In esteemed company

Tomi Ahonen at Communities Dominate Brands puts me in esteemed company today. For which I can only thank him. If my embarrassing bragging about this fact can achieve one thing, please make it that you take another look at the post Tomi references, and add your thoughts/reactions.

Hillary reveals who she's speaking to...

Not that it's anything to do with me but... interesting to note that Hillary Clinton accuses Barack Obama of 'Change you can Xerox' (as in, he's nicking other people's ideas... speeches even).

Not very Net Generation is it? Surely that should be 'Change you can copy and paste'?

Widgets are to web 'sites' as blogs are to broadcast

The Power of the Network means not one but two serious disruptions for media companies to come to terms with.

We've had a while to get used to the idea that we are no longer the owners of the means of production (of content, be it 'editorial, 'advertising' or 'marketing'). We understand that the lowering of technical barriers enabled by blogs and other social networking tools mean that everyone is a publisher now. Not broadcasters, but conversation starters.

The bit that seems harder for us to get our heads round is that this also means we are no longer the owners of the means of distribution.

In a print, tv, radio, (even web1.0) broadcast world we did the distribution. We not only produced the content, we packaged it as we saw fit and handed it out through our chosen channels. There was only one central hub and we were it. So the only way for content (either editorial or marketing messages) to be distributed was by it being broadcast by the same people who created the content, through our channels.

Part two of the disruption would therefore seem obvious: Now everyone creates content, so everyone distributes it.

We saw our position as lone distributor eroded by 'viral' and 'word of mouth' but we didn't really see it as a radical challenge to the status quo of our position as 'the great mouth'.

This is a hard lesson to learn. We imagine that by 'providing a place' for people to aggregrate their user generated (and other) content we can hang on to our role as distributor, as if this can be achieved without collapsing back into broadcast mindsets.

Our aggregating, community-focused plans tick all the right boxes until someone asks about 'reach', or gets excited by how many millions of eyeballs may be scanning that homepage (hello facebook, youtube etc).

I think aggregation is the right approach because members of communities (us included, btw) need to serve one another - individuals blundering around the web cherry-picking little bits of disaggregated content will soon run out of inspiration, for example.

But I also think there's a reason sites which aggregate ugc and conversation (yes that is what facebook does, too) are currently no better at generating high click-thru rates than the rest of the web. That is, there is a reason we struggle to make the business models work.

The models - no doubt responding to those who haven't understood both elements of the disruption - attempt to squeeze the networked production of content into a broadcast-style of distribution. Just look at the page impressions on that. Slap on those banner ads... surely some have to stick... That combined with attemting to take a share of transactions generated (the middle man is only ever the next good idea away from disruption) is about all we see.

The issue is that niche community generated content doesn't lend itself to being broadcast. It's our old friend relevance over quality all over again. One man's 'rubbish' is another man's quality - and the difference is its relevance to that man. A blurred family video of a treasured moment will get distributed to the people who care about it by the people who care about it - but will not become a youtube hit. If you've ever seen a complilation of 'greatest hits from YouTube on TV you'll realise how inappropriate the broadcasting of niche ugc is. Editors selecting for the lowest common denominator get involved. Relevance disappears up the rear-end of a production meeting.

Of course there are rare occasions when someone's niche community generated content breaks out of that niche to become a hit that others want to share. But these are few and far between. The vast majority is in the long tail of 'relevant to me'.

By all means, if advertisers want to give you money to have their wares on show as users fly past them to reach (or upload) the niche content they are actually interested in, you'd be foolish to say no thanks. But response rates remain horribly low - and those responding horribly familiar.

Those advertisers are bound to want something better sooner or later. And when they do, perhaps we can all start coming up with the models that benefit from the fact that networked content production and networked distribution should work together.

Widgets make this requirement clearer, as each day passes.

Trust me, they are more than a tactic.

Widgets are as disruptive to web 'sites' (the notion of the url as home/hub/destination/centralised point of distribution) and therefore to the vestiges of our role as distributors, as blogs and social media have been to broadcast and our role as centre-out content creators.

Widgets combine the two network effects - of production and distribution. The ones that work best allow you to mash-up, creating a personalised outcome. This of course makes you more interested in a) displaying on your own space b) sharing with your friends. In a) you co-created the content. in b) You are the distributor.

