“Broadcast is Oppressive” | Cluetrain

Posted on February 1, 2010 by Nicole Collins

The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual

Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger | 1999

I’m dumbfounded that the Cluetrain Manifesto was written more than 10 years ago. It makes me wonder why we think social communication technology is so revolutionary today.

Maybe it’s because many business corporations wimped out and refused to really change the way they communicate, and by now the “people of the earth” have become so networked and collectively sophisticated that we are really just forcing them to engage in real, jargonless, human conversation.

(“We” are the one’s who “get it” and “they” are the one’s “who don’t” explained Levine, Locke, Searls and Weinberger years later at a 2009 Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society forum on “Cluetrain at 10: So How’s Utopia Working Out for Ya?“moderated by Jonathan Zittrain, author of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It).

“What is ‘it‘?” you ask. Well, there’s no need for me to try to paraphrase or summarize—it would just be an inferior version of Weinberger’s pithy “Elevator Rap“:

Cluetrain’s thesis about how the ’net is/has transforming/ed the relationship between brands and markets shares a strong characteristic to the relationship between mass media and users.

And I believe it can be explained by a 1974 mass communication theory that refused to be limited by the concept of one-way communication—that is, Blumler and Katz’s Uses and Gratifications theory:

  • “Media users play an active role in choosing and using the media.”
  • (Markets play an active role in choosing and using brands.)
  • “Users take an active part in the communication process and are goal oriented in their media use.”
  • (Markets take an active part in the communication process and find purpose in their consumption of goods and services.)
  • “A media user seeks out a media source that best fulfills the needs of the user.”
  • (Markets seek out brands that best fulfill their needs.)
  • “Uses and gratifications assume that the user has alternate choices to satisfy her need.”
  • (Markets have a lot of choices, brands are trying to keep up.)

In chapter 6, EZ Answers, Locke and Weinberger ask, “Will the Web become a broadcast medium? Will it become TV?”

No. Just as networked markets won’t buy a phony message marketers have to sell, networked media users won’t put up with broadcast or TV. It’s oppressive and backwards. They’ve experienced much more power to control the time and space content is consumed (TiVo, YouTube, OnDemand, Hulu, Netflix Streaming, mobile phone video and TV streaming, iPad…), why would they ever revert?

Marketeers still drool at the prospect of the Net replicating the top-down broadcast model wherein glitzy “content” is developed at great cost in remote studios and jammed down a one-way pipe into millions of living rooms. TV with a buy button! Wowee!

[...] Today, many large companies offer flashy bread-and-circus entertainments on the Web. These offerings have all the classic earmarks of the mass market come-on: lowest-common-denominator programming developed to package and deliver market segments to mass merchandisers. This is not what most people want, or they would have stuck with television, the Yellow Pages, and 800 numbers. And they don’t have to accept it since the Internet came up with the concept of infinite channel-surfing.—Locke [wrote that in 1999!]

The Cluetrain Manifesto was spot-on 10 years ago with the way the ‘net is widely transforming the conversations between market and workers today. In 1999 there were about 80 million adults in the U.S. who accessed the internet primarily for e-mail and info about hobbies, general news and businesses. That was enough networked communication experienced by Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger to give insight into the impending death of top-down and highly-managed business practices over the next decade.

Cluetrain is passionate. It’s pithy. It’s conversational. And, most importantly, it’s convicting of business-as-usual. Read it.

Filed under: #com546, Evolution & Trends of Digital Media, MCDM, UWMCDM, book review | Leave a Comment »

The evolution of watching TV

Posted on January 19, 2010 by Nicole Collins

Putting an end to channel surfing.

Thesis Statement: What is IPTV and how does it change the way we watch Television?

Statement of Intent:

  • Past: Network Television through radio, satellite, and cable
  • Present: Networked Television through Internet Protocol and on-demand
  • Future: Convergence of TV and Internet*

*Ahmad, K., & Begen, A. (2009). IPTV and Video Networks in the 2015 Timeframe: The Evolution to medianets. IEEE Communications Magazine, 47(12), 68-74. Retrieved from Communication & Mass Media Complete database.

I am studying the evolution of internet protocol Television (IPTV) and how it is primed to disrupt conventional broadcast Television, but more importantly how it has tremendous potential for mobility and accessibility—pretty much wherever you can imagine a display. This article takes a look at trends in delivering video content over internet protocol (IP). Using trending data, the article forecasts the developments of IPTV through 2015, predicting that this technology will evolve to a “medianet.” The concept is an IP network that can use wireless technology to deliver video services to multiple consumer display devices. This article will be helpful to research and write about the future of IPTV and how it will change the way we watch television.

