ima2006

More Thoughts on Community Building

As we look to developing or adapting social networking content for our individual or collective websites, I think it's important we find products that reflect public broadcasting's, well, more mature demographic.  There's always a tendency to say, "This might be a way to attract younger listeners [or viewers]."  A statement like this could be true... the young folk are certainly comfortable posting their lives online.  But, my parents aren't.  Even my friends (who are NPR fans and reasonably technologically up-to-date) are a mixed blog when it comes to blogging and posting boards. 

If the idea behind pub-casting friendly social networking is to build stronger bonds, the more people participating, the higher the value of the service.  So, we need to make it fun and easy.  I say this because, in prep of the conference, I signed up for Gather and I'm still a bit befuddled.  They've made it easy to create accounts and invite friends, but how do you find someone to talk to?   It's like going to a party where everyone is in different rooms behind closed doors.  Which door do I knock on, and what do I say?  What if the folks I pick aren't expecting company?  On the other hand, the World Crossing boards I post on are like a big open conversation.  You can eavesdrop without worry and it's fun to make new friends.

There are most likely fans of public broadcasting all over this country eager to talk about their favorite programs with like-minded souls (I would have killed for a decent conversation about Foyle's War earlier this year - "World War II as depicted Allo, Allo, Foyle's War and Dad's Army.  Discuss.").  And the more people feel a part of something larger, the more loyal they feel about the product.  But, let's have clear direction, add features gradually, and think fun over fancy.

Ann VerWiebe

 

PBS.org visitors

From Kristin Calhoun, Director, Projects & Operations, PBS:  "During the last session [at the conference], a question came up about unique visitors/month to national sites.  Maria [Thomas from NPR] was able to give her # but I couldn’t remember our new Visual Sciences stat.  I had Joel run the numbers when we got back, since I’m not a member of iMa I can’t post to your bulletin boards but if you think folks would be interested to know..  please share:  Being tracked by Visual Sciences software, for the month of January, 2006 pbs.org received 7.7 million unique visitors."  --Dennis Haarsager

The Need for Community

Since I wasn't able to attend in Seattle in person, I spent a lot of time listening to the the live steaming feeds and reading the blogs.  And, not just the official blogs.  I gained a lot of perspective from Rafat Ali's posts on paidcontent.org - especially the blog he wrote about social networking.  His main comment was that community areas have to be built for the community and not what we hope to mine from them.  This concept is important to hold in our minds as many of us search for a magic bullet to build stronger connects between listeners and stations. 

Here is an example.  Back when the Table Talk area of Salon.com was free, there was a very popular This American Life posting board.  People across the country were drawn together through their fondness for the program and eventually became a social group with similar interests.  The board had lots of posts every day, keeping it very high (and thus above the fold in prime territory) on the topic list.  One day, the original list was taken down and two new lists were put up in its place - one for talking about the show and one for chit chat.  Regular posters were not happy (several disappeared altogether) and the new lists never really took off the same way.

The conflict came in the personal discussion that could sometimes derail talk of the show.  But, the side talk generated posts that kept the list visible and drew more posters.  And, the posters listened to the show each week so they could add comments to the conversation.  Separating the lists did not build the number of posters on either list and post volume slipped (essentially killed after Ira chastised the board for making comments about a show that a story subject found hurtful). 

Anyway - organic growth in an online community is a beautiful thing, but it is difficult to be truly all inclusive and volume and quality (as with all things) rarely go hand in hand.  So, we can build it for them to come, but we have to be prepared for the process to produce unexpected results and for our listeners to use our carefully set up roads to take journeys we didn't have in mind at all.

Ann VerWiebe

Speed (or lack of it)

Three days back and I've had a dozen good conversations with participants, organizers and speakers.

I think there's a buzz--people were energized by the discussions, excited by the topics.

Then there's the reality of the situation.  Here are just two quick thoughts (prepare yourself for less than uplifting stuff).

¨       Distribution Rights.  That is a mountain.  It will take a concerted effort by many parties over which we have little control.  Even if you approach this optimistically, how long will this take?  On the positive side, Paul Gerhardt laid out a road map that could provide a comprehensive model.

¨       Best practice: Well, of course we need to start with metrics, and that’s in process. On the other hand, just getting the metrics system in place took almost a year, and it won't be extended to most stations for at least six months.  Can we afford to move at that pace:  Eighteen months just to start measuring?   If not, what are the realistic alternatives?

