That was well said. Always appreciate your indepth views. Keep up the great work!

John

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January 14th, 2007 at 9:41 pm, “Sab Kanaujia” wrote

Either way, he just guaranteed that far more people will now read the post than if he just left it up on his blog.

What are the odds that he knows this, he wanted more people to read the post, and he’s playing you like a fiddle?

Har, har.

———-

How to prove who’s the real “Sab Kanaujia” among the two of us? )

First, NBCU still seems to be locked into this GE mindset of project management. Every project seems to have about 50% too many people attached to it, and the number of people that have to sign off on major digital projects makes “Brazil” seem like a recruitment film for NBCU.

Secondly, they still seem to see digital as just a brand extension, not an entirely new form of entertainment. For proof of that, watch iVillage Live, which is the most gawdawful piece of crap I’ve ever seen.

This reminds me a lot of the Telecommunications Industry. AT&T had a cash cow in legacy long distance voice business that every year paid less and less. There were predictions that Wireless carriers and Data Carriers would surpass the Bells. While AT&T and the rest did worse and worse every year, they simply had too much marketshare momentum to outright loose and have since done a fiar job of recovering.

The Internet is disruptive to legacy Media companies and they understand it needs to be part of their strategy, but from their perspective we’re all still pretty small time here. Personally I don’t think any of them (including Fox) have shown us what their final online media strategy is going to be, but I do believe they are run by very smart people, it’s just they do not have the flexibility to adapt and move as fast as us small companies do. When they do finally move it’s going to be interesting to see.

Something to point out on your post is that NBC does still own, control and benefits from legal distribution channels of their video, whether you rent seasons, watch on iTunes, etc.

But they aren’t nearly as concerned about having their seasonal DVDs rented as they are having you watch the premieres, on television, on their time schedule, so their faulty Nielsen ratings will make them (and their paying advertisers) feel better. If networks like NBC were not worried about the affects of the Internet, they wouldn’t be trying nearly as hard (and often failing) at fitting themselves into the online world.

They don’t like the online world, because for once they’re at the mercy of viewers and how they handle content, rather than vice versa. (Just look at the industry’s feelings toward TiVo.)

I’m not saying they’re scared of any one particular product that’s out there today. I’m saying they’re scared more of the changing mentality of viewers: the thought that we should have a right over the content we let into our lives and when we let it in. In the past networks have prided themselves on saying “we give the viewers what they want”, but that’s obviously changing. As I said in my other comment, they just simply can’t cater to the ever-changing lives and schedules of the modern world, not to mention the niches that many of us are more interested in anyway.

And I think there is a growing number of people like me, who frankly only have one or two shows that they really enjoy to watch–and even those aren’t “have to watch” shows. There are other things to do, both online and off.

Don’t get me wrong television won’t die out, just like radio didn’t die out. We still listen to radio; still enjoy it. We just do it differently. That will be what happens, I think.

they should sit in time out

or you should read litrature instead of let the news dictate your soul

http://mbcpoetry.wordpress.com

http://phylo.vi...playerId=vidiac

They could just easily embed a preroll ad in that video to promote their social networking service…. which could be strategically dangerous for YouTube. I think the fact that clip got ten million views shows that YoTube needs top tier content to maintain views. Sure there are exceptions to that rule as there is some great UGC, but far and away the top viewed content on YouTube is stuff of questionable copyright.

Here is the evidence that NBC needs YouTube more than YouTube needs NBC:

http://www.yout...h?v=1dmVU08zVpA

It’s the famous uncensored video clip (viewed more than 10 million times) of Justin Timberlake’s “Dick in a Box”, and it was uploaded to YouTube by, you guessed it, NBC.

NBC is definitely late to the social networking game but do not underestimate the power of these old media dinosaurs. By waiting NBC now has a better understanding of what works and more importantly what doesn’t work; especially with regard to business models.

I don’t know that anyone’s really saying this old media model doesn’t have power. It does. The thing is, though, just like television changed the way we view radio; the Internet is changing the way we view television (and radio). I think NBC and other major media players will handle social networking well enough–for the reasons you stated–but it won’t save them from the ultimate losses (no matter how soon or how far off those losses may be). Social networking isn’t going to save some parts of their business, no matter how well they understand it or implement it.

