HGTV Gets It: They're Launching a New Social Networking Site

From ClickZ, one of the best search engine marketing news sites out there, comes the announcment that HGTV is launching a new social networking site called Rate My Room.

Several months ago, I was a part of a conference call with someone I wont name, but he has a fairly popular show on TV that relates to DIY related home improvment. As a part of the conversation, we had a conversation about his target audience, their behaviors, their habits and more importantly, how he could connect with those users on his site. While his site wasn't bad, it had a few videos, it had a lot of great content and he wanted to take his strategy to the next level. I told him about social networking, creating features on his site to submit content, submit videos, vote on projects, add their expertise and even create a wiki of sorts to be a reference. The call went well, but over and over he expressed doubt about letting his viewers participate on his site. He was completely uncomfortable with giving his users that much control over the content. He eventually decided not to go in that direction.

Now, here comes HGTV, they're launching Rate My Room. One of the brilliant things about this move by HGTV is that they have a ready and willing audience who would love nothing more than to interact with each other, giving advice, comparing projects, rating their rooms and household projects. I think it's brilliant. If HGTV adds some expert or celebrity designer interaction within the communities, that could only bring more people to the network.

I truly believe that social media and networking is just one of the ways the internet will change the ways people live, the ways people interact and the ways that marketers and companies communicate with their audience. I really enjoy the fact that the internet has evolved to such a degree that the power of the individual, combined with the voice of their network can influence an industry like marketing, which has for so long, tried to tell the consumer what to do. Marketers have always said that the customer ruled, but only recently have consumers actually felt the power of "ruling".

User Generated Video Popular, Yet Hard to Monetize

eMarketer, one of the best sources for marketing information, research and analysis posted an interesting article the other day about user generated online video (UGOV). They referenced a study from London's Screen Digest that found that user generated online video was responsible for 47% of all the video consumed in the US in 2006. They further predict that by 2010, UGOV will account for 55% (44 billion streams) of video consumption on the net.

Like my prior article about monetizing virtual worlds, companies and marketers are looking at the sheer numbers of eyes on the monitor and they're recognizing that this could become a significant source of revenue and branding for them. eMarketer goes on to recognize that while UGOV is a significant source of traffic and media consumption, it only accounts for 15% of revenue from online video sources.

So what's a company to do? How does one create a stable business and profit around UGOV? One answer is to do what Current TV is doing. One of the ways is to create a cable channel like Current TV. I truly enjoy Current TV. They're edgy, they're smart and they create an addictive program watching experience. I like the fact that in the span of an hour, I can be touched, offended, enlightened, frightened and entertained by their submitted videos. Current TV drives traffic to their site and the site drives users to their TV. I enjoy what they do and I think they do it well.

Another option is to monetize the traffic that comes into the site by putting ads and sponsored links on the site. However, this may backfire on the providers when ads start piling up on the videos they want to watch. iFilm and Atom films do a good job with putting short ads on their content, but as more and more providers emerge, it'll be tougher to insure that the users are getting what they want, without sacrificing their credibility. Lastly, if I can watch the same video without ads, what's my motivation to watch the ads?

There are other ways to monetize the streams and traffic: digital sales, subscriptions and licencing technology. The desire to generate revenue has reached a point, where it's becoming like the multimedia "industry" in the early 90's.

Viddling Around blog has an excellent commentary that ties in Esther Dyson's "blasphemous" but accurate comment that there "Was no Multimedia Industry". She maintained that multimedia was a feature and not an industry. The post goes on to note that we may be following the same path now and treating UGOV as an industry and not a feature for relevant sites.

The eMarketer article goes on to say that in 2006, revenues from UGOV sites reached $200 Million in advertising revenue. They predict that in 2010, that revenue will increase to over $900 Million.

I however, remain skeptical of that prediction. I believe it's based on current trending only and the theory that they're treating UGOV as an industry in and of itself... not a feature. Only time will tell at this point.

I think that UGOV has huge potential for relevant and contextual markets, but the rush to profit from it reminds me of a few other internet revolution bubbles. It's exciting, it's exhilarating, it's cool and it's hot... but I agree with Viddling Blog and Esther Dyson, it's a feature, not an industry.

More on Evidence Based Managment

I love this cartoon, and as I go through Pfeffer and Suttons' book, there are parts of the book that remind me of this.

This cartoon has been used to entertain math geeks, critique pseudoscience like Intelligent Design, and brilliantly show that knowledge starts with data and ends with something useful (hopefully). But somewhere in the middle is the arduous task of analysis, being wrong, being frustrated, hard work, peer review and all of the un-sexy stuff that gets ignored.

