Category Archives: Video

06.14.19
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Twitch: Publishers hop onto gaming channels for audience and insights into commenting

Final Intel Extreme Masters World Best Gamers League Of Legends – Campus Party Brasil, by Camila Cunha/indicefoto, Wikimedia

TGIF! In my newsletter today, one of the featured stories was a piece in Digiday about how and why publishers are experimenting with Twitch. Gaming is one of those hugely popular pursuits that seems to sit just outside the mainstream while also being solidly mainstream in terms of numbers and adoption.

Twitch is something that as a non-gamer punches into my feed every once and while just in terms of its size and its popularity. One of the best ways to understand Twitch for a media professional is that it’s a platform for live streaming eSports. Its stats are phenomenal, as one would expect from a platform that taps into the Attention Economy equivalent of a highly addictive drug that operates at the intersection of gaming and video.

  • More than 15 m people watch Twitch daily, according to stats from April 2019.
  • More than 404 hours of content have been streamed in the past year.
  • “The most popular streamer, Ninja, earns at least $100,000 per month from Twitch alone.”
  • It currently ranks as the 26th most popular website in the world and the 13th most popular in the US.
  • Amazon bought Twitch in 2014 for a cool $970m, and its current value is $3.79 bn.
    Source: 99Firms.com

Digiday’s Kerry Flynn looked at why publishers are flocking to Twitch and their strategy on the platform. For eSports or gaming publishers, the move makes perfect sense. BuzzFeed Multiplayer, the digital publisher’s gaming channel, has some of its content available only to paying subscribers. The engagement for the content has some pretty staggering statistics, especially when you look at the amount of time that people are spending with the content. “One of Multiplayer’s most engaged streams was gameplay of ‘The Sims 4‘ and garnered more than 35,000 unique live views with more than 3,800 viewers watching for the entire three-hour stream and more than 4,300 viewers watching at once, according to the publisher.” Eeep.

But for publishers not working in the gaming space, the work is more experimental in nature. I recently watched a bit of the Washington Post’s video of one of their reporters playing a video game and interviewing Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, who also is one of the 25 members of his party running for president. It was a bit surreal for me, but I understand the Jedi mind trick of it. You get gamers to engage with political issues while a young-ish candidate plays video games. I would have to be well rested to talk about tax policy and play a video game.

But apart from tapping into this huge flood of attention, publishers are finding the comments on Twitch can be good. The Washington Post said that they found viewers asking some great questions about the Mueller report. It makes me think about whether there is a way regional publishers and broadcasters like the one I work can tap into this or if it’s just a place for national publishers who can get guests with a national profile. Lots of questions.

Well, this week is a wrap, almost. Hello to the new subscribers to the newsletter this week. If you aren’t a subscriber, you can get 10 media stories from around the world in your inbox week daily with very brief context by going to my Nuzzel profile and signing up. And if you spot a good story, let me know on Twitter, @kevglobal.

05.22.19
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Buzzfeed’s video biz is the black thanks to cross-platform ad deals

Three flower pots with British 10 pound notes in them with a silver water can in front of them.

Pots of money, by Images Money, from Flickr, Some Rights Reserved

The newsletter continues to grow, and I wanted to welcome new subscribers.

In my international media newsletter today, the top story today looks at how Buzzfeed’s video business is moving towards sustainability by developing cross-platform ad deals. The deals are primarily focused on YouTube and Facebook, but they also sell on SnapChat. The strategy is delivering revenue in the high tens of millions, according to Digiday.

In a note from BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti to staff in March, Peretti said BuzzFeed made $3 million from Facebook platform revenue in the fourth quarter of 2018, and was monetizing 70% of its YouTube video views by the end of last year.

I also highlight a great piece by my friend Esther Kezia Thorpe at What’s New in Publishing about how the BBC with its Good Food magazine is using voice search. “Make something people need.” Great advice for any of your digital efforts.

Thanks for subscribing to the newsletter, and if you haven’t, go to my Nuzzel profile. And feel free to share interesting stories with me @kevglobal on Twitter (and most social networks).

04.24.19
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How publishers are experimenting with TikTok, the latest hot short video app

@pjf the Mad Scientist, by Stephen Edmonds, from Flickr

Publisher and broadcasters are always looking for ways to reach young audiences, the latest way to do that is the short-form video app, TikTok. In my international media newsletter today, the top story is from a look at how publishers are trialling “fun” programming on the platform. Digiday looks at the audience TikTok boasts:

According to TikTok’s pitch deck to U.S. agencies, about 60% of its monthly active users in the U.S. are between 16 and 24 years old. Also like Snapchat, users are heavily engaged with the app, spending 46 minutes per day on TikTok, on average. While TikTok doesn’t have a way for publishers to directly monetize on the app, such as through sharing ad revenue, some publishers are still choosing to experiment.