This, coupled with the fact that they are the first destination for much of the source information on their shows, can help them create a very powerful social solution that can help tie together their different properties (the shows and their corresponding web sites) and increasing cross pollination across their different TV show audiences (similar to the way weak shows follow after popular shows in the hopes of drawing in/over the audience).

This is interesting, and at times I feel inclined to believe this way as well. The alternative to this, though, is that more people begin renting seasons on DVD or download them or watch clips on YouTube, read blogs (or similar items) for news. If this occurs, yeah, sure, you might still have activity on shows’ websites, but it won’t mean much to the industry whose main bread and butter is the 15 to 17 minutes of ads you’re getting per the hour. It will be hard for them to bring together their network if no one is going directly to it for the content. I know that’s what they’re trying to fix now, but I honestly don’t think it will work in the end.

I know I’m an extreme exception to the rule, but at age 19, I do not own a television, nor do I plan to. I rent seasons now (if I care to watch anything at all), because I’m sick of being force-fed advertising. I am not the passive sponge that companies would like for me to be. I go to YouTube for clips. I go to IMDB and other movie sites to see only movies rated at 6.5/10 or above. The media I take in is how I want it, when I want it. That’s what the Internet helps facilitate, and that’s something that television, at least currently, cannot cater to. I don’t think the television networks are ready to fully enter the web; they see too much risk (and rightfully so), but their slowness is just hurting them in another way. I don’t think they’re going to be fast enough, free enough or willing enough to salvage the bulk of what they’ve had for decades. People my age and younger really aren’t going to wait around, either.

No one should discount any media element entirely, of course, but I don’t think the “old media dinosaurs” are flexible enough in many ways to cater to an active people with unreliable schedules and very diverse tastes. We want it in our own time, minus ads and highly fluid (available on multiple platforms: online, downloadable, on our video players, rights to burn, rights to embed the content on other sites, etc., etc.). Social networking may give NBC and others a temporary boost, but it won’t give them the courage to break free and let people handle the [real] media (e.g., the shows) in their own personal ways, which is what I think most people want.

Only time will tell how it really goes, though.

The traffic numbers web sites deal with pale in comparison to how many millions of viewers NBC can pack into a one hour show. That number is declining, but it’s still there.

This, coupled with the fact that they are the first destination for much of the source information on their shows, can help them create a very powerful social solution that can help tie together their different properties (the shows and their corresponding web sites) and increasing cross pollination across their different TV show audiences (similar to the way weak shows follow after popular shows in the hopes of drawing in/over the audience).

The bottoms up approach used by YouTube et al initially worked because of the novelty/uniqueness of creating a generic all encompassing site led to a few sites getting a first mover advantage. In the end however people only have the mental bandwith for monitoring 5-10 web sites on a regular basis (closer to 5 sites). For social networking sites, we are quickly moving into the age of ‘can you retain your eyeballs?’ as the old guard starts to mobilize it’s forces in response.

Collective knowledge, wisdom of crowds etc are all powering the value of social networking but the doors in, the way of getting there, also have a lot of influence. Sites that own extensive source content can create compelling doorways for people have to socialize about something and the shorter the ‘distance’ between the content and the people the better as the ‘one click away’ rules them all.

NBC certainly has the money to do so, the incentive to do it right and likely need to hire some web 2.0-ish media-ish people and some upstart innovatators/entrepreneurs. More importantly, they know they need to change and that in of itself is the most dramatic change in recent years. The purchase/power of YouTube in particular has awoken these dragons and given them something concrete to rally around. I for one would not discount NBC just yet.

Ben Watson
VP, Collaboration – Thomson NETg
ben.watson@thomson.com

Constant evolution is what it’s all about.

@Ricko – people will only be “settled in” for as long as there is nowhere better to move to. Once another shiny object comes along, with more to offer at a lower price, or still for free, the masses will move in and settle there. Rinse. Repeat.

Deleting a post only calls attention to it.

Who would care about another new social network site. People have already settled in their preferred network.. Moving to another network is a pain in the ass…

It’s a wag of my fingers to NBC…

http://blogs.ib...echnicalJournal