Optaros Blogs | Media

The Future of Content is here

jmunz — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:29:17 +0000

This example of a Tablet version for Times Sports Illustrated that represents the future of content in my mind. This is a true multimedia experience that will be demanded by consumers not just on tablet devices but web sites, phones, and TV. The future is here are you ready for it?

Content Marketing and the New Apple Tablet

jmunz — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:48:36 +0000

While time will only tell if the tablet from Apple that is due to be introduced today will change publishing as described by the New York Times, WSJ and many others. What it means for marketers seems clear it will force you to create more compelling content campaigns that will call on you to incorporate content of all types (articles, blogs, video, audio, applications). In addition to the content will be the real need to have interactive elements that draw action out of users. One of the reasons the tablet hype is so great, other than it's an Apple product, is that consumers seem to be craving this as much as marketers. Or it seems that is the case, that is part of the anticipation of the and speculation that is going on. We'll all know soon enough what this means but some people, such as Seth Godin, are already moving to support the new vision.

How Content Marketing, Harvard, Mapping Online Advertising: From Anxiety to Method discussion intersect

jmunz — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:08:29 +0000

"Instead of taking watching time as a measure of exposure, which is a substitute for audience attention, keyword advertising takes the language used in searches as a proxy for people’s interests, needs or cravings. In this context, the product that media (i.e. search engines) sell to advertisers is not the watching time of specific audiences, but words." Fernando Bermejo in Audience manufacture in historical perspective: from broadcasting to Google.

The complexity of this truth comes into play in a single slide from today's presentation Mapping Online Advertising: From Anxiety to Method. This slide explains the anxiety in one picture in his powerpoint presentation.

Consumers want content and are willing to put up with advertising so that the content is free for them to access. The advertisers want a targeted audience, more in line with search and the keywords approach, and are less willing to pay for just the audience. In addition to targeting advertisers are pushing the pricing mechanism for the media site that owns the audience closer to the actual transaction that is valuable for the advertiser. This is putting pressure on media organizations that can no longer make their revenue targets, which supports the free content consumers want, and should start to push media to find new methods to increase advertising or find alternate revenue models, can you say pay for content?

Not to say I think this is going to result in only a pay model for media but it will start to look like this second slide from Mr. Bermejo where content will come in three flavors based on the consumers desire for the content.

This anxiety from the media perspective is being compounded by the advertisers current trend toward social media and content marketing efforts which essentially make the advertiser the media agent thus making the current media audience less valuable in some cases.

This is a complex topic and Mr. Bermejo handled it very well with a mixed audience which doesn't spend nearly the time he has in understanding the advertising infrastructure. I look forward to the follow up conversations that will take place regarding this topic.

Comcast XFinity: TV (Almost) Everywhere

jeckman — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:51:06 +0000

There’s been lots of industry buzzz about Time Warner and Comcast’s TV Everywhere plan, which would allow subscribers to fixed-wire cable offerings access to premium content over internet connections, freeing content from the cable box (or cable card). Although it isn’t exactly setting content free on the web, it does seem a positive step in the direction of moving beyond the cable box and cable as the only distribution mechanism for certain kinds of premium content. Users want greater control of what they watch, when they watch it, and where they watch it: TV Everywhere falls short of giving complete control but takes a step in the right direction.

Earlier this month, Comcast launched Fancast XFinity, their branded name for their version of TV Everyehwere. Essentially, XFinity is a distributed authentication system, in which users prove their association to an existing cable subscription, and receive corresponding entitlements to an online video catalog.

Browsing to a video which requires authentication results in this modal dialogue:

Trying to View Premium Content on Fancast Requires Authorization

Comcast Access (and a specific Movie Player from Move Networks) has to be installed to your machine – and running – to be able to view videos behind the paywall. Comcast Access is an Adobe AIR based application and is available for Mac OS X (intel-based Macs running OS X 10.5 or later) and Windows (XP Service Pack 2, Vista, or 7). No love for Linux and Unix users (which won’t make Comcast Access very popular around Optaros), older PowerPC Macs, or Windows users stuck on Windows 2000. (This also means you’ll have to have or accept AIR being installed on the machine as well). Finally, you’ll need administrative rights on the machine(s) you install Access on – which may restrict some work desktops (a popular place one might want access outside the home).

