American Idol proved not just that we love watching the highs and lows of wannabe superstars, but that a surprising number of us wanted to be up there. It’s these two factors that make Bix, a company enabling public and private contests online, think the service it’s about to launch is a winner.
When I first played around with the Beta site, I couldn’t stop thinking it was just another entry in the online karaoke space. With a healthy dose of skepticism, I then spoke with CEO Mike Speiser. By the end, because of their business model, my perspective had changed.
Bix is trying to address a real business problem: diminishing effectiveness of brand advertising. In the US alone, advertising accounted for $143B in 2005, with most of that dedicated to print and TV , which is why the old adage holds: “Half my advertising dollars are wasted – I just don’t know which half.”
Speiser believes that controlled sponsorship of a legally sanctioned online contest, be it karaoke, short films, photo essays… all of which the Bix engine supports, is a powerful brand advertising concept. As someone who has faced the very problem Bix is trying to address, I think he’s right. Online contests present not just a branding opportunity, but open a new direct channel for the marketer, allowing multiple opportunities to deliver coupons and offers.
But will people use it if they see it as nothing more than a marketing vehicle? If the corporate sponsors offer good enough prizes, they’ll find performers. And if the performers offer enough of the good and even more of the bad, people will watch.
The site is certainly easy enough for the mass consumer to use. I spared the world my singing, but I watched Speiser create a contest and karaoke video. Setting up a contest is quick, as is creating and uploading a video with a webcam. Also, viewing content, voting and sharing are all simple enough tasks.
Still, there is a lot of work ahead of them. The user interface needs an upgrade to attract serious corporate advertising dollars; Bix needs to optimize for mobile users (mobile was a huge factor in American Idol voting); and it will have to soon go international, before someone else does, to tap what’s likely an even better market.
And certainly, if successful, competition looms. Sites like Youtube and MySpace have already proven they can make stars. And Fox, with MySpace and Ksolo in the same portfolio, will find the market tantalizing if Bix takes off.
The site is still in invite-only Beta but will launch broadly in the coming weeks. It will be free to all comers for a few months as they roll it out, but the company believes advertisers will soon realize contest sponsorship is a service worth paying for. Then we’ll see if Speiser and his investors are right and the ROI keeps them coming back for more.
I’ve been waiting for the chance to post on bix for a while, as I was one of the lucky ones to try it out ahead of time. Get my impressions at my site as well:
http://www.richardgoodwin.com/.....gs-of-bix/
I guess my question would be, is their technology portable and invisible, or do users need to be on their site with their logo for the contests to work?
“Bix is trying to address a real business problem: diminishing effectiveness of brand advertising.”
hahahaha — you fell for that?
I was thankful to get access to Bix a couple of weeks ago because there had been much speculation over the story behind Speiser’s new venture.
As Mike mentioned the music artists on YouTube and the self made stars of MySpace have shown that this model can work.
It will be interesting to see Bix evolve in this market.
It’s nice to see Jamie Hoover in the screenshot.
Congrats JH!
I got an invite from Speiser today and then went to watch the video he uploaded of his daughter(?). I was prompted to sign up, which I did not.
So I did not see the video nor did I get any idea of what Bix is about. It seems this process needs to be a little more rewarding up front. Putting EVERYTHING behind a signup wall (even a free one) is not going to do any good for those of us who do not want to sign up for something until we know what it actually is.
Cameron,
We are conducting an invite-only beta right now — we will absolutely pull the registration requirement down for viewers once we have finished our beta test.
Take care,
Mike
The problem with this and the many other ‘user generated’ sites is the general lack of production value. Recall, American Idol spent an inordinate amount of time screening potential Idol candidates, and in the end, produced a high quality program with great talent. Along the way, they found some hidden gems like William Hung. But William couldn’t exist in all of his fame and glory without the broader American Idol competition. In the end, he was a side show - a pilot fish swimming underneath the programming Great White known as American Idol.
Bix, kSolo and the rest of these ‘talent showcase’ sites, may (if they are really, really lucky) end up having one of their participants ‘discovered’ by the likes of a Carson Daly or reach a level of fame like William Hung. Of course, for that to happen, the law of large numbers comes into play. How many millions of viewers were introduced to William Hung because they were watching the Idol competition? How many millions of unique users posted to YouTube before Brooke Brodack was discovered? At least kSolo has 70+ million uniques to work with.
