Monday, October 17, 2005

Video iPod to launch new fame era for podcasters, marketers and reality TV fans.

CNN is running an article on how Apple’s video iPod could kick start a wave of amateur videocasts. With the price of digital video cameras dropping, broadband usage and video editing software getting more user friendly, it will not be long before budding directors or reality TV celebrity wannabes start filling up the digital airwaves. The implications for marketers and brands will depend on the scale of this new CGM trend:

  • RSS feeds will include videocasts (see ANT), search engines will index clips (see Google Video) and new service will help you tag them (see blogtelevision),
  • Initially, audience will fragment further thanks to the availability of niche programs, produced by passionates for enthusiasts. Will traditional TV broadcast audience drop as a result? Yes, especially generation Y and X viewers (the former already spend more time on IM and games and the latter on the web - economist),
  • Companies will be keen to trial bypassing TV networks and produce commercials or short clips ready to podcasts. Ad agency and media buyers will compete with viral marketing specialists to produce these pilots,
  • News corporations will need to work in partnership with “the local guy with a camera who just happened to be there” in the networks’ battle for exclusive. Amateur reporters will start selling their footages via online auction sites (EBay?) and get news agencies to bid for the rights to broadcast their work,
  • Everyone will claim her/his 15 mins of fame and that would equals to 78,840 celebrities per year! (this is serious research, based into the cognitive limits of human attention and memory, number of 15-minute fame segments per year, global median life expectancy and current world population).

No comments: