There are many a -thought that still buzzes around my head on the back of first #1000flowers and then, a day later, #CityLocal.
Claire Enders’ suggestion that traditional TV was all a-bit ’steam age’ is worth a re-visit, whilst increasingly I think we have to look at our use of language.. the Race Online, for example, suggests that we all need to get people ‘on-to-a-line…’
That’s the physical implication of the term ‘online’, isn’t it?
ie to get us connected up to a wire; be it copper or fibre. And yet I can be ‘on-line’ quite happily – kind of – without any line at all. There’s just something up there above my head which I connect to.
Wireless-ly.
ie, without a wire. Or a cable. Or a line.
And the on-going use of the term ‘TV’ does no-one any favours. It merely brings a whole raft of assumptions – be they in the mind’s eye, or otherwise.
There is, however, one word that needs to be positively encouraged. Networks. As in ‘network TV’ or ‘The Networks’. Because as much as that might be a hark-back to our past, networked thinking has to be very much part of our future.
It was there as one of my slides in the final keynote to #1000flowers; be it www.STVLocal.com, www.MyCornwall.tv or, of course, www.addiply.com – there is a network thing going on.
Elegant, efficient and of this web world. Because with networks comes the ability to be both open and collaborative; transparent and co-operative – big, buzzy words that Alan Rusbridger returned to time again here…
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=192956
This line is worth repeating… and worth placing in the context of where on earth a multitude of local ‘TV’ stations will ever gather enough content from to drive a decent enough advertising proposition to – at the very least – get them to a position of being ‘not-for-loss’.
‘Collaboration refers to the way we can take this openness one stage further. By collaborating with this vast network of linked information — and those who are generating and sharing it — we can be infinitely more powerful than if we believe we have to generate it all ourselves.’
Worth repeating; again… ‘By collaborating… we can be infinitely more powerful than if we believe we have to generate it all ourselves…
OK. LeedsTelevision didn’t make it to #1000flowers; nor – alas – did CumbriaLive.tv
Dig about in both content-wise and what do they share? Or rather, don’t share… but should…
Food. Leeds ‘TV’ has a food ‘channel’. As does CumbriaLive…
I’ve long been into channels. Harry Harrold and I scribbled out our fag-packet design of a Local ‘TV’ station long before Starbucks and Yahoo put their own ‘channel’ proposition together for the 4,000 coffee shops in the US about to offer free wifi. Well, a few weeks.
We have little colour-coded ‘channels’ for News, Visit, Live, Learn, Play and Market. Ways and means, for example, of holding the local parish council chairman to account; of giving the local media studies kids the chance to broadcast their wares, etc…
But if I think like a network, why can’t I run a ‘Food’ channel? With content shared with those from elsewhere? Or an ‘Outdoor Living’ channel? Why can’t I swap some Norfolk ‘foodie’ fare for some from the Lakes? Or metropolitan Leeds?
Wouldn’t that make me… ‘infinitely more powerful than if we believe we have to generate it all ourselves…’?
We don’t. We collaborate. We share.
In the words of my beloved Diggers and Levellers, what’s to stop us creating a ‘common treasury’ for us all to share? What if each of those individual ‘local’ video clips came with an ad embedded? Before, after or over-laid?
So each piece of video content came with a revenue mechanism attached? The trick then, of course, would to be able to track it; to ensure that the source of that content – be it CumbriaLiveTV or LeedsTelevision – earned their due reward as it was broadcast through a network of ‘Local’ TV ’stations’.
Build a ‘common treasury’ of content; a networked depository of content goodness for us all to share.
We can do that. Addiply is a network; always has been.
So an advertiser can place an ad across multiple publisher platforms and can track its every click and view.
We’re transparent like that.
And there’s no reason why we couldn’t likewise follow a video clip through the network; tracking its every view and click. We could do that tomorrow.
If we all started to collaborate and think like networks… 
I like the sentiment – ‘By collaborating… we can be infinitely more powerful than if we believe we have to generate it all ourselves…’ – but we need to achieve a level of collaboration that works for all parties.
So lets use the example of our (CumbriaLive.tv’s) Foodie channel http://www.Artisan-food.tv
Ok, firstly we have taken an editorial view that “geographically” we will only cover foodie issues within Cumbria. This “niche focus” allows us to be the “experts” in Cumbria, without spreading our resources too thinly.
This works because, our revenue and therefore sustainability is not from advertising, but rather from our expertise. Our revenue comes from “selling content” and “selling our expertise” rather than selling advertising.
Clearly it would be great if we could complement our revenue with advertising revenue as well. However to do this you need a decent sized audience and a method of verification. So here I am with you, “tracking is fundamental”. Without this you cannot create a value proposition. Tracking our “video views” is simple with the systems we use. We can see exactly how many times each of our videos has been viewed, even if we allow users to “embed” these videos into their sites. We can see what is being watched from where and exactly how many views we get.
So why do we not bother currently with placing adverts in our video streams. Well we would if someone would pay enough for it. What we want is in some ways like an Addiply, but for video. ie. a fully managed method of the user being able to create and insert adverts into our video streams, that is pre-payed and without administration. In addition we want to charge on a pay per view basis as we deliver “niche foodie audience” not a mass market.
The problem is that it costs a lot of money to create a half decent video advert, most local small businesses can’t even create a text advert properly. So we don’t bother to chase or invoice that small micro revenue.
Now back to collaboration, I’m all for it, we have some great collaborations, but just not on the advertising side.