The Future of TV and Social Media (video from MIPTV, April 2010)

A couple of interesting morsels in this talk: the flat-out convergence of TV and the Web - and what it really means.

And here is the Blip.Tv version

Video: the TV of the Future (cutting the cord)

Below is a very interesting video showing how you can watch TV online without  (in theory) having to pay for Cable TV - interesting trend, for sure. I'm not sure OTT video is quite ready for mainstream yet (certainly the content providers / rights-owners are not;) but this is a trend I'll be watching very closely.

And yes, I do use Boxee on a MacMini at home, in Switzerland, myself; last not least to see what my own videos look like on HD TV.

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Google TV is coming (comments and video): total Web & TV convergence is imminent. TV in the Cloud?

Everyone: this is a biggie. Check out this video below and the announcement on the Google blog. Here are some quotes from the blog, and some comments from my end:

• "Google TV is a new experience for television that combines the TV that you already know with the freedom and power of the Internet. With Google Chrome built in, you can access all of your favorite  websites and easily move between television and the web. This opens up your TV from a few hundred channels to millions of channels of entertainment across TV and the web..."  My comment: this is the total web-tv convergence, at last, and this development should certainly scare the wits out of most major TV Networks. The gloves are off, guys! So far it has been quite hard to have TV-like, living-room centric experiences using the web; obviously this is just about to change. And the advertising-dollars will migrate along with our viewing (or rather, engagement -) habits! Friction will soon be Fiction, indeed. Welcome to Media as a Service (MaaS); Content in the Cloud: TeleMedia here we come.
• "Because Google TV is built on open platforms like Android and Google Chrome, these features are just a fraction of what Google TV can do. In our announcement today at Google I/O, we challenged web developers to start coming up with the next great web and Android apps designed specifically for the TV experience. Developers can start optimizing their websites for Google TV today" My comment: Google is betting on OPEN SYSTEMS to win this game, which imho is totally the right move. Yes, there is some room and argument for closed systems (Apple, PS3 etc) but almost all major successes will be fueled by open technologies, interfaces and platforms, i.e. networked and interdependent ecosystems. Going forward future, it's win-win-win-win or nothing (sound familiar?)
• "We’re working together with Sony and Logitech to put Google TV inside of televisions, Blu-ray players and companion boxes. These devices will go on sale this fall, and will be available at Best Buy stores nationwide"  My comment: very smart move by Sony - they missed the boat on digital music, and on ebooks (at least to some extent, I'd say), so this is their chance to catch up.

Mashable has a good summary of the key 'what it means' points, here.

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Update: presentation from MIPTV 2010: Social Media & Building an Entertainment Brand Online: Push to Pull

As promised, here is a quick, direct upload of my presentation at MIPTV in Cannes: Download Social Media from Push to Pull MIPTV gerd leonhard LOW RES *5MB PDF Topic: Social Media & Building an Entertainment Brand Online: From Push to Pull. UPDATE: Slideshare version now available, see below. The video can be watched here.

Social Media: From Push to Pull, Building an Entertainment Brand Online (MIPTV 2010)

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Great videos from the recent 'Tools of Change for Publishing' Conference (NY)

I just ran across some really nice presentations from the O'Reilly TOC (Tools of Change) conference that went down in NY last week. I could not attend because of my trip to Brazil but this event looks like a great success, judging by these videos. Here is my selection of best videos:

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Will algorithms run our digital lives?

Demand Media (see this brilliant Wired piece), one of the biggest producers and distributors of online video (see the Mary Meeker / Morgan Stanley presentation here; page 42) produces 100s of 1000s of videos on topics that are solely determined by a proprietary algorithm that crunches data on popular search terms, keywords and their current rates on search engines, and information about how many web pages already cover the topic. If a topic is 'hot' and not yet covered, Demand Media commissions an army of freelance video makers, at $20 per video (!), to quickly produce short clips on the topic, e.g. on 'how to heel-flip on a skate board' etc.

Wired's Ryan Singel talks about AOL's similar new plan: "AOL’s new chief plans to combine algorithms, marketing partnerships and cheap freelance writers in order to turn the stale web property into a vibrant online content factory pumping out stories to fit the zeitgeist..." - all for the sole sake of taking advantage of the Google-page-ranking system i.e. to subsequently yield more advertising dollars.

With both examples, the idea is simple: to produce a huge a and hyper-distributed amount of fast, short - and above all - ultra-cheap content that is a perfect fit with the hottest and most expensive keywords on the web, today, so that the maximum advertising rates can be achieved at all times. In other words, this 'content' only exists as a way of garnering advertising revenues based on keyword popularity - hardly what I would consider 'adding value to the content ecosystem' ;)

In music, recommendations are already generated largely by software algorithms and data-crunching recommendation engines; some people even go as far as predicting whether a song will be a hit or not, using smart software engines (disclosure: I am on the advisory board of this company, uPlaya). Google's page-ranking system relies entirely on machine-intelligence, of course, and Twittercounter's top 1000 list is, of course, generated solely by data feeds - not by human editors (such as my own site, Futerati, which will, btw, be relaunched within the next 10 days).

