Techie and the Media

The Amanda Project

4TH STORY MEDIA PARTNERS WITH HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS FOR ITS FIRST VENTURE: THE AMANDA PROJECT, AN INTERACTIVE, COLLABORATIVE DIGITAL MYSTERY

New York, NY (June 18, 2008)—4th Story Media and HarperCollins Publishers today announced their partnership in The Amanda Project, the first multi-platform series to be written in part by its audience, girls ages 12-14. 4th Story Media, which owns all rights for the property, will produce the content for The Amanda Project with a creative team including web design agency Happy Cog, young adult authors, artists and graphic designers. HarperCollins Publishers, which is a strategic partner in the venture and an investor, has acquired the rightsto publish an eight-book The Amanda Project series worldwide.

“It feels like the art and craft of publishing great stories for children is on the brink of revolutionary change,” said Lisa Holton, founder and CEO, 4th Story Media. “We are exploring new ways of using the web to tell stories, while also leading kids back to the joys of reading.

By combining talented authors with creative web designers we are fusing traditional storytelling with the interactive world of social networking, online games, and user-generated content.We are thrilled to introduce 4th Story Media with the launch of The Amanda Project and are delighted to be partnering with the exceptional team at HarperCollins to bring this series to life.”

“HarperCollins is very pleased to join forces with 4th Story Media on its first multi-platform series,” said Susan Katz, President and Publisher, HarperCollins Children’s Books. “Book publishing is increasingly digital in nature and HarperCollins Children’s, as a leader of innovative publishing, understands and embraces initiatives that engage readers in exciting new ways. The traditional book/web connection is evolving every day, and The Amanda Project takes it one step further by allowing readers to not only discuss the story but help create it as well.”

Amanda Valentino is the elusive, charismatic, and alluring new girl at Evansville Township
High School who arrives mid-year, leaves abruptly, and indelibly changes the lives of everyone around her in the process. Her story will be told across a variety of media in addition to the books—a social website where readers can interact with and become characters in the mystery, a related series of blogs chronicling the story as it unfolds, clues and seed posts on satellite sites, downloadable music and official and user-generated merchandise. Amanda’s fate will begin to unfold across the web during the fall of 2008, through the launch of the T.A.P. website in early 2009, and continue into the publication of the first book in Fall 2009.

Contact:
For 4th Story Media: Lisa Herling
917-912-4273, herling@fourthstorymedia.com

For HarperCollins: Sandee Roston, Executive Director of Publicity
212-261-6796, sandee.roston@harpercollins.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Welcome To The You-Name-It Zone

I get about six to 10 newletters a day. I like to read. I like to read a lot. And as such, I come across these odd little bits of information — I call them nuggets of nonsense — that amuse me when I think about how far we have come, where people are seeking new audiences, and just what programmers think is of value to brands.

Today’s nugget of nonsense was a small mention that I saw about a new multimedia company (they shall remain nameless but have developed content for online and television) that has launched a Web site that caters to a certain over-popularized, dramatized and satirized group of ethic Americans.

Forget about who it is — that is not the point. The thing that caught my eye was the fact that someone out there figured that heritage was a viable target. Interesting.

So, being ever so serious, I checked it out. Now, I am a true believer in “know they audience.” I am also a true believer in the value of the micro audience or audiences that I would consider hyper- influential. Example, invitees of TED conferences, academics, volunteers and women.

But where I have a hard time seeing value is in creating audiences that are narrowly defined, but not by an indiscrete variable. For example, athletes. Yes, athletes may share a common interest, but each has their own nuances. Soccer, baseball, swimming and golf. All sports, but brand and advertising viability is vastly different.

Getting back to my multimedia company that has launched this content site targeting Americans of a certain ethnic background — you are off the mark here. What you should have done is targeted your content to deliver to a more neutral indiscrete variable (like IFC does to independent film buffs) or narrowed yourselves down to a group that is more discrete (NFL Network).

As its stands, the content is modestly appealing; but the value to advertisers and brands will likely remain unattractive.

Technopology: Reconstructing The Art of Observation In The Digital Age

It seems that my life is a series of transportation events--from work to home to work, to some airport to some city to some business event, back to home, over to some family member or friend's house--all linked together by, none other than: technology. My BlackBerry, my laptop, my cell phone, my MP3 player, my car, the subway, a bus, a kiosk.

