Measuring Every Move

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Frederic Brodbeck has been busy measuring and visualizing movie data, in order to reveal the characteristics of films and to create a visual “fingerprint” for them.

For his Bachelor Graduation project he has presented information such as the editing structure, color, speech or motion which are extracted, analysed and transformed into graphic representations so that movies can be seen as a whole and easily interpreted, or compared side by side.

Brodbeck is a student of the Royal Academy of Arts, Den Haag and his interest is "how generative and computational design and the role that writing code can play in new approaches to graphic design".

But what value is this for the common man you might well ask?

Brodbeck sees Cinemetrics as assisting film choice; if you don’t want to spend time viewing something that is dark, simply gravitate towards a lighter-colored graph.

Should be Sceptical?

News International is claiming 105,000 paying customers for The Times and Sunday Times. 

This is five months after the introduction of their paywall, touted at the time as being the way things would be for all online publications moving forward.

According to a UK journalism site, "the sites charge £1 for a day's access and £2 for a week's subscription, though an introductory offer allows 30 days of access to both sites for £1. Access to the sites is also bundled with a seven-day print subscription to either title."

However there is much debate as to what the figures really mean and how successful the paywall model actually is?

Average traffic for May has actually halved compared to the previous year according to Hitwise and the BBC goes further claims there has been an 87% drop off in site visitation.

They also question how many of that 105,000 paying cystomers are currently in the introductory £1 for thirty day trial period?

Colin Greenslade, the Guardian's media commentator says the figures simply don't stack up as a new business model.

As he puts it:

"Most importantly, there is no clear breakdown of the 105,000 total figure to show how many people have subscribed monthly, weekly or daily. "
 
If you compare the reach of The Times with that of a more traditional online model, the Guardian, the decline is very noticeable.
 

Rob Brown of PRMedia Blog believs that the paywalll could well tumble.  He makes the point that where this really doesn’t add up is when you look at ad revenue.
 
"The Guardian is pulling in £40 million a year in online revenues more than double that of the Times and bear in mind that doesn’t account for the fact we are not looking at a full year position for The Times.
 
It looks like online ads at the Guardian represent serious value in comparison. From their pre-paywall high point the audience for the TimesOnline has dropped almost 90%."

"These figures very clearly show that large numbers of people are willing to pay for quality journalism in digital formats." says Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's News International. 
 
This to us looks like an attempt to put a postive spin on a less than positive result, albeit after just five months of moving to the paywall model.
 
While we love an optimist, Rebekah Brooks's conclusion could well be premature.  There is not yet conclusive evidence that such a business model is viable in the medium or long term.

Related articles

• Why the Times paywall numbers are meaningless. (malcolmcoles.co.uk)
• Times's paywall figures don't add up to a new business model (guardian.co.uk)
• The successes and failures of the Times's paywall (newstatesman.com)
• Is The Times Paywall Ready to Tumble? (pr-media-blog.co.uk)

On Target With Blog-vertising

Image by Mexicanwave via Flickr

Blogs are meant to be pure streams of consciousness, unsullied by the taint of commercialism - right?

When you are reading a blog you are getting personal opinion free from the undue influence of third parties is a commonly held belief.

Unfortunately this is increasingly not the case. The reality is somewhat different, with a growing legion of "professional bloggers"

Blog-vertising (a terrible term) is increasingly becoming part of the mainstream as companies scrabble for market share inthe brave new world of social media.

As Steve Green reports "As an advertising channel,  the blogosphere makes total sense. Certain blogs not only boast a valuable and rich list of subscribers, but have also developed a highly evolved authority, making bloggers a sought after commodity for advertisers "

The recently launched ebuzzing matches bloggers with advertisers and bloggers only survive if their content remains relevant to the audience that they serve.

The company's stated ain is to "be a platform for bringing bloggers and advertisers together. It is based on a simple principle: Like. Recommend. Earn. 

It allows bloggers to monetise their blog, earning money by creating posts about things they genuinely like and want to recommend, whilst advertisers can create buzz for themselves in the communities that are most likely to be interested in them."

The strength of blog-vertising is that it is a highly targeted channel providing a greater return on investment.  Advertisers need to be where their market is and companies such as the Euro-centric ebuzzing are building "the buzz", which is so essential to build online reputation and drive sales.

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• Ebuzzing, the sponsored content platform for bloggers, launches in the UK (eu.techcrunch.com)
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Listening to global voices

Blogger and technologist Ethan Zuckerman wants to help share the stories of the whole wide world. He talks about clever strategies to open up your Twitter world and read the news in languages you don't even know. - Source: TED


Ethan Zuckerman studies how the world - the whole world - uses new media to share information and moods across cultures, languages and platforms.

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• Listening to global voices: Ethan Zuckerman on TED.com (ted.com)
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Modern Modern Media Consumers Participate

This visualisation demonstrates just how significant the participatory nature of the the internet is.

Of the 61% who read their new online, 35 % actually contribute to the creation of the news, commented about it or used to social media to promote it to others.

The other point of interest is that people 'graze' for their news content and this is the nature of the medium.  Only 21% claim to routinely use one site for news and information.

These findings are hardly surprising given the development of the semantic web and the expectation people have to have the news come to them rather than to have to go searching for it.

Modern browsers all have the ability to subscribe to news and interest feeds so once a subscription has been set up the news follows the consumer rather than the other way around.  User 'portals' such as Feedly and aggregator sites and software make the ability to set up a personalised menu even easier.

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Buzz Me Up Scotty - Earned, Paid and Owned Media

Forrester Interactive's Sean Corcoran defines earned, paid and owned media in his latest blog post.  The definition for paid media is the easy one but not many people have come to grips with the concept of "owned media".

This is arguably the most exciting, as it is where your customers become your channel.  Word of mouth maybe the most credible but it is also an approach that requires the most monitoring, as it is outside the direct control of the company or organisation

Monitoring the Buzz need to be built into any digital strategy and while there are many online tools that can assist, there needs to be an equal investment in staff resource.  Listening to the conservations is not enough;  people with the right skills need to be trained to sense opportunities as they emerge and feed these immediately to the business owners.

I would advise caution about jumping straight in to a paid media strategy.  Many of the agency promises simply don't translate into business growth and response rates are declining.

Ask yourself this question, when was the last time you clicked through on a Facebook or Google Ad.word?  I suspect the answer will reinforce the above observation.

Sean recommends treating paid media as a catalyst to drive increased engagement over a specified campaign period.  Don't hang your digital hat on it as a long term solution though.

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