Beyond Frequency

Futurity & The Growing Importance Of Niche

Last week the Mercury News reported that because of concern that journalismf's economic problems are reducing Americans' understanding of science, medicine and other research, 35 of the nation's top universities announced that they will supply their own news accounts of their discoveries directly to top news sites on the Internet.

The universities have formed their own non-profit wire service called Futurity to provide articles to popular Web sites such as Yahoo News and Google News, along with MySpace and Twitter.

The schools saw the reduction or elimination of science and technology staff at larger organizations like CNN, Mercury News, Boston Globe and others so they realized that the only group that would ensure their work reached the public was them.  With that in mind, I think their is another lesson here for both 'for-profit' and 'non-profit' media, information & content providers.

Not everyone cares about everything.

The power and necessity of targeted, niche delivery, or narrowcasting, is not a new one but it is quickly becoming the rule rather than the exception to viable media business models.  Futurity came into being because the broadcast based organizations could not find an audience of enough size to support the operations. 

That is not surprising.

In our 'pull-based' world, those who are interested in a topic can find it much more efficiently than a non-specialized source can provide it.  There is a reason that Triton bought Ando, that Search dominates advertising growth and that Price Waterhouse Cooper projects a 10% shift in spending from non-digital to digital media that can support "more targeted and tailored models that will differ widely within and across segments and geographies.

With the NAB conference in Philadelphia this week, I am excited to catch up with a lot of people and talk about the growth of niche.  We, as consumers, are very demanding and increasingly device and platform agnostic as long as we can get to the information or entertainment content that is most important to us.

Broadcasters have a tremendous opportunity to leverage a large audience and break it down by behavior, location and content and eliminate the barriers between platforms to please both the consumers and advertisers. 

The New York Times and the universities in Futurity have learned that lesson and are passing it on.  

Braveheart Inspiration - All Media Is Social Media...

It was with that in mind that I reflected on Brian Rich's piece in Forbes, "Traditional Media's Revenge". 

Mr. Rich believes that Web 2.0 companies are  "even weaker than traditional media", but I think he did not address the most important point.

All media is social and the next critical inflection point for media is not traditional companies adopting Web 2.0 concepts and methods or battling them for turf.  It is providing a means to eliminate the barriers between media platforms, which will let traditional media leverage their audience to unleash the social power it already holds.

Traditional media has always been social, just with a time lag. That is a point that is often lost in the ongoing and accelerating debate, discussion, merging of and between "traditional" media and "interactive" media (digital & mobile). 

Before Facebook, Twitter and blogs, the water cooler, telephone and lunch debates represented our social interactions around content.  The core differences between these tools and our Web 2.0 tools of today are 'time' and scale.  They have merely made our thoughts and opinions immediate and extended their reach.

As a consumer, I do not care about platforms; I care about my content, information and communication.  If there is a video, product or place that interests me, I should be able to acquire it as easily through SMS as my Bebo profile...and they should be connected. 

Difficult? - 'Yes'; Impossible? - 'Not at all'

As William Wallace may say to all media companies (my apologies to the purists for the quote paraphrase):

Why is that impossible?   You're so concerned with squabbling for the scraps from the table that you've missed your God given right to something better. There is a difference between us. You think the people online exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with FREEDOM. And I go to make sure that they have it.

The capabilities exist now to make these connections, we need only look at the picture through the eyes of the consumer.  We must.

Government Apps

This is my first post from a mobile phone and I think it is appropriate given the topic. The federal government annunced below that it has jumped into the cloud computing and app pool in the name of time and cost efficiency.

I applaud it in the loudest way possible.

The Obama CIO Vivek Kundra blazed the trail for open data and open government apps during his days as the CTO for Washington DC through the popular Apps For Democracy project. I am excited to see that work moving into the federals sphere and I am doing my best along with a passionate and talented group to launch a similar project in Philadelphia.

http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/contentView.do?pageTypeId=8199&channelId=-24825&P=&contentId=28477&contentType=GSA_BASIC

Collaborative innovation has a place in both the public and private sectors and I do believe it is a cornerstone of true democracy. I look forward to the discussion on October 6 at the Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit.

