Humping The (new) Media Landscape

Battle at National Geographic: liveblogging OMMA Global

KeyNote: Rob Covey, SVP of Content Development and Design - National Geographic Digital Media

National Geographic is doing a lot to extend their content across platforms. Rob is showing some of the ways they have opened up their site to user generated content in a way that doesn't devalue the National Geo brand. They have been working with this longer than many content companies.

I wonder if the reason why this came more hmmm... shall we say, naturally, to them is because they are concerned with getting out an overall message to the public. This presentation even began with a video of employees explaining that they are passionate about these efforts because it helps with their goal of getting people to see and care about the natural environment. They have a clear goal as to why they are doing these things that is, of course tempered by $$, but is ultimately larger. I can see why that would  keep a team excited and focused on creating these kinds of campaigns.

Nice to hear someone talking about meaningful experiences with content.

He made a point to express that they are making efforts to monitize all of this especialy since they now have a sweet TV/Print/Web package to offer. Also that all of this is not without the many challenges that everyone faces in this area.

We just watched a video about the elusive Snow Leopard ( Note that ngm site I linked to is built on Typepad!). I want to be a Snow Leopard.

Video: Hyper-Distribution or Hype?:liveblogging OMMA Global

liveblogging OMMA Global Moderator:
Gary Gannaway, CEO, WorldNow
Speakers:
Chris Allen, VP, Director of Video Innovation, Starcom
Mike Henry, SVP, Veoh
Eric Hadley, CMO, Heavy.com
Patrick Keane, Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, CBS Interactive
Rebecca Paoletti, Director, Video Strategy, Yahoo

In the past Interactive agencies lead the buying for online video but now working more with TV buyers. But its a lot of education  - rebecca: I tell them that if they can put 1% of their TV budget to work in online video they can drastically

Impediments,Challenges,Solutions - to bringing advertisers and agencies to these platforms:

Education - what is in this space and how will my content/brand be represented there?

Measurement - TV people are all CPM but interactive/online CPE is becoming more relevant (cost per engagement - time spent and quality of it not just impressions)

Scale

Understanding what works in a video rich environment - you have to think differently to engage in marketing in this space. Reminding buyers that this is a different experience and different mentality for end user  - you don't have complete share of voice you have a small player and complex context. Re purposing commercials isn't typically going to cut it.

Users will go where they can get the broadest range of content and best experience with it. We need much better navigation and discovery engines in order to really get going with video - it's just not there yet. Large portals get where they are because of the search - people go where they think they will find what they are looking for so untill search develops better its about perception.

In five years everything will be dramaticallly different in this space (all agree) Mobile will be the big thing, video search will be better, devices for getting content will all be linked changing how people find and use it in their lives. Generation that is coming of age in the next 5 years is already very different.

People buy TV for reach and until there is an easy way to replicate that reach they will still prefer to buy TV.

Any categories that have not been able to spend on TV that are a good opportunity for Online: Alcohol, Digital.

Nike - The Second Coming: liveblogging OMMA Global

Catharine P. Taylor, Mediapost's Social Media Insider
Speakers:
Riche Grantham, VP Invention, Sarkissian Mason
Patrick Sarkissian, President, Sarkissian Mason
Mahi De Silva, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Frengo Corporation

I am attending this because it is a case study and it is SO rare at thes conferences to drill down into specifics and pragmatic aspects of getting social marketing campaigns done. Also I ma increasingly involved in developing the kinds of campaigns that agencies are often charged with so the agency take is always of interest.

Slide about the growth of mobile, SMS, social media in market - lots of growth.

What are the areas where Mobile technologies and Social Media intersect?

What are the disruptive changes that are occurring int he mobile ecosystem?

"Freemium" is the future - giving away services/content that was once 'premium' as a taste

iPhone/Android and open source

Part 1) campaign is a spot created by Wieden Kennedy

Part 2) Mashup tools and content made available

Part 3) Standard viral sharing tools for social networks but also allowed downloading so users can put them anywhere AND tool for sending to phones.

