Media in a multi-device world
Lets call it the “Digital First” strategy as one of my friends in a major media company loves to call it!
Most M&E companies now view their digital evolution as critical to meeting consumer demand in a mult-device (next gen. devices) connected world. In this new world, these M&E companies are quickly learning that their opportunities for growth are staggering. Equally staggering are the challenges of navigating the realms of technology and content. However, seizing these opportunities requires new thinking about how Media and Entertainment content is created, curated, packaged, distributed and sold.
On one side M&E companies must develop ways to differentiate themselves through a branded customer experience strategy that offers premium content and services to their customers. This enhanced value may come from the following dimensions: Format and additional content, timing, availability & interoperability and sharing & engagement. On the other side, the strategy needs to include technology enablers to support the “digital first” strategy.
The more we work with a number of large media and entertainment customers, the more we realize that content alone will not suffice. To succeed, media and entertainment companies will need to research consumers’ general media spending habits, both online and offline, to identify patterns between their media consumption and media spending behaviors. Media and Entertainment companies will be more likely to see their online paid content strategies succeed in countries where internet users’ online spending is more aligned to their online media consumption habits.
I am sure Corporate Strategy groups of number of our customers have the same realization and are actively working to realign their strategies to fit multi-device connected “world”. If they are not, no matter how big or powerful they are .. they should get ready for a tectonic shift in the landscape – more Huffington Posts, Flipboards, Netflixes and Pandoras are around the corner making the conventional players irrelevant and obsolete.
A number of our customers / megacorps are hard at work to find the right answers and are laying down plans; from ad revenues to monetization to delivery of content to these new emerging distribution channels. However, even the best laid out plans can fail if their infrastructure and processes aren’t up to the task. M&E companies must build or lease (cloud) world class infrastructure to support their digital initiatives. They need to build intellectual property management systems that manage contracts, rights and royalty agreements, along with digital supply chains, that make digital content easy to store, search and exploit throughout the enterprise and beyond.
As the media and entertainment companies continue to develop creative ways to generate revenues, they will, at times, launch products before they have built the operational infrastructure processes to support them. This period, from idea to execution, creates significant risks of error and inefficiency. Nevertheless, media and entertainment companies will continue to push the envelop in product innovation to meet evolving consumer demands – to reach them where they live, work and play.
We, at Tringapps, take pride in being at the forefront of this paradigm shift and we wish luck to all our friends in the media industry to innovate and bring their content to ever increasing list of distribution channels; as their success means our success.
Online Market for digital content has been a upward spiral since 2009 causing a continuous disruption. This growth is predicted to be exponential in the year of 2011 fueled by an increment in user base that migrate from physical formats to digital content distribution. Right from videos, newspapers, magazines, games, social networks monetization has become an integral part of online content that is available to date. As the industry focuses on the content distribution channels there should be equal attention paid on the support and delivery systems. Cloud computing has shaped up big way in the last few years to provide the support, thus enabling the content anywhere logic.
As a tringer i am excited for all the wonderful opportunities waiting ahead!
This article illustrates the opportunities and challenges from the companies` point of view.
As I observed, this is a user oriented industry. To put it simply it is the individual user who pays, not some big companies at the end of the chain. On one hand when we see user needs arise, we need to strive to satisfy their needs; On the other hand, from 2000 to 2010 I myself witnessed a company that creates exciting apps, which stimulates user interests and creates user fashion, or even a new life style in the country. And the company obtains huge successes on such continuous innovation.
The user preference trend is like, they want not only entertainment but information everywhere, anytime, online video games, movies, musics, live broadcast, news reports, etc. This is different from a traditional way that they should stay on some particular places to get what they want. we can see that multiple media giants realize this and come up very quickly, which makes the competition severe. To think of potential user needs and create new user fashion would probably be a new point of expanding the business.
I believe this trend starts and becomes a must several years ago, when CPUs were embedded into cellphones or even a watch. And I also believe that as users are asking for more all the time, it is never too late to strive, to dive into this industry.
Everyday we see more and more mobile phones morph into portable computers. Users of varying demographics are now consuming huge volumes as well as different types of content, while on the go. I find this shift which is very rapidly blurring the lines between online & media very interesting for M&E companies. It’s creating great opportunities for media conglomerates but at the same it’s a new challenge to adapt to the next-gen devices. Meeting consumers demands and upgrading their offerings to a whole new innovative level has become a necessity. The results are fascinating. We are doing unbelievable stuff every single day. Enabling seamless transitioning from print to next-gen devices is our first priority. And, the type of products we building and services we are offering – I feel we along with our clients are making a mark in this paradigm shift!
Yes since the introduction of iOS, mobile apps had been since pouring out of companies and free lance developers like water pouring out form the stream line. So it is for sure made human’s life a little easier, and of course made all the developers’ life a little more challenging in the years to come, but hey, who doesn’t like to be challenged.
As far as making a revenue out of making app. Mega corps are still having trouble as to making big revenue out of apps. Because before that, it was mostly prints and websites that can be accessed by anyone in the world, but with apps, the content is being locked into one specific platform, making it hard for user to view content from another platform.
