Thoughts On TED’s Expansion : Cash In, Ideas Out?

I had an email exchange with TED’s PR over the weekend. They were sending me details of a new membership to TED that allowed 10 friends to watch videos of 2009′s TED live. This follows the $4,000 ticket simulacast at Palm Springs – the idea there is that you get to hobnob with the rest of the B-listers while you watch where the action’s at in Long Beach.

The contents of the Press Release included:

In an exciting new chapter of TED’s ongoing mission to share “Ideas Worth Spreading,” organizers of the TED Conference today announced the launch of a new Associate Membership program. It will offer a virtual front row seat to the whole TED2009 conference via a private live web stream.

TED Associate Memberships cost $995.00 annually, and include all of the benefits of the free TED.com membership, plus: A password-protected, single-computer, live web stream of the TED conference in Long Beach, California (upcoming: February 3-7, 2009) and a noncommercial license that lets you share that webcast with up to ten viewers in the same room.

Read that last paragraph again. So my response was:

(shrug)

The PR was kind enough to ask me what’s up. So this is what I sent her:

I just think TED might have overstretched itself. The extra simulcast at $4k, this membership at $1k just feels like it’s cashing in on the success of TED. It’s not about sharing new ideas. I think anyone who spends a grand to get TED videos live is an idiot. You have the world’s most amazing speakers on stage yes, but I don’t think they’re breaking any amazing news – just doing their rant. We can wait til the videos come out a few months later.

Don’t get us wrong – we’re all for TED making a decent business out of their brand – we just think that the way they’re approaching their expansion feels a little frenzied and, dare we say it, greedy. The learnings that were made when the free videos on the web brought ideas to millions of new friends seem to have been forgotten about. It’s as if the videos were a step too far into the populist camp and TED, with its new memberships and simulcasts, is now making steps in the other direction.

I feel that I’m not the only one who senses a negative shift at TED but I think criticism is muted because there’s this sense that you can’t criticize TED because you’ll never be invited to attend. The longer TED takes this course towards elitism the less an invitation will matter.

TED