Only Dead Fish

Social Innovation And Media

 

"If ever there was a route to building audience, trust and relevance, it is by embracing all the capabilities of this new world, not walling yourself away from them." Alan Rusbridger

I've said many times that the real benefit of social for media and content owners is that it allows you to build a platform. There's some great examples of what I mean by this in the Hugh Cudlipp lecture delivered recently by Alan Rusbridger, Editor of The Guardian (entitled 'Does Jounalism Exist?' - and I recommend you read the whole thing). And some stark parallels, I believe, to the business of business, not just of media.

Alan's position on the paywall question is pretty clear - adopting a universal paywall means you are no longer open to the world, except at a cost. It might make sense from a business point of view, but it makes no sense from an editorial one. Editorially it is, he says, "about the most fundamental statement anyone could make about how newspapers see themselves in relation to the newly-shaped world" because "it removes you from the way people the world over now connect with each other", and would change the way in which you do journalism.

His point is that journalists are learning to tell stories in a multitude of different ways, often combining old skills with new, familiar ways with the less familiar, print with online. This leads to a richer form of journalism, complemented by the ability to reference, link, cite sources, encourage response, use new formats (some journalists, he says, use their blogs as the spine of what they do, and he references Emily Bell who says that online content must 'be of the web' not simply put 'on the web'). And it's better for readers, many of whom like to compare sources and follow conversations as they unfold. It is, he says, a "collaborative-as-well-as competitive approach which is usually likely to get to the truth of things faster."

And he cites a strong list of examples.  Like the MP's expenses widget. The Telegraph were the ones with the scoop, but The Guardian were smart enough to involve their readers, 25,000 of them helping to sort through over 200,000 documents. And then there's crowdsourcing tax-avoidance with the internal Barclays documents. The truth behind Ian Tomlinson's death at the G20 protests came from a combination of good old-fashioned investigative reporting and the mass observation of those who were there. When The Guardian wanted to get to the bottom of Tony Blair's complex tax affairs, they turned again to their readers. And then there's twitter. The multiple streams, the 1.6m people who follow the Guardian Tech stream (which must be a massive source of referral), the enterprising reporters (like Jemima Kiss) who are learning how to use Twitter to research, and "as a customised, specialised, personalised wire service; to break news; to market and distribute content; to build communities and bring them into The Guardian". And the Guardian Environmental Network - a curated, distributed network of environmental websites and green bloggers. And Comment Is Free of-course. And Trafigura - the story that began with a piece of conventional reporting which, when gagged by the lawyers, saw twitter erupt, the story gain wide awareness, and forced the injunction to be dropped - a great example of one of the benefits of what Clay Shirky called 'Algorithmic Authority': "if all kinds of people are pointing at the same thing at the same instant, it must be a pretty big deal."

Rusbridger believes that we are emerging into a new world of mutualised interest where familiar values and skills (editing, reporting, access, a brand people trust, ethical professional standards, scale) combine with the rich diversity, specialist expertise, and on the ground reporting capability brought by a large community of readers. And many of the most interesting experiments are happening at this confluence of the old and the new. The point about all of this, I suppose, is that it is not about one thing replacing another. It's about entirely new combinations of old and new that change the game completely.

The Real ROI

 
Image courtesy

Accountability is an almost obsessive objective for most businesses. If I put this in, what can I get out? The metrics of return are hard: sales, turnover, margins, profits. Peter Drucker said that the single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that results exist only on the outside. The result of a business is a satisfied customer. Satisfied customers get you more satisfied customers. And that applies now, more than ever. Worth remembering next time you're looking at a spreadsheet with lots of numbers on it.

Solving The Paywall Problem

 

Image courtesy

All the to-ing and fro-ing about content pay-walls is fascinating. Entire industries are reinventing their business models, in public, and right in front of our eyes. Industries that are trying to undo a decade of giving content away for free.

I guess it's easy to say in hindsight but advertising was never going to be the key to building sustainable content businesses online. You only have to do some simple maths to work that one out. Back in 2007, Scott Karp called it the 10% problem -  describing how the application of traditional media principles to digital content inevitably leads to the discovery that revenue per online user is typically a fraction of the revenue per offline viewer, reader, or listener.

Take display advertising - a form of advertising that typically makes up the majority of offline ad revenue at most content businesses. Its online equivalent, banner advertising, has it's fair share of issues. It can be annoying and is easily ignored. Click through rates, the measure of effectiveness, have been in decline. A study of more than 10Bn banner enquiries across Europe last year by AdTech, showed an average click-through rate now between 0.11% and 0.19%. Site owners chase scale - the more ad impressions they serve the more they can charge for - but much of this scale is monetised through a waterfall of network partnership arrangements that yields an average revenue-per-user far lower than offline. For content owners structured around high yielding offline inventory and expensive traditional media operations, the economics are tough.

