Week 4 - How I will be Leveraging Social Media, or not...

This week's blog assignment is titled "What do I want to do when I grow up?", in the context of how will I use all my "new found knowledge in social media" when I graduate from the program.

As I have been pondering this question, I have struggled not to have a cynical attitude about it, but I will do my best to remain positive in my response.

I suppose one could leverage the buzz around "Social Media" when they graduate, and then utilize their new found expertise as a commodity for businesses. We could easily sell ourselves as real assets for businesses looking for leaders in the hot new "social" space. I imagine a couple of years ago students did the same thing, except selling themselves as "Web 2.0" hucksters. And prior to that, maybe it was leaders in the "portal" industry (or whatever was the hot buzz word around then). And these same people probably said really gross things like, "I would be a great asset for your business, and knowledge in [INSERT BUZZ WORD HERE] is a highly valued commodity in the [BUZZ WORD] space. Let's synergize bitches!"

If you didn't pick up on my sarcasm, my point is that these technology fields are a never ending cycle of "what's hot and what's not". The truth is, once the hype dies down, these supposedly "life and world changing" technologies are really just tools. Fun and silly little tools. And eventually the tools become so ubiquitous that everyone forgets that they are even there, and then we all move onto the "next big thing".

I got into the program because I really DON'T know what I want to do when I grow up. I'm beginning to think I never will. Not that I really care though. Regardless of my cynicism towards "technology hype", I find these tools incredibly fun and exciting. And I find it inspiring to be around a community of others that are also excited. And hopefully the inspiration will manifest itself into an answer for "what I want to do...when I grow up next".

In summary, I really doubt I will leverage social media in any form when I get out. I think my dream is to find some sort of laid back gig where I get to create things, and continue to be surrounded by a similar community of peers that continue to get excited at the same silly technologies that I find interesting. Maybe I'll be a teacher at a Community College. That would be pretty awesome.

Or maybe I will be a game show host.

Week 3 - Print Websites Using Video

A print website that uses video quite effectively is CNet.com. CNet is actually a vast network of sites, and is best defined by WikiPedia: "CNET.com is CNET's online portal, providing access to CNET's reviews, news, downloads, price comparisons and CNET TV as well as web search powered by search.com." I have been personally using CNET for years for their product reviews section, and that is the area I will be focusing on.

It has really just been in the last 3-4 years that CNET really started placing an emphasis on utilizing video in the "Reviews" area. They really seem to have a keen grasp on understanding all of the different user types that our out there, and how to effectively use video on a website like this. There are essentially two types of users that interact with this kind of content. There are the type of users that want to jump on and get a quick review of the products benefits and limitations. The other type of user wants a full on tour of the product that includes visuals and expert and user opinions.

A sample of one of these reviews can be seen here:http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-camcorders/flip-ultrahd-black/4505-6500_7-33637213.html?tag=mncol;lst.

As you can see CNET Product Review succeeds at offering an easy to follow summary of the product, broken down into the "Good" and "Bad" of the product. For those that are interested in reading a more through breakdown of the product, there is an extended "Editor Review" which follows.

Where the video succeeds is in acting as an extension to the content. They are short (usually maxing out at about 2 minutes), professional produced videos with perfect audio and video. They help aid the user is seeing the product "in action", and offer a clearer sense of what the product truly looks in when in the hand of a human. This is something that photos usually fail at, as often times products are photographed without giving a sense of relative size.

Week 2 - Arguments of "FREE"

Chris Anderson's theory that all things digital (information) are trending in cost downward (eventually to a cost of free) has a large amount of truth and merit, but a lot of it is dependent on the perspective you are looking at each example's instance. Where the critics tend to get it wrong is taking general concepts out of context.

In Malcolm Gladwell's criticism, he seems to miss the boat completely. He starts off with a propaganda scene at the beginning, to help build a tone of skepticism for his later arguments. This scene is led by James Moroney, the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, talking to congress about negotiations he had with Amazon. He complains that Amazon wants to take 70% of the revenue to publish his newspaper on the Kindle, and pleads for understanding of what a horribly impractical business model this is. He then rambles on hoping to gain the sympathy of his listeners. What Moroney leaves out of his pleads are the other benefits. The 30% gain is 30% profit for his company. There are no printing or material costs subtracted from this 30%. There is no distribution cost for this 30%. Also just think about all of the other costs part of the old "print" model. Storage costs, transportation, machinery.