We're in a campaign. We need to secure our base--keep the people who really adore public broadcasting (especially public radio).  We need a platform--what are trying to do and why?  We probably need to form a coaliltion of like-minded parties.

However you cut this, we need to move more quickly and with greater resolve.   We may even need—can I say this?—to spend less time discussing everything.

As we developed WXPN, I remember meeting with the staff one afternoon and saying: from this point on, we want to get votes from listeners.  They vote by tuning in, and we'll do what it takes to get those votes, even if they trickle in a few each day. It took about four or five years to get real traction. 

Am I just being foolish to think we think that we need something similar, some kind of campaign with the same kind of determination--and a lot more speed?

--Mark Fuerst

12 REALIZATIONS FOR PUBLIC MEDIA (after IMA 2006)

We have already lost the ability to define or control what is public service media. From now on it will be what other producers, other networks and the public decide it is -- as well as us. However, we can retain the high ground and build on it by maintaining our values and standards while adapting to new distribution technologies.

The growth of new satellite and online competitors means that all incumbent public media will be left to trade on is its mission, its commitment to truth and quality, its program brands, the goodwill it has earned in the last 40 years, and critically -- the level of competitive service it provides to users. An aggregated, cooperative, federated digital service is the only way to remain competitive, and the only effective way to enable the new business models that will secure the system for the 21st century.

It all comes down to building practical online services. Once launched, they must be upgraded and improved quickly and responsively, in short development-to-launch cycles. OMN.org was built in just over a year by about 15 people: a small group in California and a team of programmers in Ukraine. They roll out an update every 3 months. By intelligently leveraging existing software and standards they've built an amazingly powerful media delivery and business engine at a level of efficiency we can only dream about. [Note: the value of the license for the underlying Kontiki P2P delivery technology was contributed by Mike Homer, who also funded the development of OMN.]

The user value proposition contained in the service is the key to success. An overwhelming user value proposition is the key to building traffic, service, revenue and everything else we seek to accomplish. You know you've got it right when it takes off exponentially.

The full blossoming of PublicMedia.org (or, just PM.org: AM, FM -- PM) should leverage all assets of the Public Media community, including all incumbents and contributors. Not only stations and web sites, air talent and producers, but writers, artists, interview subjects, labels and publishers, PLUS associated non-profit organizations, educators and cultural institutions AND the entire audience -- everyone that shares the values platform that PublicMedia.org represents.

We need to fully embrace "network effects" while maintaining standards. This means opening up the Public Media platform to user and community input, but not compromising the editorial, educational and human values that are the benchmark of professionally produced public media.

Drawing the line between free and paid services is an art. We have to experiment to find the sweet spot. This is the best way to resolve the "theological" arguments around free, universal public service. Absent the massive tax support that has allowed the BBC to establish the standard for this, we have to do it differently. Essentially, we have no choice but to charge intelligently for expanded levels of service. This strategy has the potential to establish a solid foundation for system revenue for the 21st century and allow us to move beyond the just-better-than-minimum level of today and the political uncertainties that come along with government funding.

PublicMedia.org rationalizes the issue of syndication across multiple platforms, by providing high quality public service content to other distributors, aggregators and platforms in an appropriately staged and branded manner. Mike Homer of OMN says that as a strategic business matter he sees no reason why Public Media should have to surrender a big chunk of the revenue it generates from end users and underwriters to other service providers; it can, and should, operate its own platform, and get paid for its content when carried by other services.

The digital media distribution platforms of the future will be built largely on automated royalty payment and revenue-sharing systems. Creating the business infrastructure to support this and fairly allocating the revenue among rights holders, producers, stations, web affiliates and other stakeholders will take a great deal of diplomatic energy and an unprecedented spirit of collaboration. To deserve the moral high ground, we need to take the lead in fair compensation of rights holders by willingly, accurately and automatically paying performance royalties, license fees and commissions for digital transmissions and downloads from which we earn revenue. We should make this an explicit part of our mission statement.

The "atomized" digital media ecology will be characterized by passionate support for strong and unambiguous value identities. For the news operation this means objectivity, balance and rigorous journalism. For everyone else it means taking an unapologetic stand for the content and the values they really believe in. There is no FCC online to enforce statutory restrictions. We are the arbiters of our own values and behavior.