Yet the irony is that, as Nicholas Carr pointed out, we already pay a lot for the content we consume. More than we've ever paid before. Think about your monthly broadband bill. Your subscription TV service. Your mobile. But somehow we've ended up paying the people with the network and the pipes, not the people who actually created it.

Jeff Jarvis describes the NY Times proposal for metering-reading (allowing a certain amount of content to be consumed for free, but charging those who consume more) as "cockeyed economics". They would, says Jeff, "end up charging — and, they should fear, sending away — the readers who are worth the most while serving free those who are worth least.". At one level I can see his point. But then if anyone is going to pay, it will be the people who are passionate about what you're doing and will likely be consuming more of your content.

Which brings me to the one thing that has been strangely absent from all the discussions about potential payment models - the role of social technologies. Murdoch has said that Google traffic "brings a consumer who more often than not read one article and then leaves the site. That is the least valuable of traffic to us". Hallelujah. At least someone is acknowledging in public something I've said many times before - that audiences are not homogenous, that one user is not the same as another, that some are more valuable to you, and more engaged, than others.

I find it strange that when the biggest change on the internet in the last five years has been the development of the social web, some content owners have spent so little time developing their own social platforms. Social technology delivers insight through data. Priceless insight into your users. Data which can be used to create added value. Added value which, as a reader, can really mean something to me. Added value that I might actually pay for.

I agree with Helge that the internet is mass of niches. Small is beautiful. Niches are highly targeted, and high yielding. The mistake in applying 'big' broadcast thinking is that it is stuck in the 'big', and doesn't think small enough. Niche can start big, and become small. Like personalisation, algorithm and convenience. The Guardian iphone app allows me to access good content at my convenience, but also to personalise it for offline consumption. It's been downloaded 70,000 times in it's first month. Or niche can start small and become big. Like providing unique, quality content as a service to a targeted audience. The FT's online content charging revenues are forecast to overtake their print ad revenues this year (and given how much the FT charge for print advertising that is some achievement).

Small steps. But there is no question that many content owners need to diversify. Analysis of the UK's largest media groups (ranked by revenue) by OC & C is dominated by companies that charge their customers. It is too late to charge for what is already ubiquitous, but people pay for scarcity. I'm not a fan of micropayments for news in its current form. And I don't have all the answers (for it will surely be no single solution), but if it was up to me I'd be experimenting furiously with how to create some scarcity out of the ubiquity. Developing unique, highly targeted or personalised services, packages and subscriptions, informed and supported by social technology. I'd add as much value to those services as I could, and I'd make that value as visible as possible so every non-subscriber could see what they were missing. I'd experiment with packaging news in ways that offered new levels of personalisation so I could follow stories as they unfolded. And I'd take a long, hard look at my traditional operational set up. As Thomas Baekdal says, the biggest problem might not be how to make more money, but instead "how to get rid of all those unnecessary expenses".

Easy to say. Less easy to do. I wish them luck.

The Nobel Internet

 

John Lennon's Give Peace A Chance

I'm in two minds about this. The Italian edition of Wired has launched a campaign to get the next Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the internet. The Editor says that the internet is the first "weapon of mass construction, which we can deploy to destroy hate and to propagate peace and democracy", and his cause is supported by the other global editions of Wired, and some big name ambassadors. According to Wired UK, 23 of the 120 previous laureates have been organisations (including, when I looked at the list, Amnesty International, Unicef, Medecins Sans Frontieres and the International Atomic Energy Agency). But to me this has somewhat of a publicity-seeking, gestural feel about it. Like when Time Magazine chose their person of the year as 'You' back in 2006. And the internet is a reflection of many things, good and bad, productive and destructive, peaceful and violent.

Then again. Then again, it is a recognition of what the internet is - not a collection of computers, pipes and relays but people connected. And a recognition of the potential that that holds. And it reminds you that technological growth will likely define our future, we are all digital architects, and so the responsibility to fulfill that potential belongs to all of us. As the campaign manifesto says:

"Digital culture has laid the foundations for a new kind of society. And this society is advancing dialogue, debate and consensus through communication. Because democracy has always flourished where there is openness, acceptance, discussion and participation. And contact with others has always been the most
effective antidote against hatred and conflict."

Listening to some of the comments from the likes of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Al Gore, Bill Gates and Stephen Fry in the preview below (HT) of The Virtual Revolution (a forthcoming documentary from the BBC) you can't help but agree that it is the defining technological revolution of our lifetimes. But does that mean it should win the Nobel prize? After writing that, I guess on balance I think perhaps it should. What do you think?