1.5 M users in 6 months - 6 min adv visit

Now we frengo is talking about Flirtable - not sure why yet. It let's you send little 'gifts' and look at profiles on a phone - it extends across  many social networks - Facebook, Bebo etc..Provides the same experience on any site on any network.

started to put advertising around this content - 1800flowers and then Love Guru movie "this is crazy but we signed up 40K people per hour to the Love Guru fan club when we first launched this"

created an Icanhascheezburger to go site for mobile.

Meetup.com - applying geotargeting to mobile from personal profile info online - can send users info about events, businesses near them that related to their interests. This is where mobile/social gets really useful.

How did you drive people to the site?

Promoted on Nike properties and media buy within sports enthusiast groups as 'get outtakes' from the commercial.

mobile is getting higher engagement numbers  - clickthrough rate on mobile banner is much greater than standard online banners. Ultimately this targeted engagement is what will convince people to pay more attention/money on it in the future. changing the way people look at mobile as a campaign media.

not all targets are 18-24 - what will it take to reach older demo with mobile campaigns?

behaviors are changing. Content and hardware becoming more tailored to different audiences.

Grad School Statement of Purpose

   This is the essay I wrote for my application to the New School Media Studies MA program. I am publishing it now because I am going to posting more writing from my studies in the coming months and I thought it would be a good way to start this archiving process.

    My interest in studying media theory began when it was flung into my pathway by chance in the form of a seemingly innocuous English 101 course. The rather ambitious graduate student who taught this course, built our curriculum entirely around the texts of Structualist and Post-Structuralist theorists. I was 17 and thrilled to be in way over my head with these challenging works. Exploring them helped me to develop skills for analyzing the cultural cannon and gave me language for critiquing the mass media imagery that I had only been able to make wry comments about before. At the same time, I was shocked to discover the almost stubborn inability of the majority of my classmates to comprehend issues of authority and context, which I felt so personally intrigued by. It quickly became clear that this environment would not the place for me to hone by intellectual chops. However, those very classmates are to thank for my interest in teaching media literacy through my work.

      The following year I began studying photography in a BFA program and I was able to explore the issues of media representation, that were so inspiring to me, through my art. Despite the fact that I loved the creative process of reifying my ideas into objects and experiences, I was often unhappy with the responses I got once my work had been installed in the gallery. It felt useless to carry on this dialog with other artists in galleries and museums. I didn’t agree that to have a discussion through art I needed to segregate myself to a specific place in culture. It was at this time that American thinkers became very important to me and I found the writing of John Dewey of particular relevance to how I wanted to use my own creativity. Those French guys I’d been so enamored of certainly had a way with words but now I wanted to see theory in action.  I knew that if I was to see the impact that I desired from my work, I must put the ideas I wanted to address in my artwork to a practical test by actually working in the industry. It was no longer satisfying for me to merely observe and criticize from afar I need understand these structures from the inside.
After graduating, I began working for a documentary film company where I learned the exciting ins and outs of producing and the unfortunate ups and downs of financing films.  It seemed as if we were always waiting for this agency or that network to give us the money to make something. It was at this time that I began exploring the use of the Internet for developing and distributing videos. I immediately saw the potential and I knew I had a telescope into the future of media.

      In 2005 I was hired by NBC Universal to work in a production team specifically focused on digital media and online distribution. I also began teaching independent artists how these same tools could be used to create new venues and allowing them to connect with different audiences. As it turns out, not only artists were interested in this idea. I began consulting large media companies on how to speak authentically to their targeted audiences online and how to develop best practices for using such two-way conversations in their marketing and content development. This led to my current position in online marketing for Showtime Networks.