Techcrunch's Arrington talks about the end of crafted content.  Wired calls Demand Media a factory that stamps out money-making content. The Inquisitor talks about how this kind of approach is turning the web into an obese mess. The Washington Post sums it up, rather gloomy: "these models create a race to the bottom situation, where anyone who spends time and effort on their content is pushed out of business."

Here is what I believe:

• Content that is produced only because of keyword popularity and because eager and / or desperate producers (no blame there, btw, just stating a fact) are willing to work for exceedingly cheap rates may bring in the immediate bacon but in my opinion will not last in terms of continuous popularity and therefore in long-term revenues. And if they do, great for them - but it does not mean that all content production will move in this direction. Every single person that likes to eat fast-food still knows the difference between Wendy's and a nice meal: yes, it's more expensive and it takes longer but it's a much better experience, and it makes you feel better. Fast food chains simply co-exist with 'real' restaurants of all kinds, everywhere - and that's what we will have in the content industries, too. If you want to make a quick buck by starting a fast-food franchise, go ahead. I, personally, don't like to eat fast food, nor would I enjoy running a McDonald's franchise so I will go a different route.
• There will always be people who are willing to pay for better, deeper and more 'serious' content, and, in my opinion, increasingly so (mostly because of the trend towards mobile content consumption) - we just need to find new, web-native models of getting paid for content and translate the value of attention into tangible $. Yes, this is a real challenge, today, but new ways are emerging that will indeed provide plenty of resources for the continued creation of high-quality content. Let's have some imagination. Just because 100s of 1000s of aspiring teenagers want to see those free, ad-supported videos on pole-dancing does not mean we won't be selling video-on-demand, DVDs and books on more serious (or indeed, the same) subjects. Cheap, free and low-quality options have always co-existed with more expensive ones, and while the web has made this trend a lot more pronounced it will not spell the end of well-produced and high-quality content - the cheap stuff is simply first because so far we are lacking business models for the better stuff (for the most part).

What do you think?

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Very cool: John Mayer's augmented reality experiment (video)

One of my favorite musicians (and fellow Berklee guitarist) John Mayer has recently launched a new site that makes very interesting use of augmented reality concepts. All you need to do is allow the flash player access to your web-cam, print out a single page with the control icon, and follow the instructions. I liked it so much I made a short video about the experience - this kind of thing will be big, no doubt; in fact, I think it will be one of those key 'new generatives' that could well be offered in premium packages going forward... stay tuned! Wired has a related video that shows how John made the material used for this

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The Future of Content in 140 Characters: Music=404, Ctrl=MiA, TeleMedia>6Y and GWHTLC !

Today, Jeff Pulver's 140 Character conference in London presented a whole new challenge to me: make a presentation on "The Future of Content" with less than 140 characters i.e. in true twitter style (at least as far as the headlines and bullets are concerned), and deliver it in 10 minutes. At least, that is the challenge I prescribed to myself - and those are usually the hardest.  Talk about a tall mission: here are those 140 characters - see if you can make any sense of it. My own, personal favorite: the music is 404 (page not found). And GWHTLC (glad we had this little chat;)

0s1s:atw Music=404 :Cloud>$ Hybrid$ TeleMedia>6Y OpenAMAP WWGD New$$$$ Packgng Filtr=BF o4u T+ GWHTLC

The Future of Content in 140 Characters (140Conf London)

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The Future of eCommerce and Online Retailing (Versandhandel Kongress 2009 presentation)

I spoke at the Mail-Order Congress 2009 / Deutscher Versandhandels Kongress in Wiesbaden today, on the topics of the Future of Mail-Order and Online Retail, Social Media & Social Commerce. If you were there - and even if you weren't - here is the PDF, below. Please re-use, tweet, spread, remix, morph... as you see fit.

The Future of eCommerce and Online Retailing (MailOrder Congress 2009)

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The Future of Branding in a connected world (my Canvas8 presentation in London)

I contributed to a fun event at the Host Gallery in London tonight, organized by Canvas8 (where I am involved as one of the adjunct thought-leaders): "Twitter, Facebook, Spotify, Tripadvisor, Augmented Reality, Smartphone Apps, YouTube – the range of technology choices for brands wishing to engage with consumers is  huge. For many these are uncharted waters, and these technologies can raise more questions than they answer. This time the theme of ‘The Changing Face of Media’ is emerging technology. Based on the speakers’ experiences it asks the question: how can brands best use technology and not be used by it..."

As promised, here is the PDF from the event, below (click on the Slideshare link to download it, or embed it on your blog) Enjoy. RT. Superdistribute. Mix & Share.... Picture on the right by James Cridland via Flickr

This work by www.mediafuturist.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

The Future of Branding in a Connected World

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The Future of News and the value of Curation (Short video interview with me)

Robin Good is one of Italy's most prolific bloggers and digital media experts. We met in Rome a few weeks ago, after I did a speaking gig for Siemens Media division, and he recorded this video, below. You can read the entire column (featuring 2 other influencers) on Robin's site; but here is the bottom line: 

"I think curation is key in aggregating people's voices, because most people have to go through 500 feeds of some sort of news event, and that would take them hours to go through the feeds and pick the right ones. A professional reporter can search the right feeds in five minutes, because they have the skills to select photos and those kinds of things; which is very valuable, but not if you put those feeds under a wrapper..."

