I am a big fan of Umair Hague and his thinking on new media economics have played an important role in our strategic thinking.
That said, I think it is important to not universally apply Hague’s thinking to all types of media as there are some assumptions in his thinking.
For example, he states in his recent User Generated Context paper:
Most user generated content, is, in fact, context. The bulk of what connected consumers create isn’t content: its context - information about the value of goods and services. Context in turn, lets connected consumers search and navigate the exploding universe of media more effectively, and massively amplifies incentives for quality.
I agree, but this assumes search costs and a degree of modularity in the media content. While an individual article/post makes sense in isolation and is often consumed as a unique entity, this does not happen with podcast lessons where students consume lessons in sequence - even if of their own selection.
As a result, the largest search cost for a student is finding an appropriate service provider and not an individual lesson. Correspondingly therefore, user generated context is more valuable in identifying learning services, rather than the lessons themselves. This can be seen by the dominant preference for third-party bloggers to link to our sites (e.g. http://ChinesePod.com) themselves, rather than individual lessons.
Harold Jarche commenting on Umair’s paper states:
Creating good content on a platform that lets users (teachers & learners) add context may be the the real killer application in education. Content developers and institutions have been so concerned with protecting their content that they don’t see where the real value lies. Letting others add more context will only increase the value of their content.
But who needs this context? I think there is a clear case for teachers who are trying to put together an appropriate course by remixing a variety of learning materials. But for the students themselves? The compelling need is much harder to identify.
The fact is that there is an associated cost to produce high-quality learning content. If there are no ‘amplified-attention incentives’ for individual lessons themselves, do attention-based business models (e.g. advertising) make sense? Just how does letting students add ‘context’ to lessons actually increase the value of the lessons themselves? Therefore, shouldn’t students just be charged for access to high-quality content (subscriptions), thereby justifying future investments in more diverse and better content?
The situation for teachers is much more clear. Teachers should have free access to allow them to add context to the lessons (through comments, rating, etc), with the benefit of helping other teachers discover appropriate lesson content for their students.