Thanks again to the folks over at The Big Lead for link to our last post. And for you TBL readers, The Baron would like to extend to you a hearty welcome. On to the media...
Does the movie industry want to die a slow death like their counterparts from the music biz? I don't get these film folks. They have failed to take advantage of so many new media opportunities because they're scared of some growing pains. And yes, these are the same people who fought the emergence of the VCR because they thought people would never go to the movies if they could watch at home.
When the iPod exploded, could the Hollywood guys not see that downloading movies was the next step? Shouldn't they be backing these technologies with some money to push the process?
As far as new media opportunities, it wouldn't cost the studios much to edit the clips for mobile, but they could also get a little creative and do work beyond just cutting the clips again. Put some extras out there as a way to entice consumers. We know you want to have extra features so that you can release the DVD 10 different times over a 3-year period, but you gotta give a little to get a little.
Film Industry Flails and Fails
Turn Back the Tech: The Year is 1900
Thanks to our friends over at The Big Lead for the plug in today's roundup!
Welcome to another installment of Turn Back the Tech, the series in which we look at old media or technologies with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight.
We go back to December 1, 1900 and look at predictions for the 20th Century. What's incredible about this document is how accurate some of these are.
Best prediction? Lots of good ones here -- air conditioning, airplane travel, instant access to news of events around the world. My favorite, though, has got to be the one that predicts the rise of pre-cooked meals. Love those frozen pizza rolls.
Worst prediction? No cars in large cities. Apparently, we were supposed to be using subways that were "well-lit" and "well-ventilated." Ever try waiting for the subway in the summer? Well-ventilated is not the way I would choose to describe it. Well-done is more like it.
Worse prediction II? Rats were supposed to be extinct. I only mention this because the last prediction was about the subway and those two things go together like ham and sandwich.
Most fun prediction that didn't come true? Pneumatic tubes (you know, the ones used for mail in old school offices) being used for home delivery of products. The Internet's got nothing on that.
Google Wants to Know Where It Hurts
If you don't yet know why Google is going to be bigger than Microsoft ever was, here is another example. Google announced that it is launching Google Health, which will allow users to have quick access to their medical records online. What Google is great at is figuring out where there are gaps in access to information and filling in those gaps. Looks at Google Analytics, which tracks web data for free, or Google Documents, which are accessible from anywhere.
Of course, the scary part of this is the privacy issue. In 5-10 years when Google has people using all aspects of its services, from e-mail to word documents and spreadsheets to health info to search capabilities and whatever else they think of next, the company will know everything about you. And don't think they won't sell a whole lot of that information as they position themselves to dominate the advertising world. In the health arena, at least, they are bound by certain privacy laws, which should help. I just worry about a stolen laptop or a hacker.
It's a tradeoff, but having access to your medical records anytime, anywhere will have incredible value for many people. In some sense, it's surprising that we don't already have some system like this in the U.S.
Anytime Anywhere May Go Nowhere Fast
By the way, it's a couple of days old, but there was a great story about Nielsen and whether their Anytime Anywhere measurement system will flop because of privacy concerns.
What You See When You Skip the Ads
A recent NBC study found that even those who fast-forward through ads retain some of the material because they're looking at the screen and focusing on when to hit play. The study noted that the most effective ads with the DVR folks were ones with the logo prominently displayed in the middle of the screen and few scene changes. No surprise there. The story also said advertisers have decided not to tailor their ads toward DVR users.
File this one away for 2011 or 2012. By then, most forecasts have the DVR in more than half of U.S. households. (Currently, about 20% of HH have DVRs.) If the TV landscape is the same at that point and ads are still being skipped without an effective counter-strategy, then advertisers will start designing ads this way. They will have no choice at that point since most of the affluent households will have DVR and this is obviously a very valuable demo to advertisers.
Alien Baby Found? Click Here
If Google is worried about click traffic dropping, the search giant may want to take a page from the web portals in China. After all, it seems that those portals have learned from The New York Post.
Due to intense competition among these sites in China, the portals have decided to promote controversy and watch users flock to their sites to find out what the real story is. If it sounds familiar, the Post has used this model since the Son of Sam days, and it works well. Many of these stories in China revolve around photo-doctoring. This causes the tech crowd to get involved and the portals then have blogs and testimony from experts to argue different sides of the issue. This is the viral media world. Users often don't even read to the end of a story before it's shared with their friends or posted on a blog.
Alphabet Soup: ABC Takes on DVR with Free VOD
In a challenge to DVR ad-skipping practices, ABC is planning on offering its programs via VOD for free. The trick is that the VOD programming will have ads and the fast-forwarding option will be disabled. ABC will sell most of the ads to national advertisers with one slot for local affiliates.
The article notes that in a trial of this VOD service, 20% of users said they would rather use VOD than DVR, which must be programmed. The VOD service will certainly help show sampling because it requires very little commitment, but the beauty of DVR it's easy to use and you can set it and forget it. What the article and the ABC press release didn't say is that people were probably happier to watch the VOD programming because it's free. Ultimately, though, this will only work if all of the networks do the same thing. Then DVR use might be affected.