It's kind of a small rant, but it's the "CSI-ification" of science or analysis... they get a clue, then some fancy camera shots and a high tech lab... chemicals and viola! They get the information they need to catch the bad guy.

The miracle is hard work... it's the analysis, it's the brainstorming of lots of smart people trying to figure it out. To call it a miracle is almost an insult... and that's why I love this cartoon

Hard Facts: First Section Review

This book is organized into three sections, for this post, I will be talking about the section called "setting the stage" in Pfeffer and Sutton's book.

Pfeffer and Sutton start the book by describing what evidence based decision making is. It's essentially defined as a process to find the best evidence that you can. Through primary or secondary research, collecting the data and acting on that data. They say that there is an inherent perception blindness when making decisions from what you've always done, what you thought was true, your personal philosophies or beliefs and what ever fad is gripping the business world at the moment. I was impressed with the description of evidence based management or decision making is not a "thing you do", it doesnt have discreet boundaries, it's a process, it's a way to make decisions with a little data to help you out.

One of the examples they explore is how mergers and acquisitions tend to show strain about a month after the merger. Cisco has a great record for mergers because they measure several aspects for its merger targets, not just product or service, not just market share.. but culture as well. They've walked away from deals when the culture didn't match.

Pfeffer and Sutton identify common problems that consistently cause failure.

• Casual benchmarking
• Repeating what's worked in the past, or what's worked for others
• Following deeply held, yet unexamined ideologies
• Substituting facts for conventional wisdom
  

Each of these common problems can cause failure in strategies because they either ignore the data that's there, they fail to take into account new, unmeasured data or they assume that their belief is enough to make decisions. One of my favorite quotes (which I have in my quote generator) is David Hume's quote: "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence". It's not wrong to believe, but in business and strategy, you need to have evidence to support those beliefs.

They provide logical and interesting anecdotes (which, in and of themselves are not evidence) that elucidate some of the principles, and they do an excellent job in documentation and referencing the examples they provide.

In my niche market of "search intelligence", I live and breathe data. Whether it's analytics or mined data, I try to be very careful to either only say what I can prove, or qualify any statement that has more intuition than data.

I just finished the second section, and without finishing it yet, I can say... buy this book. Read it, and let me know what you think. It's good.

Section by Section Book Review: Pfeffer and Sutton's: Hard Facts

I've started to hit the books hard, books on search, competitive intelligence, analytics, data gathering, analysis and even math. The more I read... the more the world of data opens up into an amazing pattern.

Rather than stay in my little reading hole, As I read the books, I'm going to do a section by section review of what I've learned.

The first book I'm going to take a look at is Jeffery Pfeffer and Robert Sutton's book: Hard Facts - Dangerous Half-Truths & Total Nonsense (BN, Amazon). The book is about examining the pre-suppositions, assumptions and ingrained beliefs that managers, analysts and decision makers face when making decisions about strategies and processes that affect their business.

Pfeffer and Sutton take evidence based management methodologies and deconstruct the myths and assumptions, and they take close aim to the more dangerous half-truths and faddish business mantras. Already, I've read the first few chapters and I've been impressed with the skill in which they dissect some of the all too common axioms and slogans that populate business training.

Stay tuned, I will be doing another post on the book later. So far, I'm enjoying it.

Homosexuals Lead Social Network Usage and Acceptance

From ClickZ and MarketingVox comes a report from Harris Interactive and Witeck-Combs Communications that the Lesbian/ Gay/ Bi-Sexual individuals consume social media more than their straight counterparts.

Lets look at some of the data:

YouTube:
visits for an hour or less per week
27% of the GLBT population
22% of the heterosexual population

Craigslist.org:
Visits for an hour or less per week
20% of the GLBT population
13% of the heterosexual population

Friendster.com:
Visits for an hour or less per week
11% of the GLBT population
4% of the heterosexual population

MySpace.com:
Visits for an hour or less per week
33% of the GLBT population
28% of the heterosexual population

75% of the GLBT population classify themselves as heavy internet users
59% of the heterosexual population classify themselves as heavy internet users.

What does this imply for marketers and people who want to use interactive media, social networking and other aspects of social media to get their point across?

One of the things I think that may play a part in this is that because there is still a stigma associated with homosexuality, there are still many people in mainstream culture who continue to tread out the myths about homosexuals, there are still many gay people who are finding the social needs in a safe environment through social media. They're expressing themselves and finding an outlet for contact, friendship, support and fun.

