Nov 13th, 2007 | Media 2.0, Social Media | No Comments
It seems like everyone is getting into the TV game, but not on the talking box (as Forrest Gump called it) — on the Web. And in some cases, TV networks are trying to take the Web and turn it into television. Good luck to them. Here’s a roundup of some of the news:
— News Corp. unit Twentieth TV is working with Yahoo on a “Web on TV” show, which will no doubt feature the latest hilarious clips of skateboarders hurting themselves or kittens on an icy pond.
— Lifetime Networks is launching a TV-style platform as part of its relaunched website, and will create new shows just for the Web as well as streaming Lifetime content.
— Newsweek says it is going to create a political talk show that will run weekly on its website, and the magazine has hired the former producer of Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC to put it together.
In other media-related announcements, MSNBC’s redesign is live (just in time for Rex “Fimoculous” Sorgatz to leave and an old friend of mine to arrive) and it has a very cool Ajax-y feature that lets you move chunks of the page up or down depending on your interests.
And in the old-time newspaper world, a number of chains have done a deal with real-estate site Zillow to put their ads on the Zillow site and use Zillow features on their newspaper websites. For more, see this piece of commentary on CNET about newspapers and the classified conundrum, and see Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing for a post on the Zillow deal.
Nov 13th, 2007 | Media 2.0, Social Media | No Comments
As several sites are reporting — including PaidContent’s UK division and Mashable — Bebo has launched a social-media platform with a pile of traditional TV and media partners including the BBC. Bebo often gets forgotten when people are writing about social networking, because the majority of coverage focuses on Facebook and MySpace.
But while Bebo was created in the U.S., it has developed a large European user base and has about 40 million users or so, which puts it not that far behind Facebook. And the partners it has lined up for its social-media launch include some major names — such as CBS, BSkyB, Channel 4, ESPN and MTV, as well as some smaller players. According to the press release, the Open Media launch will allow Bebo users to:
“store and curate within their personal profiles their favorite music and video content, and virally distribute that content throughout their ‘friends network’ and the wider Bebo community.”
On a related note, the word “curate” has become increasingly popular as a way of describing what users are doing when they pick clips they like and post them somewhere, or send them to friends — makes it sound all Latin and important, doesn’t it? A lot better than saying something like “I was goofing off and watching kittens on YouTube.”
Further reading:
– CNET’s Caroline McCarthy has some details
– info on ad revenue splits over at Contentinople
– the Telegraph has a take, along with some really craptacular ads
– Silicon Alley Insider calls Bebo’s offering the “anti-Hulu”
– PaidContent has a video interview with a Bebo exec
May 29th, 2007 | Media 2.0 | No Comments
The head of the second-largest ad agency in the world, WPP Group, says broadcasters are under “severe pressure” from the Internet:
“Television broadcasters face “severe pressure” as advertisers abandon traditional media in favour of the internet, Sir Martin Sorrell, head of WPP, the world’s second-biggest advertising company, told The Times.
The chief executive said that the quickening pace at which advertisers are switching their budgets to online has created a “fundamental shift” in advertising that would change irreversibly the way in which broadcasters
such as ITV and Channel 4 make money.
Sir Martin said: “Television is under severe pressure at the moment from the internet. There has been a fundamental shift and the pace will quicken, but predictions of a depression in traditional media have gone too far. Television advertising is not going to disappear. It still has pulling power, but the balance will switch.”
Apr 30th, 2007 | Media 2.0 | No Comments
Some items that may grow up to be blog posts someday:
- The Beeb is going to expand the on-demand TV service it has been testing, saying the video and audio service has been used by “well over” one million people watching a total of 20 million programmes since it launched six months ago. The new iPlayer system will allow viewers to store shows on a PC for 30 days.
- Chad Hurley writes a new media manifesto for Forbes magazine: “Never before has the opportunity been so great for independent writers and actors, musicians and producers to create compelling content on par with the studios, networks and labels,” he writes. “The playing field has been truly leveled.” Party on, Chad.
- Sony Pictures Television will launch a new Internet service featuring “minisodes” — short (three to five minute) versions of classic TV shows such as Charlie’s Angels and T.J. Hooker. But these aren’t clips — it’s the entire show crammed into five minutes.
- Rupert Murdoch writes his own version of a new media manifesto for Forbes, saying: “Media companies don’t control the conversation anymore, at least not to the extent that we once did. The big hits of the past were often, if not exactly flukes, then at least the beneficiaries of limited options.” You go, Rupe.
- Jesse England was experimenting with film and video, and came up with the brilliant idea of printing an eight-millimetre movie strip onto clear laminate using a bog-standard inkjet printer. It may not be high quality, but it sure is cool (hat tip to BoingBoing for the link).
Jan 17th, 2007 | Media 2.0 | No Comments
Update:
And now Hillary Clinton has joined the club, with her own video clip posted on her website — on a Saturday morning. And it’s interesting to see how often she uses the theme of having a “conversation” with the American public, and at one point says she will have regular online Q & A sessions.
Original post:
We know the YouTube effect (or as I like to call it, the Lazy Sunday effect) is in the process of disrupting the network-television business in various ways, but it also seems to be well on its way to disrupting the business of politics as well — and the latest wave in that particular tsunami just rolled ashore with the video launch of Barack Obama’s campaign to become president.
We’ve already seen the effect that videos uploaded to YouTube and other sites can have on the political discourse in both Canada and the U.S., especially when those videos happen to be filmed by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, or video clips of dictators being hanged, etc. That’s one aspect of it. And then there’s Senator John Edwards making his pitch using Rocketboom, and having Poptech video-blogger Robert Scoble tag along on his airplane.
Where is all this going? Who the heck knows. But it could definitely get interesting. As usual, the Web disintermediates, or takes out the middleman, and in this case the middleman (or men) are the TV networks and veteran political reporters. In the past, Obama’s pitch — which Rachel Sklar writes about at Eat The Press and Liz Gannes notes at NewTeeVee — would have been filmed and handed to the networks, or done using a favoured anchor such as Tom Jennings. The networks would have made a lot of hay with either one.
Now, they show up on Obama’s website or on YouTube, or both. And as Beet.tv makes clear, this isn’t just a lark by Obama, to show that he “gets it.” The deal with Brightcove — which just announced a financing round of about $50-million — is part of an ongoing video strategy that will involve future campaign videos, an Obama “channel” and the ability for supporters to embed video in their pages. That is huge. And it’s interesting that it’s Brightcove and not Google Video and YouTube.
