Ustrategy

The Next Big Thing in TV and Video at NewTeeVee Live 09

This year, GigaOm’s NewTeeVee Live has explored TV Everywhere. In addition to general sessions, the conference featured 10 upcoming video startups—each providing a critical element of video and TV viewing puzzle. Five of these companies’ predictions for TV and Video are summarize below:

Elemental Technologies (Sam Blackman, CEO)

The company (elementaltechnologies.com), which is headquartered in Portland, raised 7.1M Series A funding in June 2008 and has burned $2M in 3 years with 27 employees. Customers include the CDC—the number one consumer of video, as well as Adobe and Microsoft.

Blackman’s prediction:

• Unlike other forms of media, the internet will not destroy the Pay TV business models.
• Consumers will want a high quality, seamless, video experience across multiple platforms: mobile, laptop, TV.
• People are going to be willing to pay for it to achieve the ease of use across platform that will pay for the infrastructure

FreeWheel (Doug Knopper, Co-Founder and Co-CEO)

FreeWheel helps publishers manage content regardless of where it is today or device. At NewTeeVee Live, FreeWheel announced a partnership with Warner Bros. for delivering online videos across the web.

Knopper’s prediction:

• In the $200 battle for online video—the consumer is the winner.
• Winner in this world will be 1) companies that create content and services that are new and compelling and that consumers are willing to pay for it and 2) Companies that create new value chains.
• Everyone is going to get their content in some fashion over the internet.
• TV everywhere is going to be come content anywhere.

Boxee (Avner Ronen, CEO and Co-Founder)

Boxee is announcing the release of its Beta next week in NYC, featuring a whole new user interface, social components, and the physical product—the BOX.

Ronen’s predictions are that by 2015:

• The biggest internet show is going to be bigger than the biggest TV show in terms of overall business
• More Apple subscribers for video content than Comcast subscribers
• People will watch more videos and will pay more money for them

Inlet Technologies (Matt Smith, Senior Director, Systems Architecture)

Inlet Technologies is focused on “giving users what they want.” It’s motto is: More=Better. More feeds, more camera angles, more choice, more opportunities. On Thursday, Inlet Technologies announced it has signed a deal Universal Sports to power and create a unique web experience that will replace repurposing TV and enhance the viewer’s experience.

Smith’s predictions:

• 2010 will be the year of More
• Quality will count even more
• The user will become the programmer
• Platform-specific programming will take over repurposing TV content

Canesta (James Spare, President and CEO)

Canesta provides 3D natural interfaces and gestures, powered by a single 3D sensor chip and integrated into TV experience, comparing its disruption to the way touchscreen technology changed the mobile experience.

Spare’s prediction is that the possibilities brought about by 3D gestures, interfaces, and interaction will change the way people consume content.

This post was originally written for, and published by, Ubergizmo.com—the largest privately held gadget blog in the US—now distributed in 6 languages and read in 212 countries.

Social Media Metrics and Measurements

A few days ago I got to experience the greatness that is Katie Delahaye Paine in an intimate session hosted by the Society for New Communication Research (SNCR- pronounced “snicker”).

To me, Paine managed to do what so many PR professionals profess to do (and yet don’t) – demonstrate the ROI on Social Media and especially on Social Media at the intersection of PR. Appropriately so, Paine was crowned Queen of Measurements that night.

Here are some interesting research findings shared during the session:

• 48% of Marketing and PR moving money out of advertising into social media. Only 18% moving money out of PR. It is the first time more money moving out of advertising than out of PR.
• Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate positive ROI.
• Only 14% of consumers trust advertisement; 78% trust peer recommendations.
• 38% of SNCR survey participating companies aren’t monitoring their brand, product, or reputation on social media—let alone measuring it.
• Facebook users translated the site to Spanish via Wiki in less than 4 weeks. The cost to Facebook? $0.
• 33% of content shared on Social Media comes from traditional media. The rest is user-generated.
• The Human Society generated $650K in new donations from an online photo contest on twitter.
• The Red Cross has been utilizing twitter updates during disaster and demonstrating increased and quantified efficiently

Key takeaways include the following:

1. Make sure you measure those goals that you are going to use. Don’t waste time on measuring things that don’t matter.
2. Thankfully, no one speaks in eyeballs anymore—we’ve finally moved to engagement.
3. It’s not about how many people you reach—it’s how they respond that matters most!
4. Unless you’re trying to coordinate multiple teams’ activities on one Social Media monitoring platform, you don’t need sophisticated monitoring tools. Google’s RSS, Twazzup (and one of my favorites: Social Mention), and a slew of other tools are sufficient. What matters is not tracking but the analysis…and this is something only humans can do in a timely and efficient matter.
5. “The Truman show will be more reality than fiction.”

