Category Archives: Best Practices
The Problem With Facebook Data
The more I use Facebook Graph Search, the more evident it becomes that Facebook made a major mistake with their most ubiquitous feature: the “Like.” Follow this train: Facebook’s value, their kryptonite, is their data. They have a billion users, and they know the habits and preferences of all of billion of them because they can easily track that information by examining what they’ve Liked. Or can they? On the pre-Like Facebook, users were Fans of pages. That information – which brands, bands, books, movies, sports teams, etc. a user was a Fan of was prominently displayed on the user’s profile page. Which meant users spent a lot of time curating those selections, pruning and adding so that the list was an accurate reflection of who they were. Or at least who they wanted people to think they were. As a result, it was tough (or tough-ish) to get users to become fans of pages they didn’t think would give … Continue reading
The TV Business: A Primer For The Uninformed
It’s a relentless drumbeat: the TV industry is dead. It’s just like the music industry. 20somethings are avoiding the cord. I want HBO a la carte. YouTube will kill cable. The TV industry is dead. And yet, if there’s a common thread to all these articles and blog posts, it’s that so many of the people writing them have a limited idea of how the television industry actually works, particularly from a business perspective. So here’s a little primer on how the US television industry works (there are significant difference in other countries), just to clear the air. The Players: This is step one – knowing who is who and what their relationships are. We are going to look at the 7 key players, circa 2013: The Networks, The MVPDs, The Premium Networks, The OTT Networks, Smart TVs, Third Party devices and Social TV. PLAYER #1: The Networks: The networks (ABC, CBS, MTV, et al) provide content and right now, … Continue reading
From Beet.tv: KIT Digital Turns Video Ads Into Retail Experience With Ad Locker
KIT’s Alan Wolk was interviewed at the 2nd Screen Summit at CES by Beet.tv’s Megan O’Neill LAS VEGAS — As second screen technology continues to evolve, consumer desire for the second screen experience is on the rise and video software and services company KIT Digital is at the forefront of this evolution. At the 2nd Screen Summit at CES we had the opportunity to talk with KIT Digital’s Global Lead Analyst, Alan Wolk, to find out what the company has in store for the coming year. In our video interview, Wolk discusses a Windows 8 app, which KIT Digital recently created for 4oD, channel 4 in the UK, and is “already one of the more popular apps on the Windows Store.” Wolk also told us about updates to KIT’s Social Program Guide, a white label solution enabling cable television providers to offer subscribers a second screen experience. Talk explains that KIT is prepared to launch a major update which is … Continue reading
Why “Cord Nevers” Don’t Worry Me
The latest study to put the television business in a tizzy is a study from TDG that shows the number of “Pay TV refugees” — users who have broadband but not TV– growing from 9.5% to 12.5% over the past 2 years. Particular attention is being paid to “cord nevers” — people (usually in their 20s) who have never had a cable subscription. The easy conclusion is that because this generation grew up with a wide array of online video options, they are going to abandon TV en masse and that it’s just a matter of time until pay TV dies. Not so fast… The problem with making sweeping generalizations about generations and their behavior is that the generalizers forget that the behavior often has more to do with life stage than with birth year. Millennials switch jobs and careers a lot because they’re in their 20s and people in their 20s have always switched jobs and careers a lot: they’re unburdened by families … Continue reading
Still Not My Friend
I was at a conference the other day and much to my dismay, I heard an entire panel of what seemed to be reasonably smart people repeating the old canard about location based advertising and how great the world will be once it’s up and running. Not at all. I remember reading a piece by Robert Scoble about 4 or 5 years ago where he waxed enthusiastically about a scenario where he’s walking down the street in his hometown of Half Moon Bay at lunchtime, receiving text messages with offers from every restaurant serving lunch. And all I could think was “this is the seventh ring of hell.” Users, guys. Users. So easy to forget, yet so critical to the success of whatever it is you want to do. So, to use an example from someone on stage at this panel: I am walking down the street and pass a pub where I have had dinner before. The pub texts … Continue reading
Apple’s iTunes Problem
Apple does a lot of things right, but iTunes video isn’t one of them. I’ve rarely had a smooth experience with the service, and my recent experience shows they’ve not gotten any better. With Hurricane Sandy approaching, I decided to rent Casablanca after my kids noted they hadn’t seen it. So I downloaded it to my laptop, as I’m able to plug that directly into my FIOS router and get a faster connection. All good… until I decided I wanted to watch it on my iPad. I plugged the iPad into the laptop, opened up iTunes and dragged the unwatched movie into the iPad line-up. It showed up on iTunes, but when I unplugged the iPad, the movie did not show up. Thinking there might be some kind of WiFi connection needed to make the transfer, I logged both the iPad and the laptop onto my iPhone’s hotspot (we had no power and thus no wi-fi at that point.) Success … Continue reading