Radio & The IPOD Nano Tightrope

In his blog today, Fred Jacobs talked about The Denuo Group and the observation its CEO Rishad Tobaccowala that:

"the challenge is that today's marketing (and in radio's case, our ongoing, fluid content) are in real time, largely because of interactive tools like Facebook and Twitter.  As he noted, "Only the schizophrenic will thrive: You must have two [business] models.  One is smaller and faster, and more risk-prone, and one regular model."

With the Apple inclusion of FM radio in the new Ipod Nano, the stations, groups, personalities and management should play close attention to those words.  While the NAB and RAB should be happy about the inclusion, they should also be vary wary and ensure there is a nimble, consumer-centric model to accompany their traditional broadcast mindset.  Both the consumers and advertisers will demand it.

Everyone should be wary that under the consumer scrutiny that comes with Ipod visibility, the fact that radio currently programs TO rather than WITH its audience will not hold up.  The NAB and RAB should be diligent in pushing their broadcaster members to embrace an open, social media philosophy both on the web and on mobile devices as a requirement, not an option of their future.

Just as Apple included radio pause and tagging features in the Ipod Nano to force FM radio forward, the industry participants must change their traditional mindset to truly take advantage of this new venue.  With a popular mobile device, the programmers should go beyond static tagging and embrace dynamic tagging that creates an ongoing relationship with those who interact beyond the broadcast.

Most importantly, traditional radio must abandoned the idea that they are solely in competition with each other because everything from the consumer's playlist to Pandora takes the eyes and ears from them and their advertisers.  In order to compete effectively, they must retain the excitement and engagement of the listeners...and passive, one-way communication just will not do the job by itself.

If the stations, groups and personalities continue to program in a one-way, broadcast-only fashion and do not take advantage of the mobile, interactive capabilities of this new device, they will suffer a very public failure and all of the backslapping to get this first win will be meaningless.

One Lesson From Facebook Profitability

Yesterday's big news in the social media business sphere was the Facebook acknowledgment that they turned a profit last quarter.  That is absolutely great news and a tremendous indicator for the future of convergence that has been "coming" for years now. 

Facebook and some analysts point to the low headcount as the reason for profitability despite the basic ad model and the fact that Facebook does not share in the revenue that application makers generate through their network.  While running a lean business is essential, to me the lesson in this profitability turn is that an open strategy can work.

Before opening up its network to applications, Facebook would have probably had a very good run and then went the way of Friendster and MySpace...popular, but not monumental.  The 'perfect storm' combination of an (1) open invitation to applications, (2) Facebook Connect to let users interact with friends outside of Facebook and (3) Facebook Mobile to let us all carry our friends wherever we go is the reason the service has exploded to 300 million members.

While 99% of the businesses out there will never reach that level of audience, those actions of openness are still relevant. The fact is that we, as consumers, no longer live in one place, interact with one community or remain loyal to one brand. 

We are in the 'me' world, but not in an egotistical way, just in one that we seek to have our likes, passions, companions right at our fingertips.  I had lunch with a friend of mine the other day who runs a company with a user base of well over 50 million and he said it well..."we need to give our customers the easiest path to 'me.com'.

Businesses that keep that fact in mind, regardless of the product, service or scale, will do well.

Speaking At Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit

I am very excited to have been asked to speak at the Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit here in Philadelphia on October 5 & 6, hosted by Innovation Philadelphia.

Whether you are an entrepreneur, a graphic or web designer, business executive, or something in between, there is sure to be something for you at the conference with more than 100 speakers scheduled for this year’s event.  With a variety of panels and workshops, and keynote speakers such as Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert and social media guru Peter Shankman, the Summit is bringing together an assortment of creative industries to network, exchange ideas, and share information.

I will be giving two presentations, one solo (SaaS - It Takes a Villiage to Raise A Venture) and one as part of a panel ( Unlocking Technology: How Open Source Drives Innovation). 

The descriptions are below.  I am taking a page from my favorite VC blogger Fred Wilson's book to develop as much of the discussions based on community ideas, insight and recommendations as possible.  If anyone has ANY ideas, please put them in the comments below.