     From all of these experiences I have gathered the pieces of a puzzle that I am now ready to assemble to achieve larger goals. I am pursuing media studies at a graduate level in order to assess my experience in the industry and reflect on it in a larger context. As a media professional, I am required to stay focused on the immediate pragmatic needs of a business yet I know that to keep myself engaged and to become an industry leader I need to consider both short term growth and project much further into the future of media as a whole. New School with its commitment to theory and practice is the ideal environment for me to begin my own critique based on these experiences, which I can then apply to new projects. My goal is to fuse my experience in the development and marketing of television and film with my passion for independent media and social causes.  Specifically, I am interested in structures for funding creative and community media projects that are sustainable or profitable for their creators. I would like to work towards a Media Management certificate as part of this degree in order to further develop my ability to bring important projects to fruition.

     The New School’s Media Studies MA offers a unique combination of theory, practice and management, which makes it ideal for me. As a media professional, artist and educator I feel a responsibility to produce work that is socially progressive and ethically sound. The only way to do this to be producing work and simultaneously engaged in a theoretical dialog that critiques and expands the potentials for your work.  Is clear from their work that the faculty members in the Media Studies department are also engaged with media on many levels. I am interested in learning from professors like Robert Berkman whose work covers the practical as well as ethical issues of the business of digital media. These are the concerns I am faced with daily in my professional life and I hope be able to address them with others who are also participants in the constant online discussion around them. I see attending school while working not as an obstruction but an opportunity for observation and exploration. It is a special vantage point from which to explore my ideas for combining entertainment and social media to create meaningful exchanges for audiences. I want to be supported in this undertaking from the intellectual perspective that The New School Media Studies MA offers, one which prioritized socially conscious values and is committed to educating media makers as critical thinkers.

Sounds of Ze Frank

A little video inspiration this morning from two of my favorite creative minds.

Ze Frank on The Sound of Young America from Jesse Thorn on Vimeo.

My brother recently completed his year long blog project  Skull-a-day and I think had a similar relief and let down feeling that Ze describes after his year long videoblog The Show came to an end. So, you used the internet for all it's unique properties to create something, you create A LOT and at a rate that perhaps you may never create again and it's good, nay amazing and other people tell you it's good and those people tell other people  it's good. You even get a deal with mainstream content publisher (Noah's book comes out this month!) - but then what? relax? play? take stock? repeat?

Liveblogging at OMMA Global

I am attending some of the panels at OMMA Global conference today.  Right now sitting in the What is Content? Panel. A subject that is in fore for me as I work on social marketing at Showtime. I always look at anything we put out there as content or else it has no value. Any and all marketing and promotions should be considered content it's one of the positive effects of the flattening nature of the web. All information has equal value. Google changed that because it's efficiency lead to creating a hierarchy of  information that prioritized what indexes well in its search.  Ok, I could follow that  rambling train of thought all day but back to the panel...

WHAT IS CONTENT?

MODERATOR: Diane Mermigas, Editor-at-large, MediaPost's MediaDailyNews

SPEAKERS:
Jason Kilar, CEO, Hulu
Jeff Berman, President of Sales & Marketing, MySpace
Albert Cheng, Executive Vice President of Digital Media, ABC Television Group
Mark Goldman, Chief Operating Officer, Current Media
Douglas Scott, President, OgilvyEntertainment

The day of passive viewership is over.

Despite the absence of a unified cross platform metric - metrics my never develop for this - how are you addressing this? Is it more about setting up and meeting specific goals for each

Digital is always held to a higher standard because more can be measured. Thus

Hulu belives inletting users make decision for themselves, not in aggregate but each individual.

Breaking news - people like both short and longer form content online just depends on presentation and situation. Hulu is proving this by streaming full episodes.

Days of traditional media buying are numbered. It's about how all the parts work together to drive the sale.

These platforms are all looking at themselves as cross platform media distributors - good, don't get yourself stuck in an 'online video' corner.

It is about creating a singular experience across all platforms and media.

There will be standards but it will be continual innovation until we figure out what works... or since the pace of innovation in this area is SO great will it be possible to ever devlop a standard. When innovation is a driving principal behind a company (goal etc) where does standardization even fit??

It's not about creating standards it about continually finding something to meet needs and get audience attention.