Web Strategy Blog

User Generated Content and Doritos

Doritos held a contest for user-generated video's in a "Make Your Own Dorito's Ad" Contest. The winning 30 second ad will be shown on Superbowl Sunday. You can see all the video's here Just like Doritos - its tough to be happy with just one, but Check Out Girl and Dorito Lovers are hilarious, Dorito Dreams is like food porn and Duct Tape has a surprise ending!

Hanging at Rehearsals.com

Spent some time with my friends at Rehearsals.com yesterday getting an up-close look at their stellar operations while watching one of my favorite musicians Pete Yorn rehearse.

Rehearsals.com allows you to watch established and emerging recording artists prepare for concerts, television appearances, tours and recording sessions. It gives you that "insider view" of candid, raw footage of entertainers doing their thing. The studios have remote controlled cameras that film in high definition and the state-of-the-art broadcast center is very impressive. You really have to see the quality of their facility to appreciate what goes into the filming of one of their segments.

I see a big trend in the emergence of some really differentiated content like this that is starting to bridge the gap between what was traditionally broadcast TV content and what is now possible to view online or on devices like downloads to PSP. I get giddy thinking of the possibilities of where this company can go.

In Search of the Perfect Playlist

Like a lot of people these days, most of my digital music is stored on iTunes. I have a few custom playlists - but in general I am always in pursuit of the Perfect Playlist. I rarely have time to sit down and go through my 1,000's of files and devote the focus it takes to really think through a decent compilation.

"The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules." from the movie High Fidelity

I spent considerable time recently on Pandora, the Oakland web-based Internet Radio application that is a result of the 7 yr music genome project. Pandora's team of musician-analysts have been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song... melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics - close to 400 attributes!

For anyone who has never tried this amazing tool, you create your own "stations" based upon the kind of music you like. You begin by typing in a song or two that you like and Pandora begins to serve you up music that it thinks you will like. Your ongoing feedback will perfect your station - and I must admit that in a relatively short amount of time it was giving me what I would consider to be a near-perfect playlist. What I like best about it is that it exposes me to music that I have never heard before, unlike my iTunes collection, which of course is based solely upon my existing music. I even purchased a few tracks.

I love the fact that Pandora is traveling around the US and having town hall meetings with Pandora users, gathering feedback and ideas. Not surprisingly, many people are wanting more integration between Pandora and their iTunes collection. Hmmm - maybe a strategic alliance or acquisition is on the horizon? Pandora already allows you to purchase from iTunes via their player.

Profiling A Web Audience

Its great to have access to the expensive tools that web marketers use to profile online audiences...but what if you don't have the big budget?  I recently found this awesome FREE handy tool from Quantcast that profiles the audience of your website including:

- Traffic estimates (with ability to compare traffic to competitive sites)

- Demographic Profile, gender, age, household income, ethnicity, education, children

- Siteographics, which shows other sites an audience frequents, which can reveal lifestyle and behavioral traits

- Audience Keywords, which shows the keywords that an audience tends to type in

- Similar Audiences, which reveals other Internet destinations that visitors to a particular site have a strong affinity for

Quantcast is really an open Internet ratings service. It allows advertisers to find reports on the audiences of millions of web sites. It allows publishers to ensure their sites are represented accurately by tagging them for direct measurement. I did a review of some specific sites of which I am very familiar with the audience profile and to my surprise I found that they were very good - not perfect - but very good for a free tool.

Juiced About Joost

I'm very excited after seeing the BETA for Joost (AKA The Venice Project) because it promises to be one of the most innovative advances in watching video online...imagine watching full-screen, broadcast quality video on your pc! After seeing the BETA I was blown away by how intuitive and easy to use the interface is. AND - I am most excited about the potential for real-time social networks on Joost - watch a video, share it with friends, rate it, chat about it, blog about it. Imagine being able to watch a TV show season finale with friends and other fans from around the world and being able to communicate about it while its in progress - its a TV junkie's dream.

