How to make money out of video content

If m.youtube.com will disrupt your video download revenue stream, you'll be searching for a new way of monetizing the video content you have.
This, from killerstartups, could prove interesting. everyzing.com converts video and audio into text so that it can be searched. From this autumn 2007, they also having plans for serving ads.

Why 'niche' isn't 'niche' anymore - and the global solution

Mass marketing may well be ass-whipped, but should that be a major concern for niche publishers?

There’s an argument that adverts in niche market mags are altogether more effective and engaging than, for example, a TV ad broadcast at all comers just before the 10pm news.
Interest in the niche magazine ad is self-selecting by virtue of the reader.

So niche magazines are the future – hurrah!

Yet magazine ad teams report dwindling ad response – and prefer to think this is wholly a result of dwindling eye-balls as circulations slide. "Bloody editorial should pull its finger out" (etc etc mutter, mutter).

They may well have a point. But incremental improvements in editorial quality can only be a small part of the answer.

We know audiences are fragmenting – and they are doing this because more precisely targeted experiences are available to them. ie why buy a car title when what you are really interested in is your type of car. And if there’s a website focused on it, peopled by a passionate and knowledgeable community tempting you away from your old medium…

Those niche market mags that are holding up well are those that either still supply news content which beats (by virtue of cast-iron exclusives) alternative sources (and for whom news is a core brand value) or those that are already incredibly well focused/segmented (ie one marque titles in the car sector).

Those one-marque titles are (usually) so small as to stay under the market-share radar. They rarely have ABCs. But you can bet that’s where much of your missing market has gone.

Not so many years ago a reader of a magazine about old cars had little choice but to enjoy the variety offered to him. Now there is still a subset of readers who enjoy that variety. But those who were itching to have more focus on their specific area of interest can now get it. And if that market is too small to warrant a glossy print publication, now it can migrate online.

Once online, that market becomes global with the potential to achieve commercially viable scale in a new way.

I guess this is just another example of listening to what your community is telling you.
So, do you know enough about how your community is behaving and how it is fragmenting? Have you placed any value on joining with the new (often global) communities that are emerging? Or are you content to watch your pot getting smaller?


If you know of niche mags which are doing well and which don't fit the model described above - please share and tell us what you think their formula for success is.

A road map for media companies

How do you come to terms with everything going on in the media/publishing landscape? How do you prioritise? Which hot cake do you queue for?
To be honest, at the moment I feel more like it's a question of 'which horse do you back?' No surprise then that the strategy for survival involves a bit of spread-betting by many.
Anyway, for what it's worth - and in the hope that this may stimulate a bit of thinking, here's my road map for media companies. It's a bit 'drawn from memory' and doesn't include all the landmarks, but it's a start.
Please do challenge it every step of the way!
This is not a long term plan - but one that has to be delivered extremely swiftly. Remember, we are in a world where being six months later than the innovator (Google Video vs YouTube) costs £900m within 12 months. (see Post on October 10)

The Road Map.

1. Depending on your market, understanding Generation C may have to be step one.
I hear a lot people say 'but do you think our market's ready for this? Personally, I think it's a poor strategy that only deals with where you think your market is today. To be honest, where ever you think you are today, it is probably behind where your market has already gone.
2. Engage with yourselves.
I mean within your company. If you can't crack this how well do you think you're going to manage when you go external?
3. Employ a team of full time developers:
Sorry that probably sounds a bit boringly pragmatic. But being able to develop new stuff and deploy new digital ideas quickly is now every bit as important as having staff to write content or designers to create pages. And there is just as much of an ongoing, every day need for them. And I'd prefer our ideas were fed direct to them, face to face.
4. Start a revolution in your ad teams.
We have to become expert in engagement marketing tools before our customers do. Consider the 'revolution in marketing skills'.
5. Establish 4-C platforms/communities. Hey - it's as simple as that. Well ok it ain't, but it's being done very regularly and we should be doing it too. More 4C stuff here.
6. Find your Alpha Users and engage directly with them.
7. Develop some new measures of digital success - are page impressions, visitor numbers or even market share important? Is quality of relationship with community of higher value in the long run - and how do you measure that - perhaps this one needs a discussion all of its own...

er... that'll probably do for now. What do you think? The above is there as a conversation piece. If it makes you think something - post it below. If it makes you do something - tell us how it went!