7 Things You Should Know About Second Screen Interaction
Originally presented in London at Screen Digest’s “The Future of Digital Media” event, this is Alan Wolk’s latest salvo in his attempt to bring common sense to the discussion around second screen: 7 Things You Should Know About 2nd Screen Interaction from Alan Wolk
E-TV in the Age of Personalization
Adland has long dreamed of a world where viewers sat in front of their television sets, buying everything from Anacin to Zest with a single click of the remote. They’ve even named it “Jennifer Aniston’s Sweater” after a hypothetical situation where viewers would be able to click to buy the garment the moment they saw it on the Friends star. Only that’s never going to happen. For the Jennifer Aniston’s Sweater experience to be viable, it needs to truly be one-click, or it becomes too distracting and takes the viewer away from the show, something the actual viewer regards as a negative outcome. And the fact of the matter is that very few products– impulse purchases or otherwise– fall into that category. There are always decisions to be made: what color? what size? where do you want it shipped? do you want it sent overnight? And by the time you’ve made those decisions, Chandler’s already asked Monica to marry him, and … Continue reading
Don’t Make Me Think: Second Screen Experiences and the Super Bowl
Back in seventh grade, I remember learning about some Renaissance-era British doctor who, in order to study the process of digestion, would swallow food in a linen bag attached to a string that he’d then drag back out of his stomach. So comparatively, my experience using various social TV apps during the Super Bowl in order to report on them, was relatively painless. But still. So few of them were done with any forethought whatsoever. When we are watching TV, it’s generally a pretty immersive experience. We’ll multitask in short bursts, but please do not ask us to decide whether we want it shipped to our home or office, if standard is okay and did we still want to buy it with our American Express card ending in xx-4099? Here’s the deal: E-commerce is best left until the show is over. Ditto getting “more information” on anything. So let me save something for later in a basket, bookcase, coupon book – whatever … Continue reading
Why A Suggestion Engine Is Different Than A Recommendation Engine
While the terms “Suggestion Engine” and “Recommendation Engine” are used interchangeably, they actually refer to two very different behaviors and desired outcomes.A “suggestion engine” is for those times when we have a fairly specific idea of what we want and are in active search mode. A “recommendation engine” is for those times when we are already doing something (shopping, watching, listening, reading) and basically says “here are some things you might enjoy the next time you decide to shop/watch/listen/read.” That distinction shows that the suggestion engine is far more valuable, because it comes into play in response to an active request on the part of the user. A recommendation engine is far more passive: the user is not actively looking for any additional input: if the engine shows them something that they wind up being interested in, that’s just a lucky strike extra. To put a real world face on these terms, Jinni is a good example of a suggestion engine: … Continue reading
Social Television Isn’t Necessarily Social
The term “social TV” has been thrown around a lot these days to describe any and all second screen experiences created around television shows. But it’s well worth noting that many of these apps and features have nothing inherently “social” about them: they are information sources that viewers may choose to share on social networks, but that is not the primary function. I’m talking about apps that provide statistics during football games or episode guides during dramas and cast bios during reality shows. That type of functionality is going to be more valuable to many viewers than something that allows them to have conversations during the show. It’s well suited for family viewing– only 31% of Americans watch TV alone – where we are more likely to share whatever we’ve learned with the other people in the room (as opposed to say, the entire Twitterverse.) It is also key insofar as creating any kind of buzz: the more content you … Continue reading
Webinar: Strategies for Delivering Video to Tablets & Mobile Devices
Consumption of broadband-delivered video is climbing sharply as consumers choose video on-demand (VOD) versus scheduled programming. Longer work days, more travel, and a proliferation of devices that enable ubiquitous access to broadband networks anywhere, anytime are driving this demand. Research from The Diffusion Group (TDG) predicts that by 2020 the consumption of broadband video — content stored and distributed over an open IP architecture — will surpass the consumption of traditional broadcast TV programming. Watch Streaming Media’s free webinar to learn the best strategies and practices to get started delivering your videos to connected IP devices.