Now, wait--hear me out. I am going somewhere with this. As a researcher, product developer and strategist, it is my job to hypothesize, test, develop and implement based on what I believe is needed, wanted, demanded by the consumer. But the other day on my commute home, standing on the subway platform at 125th Street waiting for the A train, I noticed a mother and her daughter standing next to me. What was fascinating was that the mother (female, aged 25-49) was reading a book while the daughter (female, aged 9-13) was playing a game on a cell phone and sharing the headphones of an MP3 player that was dangling from the mother's purse. Each was connecting with content in their own way, "tuning out" of the immediate physical environment (think New York subway platform in July--trust me, you want to be anywhere else) and "tuning in" to an environment that was providing an outlet of sorts and connecting through technology. Now, while this is not the idyllic scene of mother/daughter time, it caused me to pause--for the sole reason that I couldn't remember the last time I had looked at the world around me. And I mean really looked.

In a previous life, I used to visit retail stores to "observe subjects in the natural environments." What I was really doing was watching and learning how people evaluated and adopted technology at the source. I was what I lovingly refer to as a technopologist: an anthropologist concerned with how people used, adopted and adapted technology in their everyday environments.

Have you ever spent a couple of hours, for example, in a Best Buy on a Saturday afternoon, just watching, listening, learning? I have. And you wouldn't believe what you can take away from the experience. How people frame their questions--do they ask about features first? Perhaps it is price? Do they let their guard down to the salesperson? Does the wife stand back? Do the kids factor into the conversation? How may brands will they look at in the same category before making a decision? Do they mention whether or not they have been researching online about product reviews or head-to-head comparisons? So many observations, so little time.

Which brings me to the crux of this week's article: I am going to challenge each and every one of you to become your own technopologist for a day. Stop and look around you--both in your offline and online world. Go ride a bus: are people using their cell phones? Are they talking? Texting? Gaming? How many have an iPod or another MP3 player? How about a PSP? What are people using in the airport? What accoutrement are parents carrying for their kids? What are the kids packing? What about the business traveler? Are they engaging or disengaging? What are people doing on the plane? Inside the restaurant where you're eating? While standing in line at the grocery store? Or driving in the car?

Then get online--go and observe what people are telling you with the images and videos they are posting. Think I am making this up? There are entire micro-worlds on flickr.com, where people have posted what's inside their refrigerators, what their desks look like, what is inside their purses.

Why does this matter, you ask? Well, if you are trying to design or market a new food product, why not look into peoples' refrigerators? What about a new ancillary computer device that needs to be tethered? Don't you want to see how people are navigating the space around their PCs? Through the power of tagging technology, you can find those nuggets of insight with a good search engine and with a little effort.

And if you feel you are really up to the challenge, design a plan to use the technology that is available to you and your customers. For example, Vichy started a blog a while back, asking customers to blog about their experience with a particular skin-care product. A retail chain used Web cams inside the consumers' homes to see how they were using everything from toasters to electric shavers to cell phones. Why haven't you connected with your customers on their own terms, in their native environment?

You see, part of being ahead of the curve is creating opportunities to observe how consumers are using technology in their everyday lives so that you can make their experience with your product a better one. If you believe you can't build a better mousetrap, then you won't. But I say your competitor will. What do you think? You tell me.

An Excellent Example ...

... of "if you built it, they may not come".  Check out the story in The New York Times today about WiFly, the wireless network commissioned by the Taipei city government. Net/Net: 4,100 hot spots (equals 90% coverage of total population), $12.50 per month, 40,000 subscribers of a possible 2.6 million residents.

A Number Is Not Really Just a Number

So, if there is one thing that drives me batty is mixing apples with oranges, or pineapples or passion fruit or even tangerines.

When looking at metrics, please, please, try and at least take into account what the numbers really mean - where did they come from, who is gathering, what is the methodology. I was reading an article, Your Video vs. Big Media, that brings this point close enough to home.  Remember the following tenants when thinking about "viewership" by site:

1. Free is very pro-consumer

2. Porn is everywhere

3. Platform and accessibility makes a difference

4. Session length (10 seconds to 10 hours) matters when you tally it all up

5. Porn is everywhere

And here endeth today's lesson ;-)

Green Fields

ManiaTV! has signed Tom Green to host a live online talk show.  He will broadcast live from his house (nice gig if you can get it!!) starting June 15th.  ManiaTV!signed him to a 50 episode deal (if you could only get that for real TV ;-)) that will see Green also develop other programming as well. Now, this has nothing to do with being a Tom Green fan or that fact that he is Canadian (we have to stick together you know) but it has everything to do with this: I love this idea.  Funny, creative, completely uncensored and episodic material that will be appointment based (yes, appointment based because it will "air" at 8 p.m. PT and 11 p.m. ET) and it's online!  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Oh, That Battery Thing I was Talking About

The Business Week headline reads:  "Samsung's Fuel-Cell Gambit: The South Korean outfit is backing a project to build handsets powered by fuel cells instead of conventional batteries"

A good starting point.