The session was videotaped and streaming on Justin.tv by Rich Reader of WOMbuzz. Check out the archived video clips here.

And, the full Master Class presentation with lots of valuable data and insights is available for viewing and download below.

Sncr Smm Master Class 11 09

View more presentations from kdpaine.

Live from NewTeeVee Live

Today I’ll be covering NewTeeVee live. Last year, Jason Kilar said users liked having to choose the commercial they want to watch during viewing, Blake Krikorian, CEO of Sling Media, spoke of infrastructure, and 15-year old Lucas Cruikshank talked of how he makes money with his day-in-a-life YouTube videos.

You can follow the live coverage by following my Twitter updates and read my blog posts throughout the day on www.ubergizmo.com.

Women and Social Media - 5 Factors in the Increased Adoption of Social Media by Women

As research about social media adoption and use patterns continues to flourish, so is the evidence that social media is a women-centric vehicle. A recent Compass study by BlogHer reveals that of the 79 million women online, 42 million (~53%) use social networks; Facebook reported earlier in the year that their fastest growing population is that of 35-65 year old women; and BusinessWeek reports that while both young men and women in their twenties are equally represented as members of social networks, young women are much more active on these sites than young men.

There are many reasons for this trend but at its core is the fact that social media is less about technology and more about being social. Unlike pre-web2.0 gadgets, operational software, or convoluted front-end algorithmic solutions that have been traditionally adopted by men first, social media is propelled and adopted by women.  There are five key factors influencing this trend:

1. Social media is gender agnostic. It is a channel open to all, at the same cost, no special club membership or lineage required. In fact, many of the traditional requirements such as formal education, location, full-time availability are obsolete in a social media world.

2. Social media is about expression. It is a platform for communication, for self-disclosure, for sharing--things women do naturally but have had to learn to keep under control in board rooms and team meetings. 

3. Social media is about people. It is a channel designed for those people who understand what others want, who can express themselves eloquently (and, increasingly, very concisely), and who can connect with others through words or actions. Most women are born with these capabilities: they tend to be better at relationships, they are more attentive and compassionate, and are happy to share with others while having no desire for immediate return other than recognition.

4. Social media powers instant communication. Live feed, comments, cross links--all enable immediate communication and feedback--which are key values for women. We thrive on communication: we want to know what others think, what works and doesn't work, how we can improve--it is part of our own self-awareness and growth.

5. Social media is as much about the process as it is about the results. It requires time, strategy, careful construction, fine-tuning, conversing with others, helping—all those things many women enjoy and are good at.

While there may be other factors that make social media a women’s channel and gives women advantage both as consumers and as job seekers, these five are key because they speak to the alignment between the nature of the channel/tool and the human nature of its users. And, as in any discipline, with alignment comes momentum, speed, growth, and, ultimately--success.

NYT: Women in Business are more stressed and Less Happy

Maureen Dowd reports this week in the New York Times about the state of women's happiness. In a great piece, she brings forth highlights from current research that confirm what we already know: women today, in general, are more stressed than before while men are slowly becoming happier. Various factors play a role in the shift of balance--a key one is that while women take on more responsibilities than ever before, striving for high academic and career accomplishments (and why shouldn't they?) we are still putting the same level of stress and expectations on ourselves across all other dimensions too: relationships with friends, marriage, self awareness, family.  

To my mind, the real secret of women's success is our ability to be present across these dimensions in a state of peace and contentment. From the old testament to the Greek mythology and modern thinking: women have the power to hold and contain the day while men tend to focus on specific tasks at hand. This, is exactly what makes us so unique and yet it is also the greatest challenge for women.

Thank you goes to Arden Pennell for forwarding the article.

Live Coverage of DEMO09 in San Diego

I am at DEMOfall in San Diego today. Tune in to live coverage on ubergizmo.com; live video streaming is on the DEMO09 Website.

Whole Foods: Why The Recent Profit Increase Means More Trouble Than Good

The Wall Street Journal reports that Whole Foods, the upscale health-focused grocery store, often nicknamed “Whole Paycheck” reported Tuesday it has posted 3.1% increase in quarterly profit after three consecutive quarter of decliningtypepa sales at stores open at least a year.

The WSJ reports WF CEO, John Mackey, achieved this growth by instituting cost cutting initiative. Mackey is also said to be implementing a health initiative to help employees lose weight, reduce cholesterol, and live better. 

