Here are the most interesting articles that came across this week…
Open Files: Nine Digital Trends for the Future
Every day a new social network is born and yet another dies. This makes spotting digital trends and tracking them to be challenging at times. However, I have found a system that works really well called Open Files. It was developed by George Stalk at the Boston Consulting Group (an Edelman client). It's become the framework for my latest talk, which I have been giving around the world. (For more on the research process behind it, see my post on deliberate practice.)
Stalk tracks trends by breaking them down into three distinct buckets - faint signals, a watch list and hallucinations. He talks about this at length in this great podcast (mp3) with the Harvard Business Review. In a nutshell, faint signals are here and now trends with real consumer movement and business models. The watch list is exactly that - new directions that are emerging but may not be ready for primetime. Finally, hallucinations are flashes that, if you squint, they might vanish.
Below is the deck I have been using for my talks. It covers what I am currently tracking in my personal Open Files. I have summarized these below...
http://www.edelmandigital.com/blog/2008/05/open_files_nine_digital_trends_1.html
Online Video: Follow The People
I think there are two important implications for measurement.
The importance of duration. Video is fundamentally different than page consumption. Our metrics are going to have to evolve to reflect the way consumers interact with video content, and quite specifically, that interaction occurs with respect to time. Buyers and sellers want to see video content aggregated into meaningful entities that allow for cross-media comparison, which will invariably mean that — at least for long-form, ad-supported program content — we will migrate to duration-based metrics that look a lot like traditional broadcast metrics (maybe even demographic quarter-hour ratings.)
The emergence of online video will serve to hasten a continued shift in online metrics toward duration-based metrics for all online content types. Advertisers and publishers won’t be able to use Page Views (or, for that matter, number of streams) to compare the audience engagement of an online newspaper article, a stream of an NCAA basketball game, a gaming environment, a social network, and a widget. But all these content types accrue duration.
Video hastens the migration to duration-based metrics for all online content.
http://blogs.mediapost.com/metrics_insider/?p=61
@Facebook @Shark: jump?
Facebook should have asked — pardon the plug for the book — WWGD? If they had thought like Google, they would have tried to figure out how to use what they had built — an organizing system for friendship — and turn that into a platform we can use — and control — anywhere on the internet.
Google has quite cleverly done that as they explain on their code blog. They used Facebook’s API by all appearances legitimately. They give us control of how we use our data (and our friends are our data). They also kluged it a bit so they don’t retain data (which also means that other sites can really manipulate it, losing some potential functionality but keeping Google on the safe site of the line).
People find the relationships they’ve built on social networks really valuable, and they want the option of bringing those friends with them elsewhere on the web. Google Friend Connect is designed to keep users fully in control of their information at all times. Users choose what social networks to link to their Friend Connect account. (They can just as easily unlink them.) We never handle passwords from other sites, we never store social graph data from other sites, and we never pass users’ social network IDs to Friend Connected sites or applications.
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/05/19/facebook-shark-jump/
Brett Ratner Launches Branding Consultancy
He's worked with divas, mutants and mismatched cops. Now TV, music-video and movie director Brett Ratner is wrangling marketers.
The
His first client is Activision's mega-brand "Guitar Hero." The first of what is planned as many-to-come creative executions aired as two 30-second spots during last night's "American Idol" finale on Fox. The dueling Davids -- Cook and Archuleta -- each starred in similar takeoffs of the dance sequence from "Risky Business" (think button-down shirts and underwear). Each singer performed in his own style of jamming on a "Guitar Hero" axe while lip-synching to Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock 'N Roll" a la Tom Cruise. The ads were produced by Omnicom Group's DDB,
http://adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=127279
Microsoft: Don't Cut Off the Long Tail
Why take such a drastic step? The most concrete answer that Next-Gen got out of Whitten is that because Xbox Live Arcade's library, at 130 titles, is just too confusing. I'll give him that: XBLA's interface is a mess. Guess whose fault that is? Hint: It's not the fault of developers for making too many games. It's the fault of the people who designed the interface in the first place. "Solving" this problem by deleting games is a ludicrous, cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face solution.
