Just ran into this presentation on RW-Web. A must-read for anyone doing anything with communities.
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Hi.
Often, you question your reason for being. Not only is it natural, but it's also very healthy.
It helps you stay focused, it helps you re-calibrate yourself, and it helps you understand where you stand in the context of today.
However, every once in a while, when you question yourself, you get some outright brilliant answers. It happens very rarely, but it's what you live for. These brilliant answers are what make you who you are. It's why you roll the way you do.
WeareIndia.TV is a labor of love for a great many of us. We're doing this because we can. We're doing this because it needs to be done. We're doing this because it makes sense. And we're doing this because no one else can get it right.
Film-making is an art form that has long been gulped down by mainstream cinema. What used to be a medium for individual expression, has turned into a medium for mass entertainment. And while we're just as much a part of the masses as we are individuals, mass-culture has taken precedence over individual personality.
And that is unfair. It's unfair to expression, it's unfair to freedom, it's unfair to individuals, and if you think about it, it's unfair to the masses.
So, in a very small way, we've embarked upon setting this record straight.
As I look through the quality of films that are showing up at our doorstep, and the passion driving each film-maker behind them, I know that we're on the right path. Each one of these films entertains, without fail. Or, teaches me something I didn't know. Or, shows me something I haven't seen.
The response has been overwhelming, and this was the answer we were looking for. It's what we live for. It's what makes us who we are, and it's why we roll the way we do.
We are honored, humbled, and grateful to be a part of all this. That we're doing this as a business is why we believe this will be a success. This isn't a non-profit movement that relies on generosity. This is a for-profit initiative that solves problems.
A big thank you to BlackBook Productions, Hypnautyx, Influx Dzine, Nalandaway, Breakthrough, GrayMatter Films, BrokenMirror, HereandNow365, SolutionSet, iDes and many others for being the friends that you are. Believe you me, this was not happening without you.
We're going to accelerate our launch proceedings now, seeing as we are 2 days away from launch(or are we?!).
On behalf of the team @ Marcellus, I invite all of you to head on over to WeareIndia.TV
Best wishes,
Manoj, Rifaquat, Shashank, Bobby, Harshal and Preetam.
Before I get to the Lennon part:
I've been meaning to say thank you to Jeff Lanctot and his team @ Avenue A for the wonderful report they released recently on the 2008 Digital Media Outlook.
I figured re-distribution might be a good(albeit selfish) step to acknowledgment, so here's a graph that summarized where ad dollars are, and where they're going.
Points to be noted:
1) Portal advertising, which grew 100% between 2005-2006, grew only by 7% between 2006-2007. Ouch.
2) Vertical advertising, which grew 15% between 2005-2006, grew a good 42% between 2006-2007.
What does that mean?
1) Fragmentation happened very quickly. Almost too quick for most portals/destinations to react. People found relevance elsewhere, and just..sort of..left.
I don't read Yahoo! news anymore. I get on iGoogle, read my personalized news across all topics, and then head on to wherever my news appetite for the day seems to get satiated best(via Google, of course).
2) As fragmented markets take shape and coagulate, the resulting verticals/niches present highly target-able audiences for advertisers.
I follow headlines, not newspapers or brands. If I see a news item that's appealing, then that's where I go.
Advertisers want to be where I go, because that's their biggest clue to knowing what's appealing to me.
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It's all very beautiful. We're seeing the dots getting connected all over again. The world hasn't grown. We're all just getting a little closer to each other. Without suffocating each other.
This is a new world...a new dimension if you will.
Time means nothing, perspective means everything, context is infinite, connectivity tends towards perfection, a space has no definition...only opportunity, collaboration is survival, open is naked is beautiful, persona is situational...not representative, everything adds up, and spam is about to die.
John Lennon is missing out.
The story of the week comes from a chance encounter I had with a product director for MSN Video, at Microsoft.
As it turned out, she was a panelist at one of the sessions, and of course, not a lot of what she said made sense.
I went up to her after the session was over(mostly because I didn't remember what she said, and I know she used the word 'community' somewhere in her annoying monologue..) and asked her:
"Ma'am, what is Microsoft's plan for edge distribution? I mean, as we're reading these days, distribution trumps destination, and it sounds like you guys are still stuck on creating a portal/destination."
Her response:
"Well, we have the MSN Messenger community, the largest online community in the world, with over 400 million users. So you can take MSN Videos and post it into your MSN messenger window...it's great! We've launched in the US and it will come to India very soon."