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Marketing IS the Product IS the Marketing (short clip with Jason Kilar / HULU)

Image by gleonhard via Flickr

The 3-minute daily AdAge video shows always provide some interesting morsels. In this short excerpt, below, Jason Kilar (Hulu's CEO) says: "We don't have a marketing department because if our product isn't going to sell itself on its own merits we've got bigger problems".  This is very much how I look at the role of Marketing, going forward, as well. My 4 cents on this topic:

• Design the marketing right into your product or service, from the get-go - if people will not want to share what you are offering, that's where you need to start!
• Instead of paying to grab people's attention (which usually means disrupting them, several times), invest in your product to be so attractive, or better yet, addictive, that your users will promote it for you. Word of MOUTH and word of MOUSE is what will drive your success more than anything else, so that's where every cent is well spend
• Once a good many people are using your product or service, enable and encourage them to share all that goodness with their friends and peers (great examples for that include Nike+ and the recent T-Mobile Life's for Sharing campaign); put 'share this' and 'tell your friends' links and widgets everywhere, and integrate things like Facebook Connect, Google Connect and Twitter.
• The best way to activate your users as voluntary brand-messengers is to allow them to co-create, to engage, to get involved - and of course, to talk to them, to build relationships. This is the key to Twitter's rapid growth.

 

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The Future of Content & Telecoms: new video of my presentation at the eComm Conference (March 2009)

Video: The Future of Content & Telecoms: Flat Rate Content Bundles and Social Media (Gerd Leonhard) via the eComm blog. Note that eComm Europe was just announced, as well (Oct 28-30, in Amsterdam).

Gerd Leonhard's Presentation at eComm 2009

View more PDF documents from eCommConf.

And here is the PDF with my slides (summarized version) at the eComm Conference in San Francisco

Download Future of Content & Telecom Gerd Leonhard @ eComm Conf 2009 PDF

Summary of topics: " Imagine a world where unfiltered and limitless access to content is bundled directly into your access to the networks. A world where 'your cloud' holds all kinds of content, your social network connections, your community, and your context (i.e. meta-content), your meta-data and your interaction-trails, and where access to all of this is feels-like-free, legal, always-on and fully mobile, on any and all platforms. This is the future we are heading into, and telecoms, content-owners and brands / advertisers must forge entirely new partnerships.  We are starting to see content creators and rights-owners aborting their long-standing quests for total control, and instead looking to build their audiences and share revenues. So where is this trend going to take us, what do we need to do in order to turn content (music, video, TV, news, games, books...) into a new and truly growing business that is really web-native, where are the big opportunities for telecoms, operators, social networks and rights-holders, and what will the new business models look like? In this context, Gerd will also address topics such as the flat rate for digital music, ISP/Operator + Content bundling examples in Europe and Asia, copyright 2.0 and the future of content commerce, the shift from control-economy to attention &  trust economy, the latest developments in next generation advertising, and the growing economic power of those 'new generatives' (> Kevin Kelly)..."

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Mobile Content Futures: a narrated slideshow (video). From EGOsystem to ECOsystem.

I just uploaded this new video (below) to my video channel on GerdTube.net (Blip.tv); it's somewhat similar to what I presented at Mobile Monday Amsterdam on March 30, 2009.  Topics:  A drastically different Broadband Culture is imminent - total mobility, always-on, low-cost Internet access, constant peering and pervasive social media, rivers of news and oceans of content. Developing nations will go straight to digital content-access, straight to mobile EVERYTHING and straight to next generation advertising and marketing. Control, Domination and Push / Monolog is out; Openness, Collaboration and Conversation is in. From EGOsystem to ECOsystem.  More: check out the GerdTube RSS feed (download all shows via iTunes)

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Announcing a new video show with fellow Futurist Glen Hiemstra: WhereIsItGoing (WiiG)

 I just started this exciting new Video Show with my friend and fellow Futurist Glen Hiemstra (Futurist.com), in Seattle, Washington.  We will be recording a new episode every week, on a current topic. The shows will be between 5 and 10 minutes long, and we will try to get to the bottom lines as quickly as possible, giving each topic a quick futuristic angle (whatever that means;)

Glen and me have collaborated many times before, including the Futuretalk podcast & video series, and DVD (feel free to download the whole thing via Mininova, if you're interested). We also do think-tanks together - feel free to ping us if you're interested.

We are currently using Skype video recording and it works ok, but there is apparently no way to get better backgrounds integrated into the actual recording, quite yet - so if you have any better idea, please let us know.  We are both Mac users, so we tried iChat which was cool - clouds and orbits in the background - but we could not get the audio to sync reasonably well with the video once we started recording (using Screenflow or Screentoaster) - not so good! 

Visit the WhereIsItGoing website for more details or subscribe to the iTunes video-podcast feed here on Blip.tv (great for offline use).  Hope you like it!

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