Michael Coulson

I was manning the phones last week during jazz.fm’s pledge drive, and found out that they had sold 56 tickets at $750 a pop to individuals interested in co-hosting a half hour show with their favourite on-air personality.

My understanding is that Ross Porter (president) had decided to try this out, offering first 5 sessions, but that they sold so quickly they offered up an unlimited quantity.

I think this came as a huge surprise to jazz.fm, and indeed, they are going to have to make some significant changes to their programming line-up because of it.

Kudos to Ross for having the guts to try something completely different and for sticking with it when it snowballed.

Many in the interactive field would point to this as an indicator of how all broadcast media has been impacted by the dawn of the Internet. But since jazz.fm’s followers are largely boomer+, I would hazard a guess that few made the call because they suddenly believed in their right to have a voice. In fact they made the call because of a basic human need to see their name in lights, and the irresistible opportunity to commune with their favourite radio personality in a jointly-created half-hour programme.

Jazz.fm was a vibrant community long before the Internet, with a very active and cohesive following connected by the thread of radio but also by the strong bond of live music. While it may be true that Ross was inspired to try new things because of  a shift that is going on with broadcast media, it is clear that the preconditions for success were already there.

However, this breakthrough indicates that the jazz community is ripe for interactive communication on a whole other level. I’ve already seen it in musician blogs and instrument communities – but jazz.fm has some real potential to connect to their existing community with multiple lines of communication (I wanted to say “multiple threads that will weave a stronger social fabric” but a small amount of bile came up in my throat).

They have done a good job with the new website, and I understand they have a twitter account (@JAZZFM91), a Facebook page, and a newsletter, so here are a few more ideas:

1. Create a home for the community to flourish (hosted on jazz.fm or via Ning or some other): You’ve tapped into the power of personal involvement, now give everyone a voice. But don’t just make it open season – anoint community leaders, give people roles and tasks like “this thread will be to create the seminal big band era concert list and the results will be played on jazzfm” etc.
2. Create a platform for musicians to connect to their following. Musicians are notoriously bad at self-promotion and networking. Create a format that ensures that their success reflects upon jazz.fm and builds a stronger community. A simple way to get this started is to allow musicians to create and host discussion threads or chats, but it could go as far as personalized jazz.fm home pages, easily customizable, with twitter feeds and calendar entries that fold into the overall what’s “In The Clubs”.
3. A mobile app (iPhone or other) that shows what’s playing on air, the club calendar, and some fun element that keeps people coming back like a jazz trivia game

 No doubt a killjoy will point out the average age of the jazz.fm community and suggest that “my dad never goes online”. But to this I would say a) 80% of boomers are connected and b) jazz isn’t dead or dying – and the youth of today all expect this - so build it now and they will come…

I’ve had Bell’s fledgling IPTV service – http://entertainment.bell.ca – for 6 months now, and believe me when I say that I’m sad to report that it’s not ready for prime-time.

Full disclosure – I was one of the first people hired on the Bell IPTV team back in 2003 and I still feel an affinity for the group, but mostly for the overall effort to bring more interactive television to my living room.

I don’t want to belabour this article with a lot of details on how the service is lacking. Nor should I, since one individual’s experience can’t be taken as indicative of the entire user base. However, my suffering exposes the fact that this is a very complex system, with enough potential points of failure to make it extremely difficult to launch successfully. 

In short, I have had hardware issues (replaced STB, wifi gated to 10mbps), network issues (spent an entire month trying to figure out why my TV would pixelate and studder, until the problem mysteriously went away) and account issues (secondary STB removed from account, EPG occasionally blank etc).

I kept copious notes on each and every failure to try and help out the Bell service team. And I should say that they pulled out all the stops to resolve my issues (reason enough to be an early adopter because you get the best techs in the business coming to your aid). 

But this list isn’t the reason that IPTV is in serious trouble. I believe that they will work out the kinks and eventually deliver a great service. In fact, there are several reasons IPTV won’t succeed in the near-term, but the primary one is that when your TV goes black, you have to reboot a router.

Now, if cable failed more often, people might welcome the fact that they have something they can do at their end to solve the problem. But the kinks were worked out of cable long ago, and people are used to getting nearly flawless service. Most TV users don’t even know what a router is, let alone how to reboot it. At a minimum, IPTV has to reach cable’s service level before it can be an effective challenger. 

If you’re familiar with interactive television and all the possibilities, it’s easy to ignore the primary goal of delivering high-quality video. The Bell execs know this and have been working to build a solid service.  Alas, with all its promise, IPTV in its current state is at best a me-too offering (because it adds VOD, where satellite has only near-VOD). And while whole-home PVR is very cool, it’s a retention, not acquisition play.