Keywords:

INTERNET protocol
WIRELESS communication systems
CABLE television
TELECOMMUNICATION systems
TECHNOLOGICAL innovations
INTERNET protocol
COMPUTER network resources
INTERNET industry

Filed under: #com546, Evolution & Trends of Digital Media, assignment | 1 Comment »

Learning Goals for Evolution & Trends

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Nicole Collins

in Digital Media Technologies:

  1. What is the UTILITY being offered by new communication technology? What is the 1+, the loaded disruptor?
  2. How can we predict future trends  and use new comm tech to ADD VALUE to our brand community?
  3. What is the correlation between users’ motivations and mass adoption of new comm tech?

It is interesting to me that this course is considered an entry point in the MCDM as I am taking it upon my exit. This past year in the MCDM I have learned an good amount about trends of digital communication technology, mostly from 2004+. I think it will be valuable to take a step back and learn about the evolution of these new communication technologies to have a better understanding about where we may be heading next.

______

In MRM’s 10 Things every marketer should know:

#10: Useful is the Clever

In the traditional media model, brands buy reach to create engagement. But in the new media model brands create utility to earn reach

Filed under: #com546, assignment | 1 Comment »

From the memo to the wiki.

Posted on January 12, 2010 by Nicole Collins

An evolution of corporate office communication.

*new picture per kegill’s request

I want to take a look at how new communication technologies like instant messaging, mobile email, document sharing and blogging has transformed the way employees interact with each other at work—and out of work. The good and the bad.

Filed under: #com546, Evolution & Trends of Digital Media | 3 Comments »

Hulu ahead, CBS behind.

Posted on November 10, 2009 by Nicole Collins

Falling behind at giving free TV content away on the web may not be a bad thing.Hulu

TV producers’ content is paid for by advertising dollars. Advertisers put their money into content that reaches the eyeballs of their target audience. We, the audience, are the variable—as are advertising budgets in this economy and digital media revolution, I suppose.

According to the Uses and Gratification communication theory, we choose media channels that best fit our desires.

Our TV habits are determined by content, channel, cost:

We want to choose what we watch. We prefer to watch it where we want, when we want, without interruption. And many of us are getting used to it being “free.”

To experience live TV shows and events live, media consumers will submit to program schedules and advertisement interruptions. Today consumers need a digital cable provider, and service can cost as low as $20/month for basic channels and up to $130/month for premium channels—formerly known as “cable.”

To watch TV content on a custom schedule and to skip interruptions, sometimes consumers use a digital video recorder (DVR) to fast-forward through ads and watch almost live, or at a later and more convenient time. DVR devices can be rented for about $15/month.

Other times consumers choose from a selection of TV content available online at anytime they want and with less advertisements—”limited interruptions.” To watch online TV consumers need an Internet provider, and service can cost as low as $20/month (not to mention access to a computer that is able to connect to the Internet).

“The television market is $120 billion. And of that, $700 million, half of those [ad buyers] are spending 90 percent of their time doing Google keywords, not buying online video,” said Quincy Smith.

But in September Hulu earned 38.5 million unique viewers who watched 488 million videos—average viewer watched more than 12 videos totaling more than 1 hour, compared to average 3.7 minutes for all web video.

The “web-based storytelling economic model” is a little broad of a subject to tackle in a blog post. I will take a stab at the future web Television economic model—it is basically determined by us, the viewers.

A common prediction: As future generations rely more on the Internet for their media needs and free content increases to be available online (or cheaper and same or better content by cable providers), online TV viewers will likely increase and transcend age demographics.—What if  online advertising, then, saves the TV networks (who provide free content online) and the habits of future media consumers disrupts cable providers?

Now: We are watching TV on TV and online. Just because we’re watching online doesn’t mean we stopped watching on TV. I would argue that we watch more TV than we ever have before—because it is incredibly accessible and we have the freedom to control time and content.

NBC, News Corp. and Fox may have jumped the gun with a free video-viewing platform (maybe they should have started slow and maybe with micropayments?—is there any going back?, probably no) and they will probably have to earn their rent with advertising.

CBS may be a little bit of a paranoid control freak, and a little behind—but not by much (should they offer full episodes of their shows free on their website with weekly lifespans?).

