Saving Hollywood

Photo from jorgemir via flickr

Poor Hollywood.  Still can’t figure out how to stop pirating and make money off the internet.  But I believe there are may untapped avenues that Hollywood could take to generate money and not stop…rather to encourage pirating of their shows.  And here is how:

Embedded Advertising within your shows

OK, I agree this is not revolutionary but here me out as I don’t think it has been looked at through this lens.  And I believe that the infrastructure is already in place…it is just bringing them all together (along with a revamped Hollywood).  Let me walk you through an example and then I will break down the three pieces that are need for this to succeed.  I will use Amazon for the example below (though the other players above could do this just as easily):

You are watching a TV show/Hollywood movie and you want to know what kind of leather jacket the main character is wearing. Put your mouse over the jacket (or character), click and (the scene continues) on the right hand side of the screen (think of the Hulu setup with the black on the left and right side, or the full screen is pushed over slightly to avoid having the text block the scene) and information detailing what that character is wearing appears on the screen. If the jacket is from The Gap, on this click, Amazon gets a eyeball click $$ payment. What it also allows is for the user to click to the 1) Gap website 2) Gap store; potentially purchasing that jacket immediately or 3) since this is Amazon, go directly to the Amazon store to buy the jacket (do everything in one place).  Additionally, to make the experience better, the viewing public can engage a setting in the video player that enables when you click, the information is sent to your “Viewing Basket” so when the show is over, you can review the product information and shop without interrupting the entertainment experience. And for a mobile strategy, you could have a GPS awareness that could notify you know when you are within 1 mile of a Gap Store that has that product in stock.  And, since this is Amazon, you would not need to be a big retailer as you can setup an Amazon store.

1. Infrastructure:  The Content is Being Broadcast Already

On-line, there are many places where content is available to stream or download such as Hulu, You Tube, Amazon Video and of course iTunes to name a few.  Great.  They all have a purchasing system setup so the public already trusts their purchases.  Most have also done a good job of making it dead simple for the public to view, sample and purchase a large variety of content.

2. Embedding Technology Exists

YouTube is already going down the path with Annotations but I prefer the technology by a company like VideoClix as it makes for  a nicer viewing experience.  Great, we now have both the infrastructure and the technology.

3. Hollywood…and their willingness to change.

This is the real place where the money (and the change) happens and has the potential to change the whole pre-production of the Television and Movie industry.  And that is the key point – pre-production.  It changes/influences not only the costumes/clothes for actors, but furniture, food, dishes, etc. You can auction off every single thing that will be on the screen to people who want product placement before production. For example, if your star is listening to an ipod, you can hover over it and find out what songs they are listening to – link straight to iTunes/Amazon mp3 and buy the song. People are sitting in front of the computer, why not have them be interactive?

How about “Lost”?

A question I get a lot is “what about a show like Lost?”  Well, besides the obvious Dharma swag they should be selling (who wouldn’t want to crack open a Dharma Initiative beer on the weekend in their Maintenance overalls?), there is an opportunity to grab your audience in so many other ways.  Lost followers (me included) love the mysteries of the island.  So, why not embed more into the shows?  For example, during the show, what if you could click on the hatch and walk around and look closely at the books on the shelf, records and past training tapes.  You could have a show within a show.  Possibly sell membership to see be able to check out different parts of the island yourself.

Remember:  there is a difference watching things on your television versus your computer.  On a computer, you have a keyboard and mouse in front of you…rotting away.  Utilize it.  And I believe  eventually that all television controllers will act like laser pointers for our screens.

A New Distribution Model = Open Season for Spammers?

Of course there can be negatives such as people putting in spam links, virus links, etc.  But if movies play on the Amazon site, then there is trust in the links.  But looking to the future, viewing movies in the browser using such as the soon to be released Google OS or the updated HTML 5, the browser can detect the source (such as the FireFox 3 secures sites check).  Peer to peer sharing will now be embraced by all involved as it will help get content get distribute more widely.

So, there you go television and film industry honcho’s (Or Amazon).  A whole new model waiting to be tapped into for profit.  Are you ready to try a new business model or are you too busy locking everything down and suing your customers?

Where is the Mute button?

Ugh!!