Here’s where it all comes down to product management/marketing.

Because IPTV is true, two-way TV , it DOES have the ability to differentiate from broadcast cable. The problem here is two-fold: the Bell team has to a) correctly pinpoint the thing that users will latch on to and b) market it in a way that resonates and won’t cannibalize their existing satellite business.  The problem is that these are competing needs, i.e. if you nail the thing that attracts new customers, you’ll also attract satellite subscribers. Double acquisition costs make this a losing proposal.

Unfortunately Bell has got their fingers into enough stuff to make it difficult to make the right product decisions. But this is less about Bell and more about how disruptive ideas rarely come from within large enterprises.  Over the next few years, broadcast TV’s inadequacy will drive more and more people to the Internet as the de facto delivery mechanism for all forms of video, because it provides ultimate control over how and when content is consumed.  And the Internet is a harshly competitive, level playing field where only the truly innovative will thrive.

And then, ironically, the Bells/Rogers of the world will pour the necessary capital into their plants to match what’s going on online, and put their massive brand marketing budgets in gear to win consumers back to truly interactive TV.

Other challenges / observations:

• Satellite converts will have had the ability to record their PPV, but once on IPTV, they’ll suddenly find that they can’t record VOD on their PVR’s. You try and be the lucky marketer that has to explain studio windows to consumers (for ex, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_release)
• How do you market DSL and TV together? Access and programming amount to ~$150/month. Like One-Bill, it seemed like a good idea to give subscribers all the info on one bill, until they saw that they were giving the lion’s share of their monthly entertainment wallet to ONE company.
• As an Internet-aholic, the biggest reason I’m still on IPTV is that I get 21mbps downstream  (when the TV’s are off) and around 7mbps up. That’s incredible and it makes my work life a lot easier. Ironically, it also leads me away from the TV, to stream the shows my PVR missed, over the Internet.

Here are a few thoughts about broadband video that have been building up in my brain over the past months. Please leave a comment and let me know if anything strikes a chord:

• Paying for content isn’t going away: Advertising isn’t bearing the costs of premium content and that’s why we’re seeing a movement of the Hulu’s and YouTubes’ of the world towards paid. The broadcast industry is in upheaval over the shift in spending away from ads, but there will always be a market for good content and I think subscription to great movies and series (a la HBO) long ago proved itself as the model. People too often get hung up on delivery mechanism, but soon enough TV’s will all have Ethernet jacks and once again it’ll be the big brands like Comcast or Rogers that will grab the lion’s share of viewers because they’ve spent the time and money building programming, brand awareness, and trust.  (Yes, you disgruntled customers can argue that you’ll switch at the first opportunity, but you’re not a majority, especially in Canada where we tend to stick with our brand – it is the land of the Queue after all).

• New tech means new revenue opportunities: I foresee studios dicing up their content and creating a bunch of related webisodes.  I hesitate to use the term because it’ll be associated with the meager results from shows like BSG , but I firmly believe that current movies only scratch the surface of revenue potential because they are mired in the high-margin technology of DVD’s.  This single-product, shrink-wrapped thinking doesn’t take advantage digital manipulation (slice and dice the product in hundreds of ways), new delivery mechanisms, and new forms of social marketing. Disney has done this in long form for years with spin offs like Aladdin’s “The Return of Jafar”  and “Aladdin and the King of Thieves” , but they need to think about all the other ways that  people would be interested in consuming their favourite characters.  This is the power of the sequel times ten. And most importantly, this content could be subject to different rules – i.e. different release windows (short pre-quels to gain momentum – like a trailer but better) and licensing (open it up to mashups?).

• Back to the future with easy-to-consume subscription models: Silverlight will continue to gain momentum on Flash, and adaptive bitrate technology will get so good that streaming will grab a large share of the user base, leading to a growth in subscription offerings – which, if you don’t see the irony, is cable’s current model.  However, as a large proportion of people are still pack-rats, not everyone will be satisfied with a “copy in the cloud”, and will want their own personal keepsake.

• Video will cease being just a memory capture device and become a communication tool: This is something I wrote a while back, before Cisco paid $590m for Flip and before Apple added video capture/edit to the iPhone: Video is the most natural method of communication because it is the most effective and lifelike. Nothing else includes the realm of information we receive from body language, voice inflection, facial expression, etc. As mobile devices become incredibly powerful, bandwidth and storage limitless, individuals will be able to capture and send full motion HD instantaneously. Anyone who has been in a video conference will know it will never replace f2f, but it certainly will grow in everyday use. (I can just hear the headlines now: “Written communication dead”, “Our children can’t read” etc etc). So while we saw a growth in people taking pictures with their cell phones (of the thing they wanted to buy etc), they will be able to send a video just as easily, or even enter into a video conversation instead of a phone call because they want to see a person’s reaction.

