Social Media - digital nukkad

One of the first comments on the 'wall' of my Facebook profile was that i must have been bullied into doing this, creating a facebook profile that is, by my wife!! it would have been really annoying if it did'nt come from one of my closest friends who i'd lost touch with since she moved to Washington (U.S). The Social networks of today really are the 'nukkads' or local colony hangouts that we loafed around after a game of cricket or football. the language has changes but the palyfullness of the environment remains. i'm regualrly rated on sexiness, past life re-incarnations and if i had a real drink for every 10 virtual ones sent to me, well, it would be one long weekend if not week!!

obviously this 'nukkad' is of interest to marketeers, brand message purveyors and such. i mean, what are people talking about? what are they sharing? what are the next trends? what type of content are they consuming? which applications do they install? all of this is the stuff of a market / brand analysts' wet dreams. unfortunately it leads to a complete annihilation of the sanctity of this space. very often when a friend wants to compare his, well, sex quotient with me an annoying pop up for a brand kills the mood. even worse, sometimes random people add one as a friend and scrap the living daylights out of the public posts area, one of the prime reasons to get out of Orkut, unless of course, you are looking for attention and action!!

One good strategy that we're seeing work is CHARACTERS who inhabit this world, have a clear mandate and do not infringe on the privacy of a social network netizen. a good example is imedix.com which has a host of people you can connect with on various aspects of health. they do not email you after you leave the network, nor do they bug you with overt marketing ploys.

while we're still learning from the consumers, (the best way there is), i recently uninstalled all applications from my facebook profile as they started filling my inbox with junk. and yes, i did feel bullied into it :)

DRM / Content protection

A white paper by Saurabh Gupta, Phonethics

As content creators with a focus on new and emerging media we understand the challenges surrounding the monetization ability of digital content. In this light the debate around protecting content from ‘unauthorised’ downloads / usage has intrigued me right from the beginning both as a consumer as well as a creator. While iTunes and more recently even sections of Bollywood have been able to sell DRM protected content and reaped moderate benefits, introducing the idea of ‘paid’ digital media to consumers, DRM implementation is still hobbled by lack of universal standards, high costs and overstated efficacy.
As a pioneer in the Short Form Content business in India, we have evaluated DRM specifically in our context (SFC) as opposed to the holy grail of digital content.

First, what kind of content are talking about here?

Short form

The proliferation of content and specifically SFC on New media platforms hinges on four value propositions for the end user –

a) anywhere, anytime

b) low or no cost

c) viral – lightweight, easy to share, mash up - personalise

d) freedom of choice - search

A new medium needs a new idiom. The success of the quirky creative endeavors has been fuelled by a viral internet platform. The content creators allow users to viral (embed) their content and share it with the rest of the cyber world. For content creators like Will Ferrell (funnyordie.com) and the team behind Lonelygirl15, this scale up comes at very little cost in terms of marketing dollars and even better allows them to do what know best – create quality content. The marketing takes care of itself. Over time this massive viewer traffic and organized distribution has created new markets and made it easier to access the old ones. Today a serialized, well managed amateur video-series can evolve into a brand (lonelygirl15).

Add to this the power of social media and you have a potential one to one connect with all manners of niche audiences. So how does DRM play out in the context of such a democratic media landscape?

DRM, SFC & the New Consumer

• Never 100% protected

Given the well entrenched grey market (especially in countries like India) and the easy availability of technology resources, it is a fair assumption that a certain amount of threat from piracy cannot be mitigated using technology. We feel that the problem is further exacerbated by implementing disparate technologies that impact the paying customer’s user experience negatively.

• Digital content production is already encumbered by multiple platforms, operating systems and hardware protocols. A typical production cycle involves digitization (transfer from shooting tape to hard disk), post production (editing, special effects etc.) and publishing (preparation of broadcast masters or web formats). DRM solutions do not plug into this pipeline at the operational stage. Typically a DRM wrapper is a separate component at the end this cycle (although popular editing softwares like Final Cut Pro do have DM features, they are not efficient). This further prolongs the time to market and often leads to a downgrade in the overall quality of the product (especially in the case of Video).

• Since there is no single DRM protocol across devices / operating systems, a DRM wrapper around the content restricts the content and the customer to proprietary platforms (e.g. sa re ga ma, an Indian music label recently launched their DRM protected online store that has content (songs) compatible only with Microsoft platforms). This limits portability of media across devices (customer wants his content on the move, esp SFC where the purchase is more impulse driven) – contradicts the ESSENCE of SFC – viralability.
  

• Limits / stunts virability of content, good for superbrands like spiderman and big ticket Hollywood productions but prevents an organic growth and online community-based seeding: a cost-effective and democratic manner of propagating the characters / brands / content series.

For example, the free version of a content piece

1. can be made difficult to obtain

2. may corrupt / crash user’s device

3. needs the user to request a friend / contact to pass along a song/media file they have

4. the quality of the media file itself may not be up to the mark

In summary, protected short form content does result in some degree of negative impact on customer delight (and therefore uptake)

Phonethics and DRM

Being an early-stage content creator, Phoenthics’ goal is to make content consumption really easy and intuitive., while reminding consumers, that there is a social and sometimes a direct financial cost to the consumption of pirated content.

We believe that the mantras of SFC monetization are –

• low cost of production
• diversified revenue streams
• Innovation - Character / icon based content production

DM becomes critical for a range of content producers partially because of the high cost around producing branded content especially when above the line costs like actors fees add to the budget. The Producer / Label is forced to look at multiple markets and long tail to drive profitability, revenue sources that are obviously impacted negatively by free availability of their products in the digital world.

SFC is a disciplined approach to content production. At Phonethics, our content portfolio is built around characters that we own the IP for. This is much more easily protected than digital media. It allows us to build value in the form of the character and not just a single video or audio piece. As the characters find traction we find interesting licensing deals being offered by traditional media as well as advertisers looking to break the clutter. Phonethics recently licensed one of its characters to a leading TV channel as a cyberhost for a television show (mianfekoo.com). The videos for this character were already available across various video platforms with a sizeable viewership. This made the proposition even more attractive for the channel as it got intervention in an ongoing dialogue and ecosystem.

The Internet is a beautiful medium to help content travel to various markets and demographics. Instead of locking it down be prepared to re-purpose / re-orient your product to any distribution channel, such as Mobile or even Print. Let’s make content available via easy, well-priced and simple interfaces that allows a consumer to purchase/download any version of the desired content suitable for their device at a rational cost.