In my view, the bottom line is this. Without quality content, whether content provided by traditional media, or a well produced show like American Idol, you won’t get the users. No users, no virtuous cycle of content creation. No content or users, no advertisers. What then, Bix? Will you be an online ‘competition engine’ for traditional media companies? Sorry, Fox already bought kSolo. Next idea.
And speaking of YouTube, why exactly can’t they do this? I certainly hope that Bix hasn’t drank the Kool-Aid to believe that their technology gives them an advantage…
Ah, the folly of Web 2.0. My bet - Bix will be like William Hung - a side show that fades from our collective consciousness after the season ends, or at least until the venture money runs dry.
M, you’re missing the whole point.
Bix isn’t trying to find the best talent in the country — they’re trying to find the best talent in your neighborhood (or your church, your school, your office, etc).
have you ever considered how many local beauty pageants, high-school talent shows, cheerleader tryouts, photography contests, or any other “middle-down-to-the-tail of the long tail” local contests there are?
whether or not the production value sucks or is just ok, there are PUH-LENTY of folks out there who want to see their kids, their sister, or themselves do well… even if the pond is a small one. and yes, they’ll pay to play, or pay to win as the case may be.
beyond that, i’m sure there WILL be the 1% of content that really is worth watching… so i think your negativism / skepticism is quite unfounded & narrow-minded.
it’s showtime, folks!
what makes american idol work is the prize a 1 mil label deal
i dont think a band cares if it gets more votes then any other band unless there is a reward.
on myspace indie bands want to get their views and listens up to get a major lable deal so in the music space bix only works if there is a reward no reward no fun
btw, for the record i am an advisor to Bix… should have clarified that in my comment above.
however, that doesn’t diminish my enthusiasm one bit… in fact, the reason i agreed to become an advisor is because i found the concept fascinating & the business opportunity seemed like a good one.
(thanks to jeremy pepper for the Ms. Manners disclosure tip
- dave mcclure
A few things, one if they market bix correctly, it will and can be a big hit.
You are 100% right when you said, this is and will not become the next american idol of online contest, however it can possibly become the next american idol within smaller niche’s and communities.
For example,
They can easily have a contest running for the best 4×4 off road truck,
- Think of the viral marketing, gorilla marketing & niche marketing that can be done in that small arena (Websites, Bulettin Boards, Niche Sites, etc)
Take that as an example of potential success within a small niche, if sucessful, that will snowball in to a handful of other small interest markets.
Bix has the right idea, its going to come down to proper marketing, proper partnerships potentially b/w sponsors & advertisers for related branding & its going to come down to the UI.
Im currently working on some of the same stuff with LiveDigital.com
While this market may seem saturated, there is always room to “explode” within certian verticals..
Dave, good points. Time will tell whether Bix will succeed. I get your point that there is a segment of people that crave their 15 minutes of fame. I also get the competitive angle as well. Both the underlying fame and competition themes are powerful, in that they touch on some core elements of human nature. I get it.
Even in your blog post, your lead in says: “Ever thought you could be a star… or at least the most famous kid in your school, your neighborhood? it’s showtime, folks! Or maybe you could be a producer, eh? run your own talent contest, find the next Kelly Clarkson, they get famous… you get rich?” Your implicit suggestion is that by using Bix, you can become famous in some form or fashion. In that regard, this is a talent showcase.
In the end, Bix is about entertainment. While the human motivation to be found is strong, it doesn’t translate to consumers being entertained by what users create.
My logic is this:
- Bix will need to demonstrate that consumers unrelated to the participants will want to watch these competitions. There may be many high school talent competitions - but do I, as a consumer believe it is worth my time to watch this if I don’t know the participants? Hard to say. Not me personally. If that doesn’t happen, the traffic will not come, and the advertisers certainly won’t either.
- Part of the reason that American Idol, America’s Got Talent, America’s Funniest Home Videos, etc. hit it big is because they produced quality content that was immensely entertaining. That took time and effort.
