Image via Wikipedia
Thanks to the opportunity provided by my current class in the MCDM program, I have put together my first video. This has taken place despite my absolute novice skills in video editing (interestingly enough, shooting the scenes was fairly straight-forward for me).
Image via Wikipedia
Thanks to the opportunity provided by my current class in the MCDM program, I have put together my first video. This has taken place despite my absolute novice skills in video editing (interestingly enough, shooting the scenes was fairly straight-forward for me).
Image via CrunchBase
Analyst Laura Martin needs to lighten up. In assessing the evolution of content from TV-only to TV/Web mix (face it, my mother will NEVER watch her soaps on her laptop…) it is easy to see that the demand for quality content remains, regardless of device. The top-end owners of Hulu content (ABC=Disney, Fox=News Corp., NBC=GE…for now) are all invested in seeing profit from the venture. If they don’t, they are quite likely to pull their content, which is unlikely as they can sense the moving of the tectonic plates of media consumption and will not be caught off-guard.
And then there’s Comcast….
Image via CrunchBase
Analyst Laura Martin needs to lighten up. In assessing the evolution of content from TV-only to TV/Web mix (face it, my mother will NEVER watch her soaps on her laptop…) it is easy to see that the demand for quality content remains, regardless of device. The top-end owners of Hulu content (ABC=Disney, Fox=News Corp., NBC=GE…for now) are all invested in seeing profit from the venture. If they don’t, they are quite likely to pull their content, which is unlikely as they can sense the moving of the tectonic plates of media consumption and will not be caught off-guard.
And then there’s Comcast….
Image via Wikipedia
Bill Wasik, senior editor at Harper’s magazine, makes several interesting and interlacing points in his talk (seen here). I feel that his assertion that “short stuff” will never be monetized is essentially correct. Short posts by an author or organization are too much like Twitter, and most of these same authors Tweet their short stuff, so why would I pay for that?
Image via Wikipedia
Bill Wasik, senior editor at Harper’s magazine, makes several interesting and interlacing points in his talk (seen here). I feel that his assertion that “short stuff” will never be monetized is essentially correct. Short posts by an author or organization are too much like Twitter, and most of these same authors Tweet their short stuff, so why would I pay for that?
Image by gunnsteinlye via Flickr
When I tell a story, there is a distinct “movie” going through my head and the words are an attempt to express that “movie” in such a way that others can appreciate the story the same way I do. That covers the written narrative and some kind of multi-media or video representation of it. What about “static media” like graphics, paintings or illustrations?
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
…with apologies to Was (Not Was)…
Newspapers are signposts of their constituents in so many ways. Just take look at the difference between the Seattle Times, the Des Moines (Iowa) Register and the Boston Globe (the paper/site I took a look at for this post). Each has top line focus on local news, but the Register does not have a link to national/global news on its front page. They choose to stay purely local.
In the battle and discussion around Free (using Chris Anderson’s capitalization), I have felt that a missing component has been whether the Free stuff in and of itself has value to the consumer. Sometimes maybe and sometimes maybe not.
I work in an organization in which we run across something like this: another business unit inside the company has created some technical training content aimed at consultants and systems integration firms. Many times it takes the form of “<Name of technology goes here>-Brain-Dump-in-a-Box” which is duly posted for broadest possible distribution on the Web. Great! Lots of folks go there, download and/or watch it (if it happens to have webcasts that aren’t downloadable) and get whatever assistance the content by itself can offer.
Then, this internal group will approach my team and ask us to make it available to our training channel. For various niggling reasons, a cost/price becomes associated with this training content in the process. So the question is, will a training company be able to sell this same course to corporate customers despite the fact that they can get it “for Free off the Web”?
The answer is Yes.
The reason is value. When this corporate student attends an instantiation of this class, she or he will not be staring at a monitor for five days. They will be taught by an experienced technology trainer. There is the value! It’s not just the content (or whatever other IP you might think of) by itself. It is the context and the “value-add” that make it worth paying for. The value-add also adds cost, but the Value scenario still comes out looking good.
Will some companies still opt to go to the site, download the content and point their employees at it, telling them to “get up to speed” on their own? Sure. There will always be takers for Just Free. However, context and extra value can make the difference.
The challenge is to discover the context and extra value the potential consumers of your currently Free Stuff would be willing to pay for.
Green
That’s the idea: Green
I feel that there are a lot of possibilities with a more abstract phrase/word. Aside from the most currently common definition today (environmentally friendly) and the obvious definition (um……well, green…), several others come to mind easily:
A few other associations come to mind:
Given the breadth of experience and the depth of creative talent in this class, I feel that this would be an exciting topic.
Authentic Voice 