Convergence Panel, Sun., Apr. 23; 11:30 am
Evan Jones, moderating, with Robert Reinhardt (themakers.com), Adam Boozer (iqtv.com), Jennifer Chan (nowtoronto.com), and joined today by Michael Lebowitz (bigspaceship.com).
EJ: We go across a lot of media here, I'm wondering if you'd comment about integration, which it has been said, happens in people's heads, not in the marketing companies. What kind of unexpected things have happened with users?
AB: We were promoting a show online but what was surprising was when AOL came to the TV producer and wanted to put it into AOL... it's so transportable that that's easy to do.
EJ: How do you design for the unknown context, where something is purposed for another form.
JC: I'm always looking for ways to repurpose our print content. The biggest way is through XML, but also to keep things portable, small file sizes... it would be nice to be avail. on mobile phones... feed restraurant reviews for example, there's a demand for that.
ML: With XML, Adobe is pushing for making content universally accessible... as a builder of content, we are always keeping in mind multiple outputs, multiple touchpoints.
EJ: The great thing about cross-platform is that you can push your content to so many places. E.g., mobisodes... a television script just doesn't work on a mobile platform, so does content translate?
RR: XML is only one data form, it doesn't really matter what form you use, Flash can use so many different forms of data. But the issue is the content and whether it's appropriate for the particular medium. If Kodak puts its web content direct onto TV, it doesn't work, you don't navigate it the same way.
ML: We are always encouraging clients to consider not direct translations but to do offshoots, something that plays differently, more appropriately for the particular medium... knowing your audience and how they want to do things.
EJ: Web 2.0 is a buzzword... can we talk about user generated content and also using content from other sources... do we edit that content, do we filter it, does it need to be part of the picture
AB: We did a user thing where they were actually editing, and that content is so interesting... it doesn't matter so much what the interface or method of dissemination is, it keeps coming back to the basic content, is it good enough to be sustainable across different platforms.
RR: People were grabbing iFilm stuff and putting it up on MySpace. Instead of prohibiting it, iFilm went with it, skinning and branding the content and also using Flash to preserve a whole control environment that goes with the content.
A broadband search platform... NBC wants tight control over their content, they locked it down so much that people just didn't want to go there any more... the better way is to encourage deeplinking, it serves them better.
JC: You'd think the marketing depts. would see the benefit of viral spread of content and the kind of investment that the user makes in the content.
AB: But it terrifies them. If they give it away, the content producer who depends on content for revenue, the principle of giving it away is terrifying.
Volkswagon actually posts fictitious stuff on eBay and it goes from there.
JC: We give our content away, sharing it draws people to us... if you try charging for it, the readership just drops. Maybe micro payments are the answer, .99 for an iTune song.
AB: Behind the scenes footage and extra stuff can be made available for free.
ML: With Lost, we put things out to the world, it was good will, everybody knew it was marketing but we were honest... people started building their own websites emulating the official ones, even to the point that somebody registered a domain bigspaceship1.com that claimed to be related to us, the designers, it was a bit scary but ABC went with it all and it worked great.
question:
people are talking about having an online strategy for every TV show, has it become an expectation rather than an add-on.
ML: We wish! The big broadcasters are still clamping down on content. They'll go with it when they see its profitable but the change comes from the creators of programs themselves... writers are thinking how do we place this content everywhere... and they can have an enormous amount of power if they have had some enormous successes. It can be driven by production (the creators), not marketing.
AB: The broadcasters are still thinking in terms of how to drive traffic to the TV show... they don't want you to stay on the Web.
RR: If one broadcaster announces Web tie-ins, then the others all feel pressured to do the same... ABC announced MyABC... but the affiliates are cut out of it, so there are lots of forces at work, people who stand to lose money are going to affect how it plays out, but at the same time the affiliates aren't necessarily maximizing value either, e.g. they push ABC content out without consistency
EJ: How do you keep consistency across media. Do you have a system? Tricks of the trade?
JC: The source is one writer for one article but it gets edited differently.
AB: ML: A strong brand is easier to push through different media.
AB: A funny part of consistency is when you do something in one medium and the effect or look gets picked up in the other media... upstream.
EJ:
ML: There's a lot more money in broadcast so they can go into gaming etc. etc. ... the cost of entry to the Web is very very low, so you can see things moving from the Web out... the next step will be for something to move from the Web into a TV show...
AB: Jennifer Shiman's crazy bunnies moved up to Stars on Demand, so we are seeing it happen.