Installer for Comcast Access on Mac OS X

Users can authorize up to three named computers for access – though it isn’t clear to me yet what happens when you reach your fourth machine (can you un-authorize the first and sawp in the second, as in Apple’s FairPlay DRM in iTunes?).

Once you’ve installed Access (and the Move Networks player) you can authorize the machine it is running on:

Setting up Comcast Access

The process was relatively painless (though I did have to chat with a customer service rep to find my “comcast email account,” something I set up when subscribing to cable but have never used) on my MacBook Pro, unless you count the pain of accepting yet-another set of digital restrictions management (DRM) shackles. Specifically, the Comcast Access Terms of Service make it clear that this isn’t really TV Everywhere. (I’m reminded of one of my favorite The Princess Bride quotes: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”).

In addition to the platform restrictions, and the requirement that Comcast Access be running as you watch the videos, the TOS notes:

“You may only install the Software . . . and use Protected Services on Authorized Devices.” – Comcast defines which devices are authorized – they mention PDAs and portable devices, but if your device isn’t on the list you’re not part of everywhere
On software upgrades: “Upgrades will either be optional, in which case you will be presented with the choice to install such Upgrade, or mandatory, in which case the Upgrade will install automatically and you will be notified after such Upgrade has been successfully installed. By installing and/or using the Software, you consent to such Upgrades being delivered and implemented in such manner.” At least some upgrades might be optional.
Whose devices can you authorize? “you will not . . . designate as an Authorized Device any device that is not owned and used solely by people then-resident at the service address for your Comcast Digital Cable subscription.” Does this mean that by authorizing my laptop, which I don’t technically own (Optaros does) I’ve violated the TOS? What does then-resident mean: if I’m travelling on business for a week, am I still resident at my service address? What if your roomate moves out – is it your responsibility to de-authorize her authorized devices?
You also will not “export, import or re-export the Software in violation of any applicable law, rule or regulation of any jurisdiction.” Does traveling with a laptop on which the software is installed constitute export? What if the installer itself is sitting on the desktop? Is it my responsibility to know about the applicable laws in all jurisdictions?

Much (if not all) of this is fairly standard proprietary software TOS fodder, I suspect. DRM systems have to be able to insist on the ability to force updates in case holes in existing versions are discovered and need to be plugged. Controlling the devices (and system software versions) on which the software can be legally installed also helps prevent folks from, for example, hacking a version to run without enforcing DRM.

I wonder how Comcast Access deals with geographic restrictions – can I access premium content to which I have rights as a Comcast customer even while in, say, the UK or Germany where those rights haven’t (potentially) been negotiated?

Or would Fancast, maybe even before requiring Comcast Access authentication, already geolocate my IP and prevent me from requesting material not available in that geography?

Will TV Everywhere be enough to keep cable subscriptions relevant? Frankly, if faster fiber-optic were available at my home address, I’d drop cable in a heartbeat. For me cable is and has been since the mid-nineties primarily about access to the Internet, and only secondarily a way to see a breadth of content on TV. But I recognize I may be the minority there.

Might folks who are not Comcast Cable Subscribers someday be able to purchase a “Fancast XFinity” subscription independent of whether they current have coaxial cable hooked up to their home address?

What will Fancast XFinity, and Comcast’s purchase of NBC Universal, mean for services like Hulu? Is this the beginning of a “return to paywalls” for professional video online?

I hope not. I hope that it’s a first step in the direction of acknowledging the user desire for control, and a first step toward separating the value of the content from the value of the delivery medium. (Just as newspapers aren’t the only or even the best way to consume/distribute news, coaxial cable via subscription isn’t the only or even the best way to consume/distribute professionally created long-form video content.)

Freeing the content from the channel should enable lots of different monetization models, including some form of Freemium access (let users watch the first five episodes of Entourage free, or all free two weeks after original air date) as well un-bundled access (I never want premium sports channels, but many packages include them).

