This is part one in a series of four articles about content, conversation, context and control. Put that on a yellow sticker and cross check your ideas towards these four words when you design your next big hit for this new communication channel. First out:
Content
Yes, we still need content. And you should make it available. When people want all their music on a small player in their pocket you should give them that. The music industry is in a big mess partly because they did not understand the concept of availability.
They wanted to keep pushing plastic when people wanted hard drives and availability. Mr. Jobs came to the rescue. Maybe too late.
So you have made your content available. Then you should think about the long tail. The concept of how behaviour change when the amount of choice gets closer to infinite. 57 million blogs. 100 million MySpace users. Millions of videos on YouTube. Insane amounts of content.
On the internet you don’t have the benefits of being the only one with an expensive license to reach out. Or being the only one with a printing press and a huge system for distribution.
On the internet your million dollar content have about the same priority as that video about people having fun with Diet Coke and Mentos on YouTube.
So, you need to read the next three articles. About conversation, context and control. “Conversation” will be out tomorrow.
Friday bonus video. Bill Gates from CES 2005 on YouTube.
Okay, so everybody and your grand mother still have no media center at home. Where are they? By now, all of us should own such a magic box. With music, images, movies, broadband and TV in a nice simple interface where everything is available at the touch of a button.
True media centers are still something for the people that are way above average when it comes to interests and knowledge about computers. I have already published my recipe for when gadgets break through. Let’s have a reality check on media centers:
Engineers – is it possible?
-Yes. There are nice boxes out there that offers fantastic capabilities of handling media.
Marketers – have you done your job?
– Partly yes. Microsoft have launched Media Center Edition and done quite a bit of marketing. However, I find most of the marketing pretty lousy. Too much focus on features. They should have focused on the story. What will happen in your home? And, the most important people of them all, the sales people in the shops have no clue. Absolutely no clue.
Economists – is it cheap enough?
– No. Not at all. We need a proper, noiseless, nice looking media center for under $500,- Right now a proper media center is at least $1000,-
Usability – is it easy to use?
Yes. And a huge NO! When it works it is easy to use. As long as it is running I can give the remote of our media center to whomever visiting our living room. No problem. They find music, videos, images, recorded shows, the electronic program guide, the broadband services and the TV channels. It is in fact much easier to use than a traditional setup with separate boxes for DVD, CD, TV and radio. When I have people visiting and they have a look at the media center in our living room just about everyone instantly asks for price and availability.
Trouble is that there are still two major problems with media centers (in addition to price):
1. Setting it up
2. Keeping it running
A couple of weeks ago I attended a conference where we put up a digital living room to show people some of the possibilities. We had the most modern and state of the art components you could imagine. A new media center, an HD capable LCD screen and a multi channel amplifier with 6 speakers.
Getting image and sound from the media center was pretty easy. Setting up the TV channels and program guide was as usual a pain. But, getting the image completely right with 1:1 pixel mapping and the audio in six channels was nearly impossible. With my degree in engineering, huge amounts of experience with media centers and several very clever people around me we did not manage to get proper multichannel sound and a perfect HD image out of the media center.
No offense when it comes to your grand mother, but she’ll have to wait a second before this is possible to use for normal people.
I know that a media center is more complex than a regular DVD player, but the vendors need to work on this. Media centers will not be something for the masses before you can buy it (for under $500,-), take it home and connect audio to your amplifier and video to your screen, turn it on, do some simple setup stuff and then use it happily ever after.
And eventually that will happen. “I want one of these, where can I get it?” is the mantra at home when I show people our digital home. No doubt about it, people want the functionality. When you get used to it it is very difficult to imagine a living room full of several different boxes, different remotes and shelves full of plastic containing digital media. Digital media deserves to live a life on hard drives and in the network.
…and by the way, you find more about Bill Gates and stuff going wrong during presentations over at “Nobody’s perect (redux)” on Presentation Zen.
Google is currently updating some satellite images for Norway. Problem is that these new images are taken during winter. And the difference between winter and summer in Norway is huge.
I don’t know what they’ll settle for, but a random combination of images from winter and summer makes both Google Earth and Google Maps look quite interesting.
Do you want a nice video player with the latest news on your web site? Then Reuters is your friend. If you register and let them approve your site you will be allowed to paste their complete and always updated video player right into your blog. Just like you would paste any video from YouTube on your page.
I guess they want a bit of control of the sites that use their player. That’s why you will have to register and have your site approved before you are allowed to insert their player.
Interesting approach. I guess they understand that they have to publish their news the way people want it. If people have blogs and people want the news on their blogs, then let them have it.
Now I have to find a way to add this player to my current Netvibes start page. That’s where I really want it. Who knows, maybe there’s a Reuters News Player Widget out there already?