Facebook Brand Page Follies
This post first appeared on DigiDay Daily. You can read the original here, along with the follow-up, The Like Trap, by DigiDay Editor-in-Chief Brian Morrissey For the past 15 years, “fish where the fish are” has been the mantra of anyone in digital media. At the end of the millennium, that meant “AOL Keyword: Acme Corp.” In the mid-2000s, it meant the Acme Corp Second Life store. And in 2011, it means “find us on Facebook.” Now marketing on the site du jour is not in and of itself a grievous error. It’s just that most brands get so blinded by the bright shiny objects, they forget even the most basic rules of marketing. Let’s start with metrics: for many brands, the only sign of an effective Facebook page is the presence of many, many “fans.” (e.g. people who have hit the “Like” button.) It’s an easy number to achieve: there are actually companies that will guarantee you x number … Continue reading
OTT : The Next Big Thing in Broadcast & Media
OTT: The Next Big Thing in Broadcast & Media View more presentations from annmarielocke.
Find, Engage and Recruit Top Talent with Online Video
Improving communications by leveraging the power of video is being widely adopted by many Global 1000 businesses to more effectively engage and interact with employees, colleagues and partners around the world. With in-person meetings becoming increasingly expensive and home and mobile bandwidth growing, it’s more cost-effective and efficient to move meetings from the boardroom to the Internet. One of the areas that has seen a recent surge in using video for meetings is Human Resources. As we continue to expand into a global workplace, potential candidates for recruitment are no longer found only in your office’s city or even country. Talented professionals are recruited from around the world, which makes interview logistics for multiple candidates much more complex and expensive. To streamline recruitment processes and save costs, HR departments are starting to conduct interviews via live video. Companies are also using video to engage and recruit talented professionals before the interview process even begins. Jobnob, an agency that helps connect … Continue reading
Internet Video is no Longer Just About Web Video
The number of people who consume video over the internet is growing at an astounding rate and when you combine that with the proliferation of smartphones and connected TVs, these audiences are becoming increasingly fragmented. Mobile for instance is now the fastest growing sector in video consumption. Not the largest, but the fastest growing, with 40% year over year growth from 2009. In Q4 of 2010 alone, almost 30 million people watched video on a mobile device – and then of course there are connected TVs. According to Forrester, by 2015 there will be over 43 million connected TV households in the US. Also by 2015, 58% of TVs sold will be internet connected and 34% of US households will have a connected TV. At the same time, social is no longer a nice to have – it’s become an absolute requirement for engaging audiences, and consumers now expect and demand a social experience. Facebook alone is now boasting over … Continue reading
Online Video Platforms: Simplifying the Content Publishing Workflow Webcast
Video workflows have become greatly refined over the years, thanks in large part to online video platform providers. But with mobile devices and more interactive video experiences taking hold, content publishers are now looking at new ways to simplify the creation, control, management, monetization and publishing of online video. This is not a sales pitch event, but three short informative presentations to acquaint you with ways to create social and interactive video experiences. Followed by an interactive question and answer session, this half-hour Q&A will be devoted to answer your questions. Register Now for this Free Live Webcast Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 11 am PT/2 pm ET
Realizing Greater Returns from Events & Conferences
This week, we sat down with a former CNN producer who consults with organizations of all types and sizes on how they can realize higher returns from trade shows, user conferences and corporate events. Please join me as I ask Sean McMann, KIT digital’s VP Strategic Accounts, about how his clients are using online video to extend the reach, impact and lifespan of their live events.