I get pretty excited about TV moving online and then run up against another technical wall and realize that things just are never “just around the corner”.

I was experimenting with Xbox Live Marketplace, checking out the movie listings and marvelling at the need to purchase points to view a flick and Microsoft’s unabashed hubris when it comes to owning a category.

But since this is my job I jumped through all the hoops – using my Microsoft Live ID (not used for anything else) to log in, create a “gamer” name, purchase a small amount of points, chose a movie from the dismal selection (~400 movies, mostly old), and right through to the end when it asks me to choose my Xbox.

Now, as a person doing this for a living, I take careful note of all the warnings, pop-up boxes, how they craft their consumer communication and all things usability-oriented. But not once did the website suggest that you had to have an Xbox to download the movies.

If you work at Microsoft, you may be snickering now, thinking that I was naive to believe that I could download on my MICROSOFT powered PC.

But it gets better. Since there were no warnings on the site, I figured I’d just ask for my money back. But when I called, the call rep response essentially boiled down to: “but you already purchased the product”.

What he’s saying, but probably doesn’t know, is that the DRM keys to this movie were downloaded – TO MY PC – when I purchased it. And even though I never downloaded the movie, he can’t give me my money back because they have no technical ability to reclaim the keys.

And even though I have no Xbox in my house, I now have 60 MSFT points and the keys to a car I can’t drive.

I wish I didn’t have to run across this kind of can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-technology problems every day, and that more uncompromising product guys were around to see that every part of their service functioned so that it made sense to a consumer (yes, Steve Jobs – did you have a better suggestion?).

When that happens, the computer will cease being “technology” and just be the thing that I was after – movies, TV, concert tickets, a way to talk to friends, something you don’t have to reboot.

Broadband video is here, and it’s going to take a growing share from the TV incumbents, cable and satellite. The real question is how and when – what are the specific catalysts that are going to force cable’s hand?

There are a bunch of structural conditions like people getting used to on demand through PCs and PVRs. And online video streams rising, partially spurred on, ironically, by initiatives from the very people who have the most to lose, like TV Anywhere and Hulu.

But what I’m trying to pinpoint are the individual ruptures – serious seismic events – that will make everyone take this seriously or abandon their current way of working entirely.

1. Bandwidth ceases to be an issue for most, and MSO’s value-add of QOS and bundling is much less attractive (2+yrs)
2. Cord cutting actually starts to be an issue (2-3yrs)
3. Bandwidth prices soar as MSOs try to inoculate losses (2-3yrs), but flatten out over time (3+yrs) because it is a commodity and competition forces prices down (wasn’t google buying fiber? Will gov’ts step in here?)
4. Online video actually starts to make money – advertisers seek out targeted buys and pay higher CPMs to get qualified customers (3+yrs)
5. Studios/rights holders begin to realize that they can make 100% by going direct (4+yrs)
6. Studios/rights holders narrow (or even eliminate) release windows for a proportion of their catalogue that makes sense (5+yrs)

Another phenonmenon to watch is the growth of cool content available only online. Above I’m talking about premium content but I see video as becoming a major method of human communication (e.g. a blackberry videoconf – because text is very limited). And as it does, the pressure from ISPs to monetize the delivery of this (and YouTube’s UGC) will be an increasing problem.

The number of unconferences (and references to) seems to be growing, which is great. However, in several articles I’ve read, people are refering to it as a new phenomenon, which is far from the case.

I took place in my first “unconference” in 1996, back when these things were called Open Space.  Open Space or Unconference – the experience is a truly inspiring one.

Let me put it this way:

Imagine sitting in a packed lecture hall. You are completely comfortably in your anonymity, just one of several hundred other students who are much more interested in last night’s pub adventure than what the prof is talking about. But then he defies the odds and manages to finger YOU out from the huge crowded hall.  In a second your pulse races, while you try to come up with an answer or at least an opinion that won’t look stupid. Everyone is listening.

What an unconference does is strip out the organizers, the speakers, the podium, the hall, the agenda – in fact the whole implicit safety net of any large group meeting process. You can’t sit at the back of the hall, safe in large numbers. Now the onus is upon you to suggest topics, join meetings, speak up if you want to, or otherwise exercise the “law of two feet” . Suddenly you are very awake, with the clarity that comes from being put on the spot, knowing that your voice is going to be heard.

By stripping out the process, the spotlight falls upon the participants. And while I could get all overly preachy and idealistic and start sprouting notions about the dawn of democracy and how technology – specifically social media – is putting a voice back in the hands of voters, I think we all recognize that we are still on the cusp of this transformation.

But there are undoubtedly huge shifts underway that are redefining the way information and ideas are spread, how content is created, how commerce is enacted.

I was reading today about Darwin’s 200th anniversary, and the brou-ha he created that still persists. One idea in particular from “The 10,000 Year Explosion” (referenced by Margaret Wente)  struck me. The authors theorize that the growth in agricultural societies and subsequent population boom gave rise to more rapid genetic changes. 

If, as they say “Fast change causes rapid evolution,”  then certainly humanity may be in for some major shifts in the next couple of thousand years (relatively short time frame). But it also strikes me that the dissemination of information is rising much faster, that this access to ideas could speed up the process of technological change just like genetics.

As an example, I’m sure we’re all familiar with the case where someone comes up with the answers to solve business problems immediately, right from their browser - much much faster than what was possible only 10 years ago.

If the changes that we have witnessed over the past couple of decades continue or are accelerated, what is the impact to society? Does evolution speed up?

Online video and social media spending takes off

Having had a lot of experience in both online video and social media, you can imagine how happy it makes me to see graphs like the one on the right indicating that these areas may be the best to weather the current economic storm.  

Strangely enough, while I feel strongly about the power of social media / online community to transform and democratize how we live our lives, when it comes to media I’m fully in the major brand camp. In other words, I believe that user generated content will never take the lion’s share of business away from those compelling (read expensive) narratives (TV, movies) that someone (Disney et al) is willing to put major marketing dollars behind. In a world of choice, we need to have this plethora of content sifted for us more than ever.

So with that in mind, I’m fascinated to report that Hulu is coming to Canada. Well, the word on the street anyway, is that this NBC/Fox/Newscorp-backed broadband video entity is knocking on major content doors to gain broadband distribution rights. So what we’re witnessing is a new world order in the media landscape, as major content players are stepping over old-world geographic boundaries and going head-to-head with the distributors (Rogers, Bell etc) that they still have major deals with. It’s a whole new ball game.

Just as interesting, new data  from Comscore shows that Hulu has – in less than a year – taken up the sixth spot in total traffic amongst broadband video players.  That is an amazing leap in and of itself, but not nearly as astounding as their average 11.6 minutes of viewing time per user(Google/Youtube, the pack leader with 40% of traffic, likely clocks in at the overall average of 3 minutes).

To me, this just proves that you have to have the big guns (Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, whatever) to attract – and keep – the eyeballs. Now, I hear that Disney is asking the same CPM for their 15 second ads as their 30 second ones, which means that you could squeeze in several (at around $50/CPM) and voila, you’re banking more than Apple at a couple of bucks a show.

Seems to me we are on the verge of a major breakthrough with broadband video. Hulu’s got the interface right. The business case is proving itself.  The bandwidth is no longer an issue. And, with a little more time and usage, we’ll start to see what we were salivating about five years ago with IPTV – the promised land of targeted – or better yet – opt-in video advertising.

Just think. No more tampon commercials for me.

I was reading this article in Time about Joe Trippi, the man behind Obama’s online campaign, and one line in particular struck me:

“But while Obama rarely managed a clean win against Clinton in the big states — the ones that will count most in the fall — he kept winning delegates even when he lost primaries. By April, it became almost mathematically impossible for Clinton to catch him.”

Much has been written about how social media catalyzed the grassroots campaign, collecting dollars and votes along the way from a now-widely-connected population. But it seems to me that what crystalized – and tipped – the campaign, was Obama’s  ability to win over key individuals as he went from state to state.

John Ralston Saul described in an interview with Jian Ghomeshi how he was flailing against the anti-tax right on a panel years ago and Obama came in and within a few minutes had turned the tide of the entire debate. He *knew* then he had met the first black US president. He didn’t realize Obama was going to be the NEXT president.

That kind of rapid change is noteworthy. And Obama’s kind of charisma is incredible to watch, because it translates across mediums. He sounds great on radio, he appears confident on TV, he is immensely compelling in person. And to boot, he has latched onto social media to promote his message in an unprecedented way.

Can a leader with these gifts translate that power into change at the individual level?