I wouldn’t hold tight to anything right now. I’d stick to what’s working ($120 billion) and strategically experiment with what’s emerging ($700/$350 million)—maybe that is what CBS is doing after all.

Quincy Smith (CBS) one year ago

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Adapting to new media

Posted on October 29, 2009 by Nicole Collins

ESPN coverAs a preteen, and instead of whatever the equivalent to Twilight was in the 1990s, I had a love affair with ESPN the magazine. Twice a month I hid behind it’s big beautiful pages for hours, reading about Kobe and ARod and fantasizing about someday launching my own print publication.

I was a huge fanatic of NCAA basketball and I have submitted March Madness brackets every year since I was 10. Shameless brag: a few years I submitted ESPN brackets that were ranked in the nation’s top 1%.

The men play 64 games within one month, so naturally I missed some. ESPN is where I went to get all of my NCAA bball news. But the one-way info feed from the entertainment and sports programming network was not fulfilling my fanatic needs. I wanted to do more than read—I wanted to participate, create, and share…smack talk! (ESPN has since enabled comments on their Web site and social March Madness brackets have enabled mechanisms for talking trash).

As a sixth grader I developed a 2-page “business plan”—on a custom Microsoft Publisher template—to manage a fan publication that let fellow college bball fanatics subscribe, create and share content–news, opinion, stats. (If I am somehow able to recover this document, I will humbly post it—it’s quite embarrassing).

Of course, this 11-year-old’s plan did not include a method to manage fan content or finance distribution, among other logistics. Really, it was just a kid’s idea.

Where was Ning and Blogger to my rescue in 1996?

Fast forward. In 2008, I graduated from college—where I faithfully wrote for the print newspaper— with a B.A. in Communication focused in media studies “the year the media died.”

I would instead argue it’s the year media was forced to reorg and undergo a massive makeover. Media, advertising, marketing, public relations and all related fields were disrupted by social technology and in order to survive many were forced to converge.

Software and tech gadgets to create quality multimedia content is cheap, and so are online platforms to publish and widely distribute that content. Everyone can be a media outlet.

Corporate media relations departments are beginning to realize their media contact list just became a lot more diverse–or they fail and choose to ignore it.

Brands are learning that in addition to traditional media relations, they can also become external-facing media producers through the strategic use of social media tools–some more successful than others.

During this transition, companies need assistance to determine what their involvement in social media should be, and the reality check of the time, resources and money needed to get involved as a real player.

That’s where I come in. Social media strategy is still quite experimental right now, especially when new tools are being developed that throw curveballs and change the game plan—not to mention that measuring success can often be hard to do.

I am a proud social media amateur and I intend to refine my skills in the art—it is an art!— of adapting to new social technology to help my company better serve their community.

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Online news heavy on video

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Nicole Collins

Global PostWhat was predominantly words is now images at this news operation.

New American internet news organization Global Post (Boston) equipped some 70 international correspondents with Flip video cameras—pocket-sized consumer gadgets—to embark “on a bold journey to redefine international news for the digital age.”

Global Post covers only international stories—the exception is US Foreign Policy—with on-the-ground reporters stationed around the world.

“New technology allows us to make newsgathering a more transparent process.”

Traditional newspapers typically communicate one-way with heavy-worded content, but Global Post uses video and participates on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to listen to their fans (1,800+), followers (3,400+) and readers.

“We invite you to be part of that community and to provide feedback on our coverage and actively engage in the site as a participant.”

Founded by news veterans Philip S. Balboni and Charles M. Sennott, GP was launched Jan. 12. The news organization is for-profit, earning from advertising, syndication, and its membership feature dubbed Passport—discounted to students—that serves exclusive “inner circle” content.

We, the Founders of GlobalPost, are also acutely aware of the fact that quality journalism in America is threatened more profoundly today than at any time in our history from an unprecedented combination of forces: the transformational power of technology and the internet, the dramatic erosion in the economic underpinnings of the traditional media, and a steady migration of the most devoted consumers of news as well as younger people to new content platforms, most importantly the web.

Global Post correspondents are paid per story and include veterans from the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN and other big media outlets. In September Global Post made its network of news gatherers available to CBS News.

This new video-heavy news model has been slow, but steadily successful for Global Post. Since the news organization began 8 months ago, 25 news ops and websites have joined as affiliates and 500 users have become Passport subscribers, according to Balboni.

