Let the games begin – cable start charging for web content

Time Warner and Comcast – two industry cable giants have announced an ambitious pilot program to charge subscribers for viewing TV content on the web.  Not sure where this leaves the Hulu business model – maybe it becomes a primer and short form video place to visit.  The words walled garden creep into mind again with cable looking to keep control of its subscribers wherever they view programming.  Looking forward to watching this space emerge.

Cable, Satellite and Telecom meet to find ways to get TV content into a walled garden on the Net

Great article by Roger Cheng in the Wall Street Journal on April 22 discusses the informal meetings being held with Cable, Satellite and Telecom companies to work out business models for net TV viewing in the future. The giants are sitting down to work out how to improve the library of content online and how to get consumers to pay for it. Likely methods will be pin numbers issued to subscribers to mainstream cable, satellite, telecom companies that enable users to view content online as part of their subscription. Broadcasters seem to be going along with the overall concept but fear backlash as we have all become used to the Internet if free right? I believe if the quality of service and content is there and it is what I want to see and available when I want to see it – I will pay. Anything less than that and forget it. My challenge to the IP industry is still making video streaming a seamless and 90% up technology – no way am I watching a major movie that keeps trying to buffer to get me the picture. I think the technology needs to work and then the business model will be accepted.

Greenhaus for new media and marketing – great concept but how does Mediabrand find the companies it invites?

Interpublic Group are offering new media companies a way to get into a six month program to get an insiders view of what agencies want. The Wall Street Journal article was great but has anyone tried to find stuff in the IPG range of websites – maybe that would be a good first application. I have now read the full press release and this is an invitation only deal. So how do they find these neat companies (all 3 of them) and why a six month program? I will be contacting Quentin George at Mediabrands to get more information. More shortly… Also if Quentin reads this blog – we are neck deep in new media companies trying to work out how to work with agencies and get a decision on new media campaigns.

Online advertising changes afoot

Interesting article from Ben Kunz at Business Week hailing a change in online advertising practices and pricing. I agree that we marketers can get a lot more savvy at our targeting. I also agree as a person who is advertised to that I am more interested in getting ads that might have a relevance to me but… I dont like cookies and I disable them whenever possible. The key to real targeting is getting someone like me to buy into a cookie because its giving me something rather than a feeling that its snooping on me. That I think is the real challenge. I agree that smart marketers will drive down budgets and improve effectiveness of ad targeting as Ben describes. However, the really good marketers are going to be the ones that get me to unblock the cookies.

Sharing my thoughts and welcome comments as to how we get the cookie phobics to lighten up and will cookie generated advertising plays win. A pricing revolution looms in online advertising

Web 2.0 in San Francisco – what was happening?

Where were all the people? I won’t comment on the size – or lack of size for this show, or who did or did not show up. It is a trade show happening during the worst economy in decades, about a relatively new market. The show organizer says 8,000 attendees.

So what was good?

Video. We have been is this arena for, well, decades and video is still the holy grail of information distribution, quantification and qualification and Web 2.0 had a few good providers. The usual suspects were showing mature products/services. Adobe managed to fill seats with Flash, Flex and Air presentations. Microsoft had a good sized booth, well located and showing Silverlight (almost) 3.0. Both of these apps are good vehicles for carrying video content and they showed well.

But it wasn’t all just the big players. Coremedia was showing an impressive digital content management system for video distribution called CoreMedia WebTV an excellent tool/service for re-purposing existing video content. ooVoo demoed their API designed to deliver a tool to developers and web app builders to integrate video chat into their applications. And The FeedRoom, a company focused on delivering a content rich experience for clients. They offer an excellent service for client engagement and content distribution.

Off the beaten path stuff. No wireless services for the time I was there. Or as my younger friends like to say “Web 2.0 wireless access FAIL” I had wireless on the ferry in from Marin, I had wireless with my morning coffee but nary a bit at the show. This was a major topic of discussion both in the Web 2.0 Tweats and around the various meeting areas. Here we sit in the middle of one of the most technologically advanced places on earth, talking about the future of human connections and communication and I had to go down the street to Peets to go online.

Final words. I know I wasn’t going to make a comment about the apparent lack of attendance this year but I do have one observation. When the world became comfortable with technology and the wow factor went off and we began to actually use the great stuff coming out of the labs and factories – we lost COMDEX and Supercomm and AEC and many more of the industry specific technology trade events. Even Apple moved away from MacWorld this year. We are all about solutions now. It is now up to the people with the tools to go out and actually start putting them to work. It may be that Web 2.0 is a victim of its own success. Internet applications are totally relevant – maybe everyone was back home building new applications or putting them to use – It all just happened at Web 2.0 speed!

Web 2.0 what is being launched and why aren’t marketers paying attention?

I was looking at digiday daily – its tag line is “where content and commerce collide” and I looked in events.  No mention about web 2.0 at all.  Now isn’t web 2.0 supposed to be applications that help us share and collaborate and its definitely about content.  So why are marketers not paying attention to this show?  Last year I saw at least five new services that could help marketers improve effectiveness and reduce costs.  However, the main visitors were technology people.  I am looking forward to seeing what is new and know that Web 2.0 will be well attended but more work needs to be done on making the new applications known to marketers.  Waterland has decided to focus on new technology and how it can help contribute to traditional marketing.  We will be explaining in basic terms some of the new types of applications and their potential benefits to a variety of companies.  We are looking to work with Web 2.0 companies that have applications and services targeted at improving marketing results.  Contact me to set up a meeting during Web 2.0 on Wednesday or Thursday during the show.

Jimmy Fallon late night talk show that aims to cross media platforms

Im looking forward to the new talk show (even if I record it as its on too late) with Jimmy Fallon who promises to embrace all new media formats as well as broadcast TV.   The key will be the interaction and integration across the various platforms and I think we will see some new experiences if the network gives Jimmy some freedom to experiment.  Want to get one of my clients onto this show to talk about where casual games are today and a new concept – the game plays you versus you playing the game.   Id also like to see some advertisers pushing the envelope with new formats – any brave brands ready to dive in?