Technology360

Mechanism design theory and media's future

Diane Mermigas writes:

... At its core, mechanism design theory encourages systematic thinking about how a new playing field and new rules of play can be modified to improve outcomes. In the nearly 50 years since it was developed, the theory has been broadly applied to business matters as far-ranging as valuing software patents, matching donated kidneys to recipients, calculating taxes, and setting up complex auctions. Application of the theory to the Federal Communications Commission’s sale of radio spectrum assured the government the funds it sought, while assuring public and small business access. It has also been applied to the regulation of subscription television and the bundling and pricing of channels.  ¶  The initial objectives, per the economists, included the ability “to easily compare different models for selling goods” and provide enough economic incentives to ensure a win-win for all. Much of what the economists devised is relevant to media conundrums. Those include the redefining and re-pricing of advertising; content and services from static to interactive digital platforms; and recalculating the value of advertiser connections from mass eyeballs to individually targeted consumers with whom they can transact online. The social networking, blogging and instant messaging are a means to a commercial end for those hoping to profit from the Internet. ...

Link:  MediaPost. 

Also see this article on mechanism design in Wikipedia.  --Dennis

Recommending the tail

Check out Jeff Jarvis's post of this title about social distribution and recommendation and how they work as business drivers.  Be sure to follow the two links with which he leads off the post and check out the reports he's discussing.  Link:  BuzzMachine.  --Dennis

Media Conversations

Doug Kaye has started a new "channel" on The Conversations Network, a non-profit distributor of worthy audio and video programming.  The new channel is called Media Conversations and starts with three interviews by Ralph Simon with Glen Hiemstra and Gerd Leonhard (separately and together) on the future of media.  I'm a big fan of Leonhard's work in the audio space, but am less familiar with Hiemstra.  In any case, these interviews are well worth your time.  Link:  Media Conversations channel.  --Dennis

How TiVo Can Get Its Groove Back

Janko Roettgers has some interesting ideas on how TiVo can innovate:  open up the box, become the ultimate programming guide, get on the social Web, and unbundle cable.  Link:  NewTeeVee.  --Dennis

Television 2.0: Reconceptualizing TV as an Engagement Medium

"Mediaeater," whose real identity I don't know but whose bookmarks on del.icio.us I find invaluable (if I ever get hit by a truck, del.icio.us/mediaeater is a pretty good substitute for this blog, though more like drinking out of a firehose than this effort), recently added the new master's thesis of Ivan D. Askwith with this title.  Askwith's thesis supervisor is Henry Jenkins, Professor of Comparative Media Studies at MIT, blogger at Confessions of an Aca/Fan, and author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, among other books -- and whose bona fides prompted me to read the first few pages of this quite interesting 174-pp work.

Askwith's abstract:

Television is in a period of dramatic change. As the mass audience continues to fragment into ever-smaller niche audiences and communities of interest, and new technologies shift control over the television viewing experience from network programmers into the hands of media consumers, television’s traditional business models prove themselves increasingly untenable. In an attempt to preserve these models, television executives are attempting to shed television’s long-standing reputation as a passive medium, which emphasized the viewer’s role as a consumer of television content, and which critics often decried as vacuous and mindless.  ¶   The current discourse suggests that television’s future now relies on the industry’s success recasting it as an active medium, capable of capturing and holding the audience’s attention, and effective at generating emotional investment. The single most important concept in this new industrial discourse is that of audience “engagement”, a term that has generated a tremendous amount of debate and disagreement, with television and advertising executives alike struggling to understand what engagement is, how it works, and what its practical consequences will be.  ¶  This thesis argues that television’s future as an engagement medium relies not on inventing new methodologies that define engagement in terms of quantifiable audience behaviors and attitudes, but instead in a new conceptual model of television, better suited to a multiplatform media environment and the emerging attention and experience economies, which focuses on the development of television programs that extend beyond the television set. Such a model must understand television not as a method for aggregrating audiences that can be sold to advertisers, but as a medium that draws upon media platforms, content, products, activities and social spaces to provide audiences with a range of opportunities to engage with television content. Accordingly, this thesis offers a framework for thinking about viewer engagement as the range of opportunities and activities that become possible when drawing upon an expanded, multi-platform conception of the modern television text. Applying this framework to the innovative and experimental textual extensions developed around ABC’s Lost, the thesis indicates both the challenges and opportunities that emerge as television becomes an engagement medium.  [emphasis added]

Link:  Comparative Media Studies, MIT [pdf].  --Dennis

A Longer Look at the Long Tail

In June, Bear Stearns issued a very useful report with this title authored by research analysts Spencer Wang, Shub Mukherjee and Stefan Anninger.  It displays lots of good data and, though it focuses on video content, it has a great deal of validity for audio content as well.  The authors write:

... Value Will Reside in the Middle of the Supply Chain.  If our thesis is correct, one major problem with infiinite choice is the potential for overwhelming confusion.  Said another way, how do consumers navigate a world of unlimited choice and find what they are looking for?  ¶  We think this conundrum (the "Paradox of Choice") will increase the value of "middlemen," or packagers of content that can appropriately filter out the noise and connect users with the content that appeals to their interests.  This can be done through strong brands, editorial discretion, technology, and harnessing user recommendations. ...

Link:  Bear Stearns.  Recommended, along with a complementary one from IBM to which I linked a week ago.  --Dennis

Navigating the Media Divide: Innovating and Enabling New Business Models - IBM report

The best "freebie" white paper I found last year relating to my electronic media responsibilities was IBM's The end of TV as we know it: A future industry perspective, to which I linked in January 2006.  It holds up well today.  So when David Leroy (thanks) pointed me at a pair of related new ones from the IBM Institute for Business Value and with two of t he same authors, I was hopeful.

