Media

Our very own channel: what will TV networks do?

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

User generated media sounds sexy and all that, but people forget that groups of users are more interesting than individuals –hence aggreggators, and social networks. So UGM is definitely going to have to contend with business generated media (for want of a better term) where groups of people may pool content. 

This Forbes story about Michael Eisner’s ‘peer-casting network,’ Veoh, suggests that it is trying not to be another YouTube, but a mix of content from individuals and businesses. If more businesses get it and get in, then we would probably see a Starbucks channel, or an Aveda channel with a twist –some of the content will be produced by  customers themselves. Don’t believe me? They do exist already in parody form. Check these Starbucks parodies on Grouper, a video blogging site.

If we are to be optimistic as this USA Today piece is, that marketers are beginning to understand the value of streaming video, the old TV networks may have to morph into broadband companies that just happen to have TV networks. What will the TV networks do? Partnering with marketers would be a start.

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Needed: digital currency for online content

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

A plan by Disney to offer free TV content online is a glimpse the where advertising could get innovative. As I had been speculating, ad-supported content is coming to streaming and downloadble media, but it should not mimic the way advertising works in television. Faced with ad-killing DVR other time-shifting technologies, the only way to counter it is with technology, but not technology that punishes viewers, or technology that primarily interrupts content.

For the moment, according to Disney’s plan, interruption is not being addressed at all. Disney says "viewers will be able to pause and move between ‘chapters’ in an episode but will not be able to skip ads that are technically embedded."

Technically hardwiring ads is what TV did, and see how crippled that model is. Content sites should embed something we can never have enough of: choices. When a program break comes up, viewers should have the choice of earning credits for viewing the ad, or bypassing the ad but providing some feedback (taking a poll, commenting on the program etc). Then they could have a further incentive thrown in, to go back to the ad and watch it if they wished, to top up their credits even more. These credits could be then used to buy other content available online and not on regular TV. Or maybe previous episodes a viewer may have missed.

I’m talking of advertising being turned on its head, making it a currency, not an annoying bathroom break. Some third party vendor is surely going to come up with this currency system for many other online program interactions. A currency that could be banked and used like air miles. The point is, viewers and consumers (not marketers nor the media) are the final arbiters of the world’s most desired currency: attention.

Many agencies still dont realize that this is the area where creativity is in short supply. If they don’t get in and get creative, someone like iTunes or Google will.

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The new media universe map from Marcom Interactive

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

There is this neat map of the new media universe, from Marcom Interactive. They call it the ‘modern mediasphere.’ You can see it here.

It sure looks interconnected (given the shapes assigned to each medium and technology) but something is odd. In the schematic they lay out, mobile phones and camera phones etc lie on the periphery (how odd is this?) and with some overlap, blogs, wikis and podcasts etc are pushed to the center of this universe. ‘Streaming news’ is close to TV, and not radio –both of which are not in the vicinity of mobile phones.

The neat thing, though, is the ability to turn each of the 3 sections on and off.

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Newspapers and blogs…the line blurs fast

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

The news yesterday that newspapers have inked a deal to syndicate blogs, is not a huge surprise. We’ve seen the rise of journalists blogging, and the blurring of the lines between columns and posts recently. USC Annenberg’s research finds that 79% of Americans have gone online, while a Pew Research Center study also finds that 67% of adults have gone over to newspaper web sites for read local or national news. But recognizing this shift isn’t easy. Kudos to the newspapers that have embraced, rather than denied the new distribution and consumption choices made by their readers.

The syndication service from Pluck, has Gannett, The San Francisco Chronicle, Austin American Statesman (which incidentally went with Pluck in September last year), Washington Post, and the San Anonio Express in a new relationship. Expect to see more creative alliances in the near future.

Jay Rosen wrote about this last month, on the benefits of loyalty and engagement that blogs bring to newspapers.

Simon Dumenco (in Advertising Age, January 16, 2006) observed quite rightly that this artificial separation between journalism and blogging must go away. The title ‘blogger’ he argues is as silly as calling someone who uses Microsoft Word, a ‘worder.’  Here’s this:

"A lot of the tendency to draw lines internally, I think, has to do with the fact that most old-school publishing organizations with online components invested heavily in the ’90s in then-state-of-the-art, but now-cumbersome online publishing systems, which are functionally very different from more nimble blogging software solutions. But over the next few years those legacy systems will be phased out and everyone publishing online will be using some form of what’s now commonly thought of as blogging software."

It didn’t take years for this to see the light of day.

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New York Times –why layout matters

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Amazing new look for the Times. Suddenly it feels like a paper again. I know, I know, it’s supposed to be an un-paper, in our all-things-digital age. But some of us are still attached to printed products –or the analog experience of the digital counterparts– even though we love our RSS.

I used to always wonder whhat’s so hard about making the lead story look like a lead, and to make the photographs seem less like thumbnails.Shoving all the excess NYTimes.com nav links to the bottom deinitely reduces the clutter.

In the offline world layout is huge. Ever been to a grocery store after it’s been remodelled? It just ruins your internal gps system. My local library switched the orientation of the checkout desks, and terminals, and it’s thrown a lot of people off. Design matters. Now if only NPR could do something about it’s eighties layout…

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The advertising-meets technology headache. PVR’s and declining TV audiences

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

What are advertisers thinking? Or tearing their hair about? The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is a body of more than 350 members, and this includes all the brand names that advertise nationally and globally.

