Posts Tagged ‘New Media’

Media relations is a priority in most business-to-business companies … and it isn’t cheap. You can accumulate quite a bill with PR agencies by the end of the year in your effort to crank out press releases, hit up journalists for interviews and get your company’s name out into the press. There’s always going to [...]

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.

As a journalist, it isn’t enough to just write good articles anymore – you have to be active on Twitter, verify sources on Facebook, and be open to collaboration with your competitors. The social web is changing the practice of journalism. Liquid Newsroom, a startup initiated by German web applications director Steffen Konrath, embraces the [...]

Journalists appear to be reaching an equilibrium of sorts between print and digital media – an “equilibrium of sorts” because it appears the scales are tipped heavily in favor of going digital. According to a recent report by Oriella PR Network, journalists see their offline publications as risky endeavors in the current economy, with over [...]

The media world is chattering about the “death of old media” at the hands of new media like Twitter and Facebook, but with such bold claims, it is important to look at the details. National Public Radio – NPR – has been doing news, talk, and entertainment radio for forty years, and they may just [...]

Tonight I was working on a presentation that I’ll be making in a couple weeks. In the process of developing the presentation I went seeking for inspiration and went directly to Ted.com where I’ve found some of the best presentation videos on the web. One video that I stumbled upon was Alisa Miller who shares information about our distorted view of the world.
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Gannett announced its acquisition of white label social networking provider Ripple6 last week, continuing the shift of new media being further integrated into old media traditions. Having created solutions for business and enterprises to layer in social media and networking capabilities for internal or consumer-facing solutions, Ripple6 has the technology that Gannett is interested in specifically for market research and marketing purposes.
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Boxee, the media center solution that aggregates your content as well as content from across various web and other media services, has raised $4 million in its first round of financing, led by Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures. While the concept of Boxee isn’t entirely new, the fresh stance of near-total media aggregation coupled with multiple social networking interfaces makes Boxee an enticing new product in this growing marketplace.
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Over the past few years there has been a rapidly emerging industry around events catering to the technology space. When the first bubble burst, the industry was left with a big void. No more lavish parties that were partially to blame for the Web 1.0 hype. As industry professionals young and old have begun to adopt social technologies it has become easier than ever to promote an event and attract hundreds and occasionally thousands of people.

The Internet Helps Connect People Offline

Following the collapse of the bubble, many were left to reflect what had happened and what should be done differently this time around. There was also a fear present that the internet was going to pull people apart and create disjointed communities instead of bringing people together. Around this time (2002) Meetup.com was founded and there was a resurgence in locally oriented events (there were other sites that were used as well, Meetup.com was one of the primary sites at the time).

It was surprising for many people that the internet would actually be used as a way to help people connect offline. Around the same time, a new type of media began to emerge: blogs. If you view the Wikipedia article on blogs as an accurate source of the history of blogs, 2002 was the year that blogs began to attract mainstream attention. This is due to “coverage for their role in breaking, shaping, and spinning news stories”.

The mainstream press began to realize that many blogs were relevant and could be used as a tool for spreading information. This would ultimately be a turning point for many of the mainstream media outlets but that’s for another article. What’s important is that soon enough there was the emergence of extremely powerful blogs that would soon begin leveraging that power to help congregate people.

A New Wave of Events Arrives

Prior to the rise of new media, there were a large number of event focused organizations that were used to spread information within industries. For example there was (and remain to be) a plethora of trade organizations that helped people stay in the loop on what’s taking place in an industry and help connect the people in those industries. The new media organizations (primarily blogs in the tech industry) are replacing what were once referred to as “trade organizations”.

I would argue that many of the popular blogs are becoming a new type of trade organizations. They help people stay up to date on what’s going on in the industry and they are also helping people connect offline through events. There is also another reason that the influential blogs get involved in events: they have a much higher margin.

While well read blogs can attract high advertising rates (typically measured by “Cost per Thousand Impressions” or CPM), it is still hard to run a large media company based solely on website ad revenue today. Just look at the large news organizations (Washington Post, New York Times, etc), they are all struggling to survive in the current environment. Many even wonder if they will survive (see Adage Special Report on Newspapers Future).

As a result of the challenges facing these new media companies, we are witnessing blogs large and small enter the events business.

