Last week my boss just dropped by and asked to do some research and study on Media 2.0! I was fairly baffled. Everywhere I looked around there was 2.0. Banking, Insurance of course Travel and now Media!! The word 2.0 seems to be the most used word today. I of course dutifully nodded and got down to work (i.e. search God knows what will happen if there is no Google...)
Expectedly, the Web 2.0 Guru Dion Hinchcliffes has an opinion on this. He feels the online video industry is what comprises media 2.0. Some else felt social media (your Facebook, MySpace, Hi5 etc.) is also media 2.0 and should be considered as such. Elsewhere people felt that television companies making their online presence more aggressive, adopting RIA and ensuring availability of online digital content was what media 2.0 was all about.
One of the experts had recommended that since the web 2.0 is all about participation and user generated content, the first thing a media company should do is to enable a user to participate through blogs or comments or what not. Thus started the media 2.0 bandwagon. Of course the big warning by the gurus was that, to ignore this would be a great risk for an organization.
Media as I understand (I am a GenX’er) is television channels, newspapers, magazines. I believe this is called mass media. They have another term called ‘New Media’ to refer to digital or networked media. The web falls into the category New Media. The ever faithful wikipedia has a detailed description for ‘New Media’.
All top television channels worldwide have a strategy to handle New Media. Just check out BBC’s vision for handling New Media. This was way back in 2006. They even had a contest to redesign their web site. Their current website is complete IGoogle style filled with widgets and users can personalize and add and remove widgets of choice. They incidentally ran their new web site as a beta for several months before they brought it to mainstream. This seems to have paid off as BBC’s website has more than 15 million unique users per month far higher than its competition in
New Media strategies also involve making available online videos. These are offered either as streaming or download. BBC has iPlayer and Channel 4 has a concept called 4oD (4 on Demand) catering to online video demand. In the case of BBC latest shows are available for download post the airing on television. BBC has on demand services for video, radio, and news delivered online and through digital TV. Archives of old TV shows which were very popular are another lot that are gaining popularity.
As per BBC’s director general Mark Thompson the definition of a broadcaster in the 2.0 world is someone who is able to deliver high quality content across multiple channels (web, moble, digital TV , etc.) , have a good web site apart from some traditional TV and radio !!!
Of course all this is backed by hard statistics. ComScore said that 73% of US Internet users are viewing video online and within that group, the average person is watching nearly four hours each month. We have seen evidences that the networked generation (especially the Gen Y) is moving away from television and newspapers in favour of online content through the internet and viewing the same through multiple devices like laptops, mobile devices or IPods. Another feature of this generation is that they switch devices and expect the content to transition seamlessly. Broadband connectivity has almost become standard in most homes and is one of the main reasons for the focus shift to online content.
Another interesting point is that all forays into new media are accompanied at the backend with SOA and agile development practices like SCRUM. Channel 4’s video on demand has SOA at the backend, while BBC has decided to invest in SOA to increase digital content distribution efficiency across multiple channels. ITV another top broadcaster in the
Video-on Demand opens up amazing possibilities for us consumers. We can download and watch shows at leisure, we can skip ads, and we can watch archived programmes. The television of yore was catering to a mass audience but on demand video is targeted and can cater to a niche. (The Long Tail!!!). The biggest advantage of media 2.0 is its ability to make content available to far more people than the one who originally paid to watch it in the first place.
Now for the million dollar question: what are the returns from this spend. Will this mean increase in advertising revenue? One of the biggest advantages of the internet is contextual, targeted advertising and the ability to complete the sales cycle with a purchase. There have been enough evidences to support that TV advertising is losing its sheen. While experts agree that television is still the best means to reach a mass audience, they feel that digital video popularity is making the 30 second commercial spots less effective. The focus of all advertisers is to grab eyeballs as they call it. They are thinking of ways and means to position commercials on digital video and ensure consumer attention is retained. There have also been recent reports suggesting that online spends have surpassed TV advertising in the
So this is Media 2.0. As a parting note: Let us not forget that YouTube is still way ahead of competition in online video viewing. Although we have the web only channels like Joost (from the creators of Skype), it does not seem to be very popular. The super success of YouTube may mean that consumers on the web have different viewing behaviours and sharing mechanisms as opposed to the traditional forms.
All said and done we, consumers are all set for a great time with channels and ads lining to woo us. Now it is left to the content creators to make this medium worthwhile through great and watch able content.
PS : My Boss has a great blog on advertising and media 2.0 , but mine is more at the humble grassroots level
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