How publishers are using TikTok, the latest hot app, by Kerry Flynn, Digiday

Kerry questions about how much resources early adopters including NBC and ESPN can afford to throw at a platform that doesn’t have a clear way to directly monetise attention. That question alone shows the shift from the strategy a few years back of building an audience and worrying about monetisation later to thinking about the revenue strategy off the bat.

Other topics in the newsletter today are:

Publishers need to prepare for mobile app resurgence. Filloux says large players are preparing to dominate the subscription battlefield. Podcasters need to experiment with new revenue models. Brit & Co is the latest millennial digital brand in trouble.

If you spot a good story about the business of media, especially digital, feel free to send it to me @kevglobal on Twitter. If you don’t get my international media newsletter in your inbox, you can get a taste of it and subscribe here. 

04.11.19
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Austrian Publisher Finds Secret to Video Revenue

The homepage of Austria's Die PresseIn today’s newsletter, we look to Austria. Pivot to video became a much-maligned strategy, especially for digital pure plays that were focused on video as a way to grow organically on Facebook with the idea that they could somehow, some way monetise that audience. Nope. But now, Die Presse in Austria has found some new tricks that are at least driving revenue for their video efforts, Digiday reports. (I’m wary of saying something is profitable just because it earns money.) And that revenue came after six years of losses. Two of the tactics for the turnaround:

  • Autoplay but muted sound
  • They now add video to their own stories as well as licence it elsewhere using video platform Video Intelligence. That increased pre-roll impressions from 300,000 to 31 m.

In the rest of the newsletter, we have:

How Charleston paper grew subs by 250%. The best mobile journalism apps of 2019. The New York Times will sell ads based on the emotional response to an article. Facebook changes the News Feed in attempt to stop disinformation. What revenue streams work?

To get this directly in your inbox, subscribe here.

 

01.10.08
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Seesmix highlights my Seesmic US elections experiment

Seesmix, which gives a snapshot of 24-hours on the video conversation site Seesmic, highlighted my experiment of talking about the US elections.

As you can see, the feedback has been really positive from the Seesmic community, and I’m going to continue doing it. I’ve heard from voters in Iowa, Maine, Masschusetts, New York and Virginia. The time difference has been a bit of an issue with me going to bed just as the Seesmic users in the US warm up for the night, but the conversation still has been very interesting. There is definitely something very interesting going on here, and I’ll be curious to see what happens as Seesmic develops and grows. But one thing that I am sure, this form of video conversation creates a slightly different feeling than video sharing services like YouTube, Daily Motion or Metacafe. Well, I’ll let Deek Deekster describe it.


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08.09.07
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X|Media|Lab Melbourne: Dale Herigstad and new television

There was no WiFi in the hall at X|Media|Lab so I’m going to tidy up these posts and publish them over the next few days. The day started with Dale Herigstad with Schematic.

Dale Herigstad, the Chief Creative Officer with Schematic, has done with work with the BBC and iTV, and he wanted to talk about the ‘new television’.

Rich digital content on any screen, any where.

He talks about distance in terms of different types of video experiences, from the 3-10 foot traditional experience to the 2-foot experience on computers, iPhones or personal video players. He also talked about the 200 foot experience on large screens – either movie screens or large public spaces.

He moved through different types of paradigms from print, photography, television and film and now interactive media. Schematic works with EA Sports in Vancouver. He talked about pre-game space – the things that happen before the game actually loads. They are bringing in live feeds from ESPN ticker and video streams on an internet connected XBox 360. Broadband content is always in the game space. On the left hand of the basketball game is the interface for the game itself, but on the right hand is broadband-delivered, real-time ESPN sports content. The line between the game and traditional video content is blurred.

Dale talked about ‘new time’, about navigating not only by channel but also the line between now and next, between programming that is on air at the moment and ‘catch up watching’. Further back there is the archive, and further in the future, there is the promotional material.

He showed the blending of programmed content on discs – whether that is games or HD-DVDs – with dynamic IP content coming in over a broadband connection. He showed off the Miami Vice HD-DVD, which featured a live interface to Google Earth embedded in the player so that you could track the characters as they moved through the real world of Miami. But he emphasised that this was not simply embedding a web browser or web application into the DVD or cable TV experience. This was elegantly placing live, real-time information objects in the interface.

The content can also be advertorial content, and he showed off Matt Damon as Jason Bourne. You could ‘click’ on the phone that he was using in the film and see ordering information. At the end of the film, you could see your shopping cart or bookmarks in the film.

Schematic also did work with Microsoft Surfaces and a connected XBox 360 to navigate programming. The programmes all had additional information such as who had been ‘fired’ from the Apprentice. He showed off some prototypes for ABCs on demand player. They not only had the programmes, but they also had interactive ads embedded in streams, understanding that people using on-demand video also would expect interactive ads.

In closing, Dale said: New time. New space and new opportunities.