Next it's Gladwell who fails to tell the whole story, as he goes on to defend the newspaper, "Amazon wants the information in the Dallas paper to be free, because that way Amazon makes more money. Why are the self-interested motives of powerful companies being elevated to a philosophical principle?" What is being left out of this is that the newspaper "profit" isn't being affected by the measly .50-$1.00 cost of the newspaper. After all, that barely covers the cost of the paper itself. Their profits come from advertising, and the higher the distribution rate the higher advertising fees they can charge.

Gladwell goes on to re-tell a behavior experiment described in Anderson's book, where the following happened:

"Ariely offered a group of subjects a choice between two kinds of chocolate—Hershey’s Kisses, for one cent, and Lindt truffles, for fifteen cents. Three-quarters of the subjects chose the truffles. Then he redid the experiment, reducing the price of both chocolates by one cent. The Kisses were now free. What happened? The order of preference was reversed. Sixty-nine per cent of the subjects chose the Kisses."

Gladwell starts belittling this concept by carrying over the same model to YouTube. He argues that the YouTube service, which is completely free to be used and abused by anyone, lost a half billion dollars last year. Where Gladwell missed the mark is the point of the experiment in the first place. The point wasn't to show that “free” has "the power to create a consumer stampede". It was to show how having ANY cost creates a barrier to entry. And when the cost is going to be so minimal, why have any sort of barrier. Those pennies aren't worth anything on the bottom line.

If losing $500 million dollars was of major concern to Google, why would they continue investing in the product. After all, the main cost for running the service is bandwidth, and in the last year they just started offer HD service (something that just eats up more bandwidth).

From the best I can see, Seth Godin best explain the reasons of "why" for the critics:

Like all dying industries, the old perfect businesses will whine, criticize, demonize and most of all, lobby for relief. It won't work. The big reason is simple: In a world of free, everyone can play.

The biggest impact of FREE for web-based is that you have to be as creative with your business modeling, as you are with the content producing itself.

Week 1 - Response to Article

How this concept of Social Media could impact storytelling on the web
Article: Microsoft gives up YouTube chase

What can be taken from this decision by Microsoft to drop Soapbox, is that any attempts to copycat YouTube are a poor decision for any business. YouTube has yet to show a profit for its parent company Google. In fact, the property is a costly money-sucker for the company.
The biggest thing that YouTube has going for it, is its early arrival in the video sharing space. Because of this, it has had the necessary time to refine the user experience and overall functionally of the service. On top of this, the brand recognition and user loyalty makes it difficult competition to go up against. As Rafe Needleman responded in the attached video, Microsoft's service was buggy, and totally lacked any "Community" integration, which created "not enough difference to warrant change from YouTube or other video sharing sites".

If it weren't for the fact that Google has such an enormous amount of money in reserves, there would be no reason for it to continue the service. One of the only other companies (in the technology field) that could match these economic capabilities would actually be Microsoft.
What this says is that the YouTube model is not a feasible business model, and we are unlikely see many new similar ventures enter the space in the near future.

The good news is that both Google and Microsoft recognize that being the video space is a necessity. If this were untrue, Google would drop YouTube, and Microsoft wouldn't take the time to revamp the Soapbox service (they would simply remove it). It's likely that one of two things will happen in the future regarding video sharing services. The first likelihood would be the cost of delivering video will continue to decline, so much so that it would make these businesses worthwhile. This would be a catalyst that would cause a resurgence of new ventures to re-enter the space. The second outcome could be a complete revamping the services, in attempts to constrain costs. The cost containing actions could include a limiting of what types of videos could be uploaded, and/or limiting a user from "freely" viewing videos (especially in an unlimited quantity).

The outcomes of the "video sharing" space will have a significant impact on storytelling on the web (and especially the producers of these videos), as these outlets are the distributors of our stories. We will have to work within the confines of their tools, and capitalize on the freedoms that they do present to us.