Filed under: MCDM, Web Strategies for Storytelling | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

Web content wants to be $Free.99

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Nicole Collins

Information wants to be free. -Stewart Brand

Chris Anderson’s Free does apply to web-based storytelling

—people won’t pay to consume something they can live without or find for free somewhere else (usually through a simple online search).

Brands can generally decide to do three things to create multimedia content for the web: insource, outsource, or crowdsource. All three are not free.

And the content that brands pay to get created will probably not sell. So why do it?

Well that content can reach the eyes/ears/minds/hearts of millions who are compelled to reproduce, share, and even influence people to buy the brand’s products/services.

If your only product is content, well, you’re in a world of disruption.

As print content becomes extinct and professional writing declines (until a new revenue model is discovered—fingers crossed?) the rest of us will pick up much of the slack—except many amateurs don’t consider it “slack” but instead fun and rewarding.

There are more than 200,000,000 blogs. 54% of bloggers post content or tweet daily. – Socialnomics

And the entrepreneurial of amateurs have found ways to monetize “hobby” content creation—mostly through performance based ads, but also book deals and freelance work.

Because of the amount of content out there, information consumers are now responsible to collectively filter, fact check and flag whatever they read/hear/see—we all can be content creators and we all can be critics. And millions of us do both for Free.

Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business | Chris Anderson | Wired Magazine

  • cost of processing power is steadily dropping, bandwidth and storage prices are dropping even faster
  • “the trend lines that determine the cost of doing business online all point the same way: to zero.”
  • “Basic economics tells us that in a competitive market, price falls to the marginal cost”
  • “every day the marginal cost of digital information comes closer to nothing”

Priced to Sell | Malcom Gladwell | The New Yorker

  • “It would be nice to know [...] just how a business goes about reorganizing itself around getting people to work for ‘non-monetary rewards’.”

Malcolm is wrong | Seth Godin | Seth Godin’s blog

  • “Free is a relatively cheap way to get attention”
  • “If a brand can gain share by charging less, a rational player will.”

Dear Malcom, why so threatened? | Chris Anderson | The Long Tail

  • “Ken is, by day, a civil engineer [... b]ut by night he is an amazing [blog] community manager.”
  • “[Contributors to the blog are not] doing it for the money, but instead for the fun, audience and satisfaction of writing about something they love and getting read by a lot of people.”

Free vs Freely Distributed | Marc Cuban | Blog Maverick

  • Free content, but not freely distributed
  • Consumers give things that don’t cost money: attention, personal information, referral

Filed under: MCDM, UWMCDM, Web Strategies for Storytelling, social | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Food | Web Video Topic

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Nicole Collins
Ethiopian food

My plate from Ethiopian New Year celebration in Seattle | September 12, 2009

The class has spoken.

Food it is.

(The last topic was Water).

Topic Story Tweet

Although constraints in addition to the topic are TBD,  I’ve been throwing around some food story ideas. Here’s one…

In Barrack Obama’s Inaugural Address he also began with “I’m humbled“—and he also also said:

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.

When I was a media relations intern at World Vision—the world’s largest distributor of World Food Program food—I shared a portfolio that included Global Hunger. My research focused on the Global Food Crisis, Malnutrition, and “Miracle” Foods. Here are some stats and info:

I haven’t seen an amateur video on hunger that I like, nor one that has earned more than 10,000 views. They are frequently longer than 2 minutes, have cheesy messaging, and abuse depressing music.

On the other hand, New York Times reporter Nicholas D. Kristof made an excellent professional video—Hidden Hunger.

Although hunger is a downer sub-topic, I think there’s a lot of cool work that can be done and a lot of good amateur storytelling that hasn’t.

Filed under: MCDM, Web Strategies for Storytelling | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Web Video | Project Topic Selection

Posted on October 8, 2009 by Nicole Collins

Here is the list of our class topic ideas.

Which topics are most engaging and accessible? (I think we could add other values, like personal and fun).

List your top 3 in the comment section—by no means are your votes binding, this is just to get the conversation started. Outsider votes and suggestions are welcome.

The goal is to find a topic that everyone is confident to tell a story about. Inspired is good too.

It’s very possible that I am missing someone’s topic idea, please alert me. Feel free to add an “other” topic in your top three (like “Emerald City” or “Hobbies”).

Filed under: MCDM, Web Strategies for Storytelling | Tagged: , | 5 Comments »

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