- I’d also wager that if you broke down YouTube videos served, that most of the content being viewed is content that came from traditional media (i.e. SNL’s Chronicles of Narnia, Napoleon Dynamite, etc.). Again, without those ‘hits’ it’s unclear to me whether YouTube would have hit it big. Now that they have the traffic, what are they doing? Working with traditional media to improve the production value of the content being presented on YouTube…they are increasing the enterainment value associated with their brand…
My recommendations to the Bix team, for what it’s worth:
- Make sure you focus on producing quality content at the same time that you allow users to create their own competitions
- Don’t fall in love with the idea that ‘if you build it they will come’
- To increase production value, work with sponsors to co-brand competitions with prizes, etc. to create an incentive for passionate users to want to participate. For example, the best ‘Pimped Out’ Toyota competition, sponsored by Toyota and Pimp My Ride, for example (thanks Josh for the 4×4 contest idea - I agree), with the prize being a new car and a feature on Pimp My Ride
- Get iPod to sponsor a ‘Make your iPod commercial’ competition
- Identify open verticals - i.e. stay away from music given that MySpace has you covered there
Best of luck…
Thanks for the comments. Great discussion. There is a cycle that needs to take hold for this thing to work: the prizes need to be good enough to get the talent participation, the talent needs to be good enough to get people to watch, but without the people, there will be no prizes… in speaking to the company there was recognititon that both professional talent and good prizes were needed to kickstart things, but we’ll see how successful they are at securing both. Maybe Mike S. or Dave can comment one last time or maybe we’ll just hear from them in a few months.
Great discussion and excellent feedback M and Dave. Thank you.
While we have a world-class engineering team and we are proud of the product we have built, we agree that a great product alone will not lead us to success. The primary reason that we decided to go with an email invite beta rather than an open beta is that customer experience is more than just the product — we need quality content in the system before we invite the masses to our site. We are currently working on a few very targeted marketing programs in music (karaoke and bands) and in comedy. We are also working on a few business development / customer deals of the sort M was suggesting — we will hold off on those until we launch the site to the public.
As Dave noted, our primary focus is to help discover “micro-stars.” It would be great to help discover and develop mega-stars, but current solutions like American Idol do that fairly well. What they don’t do well is allow the aspiring performer who didn’t make the final 12 on American Idol the opportunity to easily create, promote, and seek feedback on their craft (and earn Fortune, not just Fame as M noted in his comment). We have worked to shift the emphasis from video editing skills to the essence of what those post-production efforts are trying to uncover — talent.
For example:
+ We have developed custom recorders for Windows and Macintosh which allow you to easily take control of your computer webcam and microphone to upload content to the site. No separate software application is required. No post-production applications like Final Cut Pro are necessary. Use Bix to record and automatically upload any type of entry from comedy, to music, to beauty.
+ We have licensed music content to provide streaming lyrics and backing tracks so that a user can simply sing into their webcam to easily (and legally) create their own music video. American Idol is a karaoke competition, despite protestations to the contrary from Simon… We are making it easy for anyone to get their 15 minutes.
+ We also support photo upload and audio only entries (for those without a webcam) and we will launch support for other media types in the near future.
+ We allow any user to create any type of competition.
+ We agree with M that Fortune is a part of the story and we will launch a number of initiatives (product and other) to deliver on that requirement.
Thank you again for all of your feedback and interest. The first 10,000 people who request an invite will get one, so please use the product and send us your thoughts at feedback@bix.com.
Best,
Mike
Overall, it sounds interesting… but I can’t get over the 6+million in capital to do this.
I’m sure I’m somewhat ignorant of some of the technology costs to do things like hosting the content (or offloading hosting to photobucket) and setting up the interface so that the user’s have an online karaoke machine… and even building the user voting system that sorts through the numerous uploads… but the core functionality of putting up two “objects” and voting between them is free in the open source market.
One of the “pluses” is for any user to set up a competition… so that implies any school can now host an online talent competition. Why use Bix when the computer class could build a site for free?
Overall, it may be a viable market… but I think that knockoffs are going to come fast and cheap.
Graydon
Marlin Creek - Idea Seeds
Was just searching for online singing contests and found this… I would like to know more.. like how to audition for it and so fourth. I also have a website I would love to advertise your contest for ya send me an email! Thanks in advance EricaRoane
PS you can check out other online singing contests at my website
http://www.freewebs.com/singerssoiree/
Hey guys check out this review on ksolo.
http://nicevilblogs.wordpress....../ksolocom/
There seems to be some talent brewing on bix…check out this guy:
http://www.bix.com/entry/3475
Well, I agree. But there seems to be talent brewing at yet another site too:
http://www.singshot.com/playPe.....amp;play=Y
I went over to bix to see if this gal was registered there under the same user name. Luckily she is but no recordings yet, then I found a post from her regarding having a dll problem with the new Recorder. It would be a shame if that problem doesn’t get fixed since she obviously has talent.
p9EYnCUygBc 7wh3ZmNM9Rqt jB8w0KyygjfkFI