But widgets also offer the greatest new opportunities for the creative minds of the media industry. Every great widget starts as the cool implementation of an idea which serves a need. The best respond to the needs of niche communities. It is built to serve and the builders need a strong understanding of who it is they are serving.

Those in a position to understand those needs and to respond with creative and useful solutions stand to benefit. And those of us in specialist media would certainly like to think we're among that number. Of course, the brightest among us will turn to the communities we know to co-create the launching widget in the first place, I hope that's a given...

Perhaps my 'updated definition of media brands' requires a further update:

• A media brand is a platform for a community with shared interests.
• Focused on the interests of this global niche community, we should provide the tools to allow the co-creation and aggregation of content, products and services
• Services are best delivered at the point they are needed – and that is always, always mobile!

The widget-related update?

• Focused on the interests of this global niche community, we should provide the tools to allow the co-creation, aggregation AND DISTRIBUTION of content, products and services

Your thoughts, as always, very welcome. Please post below.

Necessity could prove the mother of a better fit with your community

Recently I spoke with an editor who bemoaned the fact he didn't have the staff to perform the simple act of adding a couple of news pages to his monthly magazine - and the lack of resource he had for the website that represents his brand online, too.
I had a simple solution: Hand control to the community - via the gift of submitted User Generated Content (UGC).
Allow that same community to vote for the UGC stories they like most (I don't usually advocate the digg-style lowest-common-denominator approach, but this is to create a result for 'mass media' publication) .
UGC beats rehashing centre-out press releases any day, for me.
Allow the stories to sizzle gently online for a couple of weeks (during which, in a wiki, wisdom of crowds-style errors are corrected, and assertions challenged)
Take those which score highest (those the community has filtered as best fit with what they want to read about) then run the usual 'professional' journalistic pre-publication accuracy and legal checks.
And finally reward, with publication in the magazine (and more... who knows, a job in the end for regular stars?)
Next use magazine to inspire next round of 'Your News'... and allow the cycle to repeat.
Watch like a hawk to learn what it is your community is telling you about their brand. Respond with improvements to magazine and site.
Celebrate, with the people who made it happen.

EyeVibe tears down the walls

I was on hols when the embargo was lifted on the news about EyeVibe - which was a pity because I was itching to share having been given the full grift by YoSpace CTO Dave Springall over lunch a week or so ahead of the launch. I know the team have been working exceptionally hard for a considerable time to do the deals that make this work - and to create the technology.

Disclosure; YoSpace is (now) owned by Bauer, the company I work for and Dave and meet and speak on a semi-regular basis.

So, if you've missed the news, EyeVibe is, at its simplest, the combination of 3 and O2's SeeMeTV and LookAtMe - both mobile video ugc social networks built on the YoSpace platform. Users create the content, other users pay to view it. The creators get paid per view.

Overnight it becomes the single biggest video-based mobile social network in the UK. Not only because it combines too very large ones, but also because this is available off portal, too.

Even if I didn't play for the same team, I'd still be saying this is fantastic. It's fantastic because:

1. It tears down the wall between communities.
2. It offers the opportunity for social networking to experience the same growth as texting and picture messaging experienced when the operators opened access across networks (because they tore down the walls).

Tearing down those walls is important for all sorts of reasons. As I've posted previously:

"...open will always beat closed. So here's another reason: the value of random friends.
"You'll have heard of small world theory, or six-degrees of separation. The reason these are possible is because random friends are introduced to networks - people outside of your usual experience. For example, someone you meet on holiday, or at a party - who opens up a whole series of new connections for you.

"These do not happen when you are in jail...

"Random friends are the parts of your network which allow its value to grow exponentially (see Reed's Law). Remove them and your network has considerably less value."

Now any UK mobile subscriber with a video-enabled handset can share and earn cash from their mobile video clips in one community, no matter which operator they are with.

For the first time members can invite ALL their friends to be part of the same community.

Story so far?
Since the launch of SeeMeTV and LookAtMe!, users have paid for more than 32 million video downloads earning a combined total of over £800,000 for users who have submitted more than 60,000 clips. The services currently generate 28 million mobile page impressions per month.