I love Whole Foods. I really do. I especially used to appreciate it’s no-nonsense, customer-focused approach in previous years. But a recession will force anyone to fallback mode and it seems that Whole Foods is no exception.

First, let’s tackle a few basic numbers. While WF reported a 3.1% increase in quarterly profit, the average quarterly profit for the industry is 9.2%.

Second, Whole Foods’ cost-cutting didn’t just apply to internal efficiencies and improved operations—it visibly transferred across to customers. Examples include lower grade (and lower price) ingredients in Whole Foods’ readymade baked goods and reduced variety in the the prepared foods section.

Third, while Whole Foods recently lowered some product prices, it is still enjoying an average industry profit margin on organic products of 100% (and higher in some cases).

Fourth, Whole Foods’ measures most obviously impacted employee morale and performance. Long gone are the cheerful loudspeaker calls for employee training sessions, announcement of special tastings at the food section, and overall customer service has declined.

That the industry as a whole experienced a sharp decline as a result of the economic downturn earlier this year is undeniable. But Whole Foods, I would argue, has acted too late and has been focusing on tactical measures instead of on a strategy, compromising its once stellar customer experience, and tainting its once solid gold brand.

Instead of focusing on spinning the story around a new employee health-fix initiative and cost cutting, Whole Foods should focus on the following:

1. Acknowledge it is time to change its focus and meet customer needs in light of the new economy.
2. Overhaul its brand messaging and communication strategy to focus on value to the customer. A focus on meal’s cost is so Chef Boyardee—Whole Food should instead communicate it commitment to continuing to serve organic products at the highest quality at best prices it can achieve to its customers. At times like this it’s about partnership with customers—not about devaluing their lives.
3. Experiment with daily specials such as lower priced prepared foods and sell volume. Let customers know ahead of time through community building efforts of these specials to encourage return to stores.
4. Increasing inventory management efficiencies and cost of product is good—but it would be even better if Whole Foods could base it on customer preferences rather than on internal price calculation.

By focusing on the customer, evolving the Whole Foods brand while maintaining its core strength, Whole Foods can once again be a leader in providing healthy, organic, quality groceries to health conscious customers wherever they are.

Why The New Twitter Landing Page is Like a Golden Faucet

Twitter has introduced a newly designed landing page last week.  First, let us congratulate Twitter who managed, in the midst of a chaotic growth, to redesign such a good looking landing page.

Many of us have become so used to the circa 1980’s default design that only now, when we get to see the new, smooth, web2.0-inspired design we realize how horrible it was.

The problem is that the new landing page will probably yield little, if any, statistically significant improvement for the company. Here’s why:

1. Most twitter users utilize a third party application like Tweetdeck or Seesmic—so they never get to see the new landing page unless they’re forced to use the browser (such as on a computer that isn’t theirs). For these users, the new landing page is useless.
2. Even for those users who enter Twitter through the browser (for whatever silly reason), once they check off the “Remember Me” option—they too will never see the landing page again and instead be directed to their profile. For these users, while the landing page may be pretty at first glance, it is mostly useless thereafter.
3. Twitter Search—which is one of the most strategically important asset of the company, still looks like an absolute nothing. Yes—it may be google-esque—but it expresses very little of Twitter’s capabilities beyond a few hashtags and trends. In fact, the new landing page (the one we’ll never see again once logged in) has more of that magic sauce than the Search page offering a richer view of trending topics by the week, day, and moment.  So here too, the new landing page won’t stick in memory for long.
4. And finally—users’ home page—where we spend most of our time if we are using the browser, is the second place where Twitter should express its robustness and encourage users to interact with the system and yet this page is still focused on the live stream and very little on anything else, let alone on enhanced visual or additional functionality. And the landing page? Useless again.

In short, the new Twitter landing page is nicely designed but mostly useless. Like a golden faucet, it draws attention the first time you see it but then, all you care about is the water coming out of it.

So why has Twitter chosen to invest in it? Well, one could argue that Twitter has either chosen a poor strategy or an extremely conservative one. I would put my bets on the latter.

With the many failwhale capacity issues, search issues, and other mini-crashes, Twitter has all hands holding a very thin fabric. So while it knows it needs to update its design and the expressed functionality of Twitter, my guess is that the company has chosen to do so without putting additional burden on an already tearing thread.

But I’m sticking with the simple tap of a Twitter a while longer because if they get it right--when they get it right—what can rise is a powerful, thriving, never seen before engine that flexibly adjusts to whatever users’ interests are in the moment. Instead of passively recording trending topics, Twitter will be able to recommend to users adjacent topics to look into, provide them with relevant content, suggest people to follow, send alerts about new uploaded content, and, with all the user data it has, will be able to take it much farther than any engine has to date.

