Dondersteen.net

Today I had the honour of co-chairing the first dutch crossmedia congres in the RAI. It was an interesting day in which we could see that from where companies might start, be it newspaper publishers (PCM), television (Endemol) or telecommunication (KPN), the convergence was noticable. PCM is starting projects on the internet AND on television. Endemol is going into distribution together with KPN and KPN is starting as a television provider. (IPTV) Everybody is getting into the competition on other fields. In comparison to a year or two ago where the general meaning was that this will come sometime somewhere, action is being undertaken today. The Dutch industry is starting to get awake. Still if you compare to the UK and the scandinavian countries sophistication in crossmedia thinking is not to big. But in Holland we do have the perfect starting situation, infrastructure is excellent as also noticed by Dick van der Graaf from Endemol. What we need is disruptive thinking. I did not here very much of that today. But then are the big institutionalised companies ever the ones to disrupt? I dare to question that. Difficulty is that you have to keep your share in the current market and at the same time attack the system you thrive on.. The Dutch advertisers (the money) in the market are still a little to anxious to try really new disruptive crossmedia projects. But this is what we need to foster catalysing growth. Look for, be open to and try new (low cost) things. Start small and then let it grow organically, by users pulling on the concept. Like a circle that starts small from the middel and gets bigger and bigger all the time.

I have been thinking about this concept that popped up in my mind a couple of months ago, during my work with the p2p tribler project group: “social currency” it has to do with getting the value out of the ever growing folksonomy that is being created by us all.

A good visionary blog on this is:
http://www.vanderwal.net/random/category.php?cat=153

As massmedia are deteriorating in there strength, how to grasp what is going on?
The internet is a wonderfully logged place. Logs are being tagged and connected to other people;places.. But what are the connections and more importantly what do these connections between people mean?

An opinionleader in one field creates social currency when he/she exhibites knowledge or tips. At the same time the opinionleader will be a follower in a completely different field. What is the value of his knowlegde node network. In other words what is his social currency?
And can you trade social currency? One currency for another? What is the value base?

I have worked for several years now at a product that is using videotracking technology to capture movement of people in spaces, such as stores or stations or events.. etcetera.
From 2003 to 2004 I conducted a pilot in a store in Roosendaal, Netherlands to explore the possibilities of videotracking to get information on behaviour of people. This resulted in developing 2 applications to generate keyfigures to look at behaviour…
near a screen, near an assortment, in a waiting line, on an airport… You name it. I condensed the information to media key figures such as OTS and Window of Opportunity.
It is a very intelligent product that is still very easy to work with and that can generate amazing results, especially for centrally organized organizations. Imagine we lifted turnover by up to 10% in some weeks in our pilot store. If you take that centrally and work through the adjustment in say all stores. Also if effects are not that strong overall, It may still very well turn a smile on your face. Because the measurement is continuously you can learn through time what has worked well and what did not and you can adjust seasonal products as they go. Off course you can also see effects of new products more timely and make adjustments right away. After a while it may even be possible to use the information in your storage policy and personell planning. It takes time to tell the story though and it takes even more time for most companies to do really new things. Working with this instrument forces you to take what happens on the floor into account strategically. But the pressure of needing a measure for the effects of narrowcasting, digital signage accelerates the need for information on what happens in spaces where these installations are installed. After all there are sometimes large investments involved that need a return. In order to calculate this, we need a measure of the effects. Not to forget we need a measure of the effects on screen level, if we want to attach a rating to the messages on screen. RetailTreks (that is the tradename of this product) is very well able to give you information on the effects of digital signage. In a store we can even look directly at the effects on category level. Did the message of a product result in more visits to the assortment? And after that, did the assortment visits generate more sales?… This first step is an important step to make by the way, only looking at sales uplift to see if digital signage is effective, may have you ending up working at a message that was effective in the first place, not getting the conversion went wrong on assortment level, and if you do not measure that you will not see the difference, turning on the wrong screw to get it better!)
And while you are looking at the effects of digital signage and can make up a rate card for third party advertisers, you may as well look at improving your total retailformula and take alongside the percentages of improvement you can make with that. It is what we say in Holland to catch two flies in one stroke.