Does this mean that marketers are going to have to "gay it up"? Firstly, to do so would be condescending and pandering. Secondly, marketers will have to realize that it's not the sexual preference that dictates most consumption, it's the willingness to explore alternative areas other than just the traditional media, that makes this population unique and on the cutting edge of social media exploration.

I think that Harris Interactive and Witeck-Combs have given all of us some insight into a group of people who are brave, explorative, creative and keep finding new ways to turn culture's pressure on them into innovation.

Stereotypes, Demographics, Soy Lattes and NPR

NPR recently did a story that I had the distinct pleasure in listening to called "The Listeners of National Public Radio". The show was done by NPR's On The Media. What impressed me was the incredible power of stereotyping and how it skews actual data.

I listen to NPR almost exclusively. I find that they have good analysis, good stories and a diverse group of people sharing different ideas in civil debate and discourse. So you can understand my shock when I heard a family member refer to NPR as "National Propaganda Radio"... he continued... "I'm upset that so much of my tax dollars go to support such a blatantly biased service". This isn't the first time I've heard NPR get blasted by people. On Fox News Sunday, the expert panelists Mara Liasson and Juan Williams are both correspondents for NPR, and on FNS, they tend to skew left of the political spectrum. This has always bothered me just a little bit, it seems to lend credence to the "left leaning" of NPR. An excellent analysis of that perception has already been done by Geoffrey Nunberg in his new book - Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising. Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving Left-Wing Freak Show.

So, when I heard On The Media's show about NPR's demographics, I wanted to share some of the actual data gathered.

NPR Listeners are more likely to:

• Visit Starbucks
• Buy a Volvo
• Read the Sunday Times
• Watch "The West Wing"
• Live on the coast
• Drink soy milk
• Drink French wine
• Describe themselves as "liberal"

NPR Listeners are less likely to:

• Watch Will and Grace
• Treat wrinkles (25% less likely)

From the article:

But one general impression you get reading through the survey is that you're more curious than average, more eager to spend time in other countries. Thirty percent of NPR News listeners are more likely to want to, quote, "understand how the world works."

What this tells me is that while you're more likely to listen to NPR if you describe yourself as a "liberal", many people who describe themselves as "conservative" listen and participate in the broadcasts. While more people on the left may listen to NPR, but the over-riding principle here is is not world view or fiscal/ social philosophy, but a desire to understand the world, the culture and events. This is not a political trait, this is a human trait.

I think that the further from the center of the political spectrum we move, we become less curious, less open and less inquisitive. I find that the more extreme your position on the political spectrum, you tend to view the opposing viewpoints as more antithetical to your core being and you become less willing to compromise.

In essence, we become less human. We become representations of an external ideal, and not the diverse accumulations of our lives, loves, education and experiences. We become fundamentalists to an idea that isn't really attainable in real life.

The data in the survey shows that people who listen to NPR may in fact lean to the left, however what's between the data is curiosity, exploration and a willingness to explore and experience new things. That's what I've always seen in NPR, whether I'm listening to a piece on Himalayan banjo stringers or the results of an election.

Dance Club Lessons and Viral Marketing

When I was much younger, I was active in the dance club scene. I would go to some of San Francisco's and Sacramento's hottest industrial and dark music clubs. I would dress up to match the culture, my hair (when I had it) was various colors and various styles. My friends and I would enter the club fashionably late and immediately start dancing and mingling with the other regulars there.

One of the things I always noticed was that often times, there were interlopers, generally men over 30 years old... dressed noticeably incongruous. My friends and I, in our early to mid 20's would snicker and laugh at those "old guys"... we would make snide remarks about how they didn't fit in, how they were ogling our female friends. This was not a rare occurrence in the clubs, there was always someone there who just didn't belong there, who didn't fit in and we would always talk shit about them.

Now that I'm in my mid 30's, far from the "scene" in San Francisco, I've kept up to date with the music. I still listen to Internet radio stations like Digital Gunfire, Tormented Radio or The Ungodly Hour. They have the best selection of industrial, EBM, Future Pop and Darkwave music on the web. At times, I've even entertained the thought that it might be fun to visit some of the industrial clubs in the Raleigh/ Chapel Hill area... then it hits me. I'd be that "old guy". Even though I've been listening to the music since most of them were in their single digits, even though I can say I've seen some of the classic bands play, even though I can listen to bands like Pride and Fall or VNV Nation and recognize some of the influences of bands like Front Line Assembly, I still wouldn't have any credibility with the clubbers. I would still be "that old guy".

(I'm done rambling now... here's the point)

Viral Marketing, like fitting into a club scene, is a tricky strategy. It can be highly successful like the SNL sketch like Lazy Sunday or Sony's craptacularly painful assault on all of our senses with "All I want for Xmas is a PSP" video. The key to any attempt to implement a viral strategy can be summarized with the following key points:

1. Credibility
• With any viral marketing efforts, whether they be planned viral or organic viral, there has to be credibility. The audience has to believe in the connection. One of the main reasons that the Sony PSP viral efforts (the site's been removed, only the cached text remains) failed is because it was so obviously forced. It wasn't "so bad it's good" but "so bad it's bad". It has all the subtlety of a Hawaiian shirt.
2. Transparency
• If the viral effort comes from the originating company, then the efforts have to be transparent. Again, looking at Sony's PSP viral failure, they tried to hide the fact that it was Zipatoni, hired by Sony to create the viral marketing effort. This pissed off a lot of gamers. It appeared that Sony was trying to dupe them, it appeared that Sony didn't think much of the intelligence of the gamers and it appeared that Sony felt it was OK to lie to them.
  
• On a good example, Snakes on a Plane had a brilliant and transparent viral campaign. They had a site that would have Samuel L. Jackson call a friend's phone with a customized message "encouraging" them to watch Snakes on a Plane. It was transparent, it was free and it was funny as hell. They made it easy to transfer to your friends, they took advantage of existing VOIP technology, and they knew that if someone was already pre-disposed to see the movie, they would send this message to all their friends.
  
3. Existing Brand/ Product Loyalty
• The "existing brand/ product loyalty" principle really applies to planned viral marketing. Organic viral, like the BofA U2 "One" Merger video, doesn't really have any rules that apply to brand/ product loyalty.
  
• For planned viral, like the Snakes on a Plane phone call, there has to be a propensity to consume the media. That consumption of media should influence the decision to consume the monetized product. The end goal of the Snakes on a Plane marketing was to induce people to go pay to see the movie. However, they needed strategic positive contacts with the audience, they needed reminders that they would remember, and they needed to give the audience a positive emotion when they consume the intermediate media. In this case, the Snakes on a Plane phone call was the intermediate media. Between the trailers, the commercials, the interviews and the movie release was the phone call. This intermediate media has to leave a good impression on the potential user... otherwise, the likelihood that they would consume the end product would be less likely.
  
4. Applicability to Target Audience
• This is all about understanding your audience and how they consume media. Do they visit YouTube, MySpace... do they use cell phones or MP3 players? It makes no sense to have a MySpace presence if your audience doesn't visit the site. Does it make sense to market podcasts to teenagers? While I don't have any data to back up my claim, intuitively, I would predict that teenagers are not the highest consumers of podcasts.
  
5. Captivating Content
• The content has to be interesting. Whether it's Samuel L. Jackson on the phone, or whether its an uncomfortable cringe as you watch the "suit" sing a surreal version of U2's One, the user has to consume the media and immediately want to consume it again and send it to their friends. They need to feel a connection to the media in order for it to have a viral effect. That connection could be an imagined connection to a celebrity, a repressed memory of some embarrassing moment or it could be something else. The key to captivating content is that it needs to be representative of a shared experience for the audience.
  
6. Some Self-Deprecation
   
• Back to Sony's PSP debacle... when the wicked bright people at Penny Arcade essentially outed Sony, with some help from the skeptics at Something Awful, again... Sony decided to show us what not to do.
• Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn't a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.
• Sony Computer Entertainment America (From The Guardian UK)
  
• Even their apology (kinda) was lame and inappropriate to their consumers.
  
• When planned viral marketing goes well, there's always a little bit of "tongue in cheek" fun involved. There has to be some levity and some humor. Secondly, the company has to trust the makers of the viral media. Believe me, rabid media consumers like me can see product placement, out-dated slang and other things that just don't "fit". If we can smell a rat, you've lost our trust.

Back to the dance club lessons. Like viral marketing, in order for me to communicate to that audience, I need to have each of these qualities. I don't have credibility... they've never seen me before. I don't have Transparency... since I haven't been to a club in years, I don't know the people, the fashion or the culture of the club. I don't have any existing loyalty... I don't know anyone in the scene to give me credibility. I don't have anything that would be applicable to the audience... while I would know what I like, I wouldn't know what they like, which is the basis for understanding the culture. I don't have any captivating content... I look older, I no longer fit (if I even still have them) in my cool club clothes, so anything that I would have would be obviously patched together. I wouldn't be self-deprecating... I would be the interloper in their culture. Even if I could convince them that I liked the same music... I still wouldn't be one of them, and that would be all too obvious.

When companies try to create viral marketing that doesn't understand the principles, it comes off as believable as that "old guy" in a dance club.