mediamachina » marketing

11 | Groundwork | Four Observations: Memory

bruno boutot — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 03:12:56 +0000

Note: The five posts entitled “Groundwork” were originally written in 2009. See here.
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We hear a lot about Moore’s Law and the doubling of processing capacity, but storage-density’s growth makes the pace of processor improvements look glacial.
Cory Doctorow
Tracking the astounding pace of digital storage #

figure 23: Memory of exchanges in a traditional media #

Observations on figure 23 #

This analysis is fairly straightforward but, as often happens, by outlining the relationships I ended with seeing more than I initially imagined. #

The three rectangles are, from top to bottom: the advertiser (the orange rectangle), the media (the black rectangle), the user (the light blue rectangle)
The large circles stand for the exchanges between the media and the users, as shown in our analysis (figure 7): specifically, content exchanges (the big black circle), business exchanges (the big red circle).
The two kinds of small blue circles (solid and dotted lines) represent the memory, if any exists, of these exchanges.

The users know and remember: #

What content they have used (the solid blue circle overlapping the big black circle)
What they have paid for (purchases, subscriptions, classifieds) and what ads have interested them (the solid blue circle overlapping the big red circle).

The media knows what the users have done only through statistics (hence the dotted lines). #

The media and the advertiser share this information. #

That’s how a “mass” media works: all the knowledge about the readership, the readership profile, and the ad targeting and efficiency is statistical. #

figure 24: Memory of exchanges with users in a Web media #

Observations on figure 24
#

The media wants stable exchanges with the user. So it has to do all it can to create the right conditions. #

We now have as much memory as we want.
We can record every real action of any kind. #

We can keep track of the user as a person, with an identity on which memories can be built. #

And we can track every possible contribution made by the user, from a simple vote to any kind of content (text, images, audio, video, money). #

Finally, we can track how every user shares our content; please note that “our content” now covers everything that is produced within the media: #

By media professionals
By other users
By our advertisers and merchants

Hosting these memories has two main effects: #

Hosting the user’s memories = the media as a “home” for the user
Hosting recorded relationships = generating trust

What does memory change?
#

Traditional media had documents and archives, but they were cumbersome to search and use.
We had nothing like digital memory, which can store billions of data every second, data that are easily accessible, easily searchable, and easily expandable.
Digital and interconnected memories change . . . everything! #

Memory changes the space we have for content
#

We were constrained by the format (paper area for print, linear time for electronic media)

Memory changes the space we sell #

Advertising prices are based on the scarcity of premium space, just as real estate is
When space is expandable at will, its value tumbles: buying free space doesn’t make sense

Memory changes the value system
#

In near infinite space, real estate has less value; data and connections have more value; so relationships (data + connections) have more value

As it happens, Memory changes the space we have for hosting memories (data, connections, relationships) #

Expandable memory allows us to transform all our exchanges with advertisers, merchant, and readers into relationships.

And obviously, Memory changes the space we are in, because, on the Web . . . #

figure 25: . . . Memory is the medium:
Users and merchants are everywhere on our platform
How do we do business with all of them? #

08 | Groundwork | Four Observations: Proximity

bruno boutot — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:13:09 +0000

Note: The five posts entitled “Groundwork” were originally written in 2009. See here.
. #

The Internet is a place. It is a weird place in which proximity is determined by interest, rather than a space in which interests are kept apart by distances. It is a place in which nearness defeats distance.
David Weinberger
The Net is a place #

Let’s begin with a process we know very well: Advertising. #

The orange balls represent the product we want to promote, followed by what the ad must do. #

figure 10: The advertising process #

Observations on figure 10 #

As a communication specialist, I admire the work of the ad agencies’ creative minds.
They have to pack a lot of information into a very small area, like a printed page or a 30-second TV or radio commercial.
Given a product (the circles), they have to make an ad (the triangle) that accomplishes numerous tasks: #

First it must be noticed among the clutter of thousands of ads that we see every day.
Then it must keep our attention to make sure that we read or view the whole message.
It must summon an emotion, because emotions are the only paths to memory.
This emotion must be positive enough to engage us.
This positive emotion must be attached to the product.
This product-emotion must be anchored in the viewer’s memory.
And then, tightly packaged with all this, there must be some kind of spring that will unwind at just the right moment: a delayed push to action.

But the smallness of the display area is not the only reason ads have to be engineered this way. #

figure 11: Traditional marketing #

Observations on figure 11 #

Recap: (1) An advertiser orders an ad from an agency; (2) the agency buys a place for the ad in the media; (3) the media is sent out to the consumer. #

(4) The ad is viewed where the media reaches the consumer, which is generally at work, at home, or in transport. The consumer comes in contact with the ad and then, hopefully, the ad leaves behind an imprint (the dotted triangle) on the consumer’s memory. #

(5) For the ad to succeed, the consumer must, later, go to a store in person to buy the product. #

“later”: The time between the placement of an ad and the act of buying a product can be as brief as one hour. But generally it takes days, weeks, even months, and sometimes years. #

“store”: The distance between the place where the consumer views the media and the store can be as near as 100 m and as far as 10 km or more. #

A good ad is first an imprint device and then
it’s a vehicle to make a buying decision travel through space and time. #

Note: figure 12 will appear in a future edition. Here we jump directly to figure 13.
#

figure 13: The traditional content process #

Observations on figure 13 #

For users of a traditional mass media only they themselves (the blue squares) and the media products (the black squares) are in physical contact – the black squares represent either a paper object (print) or a receiving device (radio or TV). #

The media makers (the gray dots) and the making of the product (the gray square) are far away from users in space and in time. #

figure 14: The Web media content process #

Observations on figure 14 #

For users (the blue squares) of a Web media, their attention (the blue dots) is inside the media site (the black-dashed rectangle). #