Always On Summit at Stanford: Live Blogging and Twitter Updates

I’m at the Always On & STVP Summit at Stanford today. Live reports are on ubergizmo.com and via my twitter account. You can also watch the live streaming video of the event too.

Enterprise B2B Social Media: To Twitter or Not To Twitter?

Invariably, in the last 6 months, each and every one of my clients, has asked me this question: “should we get on Twitter?”  It doesn’t matter if they are a 1-person copy-writing shop, a 26 people marketing firm, or a 200,000 computer manufacturer corporation—everyone wants to know whether they should be on Twitter.

But most pressing have been enterprises providing B2B solutions. I find it fascinating that a company providing data storage to large corporations wants to get on Twitter. Or that a large public sector division (and I’m deliberately vague here) who’s providing solutions to other divisions would consider Twitter.

When it comes to B2B Enterprise solutions, here are 5 things you should think about.

1. Twitter is not a strategy. It is a tool that is used to deliver on your outreach and inbound information gathering strategies. Before you even consider getting on Twitter, ask yourself these questions:

• One: Do you know what you want to accomplish by getting on Twitter? Have you set clear goals with measurable outcomes?
• Two: Do you know where those you’d like to reach out to are spending time online? Are they on Twitter or do they go someplace else, like forums and wikis?
• Three: Have you considered what information you can and cannot share online?  Do you have a policy around publically sharing information?

If you’re still not clear on these, or think you will through your use of Twitter, think again. Twitter is not for you.

2. Twitter is a conversation tool. Will you be able to have a dialog? Have you thought about what you will do when people start asking you questions? Who will answer them? What is the tone of conversation that is right for your company? What will you be allowed to talk about? What will you NOT be allowed to talk about? All these need to be clearly defined ahead of time or you’ll quickly gain a bad reputation.

Bottom line: if you’re not ready to converse with anyone who wants to converse with your brand, Twitter is probably not for you.

3. Twitter takes time and resources. Once you’ll get on twitter you’ll need to think of the following resources to start:

• Someone who’ll design your branded background
• Someone who’ll scan for relevant people you should follow
• Someone who’ll respond to followers’ questions and comments
• Someone who’ll inform your division/group/company of all activities and together, you’ll devise a plan on how to move forward
• Internal people with whom you’ll be able to discuss negative feedback and use it to get better

You’ll also need to think of these critical elements:

• Regularly adding content. Valuable content. Important content. Content that your followers care about and that propels your brand forward. This doesn’t mean spam
• Regularly monitoring your brand mentions online. You want followers? You’ll get followers. But with them you’re likely to get a great deal of mentions—and you’ll need to monitor, listen, and respond
• Getting everyone else in the company to listen to what your community on Twitter is saying and evolve the company message accordingly

There’s nothing worse than a dormant Twitter account. Or one that cannot answer questions. Or one that gets killed by the executive level just as it gets interesting. If you can’t commit to the right resources, content, and buy-in, Twitter is definitely not for you.

4. Twitter is not about you controlling your customers. It’s about letting go of all notion of control and being willing to observe what unfolds before you take action. Very often I get asked about controlling negative feedback. You can’t, is what I tell my clients, and you don’t want to either. What you DO want is to engage in an honest, authentic, conversation with your customers, partners, and other stakeholders and get real reaction to your products/services and to you as a brand. That’s the only way you’ll get better.

Your customers are talking about you online whether you like it or not. Isn’t it better to have them talk directly to you rather than everywhere else?

But, if you still feel you need to control Twitter- Twitter, is, most definitely, not for you.

5. Twitter will not replace your marketing activities. It’s true that recent research from Forrester demonstrates increase in budget directed towards social media activities compare to traditional marketing—but it is still miniscule in the large scheme of things. With time, an over-arching social media strategy may substitute some elements of your marketing campaigns—assuming your customers do spend time online—but it is not a solution to all your marketing cost reduction needs. It is merely a way to reach customers where they spend time now…online. If you expect Twitter to solve all your marketing budget and reach problems, take your hands off the Twitter—it’s simply not for you.

Fun aside, while it is not a strategy but a tool, Twitter represents both great potential and a moderate risk. Before you do anything, assess your company objectives, audit your existing marketing strategy, evaluate your customers and their customers—where do they spend time now online? Do they even go on Twitter? You have many other options to reach out to your stakeholders online…each involving time, money, commitment, and some level of organizational change. So do your homework, prioritize, choose wisely, ask the right questions, bring in the right people, measure, measure, measure…and only then start the conversation.

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