Look at iTunes. Know how many songs Apple's service has? About 6 million. Are they going to start deleting the ones that don't sell? Of course not.
There are zero benefits to the Xbox Live owner to have games deleted from the service, no matter how Microsoft tries to spin it. Hit especially hard will be anyone who's already downloaded and paid for a game that gets deleted. Microsoft hasn't said what will happen if those users' hard drives fail and they need to re-download the game they paid for.
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/05/microsoft-dont.html
Resistance Is Futile
When Disney died in 1966, Mr. Miyamoto was a 14-year-old schoolteacher’s son living near
Even as he has become the world’s most famous and influential video-game designer — the father of Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda and, most recently, the Wii — Mr. Miyamoto still approaches his work like a humble craftsman, not as the celebrity he is to gamers around the world.
Perched on the end of a chair in a hotel suite a few dozen stories above Midtown Manhattan, the preternaturally cherubic 55-year-old Mr. Miyamoto radiated the contentment of someone who has always wanted to make fun. And he has. As the creative mastermind at Nintendo for almost three decades, Mr. Miyamoto has unleashed mass entertainment with a global breadth, cultural endurance and financial success unsurpassed since Disney’s fabled career.
Eisner Talks Story, Predicts Video Future
Michael Eisner spoke at the Microsoft advance08 conference Tuesday, delivering what the Seattle PI called his “Internet Content Manifesto.” The former head of Disney (and the guy who begat Prom Queen) talked about YouTube’s place in the digital landscape, the length of web programming and how storytelling is the next killer app.
On YouTube:
“YouTube is celebrated as a completely revolutionary concept — and it is. The ability for anyone, anywhere to create and distribute short-form entertainment that can be seen by anyone else, anywhere else is an extraordinary development. But in many ways, YouTube is very old news. It is to the Internet what the nickelodeon was to the movies — a very preliminary installment of what is to come.”
http://newteevee.com/2008/05/21/eisner-talks-story-predicts-video-future/
Hulu Leads Network Sites, Adds Partners
Hulu just broke into the top 10 of all online video sites, according to Nielsen’s April measure. The site, which has only been public for two months, is now seeing more than 63 million streams and 2.4 million users per month, with each user viewing more than two hours of video. That beats out all network TV sites — including Hulu’s parents, FOX and NBC.
Hulu also said today it had signed seven new distribution partners, the first additions to that list since before the company even had a name. While Hulu content is embeddable and as a result, available just about everywhere, these sites have direct deals for the library (as AOL, Comcast, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo have had for the last six months). Today Hulu content and advertising debuts on TV.com; TVGuide.com, Break.com, Zap2it.com, BuddyTV.com, Flixster.com and MyYearbook.com are on the way. Hulu also said it’s working with Facebook to send alerts about what users are watching directly to their activity feeds.
http://newteevee.com/2008/05/20/hulu-leads-network-sites-adds-partners/
The 'Mother' of All Web Series
Just a few months after the bomb that was NBC's Quarterlife appeared to kill the idea that the Web could foster TV development, the broadcast networks have effectively stayed the execution of the concept by announcing plans to appropriate popular Internet series for their prime-time schedules.
Last week, ABC announced plans to pick up for midseason In the Motherhood, a mom-targeted series produced by MindShare Entertainment for MSN. Meanwhile, CBS inked a partnership with EQAL, the indy production firm behind the ubiquitous viral video series lonelygirl15.
Those moves could signal the start of a trend, as cost-conscious broadcasters look to reduce their reliance on pricey pilots by tapping inexpensively produced shows that have already built an audience online.
"We've always talked about the potential for online to be a proving ground," said Gayle Troberman, global general manager, branded entertainment at MSN.
