Björn Jeffery

Read this on the plane home yesterday and laughed so loudly that the flight attendant gave me a odd look. Still worth it though. I love the English language when it’s used like this.

More troubling than the ban, however, is its implication: French officials are sending important ideas to each other using BlackBerry e-mail. That is deeply disturbing. Most BlackBerry messages are composed during a brief spell of “BlackBerry prayer” in the middle of a meeting to discuss something else. Many others are thumbed out while jet-lagged in the car on the way to the airport, or inebriated in a taxi late at night.

Government officials and ministers have been making terrible decisions for centuries while sober, awake and concentrating. Making them while drunk, exhausted and distracted is unlikely to help – although anything is worth a try.

One thing to be said for BlackBerry messages is that they are short. That is an idea worth exploring. Government documents the world over should be typed using only the thumbs. If they cannot be sensible, at least they can be brief.

I was sent this interesting prediction by Davide Casaleggio. It takes up the future integration of virtual worlds, the web and reality. Nicely made, and even if it’s been posted here and there already it is well worth a watch:

When all else fails, there’s always money. That’s what Metro seem to have thought, missing the first blog race, and now offering 3 Swedish öre per page view (100 öre=1 SEK=0,14 USD) for bloggers that switch to their new platform. More at Martin Jönsson and Internetworld (both Swedish). An inevitable development really, just look at what Revver has been doing on the video side. YouTube are following suit. But it is it interesting from a blog perspective? Hardly. I’ll tell you why not.

Firstly, any new advertising model based on page views sucks. Especially for blogs as all the posts are in a row and there’s no real need to click around too much.

Secondly, this initiative is doing nothing but trying to maximise the amount of generic page views that they can sell to major advertisers. Pushing banner ads to a big bulk of blogs. This is not where they are strong. Blogs are sharp and specific, targeted to an audience interested in specific things. This enables the possibility of extremely targeted ads, and a higher CTR than you will get on any of the major sites. They should be leveraging this.

This pinpoints the third point. Media buyers need to recognise this fact and start creating media plans focused on reach, rather that views. We need BlogAds, Federated Media and all of those initiatives here in Sweden as well. A considerably wider media portfolio for each campaign.

Targeted ads are relevant for the readers, and therefore more accepted. This will be key when planning media ahead, in my opinion. Initially, this business will be hard to swing. The number of needed blogs in the same field will have to be higher than today in order to justify the work load that comes with it. Either that, or a PageRank-like algorithm that is purely contextual.

Fourth and last point. All people like money, but that’s generally not why they blog. I think paying very little money can sometimes be a lot worse than not paying at all. It puts a low figure, and therefore a low value, on the blog in question. I think the disappointment of hardly making any money is more destructive for visitor loyalty, than the incentive of trying to make money. More about this is my presentation about internet currency.

So what is interesting today? Local Explorer; the first major project from Rob Curley at The Washington Post (thanks Niklas!). I’ll be watching it closely.

tags technorati : revenuesharing metro blogs onlineadvertising robcurley washingtonpost localexplorer

tags bloggar.se: intäktsdelning, revenue sharing, bloggar, metro, nätannonsering, rob curley, washington post, local explorer

Just a friendly reminder that it’s time for Likemind Malmö tomorrow. We’ve missed a few ones because of public holidays and stuff like that, but now we’re back! And the network has grown to 25 cities worldwide.

Friday, 9 am at Solde Kaffebar, and the (excellent) coffee is sponsored by Anomaly. Swing by and say hello!

Lisbeth Knudsen, editor-in-chief at Berlingske Tidende, one of the three big old traditional Danish newspapers, today announced a new strategy “The new Berlingske Tidende” (in this premium content article in Danish from Borsen.dk). The strategy follows her taking office some two month ago, and has, according to herself, “earthquake” like dimensions.

All journalists online
The radical new step is a plan to make all journalists employed at Berlingske Tidende bi-medial, writing for both the web and the print edition, with the web as the first place of publication, and as the place where stories are supposed to be followed up during the day – and presumably also night.

Jon Lund points me to an interesting change in strategy for Berlingske. But calling this an “earthquake” says a lot more about the newspaper industry than it does about the change itself.

Web first, print later. If this is an earthquake it’s going to be a bumpy ride ahead.

tags technorati : berlingsketidende newspapers media2.0

tags bloggar.se: berlingske tidende, dagstidningar, media 2.0

One of the blogs I run, Discobelle.net, just won three out of ten categories of the Swedish podcast awards. Beating the Swedish newspaper DN in two of them. I thought I should mention it (so I could have a chance to illustrate it! 😉

Tim Guest just wrote a book called Second Lives, and came here to talk about virtual worlds and television. I’m keeping this a bit shorter as I think the readers of this blog probably know Virtual Worlds 101 anyway.

Guest made an interesting comparison with the American emigration, and thought the incentives to move into virtual worlds today where pretty much the same. A sense of liberty, identity and the possibilities to start something new. Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab, said that “Second Life was an antidote to TV’s “Faustian Bargain” – experience without risk”. A life without death, gravity and real loss. Interesting angle.

Some short stats:
* Guest said that Google valued Linden Lab to 1.4 billion US dollars. An impressive sum, considering they only spent 20 million so far.

* IBM have 3000 active participants in virtual meeting. An IBM exec told Guest that the shift from the internet to virtual words was as large as the one from the command line to the desktop.

