MicroProgramming: The New Content Frontier

I remember when I was a writer/producer at NBC and the thought of tagging a promo with an actionable url (or just a url) was "revolutionary". Then with the advent of the content-rich web, it was interesting to hear how IPTV and VOD would fragment and destroy the television experience for viewers. Of course things have evolved much further, and multiple screens have become touch-points for an experience that seems to closely mirror some crazed, content chaos theory - if it's there, and it's cool, it's likely to be watched. 

Which is what makes content portals like Hulu so very interesting. With Disney's plunge into the mix, Hulu will likely go from the world's 4th largest captive network (including all cable nets), to something that may overtake everybody's favorite behemoth, YouTube. Now, keep in mind, this has very little to with the highly coveted "video content monetization model" (which has yet to take shape), or even content development (although it should), and everything to do with how we, as viewers, consume our media.

First, we have to consider the correlates between online content viewership and long-form content on your TV. Recent studies have shown that those folks who view topical, genre or show-specific content online are likely to seek out and watch this same content in their living room. Starz Online issued a detailed report to TelevisionWeek in January and Neilsen has backed this info up with findings of its own. To boot, folks like Integrated Media Measurement have reported that during most weeks, TV viewers are spending as much as 15% of their viewing time online. And, as Lead Researcher Amanda Welsh stated, "Rather than simply cannibalizing audiences as has been feared, offering content online presents a huge opportunity for television content providers to reach elusive ad-avoiding audiences and to achieve higher engagement with them."

Well, it's no wonder then that Primetime and cable nets like NBC, ABC, VH1, ESPN, GSN, Comedy Central and a host of others are all embracing the once-feared "fragmented" programming model - it actually works. Watch any of your favorite shows these days and you can join polls, forums, blog commentaries or video commentaries, most of it captured in real-time. You'll even see more cross-promotion (network to network) between competitors. Why? Because audiences are about shared interest; increase the market for shared viewership, and you can increase your piece of the pie.

Which brings us to how show content is being promoted online, such as it is on microblogs. Nearly every major network - prime, cable, online or otherwise - has a healthy presence on Twitter, and their updates flow like dynamically-enabled news content or RSS feeds...go figure. I'm a sports fan, so I get my updates from ESPN online, then go to the TV to watch specific clips. It's both interesting and bizarre because two things are evident: a) I now watch TV in intervals, and b) I still don't want to watch these clips on my computer or my iPhone. This may change, but for now, this is my experience, and I know I am not alone.

But there's another twist to this part of the story: search. Remember we mentioned YouTube earlier? Run any datapoint on social media, and you'll find that linking - not originally sourced content - is what gets page rank; in fact, we ran a case study on this in March, and sure enough, we found that most indices are flooded with links and cross-postings. What this tells us is that content may be king, but what people say about that content is even mightier. Hence the YouTube dilemma: microtagging videos ain't gonna do the trick, especially with a Google algorithm that doesn't seem, at this point, to filter or scale very well.

YouTube has another problem in the form of exclusive content and the accessibility of higher quality, mid-tail content. The networks got smart when they realized that a seemingly endless tail of marginal video content would take a hard left and inevitably force content providers to raise the bar on quality. Case and point: people are still paying for premium content, and they're doing this in large part because they're sick of watching recycled content on YouTube, or worse, home video stunts. When you look at average engagement time of video views - even the most popular - this points even further to the fact that good storytelling wins out. Let's see if YouTube can save face with its new content deals - don't count out any of the players in this programming game.

Finally, mobile has arrived (well, it's at least on the cusp of broadband greatness in the U.S.), and will offer up a flurry of hyper-targeted video content. In other words, MicroProgramming. It's taken quite a long time for mobile content to make its mark here - it was projected by some to be a $12B market by 2007 - but we now see a relationship formalizing between text or microblogging and content engagement. This is exciting.

It's funny because 10 years ago or so, we feared that we would be watching content in a small box. Well, that still may be true, but let's not forget that good programming is good programming, and we'll watch it in, on or around the most comfortable spaces we can find at any particular time.

Cheers to MicroProgramming. The new content frontier.