People Worthy

 

"A satisfied customer! We should have him stuffed." Basil Fawlty

Manish Mehta, Dell's VP of social media and community, says that his company is "trying to embed social media in the fabric of how we do business". It's a laudable objective. As content becomes service, service becomes experience, and experience becomes everything. It's one thing being aware of customer sentiment and feedback, quite another to gear your business (and not just your marketing team) towards being open and responsive. It's not just about a communications 'channel', it's about how you act and speak as a business. And no amount of social media overcomes bad customer experience. I think the businesses that get this will win.

In a post at the beginning of the year, JP Rangaswami noted that the core problem many people are currently trying to solve is that of trust - a quality that is inherently human, that is related to the Age of Biology rather than than the Age of Physics, that is about convenant relationships, not about contract relationships. "In a contract you await breach and effect recourse. The question answered is 'who pays?' In a covenant the question that’s answered is 'how do we fix it?'."

There's a great quote in this interview (HT Matt Moore) with Muhammad Yunus (which, whatever you think of Grameen, is pretty inspirational stuff):

"Poverty is not created by the poor people. It is not their fault that they are poor. Poverty is created by the system, imposed on good blooded human beings and we can peel it off. Today I can say that almost two thirds of the world population are rejected by the conventional banking system for no fault of their own. I said, banks come and tell us that you are not credit worthy, I said, shouldn't it be the other way round? The people should be telling whether the banks are people worthy."

In a networked world, the real difference is that businesses not only have to show that they are environmentally aware and socially responsible. They have to show that they are people worthy.

Augmented Hype. Augmented Reality.

I suspect that, for some at least, Augmented Reality may already be riding the peak of inflated expectations on the Hype Cycle and about to ski down the black run of cynicism towards the trough of disillusionment. But as usual, it is the examples that look genuinely fun or useful that offer a glimpse of how things might actually be. And so here are four short videos which I've come across recently which show some interesting applications of the technology.

First up, this augmentation of a building that got some recent twitter link-love. Interestingly, the people behind the N-Building in Tachikawa, Japan, who have designed the facade of the building as a giant QR code, did so as an alternative to the signs or billboards that typically adorn commercial building facades and which they feel undermine the identity of a structure. Reading the QR code with your smartphone gives you information about the shops therein, but using an additional app their vision is that the facade disappears completely to allows you to see shop information, offers, promotions, and even people inside who want to be seen, and their online comments:

"In this manner we envision a cityscape unhindered by ubiquitous signage and also an improvement to the quality and accuracy of the information itself...Our goal is to provide an incentive to visit the space and a virtual connection to space without necessarily being present"

N Building from Alexander Reeder on Vimeo.

And of-course the more useful the data, the more interesting it becomes to layer onto real things. Smartphones are already complex sensors that enable all kinds of data streams that we make limited use of. This video from Pachube (HT), the 'Internet of Things' web service that stores and shares realtime sensor, energy and environment data from devices, buildings and other inanimate objects around the world, hints at how a visualisation of sensor data could be used for, say, monitoring real-time carbon footprint or inspecting buildings or streets (or even cities surely) full of environment data.

Pachube.com: augmented reality demo from Pachube on Vimeo.

So it's kind of interesting when a big brand like Nike gets involved early on with an idea like this. Nike True City is an iPhone app that "makes the hidden visible" by providing a guide to the lesser known attractions of six European cities via what they call 'Nike Insiders':- "local tastemakers who pride themselves on being at the forefront of things happenings in their cities". It's not just another digital guidebook, more "a powerful combination of premium, geo-tagged content, the latest iPhone technologies, and social media integration—updated in real-time by real people".

Nike True City Full Trailer - Offical HD from NikeSportswear on Vimeo.

RFID technology takes this to another level. In its 'Mobile Web Meets Internet Of Things' series, RWW talks about a technology standard called Near Field Communication that enables wireless communication and exchange of data between devices over a short distance meaning that if, as rumoured, RFID is set to be a part of the next generation iPhone 4G, it can turn the phone into an RFID tag, as well as an RFID reader. As the former, the phone becomes an identity and a payment device (the future of the credit card is not as a credit card), and as the latter it enables the phone to interact with real-world RFID-enabled objects. This prototype, featured in the RWW piece and from a Norwegian research group, turns the iPhone into a media player that responds to interaction with objects:

iPhone RFID: object-based media from timo on Vimeo.

As I seem to be saying a lot lately - interesting times.

