act is left within no doubt of your passion – and those who share it instantly mark you as one of their own. You’re not just a fan, you’re an Otaku.

It’s what sells a lot of products. For instance, the Halo Xbox game spawned two sequels, limited editions box sets, and a forthcoming strategy game.

  • Plus a table-top miniatures game.
  • The soundtrack CD for each game, plus a collection of the trilogy
  • 5 printed books
  • A graphic novel
  • A four-part comic book series
  • Calendars
  • Canvas Art
  • Posters
  • Vinyl Figures
  • T-Shirts
  • Controllers and headsets
  • Graphics to customise your console
  • Plus downloadable content to add to the original physical version, and customise your console dashboard

Then add in the derivatives:

  • Tournaments
  • Machima, such as Red vs Blue, which has it’s own DVDs, clothing and collectibles.
  • Halo costumes for Halloween or conventions.
  • And all sorts of other stickers and clothing from other retailers.

Now, how could you be a ‘real’ Halo fan if you just had a standard copy of the game? That won’t help you connect with other real fans, given 20 million copies of the series have been sold.

To show to other people you’re a ‘real’ Halo fan, you’ve got to have queued for the midnight release of the game, and have a sealed Limited Edition version. You’ve got to have the sountracks. At least one figurine of the Master Chief. A few of the books. Maybe a T-shirt.

After all, none of this is new!

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Two good excuses to invest in printed materials…

November 13, 2008 By 4 Comments

It’s very rare I purchase a book. The last two were Tribes by Seth Godin, and Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur by Richard Branson, both of which have a lot to teach anyone in business and in social media marketing.

(Incidentally, after writing about Business Stripped Bare, here, a nice young lady named Natalie emailed me to say that there’s a widget to display the first 43 pages of the book, which you can see here. Meanwhile, my thoughts on Tribes and how to get it for free, or just 95p on iTunes are here.)

Anyhow, if you prefer to read from a printed page than a computer screen, then there are two more additions that I can recommend investing in.

The first is Dave Cushman’s The Power of the Network, which collects his white papers and more into a single download for 49p, or in printed form for £4.98 via print-on-demand site Lulu. (Disclosure – Dave is a former colleague and friend of mine – enough that I’m credited in the book!). Well worth reading – or buying for someone who is interested in how social media is changing. It’s particularly interesting due to Dave’s lengthy experience as a print journalist and sub-editor before his ever increasing adoption and insight into the changes multimedia is having on everything around us. He’s running a blogger review programme – and also giving any profits to Kiva, which allows you to fund people to change their lives and make their own way out of poverty.

The second is Jonathan MacDonald’s Every Single One of Us: Vol 1 The Communication Ideal, which looks at the underlying principles and makes bold predictions for the future advertising, marketing and personal brands – and is relevant for anyone in the media, internet and mobile industries. (Disclosure: I’m a very small part of a distinguished list who were involved in supporting and helping it’s creation). Jonathan’s CV speaks for itself! Plus he’s probably the closest thing to a legitimate social media rock star, thanks to his musical talents. It’s a £2.99 download or £14.95 for the print edition, and all the money is going into a collective pot to continue the concepts he’s building as part of a group. You can see it explained in a far better way, here.

Actually, cobblers to it and I’ll add a couple more – Joseph Jaffe is offering a very special deal for people buying certain amounts of his books Life After the 30 Second Spot and Join The Conversation  (I’m a big fan of Join the Conversation), ranging from signed copies to a day’s consulting. Take a look at the offer on his blog, Jaffe Juice.

Now I know a lot of people reading this will probably have heard of these people, read their blogs and be familiar with their work (or at least you should!), but the print editions are perfect educational materials for anyone who still associates a ‘blog’ as being something where a geek talks about how he sits at home on his Xbox, talking to his virtual friends. This might help them realise that in the modern world, everyone is doing it via mobile, internet, their console – and that to really be a geek you’d have to go much further. That’s why I love the fact that Seth Godin references the term Otaku, which I’m familiar with due to my love of video games and Japanese culture. It’s for anyone with an almost obsessive interest in something, whether that’s social media, videogames, motorcycling, football or anything else.

There’s a great William Gibson quote from the Observer used at the end of the Wikipedia article:

‘The otaku, the passionate obsessive, the information age’s embodiment of the connoisseur, more concerned with the accumulation of data than of objects, seems a natural crossover figure in today’s interface of British and Japanese cultures. I see it in the eyes of the Portobello dealers, and in the eyes of the Japanese collectors: a perfectly calm train-spotter frenzy, murderous and sublime. Understanding otaku -hood, I think, is one of the keys to understanding the culture of the web. There is something profoundly post-national about it, extra-geographic. We are all curators, in the post-modern world, whether we want to be or not.’

So go and buy some presents for the Otaku who don’t realise that’s what they are, and how the web can empower their interests, specialities, and dreams.

(And seeing as I’ve got the books, I’ll have a smart phone, a net book, an MP3 player and a new car stereo please!)

Filed Under: Digital Culture, social media marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,