Consumer Technology Manifesto

Manifesto: simply defined, a public declaration of intentions. Consumer technology manifesto: simply defined, the ramblings of a geeky consumer researcher and business analyst (that would be me) about what she believes will be the five most influential consumer-facing technologies through 2007.

With that, let us begin:

1. Mobile. Mass consumer adoption, the iPod phone, upgraded networks, the iPod phone, competition from cable operators in the space, the iPod phone, advances in handset form factor, and, oh yes, the iPod phone. No, seriously, the iPod phone will do for wireless content what the iPod has done for video: entice, educate and entertain an entire generation of mainstream consumers who, up until this point, had no idea what the term "mobile content" meant. It also helps that companies like ESPN, MobiTV, and MediaFLO have made it their mission to mainstream mobile content to the masses. Coupled with what the cell phone can do today--access a 2-way network, capture a picture, text-message and the rest--this little communications device has evolved into a powerful consumer-controlled media center. And the integration of location-based services stands to catapult this technology into a whole new light for advertisers very soon.   

2. Flash. Why now? Because Flash is changing the way consumers experience content. Flash allows programmers to create extensions that do not disrupt the experience of being part of the programmer’s web environment. Flash is able to transcend platforms--from robust to simple, thick to thin, tethered to wireless. Not only can Flash house interactive applications within a video player environment, it can actually do it in a user-friendly way. And it doesn’t hurt that companies like BrightCove are developing a next-generation Flash-based infrastructure that will enable every Tom, Dick and Harriett to become their very own content network. (If you don’t know about BrightCove, make a point of finding out more.)

3. Search. Yes I know, you’ve been there and you even have the T-shirt. But I am not talking just about Google. Search, as a behavior, as a way to seek, locate and consume in this media-centric world, is becoming the focus of every consumer-facing company – from Comcast to Viacom to Verizon to Nokia. Think intelligent guides, like Hillcrest Labs’ Spontaneous Navigation products, or advances in accessing content though guides that live on multiple platforms to manage content, like TiVo. After all, if you can’t find it, how the heck are you going to watch it? Couple search with real-time personalization intelligence, and you see why it matters more than ever before.

4. Video-on-demand. VoD, whether it is is free, ad-supported, subscription or a la carte; whether it is on your tablet PC, Razr, high definition plasma TV, iPod, or PocketDish, is doing five important things: extending who watches content beyond the traditional linear television audience, what consumers use to consume content, where consumers watch content, how consumers manage their relationship with content, and finally, giving consumers a reason why they want to deepen their relationship with content.

5. Batteries. This would be the white elephant standing in the corner of consumer experience lab. Here is an area that not many people think about that greatly influences the plausibility of content extensions to devices beyond the TV.  But, if it has no juice, you can’t watch it, you can’t talk on it, you can’t create with it, and you most certainly won’t have a consumer-friendly experience with it. So when someone tells you that you are going to be able to watch a two-hour movie on your cell phone, besides asking them why on earth you would want to subject yourself to that kind of visual torture, ask them if that would render the device useless to the consumer. If your content takes away from a consumer’s ability to, for example, place a call, trust me, they are not going to watch your content more than once.

Now, there are no guarantees in life, and while I have identified the five technologies above to be the “it” crowd, I could be totally wrong. Question is, though, what happens if I am right? Are you ready?

(Please refer to yesterday's post for 'it" technologies 6 - 10.)

The Sequel to the Prequel Before it has Aired

This is will only make sense after you have read tomorrow's blog entry so bear with me.  The five outlying technologies to add to the Technology and Media Futures Consumer Technology Manifesto are as follows:

1. IP Video

2. Next-generation game consoles

3. High definition technology - from TVs to DVDs to programming to STBs

4. Podcasts

5. Anything that increases the efficiency and security of content distribution networks

Smokey the Technology Bear Does it Again

In case you missed it, Bill Gates, through his Cascade Investment arm, joined the Carlyle Group. Bain Capital Partners, the Blackstone Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in a bid with Televisa for U.S. Hispanic net Univision.  Remember now, Gates, through his investment firm and his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, bought upward of a 7% stake in Televisa in July of 2003.  It is reported that the stake is worth $510 million in stock.  Why all the banter? Well, in case you've been alseep at the wheel, Spanish-speaking consumers are the "it" group of marketers, programmers and CE companies everywhere. Now, I am not saying this little tid-bit of news is earth-shattering.  What I am merely pointing out is that where there is smoke, there is generally a fire.