SaaS - It Takes A Village To Raise A Venture 

Creative entrepreneurship is the sum of innovation, efficient capital use, collaboration, measurable results and social responsibility. Modern business creators must establish their core focus and move to market quickly through the combined use of social, open and proprietary tools, databases, services and applications while still planting the seeds of longevity & scalability. This workshop takes a hands-on approach to proving the power of leveraging software-as-a-service (SaaS) to launch a company. Participants will gain a practical approach to embracing existing tools to launch their own creativity in ideation, operations, marketing and sales for any venture.

Unlocking Technology: How Open Source Drives Innovation

Open source technology has revolutionized the way software is developed, but open source thinking expands beyond the IT world. Peer-based collaboration can be used in all aspects of business and results in better, more effective ways of producing goods and services and disseminating products throughout the marketplace. In our world’s highly competitive market, the more collaboration and exchanging of ideas that happens, the better the outcome. Learn how you can use open source-style collaboration in the development of your products and in the way you conduct business.

7 Years Ago Today...and getting better each day!

On this day, September 14, in 2002 in New Jersey at a wedding for her best friend, I met my beautiful wife, Kerri Lynn Kennedy. 

It is hard for me to remember how jovial of a person I was before that day, but I can honestly say that must have been the most unhappy day of the past 7 years because every day since has been a greater joy the more time we spend together.

We took our time in the relationship as we were both "reluctant" to accept that fact that there was another person who could keep up and waited until last November 29 to get married in Mexico.

I don't know who I thought I was kidding as I have to sprint every day to keep pace with Kerri, the most vibrant, intelligent and passionate person that I know.  How she fell in love with a media-tech geek obsessed with Law & Order, music and soccer I will never know, but I am thankful ever single day.

It is beyond an honor to share my life with her and I work every day to make her proud as she deserves nothing less than a desire to change the world for the better.  You can see a sample of her tremendous work on behalf of the women of developing nations at Womens's Campaign International.

I know that I will look back each year on 9/14 and 11/29 as the most unhappy days of the past year...and be the happiest man on the planet as a result.

End Media-Tech Isolation To Redefine Social Impact

The New York Times released today one of the most disturbing accounts of clean water problems that I have read in a long time.

The purpose of media, whether a printing press or iPhone app, is to connect, inform, commune and entertain all with the goal, hopefully, that our collective insight, perspective and wisdom can move our society forward in a positive way.

All of that sounds great, but it quickly becomes folly if our core human needs remain unmet,  underserved or ignored.  The power of media in our hyper-connected world should serve to  amplify public discourse and outrage to advance solutions for little things like ensuring we all have access to clean water.

In the case of clean water, the NYT article reports "For years, according to one memo, federal regulators knew that more than 30 states had major problems documenting which companies were violating pollution laws."

Also according to the NYT article, "For instance, three coal companies...reported to state officials that 93 percent of the waste they injected near this community had illegal concentrations of chemicals including arsenic, lead, chromium, beryllium or nickel...Sometimes those concentrations exceeded legal limits by as much as 1,000 percent. Those chemicals have been shown to contribute to cancer, organ failures and other diseases.  But those companies were never fined or punished for those illegal injections, according to state records. They were never even warned that their activities had been noticed.  West Virginia officials, when asked about these violations, said regulators had accidentally overlooked many pollution records the companies submitted until after the statute of limitations had passed, so no action was taken."  [Emphasis from me]

In today's age of hyper-local data, geo-targeting of ads and behavioral targeting on phones, polluted water that goes overlooked because of data problems is an embarrassment.

On the public outcry side, Twitter & Iran, Barack Obama campaign, DonorsChoose and Move On show one way the merging of media and technology means much more than ad revenues and subscription fees. It can change lives.

On the data collection side
 - What about simple sensors in taps on the consumer side and water discharge on the industrial side that register pollutants to send to a database so the government can save resources on data collection to make their case against polluters?  We do it for cars.

- What about using social technology and network maps to see the connection between pollutants and reports of disease without having to rely solely on interviews? 