Postscript: Dale works with Ball State University on design for new television interfaces. He says that he also has a lot of ideas about news projects and presentation. I’m going to try to catch up with him over coffee and brainstorm.

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07.02.07
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Scary monsters: Does social software have fangs?

Last week I gave a tech talk at Google about social software within business, the difficulties we face when introducing it to people, and tactics for fostering adoption. I spoke for about 25 minutes, and then we had a lively Q&A for half an hour. I will admit that I was quite nervous about it – I mean, there are lots of very smart people at Google, and I wasn’t sure if what I was saying was just teaching grannie to suck eggs. I think about 20 – 30 people turned up, and most of them seemed to enjoy it, so I can only hope it was interesting and useful for them.

Google videoed it and had it up online in no time at all, so here it is:

If you don’t want to watch it all, then Steph Booth took written notes to go with it.

Thanks very much to Kevin Marks for organising it for me.

02.26.07
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Rethinking video, rethinking journalism, rethinking priorites

I love blogs for the distributed conversation that they engender, and one of the discussions over the last few weeks has been about online video and how it is fundamentally different from television. There has long been a post in the back of my head that newspapers should focus on creating video and not recreating television.

Paul Bradshaw beat me to this post in calling for newspapers to stop trying to make television – it’s video. He makes some excellent points on how the grammar of TV does not translate directly to the web. For instance, on the web, why have an anchor pass to a video reporter?

My view is that TV shovelware not only translates poorly online, but adopting television production methods cedes the competitive economic advantage that newspapers now have over television. The argument for a 24-hour live broadcast television news operation is economically and journalistically dubious. Rocketboom’s daily downloads equal or outstrip the viewership for many cable news channel programmes. But I wonder how much more is spent per cable news programme versus Rocketboom’s production costs? OK, that analogy isn’t completely fair, but on-demand video divorced from television’s high overhead will begin to pressure rolling news channels. That is where the opportunity exists for newspapers and other non-traditional sources of video, not in jumping from one threatened business model to another.

Paul Mason, business reporter for the BBC’s Newsnight, actually read out an obituary for rolling news. Paul wrote:

In addition, the limitations of rolling news as a news medium are beginning to block its ability to set the pace in terms of design. When it first started, the bosses consoled themselves for the low viewing figures with the promise that, once viewers saw what they were missing – all those dramatic sound stings, breaking news straps, crawling text, blinking arrows and massive sets – they would be drawn to this visual feast. Today the feast is to be found online – and it is not just visual. It is the immersive experience of interaction in real time with real people that compels users to stay online for hours – whether on eBay or World of Warcraft.

Note, both Paul and I make a distinction between 24-hour live broadcast television and 24-hour newsgathering. I found Paul’s arguments really compelling, not least because he knows the business, but also because he was saying that the workflow and grammar developed for 24-hour rolling news operations didn’t necessarily provide compelling material for 24-hour on-demand news operations.

Adrian Monck has a great post based on a piece he wrote for the BBC College of Journalism. Check out the bullet points, Monck’s Maxims. I really took note of this line:

So, a quick review of video online tells you newspaper guys are still in charge of newspapers, and TV and radio people at the BBC control the commissioning strings for the content that ends up online.

Ah, the commissioning budget and old lines of editorial control. The bottom line is that as economic priorities shift to online, commissioning priorities for original journalism also have to shift in that direction. That’s a long term process. In the near term, media companies have to radically revamp their development process, but that is another blog post. Suffice to say, new media development cycles have to become incremental, iterative and measured in months, not in years.

But in this video discussion, it was great to see my former colleague Alf Hermida’s (new, at least new to me) blog post push this discussion a little further and call for some thinking outside the TV news box.

What I find surprising is that the industry is still having this discussion. It reflects how people in broadcasting and print have failed to realise that the internet is a new medium. It shows the deep lack of understanding of digital journalism and its potential.

Rethinking how we do video online is a start. But we need to rethink journalism for an interactive and participatory age.

Andy Dickinson thought that Alf was calling for a focus on journalism and not the medium. Andy, I might be respectfully disagreeing, but I took away from Alf’s post that the industry needed to rethink journalism in light of interactivity and participation. I might just be misreading Andy’s post because it looks like something I’ve heard over the years that journalism is journalism no matter the medium, which I have always disagreed with.

Regardless, I think Alf is spot on in calling for a rethink of journalism that considers the opportunities of digital journalism and multimedia storytelling. These days, I focus on the interactive and participatory possibilities. That still escapes most broadcasters and publishers. They don’t really understand the social dynamics and psychology of social media because in most part they don’t understand how media can be social.

I think at the end, the opportunity for video exists, not in replicating television, but in:

  • Taking advantage of the disruptive economic potential in pro-sumer video production, not in trying to replicate TV production methods.
  • Developing a workflow that supports on-demand video not rolling television news.
  • Developing an editorial voice and grammar that works in an online, on-demand world, not one that apes CNN and other rolling news channels.

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