Update:
I forgot to mention that the player is available for US and UK sites only. Hmmm. What is eirikso.com? It is hosted in the US, the language is English, but the author is Norwegian…
I haven’t had the time to go into this in detail, but was so impressed by my first little test that I just had to share it at once. Visit Vividas.com and click the Spider-man graphic to the right on the page. You might have to accept a small plugin to install on your computer and wait a couple of seconds.
When everything is up and running you’ll see full screen streaming video with a quality that is pretty amazing!
It would be interesting to know if this works on Mac and Linux as well. At least it played fine on my old laptop with Win XP and Firefox 2.0
Today, VG – the biggest newspaper in Norway quotes me as one of Norway’s leading experts on new media. I take that as a compliment.
I am saying that traditional, linear broadcast channels have had their best years. That young people will not change their new media habits back to traditional media as they grow older and that Schibsted, a big Norwegian media owner that just sold their ownership in traditional broadcasting are pretty bold people.
I promised a quick update on this when I had done my presentation for the Consumer Electronics Trade Foundation in Norway.
Back in August I posted an article on the fact that the Norwegian electronics retailer Lefdal sold iPod Nanos with a hard drive. I wrote the article mainly to show an example of the fact that more and more often there will be discussions about you, your product or your company out there on the net.
This was a short discussion about a typo in an ad. And people linked to it. Right now it’s the number one hit on a search for “kjøpe ipod nano” (buy an ipod nano). Number one of about 270 000 hits.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to join the dinner and the party together with the trade foundation after my presentation. Usually the most sincere and direct feedback is the one given during the evening. However, I got quite a bit of requests for other presentations from people in the audience, so I guess the presentation worked pretty well.
I used the example, and of course I needed to give the people from Lefdal a suggestion of how to react.
I don’t think they have missed a single sale of iPods because of my article. In fact I don’t think they have missed anything at all because of this little rant about a typo. But, they could have gained some cred by simply leaving a quick comment. Something like:
“LOL. Yes, this typo is slightly embarrasing. We make huge amounts of marketing material and do our best to make it accurate. It’s very nice that you appreciate accuracy and correct information. Of course we’ll fix this error for our next release.”
…or something like that. More than 500 people subscribe to this blog. Between 1000 and 2000 unique users stroll around in here every day. About 25% of them Norwegians. Not exactly millions of people, but a pretty valuable target group. I haven’t done any serious research, but I don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that my readers are above average interested in media, equipment and gadgets…
The mobile phone manufacturer Ericsson used this slogan for a couple of years. The main point of their devices was that you should make yourself heard.
Nokia, their worst competitor told us then, and are still telling us: “Connecting people“. Their devices are used to connect people.
I think this difference is similar to how main stream media utilize the internet. They want to make themselves heard. But the whole Web 2.0 thing is about connecting people. Making communities. And, very important: connecting the author and the audience.
It’s not the death of professional publishing, but they have to learn to listen. And like Ericsson have done, get rid of the idea of just making yourself heard.
First, if you don’t use gmail you should really consider starting. It’s the best web based mail this planet has seen so far. On my computer at home I don’t use anything else. I didn’t even bother to install Outlook or anything similar the last time I cleaned up the box.
If you need an invite send me an email to eirikso at gmail dot com. The 50 first will get one. Or, simply google “gmail invite”…
So, you’re using gmail and you have a Symbian phone. Like the Nokia N80 or N73 one of the 300 supported java enabeled phones. And you want a nice interface for your gmail account. Then simply point the browser in your phone to “gmail.com/app” and install.
A very nice application to read your gmail on the phone. Only one (big) disappointment so far: you can’t attach anything when you send mails from this client. This is something that Google needs to fix!
A quick note: the phone in the picture is a Nokia N80. The picture itself is taken with my Nokia N73. Click the image to see the high resolution version.
Recently I was interviewed for a radio program on NRK called Kurer. It’s as simple as a radio show about radio. Yes. Radio history, culture, technology and future. But also a program about media and for this show about the future of media in general.
It’s in Norwegian, so 75% of my readers will have difficulties understanding the content. Sorry about that. However, for my regular readers there won’t be anything really new in there. If you read this blog you’re already an expert on the future of media… 🙂
The show will be aired through dinosaur radio (DAB and FM) on NRK P2 on saturday (November 4.) at 12:03 with a rerun on monday (November 6.) at 13:03. For the readers of this blog I think the following information is more interesting:
Listen to it live at the mentioned times in the NRK radio player or find the program on the web as soon as it is published. You can also subscribe to the Kurer podcast. For those of you running iTunes you can subscribe easily using this link.
I haven’t heard the show myself but we had an interesting chat and I hope it will give the listeners an impression of the interesting times we’re in right now.
Update:
The show is now available for playback or download here.
eirikso 