Time to "Twiggle"

Ok, so it seems that not only is Google running contextually-based ads (check out the Turbo Tax example), but there are the talks that Google will be acquiring Twitter to the tune of $250M. A few posts back we examined the possibilities of what Google's search prospects would be, considering the flood of queries that are now indexed by social media sites and related content. To no surprise of us all, Google is making a play, one way or another.

We can draw speculation all day on the value of a potential deal, but let's re-examine for a moment what this means for the purity of a microblog like Twitter, and consequently, for search engines.

First, are Twitter searches going to be mostly populated with sponsored links?

Second, are Google searches going to mostly index "favorable" Twitter keywords?

Third, is cross-linking via bookmarks going to be "strong-armed" by the Google index?

Lastly, if all indices are subject to query domination in this way, is this the pawn strike for the search giant to wipe out it's competition for good?

Let me just qualify this by saying that I am a Google fan, and have seen the company and its founders do some great things, not just for technology, but for humanity. It seems we've only scratched the surface on where its ties to social media and microblogging go. I just hope for the sake of all of us that Google doesn't lose site of its altruism in the quest to innovate.

The Activation Proclamation

Susan Kuchinskas' article this week in iMedia Connection on location-based advertising spurred a few thoughts on the possibilities of media activation. It seems, in a really odd yet dynamic way, that we are headed for a reality in which real estate effectively plays a central role in building conversation and commerce like never before. Tony the Tiger's "Follow your nose, it always knows" will become something like "Follow your phone, the brand is throwing a stone". Sound a bit out there? Here are a few scenarios to ponder.

We can start by looking at how online utilities are creating new, portable "micro media" in airports, doctors' offices, restrooms, elevators, pizza shops, cars, service uniforms, people's arses...you name it. This is certainly not to say that just about anything and everything should be used for media placement. If I start seeing ads on status bars and embeddable banners, I think I am going to hurl. However, in organic consumer environments - places we frequent every day but don't necessarily spend "quality time" in - we have opportunities to engage in 1-1 conversations that are collaborative and unique.

Picture this: you and a friend are hanging out at the park and see a non-toxic "brand cloud" float by (yes, an actual cloud composed of vapor) that represents the image, and has the product info for, a new bike accessory kit. Okay, so you swipe at the thing, finding it intrusive and ridiculous, but your friend's brow raises because it just so happens that that he has his nephew's birthday coming up and has no clue what to get him. You can pretty much guess what happens next. Your friend enters the "x branded" community on his phone, gets immediate ratings and reviews on the product, finds another "friend" just a skip away in the park to talk to about it, then follows a microblog update to the nearest retail location. He even suggests a mashup for the product's utility and uploads a version of it. And the best part? You, the annoyed one, get to watch the cloud evaporate harmlessly into the atmosphere.

The ubiquitous web - in which reading, writing, publishing and now manufacturing are becoming the core drivers - is leading us into a state of transformational consumer experiences. In fact, we can look at ubiquity through the lens of retail distribution. Wal-Mart and Apple's partnership in selling discounted iPhones is a clear indication that inventory and price-point no longer decrease the equity value of a brand, but on the contrary, make it more accessible. Then there's the new iPhone app that Amazon is offering in which people can take photos of items they want to buy, store them in a shopping cart, and then reference Amazon's entire catalog of items to complete purchases with a single click, usually at a discount. What this tells us is that the same brand advocate can co-exist in different consumer environments without cannibalizing a product's scale or reach, and more importantly, there are a multitude of options with which to activate that advocate's purchase intent.

If we can rightfully assume that this advocate's information and experience sharing is seamlessly transferred and made contextually relevant to other experiences in the real world, what's to stop "offline" media from making a serious resurgence, and playing a vital new role, in activation? Think of things like digital billboards, magazine layouts, kiosks, OOH displays, mobile stations and interactive keypads feeding into a single focal point: you. Perhaps your "carrier" source is your phone or your PDA, but the point is that you provide sensory input that transforms a simple experience like walking through a retail store, or better yet an airport bathroom, into an incredible data exchange. And all this, without having to be bothered or intruded upon.