OK, so I am new to the blackberry world and am on my first Blackberry (Bold).  Nice experience so far (and I am a Mac fan) but I must say their help files are…well, horrible.  Here is an example of my latest frustration.

I have a meeting tomorrow but I will be on my way to an appointment and thus would like to put the phone on mute.  So, I need to figure out how to put the phone on mute.  No problem…I went to the phone help menu – selected Phone Basics -> Mute a call.  Sounds easy right?  Here are the instructions:

Mute a call

During a call, press the Mute key.

To turn off mute, press the Mute key again.

Well now, that was not very helpful.  How about throwing in press the Mute key by selecting the button on the top left  of the phone.  How hard would have it been to add that?  I am assuming that these are general instructions they add with all Blackberries.  But I guess that goes to show their attention to detail.

Anyway, I went online and found a Blackberry review that told me where it was….

Ugh!!

Read Your Own Instructions

So, here is a funny little thing.  I was trying to figure out the SD Card in my Blackberry (apparently you need to have 2mm thin and long .  Anyway, I went to Blackberry website and received this little nugget (bold text is min):

You can insert a microSD media card into your BlackBerry® device to extend the memory that is available on your device for storing media files such as songs, ring tones, videos, or pictures. For more information about inserting a media card into your device, see the printed documentation that came with your device.

Printed Documentation? Printed Documentation? Are you kidding me?  I am already on the website.  Why would they not take the information from the printed documentation and publish it?  Very frustrating.  So my question…if someone at that company read the instructions, would they agree they were helpful?

Who Has It All?

We are at a point of time where there are many choices of vendors who offer collaboration software suites for the enterprise. The choice is overwhelming at times. But the deeper I look, it seems to me that not one company has mastered the “we have it all” within their product. For example, there are some strong candidates that have tools such as forums and blogs but then fall short on wiki or repository. Or other vendors have tried to squeeze everything in but half of the tools lack basic functionality and are a work in progress.

But what do I mean by having it all? Below is what I think should be included:

• Blogs
• Forums
• Bookmarking
• Communities
• RSS feeds (with reader included)
• Wiki
• Document repository
• Capability of embedded video
• Micro-blogging (though I can wait for this)
• Expert Directory
• Smartphone accessibility (to everything above)

So, anyone know a vendor with it all?

My Overweight Friend (aka – Reducing e-mail)

Here’s a story for you about a friend of mine who decided he wanted to lose weight. He told me that he felt like he was being dragged down by his weight and could not accomplish what he wanted to in a day. So, when I spoke to him last he told me he was off “to join a gym”.

I ran into my friend yesterday and I asked him how his weight loss was coming along. He was exasperated at the situation as he hadn’t lost one pound. I asked him what happened to his gym membership? He replied “I joined but I never went in to the place.” I asked him about what he had changed in his diet? He replied “nothing”. I inquired about exercise such as jogging, “No” biking, “No” walking? “No”. Now I was the one getting exasperated. I said to him “it doesn’t seem that you really want to lose weight”. He replied angrily “I do”. Really? He said that may he may not be changing his bahavior but “he still wants to lose weight.”

OK….so I might have made my friend up (I really do have friends…I do). But let me replace a few word above with a story below:

Here’s a story for you about a friend of mine who decided he wanted to reduce his e-mail. He told me that he felt like he was being dragged down by the sheer volume and could not accomplish what he wanted to in a day. So, when I spoke to him last he told me he was off to “participate in the organization collaboration space”.

I ran into my friend yesterday and I asked him how his weight loss was coming along. He was exasperated at the situation as he hadn’t reduced one e-mail. I asked him what happened to his community membership? He replied “I joined but I never went in to the place.” I asked him about what he had changed in his behavior? He replied “nothing”. I inquired about exercise such as posting forum topics, “No” blogs, “No” boomarking? “No”. Now I was the one getting exasperated. I said to him “it doesn’t seem that you really want to reduce his e-mail”. He replied angrily “I do”. Really? He said that he may not be changing his behavior but “he still wants to reduce his e-mail.”

So, enough with the lip service.  If you are ready to change your behaviour…then change your behaviour.

Sharepoint – an Ugly Beauty

A great tool out there for many organizations is Microsoft Sharepoint.  A great tool on so many levels such as:

• Collaboration and Social Computing
• Portal
• Enterprise Search
• ECM…

…and that is just a few of the many features.