Because that’s what’s needed. As Michael Valpy wrote on the weekend, Lewis Lapham believes that what we’re talking about here is a complete reversal of the contract between the state and society. The US constitution provided checks and balances to prevent government tyranny over society. FDR’s New Deal preached a role for government that would guarantee wages, medical care, freedom from unfair competition etc. And under Reaganomics, as poor Mr. Saul found on his panel, it was all too easy to find people who believed that taxation is unlawful.

But then times get tough and now suddenly it’s hard to find an economist who doesn’t believe the economy needs a jolt of Keynes.

To manifest this kind of change, Obama will need to forge a new social contract. A new relationship between the state and society. Individuals will have to make sacrifices, and the kinds of changes (health care??) that are needed will necessitate a lot of patience.

He has shown he can sway voters. But as Valpy points out, those invididuals who were able to effect mammoth change usually had some help – i.e. things got worse before they got better, and heightened individual resolve.

It’s anyone’s guess right now, but from this historical perspective, it appears to me that we may indeed be looking at the perfect storm of individual charisma and a faltering economy.

But I think there’s a third and important factor in here that is a real wild card, and that is the Internet. Obama used social media to reach out to the grassroots. And while I’m sure that he will continue to use this medium to connect to his constituents, I think there’s a whole other level of change that could happen as the Millenial generation matures and uses the tools that they’ve become so accustomed to, to self-organize, lobby, and effect change.

We’re starting to see organizations such as Visible Government begin to take shape here in Canada. And while I suspect we have a long way to go before we see any type of mass online dialogue between the state and society, I think the seeds (pay parking tickets, renew health cards) are well planted and I’m eager to see them take root.

When I first started living in the online world fifteen years ago, a lot of people were still grappling with the ephemeral, intangible nature of the web, i.e. “anything on a hard disc is not real and one step away from deletion” and “online community relationships are not real, won’t last”.

People still lose data, and there are a lot of pretty shallow relationships on Facebook. But the online world now takes up such a large part of our lives that it’s hard to grasp the extent of the shift that has happened in the public consciousness.

Recently, an old friend and ex-host from Sympatico forums was reminiscing about all the great people we had in that group, and she sent a link to some of the stuff that is still online.

http://forums2.sympatico.ca/multi-images/mike/mpnote.gif

Now, this strikes me on several levels. Mike Potter was a leader within the sympatico community, a sort of hybrid maven/connector who brought people together and coalesced a thriving work-place community. When he was killed in Africa we posted a forum to remember him by, which was filled with thoughtful and heartfelt memories. It was one of the first times that I realized the power that “transitory” thread had to reminisce, forge stronger bonds, and celebrate Mike’s life. 

The existence today of that link shows a couple of things. First, Mike and his wacky, poetic sense of humour lives on in his own graphics directory, a testament to the strength and persistence of that community.

Second, here we find him, nearly 10 years later, on a server that was long since closed down by Ma Bell. We’ve all seen the Wayback Machine, but this is somehow more interesting, because it is the archaeological remnants of a digital society. I doubt this will prove to have Egyptian-like staying power, but somehow persistence implies importance.

A lot of time has been spent dissecting Gladwell’s work in the past 9 years, so I won’t go into my own criticisms. I’ll try and stick to the positive and spend some time on stuff that resonated with me, or that I’ve seen actually work “in the wild”.

The importance of group size – aka Dunbar’s number. Gladwell gives many great examples of why group size matters, including why the Gore company splits its factories into smaller groups never surpassing the number 150. Essentially, splitting people up into smaller groups helps form more effective bonds. It’s why I generally prefer startups to big companies. It also has import for social media, and those trying to build online community. It’s impossible to keep track of conversations in huge online groups, but more importantly, your brain simply can’t keep track of that many people.

We’ve all seen the resulting disconnect, where individuals become disenfranchised from the organization and lose sight of the bigger picture. At Bell there was a famous story about how the first DSL lines were installed in a depressed neighborhood in Toronto, because it was closest to the central office (i.e. easiest to install). Now, this is just bad judgement, but it’s less likely to have happened in a small company where the engineers would have closer ties to the marketing types.

In a related point, it was clear to me long before Gladwell’s book (shout out to Lisa Kimball, Group Jazz) that there is a natural chasm between early adopters and the silent majority. And that getting past this chasm is all up to the connectors and mavens, or what we call moderators and superusers in online community.  These individuals, and their ability to mobilize, goad, encourage, coddle, and otherwise inspire the silent majority to post/participate/share is at the root of what makes a community reach “critical mass”, or an idea/product start to spread through society like a virus. More on this later…