Using Online Video to Generate More Leads
This week, we sat down with a streaming media pioneer who paved the way for how video content is managed, distributed and consumed over the Internet. He explains how organizations of all types and sizes can use video across their marketing campaigns to generate more leads. To find out more about how you can start to implement these tactics for your organization, please join us as we sit down with Lou Schwartz, Head of Americas, in this week’s video blog.
Super Bowl 2.0: Advertisers Utilize IP Video & Social Networking to Generate Buzz Around Gameday Spots
Maximizing Brand Exposure Nearly 40 advertisers bought ad time in the CBS broadcast spending $2 million to $3 million per 30 seconds of the Super Bowl’s traditional TV commercial time. This year, however, companies jumped on the social media bandwagon to build hype on their ads prior to gameday and maximize their brand exposure. The goal being to get the game’s massive audience to watch their Super Bowl ad — then click on the brand’s website and share the brand’s video on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and other social networks. Measuring “Buzz” Factor In this Super Bowl, companies will be measuring everything to see if they got their money’s worth. Advertisers will count tweets, visits to their Facebook pages and visits to the brand’s site to see how many times their videos were watched/mentioned. IP Video Has Created a Digital Water-Cooler According to a survey by an ad agency, nearly 100 million viewers are expected to watch the game on Sunday. … Continue reading
Basics for Adding Video to your Website
As organizations incorporate online video as part of their communication strategy, their websites need to be designed in a manner that allows the video to integrate seamlessly into the page. Whether you are retrofitting your website to accommodate video, or rebuilding it from scratch, below are a few simple things to consider when adding video clips to your page. Aspect Ratio Online video is trending away from the 4:3 aspect ratio towards the 16:9 aspect ratio. This provides a more cinematic and modern feel to your story. When preparing your original video assets, consider the 16:9 aspect ratio. Column Width Although most video players provide the flexibility to be resized to fit into the allotted space on your page, video quality can sometimes suffer as a result of resizing. Video sizes that are too small can lose their impact. Consider encoding to standard video sizes and incorporate that into your page layout so you can avoid having to resize your … Continue reading
Tablet PCs – A New Chance for the Mobile Media Business?
When you take a look at recent CES and tech news all over the net, it seems there is only one topic being discussed – the new equipment class of tablet PCs. Actually they aren’t so new … The Apple Newton hit the market in 1992, and was regarded as the first Tablet-PC. Picture reference: www.apple.com Recently, there have been some releases from E-Book readers and announcements/presentations for new Tablet-PCs. These two classes should not be confused with each other! While most E-Book readers are equipped with monochrome displays (focused on sharp contrast not on rapid changes) – unfit to display moving images, the Tablet-PCs boast high-resolution color displays specifically designed for consumption of moving images. Picture reference: www.sony.com Let’s take the iPhone as an example. Apple impressively demonstrated that you can have success with a new platform (the App Store) when you have a good implementation, easy usage and a good concept. Now we transfer this to the Tablet-PC … Continue reading
KIT digital Counts Down the 5 Most Influential IP Videos of 2009
The KIT digital team of editors and IP-video experts selected the 5 most important IP-videos of 2009. These videos were chosen for their influence over the development and implementation of IP-video as a content channel, and how they’re shaping the further advancement and uses of the technology. KIT digital editors focused specifically on the extent to which the video implementation delivers content that would not have been available via mainstream means, the degree to which the IP-video influences the event itself and the scale to which the video or IP-video event represents a shift in viewing patterns by audiences. 5. GM Reinvents Themselves Post Bankruptcy: Perhaps the most significant new development for IP-video in 2009 has been the rapid adoption of this communication tool by businesses for investor and media relations. GM used IP-video to restore, retain and grow confidence in their business by live-streaming their most important corporate announcements in 2009. Big businesses take notice. 4. US Airways Plane … Continue reading