JC: There's a large pool of talent out there, and it's possible to break through to something big, like Flickr, started out in Vancouver. Musicians are looking more at their websites as a part of a more whole distribution model.
RR: When Larry David has another option to do something without going through the network... there is less and less the middle man, but there are exceptions, e.g. needing to get podcasts from iTunes... we need more gateways...
content producers need to negotiate with each of the devices, and that's a big obstacle.. I'm not arguing for standards but it's ridiculous how much account management has to go into creating all these different iterations for all the various devices.
ML: The long tail concept, a Wired editor starts with a story and now it's developing into a book. Self-published content can be right beside published content, three clicks away...
EJ: You are choosing content, iTunes features individuals on their homepage... how long before YOU become the producer.
question:
publishers seem sometimes to get angrier and to clamp down...
ML: it's adapt of die, the music industry didn't and won't still... Hollywood is making the same mistake, they are afraid of letting a single image out... if they don't figure it out... people want their content, their way....iTunes proved it can be monitized... publishers seem to be moving forward a little better...
Some films are being distributed on DVD, on demand, and at the theatres and that's working
RR: the gateway can fix the price, Walmart is proving that, they can force manufacturers to move offshore in order to keep price down...
but studios are still fronting the price for production, good quality, most independents can afford that... the studios are like banks, they are financing things and they don't like spending their own money, they need other people's money
question:
is there any danger of overproduction, where it's all over-written, webisodes and DVDs necessary to keep track of a TV show... the core value of the show can start to disappear for people who are interested but not fanatics.
ML: Like 24 maybe,,, you have to find this to watch this, see the 1st part to get the 2nd part... in the case of Lost, we wanted; ARG world that generates tons of fan built content and that could have been incorporated but they weren't ready to do that, adSense e.g., but we can also tie in sponsors but you can go too far
EJ: You set up an expectation with a show... a contract with the viewer, ReGenesis is a stand alone TV show but it requires that you've seen it from the beginning but that is explained up front and so long as that's the case, it ok
question:
with the convergence of games, web and TV, this is the new thing
TV radio film convergence is old school
is this
EJ: I think you saw the old type of convergence was tried and is gone.
ML: Sony owns the content, produces it, they own the hardware also, it's not that they are not good at it... there need to be checks and balances, they try to keep the content to their own devices but that doesn't always work permanent link
EJ: We go across a lot of media here, I'm wondering if you'd comment about integration, which it has been said, happens in people's heads, not in the marketing companies. What kind of unexpected things have happened with users?
AB: We were promoting a show online but what was surprising was when AOL came to the TV producer and wanted to put it into AOL... it's so transportable that that's easy to do.
EJ: How do you design for the unknown context, where something is purposed for another form.
JC: I'm always looking for ways to repurpose our print content. The biggest way is through XML, but also to keep things portable, small file sizes... it would be nice to be avail. on mobile phones... feed restraurant reviews for example, there's a demand for that.
ML: With XML, Adobe is pushing for making content universally accessible... as a builder of content, we are always keeping in mind multiple outputs, multiple touchpoints.
EJ: The great thing about cross-platform is that you can push your content to so many places. E.g., mobisodes... a television script just doesn't work on a mobile platform, so does content translate?
RR: XML is only one data form, it doesn't really matter what form you use, Flash can use so many different forms of data. But the issue is the content and whether it's appropriate for the particular medium. If Kodak puts its web content direct onto TV, it doesn't work, you don't navigate it the same way.
ML: We are always encouraging clients to consider not direct translations but to do offshoots, something that plays differently, more appropriately for the particular medium... knowing your audience and how they want to do things.
EJ: Web 2.0 is a buzzword... can we talk about user generated content and also using content from other sources... do we edit that content, do we filter it, does it need to be part of the picture
AB: We did a user thing where they were actually editing, and that content is so interesting... it doesn't matter so much what the interface or method of dissemination is, it keeps coming back to the basic content, is it good enough to be sustainable across different platforms.
RR: People were grabbing iFilm stuff and putting it up on MySpace. Instead of prohibiting it, iFilm went with it, skinning and branding the content and also using Flash to preserve a whole control environment that goes with the content.
A broadband search platform... NBC wants tight control over their content, they locked it down so much that people just didn't want to go there any more... the better way is to encourage deeplinking, it serves them better.
JC: You'd think the marketing depts. would see the benefit of viral spread of content and the kind of investment that the user makes in the content.
AB: But it terrifies them. If they give it away, the content producer who depends on content for revenue, the principle of giving it away is terrifying.
