BEWARE OF THE PERSONAL MEDIA REVOLUTION (Terry) NBCU wants to set the prices for downloads of its programs, so the network pulled the plug on its relationship with Apple's iTunes, where a recalcitrant Steve Jobs wants to keep the price at $1.99. NBC and Fox have launched Hulu, a really nice site for streams, etc., with the not-so-small exception of severe restrictions on how those downloads can be used (only by you) and how long they're available (five weeks). Meanwhile, the RIAA is running out of gas in its efforts to sue its customers, and Mark Cuban is doing his best to stop pirates from stealing videos. There are arguments about user-generated content, and the New York Times editor is continuing to do his best to separate the professional from the amateur in terms of journalism. Lawsuits here and there, take down notices for YouTube, Comedy Central loading a complete archive of "The Daily Show," and on and on we talk about how this new medium can serve us and our business needs.
Nokia Predicts 25% of Entertainment by 2012 Will be Created and Consumed Within Peer Communities. Okay. Think about this for a minute. While we're fighting for our rights and our business models, people are playing with media tools that used to be the sole purview of the professionals. And what are they doing? Entertaining themselves and each other. And Nokia thinks this will grow to one-fourth of entertainment in five years' time. And get this: these don't give a ripple chip about the things mentioned above that are attracting all of our attention today. Eyeballs are not an infinite resource, so the problem is how will value be sustained in a world where 25% of entertainment is home made? "From our research we predict that up to a quarter of the entertainment being consumed in five years will be what we call 'Circular'. The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups - a form of collaborative social media," said Mark Selby, Vice President, Multimedia, Nokia.You see, folks, the rise of personal media — fueled by fluid outside pureplay companies — is the real threat to traditional media, not applications that steal copyrighted material or otherwise interfere with the way things used to be. We'd better get onboard this "revolution," or we risk real irrelevance downstream. Gordon Borrell says it best, "The deer now have guns. What do you do when the deer have guns? Get into the ammunition business." Ask yourself this: What am I doing to make sure that I have a place at the table in the rise of personal media? If you don't have an answer, contact Steve or me. <Link> <<< >>>
MAKING THE ABC O&O SITES BETTER (Steve) News sites are about choices. You want to give people lots of choices for stories. Remember - we're not talking television here. You're not limited to an A Block with six stories, a B block with another four stories, and then weather, sports and a kicker. The web is about giving the audience access to a deep, rich variety of information. The ABC sites I visited had about seven or eight stories on the front page. This does not include clicking or scrolling through different features - we want to greet people at the door with their choices, not make them do work. Along with those eight stories? Nine promos. There are more promotions for the station and the network than there are actual news stories. Immediately this tells the audience your approach to the web is promotional and not informational. TV is used to promotional, marketing-driven campaigns. But the web does not work that way. Think of the great web successes: Google, Craigslist, Drudge, Flickr, YouTube, and so on. None of them had marketing money. Sites succeed online because they're great sites, not because we say so but because the audience finds them and spreads the word. If your site has more promos than it does stories, change it. When I went to the local news page, here is what greeted me:
This eventually resolved into a slide show of choices, but that's one big weather graphic to have to sit through, isn't it? Especially since I didn't go to a weather page. Let's see that space immediately populate with lots of great local story choices. The ABC sites show promise and there are some takeaways for us. But as they stand, they are websites and not web businesses. I'd advise the locals to use the platform they've been given and replace the promos with news and information. Then they should look at how they can create new sites and stand-alone web businesses that will make money for the station, not simply promote it. It's easy to get trapped into a cycle: the site doesn't make money, so we don't invest. But if we don't invest, the site won't make money. The way to break out is to have content that is original and engaging, so that the traffic and audience soars. <Link> <<< >>>
LESSONS IN MEDIA 2.0: THE COSTS OF INTERACTION (Terry) Web users who want to interact will bolt when the cost of that interaction gets too high. This is an important factor in the Media 2.0 world that traditional media companies have difficulty seeing, because the cost of interaction doesn't exist in any one-way paradigm. Participation is passive, whether one is watching TV or reading a newspaper. The remote control gave a degree of control to TV viewers, but the Web makes that look like a tinker toy. Moreover, even if traditional media companies acknowledge the existence of the costs of interaction, they assume them to be irrelevant, because the idea of scarce content is what drives business ("If they want my content, it doesn't matter what they have to go through to get it."). What are the costs of interaction? There are structural costs — like clicking on links, annoyance costs — like pop-up anything, and hyperbole costs — like relentless marketing or websites that look like something Jeff Gordon might drive. Sprinkle in a few ads to pay for everything, and you get the idea. And as the costs of interaction go up, new media economic guru Umair Haque writes, "the users benefit less, and growth slowly contracts, until an inflection point is reached." This is why online strategies of media companies that are built entirely on page views are so problematic over the long term. One of the highest costs of interaction is multiple page views to read a story. Every time we make a user click, we're increasing the cost of interaction, and