MipTV 2010 Social experience

TV and the social experience

How real time engagement is changing content.

Twitter is going in some new directions, and are offering media partners to work with them to engage people more in content, creating higher ratings and also the long tail effect. Twittering about programs stimulates people to go and view the television, and start a twitter conversation on the subject. Nothing new here of course. But now Twitter provides tools and tips to better integrate the tweets that are send. Twitter also announced it will work with advertising, to get twitter more profitable.

Keynote by Jonathan Miller – Chairman and CEO, digital mediagroup, for News corporation tells us that content nowadays are 0 and 1’s with brands.  And we are going more and more to an agency model like ITunes for example. Where ITunes is distributing several content to the consumer, such as music, tv series and probably movies in the near future.

We will get different communication loads and download speeds, content will cost X euros depending on different parameters. And you will get more and more premium or freemium models. Pay walls will be activated.

Even though mySpace and Bebo are in a decline, social networks are here to stay, Bebo is losing it a bt under the umbrella of AOL, since Bebo was more a UK based social network, and if they want to get it up again, they have to focus on the UK, was the message of Jonathan Miller. Social networks created a big change in behavior and they start monetizing them, also a reason why they will stay.

There will be global distribution with local content.

There are 3 big shifts if you want:

1. Yahoo and Google are front doors to content and other services
2. The rise of social networks
3. The apps mania on mobile.

It should not come as a surprise that most broadband access is on mobile.

Comparing Facebook and mySpace, their different DNA. mySpace is about discovery and be discovered, while Facebook is about sharing among friends. Since these networks house a lot of people, and when things go bad or the momentum is gone, they move in flocks (people move in masses when losing momentum in social network.)

In the future we will also see more and more vertical networks, like shelfari, flixter and so on. Specific networks related to specific topics.

Location based applications and integration is more and more happening as well. Looking at gowalla and fourth square.

Good advertising needs good content

Content is king and the customer too, in this perspective we can have good advertising as well. Product placement and branded entertainment is not new, a d gets integrated in almost everything we do, now we can communicate realtime together while watching TV, advertising gets also new opportunities.

But with the broadband speed we have today, we can also make some beautiful online experiences.

To name a few:

Louis Vutton, works together with Wong Kar Wai. Together they launch a competition, ‘Where will a journey take you’, several online videos came in, you can watch them here

http://www.journeysawards.com

Social causes

Open a bottle of Coca cola, and you open hapiness

http://www.expedition206.com/

365 days, 206 countries. Coca cola makes people happy…

Starting January 2010, three happiness ambassadors will begin an unprecedented journey to all 206 countries where Coca-Cola is sold. That’s 14 more countries than are represented in the United Nations! Their mission is to seek out “what makes people happy” around the world.

These “happiness ambassadors” will search for and share the optimism and happiness of Coca-Cola from Aruba to Zimbabwe and everywhere in between. Their route will include some pretty amazing venues including- the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the World Cup in South Africa and the World Expo in Shanghai.

Throughout the year-long journey, these Happiness Ambassadors will be sharing their blog posts, tweets, videos, interviews and pictures so you can follow their adventures in every country along the way.

Summit on the summit

A social cause for clean water.

Fremantel media Enterprises and @ Radical media, launching Summit on the Summit.

Celebrety climers get together to go on a climbing expedition on the Kilimanjaro in the Himalayas. A webexperience and physical experience to create awareness of the global clean-water crisis, as 1 billion people still don’t have access to clear water.

http://www.summitonthesummit.com/#/sponsor-a-foot

This was sponsored by consumer goods giant Procter and Gamble, the film was produced and co-sponsered by MTVnetworks.

‘We took the DNA of the brands and integrated them into the show. That, we think, represents the future.

Brands more and more sponsor social cuases and create awareness, another form advertising, by supporting social causes, brands hope to get a more likability factor with customers. See earlier post on this.

Social media and building an entertainment brand online.

Gerd Leonhard, gave a very good session on future behavior in online and mobile environments.
This session was one of the better ones, with some interesting quotes.

Become a connector not a director
Power of the web is trust
Facebook broadcast to us and to each other
Social networks are the broadcasters
We need followers and viewers
Reduce control to get more share
Protection is no gain
Piracy is consequence of unmet demand
There has to be something after free
Gender change, men do monologues, women listen. Women are conversational, let’s hope we get more women in.

Webdocumentaries, worthwhile viewing

http://www.hanassuitcase.ca/

http://gaza-sderot.arte.tv/en/#/time/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/

The mobile space and Ipad of the future

Not so much hype as 2 years ago, but still there and more integrated in TV shows, location based applications, and mobile apps, augmented reality and so forth.

Ipad for now, mainly to consume games, entertainment, news

Social TV platform

Starling led by Kevin Slavin, Social TV platform, that enables viewers to chat, play and interact with others. Research shows that viewers are watching tv, and are online. And in the UK viewers are on the phone while watching tv, they are not phoning, but use their smart phone to interact mainly.

