Self Publishing

There are two faces of social media: 1) self publishing and 2) viral distribution.  For most campaigns, the self publishing component is easier to get results for than the viral distribution component.  People create free games, videos, blogs, or software, give the information or digital media away for free and hope that it goes viral.  Usually, self publishing campaigns get limited results, generating a few hundred views per corporate blog entry or a few hundred views to a video.  Sometimes a game, a YouTube video, or an application will go big.  Sometimes, a self publishing idea really goes viral.

Publishing Linux software was a doozy of an idea that went big in the 1990s.  Although some people might not see the connection between open source, social media, and self publishing, to me it is clear.  There is a strong connection in philosophy and business models.  The initial model for Linux businesses was a publishing model, not a software development model.  The initial Linux businesses were CD ROM publishers that sold square plastic cases filled with CDs that contained software that they downloaded from the Internet.

I was thinking back to the mid 1990s when the Internet was just starting to go mainstream and open source software was a new concept.  Back in those days, Bob Young was just a normal guy and didn't have the huge sums of money he would later earn as CEO of Red Hat.  In 1993, Bob started a company selling software on CDs.  In 1994 Bob started Linux Journal with Phil Hughes, which was a pretty crude publication in it's first incarnation.  By 1995 Bob had cut a deal with Marc Ewing to sell the Red Hat Linux distribution, a a set of open source software that included Linux and was packaged in a nice, easy to use format with a nice installer for all the software.  Bob and Marc created Red Hat Software, which did an IPO in 1999 and made Bob rich.

Sometime around 2002, Bob Young founded Lulu, the leader in self published books.  Bob and most of the other open source people from that era never really pursued businesses like Facebook or Zynga.  The strategy and technology behind viral distribution of information was developed by the next generation of technology entrepreneurs.

However, the model of self publishing, whether it is software, books, music, or video, is still being pursued by the original visionaries 15 years later.