this needs to be balanced against the potential loss of those users. In Steve's story, he refers to nine promos with eight news stories. In this case, ABC O&Os are rolling the dice that the costs of interaction for site users are low enough that they won't mind. This is fine, as long as they've considered the possibility that they're not. In interviews with those responsible for the online entertainment site, TMZ.com, we found people who were extremely up-to-speed on the costs of interaction, and so great care was taken in the site design and in its daily systems to ensure that the benefits to users far outweigh the costs. This is why the site is presented in blog format. Bob Mohler, Executive in Charge, New Media, Telepictures Productions and one of the creators of TMZ.com, told me that their research revealed that clicking is much more of a commitment to users than scrolling down a page. The cost of interaction, therefore, is lower with scrolling than with clicking. This kind of thinking runs counter to the "anything goes to create page views" mindset of the early Web. The people formerly known as the audience are in charge now, and user trust is paramount in building value online. We need to carefully count the costs of interaction as we build media platforms for tomorrow. Facebook ran smack into this with its "Beacon" advertising program. The costs of interaction on Facebook became too high for those who didn't want their profile used as a way to help advertisers. Facebook has backed off and given everybody the option of opting out of the program entirely, but the damage may already have been done. <Link> <<< >>>
READ THIS: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT BAD DIGITAL CHOICES BY A BIG MEDIA COMPANY (Steve) Writer Seth Mnookin (Author of the excellent "Feeding the Monster") takes what could have been an ordinary assignment - profile an old music executive in the new media era - and turns it into a history lesson we should learn from.
But he has found religion - sort of - in the digital music era. And the great thing about Mnookin's piece is that it is not a "If this guy can get it, anyone can" sort of story. Morris is still pretty angry that his industry changed. And he's defensive as hell. From the article: Morris insists there wasn't a thing he or anyone else could have done differently. "There's no one in the record company that's a technologist," Morris explains. "That's a misconception writers make all the time, that the record industry missed this. They didn't. They just didn't know what to do. It's like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do?"(I love the "Personally, I would hire a vet" line.) Still, without "that kind of mind," Morris and Universal are trying out new digital initiatives. He recognizes that the short-term deals and quick fixes he agreed to did not solve his industry's problems. The revelation that by insisting on digital rights management (DRM) for music, the industry was handing the keys over to Steve Jobs is a particularly insightful lesson in unintended consequences. The article also points out that the music industry got caught off-guard by another fact of technology: ease of use trumps quality. "That's why cassettes made inroads against records, why CDs killed them both, and why MP3s are well on their way to burying CDs," writes Mnookin. Morris sounds like a guy who is finally "getting it," even if it's against his will. Not my ideal executive. But even so, he's a fascinating character in the rich narrative Mnookin tells. When Morris says he made bad choices because he didn't know who to hire, it sounds exactly like what we hear from television clients. The piece could have been about a grumpy old music dinosaur who has seen the light. Instead it is more complex, richer, and more instructive. This is the best profile I have read this year precisely because it is about more than one man - it is about his industry and, indeed, the digital media revolution. <Link> <<< >>>
IT'S OKAY TO SAY "MERRY CHRISTMAS" (Terry) And so was born "It's okay to say Merry Christmas" in the Shreveport market. The station recruited sponsors for the promotion who came to the station and cut their own commercial, each ending with "from our business to yours, it's okay to say Merry Christmas." Clients were given buttons to distribute to customers, and they were so popular that the original batch of 5,000 were gone in two weeks. "It's been incredibly successful," says Sirven. "We've actually had sponsors coming to us and asking how they can get in on it." He adds, "We've even sold it to two clients for next year." Sirven knew that the idea would go over well in the Bible belt, but even he was surprised by the response. The news department got involved and produced a 30-minute special with anchor Sherri Allen. The station's website allows people to leave comments, but most of the commenting is taking place on the streets, from thousands of people who are happy to find somebody — especially a media company — willing to say, "It's okay to say 'Merry Christmas.'" This is a very smart "make a difference" kind of community activism that especially resonates in the South, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see other stations pick up the concept next year. <Link>
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And then comes a 
The subject of the piece is Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris. Mr. Morris rails against the state of the music business in the way you would expect most lifers to do so. He hates downloading. He doesn't understand technology that well - and is proud of that. (I never understand people who brag about their lack of computer knowledge. To me, that's like bragging you don't know how to read.) He has been part of the strategy, such as it is, of trying to sue competitors and technology out of existence so he could hold on to the old model of selling CDs.
Here's a nice holiday convergence promotion from our client in Shreveport that easily involves every department. KTBS/KPXJ station boss George Sirven was watching a report on the news around Halloween time about a "school up north" that had canceled Halloween carnivals, because they didn't want to offend some religious groups in the area. The announcer said words to the effect of "can't somebody just say it's okay?"