Tension Emerges

Over the past year, technology events hosted by both blogs as well as strictly events production companies have become ubiquitous. Some events, like SXSW and CES, now attract thousands of attendees, while other events are targeted toward hundreds. The events also range from happy hour networking events like Tech Cocktail to Twiistup to full scale conferences like SNAP Summit, Graphing Social Patterns and our own Social Ad Summit.

Each type of event has different goals and targets a different group of people but within a short period of time there was the emergence of technology events hosted in cities around the world. Why has this happened? I would argue that there are three primary factors contributing to this boom:

1. Social Technology – If it weren’t for social technology, event promoters would have to rely on traditional techniques to attract attendees to events. Now thanks to Facebook, Meetup, Upcoming.org and other online event services, it has become easier than ever before for individuals to set up an event in minutes.
2. Increase in Self-Promoters – Generation Y and the tail-end of Generation X have realized the power of self-promotion. Whether it’s the books or blogs we read, seeing self-promoters become national celebrities who also attract wealth has encouraged many to become ruthless self-promoters. Call them narcissistic, call them egoists, call them conceited. Whatever you call them, we now live in a world filled with them. Perhaps the absolute number hasn’t increased, it’s just that social technology has made this group more apparent.
3. Sound Business Model – Events make money! Yes, event promotion can generate significant revenue. Whether local networking events or large conferences, all have their own model of generating money.

These three things have combined to create a boom in events. Whether it’s an unconference or a “real conference”, a happy hour or a networking event, everywhere you look now there is an event. This is beginning to generate some tension among the ranks on a local level as well as a national level. Just yesterday we saw this result in Mike Arrington’s public lashing of DEMO for false accusations.

On a local level we are seeing the emergence of competing events. While I was in New York City this weekend I learned that there is now two Facebook Developer events: one is officially “sanctioned” by Facebook, the other is a spin-off. Both attract a lot of people.

Bubble’s Growing, Will it Burst?

As the tension emerges, the only question that remains is what’s the end result? Will we have thousands of competing events locally and nationally? Probably. Will they all experience windfall profits? Probably not. In my opinion, all this means is that we have a healthy market. The people are the ones that will decide who succeeds, not the event promoters.

My guess is that we are going to start seeing a large number of event promoters that begin to overextend themselves. This will result in a loss of money for some and occasionally a loss of hope. There’s risk involved in business, so if you plan on hosting that next event, just keep in mind that there’s no guarantee about anything.

One thing that’s perfectly clear: the internet is not going to isolate humans, it’s going to bring us together, online as well as offline.

With the continuing shift of content from offline to online, traditional media companies are being forced to rapidly adapt. While the best online business model for media has yet to be determined, traditional media companies are racing to forge partnerships and make acquisitions and investments that position themselves ahead of the rest.

Just today, two big announcements were made that highlight the continuation of this trend. The first announcement was that The Washington Post will begin using Predictify for stories. The tool will enable readers to vote on possible outcomes of stories. While not a revolutionary tool, the shift from one-way media to two way is an important component of this announcement.

This also highlights the difference between traditional media and social media. As Robert Scoble highlighted this past weekend, participation is a critical component of the new form of media. While traditional media outlets will still have to verify their sources, the process of generating the entire story could soon involve the readers.

Not only are the readers participating but they are also becoming part of the media. This is highlighted by today’s news announcement that Gannett has invested $10 million in Mogulus, a live-streaming video service. I’ve previously taken a look at Mogulus and I was thoroughly impressed. The best part about the tool is that you can have a 24-hour channel which includes previous media that you’ve shot as well as live-streaming media.

The Mogulus tool is the most robust one that I’ve seen to date and taken to the next level I honestly think Mogulus could be revolutionary. When I previously took a look at Mogulus, I thought that it would spell the end of public access television. Anybody can now have their own custom-branded channel with custom content. You can also pre-program your channel making it easy to have content playing while you are away.

Over the coming months I would guess that we will see many more announcements highlighting the clash of old and new media. Do you agree that these announcements are particularly significant?

I got in an interesting conversation earlier this week while at a dinner with Sarah Lacy and a number of active D.C. technology participants. At one point in the conversation we began discussing the concept of “ad supported” businesses. If you hang out in the internet entrepreneur circles, you can’t talk to five people without one of them telling you about their hot new business which will of course be advertising supported.