Starling is build for the next generation audience that is much more engaged by phone, tablet or pc.

Pangea day on May 10TH 2008

The day the world comes together trough film!

Pangea day’s goal is to bring together millions of people from all over the world in a unique shared experience and form a global community striving for a better future!

Pangea Day is sponsored by Nokia Connecting people!

Pangea day was created by documantary maker Jehane Noujaim. In a world where people are often devided by borders, differences and conflict, it’s easy to lose sight of what we have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that.

Al lot of the video footage was taken by mobile devices, Nokia also send smartphones to refugee camps, so also those people could film there thoughts or experiences.

I think this is a great initiative, which we should all support! See what happens on May 10th!!

The pangea comes from 250 million years ago, when all continents were still together and not yet split by oceans. the break up started like 180 million years ago!

Social Networks – BEBO

BEBO is even more succesfull then mySpace, lead by Joanna Shields, former managing director at google for EMEA partnerships and syndication.

BEBO also enters the short webisodes, one of them is Kate Modern. Kate modern is typical drama for teens and 20+, the audience of bebo. Bebo also teamed up with Endemol to launch an interactive drama serie called The Gap Year, the series will follow six Bebo users on a globe-trotting journey that will be documented on the site through video diaries, blogs and photos.

Bebo and myspacetv will become full blown media platforms, and bring tv series or webisodes to a next generation. Just as with mySpace, Bebo its target audience is teens and 20+.

Bebo has 40 million members mainly in the UK. Bebo was sold for 850 million dollars in CASH! to AOL a Time Warner company. Bebo is already profitable more then a year now, and in good shape! Branded content will become more and more important.

At Bebo they see less user generated content, and professional conent is taking over. The video content is from broadcasters and is completly owend, the social network is used as a distribution platform.

Content is still very important, and needs to be quality! The storyelling and so forth is very important. Spicing this with all the community features we all know, this will become a powerfull medium!

Social Networking – mySpaceTV

A few month ago I already talked about Quarterlife on plugmedia site. mySpace continues to invest in TV productions on line. They team up with Fox Interactive – a News Corp devision (Rupert Murdoch).
mySpaceTV is launched for a year now, and became a seperate site next to mySpace.

mySpace site is localized in 26 countries, has 200 million users and has 75000 upload a day. As with the other Social Networks like Bebo and Facebook, they get their revenue from advertising.

mySpace also made a deal with the Shine Group, yes owned by Elisabeth Murdoch, the daughter of…, to distribute video content launched on mySpaceTV. It is a reverse world, but we have seen that before on the blog site as well. Blogs that become books!
In that way mySpaceTV will be very fast profitable.

The target audience: teens and 20+, is the internet generation, and looks differnt to the TV. While we came home and got in front of the TV, they go and play or chat or do some kind of entertainment on their computer, and on the internet. And mySapce is clearly one of their playgrounds!

Roommates is one the recent shorts on mySpaceTV. I love chieftown, from the makers of Kate modern (a short from BEBO) will soon be released on mySpaceTV to, a 60 webisodes will be launched mid september. mySapce users will be involved in this process, they will be encouraged to shape the stories and characters. and voila a new format is born!!! There will be plenty of room for branding and advertising, however in subttle ways, and not as traditional advertising! Revenue will also come from DVD sales and other mercahndising.

mySpaceTV will aslo be an excellent plaform to test and promote film productions (mainly arthouse movies), who otherwise have a real hard time to get distributed, will be gaining a lot of this platform, all these eyeballs (visitors a day on mySpaceTV) is a free promotion tool you can only dream of…as an art or cult movie producer. I guess the picture is clear!

Mobile sessions at Milia

It is all still a bit fuzzy. Business models are still not at place, but things start to happen. As a spokeswoman from Yahoo mobile services said, the train left the station, it is time to hop on it!

That same speaker also told us, that developing content for mobile devices is a nightmare, and I can believe her! All the differnt screen sizes, 6 different operating systems, it is even worse then developping for the internet with all the browsers out there, and the different platforms. But let’s stay possitive about it!

The whole panel is convinced, that in the long run, a lot of money can be made, and different associations are working on standards. A premtature market with a lot of potential.

Worldwide text and camera functionalities are the most utilized functions on the mobile, besides calling of course;-). Text is about 92 % en Camera about 72 %.
Internet usage in the UK, 30 %, in the US is 50 %.

Sorry guys and girls, Belgian statistics where not even mentioned. They are talking about the asian countries, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands and UK.

Another impressive stat is that 3.3 billion people are subscribed to mobile service! This half of the world population!!!

In Japan and Korea, is the Mobile the first screen, while in other continents it is the 4 th Screen.

We see big players going into the market, like Turner a division Time Warner, who brings CNN mobile on the mobile device, and also looking at other media content to put on the devices. Telecom france/orange has signed a contract with Warner Bros to deliver content to the different platforms.

At the momen the business plan for adds and content is based on revenue sharing. So risks are taking by all the parties together.

