Interesting Days Indeed . . . By Director Wayne Hall
November 29, 2007
“I notice you’re putting some new plasma’s up around the place.”
“Yep . . . they should look pretty good.”
“What will you be showing on them?"
“We’re not sure yet . . . Probably a morning show to start the day. Then, well . . . we’ll see. With so many pay TV channels available, I’m sure we’ll find something to run to keep the punters happy.”
“Hopefully you will . . . are you going to have the audio on or off . . .? I notice you’ve already got background music running.”
“Good point . . . I’m not sure yet . . .”
Incredibly (well I find it incredible) this is typical of the type of conversation I have with so many managers running small cafes, venues, fast food chains and retail networks.
Generally the market is infatuated with technology and hardware, and either pays little attention to content (until they have the hardware in place) or believe that the volume of options in the market means the content solution will be straightforward.
To continue the 'typical' conversation...
“So how are you finding the plasmas?”
“Mate, they are the single biggest source of complaints in our restaurant.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, we started off with 32 channels, and I’m now down to 3 which we play at certain times of the day . . . we just get too many complaints from people about offensive or inappropriate material . . . or they want the volume turned up . . . or they can’t see the screen from an angle . . . then there’s the staff changing channels . . . ”
We certainly are in for some interesting times when it comes to the amount of content that will soon be coming our way. Pay TV, Face Book, MySpace, & youtube sit at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the proliferation of content, and it is conceivable that during the next few years there will be thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of broadcast quality streaming and downloadable “channels” of content available to business and consumers. It won’t be long until morning “television” is an option between free to air, pay and internet channels - all selected through the one black box.
Importantly, this technology “convergence” will force a few changes in the market, not least of which will be the fragmentation of audiences and reduction in the value of production content. In many instances the audience will effectively be creating the content for the “channel” (as in youtube), so production will be more about classification and compilation and less about creation. Furthermore, technology and communication pipelines will mean this huge quantity of content will be available at low cost.
So will we all be out of a job? I don’t think so. In fact the explosion of content in the market will offer content-management businesses and operators alike some great opportunities to offer solutions which cut through the clutter of options and schedule relevant content for their clients. Just as search engines & web-portals offer access and classification solutions for managing the huge amount of data available on the net, so too will these types of solutions be required for B2B content.
It will take a shift in our mindsets to address this emerging market condition, because it is conceivable that in the not too distant future we will be directly or indirectly associated with content management solutions which don’t involve us “touching” any content at all. It may be that we simply set up systems that “point” to channel feeds (TV, internet) at certain times of the day in order to provide a complete program channel for our client. But as with our current content model (where we source, store and distribute content) we will still need to guarantee the relevance and appropriateness of the programs - possibly even more so - as the schedules become more precise in terms their capacity to provide down-to-the-minute accountability.
The ability to efficiently source, assess and classify content will continue to lie at the heart of great B2B content services, and the proliferation of content and technology options will mean these service will be even more highly valued.
Of course, even before we finish sorting out this new market requirement we’ll be faced with the challenges (and huge opportunities) that lie with integrating emerging interactive technology. Audience participation in business environments . . . talk about the potential for complaints!
Wayne Hall
Director
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