Of about twenty committees, almost all of them list as ‘prevalent topics’ things like media and audience measurement, ROI, Integrated Marketing Communications, optimization, addressable TV, and PVR’s (personal video recorders.)

As can be expected, the ‘advertising’ committee and the ‘new technologies’ committee appear very keen on the issues of audience measurement, optimization, and TiVo. So if you were to read between the bullet points, you can see that the migration of advertising from the mainstream media to online opens up a lot of concerns, and a brand new set of needs.

I thought it was interesting that while TiVo was mentioned many times, another brand that is causing a lot of ripples in Madison Avenue and Hollywood was not mentioned: iTunes. Nor was YouTube, or MySpace. Hmmm.

But that is not to say they are not concerned. I clicked around and found that the new tech committee is in fact keeping an open ear for how other brands –I mean issues— such as Google, AOL, and Novartis can shed some light. The latter does not have a migraine-inducing ‘platform’ like PVRs or RSS, but the ANA was interested in the use of an ‘advergame’ called Zone Quest. In case you are wondering, Zone Quest is described as “a fun way to remind you of the importance of making healthy lifestyle choices to keep your blood pressure ‘in the zone’.”

Why am I interested in this? I come across tons of stories that deal with how poorly advertisers are responding to the emerging media, and how unprepared they are to meet the onslaught of the technologies arriving every day that circumvent advertising. They are indeed turning the ship around, allocating large portions of theie media budgets to online strategies. They are quite miffed by TV, and are ‘very dissatisfied’ with upfronts. This was from a survey of ANA members in 2004.

Imagine what they must think two years later…

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The world is flat, even in marketing

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Jonah Bloom’s column in Ad Age makes an important point, commenting on how the Net changes, and not just replaces traditional media and marketing. He is right. Convergence and Search are like two big tornadoes touching down on media and marketing.

He did not deal with the shift to mobile, however, which is not a separate tornado, but one that will define the path it takes.

Speaking of mobile, I listened to a Deloitte podcast this morning about Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) where they talk of how digitization and fragmentation are forcing marketers to realize that they "need to to live where your customers are" –even if it means creating their own media space via a virtual network. Sainsbury’s, the grocery store in the UK, for instance has Sainsbury’s Mobile that is more than a pre-paid phone; it is there to drive store traffic, they point out.

Mobile devices, likewise will change the way other media operate, and how marketers and customers connect with each other. Why sink a few hundred thousand dollars to put up your ad on network TV, when you can host it for afraction of the cost on a server, and get people to stream it to their mobile phone? Not that television hasn’t thought about this already. Ever heard of the ESPN mobile phone? Another MVNO. Their line, ‘Life will never get in the way of your sports again" should be translated (for media and advertising types) as "distribution should never get in the way of your content again."

This is Friedman’s flat-earth theory, with media ramifications.

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Advertising in the Podcast era

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

While music and podcasting gingerly shake hands, podcasting and advertising are doing high-fives. Podcasters know they are sitting on a gold mine since their overheads are low, and they can create fresh content faster than corporate radio can. Advertisers will find these niches very useful, and worth a shot. Take a look at the companies registered at the Portable Media Expo in September this year.

Podtrac is an interesting company to watch, because it takes on the role that advertising agencies (at least their media buying departments) once controlled. They serve podcasters and advertisers, providing the former with targeting and tracking tools. Free measurement is also thrown in for Podcasters. Revenue will be through ads, sponsorshipe and sales.

You could tell how new the business model is by the fact that the site has a link to a page titled What is podcasting. Presumably many of the older ad agencies are still wondering if this locomotive too, like Blogging, will roll through their bucolic land and disrupt their picnic.

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Smart Billboards and ROI

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So ROI is coming to a billboard near you. The story yesterday in the Tribune, of a Chandler, Arizona company’s technology that can ID the radio station of a car passing by, is almost like the story of RFID tags for patients.

But not quite. MobilTrak detectors are attached to billboards that read the radio frequencies of vehicles on California freeways –not the identities of the cars themselves. Then, by coss referencing this with radio listener demographics, companies can serve up ads that are relevant.

That’s the theory. In practice, it will be limited to digital billboards, and targeting will not be able to serve on-to-one ads (since many vehicles with very different demographic could pass a billboard at any given time.) But at least, the information could give advertisers hard numbers to go by.

In a world where everything in marketing is more or less measurable, this is one more piece in the ROI puzzle.

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Blogger’s Creed Vs Journalist’s Creed

/ Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

John Cass’s post, commenting on Walter William’s Journalist’s Creed  brings up an interesting question about the blogger/journalist mindset.

His eight-part creed of sorts is acknowledgement that a blogger has to walk the fine line between credibility and responsibility.

I thought this topic is very valuable since the ‘who is a blogger’ question keeps cropping up from all angles. I listened to an IT Conversations podcast –an interview– where Dan Gillmor illuminates this very clearly. He talks of situations when a blogger who is not a professional journalist, sometimes commits an act of journalism. Does this person have to follow the guidelines that professional journalists do? I’m not talking of bias and transparency, but the legal implications. Gillmor’s fear is that one day a blogger, not understanding freedom of speech laws, will libel someone and be held accountable.

If you were to take a picture of a store employee yelling at a customer, and blogged about it, you would supposedly be doing ‘an act of journalism,’ in the same way that the person who captured the panic in the London Underground on a cell phone was momentarily –but not professionally –a journalist.

Should we then develop a blogger’s creed that gives those of us who write/report something to adhere to? Perhaps Gillmor’s Center for Citizen Media should consider it.

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