social media
We’ve been working with PRWeek and BrandRepublic to produce a virtual conference of the very best bits of two conferences on PR and social media. Check it now at Socialmediastrategy.tv
Video and slides from presentations by speakers from facebook, Vodafone, Eurostar and more big names are all online for free viewing now. The presentations cover issues such as crisis management, reputation management, the role of content, measurement tactics etc. Hopefully lots of good stuff for your viewing pleasure!
The hastag was #prdigital if you want to post any comments.
Kinura filmed these events and built the site with all it’s rich media elements and social media widgets. Hope you like it. :)
I imagine there’s going to be plenty of comprehensive follow ups after ThinkingDigital2010 last week. There’s a good post already here from Michael J Bell (aka digitaljoseph).
I was trying to think how I felt about the conference, still buzzing from it over the weekend, and decided that ‘outrageously uplifting’ was a fair summation. It’s hard to convey the cool atmosphere of the Livecast lounge where I hung out with fellow digerati and even got a free shoulder rub!
You’ll be able to watch videos from the event soon. And the twitter comments are worth a butcher’s if you weren’t there – follow #TDC10. Also – I’ve uploaded some photos from TDC10 on flickr.
Here’s a few things I learned/realised at TDC10:
I need to play more
You don’t need vast sums of money to create something worthwhile
Visualising data in new ways is revealing, energising and helpful to indviduals and orgs
CAPTCHAs are helping to digitize books, newspapers and old time radio shows – for FREE
The trivial/inexpensive can have massive power in terms of recognition and customer loyalty
If we don’t have stories life becomes inauthentic
Diamond Shreddies are a genius invention
Also – a few book tips from the speakers:
Pull
Bursts
Predictably Irrational
Obliquity
Nudge
The easiest way to see these books is probably to look at my Amazon Wishlist
So now to follow up on all the business cards I gathered.
And will post as soon as videos go online.
The sell out conference Thinking Digital
is live from The Sage Gateshead 26/27th May 2010.It’s £99 for a video ticket – and well worth it. :)
Our friends at muchosmedia have just put a new demo online of EventChat, the app Kinura uses for turning ordinary webcasts into interactive online events.
The app now has social media built in so you can log in from twitter, yahoo, LinkedIn and facebook. Check out the features and admin tools here and see the demo. It’s probably more fun if you get someone to log in and chat with you so you aren’t just talking to yourself!
We have some plans to integrate further with twitter so watch this space. You can now follow @kinura on twitter if you want to keep updated.
There’s an interesting discussion happening on LinkedIn at the moment in the Virtual Events Forum Group.
Someone asked “What are the benefits of live streaming vs. pre-recorded video”
- and quite a few people have answered, covering pros and cons, interactive options, audience engagement, moderating feedback and so on.
Check it out if you’re wondering about such things!
I pasted in the copy from a document I wrote last year on webcasting and webinars and this is what emerged. Click on the image to see a bigger version. Pretty isn’t it?!
Kinura are providing live streaming for the Opening Ceremony and Inaugural Summit of One Young World on Feb. 8-10, 2010.
Join the webcast and connect via YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter here.
One Young World, nicknamed Young Davos by some media outlets, is the world’s first global youth leadership summit. Bringing together several hundred delegates age 25 and under from the world’s 192 countries, One Young World combines the social power of the Internet with the energy and ideas of global youth to address the most challenging issues of today. Founded by David Jones, global CEO of Havas Worldwide, and Kate Robertson, Euro RSCG group chairman, One Young World focuses on plenary sessions at which delegates are guided by a group of international luminaries including Kofi Annan, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Bob Geldof. The inaugural London summit on Feb. 8-10, 2010, will be open to the entire globe and people of all ages through online streaming and real-time updates.
I’ll be hosting a panel called Creativity Bytes at Streaming Media Europe on 15th October at 4pm. Joining me will be Andy Bell from Mint Digital, Caroline Bottomley from Radar Music Videos, Alex Morrison of Cogapp and Noostar, and Dr Martin Zimper from Zurich University of the Arts.
Here’s the synposis:
“What can we learn from the way that creative businesses, artists and educators use online video? This panel session will look at the importance of digital archives for creative and educational projects; creative approaches to content production; collaborative projects and out of the ordinary strategies that use streaming video to create new narratives and deliver cross-platform events in the real and virtual world.”
Just a few things to cover in an hour then…
Check out the conference programme now at StreamingMedia.com
At C&IT’s conference in London yesterday Rob Davidson of Westminster University gave an engaging talk on the changing face of events. He talked about research being published into trends towards virtual meeting environments, rss feeds, mashups and moblogs. Although he confessed he didn’t actually know what some of those things mean :)
Here’s a quick summary:
- Participation and interactivity is increasingly what delegates want.
- There’s a trend towards trying to incorporate some kind of ’social legacy’
- ‘Generation Y’ want shorter presentations and they want ‘infotainment’
If you want to know more about this he said you can download a free report from http://www.eibtm.com/
The Guardian ran a conference called Activate 09 on 01/07/09 which was all about how we can use creativity and technology to alleviate some of the burning issues affecting our planet (excuse the pun). The day was packed full of intelligent debate and insight and if you want a succinct breakdown look no further than this brilliant summing up, posted by Roo Reynolds.