The possibilities are endless if we take our blinders off to see the full range of societal benefits the media-technology connection can make.
 
Seth Grodin wrote in his post today, "The End Of Dumb Software"- "When you start developing on the web, your default is to be smart, to interact and to be open (with other software and with your users)."

That is true well beyond software to be the reality of our future lives.

IPOD Nano...Finally A Way To Bring Accountability To FM Radio

My friend Mark Ramsey wrote a post today PPM And The New Ipod Nano where he asked the very appropriate and pressing question:

"So what does the rise of radio in mobile environments mean for our attitudes about PPM and the attitudes our advertisers will have about PPM?"

With PPM requiring an audible signal to verify that a person was actually listening to the station, or at least hearing it, the direct link between the Nano and the earbuds could cause some problems for PPM.

Mark answered it in his post:

"If I were an advertiser in a world of rising mobile "radio" usage, I would place more confidence in verifiable streaming metrics than in any collection of sampled data produced by a methodology which required some Rube Goldberg contraption dangling from my hip and installed at my discretion."

I would go one step further and say that the underlying philosophy of PPM, that listeners equate to advertiser value and station value is going away all together. What mobile and digital technology have provided us over the years is proof that active engagement is better than passive consumption when it comes to advertising. 

Just ask Google as click-based advertising built the search giant.

The Ipod Nano allows us to pause live radio and tag content for future consumpItion. If I were  a radio advertiser I would care more about the number of people who interacted with my ad, wanted more information, tagged it or called after it than the number who merely heard it.

Those capabilities have been around for a while, but the Nano is bringing them mainstream.  And with the Ipod universe now connected to radio the method of measuring value will change.

Radio Should Abandon Multi-Station Ownership

The Wall Street Journal reported a few days ago that "Radio Firms Beg Lenders For Mercy".  The heavy debt loads incurred from years of station acquisitions and the huge drop in revenue has damaged broadcast cash flow and put many of these radio firms in parallel.

The fact is that the "cost savings" of multi-station ownership fall far short of overcoming the revenue drop from limited innovation and poor programming, which is a direct result of the lack of local & community content.

What use are large multi-station groups when revenue is way down, costs are not improving and content is sub-par, which means listeners will ultimately leave?  Answer: 'They are of no use'.

I was working in investment banking in the Media & Entertainment Group of Corporate Finance at Bear Stearns in 1996 when the Telecommunications Act was passed.  As a result, I participated in several deals both on the TV and Radio sides to consolidate station groups primarily under the banner of cost-efficiency.

Frankly, it seemed reasonable at the time and even those like me who have moved in very different directions since those days would have a hard time refuting that it made financial sense then.  We simply did not predict, or we just did not think hard to estimate, the negative impact on programming and innovation as well as the longer term negative impact on finances, which the WSJ article highlights.

Debt-burdened groups should not continue hold on to stations completely, incurring 100% of the costs with minimal cashflow upside under the current operations.  They should turn them over to local owners, regional groups, women & minority groups. 

The current owners should sell and maintain only partial ownership so they can participate in the upside, but let the stations return to a truly community focus by working directly with those groups that can provide the independent voices that gave radio its power in the first place. 

To drive innovation and catch up with the digital & mobile forces that are driving revenue today, the national groups should support their new partners by providing that digital infractructure to let listeners and programmers interact directly in the conversational, geo-topic based way that they demand and deserve. 

The national groups would gain cash from the partial sales to satisfy their lenders and, if we are really thinking holistically, the federal government should provide incentives for both the buyers and sellers.  Groups would reduce their hard costs on maintaining stations, increase their local presence both online and offline and leverage the scale of national reach through the social media, mobile and broader digital outlets where consumers are engaged.

The national owners would have more clout to support a broad digital toolset, with the right partners, than their local management.  And the local management has direct touch with the community so that advertisers can provide more relevance to see more value in their spend.

Basically, we should just hit the 'Restart' button now that the path we began in 1996 has led us to a bastion of mediocrity and increasing irrelevance.  By breaking the station groups and broadening ownership radio can move out of the current financial cavern to one where social media, mobile tools can rekindle the passion for local voices tied to the community.