Yesterday, on a conference call with Cynthia Francis, CEO of Reality Digital, I had the opportunity to hear her talk about the future of user-generated content; some tidbits she'd be sharing on a panel at today's second annual TV of Tomorrow Show; UGC's fatal flaw; and the fabulous sport of fly fishing.
Reality Digital, an online video technology company, provides a white-label platform (known as the Opus Platform) to businesses that want to add user-generated content and social media capabilities to marketing initiatives. Using Opus, Reality Digital's customers create niche businesses centered upon a particular interest (e.g., fly fishing!) by providing the end user with rich media tools, allowing them to upload video comments and reviews, audio, and images from any device (Webcam, cellphone, browser, toaster, etc.), and participate in the marketing process. The point is to engage consumers well enough initially to lead them back to a particular brand.
Reality Digital currently provides services for several customers and affiliates, including MTV Networks , Lonely Planet, and Hook.tv -- which Francis says is "the most rockin' site" for self-described fly-fishing fanatics (and maybe even those who play them on TV).
"People as consumers have an expectation that we're no longer going to accept a one-sided dialogue with the companies we consume," she says, explaining that with the Opus Platform, on a site like Lonely Planet, a user may watch a profesionally produced travel video while also uploading his or her own video and images -- to comment on his/her own travel experience or someone else's. Users can also use Opus's video editing tools to participate in contests -- an initiative MTV took advantage of, for example, although she wouldn't mention the company by name. (I, the superhuman, figured it out myself.)
YouTube: The UGC of yesteryear
When talking about the future of user-generated content, Francis says in the coming 18 months we will see a big shift away from the entertainment-centric days of YouTube, moving toward creating a focus around brands.
Likening the utility of YouTube Inc. to quickly being able to find an old jingle you heard back in high school (cough, or your favorite clip from Sister Act II, cough), Francis says tomorrow's UGC will enable people to establish niche communities around brands they're passionate about... like... sayyy... fly fishing!
"It's a really different experience [for] someone who says I'm interested in this... I'm interested in fly fishing... I love my Prius. You want to go and get more information about that product and connect with other people who share that experience with you.
"You've got to differentiate. If you're differentiating by saying 'we've got a community that's different,' that's great. But if your goal is just to be YouTube, that boat already sailed."
Maybe. But entertainment is huge. The success of sites like YouTube and FunnyorDie has shown that we are entertainment hogs, and so long as the technology is evolving on the entertainment-centric front, incorporating features like social media and live video, it seems that niche sites, particularly those that are brand-focused, will simply be supplemental.
So youre saying that if Internet Evolution had their own video hosting service, you wouldnt use it? You would upload to YouTube and wait 3 hours for it to encode then revisit Internet Evolution and post the embed code in the forums?
It doesnt sound too convenient.
Also if you look a little more into the youtube api, you will see that all videos are watermarked with youtube's logo. Why would you want a video with youtubes horrible encoding anyway? Its made at a lower quality because videos at a higher quality would slow down the whole youtube site.
That would not be the case if Internet Evolution had thier own hosting service.
Also, if your theory is correct, how do you explain companies like Brightcove, Kickapps, Twistage, Viddler, Reality Digital and others making millions a year on providing white label solutions for video?
And finally, how do you monitize a youtube api? You are limited to in-player google ads where you split the profit with google. Can you have preroll? Can you have postroll? Can you have endcap? Can it integrate with third party ad serving client like DoubleClick's DART video ad serving component?
If you understood business models, this market wouldnt be so hard for you to comprehend.
Well, dap1, I think you position is understandable too. If you have to rely on US media coverage for keeping up with global events, you may indeed end up thinking that Tom-Tom is involved with these rather than these, and that we're all pot-smoking nudists around here.
OK, now that we have the stereotypes out of the way, you may find it interesting to know that, when I lived in the US, even before Youtube existed, I was watching Dutch television programs via the Internet, and had LightReading's Scott Raynovich quite amazed by it when I showed it to him at a conference lunch table (see his remarks towards the end of this article, and in a later column). Oh, and by the way, just a random report on drug usage statistics has the US beat the Netherlands by 41 against 28 percent...
No seriously, what Youtube really is, is a storage and distribution engine. Even more so, as was announced today, as they are opening up their APIs to let other sites embed content with the player of their choice. So you can get the cross-stitching dentists website with a nicely moderated forum and an organized index to content which is hosted on Youtube, but plays on their own site.
I don't think that Reality Digital is mostly targeting (independent) brand market related forums, as you're suggesting, since Nicole's article mentions several times explicitly that the Opus platform is presented as a marketing tool, and that the purpose is "to engage consumers well enough initially to lead them back to a particular brand".
Your position is understandable Leo. Europe usually takes about a year or so to catch up with the media technologies the US has been keen to.
What you will soon see, is that larger video hosting sites like youtube offer too broad of a spectrum of content. Users will want to see a certain niche video and visit/participate in the site that offers that niche.
You also might be misunderstanding 'brand related forums'. These are more like 'brand market related' communities. For instance, Travel Channel would have a video site exclusive to travelling the world. If you were going to visit Amsterdam and search videos on youtube to see what its like, you will probably get a lot of results with the Red Light District, Coldplay's song 'Amsterdam', and a lot of drugs and alcohol debachery. Whereas if you were to visit Travel Channel's video site, you would find just what youre looking for.
Ultimately you cant control what users add as tagwords to a video, but you can control the environment where users upload their videos to.
I agree Leo. I don't see how it even differs from each new brand generating a new website or writing a new brochure about a new product.
It raises the question what is YouTube? Is it a website? A Culture? A Destination? A Service? Yes. Yes. Yes. and Yes.
UGC is definitely an evolution. I do think many companies have moved on from YouTube to do similar things within their own brand, but the analogy would be similar to saying I have a new website, and I don't want to be found using google. I want to stand on my own merit because I am the ultimate UGC, I am a user of [insert brand] and I have generated content about it.
Nicole has sparked a powderkeg with this post. Well, maybe not. She is right on with her assessment that for a new entity to say we are the new YouTube when that ship is clearly (or perhaps blurrily) over the horizon already.
That does not mean that new innovation is not possible, or that companies should not attempt to create new and useful ways for the UGC crowd to post their UGC. Perhaps that is why the "mashup" style programming is taking hold more and more.
Today people upload their videos to Youtube, and then link to it on their favorite forum, or embed it on their social network profile. And a forum already exists for just about any subculture, so I don't see how adding a load of brand-related forums, controlled by the companies who own the brands, is going to attract large crowds.
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If you've been exhibiting signs of IE Radio withdrawal, today is your lucky day: IE Radio picks up yet again, this time with Dale Fuller, CEO of MokaFive. Fuller joins us at 2:00 p.m. ET.
Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times posted a story entitled "Blogger, beware: Postings can lead to lawsuits," discussing the growth of lawsuits in the era where everyone is a publisher. The article points to some recent cases where bloggers wrote some racy things -- like the blogger who said that three Chicago judges "deserve to be killed" -- and were taken to court.
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