Will the restrictions imposed by the DRM encourage consumers to keep going to unauthorized channels to get content, or will the ease-of-use (so far it has been quite simple) and the low barrier to entry (for subscribers) make this an iTunes moment for online video? (Perhaps this is only possible if/when the service gets extended beyond current cable subscribers and becomes a way to subscribe to premium content online directly).

10 Emerging Trends for Online Advertising and Content Marketing for 2010

jmunz — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:53:37 +0000

I believe these emerging trends in advertising and content marketing will change how we do business online well beyond 2010. The adoption of these trends may carry over into 2011 and some have already started to take shape.

1. Real time = Real Opportunities. The digital advertising space will evolve quickly around real time response for everything. (Analytics, Targeting, Optimization, Creative, Social Monitoring, Content Creation, Publishing) and will push M&A activity in the industry especially during the second half of the year as leadership is established by some of the emerging solution providers in the space. It won't be "The Matrix" online but it will have an interesting side affect, fewer ads mixed in with the targeted content. Spam ad formats will be pushed out due to more effective integrated solutions. Social status stream ads (Twitter/Facebook) will take the place of advertiser spam, momentarily, until the social scene revolts and new ad blocking tools are developed for that purpose.

2. Ad formats are a changing - already an IAB and Bain study states that media/publishing companies need to offer more compelling advertising slots than the standard ones that are available through most ad networks.

3. Publishers take control. More publishers will take direct control over their site advertising (AOL, CBS) - they will control the access to their audience and force advertisers to pay more for access to these users and/or users will have to pay something for "premium content" on top publisher sites. To support this publishers will need to invest in tools and people to deliver content centric advertising including analytics, optimization, privacy management, and content campaign management. Vendors, can you say "Digital Agencies", will appear to service publishers in this capacity.

4. Optimize or else! Advertisers will stop paying for any display advertising that isn't optimized or targeted pushing out any ad solution that doesn't already have abilities flexible support for optimization of content through strong targeting capabilities.

5. Privacy Impact - Behavioral targeting will continue to have challenges to its adoption by Privacy experts and lawmakers. Targeting solutions will evolve; all will adapt to allow opt-in or management of privacy settings to the individual consumers to counter the push for banning. This will lead to additional product and services that allow management of the privacy settings.

6. Less means more. Agencies will consolidate as the financial pressure of the switch to digital pushes some more traditional companies out. Those who have the resources to buy smaller digital agencies to stay competitive will grow.

7. Real Time = Real Issues. The switch to real time will undergo significant turmoil in the New Year as promising early stage technology leaders learn tough lessons on what being real time means to brands and advertising campaigns. The industry will undergo a major shift in approach as this technology evolves and best practices are developed.

8. Social investment will wane. As a DIY mentality will push out vendors who are focused on social app development, widgets, and Facebook/Twitter experiences. Vendors focused on social analytics and messaging management will gain further traction. Ecommerce on social sites will have mixed results in the New Year as members of social sites determine what they are willing to do within a social network setting.

9. Content is king! Again - it always was king from marketing perspective good content draws eyeballs which why we buy media. Now advertisers are learning that if they are going to have any strategy for marketing their brand moving forward it needs to start with a solid content strategy and a calendar that is more editorial in focus. This editorial calendar integrated with a seasonal media buy calendar will help push more dollars online as campaigns demonstrate effectiveness that will be measured through metrics that mirror TV rather than current online metrics.

10. Where will the money go? Search will still be on top at the end of 2010, but not by as much. Display will be a close second but not the display ad formats we see today.

So thats what I expect to see play out in 2010. All in all a very active year is ahead of us and I'm very excited by many of the prospects.

Do you agree?

With 200 million monthly users across its sites, CBS looks to control ad revenue

jmunz — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:26:15 +0000

CBS will immediately discontinue the use of third-party ad networks for display ads across all of its global sites. While they expect to lose some near term revenue the expectation is that they will more than make it up coming out of the recession. CBS hopes to increase it's options for advertisers and bring more customized ad programs tailored to their audience of over 200 million monthly online viewers. This is a core recommendation from a study by the IAB and Bain which I blogged on earlier toward media and publishers need to other more complex advertising mechanisms which align with the trend toward more controlled content marketing based advertising solutions. CBS Interactive says it expects to gain a range of demographic, behavioral and re-targeting options; more flexibility in its relationships with selected third-party online ad firms; and more customized ad programs tailored to its specific audience.

According to the AdAge article that first reported the news:

"As for CBS taking its inventory out of the network market, Mr. Cassidy said, "It's not that big a deal, to be honest with you; it doesn't move the market." What will, he said, is if Yahoo follows through on its promise to kick networks off its Right Media exchange that don't add significant value with data or advanced targeting."

We will have to keep and eye out to see if this in fact happens and the ad network community crumbles.

Internet Marketing Online Advertising - Only 14% of People Click on Ads

mosofsky — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:33:16 +0000

comScore released a bombshell at the iMedia Brand Summit, and yet not everyone has heard about it and the conclusions are striking. Briefly:

comScore updated their "Natural Born Clickers" study and the main findings are shown in the chart below:
Only 16% of internet users account for all clicks on display ads - down from 32% 2 years ago
8% of users account for 85% of all clicks
Those that click on ads have lower education and income levels than the non-clickers

The conclusion that many in the online advertising industry are drawing from this research is that "the click" is not the right measure. If I were selling display ads I'd try to find another measure as well. The search is now on for attribution evidence of behavior change driven by subconscious exposure to the ads. The problem with this effort is that it flies in the face of eye targeting studies (see chart below that shows heat map of where we focus our attention on a web page) and the growth of ad blockers. If someone never even sees the ad, it can't even have a subliminal impact.

The more likely explanation is much simpler. 84% of us have learned to ignore or block the ads. If you want to reach us, you need to place some useful content on the content side of the page where we focus our attention. This will lead to a shift in ad dollars from display ads to content sponsorships and the rise of new tools to help make sponsorships much more easy to manage.

Which conclusion do you reach from the survey?

Click is the wrong measure
Need to focus on the content real estate

Will Hearst be able to rejuvenate the publishing industry with Skiff?

jmunz — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 03:19:17 +0000

"Skiff will offer publishers a way to participate across the full value chain, from shaping publication design to selling advertising to maintaining subscriber relationships, so that they can better control their destiny as e-reading expands." said Kenneth A. Bronfin, president of Hearst Interactive Media.

So just how does this work you might be asking your self, here it is in a nutshell.

First they are building it on a chip that can be integrated into any device. Interesting but not really certain how successful that will be given how fast hardware changes in our world. Skiff has partnered with Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL), to help them create the world's first "system on a chip" for e-reading.

By supporting a variety of device makers, and through the development of complementary applications for major smartphone platforms, Skiff is hopeful that this will make it easier for publishers to distribute content and advertising broadly across multiple devices from a range of manufacturers.

How are they going to distribute this new platform?

Skiff has signed a multi-year agreement with Sprint (NYSE:S) to provide 3G connectivity for Skiff's dedicated e-reading devices in the United States. Plans are underway to have Skiff readers available for purchase in more than 1,000 Sprint retail locations across the U.S., as well as online at www.sprint.com. Additional distribution channels will be announced next year. This partnership is Sprints attempt to recover after being pushed off by Amazon's e-reader when they went global. Amazon did that because Sprint's 3G technologies don't work anywhere else in the world.

This strategy makes a lot of sense and is how Apple was able to innovate in the once stodgy telecommunication space with a struggling AT&T. Now Hearst and Skiff are trying replicate it again with the struggling Sprint.

How are they going to make money?

Why advertising for one thing, but for good measure a pay for content approach as well. The Skiff service includes an advertising system. Skiff is collaborating with publishers, leading advertisers and agencies to establish appropriate standards, formats and metrics for e-reading, and to validate them through consumer research.