I will not suggest that an advertising supported business model doesn’t work, I just know that the majority of people chasing an advertising supported business model are doomed from the get go. The biggest problem? They expect that an investor is going to give them money early on in the life of their business. The funny thing is that recently I’ve actually met a number of people who have been given a small investment to try to make their ad supported business work.

Many of these investments just don’t seem rational to me though. Since when were investors throwing out money to let people with an idea throw shit against a wall? As far as I know, smart investors base much of their investment decision on the team running the company, not the idea. This post isn’t about making bad investment decisions though, the real question I have is how much longer can the new wave of internet startups be supported by advertisers?

We’re All Building Media Distribution Companies

On the web I’ve realized that there are really two primary types of companies: distribution platforms and media companies. This is an oversimplification of internet companies but most internet startups can be placed somewhere along the distribution/media spectrum. A blog for instance (that attempts to generate revenue) constantly needs to balance between distribution expansion and media creation.

All the micro-blogging platforms are pretty much distribution platforms where the users build the media. Facebook is the same way. The largest startups are ultimately distribution platforms. Google for instance doesn’t create media for the most part, they simply provide the media producers that they index a massive distribution channel.

The path to billions is through building a distribution platform. The only problem is that a distribution company (platform) is only as valuable as the media that they host. Widget platforms, social platforms, micro-blogging platforms, you name it; they all need quality content.

Market Saturation Has Arrived

At this point in the market there are way too many distribution channels. The widget platforms, social platforms, video platforms and the internet in general have become saturated with distribution platforms. I would compare the race to build platforms similar to the race to develop worldwide broadband access at the end of the last century.

Suddenly the price of broadband internet access dropped exponentially as well as the cost of storage and those two things together led to the commoditization of data storage and data transfer. I would argue that the race to build social networks and other data platforms on the web for the purpose of distribution have done something completely different: they’ve commoditized advertising (or at least have built a massive ocean of cheap advertising).

If I ran a billion dollar company (or even a multi-million dollar company), I could find a limitless pool of cheap advertising. Right now the only thing that can successfully generate meaningful advertising revenue on the web is search. Search is still the only thing that can measure intention and nobody has figured out a better way to reach people.

Honestly, do we need a better way to advertise to people or do we just need better businesses to advertise? The one place where I am betting something will arrive is via social advertising, but even that has yet to be perfected. Facebook and others are betting heavily that social advertising will transform the industry yet again.

Novelty is Gone, People Want Quality

If you think about it, there has been a novelty factory for the internet. Less than 15 years ago I began navigating the web via bulletin board services. The concept of live chat was mind blowing. Even e-mail was mind blowing at that point. Bulletin board services were frequently limited in their reach though and soon enough AOL blew down the walls and made a global platform where I could easily connect with people on a global scale.

Chat rooms proliferated and users kept on “connecting”. We are still obsessed (myself included) with trying to make sense of the “social web”. Just this afternoon, in a post on FriendFeed, Steve Rubel pointed me to a post on Twitterholics which highlights a new service called Twitter StreamGraphs. This tool will make a beautiful chart of words typically associated with an arbitrary word found on Twitter. A sample chart is below.

While the geek in all of us loves to observe beautiful charts that we hope provides some sort of meaning, I think that much of the discussion on these new platforms resembles the chatter found on the newsgroups and chatrooms of the past. While it isn’t pointless, it adds little value to the average Joe. In other words, it is a lot of inside jokes. As such, I would suggest that many of the people racing to create the next distribution channel (“platform”) may want to reconsider their business model.

While there is money available for innovation, there is little space for new players innovating media distribution on the web. So why aren’t advertisers spending heavily on social media platforms? In my opinion I think much of the content doesn’t have a high perceived value to advertisers. It’s much better to go advertise on the “database of intentions” than next to next to a site where I go into much detail about what I ate for dinner last night.

On Google, relevant content (and frequently quality content) is rewarded with traffic. At this point I would suggest that it may be much better for startups to start focusing on quality content rather than the next distribution channel. While somebody is bound to start the next Google, quality content always has some sort of intrinsic value.

Will Ad Supported Platforms Last?

The question still remains: is there still room for ad supported platforms? I think I’ve made my position pretty clear but I’d love to hear what the readers think. Is there more value in investing in quality content production over distribution? Can quality content actually be rewarded in a world with limitless distribution?