On March 17 there will be a workshop on P2P television in Amsterdam
It will be held at:
Felix Meritis
Keizersgracht 324
1016 EZ Amsterdam

I have the honour of moderating the discussion with the experts. The workshop can only be attended after invitation. If you are interested you can send a motivation of your interest to:

j.a.pouwelse@EWI.TU.DELFT.nl

When you get busier and busier, you try to keep on blogging, but deadlines of projects seem to be more pressing all the time. And in the blogosphere not publishing in a week is a certain dead. So I am definitely dead by now. If anyone may read this (by coincidence) I only want to bother you with interesting stuff (not like this then) and I have a lot to tell, but need some time to reflect on it and tell you about it. But as a promo to keep in touch, here’s what will be coming up:
- making measures to count audiences to CAN {Captive Audience Network} ; narrowcasting; Digital Out of Home etc (you know the screens everywhere) , so that viable business models can be built. Yes it can be done, will be done and I will tell you more about it.
- What will happen to the broadcast model when TV becomes a free asset? Yes, we are talking P-2-P television and the regression of the total value chain. Relevant? I think so. Interesting.. you decide.

See your next time, after my reanimation

Talpa as well as Endemol are trying to get people to pay for their content. Talpa is selling its serial Van Speijk price 1.50 Euro per episode. Endemol is selling one minute versions of the popular soap GTST. price will be around 0,50 Euro up to 1.00 Euro per minute.

I had the pleasure of moderating a very interesting debate on crossmedia at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. There is a stream available, total duration is 3 hours, but every minute interesting.

We had

concept developer Theo Meereboer of Sanoma;

Krijn Schuurman as a media trendwatcher

Annelies Kaptein, one of the first interactive television programmers in the NL, who has won several international awards for the work of her company Stoneroos,

Paul Naber of Microsoft about XBox 360 Live and the mediacenter

And finally Johan Pouwelse (TU Delft) to disrupt all the earlier presentation with his work on P2P television, it may change the nature of broadcasting completely.. remember Napster and the music industry..

Obviously it is in Dutch..

Take a look

http://home.interactievemedia.hva.nl/x-mediaclub/

Take a look:

http://www.hypergene.net/blog/weblog.php

Joop van den Ende, the other half of the famous Endemol enterprise is back in the mediagame. He has started up a crossmedia fund. Together with Hubert Deitmers (former board of directors Endemol) Van den Ende plans to bring his passion for media back into new companies that operate on the converging marketplace. Van den Ende has been active in the world of theater with his VandenEnde foundation after he left Endemol. His work has had a significant influence on the developments of the theater market in the Netherlands and as far as I know also in other places in Europe. He explained in an interview that he was making money in two ways, by exploiting the theater buildings and by selling tickets for the plays in these theaters. One of his last projects is building the new DeLaMar theaters in Amsterdam, by reconstructing this old theater in the center of Amsterdam for new glorious theater moments. Not all projects are highly profitable, also high culture productions are supported. Van den Ende was bound to a non-competition agreement with Telefonica untill 1 January of this year, after John de Mol and Van den Ende sold their company to the spanish 6 years ago. Both of them earned billions with the sale. The new fund (VandenEnde &Deitmers) aim at smaller but innovative enterprises. A return on investment of 20% per year is achievable in this field. That is very probably a good informed estimate and means good news for all of us operating in this field.
Another 100 million is reserved to help middlesize companies, such as Eyeworks grow (although I doubt if Eyeworks is still middlesized, they are a pretty large player by now). There has been a long term relation between VandenEnde and Oerlemans (Eyeworks) as Van den Ende was the first to recognize Oerlemans talents as more then a soappie. On the verge of the convergence in the mediamarket to seriously take up, both big mediaplayers are back in the game. And both de Mol and Van den Ende have been very succesfull in the broadcasting market, signaling a good view on the possibilities in the mediamarket. Since both are aiming at crossmedia developments, that is good news for the development of the crossmedia market in the Netherlands and Europe. The flip side may be that again the same people will be dominating the media market. In general it is good news for all crossmedia missionaries out there.

Christy Dena is a well appreciated co-thinker on crossmedia. Here’s what she has to say on the future of the noble art of writing:

http://www.cross-mediaentertainment.com/index.php/2006/01/06/writing-predictions-for-the-next-decade/