Just over 4 years since the first Tweet was sent, Twitter has announced its plan to sell advertising on Twitter, by the name of ‘Promoted Tweets’.
A good interview of Twitter COO Dick Costolo on CNBC gives quite a bit of detail on the plan:
Seed.com, AOL’s venture in crowdsourced journalism, has just sent out a survey to its contributors, with some very interesting questions, notes Business Insider.
Source: Business Insider
A few interesting thoughts coming out of the issues raised in the survey:
* Seed.com is considering outsourcing fact-checking and copy-editing – given finding the right talent and quality control systems this should be feasible
* Contests and ratings systems could be a significant incentive to contributing, notes New York Observer. This is because aspiring journalists, through this kind of reputation, could more readily move on to more attractive opportunities. In a similar vein TopCoder uses contents to draw in the best developers.
* There could be real value in building communities for aspiring writers, as well as providing training and development. Attracting talent requires more than just providing an outlet.
Seed.com, Demand Media and others are in the vanguard of doing what they can to attract talented contributors who are motivated by things other than money. We are beginning to discover how far we can take outsourced journalism.
When I wrote earlier Will our reputation systems be distributed? Probably not for a long time, a number of people noted that reputation systems will be gamed.
Absolutely. The more valuable a system is, the more people will try to game it. If reputation systems influence who people buy from, who they date, who they read, then massive efforts will be made to game the systems.
However the value of a reliable reputation system is such that it is worth doing anything possible to counter-act the gamers, and it is possible. The energy and money devoted to trying to game Google is extraordinary, yet these efforts have limited success.
In the last chapter of my book Living Networks I made a number of predictions for the future of the living networks, including that Information filtering will be an evolutionary battlefield.
While reputation is a slightly different space from information filtering, both are absolutely evolutionary battlefields where each party’s tactics will evolve in response to the others’, all the while creating valuable outcomes for users. Here is the excerpt from Living Networks.
Information filtering will be an evolutionary battlefield
Bats’ use of echolocation to find their prey is one of the marvels of nature. Bats produce high-frequency sounds, and by picking up and distinguishing the immensely quieter echoes off insects in the air, can instantaneously calculate the location of their next meal. The evolution of this extraordinary capability has led to moths evolving in response. The soft outside of their wings and bodies absorbs the bats’ ultrasound. Moths engage in evasive flying stunts when they hear bats squeaking. Some moths have even evolved the ability to produce ultrasound as well, possibly to startle and throw off bats. In turn, bats have developed complex flying behaviors to confuse moths, and occasionally turn off their echolocation to stop the moths jamming their signals.
I’m in the process of preparing for an internal webinar to a global network of media specialists of a leading agency. I looked back at and updated one of the charts from my Seven Driving Forces Shaping Media framework, illustrating the shift in revenue and advertising models.
Source: comScore media metrix
As the world of media moves beyond its traditional boundaries, media operators need to broaden their thinking about potential revenue sources. In a connected world, the possibilities transcend the classic advertising, sales and subscription models.
In my recent article Creating the Future of Media: 4 Driving Forces, 4 Strategic Issues, 4 Essential Capabilities in Media Titles magazine I wanted to point to some of the possibilities. I brought together some of what we had been working on with clients to create a Media Revenue Models framework to show some of what is possible.
Of course a key aspect of potential revenue streams is the value creation that merits payment. While the general categories of value added by media have not changed, their relative importance definitely has. To understand potential revenue models, you must also be clear on the distinctive value add of your media offering.
A few things to note. First, this is a draft, and while I haven’t had time to update it yet I’ve already been given some additional ideas to complement this. I’d love to hear any other perspectives or ideas that would add to this. Second, this only looks at revenue, not at business models, which look at how resources are brought together to create value. We’re in the process of developing a media business models framework. And third, the primary purpose of this is to help executives to think in new ways about their own business. I have already found it very valuable in strategy sessions with clients in generating new strategic options and ideas.
Here is the content in text form:
I recently finished reading the techno-thriller Daemon by Daniel Suarez. It is certainly not literature, but it is a fast-paced thriller that I found hard to put down. It posits a world in which a genius who creates online games builds a systems that makes the entire world into what is effectively a game, with an augmented reality interface, and in which individuals earn points for tasks that give them higher ranking.
I have long thought it is inevitable that much of our work and play will take place in what are effectively game environments.
In Jesse Schell‘s presentation at DICE (hattip: Kevin Kelly/The Technium) he gives an array of fantastic ideas about the intersection of reality and gaming. After covering how many games such as Wii, Guitar Hero and Webkinz are bring the real world into games, he goes off (from around 18:00) on a rapid-fire string of suggestions about how every aspect of the world can be made into a game.
It is intriguing that mobile social networking, which I have written about since its early days in 2002, has only taken off when Foursquare made it into a game. As people become more familiar with gaming environments and concepts, it seems natural to bring in gaming aspects to more parts of our life. Dangerous things that way lie, but it is inevitable that games and what we think of as reality will be merged to an extraordinary degree.
[UPDATE:] Tom Foremski says why he thinks this is a scary future.
Continuing my notes from the Media 2010 conference on the presentations by Jack Matthews, Richard Titus and Marc Frons, here are the notes I took from the presentations by Frederic Filloux and Russ Fradin.
I will be digesting what I’ve heard today and pulling into some upcoming content on the future of media.
FRÉDÉRIC FILLOUX, EDITOR – INTERNATIONAL, SCHIBSTED
1. Failure of ad model
– CPM lower than ever
– Clickthrough rate never took off
– endless inventories pushing prices down – ad networks are bottom feeders
When I walked out from seeing Avatar 3D in December, I tweeted: “$300 million very well spent!”
Movie theaters can create extraordinary experiences, but the cost of production is ever greater.
On the other hand, movies can be made for extremely low cost, using HD cameras, digital editing, and volunteer labor.
At Media 2010 Suzanne Stefanac pointed to Escape to City 17, a machinima movie that had been made with a budget of less than $500, mainly for the costumes. It looks pretty good considering how little was spent.
Expect both increasing film budgets at the top end, and lowering film budgets at the bottom end.
I am at the Media 2010 conference in Sydney, where there is an extraordinary line-up of speakers through the day. I am here to get my head back into gear on future of media strategy, which will be a major theme for me through this year.
Below are my notes taken on-the-fly from the first few speakers. Hopefully I will get hold of some laptop power to be able to continue after this.
JACK MATTHEWS, CEO, FAIRFAX DIGITAL
We are at the point of singularity – beyond which we cannot see.
Highly recommend Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks.
George Washington University and media relations software firm Cision have released a very interesting study of how journalists use social media and online tools.
The headline news is that 56% of journalists consider social media to be important to some degree. This figure pushed up to 69% of journalists writing for online outlets, while just 48% of magazine writers found social media to be important.
Journalists on the importance of social media for reporting and producing their stories
Source: Cision
Social media is used extensively by journalists to publish and promote what they have written, with just 14% saying they don’t use social media at all for spreading word on their work. Almost two-thirds say they use blogs (presumably usually not their own), and 57% use Twitter or other microblogging sites to point to their articles.
Journalists on the social media tools they use to publish, promote and distribute what they write
Source: Cision