So in order to counter this problem, the content should be platform free. Meaning it should appear in every platform no matter what the case maybe, and tho stream all the same content right there and then.
One more thing that it could be a deal breaker is the app transferability. Personally I switched my personal phone from iPhone to Android. So I wish that the apps that I bought in my iPhone is transferable to Android, that way I don’t need to rely on my iPhone for information that can also be retrieved through Android. The reason I’m still relying on my iPhone is because I don’t want to repay the apps that I have already paid for to get the same information, but from a different platform. So by making an app transferable. I can rely on only one device to get information that I am looking for
Nevertheless, the mobile app industry is so young and yet so powerful. In just 4 years, there are 1 billion app downloads in Apple app store. To me that number just astoundingly big. So with all these new devices and new updates to further improve the OS. It will sure be a interesting future to see how M&E companies revise their revenue strategy
As mentioned in the blog post and comments above the rate of generation and consumption of digital content has risen exponentially. Many media companies have recognized and taken advantage of this. In addition to the examples mentioned above, Fox News has launched a news paper called “The Daily” which is an iPad news paper. The content for this newspaper will be specifically tailored for an iPad (mobile) experience
As the blog post mentions, one of the biggest challenges for the M & E companies is monetization of the digital content. Some of the ways to achieve improved monetization could be by better targeting the content to the tastes of the user and providing a engaging experience to the user while he is viewing the content.
One thing is certain, we are in store for exciting times ahead !
Mobile phones are the new Personal computers. It augurs well for the M&Es to go digital as isn’t that any content distributing company wants ” Content to Everyone,Everywhere “. It also results from the fact that Mobile is the ‘In’ thing and if you are not on mobile, you are not ‘cool’. What I have noticed that since its a new thing for the media companies,they are a bit confused about how to approach this paradigm shift. This is where we Tringers have an amazing opportunity to work in tandem with content providers to bring the content to everyone. We as technology enablers are placed in a very interesting situation where we can help the M&E companies and guide them on what to do and what not to. We are indeed on the cusp of great possibilities and I am really excited to be right in the middle of it.
Media companies have now started to become digital media companies. But why this sudden change? Computers have been there for the past 20 years, and so has the internet. Then why now? This is the main question that will help us to understand the main crux behind the media companies going digital.
Being digital, helps them to have an advantage and a loss. Advantage, yes an advantage, in pushing the content as it becomes ready. In old days, media content used to be published one a month or once a week. It was printed, and was not easy to archive and then retrieve it. It was not interactive and the user had no means to customize it.
Ad industry has also gone through a great change and the main reason would be print now being slowly replaced by digital. Loss, because with digital, timely delievery of infromation becomes the most important. If they miss on this time aspect, it can hit them bad.
If the media and entertainment companies want to make the best out of this, they will have to concentrate on the how and where the content should be shown. They will have to think about the ad space they create and how to make use of it.
The second most important thing that can help a M&E company to make its mark is by providing customization option to the user.
With technologies like Adobe Publishing and custom publication suites coming out, the future of publication and entertainment seems to be more competitive and fast paced.
Mobile platform is growing at a very higher rate when compared to any other media platform. This is what is troubling most of the media companies. With so many new devices coming everyday in the market, the biggest challenge for these companies lies just not only in how and what content is presented, but also how to make money out of mobile.
As mentioned above in the article, I truly believe that the companies need to focus on consumer’s habits and trends to understand what are the most used features by the people when they are on the go. This would definitely help them build better consumer products.
Customization option also sounds very promising. A user would definitely be more interested in viewing his content personalized according to his needs and may also be willing to pay for it. This would be expensive for companies to develop, but it could serve as means of generating a lot of revenue for them.
I think you meant mobile platform(s). So the question is: is there a way by which we can understand consumer behavior better?
One of the ways could be to have sessions with users or conduct focus groups where the companies could directly interact with them and try to understand their mobile specific habits.
From the devices I have used in the past and present, it started from the desktop, laptops to smart phones and tablets. The transition has been really interesting giving users the convenience in carrying data. The plans of all the M&E companies are simple cater to the user. In specific, common interest of the users. If the tend to sway towards smart phones give them the media and content right there, or if their choice is tablets. Providing the content on both (more than that) is a wiser idea, since this is an era where a transition is happening at a greater speed. If there is no alternative option provided, since the boundaries are blurred you are missing the race.
The things they might want to consider, maybe making applications available across platform irrespective of the device in which they are used. Thinking of the Next Gen devices which are about to come and making user use the product on the new device. Would be a better idea of putting more thought as to how to bring about the best user experience from any device and giving products which will stand through and take notice by the users.
So how do you take a set of trends and make them more tangible by carving out “products” that create new value?
Innovation has always been a challenge in any field, but having said that it is the only way to be disruptive in a market. Right from Content creation, designs, content delivery, apps, ads; Tringapps has always believed to be right ahead in a paradigm shift. Applying the above mentioned tool-knowledge base on to a portable convergence device is very essential to make it tangible and be at the forefront.