It's no secret that the business of publishing is undergoing a massive change. This site, KidMercuryBlog, is a work in progress about what the future of publishing is like: free media used to build a community.

I recently updated the Songs by Kid Mercury section of the site. The songs are free, the lyrics are published for free, instructional information on how to play the song is published for free, and general commentary and the songs' metadata (i.e. year published, duration, etc) are published as well.

I think record labels of the future are going to have a similar type of distribution. The underlying strategic principles are as follows:

1. Encourage opportunities for community members to co-create. Encourage fans to create and upload covers, remixes, artwork, etc. This can be used to minimize product creation costs.

2. Encourage and enable community members to market your product; give them widgets, let them create and share their media, let them share your media, etc. The purpose of this is to minimize marketing costs. Alex Wipperfurth's Brand Hijack remains essential reading for marketers on this topic.

3. Sell physical products and services. Also, look to leverage the trust and influence the publisher has to create a storefront that sells products/services the trusted publisher uses/recommends.

ANALOGY: The web site is your store. The mp3 and music videos are ads to get people to go to your store.

I'm betting that that's the way the world will work when things are re-built after the coming global collapse. That's what ActoNetwork is largely about; creating the new media revolution, the world in which information is set free.