Here, they feel as though they are in immediate proximity of other users and of the media makers. #

The media makers (the gray dots) are hiding behind their content (small black dashes): they imagine that they can maintain their distance from the users as in a traditional media. But users know now from countless other sites that this distance doesn’t really exist. In every news media on the Web where readers can’t interact with journalists, readers know that it is only so because journalists (or editors or publishers) don’t want them to. #

figure 15: Proximity is only in the hands of the users
#

Observations on figure 15 #

On the Web, proximity is only available to a person, never to a media. #

Media makers, as individuals, can reach any Web page a click away, but the media website itself can’t be sent away on a decision from the media. #

A media website doesn’t move, can’t move, and can’t be sent to consumers: it sits on a server. #

We have to learn immobility. #

It is the decision of the users to take their attention to the media (the blue solid horizontal arrow).
For any content that can interest the users (news alerts, new comments, images, offers, activities, etc.) the media can (and should) offer to the users as many ways as possible to be alerted (the black-dashed arrows): #

RSS
email,
Twitter, etc.

The small hollow ovals are there to represent the users’ decisions to receive these alerts.
It is important to understand that thesealerts are not a return to the traditional media process of sending content. The only function of these alerts is to bring the users back to our place where we can use all the advantages of proximity. #

figure 16: What proximity changes #

Observations on figure 16 #

The black dashes represent the news media on the Web.
Users (the blue squares) are inside the website.
The triangles represent the ads that send our users to the merchants (the orange line circles). #

Marketing: #

Proximity kills the distance in space and time between media and merchant: the orange circles become orange-dashed circles.
Proximity can fuse advertiser and merchant (the ads are a part of the dashed circles) inside the media.
Proximity can bring users and merchants in contact inside the media.
For users and merchants who are inside the media (member users and member merchants) once an ad has been clicked on, marketing may end: the media can become a place for sales. #

Content: #

Proximity kills the distance in space and time between the media makers and the readers.
Readers are among us, right there, we can touch them.
Everybody is a click away: everything can be personal whenever the “personal” is more efficient or more productive than generic content or an automatic process. #

Why I Am Not Worried About Journalism

bruno boutot — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:33:45 +0000

I am not worried about journalism. #

If this simple statement hadn’t been met recently with so many questions from friends and colleagues, I wouldn’t have felt the necessity to explain it here. #

So why am I not worried about journalism? #

First, because I am a huge news consumer. The consumer of news in me lives nowadays in paradise: I have never had access before to so many sources, from so many points of view, so quickly and through so many media. And this wonderful cornucopia is expanding every day. #

Some people even complain that we have too much information! That makes me laugh. I am an editor and that’s what we have always done: editing. When our ancestors like Ardi came out of the forest and into the savanna, I guess they were thinking “More food!” rather than “Too much information”. If journalism is about gathering, editing and distributing news, we are witnessing a spectacular blooming of journalism. #

But, people tell me, journalism is going through a crisis that is threatening its very existence. #

No, it isn’t. News organizations are going through a revenue crisis. The news business is shaken to its core, but journalism isn’t. We have never had so many competent journalists. We never have had so many media. We have never had so many tools for gathering sources and content. We have never had so many tools to search, compare and validate so many kinds of data. We have never had access to so many people who are themselves more literate than ever and who have access to a growing number of media and people. #

Even more, never before have we had so many brilliant people who not only care about the future of journalism but who are connected in real time and who openly share every day the advancement of their knowledge. If you are really worried about journalism, you should immediately follow these people on Twitter, read their blogs and their books: the future of journalism has never been in better hands. (See below). #

But newspapers are closing and people are worried about investigative journalism, which is very expensive to do. They are right to be, but the key word in this sentence is not “journalism”, it is “expensive”. We don’t have a journalism crisis: we have a crisis of revenues in news organizations employing journalists, which is completely different. #

The news business has been disrupted by the Web. This is why it is a priority to work on business models for news on the Web; if we can contribute to solve the “revenue” problem, we contribute to solve the journalism problem. #

I am passionate about journalism: it is my job because it is my passion. So, I am very curious about all the developments and transformations of journalism made possible by the Web; this wonderfully rich and exciting medium. But this is not my priority in media machina. Of course you can’t talk about the news business without talking about journalism and I will. But the fundamental question I am tackling here is about the business models for news on the Web. Marketing. Sales. Money. #

And I am not worried at all about journalism. #

If you want to be inspired and energized about the future of journalism, you can begin by following a few people. It’s not yet possible to make “groups” within Twitter, but I do it through Seesmic. I have no more than 17 people in a group (this is the size of my Seesmic window, not a feature). Constraints are interesting: it makes for an incomplete list (I am following many more) and the names in it change from time to time. But here are 17 people who make me very optimistic about the future of journalism and the news business (in alphabetical order of their first name): #

Bruce Sterling, Chris Anderson, Clay Shirky, Cory Doctorow, Dave Winer, David Weinberger, Fred Wilson, Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis, John Battelle, Mathew Ingram, Paul Bradshaw, Scott Rosenberg, Steve Buttry, Steve Yelvington, Tim O’Reilly, Warren Ellis. #

I should add a few organizations like the Nieman Lab, but if I have to chose, I’ll take people first. You’ll have to work a little to find their blogs, books or photos. I am in awe of being connected to each of them. I feel incredibly privileged to live today and to be able to follow the writings of these people, their photos on flickr and their conferences on video in quasi-realtime. I’ll be happy to explain why anyone is on this list and I will publish more lists later. #

See notes. #