Posted on Monday, March 08 by Jill
content
Over at Advertising Age, Keith Richmond is writing about the importance of distribution in the next decade. His piece is called Is Content King? Then Distribution is Crown Prince, subtitled Great Content Does Not Mean It Will Find an Audience:
In the next decade, we will see significant changes to the way that content is created, monetized and experienced. During the next few years, existing media players will begin to increasingly face the realities and challenges that those of us online have always dealt with -- an audience with a short attention span and a whole slew of viewing options.
Sumner Redstone famously called content "king." Rupert Murdoch recently upgraded that to "Emperor." While there is certainly some truth to that when looking at online content -- see Hulu's rapid growth as an example -- there are far more cases where great content does not seem to matter at all. At the very least, I think it is fair to say that even if content is king online, then distribution and marketing are the "crown princes." Good content or not, understanding and embracing digital distribution and marketing will prove critical to everyone in the entertainment industry.
These days, when I'm thinking about creating content, I'm thinking about distribution and marketing right from concept. How can I build elements into the narrative that will help it spread?
There are the mysteries of SEO to unravel -- an art or science that seems ripe with charlatans. Beyond search, there is the social web, a brilliant way of spreading content, but by no means a slam dunk. You have to know what you're doing and really work at it. You can't just sign up for a twitter account and figure everything's suddenly going to go viral.
Viral! I hate that word because of the ease it implies. Nothing goes viral without a brilliant strategy, plenty of effort and a certain amount of money.
Money. Indeed, an ad buy is important. Especially if you aren't an SEO ninja or a social media star with a zillion followers.
The new kid on the block is social recommendation. People consume things they see their friend's consuming on Facebook and click on the links on Twitter. You have to make your content shareable, embeddable and wigitizeable. You have to give your audience a Creative Commons license that gives them the right to goof with your content because that's another way to make it popular.
Because content may be king and distribution may be the crowned prince, but the audience? God.
Posted on Saturday, October 24 by Jill
content
Nina Paley is my new hero. She made a film called Sita Sings the Blues and distributed it for free on the Internet. She makes her money from selling dvds and merchandise. Her first distribution report is available for you to read, but basically she made about $40 000 in the first two months.
Definitely check out her essay Understanding Free Content on the QuestionCopyright site. Here are some excerpts:
Content is an unlimited resource. People can now make perfect copies of digital content for free. That's why they expect content to be free — because it is in fact free. That is GOOD.
Think of "content" — culture — as water. Where water flows, life flourishes.
Containers — objects like books, DVDs, hard drives, apparel, action figures, and prints — are not free. They are a limited resource. No one expects these objects to be free, and people voluntarily pay good money for them.
Continuing this metaphor: copyright monopolies are an attempt to dam up and control all the rivers, reducing them to a trickle. When Big Media succeeds locking up culture, it's like in closing off water: they get a stagnant pool that turns to poison. Fish die and mosquitoes swarm, because the water has no source to flow from nor destination to flow to.
Go read the rest of the piece. It's inspiring.
Posted on Thursday, October 22 by Jill
content
Judy Shapiro has a brilliant article on monetizing the web on Ad Age Digital.
She starts by talking about some the problems with the ad-supported model that many of us hope will work as well with digital as it has with television. Shapiro points out that the digital space is unlike any other media channel:
[The internet] disrupted the basic laws of supply and demand. Before the web, content was a tightly controlled and distributed commodity -- a limited amount of content was distributed through highly controlled and limited channels. This was the ultimate "push" model.
The internet was the game changer because it is one big "pull" engine -- users pulling what they wanted, when they wanted it: services, connectivity and, yes, content. The tight control the media industry had on content was gone forever. Users could access content from a wider variety of sources and anyone could create content and distribute it at will.
This massive change has hit a lot of industries hard, particularly music and print. Now it's catching up with the film and tv industry. To survive we're going to have to figure out how to monetize and that, according to Shapiro requires a shift in thinking. Push is over, pull is the new black.
She believes that content creates community and community is what you can monetize.
This is the magic moment when content can begin to drive revenue because once you have the audience -- thanks to your content -- you have the mechanism to create compelling community experiences. The benefit of a community is that this shifts users' loyalty from just your content, available in lots of online places, to your site because of the community. The revenue possibilities expand as your community creates the all-important "sticky" user experience.
Successful communities utilize all the new social-networking tools and technology to create vibrant user interactions. They introduce technology that lets members engage in real time with each other, they permit many forms of self-broadcasting and publishing, and they provide a platform for members to connect around a shared passion or issue.
Ignite passion in your community and the content monetization engine begins to stir.
Once you have a community, you can offer services and products and maybe see some increased ad revenues. Sounds a little like kids tv, doesn't it? Essentially you give away the series in order to sell the toys and lunch boxes. Shapiro's examples are TechCrunch, Huffington Post and Mashable.
Great piece. Worth the read.