Over to TV and Virtual Worlds then. Guest listed three strands:

* “Machinima”: filming for real TV in virtual worlds. Guest showed a clip of film made in Second Life for regular television. The easiest way to merge to two obviously.

* Using virtual worlds to extend TV properties. Apparently, CSI are creating an island where viewers can log on and see more of the set from the episodes. Therefore they meet other viewers and also can continue the experience after the programme is sent. Guest also showed the first live broadcast in both regular TV and in Second Life, a project made by himself and the consultancy Rivers Run Red.

* Virtual worlds as a medium for TV itself. The example Virtuallife.tv was brought up, where you can watch real TV together with others in a virtual world. It connects with the thought of the modern campfire that was mentioned in my previous post.

A good presentation, many interesting slides and clips were shown. Hope someone is filming this.

tags technorati : timguest hd highdefinition svt movingimages2007 virtualworlds secondlife

tags bloggar.se: tim guest, hd, highdefinition, svt, movingimages2007, virtuella världar, second life

Next up – Peter Siljerud from Kairos Future. They recently spent 1000 hours in 16 homes to understand how people consume television today. One of the lessons learnt, according to Siljerud, was that the TV was the modern campfire. This was a fact that Eva Hamilton also mentioned.
Their study showed that 63% of the 16-25 year-olds often, or always, watch television together with others.
The equivalent number for 26-45 year-olds was 44% and 31% for the group 46-64.

And what are the most important factors when it comes to television? Apparently quality, not content, is king. High image- and sound quality was the most important, followed by high content quality and then a large amount of choice regarding the amount of channels. Remarkable! Can this be true? Sounds strange to me.

Kairos also asked a panel of 90 media experts (no disclosure of what’s needed to qualify as an expert) when niche channels would be available for all interests. The median year listed was 2013, and 14% (err, I think) of the experts said that this would never happen.

A lot of stats and listings here, but bare with me – it hard to blog graphics 😉

Then on to the question of mobile tv – on-demand or broadcast? 46% answered that downloading video clips was the was what they wanted. 54% wanted to see regular TV channels broadcasted. The analysis here was that both parts were needed.

This seems to be a really odd way of posing the question I think – why compare video clips in mobile device to regular channels? What about downloading full programmes to your mobile phones instead? I think they completely mixed up content and distribution here. Either that or I misunderstood the presentation of the stats. A lot of things were very unclear here when it came to the posing of the questions, as pointed out by someone in the audience as well.

The picture is from the discussion that followed the presentation. It was entertaining, but no real rocket science was presented.

On another note, I seem to be the only one with a laptop here. That says something in itself.

tags technorati : petersiljerud hd highdefinition svt movingimages2007 kairosfuture

tags bloggar.se: peter siljerud, hd, highdefinition, svt, movingimages2007, kairos future

I’m at Malmö Högskola where the third Moving Images conference is taking place, organised by SVT (Swedish National Television). The theme for this year is HD and high resolution. I thought I’d live blog chosen parts of it.

SVT:s CEO Eva Hamilton introduced the day by emphasising the importance of both audio and visual when it comes to HD. Far to often it is assumed that it is only a matter of picture quality. The HD development is one of SVT:s prioritised projects, along with on demand services. In 2008, the plan is to offer HD programmes between 18-23 every day. Interesting.

Andy Quested, responsible for HD strategy, from the BBC started by apologizing because the presentation was in English, that he was going to use Powerpoint and the first audience activity of the day. Everyone in the hall had to stand up, and only those with HD at home were allowed to sit down. 99% of the audience were still standing. Quested said, “How can we understand are audience if we don’t know what they are watching”.

So why is HD important now? The three points listed were:

1. Production technology – finally here, this has taken slightly longer than expected.

2. Consumer devices & flat screens – selling very well to consumers

3. Delivery technology – works today

These three all lead to the fact that HD services now are affordable, Quested said. And he consumer demand is what’s driving the market:

* Prices fell by 30-40% over the last year
* Consumers can get HD quality through many different sources – PS3 and similar devices.
* Competitors like Sky have driving the market forward.

Some stats:
Britain: 3.8 million HD-ready TVs (March 2006). Expected to hit 10 million in 2008.
Japan: 9.6 million HD TV sets, 19 channels broadcasting (end of 2006). 28,9 millions HD TV sets and 69 channels predicted by 2011.
US: 27.7 million sets, 42 channels. There was a prediction here as well, but unfortunately I missed it.

The BBC had made a survey to see where the HD technology gave an perceived benefit in the programmes. Wildlife, Sport and Film came out on top, while History and Comedy where in the bottom. Quested had examples where old comedies from the 70´s and 80´s that were still sent successfully, even if it was 4:3 and bad quality. The genre seems to be less sensitive to audio/visual standards.

Quested took up an interesting point regarding quality control. 1280×720 images (except the Varicam and HDX900) simply aren’t good enough. And this is because the material shot can’t be reused, or resold later on. Some of the nature programmes that are filmed today will have an even higher value further on, as the areas filmed now are off limits for media, and some of the species are extinct. Although, the scenes will probably be sold and used in small chunks, rather than full programmes. Makes sense.

tags technorati : andyquested hd highdefinition svt bbc movingimages2007

tags bloggar.se: andy quested, hd, highdefinition, svt, bbc, movingimages2007

I just thought I’d point you over to Web-Strategist.com where there’s an interview with me that was posted yesterday. Check it out! Collected a few other press clippings here.