Fairfax and Channel 4's Scrapbook

Fairfax goes “digital first”

Fairfax, who this week confirmed job cuts and the introduction of pay walls for their Australian sites, have announced a "digital first" publishing strategy which will see "greater sharing of editorial content across geographies and across platforms." As digital content consumption continues to attack traditional media, we’ll see a lot more publishing and content-based business adopting the same approach.

The figure back up Fairfax’s strategic position. In the last social media update I asked you how you first heard your news and 38% of you said you heard news first on news websites. Fairfax is targeting you.

Interestingly, 11% of respondents said that television was their first source of news against 15% who said social media and 23% radio.

Channel 4 launch “Scrapbook”

Channel 4, who have long been considered digital innovators in the UK, have launched a new service on their site allowing users to collate articles they're interested in into an online scrapbook. The service is imaginatively entitled Scrapbook and you can take a look at it for yourself here.

http://scrapbook.channel4.com/

I honestly think that Channel 4 have dropped the ball with this. While it's nicely designed and easy to use (as you'd expect) I can't see what the consumer need is for such a service. Creating quick and easy links to articles and sites of interest is already perfectly achievable through simple in-browser bookmarking. The distinct lack of sharing options puts this in stark contrast with Pinterest which has similar functionality but allows you to create "boards" that you can share with your friends and in turn browse theirs. This seems to fulfil the human need for sharing ideas, creating a sense of identity and creating communities through shared interests in a far more social sense than Scrapbook.

Would you use Scrapbook? Let me know by taking part in this quick poll...

http://poll.fm/3rqqp

Facebook must let users opt-out of sponsored stories

It's been a tough couple of months for Facebook and now a ruling in California has forced them to give users more control over which of their actions can be promoted in Sponsored Stories. A lawsuit claimed it was illegal under Californian law to use people’s names and images along with advertisements without compensating them.

Facebook have agreed to create a way for users to view which of their interactions have been displayed in Sponsored Stories and take action to opt out of these being shown further.

The change could have a negative impact on Facebook’s advertising business, which increasingly relies on Sponsored Stories over traditional ads that do not include social context of what a user’s friends Like. Sponsored Stories have higher clickthrough rates than other ads on Facebook, especially when they are displayed in News Feed or on mobile devices.

This is a really interesting precedent to set. While I can't see this ruling having a huge impact on the effectiveness of sponsored story ads in the short term, if further territories choose to challenge Facebook’s current stance on the use of user data it’s more than possible that more concessions could be necessary in the future.

For anyone who’s not sure what a sponsored story is here’s a good example…

Social TV is here to stay

The Social TV movement has arrived… and it’s here to stay

On-screen promotion of Twitter handles, hashtags and Facebook pages is nothing new. Increasingly viewers are now seeing the promotion of network specific and show-specific second screen apps and are being invited to take part in contests that incorporate elements of social interaction. But for the first time, we have proof that the message is hitting home.

A recent US study run by Accenture found that 64% of consumers recall the social prompts they see on television. That’s a staggeringly high figure, but when you see the amount of TV related applications currently available through Apple’s App Store or Google Play, it perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise.

Every day the number of start-up Social TV companies increases, with offerings from reward mechanism, to check-in, access to exclusive content and conversation aggregators allowing you to interact with your friends in real-time.

But are they getting it right? I gave a presentation to the Technology team on Wednesday in which I talked about the need to remain consumer focussed in the face of so much technological potential. As I’ve said before, the future of television will be architected by producers who understand the need to create meaningful experiences. So what will Social TV really mean?

Well, in my opinion it will consist of three key themes – conversation, personalisation and gamification.

The conversation of television is nothing new. However, it is increasingly public and with services like Trendrr, increasingly accountable. Our challenge is to harness the natural talkability of television and turn it into something empowering. We need to create a sense of community and shared experience. We need to allow them to give and receive recommendation to and from their friends and increase the volume of our show brands around the digital watercooler.

The personalisation of television will be hugely important in retaining viewers and creating loyalty. This is the sense of putting our consumers at the centre of what we do. Our content must feel like it’s aimed at the individual viewer, make them feel like it’s all about them. It should be relevant, it should be their stories, told in the way they want them. And it should reflect their views and empower them to contribute. Viewers have always wanted their voice to be heard, but it’s only now that they have the means through which to do it. In 1990 the BBC received 1 million pieces of viewer correspondence. In 2010 they received 10 million… per day. Viewers want to be listened to. More than that, viewers now expect that they will be.

Gamification is the fun stuff! This simply means giving our viewers the ability to have fun with our content. The Voice’s 5th Coach Game is a great example of this, not only giving viewers a fun application to play with, but actually allowing them to influence the outcome of the show through it. It also rewards the viewer the more they play. It taps into the consumer desire to participate, to feel like they are part of the process. This is a communal, tribe-building experience and in the coming months, we’re going to see networks across the world getting more and more creative about how they use platform extensions to increase engagement with their shows.

However they do this, they will need to be focussed on the consumer and their emotional needs. Second screen activity will need to be seamlessly integrated, highly engaging and rewarding.

Easy eh?

Google are having a laugh…

Google has applied to take control a plethora of new domain names, including .LOL.

It has also announced that it has submitted applications for .google, .youtube and .doc and in explaining its decision, it cited “interesting and creative potential.”

On a side note, there's an interesting peculiarity about domain name registration. When the internet first came into being, all countries in the world were assigned a country code top level domain. The UK got .co.uk, New Zealand got .co.nz etc. The Polynesian island nation of Tuvalu were the big winners, getting the domain .tv. Unfortunately, they weren't aware of the real value of such a domain and leased it to Verisign for just US$4million per year. Estimates suggest that it was actually worth about 50 times that figure.

This week’s poll…
Thanks to the 30 of you who took part in last week’s poll. That’s a 600% increase on last week and at this rate, it’ll be an NZ-wide census by early 2014. A reminder of the question… do you have a television set in your home that is connected to the internet? Here are the results:

This week I’m asking… how do you normally hear your news first? Take part by clicking here 

Social media brings Eurovision to life…

For the non-Europeans among you, here’s a brief introduction to the weird world of the Eurovision Song Contest. Eurovision is a competition to determine the best song across the continent. It dates back to 1956 and in many ways was the precursor to Pop Idol, X Factor and The Voice. At its peak during the 70’s and 80’s it featured acts such as Abba, Sandie Shaw, Celine Dion and Brotherhood of Man. An eclectic mix I think you’ll agree. In recent years it has seen a decline in popularity and has ceased to make a ripple in the European cultural landscape. Until now...

In yet another case of a live event driving huge levels of engagement across social media, Saturday night's show peaked with over 25000 tweets per minute. While this cross-continental volume is a drop in the ocean when compared to the 50000 votes per second X Factor receives in the UK along (at peak), this is still a huge shot in the arm for a waning brand.

See the image below for a timeline of Twitter chatter...