To see the future of the internet, look East
One example illustrates this clearly. Earlier this year, The Economist published an article on social networking and boldly concluded that while these sites will become a ubiquitous feature of online life, ‘this did not mean it is a business’ (2). It concluded this after examining Facebook, MySpace and Bebo (all based in the West), whose business models all revolve around advertising. No mention was made of any of the leading social networking sites in
In 2007, QQ reported annual revenues of $523million. This was close to four times the revenues of Facebook. Their operating profits, however, were $240million while Facebook recorded a $50million loss in the same year (3). While Facebook’s results might justify The Economist’s pessimism, QQ’s certainly do not. While QQ has over 300million active accounts (which is 50 per cent more than the total number of people online in
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5166/
Google's 'Analytics Evangelist' Explains Why Websites 'Suck'
The point of Mr. Kaushik's candor is that he wants marketers to start thinking more about the "why." To get at that, he espoused the use of more online surveys of site visitors to find "segments of discontent."
He advised marketers to create conversations with consumers using a simple, short and free online survey created by Iperceptions.com, an online research firm. The survey asks: Who is coming to your website? Why are they there? How are you doing? What do you need to fix?
The surveys "get customers involved in fixing things," he said.
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=127251
At Sci Fi Channel, the Universe Is Expanding and the Future Is Now
“It’s not just aliens, spaceships and the future,” said Dave Howe, who was promoted to president of Sci Fi from general manager in January. “It’s about asking that simple question, ‘What if?’ ”
The changes evolved over several years. One result is a widening audience, especially among women. In April, for example, Sci Fi ranked sixth in cable networks in the 25-to-54 age group. Growth in female viewers outpaced that in men; 43 percent of Sci Fi’s viewers are female.
The network has been a boon for its corporate parent, NBC Universal. The channel, alongside its corporate sibling CNBC, the business network, has quietly become the focus of NBC Universal’s global expansion efforts.
“For an international standpoint, we really have two global brands,” said Jeffrey Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal. “We have CNBC, which is in 400 million homes worldwide. And Sci Fi. Business is universal. And science fiction is such a well-known global genre.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/business/media/19scifi.html?_r=1&8ad&emc=seiab1&oref=slogin
Finding cracks in Facebook
Late last year Mark Zuckerberg, the 24-year-old CEO of social-networking phenomenon Facebook, got onstage before a Madison Avenue crowd and declared that he was leading a once-in-a-century media revolution. Long story short: The revolution hasn't panned out. Six months later, advertisers could be forgiven for mistaking Facebook for a smaller MySpace or a much larger Friendster (remember them?). And far from changing media as we know it, the virtual home of Superpokes, Funwalls, and other such time wasters is showing cracks in its foundation.
User growth remains impressive. Since September 2006, when Zuckerberg opened Facebook to nonstudents, the site has grown 12-fold, making it one of the fastest-rising dot-coms in history. Visitors tripled after Facebook expanded internationally last year, and they continue to spend more time on the site: 20 billion total minutes in March 2008, vs. 6.4 billion a year prior. But the number of
Helping an Agency (and Clients) Branch Out Into Content Space
M&V: What is your impression of branded entertainment today?
Mr. Murphy: If you are marketing your brand through any kind of entertainment, then you are in branded entertainment. Clients are demanding more and more from branded entertainment, because that's how people are living.
From a brand standpoint, what is important is being able to control their destiny in the world of entertainment, which wasn't always possible before. If branded entertainment doesn't do that for them, there is no point. They're the ones who are putting the money down.
Brands need to think about how they fit organically in what they are trying to do. You have a sophisticated consumer population out there. If you are transparent and organic, they will welcome you. If not, they will tear you apart. In some cases, the product may not be in the entertainment content created at all.
http://adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=127201
Mother Births First Feature Film
Eurostar -- the train service that links
Interestingly, Eurostar is not a Mother client. In fact, the "
Mr. Saville, who is the film's other executive producer, said, "It's incredibly subtle; the terminal and the connection to
No comments:
Post a Comment