Brands can look at this as a means to constantly reinvent their positioning in a world that craves individualistic ideals within environments that, by default, look for the approval of crowds. Not only can they tap directly into relatable elements that can spawn real-time community involvement from a single person, but they can be influential at all times and in all places (well, just about). These spheres of influence are what build real advocacy and loyalty in a society that seems to be changing by the second.

Keep your eyes peeled for what's careening around the corner... 

Monetizing the Microblog

Today's article in AdAge about Twitter's new push to derive revenue from search leaves me with some pretty mixed feelings. I'm all about finding ways to support services and utilities of great value, but this a very tricky challenge, especially when you consider the integrity of these platforms. 

Since YouTube's player was used as an example in the article, let's examine its use of search for a moment. Naturally, YouTube content is going to dominate search queries, after all, it's owned by Google and YouTube has the biggest captive network of users (including TV) arguably on the planet. As such, filtration and targeting remains partial. Take for example the latest Pizza Hut virals. If you watch this content on a YouTube player, you'll notice two things. First, the Google ads that overlay on the bottom third run Dominos text first in the rotation (or at least they did the last time I checked). Second, when you run a search for relevant content, Domino's mostly populates this field. Granted, Dominos likely has way more content that is available and indexed, but the point is that YouTube seems to be showing favor to the brand with most paid keywords, not necessarily the brand whose content we're seeking. 

So how does this affect a utility like Twitter or Plurk? Well, filtration and content management, which includes the quality and efficacy of searches, has been a hot-button issue amongst the Twitterati and microblogging community at large. The fact is that we need the improvements in this area, especially for those who have amassed a substantial following. The problem we face here is that if we monetize these improvements - which have been largely facilitated through open source tools like Twhirl and TweetDeck - we are potentially going against the grain of net neutrality. For one thing, paid search will inevitably control the ebb and flow of queries. For another, indexing will make it increasingly more difficult for individuals and smaller businesses to meta tag (or microtag) their content, whether it's text or video.

Much in the same way Facebook has endured harsh criticism from its user communities for plans to monetize data and ad-supported content, utilities like Twitter better tread lightly in charting this new course. One possible solution might be to focus on affiliate partnerships that capitalize on levering outreach programs, as opposed to focusing on the default mechanisms of search. This means that the platform itself should not be optimized for search, but rather the ways it can optimize other search efforts through things like interface customization or indexing exchanges within specific environments like blogs or forums.

We'll just have to see where this goes, but one thing's for sure, we've got a pretty powerful tool we can use to speak out about it...

Video Microblogging: Social Currency of Our Immediate Future?

A colleague of mine apprised me of an app called BubbleTweet, which allows you to create and post a video on your Twitter page, the idea being that you can make a personalized introduction to fellow Tweeters. I'm actually going to be creating my video this weekend, and it got me thinking about the possibilities.

There's been a lot of debate within the ad community about the effect that microblogging tools like Twitter will have on brand marketing -  pundits on both sides have very valid things to say. The folks at BubbleTweet have a disclaimer that basically says that the videos uploaded onto the app should not be used for "commercial use", which is an interesting statement when you consider that nowadays, there are a few ways to slice that orange. To boot, when you look at the videos from the BubbleTweeter community, you notice that many of them are used to promote articles or books they've written, as well as events and other TweetUps. 

So, what does this mean for the immediate future? Probably a few different things.

- Brand marketers who have Twitter pages will have a field day introducing new product launches or releases; the content doesn't have to be "commercial", it can come directly from an "ambassador".

- Brand advocates (or detractors) can now illustrate their affinities for a brand or product, utilizing creative ways to show placement, i.e. real world experiences.

- The viral aspects are potentially incredible; if you can integrate players like YouTube or Vimeo, think about all the ways you can optimize and syndicate that content through search, as well as provide access to fields of other relevant content.

- Messaging takes on a whole new perspective; it is likely going to be more didactic in the sense that brands can then instruct people on the uses of product or services, and then elicit the same type of video responses in their consumer feedback loops.

- Video content itself will embrace the newer, more experimental "shorter burst" medium, in which :05 second or less "interval" spots will be used to build longer storylines (think of :30 theater on TiVo - BBDO's invention a couple of years back).

I could go on and on...this is sure to shake things up. I'd love to hear what other folks think about this.