Only Dead Fish

 

Image courtesy

So. I have some big news about me. After 14 years (yes, count 'em) at IPC Media, I have decided to leave and start up my own business. This has been no small decision for me. IPC is a great business with some great brands and some great people. But the desire to do my own thing has been burning away inside of me for sometime, so I've decided to do something about it. I've been at the centre of defining and implementing digital strategy for one of the biggest media owners in the UK for a number of years now, but there are so many interesting people out there doing so many interesting things. The opportunity to work with new people, finding new solutions to new problems, is too good to miss.

So I shall be consulting in the areas about which I am truly passionate:- digital content strategy, digital commercial strategy, and social technologies. Many of the areas, in fact, that I have written about at length here. More on all that to follow. But its important to say that I truly believe that you cannot optimise one, without a good understanding of the others. And I believe that everything we do has to be focused on effectiveness and results. 

The good news is that my ex-employer, IPC Media, will be my first client. So this is not an end, it is very much a beginning. This blog has long been, and will continue to be, an outlet for my thinking and a vehicle for interaction and discussion about the things I believe. But it was time to put my money (and my livelihood) where my mouth is. We live in changing and challenging times. But out of change and challenge comes opportunity. To quote Paul Arden: "Don't look for the next opportunity. The one you have in hand is the opportunity."

My door is open. My e-mail address is top right. If you're interested in working with me, I'd love to hear from you.

Post Of The Month - December '09 - The Winner

 

This months vote was once again a close run thing with some spirited voting going on for both John Willshire's 'Social Production' post and Adam Tinworth's 'Death of the News Package', but in the end it was the former that won through. So well done John. I seem to remember you won your section of The Battle Of Big Thinking with your thoughts on this subject, but I'm sure it's at least as good to have won the respect of your blogging peers and to be entered into the ThinkTank Hall of Fame ;-). Thanks again to everyone for taking part and don't forget to bookmark your good reads to nominate for next months vote.

Post Of The Month - December '09 - The Vote

Thanks for some great nominations this month. Tim - thanks for nominating Jim Stogdill's post - I'm going to carry it forward to next month's vote as it was posted in early Jan (so just missed being included in this one). And I've carried forward a nomination for Grant McCracken from last month for the same reason. OK, so our shortlist this month is:

Social Production ...John V Willshire

Our Real Problem: The Death of the News Package ...Adam Tinworth

No Rational Content ...Faris Yakob

Some eBook industry 'leaders' are starting to sound exactly like the music industry 5 years ago ... Gerd Leonhard

Slaves of the feed – This is not the realtime we’ve been looking for ...Thomas Petersen

What's Left Without The Tools ...Amber Naslund

Life On The List - Anil Dash

Chief Culture Officer - Grant McCracken

And you can vote below:

On Listening

I love this. I love it not only because it's a great idea, well executed, but because it's important. On Christmas Day, right around the time of the Queen's speech, teenage Britain delivered its own message to the nation. It was the culmination of The Teens Speech project from Barnardo's, that has seen teenagers up and down the country given the opportunity to speak out on a whole range of issues that were important to them. Teenagers with something to say: "Our aim was to provide a glimpse into the future of our country through the candid, outspoken and heartfelt views of its next generation".

I got in touch with Andy, the planner at POKE who had been working with Barnado's on it for months, to ask him a bit more about it. The idea, he said, is to get people really thinking about complex issues:

"We wanted to give adult Britain a genuine reason to think about young people's futures; their mixed opportunities and challenges. The Teens' Speech reminds us that we should all care about future generations being empowered and able to live happy and successful lives. What better moment to have that conversation than during an end-of-year national address?"

I'm reading a number of people talking about digital distraction and information overload right now. There are more than enough reasons for us to give scant focus and attention to what we read, watch and hear. It's not always easy to take the time and effort to really listen. And I mean unbiased, uncritical, unpredjudiced listening.

In this post about the project Andy points at a TED talk by John Francis. On his twenty seventh birthday, Francis decided not to speak for one day. And because it helped him listen more than he had ever listened before, one day stretched into one week. And because he started learning more than he had ever learned before, one week stretched into one year. And one year stretched into seventeen years.  He's the man who chose to listen for seventeen years. The act of listening, says Andy, is not (necessarily) about the person you’re listening to. It’s about you. Listening is something we think we do, but rarely do properly. As John Francis says:

"Most of my adult life I had not been listening fully. I only listened long enough to determine whether the speaker's ideas matched my own. If they didn't, I would stop listening, and my mind would race ahead to compose an argument against what I believed the speaker's idea or position to be."

The final film of The Teens Speech is 17 minutes long. There's a shorter video redux of film, featuring a poem by Kate Tempest and photographs submitted to MySpace by friends of the project, which has just been posted on the site. But I urge you to take 17 minutes out for the longer version. It's worth a proper listen.

The Teens Speech - Official Premiere

The Teens' Speech | MySpace Video