Skiff is also partnering with Nielsen and comScore to help figure out media planning and buying through the Skiff platform, as well as to provide publishers and marketers the necessary analytics to measure the effectiveness of e-reading advertising.

But for good measure remember you are paying for the service to access the content and the question is still out there as to whether or not the consumer is going to play along.

Now I've thought about getting a Kindle and I haven't because of the limitations of the device. If it gave me the Wall Street Journal exactly as I receive it today with color photos and added some multimedia or breaking news headlines off the web site in real time I would have picked one up.

Skiff seems to promise some of this so I will be waiting to see where they take this. If done right it could be the breakthrough device of 2010 and save the publishing industry with a real digital business model.

Seth Godin, Acumen and the content marketing story it tells

jmunz — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:00:43 +0000

I received Seth Godin's daily update, as I do every morning, and it jumped out at me as an interesting content marketing approach. So instead of sending out preview copies of his new book "Linchpin" to the usual industry suspects he is offering people who receive his daily feed the opportunity to get a copy and review it ahead of it's launch date. This approach has a great content marketing spin with an online response marketer touch as well.

Seth is providing content in the form of the book but he's offering it for free to the first 3,000 people who show enough interest to donate to a cause that Seth is supporting called Acumen. So this filter gives him some sense of how serious you are since you need to commit money to a cause to have a chance at a preview copy. Now some might say this is a little scamish, minimum contribution is $30 which is probably the cost of the hard cover book, but it's giving anyone who signs up a chance to create a review ahead of others which can be valuable to the blogger since they have the opportunity to create fresh original content themselves so the trade off is pretty good, especially if you were going to buy the book at some point anyway.

The advantages for Seth are pretty clear, reduced cost of distributing books to industry types who may never do a review of it, creating buzz ahead of the book launch, and creating PR through people in touch with the newer communication tools (Twitter, Facebook, blogging). What's also intriguing to me is how in touch Acumen is to this form of campaign to drive contributions at a time when this has been challenging for most non-profits. They have built a mechanism to provide a brand (Seth Godin) an advertising campaign that can promote his product at the same time they promote theirs.

Now I know this isn't a new approach to some, but what I like is the way they have put this together. They make it very easy for consumer to participate both on Seth's product and Acumen's cause, through a simple process to execute the transaction and create a win/win for all participants, including the consumer.

Very cool in my book.

Building Brands Online - IAB and Bain Report

jmunz — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:54:26 +0000

I've been following the changing trends in online media marketing and advertising and the challenges that face both audiences over the past couple of years. The IAB and Bain have recently released a report called Building Brands Online: An Interactive Advertising Action Plan.

They cover a number of topics in the report including why you should care and what is needed to address the five key obstacles they outline in the report:

1. Ad formats and creative are not innovating with the medium.

2. We are awash in undifferentiated, low-cost inventory.

3. Metrics, metrics everywhere... but not the ones that brand marketers really need.

4. Media companies lack ideas, strategic expertise and engage too late in the planning process.

5. Marketers want cross-platform campaigns; instead they get a model rooted in platform-specific silos.

This is driven in part by the response to the survey which highlighted that Sponsorships are the most effective online brand building advertising mechanism, more effective than search or digital video. However, this requires flexible non-standard ad relationships that media sites are currently not able to support on any scale and advertisers that we have spoken with on this topic agree. They like the effectiveness of Sponsorships but they are not thrilled with the amount of effort required to currently do this type of campaign with a media partner. In order for this type of engagement to work for both parties a new solution needs to be present in the marketplace. The report highlights the following as needing to be part of this solution offering: full creative/customization support, multi-platform integration, enhanced targeting options, and marketing support in the form of high-touch category experts to support key accounts and ensure effectiveness of the campaign.

I couldn't agree more and can't wait for more people to adopt this approach as the future for some media outlets are at stake. Some media companies, such as the group the co-sponsored this report (AOL, NBC Universal, Yahoo, MTV Networks), get it already but still need to improve the tools they make available to advertisers in order to take full advantage of the changes outlined in the report. I'm sure they will take action and can't wait to see what those changes will bring to the industry as a whole.