Short introduction on MIPTV featuring milia

Cross media successtories

In this session we get an overview on different online interactive games, based on tv series. This very much reminds me on the cd-rom days, hopes this really kicks off!

Again a bbc production, Spooks Interactive, play Spooks and be an MI5′er yourself. Based on narrrative stories, simular as the television series.

FIND 815 – Lost adaptation, interactive game as well, based on the serie ‘Lost’. You find the different chapters on you tube, here is the first one

It is along stream, about 9 minutes!

The game kicks off with a video introducing us to Sam Thomas, an Oceanic IT technician whose girlfriend Sonya was on the doomed flight. While watching a news report stating that Oceanic has called off all search efforts for the plane, Sam receives a mysterious e-mail. It contains a doctored photo of Sonya, with words including “Sunda Trench,” “Christiane I,” “Black Rock,” and “Tell no one, grave consequences” hidden on the photo. The site is not active anymore, I guess a new launch will be done, when a new lost season kicks off in the fall. Yes Im’ a ‘Lost’ fan!

Another example is speedyshow. speedyshow is based on the cartoons published int Dayly SUn, Daily Sun was a newspaper in South Africa, and is not there anymore, the cartoonist decided to do his thing online.

The last one is Middlemania, this is stil under development, but it is a mystery game in a specific town, as the producer describes, where Twin peaks meets Northern Exposure. You find info here, it is somthing to follow up! The site where the post is on, is an australian organisation, labarotory for advanced media productions in short LAMP), check it out!

Broadcasting in the digital age, simplicity and convergence

BBC Speaker Eric Huggers explains BBC approach to this. The BBC website is just completly renewed and is now working with widgets, so you can personalize your BBC website towards your interests.

There is BBC Programmes, which tells you all about the BBC programmes obviously
And of course also the BBC News.
BBC Entertainment.

BBC launched an embedded video player ‘Iplayer’, which is also available on IPOD Touch and Iphone. So they have a same standard everywhere, which is very consistent for the user and also easy for the content distribution.
BBC Iplayer, give you all the programmes from the last 7 days. It is GEO IP protected content. This means that all the content can only be viewed by UK audience.

To launch the Iplayer, BBC organised a marketing campaign over a period of 6 weeks, on all possible channels, from bilboards to classic tv, internet, and so forth. They had a 60 % penetration after that campaign, which is very succesfull.

March 08 (after 2.5 months), at a total of 17.2 mill streams, 550,000 downloads a day, and most people view an average of 25 minutes, which is a lot!

Iplayer will come available on the WII, which brings the Iplayer in the home! The WII’s audience is very broad, from young to old…

Iplayer will be extended with a rich media environment, profiling, recommendations, the classic stuff to get a community running.

BBC Is betting on the internet prototcol, and they do it very well, in the top 10 listing they are on Nr 4 and the only non US country within the top 10. They have to battle Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and the likes, Facebook was on number 10!

Other tips from BBC

Delivering quality content (owned and controlled by broadcaster)
IP Connected
Drive for media everywhere
Go global
Keep it simple (interface wise!)
GEO IP protect local content (out of GEO, content can be offered by paying).

Branded Entertainment

Branded Entertainment was an interesting session on Milia. It illustrates ways of creating quality content, funded by companies in the private sector.
Other ways of branded entertainment is of course, product placement, this has to be done in very subttle way and seamless integration within the production itself!

6 billionothers is a project of Yann Arthus Bertrand funded by BNP-Parisbas. What is it all about, about all the people in the world, to get to know them, their culture, their language, to get to know eachother, to create a better world. Asking questions about universal values. What is happiness? What lessons can we learn from life’s diffilculties. Who pays it, BNP Paribas!

Another example is the one from starter wife, a production of Ogilvy Entertainment.

The Starter Wife is “presented by Pond’s,” as all the promos note. This arrangement is a good fit because the series’ plot—a fortysomething woman gets dumped by her husband—aligns nicely with Pond’s new marketing strategy: to make “age defying” skin-care remedies, aimed at women 40 and older. As an exclusive sponsor, Pond’s has done all the usual leveraging. During commercial breaks, the company will run vignettes about real-life women who are “starting over,” and there’s also a Pond’s/The Starter Wife contest giving viewers the chance to win a diamond “right-hand ring.” (Ah yes, that age-old symbol of female independence—which is in no way a fiendish invention of the diamond industry.)

The starter wife is tv serie in the US!

Conversional Marketing and the power of Social Networks – Nike +

You don’t just take iPod nano on your run. You let it take you. Music is your motivation. But what if you want to go further? Thanks to a unique partnership between NIKE and Apple, your iPod nano becomes your coach. Your personal trainer. Your favorite workout companion. Introducing Nike + iPod.

Nike got together with Apple for this unique concept. In this concept the Ipod tracks your km, calories you burn and the time you run. This data you can then synchronize with Nike+ website, Trough this concept, Nike+ gathers all the information of the runners using nike + gear, and is building a runner community. They organize runners events worldwide, resulting in a huge community. This is an ideal concept using the physical world and the virtual world to bring people together.