You know me.
I gave her the warmest smile, shook her hand, thanked her for her time, and left.
(Update: Fake Steve has an interesting perspective on Microsoft Surface Computing strategy- a must read)
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The online media space, especially when it comes to Internet video, is undergoing many fundamental transformations.
One of these transformations is that contrary to earlier models where context was associated with content, we're now in a world where content needs to follow context.
Because context is everywhere. Discussions, communities, social context and personal relevance is all at the edge, and if you're building up a centralized platform, thinking you're going to draw audiences, you're wrong. Way wrong.
Rather, you need to think about the edge network as a multitude of cities....a collection of ecosystems with varied needs, motivations and behavioral patterns.
"Contextual relevance" means different things to different ecosystems.
Reality check. As a content owner looking to solve the distribution puzzle on the Internet:
1) You can spend your marketing and advertising dollars in understanding, profiling, targeting, and reaching out to a few million fragmented markets.
And hope that these millions of audience segments will show up at your destination to see what you have to offer them.
I can't think of a more inefficient way to spend money.
OR,
2) You can spend your technology and R&D dollars in making your content so incredibly elastic, that it can be made to fit within virtually any context across the edge. In a nutshell, you enable your consumers to become distributors.
And if you can enable viral distribution, without having to actually stimulate it, you've already won.
(As you may have noticed, we never returned from tea...technical delays and I promise to plan better next time around).
---Break for tea. Resume at 12.30pm----
OPENING SESSION: 9:30am - 12:10 pm
Amit Khanna, Chairman, Reliance Entertainment
"9 years ago, when Frames was first held, Internet was merely a medium. Today, it is an economy."
"Today, everything is entertainment - News, Crime, Wars, Sports, Education, everything!"
"HUman mind moves in arithmetic progression. Technology grows in Geometric progression"
"MOre than arithmetic, Culture is going to be the global forces of the coming century. Fortunately for India, we already are a powerhouse in this force."
"I believe people in the future will agree to receive services in exchange for their attention. Monetizing that attention is the future of business.
"Internet is a copy machine. It is an invitation for people to take the easy routes. But people will slowly learn that when you start riding a tiger, unless you learn how to ride the tiger, you'll get eaten up."
"Mindshare grabbing is the way to grabbing a share of the wallet."
Top entertainment trends for the coming decade:
1. New digital technologies reshaping logistics of entertainment. Traditional media will have to adapt to new technologies to remain competitive.
2. Convergence of Internet with other media will pave the future of the industry
3. On demand interactive content will become the standard.
4. Movie theatres will get introduced to satellite download of movies.
5. More powerful, smarter multimedia devices to experience the new era of entertainment content.
6. Digital TV to provide realitme participation with celebrities.
7. Convergence of entertainment and education
8. Producers of any form of art will have to adapt new technologies.
HE Viviane Reding, Commissioner, Information, Society & Media, European Commission
"Culturally, Europe and India are very similar. Indian constitution recognizes 22 offical languages. EU recognizes 22 offical languages. India is a republic for 60 years, Europe is a confedration for 50 years, and more so.. However, we are a Continent of 500 million and you are a nation of more than double!"
"Censorship is the bane of good films everywhere in the world"
"We want our film makers to learn in your schools and your film makers to learn in our schools"
"Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Sweden - leaders in Broadband penetration, higher than US. "
"Europe has the Highest mobile penetration in the world. India to become the Mobile contintent of the world. Why not bring the 2 together and mutually benefit?"
HE Dominique Dreyer, Ambassador of Switzerland to India
"Switzerland owes a lot to Mr. Yash Chopra for putting our geography onto the world map through his movies. Hopefully sometime soon, someone in the Swiss Govt. will decide to name one of our mountains after Mr. Chopra!"
Asha Swarup, Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India
"Financial SOPs had been requested - Finance Ministry has obliged with certain measures in Union Budget 08."
"Don't create an inspector Raj"
"Indian entertainment industry poised to grow faster than the Indian economy"
"Parallel release on multiple platforms only solution to piracy"
Stewart Beck, Asst. Deputy Minister, Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada.
"India invested $5 billion in Canada in 2007"
Amit Mitra adds:
"In 2007, India invested more in UK than UK did into India.
India invested $10.6 billion into the US while USA invested $856 million into India"
