Universe Creation 101

Inspired by a map created for botmasters, I’ve created a Frappr map for us! The map allows you do add a pin (like Google Earth, indeed, running with data supplied by Google). So, every cross-media researcher can add themselves to this map. We’ll see then just how many are in Europe! Add away!

http://www.frappr.com/crossmediaresearchers

Note: As soon as I figure it out too, I want to change the pins to indicate “industry” and “academic” rather than male and female. Also, the suburb locations (longitude & latitude) are not accurate, but the city, state and country are — which is all we need.

I’ve still got UGC (user-generated content) on my mind as I’m writing an article on the topic at the moment. Something I forgot to mention in my last UGC post: Australia’s “multicultural and multilingual public broadcaster”, the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), is starting a UGC site called Freeload. It launches on 20th Feb.

Freeload will bring together, as well as create a network of multimedia producers and showcase their digital portfolio to the whole world, irrespective of their level of proficiency, age, background, experience etc…
It’s Freeload’s aim to give everyone the chance to exhibit their work online and let punters and experts view it, rate it, comment on it and share it.

If you’re into music, film, animation, fashion, video, art, then become a freeloader!

Some items will be picked for broadcast on their digital channel. SBS have been involved with the production of, at least, three projects that have UGC: Swapping Lives (yay Sohail!); Straight Up and Sum of Our Parts (which we – LAMP — developed!).

Word on the street is that ABC is about come out with their own UGC project…they’ve being involved with many projects such as: Us Mob and Video Lives. What the commercial channels, 7, 9 and 10, are doing beyond offering wallpaper and ringtones to download, the ability to vote, to buy merchandise, to search the web via their sites, to let companies brand your child’s learning,  I have no idea… Let me know if there is something wonderful I’ve missed.

Tracey Swedlow, of [itvt], has put a few short videos of talks given by top interactive tv producers online. They are all relevant to CME design:

Brightcove’s VP of advertising products and strategy, Adam Gerber, talks about enabling the producer in a fragmented market

John Davis, president of Eco-Nova Productions, and Daniel Myrick,president of Gearhead Pictures (and co-creator of the movie, “The Blair Witch Project”), advise producers to create enhanced and interactive content

Josh Bernoff, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research, suggests creating broadband properties as an on-ramp to larger distribution

Forrester Research’s Josh Bernoff talks about the value of serving niche audiences

Sibyl Goldman, executive producer at Lifetimetv.com, recommends creating a “whole package” of enhanced and interactive content to support programming

Gearhead Pictures’ Daniel Myrick discusses Brightcove’s service

Gearhead Pictures’ Daniel Myrick advises using interactivity and multiplatform content to appeal to niche audiences

Gearhead Pictures’ Daniel Myrick discusses the value of combining linear programming, interactivity and community applications into a single, integrated experience
Adam Bain, VP of production and development at Fox Sports, comments on the complexities of tracking cross-platform

Jeff Shell, president of the Comcast Programming Group, argues that today content must be discoverable on multiple platforms

Channing Dawson, SVP of emerging media at Scripps Networks, Brian Seth Hurst, CEO of The Opportunity Management Company, and Brightcove’s Adam Gerber discuss user-generated content and changing ideas of media distribution

Fox Sports’ Adam Bain and Stephen Nuttall, director of business development at BSkyB, comment on the importance of working with amateur content producers

Fox Sports’ Adam Bain gives his thoughts on the phenomenon of disintermediation and on the growing importance of user-generated content

Scripps Networks’ Channing Dawson provides some observations on user-generated content

Robert Kernen, advanced media projects manager at A&E Television, demonstrates the “D-Day” History Channel broadband TV prototype that was developed under the auspices of the American Film Institute’s
Digital Content Lab. Designed by respected design firm, Schematic, the app incorporates user-generated content, multimedia, and contextual, immersive gaming

We’ve got .tv and soon we’ll have .mobi. Late May will see the beginning of .mobis being registered by companies with trademarks, and then general registrations in August.

Dotmobi is unique - the first top level domain dedicated to delivering the Internet to mobile devices. Scheduled for launch in May, dotmobi will revolutionise the use of the Internet on mobile devices. Dotmobi guides mobile users to made-for-mobile Internet content and services that can be accessed with confidence.

I’ve thought a few times that a cross-media world could be represented through multiple domains like .film, .dvd, .psp, .book. But then, they are all .net representations of non net devices and media channels. What you actually need is a domain name that subsumes all of the components of your cross-media world. At that address you’d have all the information about your entire franchise, with other domain names for the subsets, if you like. Possibilities are: .all, .world, .uni(verse), .ass(emble), .cme?! Any suggestions?

Nielsen Media Research teamed their research with Comcast’s to establish data on audience usage of VOD. They tested 180 households in Philadelphia during June-August last year. The key finding, for me, is that audiences are still using VOD AND scheduled TV — I don’t like using “scheduled TV” as part of the TV experience, for me, is serendipity: how about SSTV? But, back to the point. Audiences are using BOTH, not one above the other. Why? Because each has it own affordances, its own unique traits. This is what cross-media is all about: a wider range of media that audiences CHOOSE according to their availability, access, desired experience, preference…not replacing fixed media with new media and having convergent devices (in the end there can only be one convergent device!) everywhere. Here are the results, and the full report with nifty charts is downloadable here.

“This study confirms that VOD complements the traditional TV viewing experience. In addition to watching programming not available on traditional TV, customers are using VOD to learn about shows they may not have seen before or ‘catch up’ on past episodes of series they’ve missed.”

• 75% of households with access to VOD used it at least once during the three-month study, indicating a high VOD sampling rate. VOD users averaged 69 minutes of viewing per day.
• Households that tuned to Comcast’s ON DEMAND service watched traditional television for an average of 723 minutes per day — 9% higher than all digital cable households and 38% higher than all cable households.
• The VOD audience is a younger audience. 18-34 year olds comprised 37% of all VOD minutes viewed compared to 20% of all traditional television minutes. Children age 2-11 accounted for 19% of all VOD minutes, but only 9% of all traditional television minutes. In contrast, viewers over age 54 accounted for only 3% of VOD minutes compared to 30% of all traditional television minutes.
• Free VOD (including shows from ad-supported cable networks, a library of movies, music programming and more) was the most sampled VOD content, viewed by about 42% of VOD homes during the survey. However, subscription VOD content (from services like HBO, Showtime and Starz) accounted for the most minutes (54%) of viewing, with VOD homes watching an average of 670 minutes of this content over the three months.

And, not only are audiences watching VOD and SSTV, they’re online for an equal amount of time too!:

Juniper Research’s report, U.S. Entertainment and Media Consumer Survey, 2005, (released 30 Jan 06) details how the average audience member is using 14 hours of the Net, which is about equal, they say, to the time spent watching TV. Here are some other findings:

• Even the most intensive users of newspapers and magazines spend less time reading these publications than they do online or watching TV
• 37% of all online users report that they spend less time reading books because of their online activities
• Intensive online users are the most likely demographic to use advanced Internet technology, such as streaming radio and RSS