We have to become more efficient in producing and propagating media, both in long form and in convenient, unbundled "micro-chunks." There will be a lot more of it, and it will have much greater value in aggregate.

If we don't create a Public Media platform, producers will be forced to migrate their content to other platforms and services. Since the value of all media will be dropping in the wake of a supply side explosion, they won't be able to afford not to. But even when they do the PublicMedia service will still have unique value, and the possibility of becoming a distribution agent and meta-brand with whom producers will be proud to be associated.

In the end we just have to do it. There are difficult questions of identity and organization, but the stakes are too high not to try to overcome them.

:: Stephen Hill 28 Feb 2006

[rev. 20 Mar 2006. This was originally 13, but one of my colleagues thought we had enough problems without tempting superstition.]

Gens Johnson's Thursday notes

Notes for the Thursday, 2/23, sessions from Gens Johnson, who works for me as director of media integration:

What I learned today.

Biggest idea:
In this new world: Browse/discover is being replaced by search/find.  This means that we are likely to loose the serendipity of useful, but unplanned, encounters with news or content of value.  (such as what happens as you thumb through a newspaper or magazine, dictionary or encyclopedia, browse the shelves of a library or bookstore, or channel surf).  Therefore I conclude:  1. search options and a database and metadata that enables such are even more important.  And 2. there might be a special role for public broadcasting in preserving a browse/discover space.

Other big ideas:
"Motion media" includes both video and games.

What is legitimate news? see newsmind

Ubiquitous media e.g. video in an elevator, one piece timed for a trip to the 4th floor, another timed for a trip to the 8th, or video displayed above the urinal, or video transmitted within the grocery store on the same wi-fi used for inventory systems, or Starbucks as an IP video "broadcaster" at every Starbucks coffee shop.

Reassuring idea:
New technology (particularly IP TV) is more empowerment than a threat to public broadcasting.  It is definitely a threat to commercial broadcasting, turning the advertiser supported model out.  But public broadcasting is in a great position, already relying on subscription (aka pledge) for support, and already being trusted as a curator of quality content. 

Biggest unresolved headache: copyright

--Dennis Haarsager

Others blogging 2006 PBNMC

There's so much going on at the conference, both in formal sessions and in the hallways, that I'm struggling to keep up with blogging the event.  Apparently, the others assigned to this blog are having the same experience.  Please also check out what the two pro bloggers who are here are posting about the conference.  At Rafat Ali's paidContent.org, look for posts labeled "@ Public Broad-Conf."  Terry Heaton is posting from the conference at the Pomo Blog. 

Update, 2/24:  Rafat Ali also has at least one post about mobile content and public broadcasting at Moco.News.  --Dennis Haarsager

Terry Heaton: The Remarkable Opportunities of Unbundled Media

Terry Heaton's Pomo (for post-modern) Blog is one of about 225 RSS subscriptions that I read (or, more accurately, scan) weekly, but it's one of about four that I can think of that I read first -- out of alphabetical order -- because it's just essential reading IMHO.  So I was excited to learn he'd accepted the invitation of the organizers of this conference to speak.  As a matter of fact, two of the others I read first are here speaking also -- Diane Mermigas (who doesn't blog to my knowledge, but I have a Google RSS subscription for her name) and Rafat Ali of paidContent.org).  All three have provided plenty of fodder for my own weblog.

He got classified in a news-related track (he is a consultant to television news organizations after all) that unfortunately pitted his talk -- The Remarkable Opportunities of Unbundled Media -- against two others with similar appeal so the audience was smaller than it should have been.  Pity, because it was imporant to hear, particularly for CEO/COO types.  The link is for an essay of the same name posted at this talk.  If you didn't attend today, you really should read the essay, which I linked to here back in November.  He has others on the topic also that you can find on his weblog (see first ¶) on the left side of the page.

Terry's advice to broadcasters who find themselves entangled in a "mainstream media meltdown" is to unbundle their programming.  He quoted former FCC chairman Michael Powell as saying, "Application separation is the most important paradigm sihft in the history of communications, and it will change things forever."  By "application separation," he meant the ability to separate an application from the infrastructure required to deliver that application.  In the case of media, that's what he defines as unbundling.