But…out of the box…it is ugly!

And I think that it is losing customers in the long run.

In this day and age, with iTunes and google, organizations are not only looking for good collaboration software…but software that is intuitive.  Sharepoint falls short out of the box.  Although the features are strong, it does not look as “snazzy” or user friendly.  And yes, I know security and working with other enterprise applications is important, but if your users cannot figure out how to navigate/post/delete then they will not use it.

Microsoft does have Sharepoint Designer (separate) and third party organizations that can “make it user friendly”, organizations see that as one more cost and a new vendor into the equation.

And when software is competing against each other…during the finalist presentations, the organization will only see out of the box…which lacks a user friendly interface.  In my opinion, they would be better served incorporating a user friendly interface out of the box.

Getting Back to People

Whoo-boy it has been a while since I last posted – so this topic is relevant in a number of different ways.  So, quick question: Anyone ever feel they have a lot of people trying to reach them (see pic below):

Image by deltaMike via Flickr

Today, people can reach you by phone, e-mail, IM, blog, Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter, etc.  And having all these channels, it sometimes can be difficult to get back to people.

Baloney!

Don’t blame your time mismanagement on technology.

At the end of the day, you are accountable to get back to people.  Period.  If you cannot get back to people, then you should:

• close some of your communication channels down (ie: delete your twitter account, stop blogging)
• delegate to those who can respond for you
• take some work ‘off your plate’

I always believe that a good rule of thumb is that you should treat every communication asif it was coming from the CEO of your company.   Would you take 1 week to get back to them?

So, even though you might not mean it, the non-verbal message you are giving to people is that they are really not important.  An who knows…one day they may be your new CEO.

So, get back to people.  Even if it is to say “I received your message…I will get back to you”.

Customer Service and Social Media

A friend of mine recently asked me to send some information on links between Customer service and knowledge sharing.  So, doing a quick search of the web, I came up with the following:

1. Links to two of thef top marketing bloggers (I have filtered their results using tags to customer service and web marketing):

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/tag/customerservice/
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/category/case-study/

2.  White Papers:
Link on Mashable
Link from web strategist

3. Good books to read:

Wikinomics
The Best Customer Service is no Customer Service

4. Social Media as Customer Service article (with stats)
I know it is the tip of the iceburg.  Anything else?

Is Barack forcing future transparency?

Interesting how different the Obama administration is already in communicating to the public.  As you may know, Obama will be broadcasting a weekly address on you tube.  There is also the white house blog, www.recovery.gov, www.barackobama.com, and  (I won’t even go into what he had before he was president).

Today, I just read about the UK government “one site superstop for citizens”: Directgov.

Is this what we will now expect for ALL governments (Canadian government..cough…cough)?  Can a new US governement be elected and not follow what the Obama administration has started?

It will be interesting to see if this continues.

Eluta – Scrape the intenet for new jobs

Bloggers Note:  I do not work for Eluta nor do I receive any money from them.  I just think it is a great site.

In this economic client, many talented folks are losing their jobs and looking for new opportunites.  I would like to share a great site that I share with others for finding new job postings. It is call Eluta and can be found at http://www.eluta.ca

Why I like it is that is ’scrapes the internet’ for jobs found on company websites (not sites like Workopolis or Monster).  Thus, a company may adda new job to their website but not to one of the larger job sites.  Instead of having to go to each site, Eluta collects them all and puts them in one place.  Here is a description from their website:

As a vertical search engine, Eluta monitors new job announcements at tens of thousands of employers across Canada every day. Whenever an employer posts a new job on its website, Eluta adds the position to our searchable database.

Here is an example of how someone who is in the corporate training field could use it:

Go to the Eluta website

On the main page, instead of filling out the Search box, select Advanced Search:

In the Advanced Search field

1. Select your Occupation (it also has a Quality Control occupation choice).
2. I do not select top employer Top Employers as I do not want to restrict my search
3. Add your city
4. Select your Province
5. Postal Code to start the search from your door
6. I usually keep it within 50 km but if you don’t mind travelling further, then go right ahead.

So there you go.  You should get some results.  After that, take a look around at other Occupations or just do a plain search on all jobs.  Anyway, I hope this was helpful to anyone/everyone.