For me the highlights were definitely Gerry Jackson from SW Radio Africa, Matt Webb from Schulze and Webb, and Sugata Mitra, as I heard him speak on BBC Radio 4 a while ago and was really interested in his work. His hole in the wall experiments are truly humbling and challenge our assumptions about how children learn and about people living in poverty. I did my dissertation on the Digital Divide about ten years ago (as mentioned previously here) and it’s so great that people from all industries are now coming together, more and more, to discuss how we can use technology to make differences locally and globally. I also went to Reboot Britain this week and will write about that in a separate post, but it really has struck me, because of these two conferences, that people who work in digital media are at the centre of the drive for change because we are designers, communicators, socialites and entrepeneurs – we really understand how a simple thing can make a big impact and that we are only at the beginning of understanding the possibilities of a networked, connected life. It might sound grand, and I still love analogue adventures, but I am finding the interest I have in the web renewed and refreshed by these events. It’s all good.
I recently caught up with Radar Music Video’s Caroline Bottomley. I saw she’d teamed up with Rebecca Caroe to solicit some business strategy advice via Rebecca’s excellent blog. We realised we had some issues in common and decided to share our conversation on my blog.
Caroline Bottomley launched Radar Music Videos in March 08. It’s a matchmaking service for indie labels and DIY bands to commission music videos from a worldwide network of music video directors. I started Kinura in February 2007 (Kinura are specialists in live streaming, online events and Flash video applications) so both our companies have been taking off during times of massive growth in video and huge changes to business models and the way we talk to our customers. Both companies are in the online video space; we had a look back at what we were aiming for when we set up our companies, what we’re doing now and where we think we’re headed.
SP: What opportunities did you see for Radar Music Videos when you started?
CB: I’ve always liked business models that are about curating or editorial and I love talent spotting. Previous jobs I liked were in those fields. I was also tuned into the potential for disruption with old models, I like being outside the mainstream :) It seemed very clear that there was opportunity in the music video industry – the old school model was all about gatekeepers at nearly every level and very elitist. I think it helped that my background is in related businesses – promoting clubs & events and in TV production. If I’d have known people in the ‘proper’ music video industry too well I probably would have talked myself out of starting Radar.
I’d spent a year or so running UGC/made-on-spec music video competitions for some major and bigger indie record labels, so I knew it was possible for diverse and outsider director talent to create some great videos. It had been clear for a long time that more and more artist/bands were choosing to work outside the label system and would therefore need to commission videos more directly. However, the matchmaking model I started with wasn’t quite right — it needed changing, partly to become better aligned with directors’ needs and wants (this only works if enough directors value the model) and partly to allow for scale. That’s how Radar Music Videos ‘proper’ got made – a lot of experimentation. It’s still very fluid but the basic building blocks are the right ones now I think. It’s been self-funded from the beginning.
CB: What opportunity did you see with Kinura?
SP: We knew the web video market was about to explode and it would be pretty straightforward to set up a company like Kinura, focusing on a niche in delivering and hosting Flash video. We started with no outside investment – we just put in a lot of our own time and a little bit of our own money to buy bandwidth, and got ourselves out there. We had a bit of a head start I guess, because I was a director of a streaming media company for five years previously, although it’s never easy building up a business from scratch.
SP: What are the opportunities and threats that you see right now?
CB: On balance the current recession is good for us. Our costs are low. We’re not accessing enough of the existing potential demand yet, so anything that keeps the cost of market acquisition down is good. Having said that, we don’t do paid advertising anyway, I’m not confident it would deliver significant ROI. We reach most communities via cross-promotion deals – the relatively low cost of access to new customers via social media is a great opportunity for us. Our biggest threat is new competitors. Hopefully the recession is keeping some new entrants out for the moment. Speed of growth is also an issue – we’re really agile but I generally want things to happen even quicker and that’s a resource issue.
SP: I know exactly what you mean. One of our main challenges is managing growth and making sensible decisions about product development. Our overheads are low, but we need more staff for the work coming in, so it’s balancing success with cash flow. The good news is that we are seeing a major increase in demand for online conferences and live video solutions. People now have faith that webcasting is reliable and they want to find ways of saving costs on travel, reducing their carbon footprint and so on.
We thought one of our biggest challenges would be selling Flash video hosting when there are so many free platforms out there, but many companies still want the reliability and flexibility that comes with using a CDN. The fact that some webTV platforms have file size restrictions has worked in our favour. Plus there are plenty of organisations whose content is sensitive and they want it managed properly, or want live streaming as part of the package, so the service we provide is still massively in demand.
SP: If you could choose investment to access right now, how much would you have and what terms would you want?
CB: I think we’re just coming to the end of a big experimentation curve and there are still some things to put into place before Radar stacks up as a profitable, secure business. I might look for a loan from a strategic partner soon, but it’s not priority at the moment, as the basic business is still being built. I got some great advice to hang on and make the business work profitably before looking for investment – from someone who felt he had invited investors in too early to his (very successful) business. For good or for bad, I usually concentrate on what’s happening in the next couple of weeks. There’s an ambitious aim for Radar, but seeing as a lot of this business is about working things out as we go, most resources go on working out the next step. It seems every week or so there’s news about another large scale music-related business folding or in danger of going under and I’m very happy for us to be playing relatively small right now whilst we get the main things working right.
SP: I don’t think Kinura is currently eligible for VC type funding. Our business model isn’t quite scalable enough. For us, I think the next couple of years will be about building value into our products, continuing to innovate and doing this via a bank loan if necessary. We might consider investment from a known and trusted business associate, but would rather build the business up and sell it all in one go. I think it’s important to think about your exit strategy from the outset, and also not to make yourself indispensable. You have to look at the operations of the business and separate delivery from management and so on. That makes it easier to hand over if it comes to it.
CB: What trends are you taking into account in your business planning?
SP: In the medium term, we’re focused on the trend towards ‘webinars’ and online training: simple ways of making video communications interactive and trackable. Companies want marketing data, and organisations want to make resources easily accessible online. I also definitely think live video is a big growth area. Bandwidth at venues is increasing all the time and serious fibre networks are being set up to link venues. Music industry wise, online gigs are becoming more common. Would you say so?
CB: Yes there’s all sorts of interesting developments in live communications. It’s very exciting and it’s having a positive effect at our end: more live content means bands and artists can feel more relaxed about commissioning a non-performance promo video – great news for a directors worldwide and for consumers too. Unless you know the band already or they are truly astonishing live, there’s very little reason to have the promo video as a performance video.
At a macro level, I’m really interested in what’s happening with video streaming and download sites. All the reports suggest that ad-supported services just don’t cut it, and business models for nearly all streaming services depend fundamentally on ads. I don’t think any of them have successfully substituted subscription models – Imeem tried this recently but with limited success.They are currently getting propped up the major labels to stop them going under and peer to peer taking their place. Crackle - also very big in the US – have very recently stopped accepting ‘general’ uploads. Because more content = higher server costs and all these services depend on fresh content – they’re in a bind.
*****
We’d be very interested to hear your thoughts about anything discussed here, from setting up and running a business to ideas and predictions for where online video is headed. Post a comment below.
Follow us on Twitter:
I’ve been meaning to post something about Artstream for a while. This is a brilliant project that encourages engagement with art in a really accessible way. The idea has been developed by entrepeneur and user experience expert Olga Generozova. It allows people who are visiting exhibitions to post comments and talk about the work via multiple channels – web, mobile, touch screen kiosks – and some new integration for Twitter just launched. Check it out.
PRWeek are running an online event Facing the Challenge of Social Media, which will be streamed live around the world from 9:00 GMT on 10th February. The videos were recorded at PRWeek’s social networking and blogging summit in London, and will be streamed alongside live synchronised PowerPoint slides, giving people the chance to view conference presentations from social media experts at MySpace, Bebo, The Guardian and FT.com to name just a few.
We worked with Muchosmedia to develop the live slide sharing application so now presenters can keep their online audiences synchronised in real time.
You can book a place to the event at PRSummitOnline.com
If I was making a film, it would no doubt be a colourful existential affair, perhaps with coded referential homages to the likes of Bunuel, Powell and Pressburger or Krzysztof Kieslowski. Am I serious? Who knows. Would any one watch it? Maybe. But one thing’s for sure – it would certainly be easier thesedays for me to find people out there on my wavelength to promote my work to, to get them talking about it and even get them involved in financing or distributing it. This is the new landscape of media creation and consumption. And if you have a sincere or passing interest in the ways of the filmmaking world, then check out the sessions from PowertothePixel – which are online now at Blip and soon to be on YouTube. So much of this event (unsurprisingly) was about how online marketing, social networking and the zillions of new digital platforms can be used to maximum effect – so there is a clear relevance for us all.
Filmmaking, like many things, has changed massively in recent times. The creative methods might stay basically the same, but the fact that you can distribute your work directly and instantaneously around the world means that the old Hollywood stuctures are falling apart at the seams and it’s time for a few revelations, if not a few revolutions! The speakers at PowertothePixel talked about mobile distribution, self-promotion via blogs, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and how to make your own Wiki. They talked about filmmakers as publishers, post-modern product placement and brands funding films (which reminded me of all the talk at i-design about brands as publishers,etc.). They talked about making films about the making of the movie, and putting these out while you’re making it and not just on the DVD afterwards! One talked about his film, Steal this Film, a documentary about peer-to-peer file sharing (is that life imitating art or the other way round?!) and one has even set up a brilliant “social open source” project for filmmakers – www.workbookproject.com. They say – “The Workbook Project’s goal is to help content creators understand the changing landscape of funding, production, promotion, and distribution in a digital age.” It’s all good stuff. And the amount of energy these people put into what they are doing is absolutely most definitely inspiring.
If all this intruigues you check out the clips Kinura have so diligently encoded and uploaded anyway – and check out some of these too:
http://www.lanceweiler.com
http://www.indiegogo.com
http://www.sallypotter.com/sp-arkblog
http://www.placevine.com
http://www.universecreation101.com