I won't repeat the things you can read in his well-written essays, but I will quote the following, all from one slide:

1. In the beginning was the tower.  We sat.  We watched.  We bought.
2. Then came the web.  We browsed.  We bought. (Think web portals.)
3. One day, the great god Google appeared.  We searched.  We found.  We bought. (Coming in through the home page became the old model.  Coming in sideways became the new method of arrival for most users.)
4. Then came the great demon, RSS.  We subscribed.  It came to us.  We bought.
5. And now a new entity emerges, combining the great god and the demon -- search feeds.  We describe.  It comes to us.  We buy.
6. The tower, it seems, is upside down.

Lots more, but that's it for tonight.  Subscribe to his blog and, in particular, read the thoughtful essays.  --Dennis Haarsager

Avoid the "ings". Go for the "ships."

The Panel on "Following the money" provided one of the best reviews of our revenue landscape (public broadcasting online) I have seen at any time.  It featured three straight shooters: Colby Atwood from Borrell Associates, Barry Parr from Jupiter Research, and Rafat Ali, the principal of PaidContent.org.

Atwood is bullish on the local ad market.  Displaying the research gathered by Borrell Associates, Colby likes the picture he sees: money moving into new forms of direct marketing, much of which will occur online.  His chart of projected revenues over the next five years was the first one I have seen which shows some forms of online ad money declining, as dollars move from, say, display ads, to interactive applications that build data bases.

Parr had not quarrel with the broad movement of dollars from traditional media to online--but he feels that public broadcasters are poorly positioned to take good advantage of this trend.  Our traffic is too low and our organizational culture is wrong.  He took much of his mic time to urge that we build on the membership model.  Speaking directly to public radio types, Parr strongly recommended that stations and networks use online service--especially streaming--as a membership benefit.

Rafat Ali weighed in mostly in support of Parr.  He sees little upside in pursuing the "ings" like "advertising" and much more potential in "...ships," including memberships and sponsorships.   He also suggested the pubcasters were making a mistake by looking down our collective nose at commercial social networking sites.  The benefit of social networking, he explained, is in the eye of the user, not in the intention of the network site manager. 

Ali also suggested a proposition that all of us should take to heart: people like Gather.com (and others) are going to build on the social networks that are embedded in the audiences for public broadcasting.  In his view, there's nothing wrong with that.  It's going to happen.  The question is: who's going to own those properties and benefit from enabling those relationships.  If we (pubcasters) don't do it, someone else will.

Talk to you soon,

MF

Diane Mermigas: New rules of play

Diane Mermigas, contributing editor to the Hollywood Reporter (and, IMHO as a long-time reader, the most astute media reporter/analyst writing for the commercial media), is speaking.  Beginning with a riff on Socrates, she said, "This must be our time of wonder.  This is media's industrial revolution."  More notes follow.

New rules of play:

• The power of user-generated content cannot be underestimated.
• Understanding and catering to the empowered consumer
• It's all about interactivity.
• The internet has created new communities at one end and new individual opportunities at the other out in front of the marketplace before you get beaten by it.
• Experiment.
• Collaborate.  This an age about strategic alliances.
• Think outside the box (the TV set in our case).
• Know and redefine your brands.
• Be willing to blow up your old business model in order to invest in new ones.  Use short-term investments to refine.  It's OK to make money.
• The technology allows for and demands new click-through metrics.
• Reach out to your grassroots creators.
• Understand your strengths and then build on them.

Public broadcasting's to do list:

• Rethink your value proposition and business model
• Know who the new consumer is
• Make a timeline for short term and then long term goals using existing resources
• Reassess and reassign values for your content and services
• Know who your public broadcasting consumer is in this sea change
• Understand the new ways that new technologies allow for marketing and promotion
• Know and appreciate the value of your brands in this noisy world
• Revitalize relationships with underwriters/sponsors and anyone else who seeks a safe haven
• PBS: revitalize and redefine your relationship with your individual TV stations

By the most important measures, she says, public broadcasting is in a very enviable position.

Pointed to a book by Peter Morville called Ambient Findability: "The wealth of information we have today corresponds to a poverty of attention."  Consumers can't use what they can't find.  Malcolm Gladwell, "The Tipping Point."  The point at which the unexpected becomes the expected.  Dick Parsons (AOL) in his last quarterly call:  "Shame on us if we can't make this thing work."

--Dennis Haarsager