Some screenshots from the Joost BETA (images from Joost):

AOL Adopts Napster for Digital Music

In the midst of the changing music subscription market - AOL decide to dump its own MusicNow service and replace it with Napster. This is a clear acknowledgment that their music service wasn't working or they wouldn't be looking outside. AOL will now migrate its roughly 350,000 paying subscribers to Napster's service. AOL also plans to promote Napster with links to its service throughout its free music site, AOL Music.

In a recent report from the by the Digital Media Association - about half of online consumers now spend over $200 per year on music, while nearly 30% spend over $300--significantly more than the average $100 yearly spend before the broad adoption of digital services. So much for the argument that no one is spending on digital music - in the CD market a consumer who purchases 6 CD's a year (valued at approx $100) is considered a significant music consumer.

Other highlights:

• Nearly 60 percent of consumers report that they are listening to more music since they started using an online service.
• The vast majority of online musc service users report that enjoying music over the Internet has expanded their musical tatstes, allowing them to discover new artists and explore new music genres.
• According to the survey, online music listening has increased music fans' overall music discussion with friends and co-workers, with more than 35 percent now talking about music more. And, more than 75 percent of online music consumers report that they have reccomended a particular service to a friend or co-worker.
• The survey also found that listening to and purchasing music over the Internet increases concert attendance. A full 15 percent of online music fans now say they attend more concerts.
• Subscription services have had a difficult time due to DRM issues that annoy consumers. The number two digital music subscription is eMusic - popular in part due to the fact that you can play its downloads on any device. By contrast, Apple's iTunes downloads can only be played on iTunes.

MTV to Create Mobisodes

MTV just keeps expanding their content into new frontiers. They announced that they will be creating mobsiodes with Amp'd. Later this year, mtvU will offer "Suck Less, With Kevin Smith," which appears on Amp'd and features filmmaker Kevin Smith teaching the first-ever mobile media production class at UCLA. That's great news for those of us who LOVE Kevin Smith AND for those of us who want to see more mobile content! MTV seems to be making a big push into mobile content and I predict that 2007 will be the year when mobile content makes huge headway in the US - particularly with short form film and UGC.

The DRM Battle in Digital Music

In Businessweek - iTunes has been accused of behaving like a monopoly by preventing iTunes songs from running on other media players. It was a huge frustration for consumers when some of the labels released CD's that couldn't be played or copied on a computer. More and more consumers are upset by DRM restrictions and the lack of interoperability with digital music and devices. In a recent digital music conference that I attended I was surprised to see that many of the industry players were still not seeking any solutions for this issue, which puts a strong focus on how out of touch they are with consumer needs.

The solution? Alternative models need to be explored - including the potential of getting rid of DRM altogether and creating associated models for the artists, labels and etailers to earn revenue will be key. eMusic is the #2 player in online music behind iTunes and they challenge the need for DRM, their files are unrestricted. It reminds me of the early days of open source (vs. closed) software. Today the labels have an opportunity to shape the direction of where DRM goes, eventually the consumer will vote with their wallet and that window will start to close.

TV Content

Happy New Year! Over the holidays a lot of friends and family have been buzzing about the amount of new TV content that is now viewable online. Interestingly, research shows that the younger you are, the less inclined you will be to watching TV on a television set and the more likely you will be to watch TV content online on YouTube or network sites. This has been confirmed in various focus groups and primary research that I have been involved in. Numerous converging factors such as time shifting (Tivo) and location shifting (download to PC or iPod) and delivery shifting (Netflix) have created a revolution in online TV content. On many sites you can now watch trailers, pilots and full episodes.

I have been looking at online TV content for some time now and here are some of my favorite sites:

Niche or Show-based Sites: TV.com, TVGuide, Zap2it, G4TV, iFilm, MobiTV, BrightCove, MeeVee, Television Without Pity, Court TV, FoodNetwork, HGTV, DIY, C-Span, YouTube, Adult Swim 

Network Marketing Sites: ABC, A&E, CW, NBC, CBS, CBS Innertube, CBS Netcast, Fox, MTV, CNN, HBO, TVLand, PBS, ESPN, Bravo, BBC, Discovery Channel, Oxygen, Lifetime, Turner, CTV, Global, BET, Cartoon Network

Portals with TV Content:  MSN TV, Yahoo TV, AOL, AOL In2TV, Google Video, iTunes