Volkswagon actually posts fictitious stuff on eBay and it goes from there.
JC: We give our content away, sharing it draws people to us... if you try charging for it, the readership just drops. Maybe micro payments are the answer, .99 for an iTune song.
AB: Behind the scenes footage and extra stuff can be made available for free.
ML: With Lost, we put things out to the world, it was good will, everybody knew it was marketing but we were honest... people started building their own websites emulating the official ones, even to the point that somebody registered a domain bigspaceship1.com that claimed to be related to us, the designers, it was a bit scary but ABC went with it all and it worked great.
question:
people are talking about having an online strategy for every TV show, has it become an expectation rather than an add-on.
ML: We wish! The big broadcasters are still clamping down on content. They'll go with it when they see its profitable but the change comes from the creators of programs themselves... writers are thinking how do we place this content everywhere... and they can have an enormous amount of power if they have had some enormous successes. It can be driven by production (the creators), not marketing.
AB: The broadcasters are still thinking in terms of how to drive traffic to the TV show... they don't want you to stay on the Web.
RR: If one broadcaster announces Web tie-ins, then the others all feel pressured to do the same... ABC announced MyABC... but the affiliates are cut out of it, so there are lots of forces at work, people who stand to lose money are going to affect how it plays out, but at the same time the affiliates aren't necessarily maximizing value either, e.g. they push ABC content out without consistency
EJ: How do you keep consistency across media. Do you have a system? Tricks of the trade?
JC: The source is one writer for one article but it gets edited differently.
AB: ML: A strong brand is easier to push through different media.
AB: A funny part of consistency is when you do something in one medium and the effect or look gets picked up in the other media... upstream.
EJ:
ML: There's a lot more money in broadcast so they can go into gaming etc. etc. ... the cost of entry to the Web is very very low, so you can see things moving from the Web out... the next step will be for something to move from the Web into a TV show...
AB: Jennifer Shiman's crazy bunnies moved up to Stars on Demand, so we are seeing it happen.
JC: There's a large pool of talent out there, and it's possible to break through to something big, like Flickr, started out in Vancouver. Musicians are looking more at their websites as a part of a more whole distribution model.
RR: When Larry David has another option to do something without going through the network... there is less and less the middle man, but there are exceptions, e.g. needing to get podcasts from iTunes... we need more gateways...
content producers need to negotiate with each of the devices, and that's a big obstacle.. I'm not arguing for standards but it's ridiculous how much account management has to go into creating all these different iterations for all the various devices.
ML: The long tail concept, a Wired editor starts with a story and now it's developing into a book. Self-published content can be right beside published content, three clicks away...
EJ: You are choosing content, iTunes features individuals on their homepage... how long before YOU become the producer.
question:
publishers seem sometimes to get angrier and to clamp down...
ML: it's adapt of die, the music industry didn't and won't still... Hollywood is making the same mistake, they are afraid of letting a single image out... if they don't figure it out... people want their content, their way....iTunes proved it can be monitized... publishers seem to be moving forward a little better...
Some films are being distributed on DVD, on demand, and at the theatres and that's working
RR: the gateway can fix the price, Walmart is proving that, they can force manufacturers to move offshore in order to keep price down...
but studios are still fronting the price for production, good quality, most independents can afford that... the studios are like banks, they are financing things and they don't like spending their own money, they need other people's money
question:
is there any danger of overproduction, where it's all over-written, webisodes and DVDs necessary to keep track of a TV show... the core value of the show can start to disappear for people who are interested but not fanatics.
ML: Like 24 maybe,,, you have to find this to watch this, see the 1st part to get the 2nd part... in the case of Lost, we wanted; ARG world that generates tons of fan built content and that could have been incorporated but they weren't ready to do that, adSense e.g., but we can also tie in sponsors but you can go too far
EJ: You set up an expectation with a show... a contract with the viewer, ReGenesis is a stand alone TV show but it requires that you've seen it from the beginning but that is explained up front and so long as that's the case, it ok
question:
with the convergence of games, web and TV, this is the new thing
TV radio film convergence is old school
is this
EJ: I think you saw the old type of convergence was tried and is gone.
ML: Sony owns the content, produces it, they own the hardware also, it's not that they are not good at it... there need to be checks and balances, they try to keep the content to their own devices but that doesn't always work permanent link
Posted by howboy at 11:34 AM.
1 Comments:
fyi, the url for NOW is nowtoronto.com (not .ca) -Jen
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