The authors (Saul J. Berman, Steven Abraham, Bill Battino, Louisa Shipnuck and Andreas Neus -- Berman and Shipnuck being two of the authors on The end of TV...) didn't disappoint.  Navigating the Media Divide: Innovating and Enabling New Business Models and The fight ahead on media's main streets are, as the titles imply, about more than television -- but then last year's report was relevant beyond television also.

The papers explore issues around the familiar scenario framework that creates four quadrants with the X-axis being "Distribution and device platforms" ranging from "proprietary" to "open" and the Y-axis being "Content blend" ranging from "Produced by professionals" to "User/community contribution."  They view the upper and rightmost dimensions as being particularly disruptive amd posit that these four quadrants will be the four business models in use over the next 3-4 years.  The figure here (click for larger image) depicts these business models.

The authors provide ten specific recommendations for media companies some of which seem pretty obvious (e.g., "Put consumers at the center of your business and boardroom"), while others more insightful (e.g., "Give control to get share").

Link:  IBM: The fight ahead on media's mean streets.  IBM: Navigating the Media Divide: Innovating and Enabling New Business Models.

Also see Saul J. Berman, Adam R. Steinberg and Louisa A. Shipnuck, Beyond access: Raising the value of information in a cluttered environment.  Link:  IBM (pdf).

What's happening at KETC, St. Louis

Public television station KETC in St. Louis, now under the leadership of the always-progressive Jack Galmiche, has been using consultant Rob Paterson to help it find better connections with its community.  Rob has an interesting overview of what they're doing on his weblog.  Link:  Robert Paterson's Weblog.  --Dennis

The State of the Media Democracy - Deloitte & Touch report

Deloitte & Touche USA LLP has a report based on an online survey conducted by Harrison Group.  Here are survey highlights:

High Demand for User-Generated Content

• 40 percent of all survey respondents are making their own entertainment (editing movies, music and photos)
  • 25 percent of Matures
  • 56 percent of all Millennials; leading Millennials (18-24) participate more
• More than one in 10 Millennials are actively uploading their own videos on the Internet
• 51 percent of all survey respondents are watching/reading content created by others
• 71 percent of Millennials, 56 percent of Xers; Boomers/Mature participation is less, but noteworthy
• 53 percent of Millennials would download more videos if  connection speeds were faster
• One-third of online content viewing is done on user-generated sites
  • Almost ¼ for Matures, ½ for Millennials

Long Live Traditional Media!

• Favorite and promising new television shows beat the Web as the most frequent media conversation topics for all generations
  • Extensive amplification with the Millennials as they tell the most people about what they like
  • 52 percent of Xers are visiting television show Internet sites
• Printed magazines are an integral part of every generation’s life
  • 72 percent enjoy reading magazines over finding the same information online
  • 58 percent of Millennials agree magazines help them learn about what’s “in”
• Compared with online activities like surfing the Web and downloading music, all generations aspire to reading a book in the coming year

Advertising Insights

• 64 percent  tend to pay greater attention to print ads in magazines or newspapers than advertising on the Internet
• More than one-in-four would pay for online content vs. being exposed to ads
• Search engines and word of mouth are the most effective means for driving Web site traffic — 85 percent of Xers are influenced by someone’s recommendation
• 87 percent of respondents continually visit the same Web sites
• Generation Xers are a little more responsive to advertising

Future Products
Millennials are leading the way as far as embracing new technologies, games, entertainment platforms, user-generated content and communication tools:

• 64 percent want to easily connect their television to the Internet for viewing videos and downloading content to their television
• 60 percent want the ability to move their content to any device they own without any problems
• 57 percent want an entertainment and communication device that lets them do everything
• 49 percent want a computer or similar device that will be the center of their household media experience

You can download a PDF of select findings.   Link:  Deloitte.com.  --Dennis

The New Influentials - report from Bridge Ratings

Bridge Ratings head Dave Van Dyke has a good blog to which I subscribe via RSS and from which I occasionally quote, but I can't find such a feed for the company's main site.  That's too bad, because on those occasions when I remember to check it, I usually find something helpful, such as the subject of this post.  Add a feed, please.

From the press release (click for larger image):

... It is no longer a world of mass media but rather it is a world of communities of customers and consumers. In an attempt to keep up with the changing world that the Internet has brought, the media world has embraced such things as websites to reach their customers, but it isn't enough. Consumers have gravitated to social media and that is where Influence is finding a significant home.  ¶  Influencers or Influentials are a group of very active consumers involved in "conversation marketing" where word-of-mouth is becoming a significant power in spreading dialog with customers, listeners and viewers. It means creating a conversation with your consumers in which useful information is exchanged so that both parties benefit from the relationship. ...

... In the face of technology and a changing consumer experience, the term "radio" now covers not only traditional radio (AM/FM) but also all those digital audio entertainment media that compete with terrestrial radio: Satellite radio, Internet radio, Podcasting, digital music players - even cell phones.  ¶  And because the landscape is changing so quickly and shifting in ways never before expected, radio of all colors and those that advertise on those platforms, must address the problem of audience "scatter" (See Bridge Ratings study #755), i.e. audiences are moving in multiple media dimensions and capturing their attention requires more skill than ever before.  ¶  This is where the Influentials come in. This is the subset of consumer experience which radio must attract. ...

... Among the questions, we asked about the role of traditional radio in their futures. 46% thought it was "Very important" for traditional radio to change with more relatable content. Adding "Somewhat Important" brought the score to 77%.  ¶  Only 11% thought it was "Very Important" for traditional radio to remain the same as it is today. An additional 18% thought it was "Somewhat Important". By this panel of Influentials of all ages, traditional radio has some work to do if it is to remain relevant in the near future. ...

Link:  Bridge Ratings.  --Dennis