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March 06, 2007
The kids are alright
This is the best idea I've seen from a big-media company on how to compete with the YouTubes of the world: hand the keys of content over to the community.
MTV says it will create thousands of new niche-oriented sites based on its programming and invite viewers to participate with shows and remix their content. Control is really out of control now.
This announcement is a significant breakthrough. The arbiter of cool cannot possibly run its pop-culture school the same way today as it did 20 years ago. The kids are in charge today, not some executive my age who's trying to fit in with kids half his age.
This is exactly how big media companies should fight the third-party sites; not with lawyers but with vast amounts of free content, tools to play with that content and vast new forms of particpation. To out-do YouTube, big media should be encouraging joint ownership of content. That'll help build loyalty, discover trends and uncover new talent. Besides, there's more important work to do than send hundreds of take-down notices to YouTube and MySpace every week.
The AP calls this a "risky move." Hardly. The risk is really maintaining the status quo of retaining control. MTV has never been able to find momentum online because it has always behaved like a broadcaster online. It controlled the viewing means. Design trumped usability. The community was just another message receptacle.
Now it has realized that to win, MTV must open up its garage door and invite everyone in the studio at the same time to play in the control room. Depending on your viewpoint, this is either astoundingly cool or alarmingly dangerous.
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Powerful idea and I applaud them for giving it a try. What will be interesting is to see how they handle the first time someone does something that they don't agree with or feel put off by. THAT will be the real test.
Going to be fun to watch.
"MTV has never been able to find momentum online because it has always behaved like a broadcaster online. It controlled the viewing means....The community was just another message receptacle."
Profound! In speaking with broadcasters in different media (radio & print) I've been trying to convey this point to both... but haven't been able to do so as succintly. Thanks! You'll be well quoted!
MTV: I salute not only who conceived the idea... but whoever had the audacity to suggest it to the decision makers. They were probably too young to know any better.
Good point on "Besides, there's more important work to do than send hundreds of take-down notices to YouTube and MySpace every week." To me, this is almost as important a reason to embrace social media and "napsterizing" - to free you and your employees up to be proactive, not reactively chasing down all the legal riff-raff. I work at a direct sales company, and the policy for any direct-sales company is that products can't be sold on eBay. Yet, we have at least 1.5 people completely dedicated to contacting Distributors who are selling on eBay. There's gotta be better ways to spend their salary than that.
Props to MTV - we can't ignore it anymore - gotta embrace it and run with it.
I think this idea of building "thousands of sites" is crazy, and there's no way it will succeed. Yes, put your content on the web, and yeah -- it's cool to let the users manipulate/edit it. But "thousands of sites"? How the heck can they seriously push thousands of sites? Why not just build a more relevant Mtv.com?
Shelly Palmer has posted a good analysis of MTV's current position, which I think is worth reading:
http://advancedmediacommittee.typepad.com/emmyadvancedmedia/2007/03/mtvs_new_web_st.html
They are so far behind that catching up is pretty hard to fathom. I'm just wondering -- how do you advertise "thousands" of sites? How do you "focus" on all of them?
I'm expecting to see thousands of terrible, terrible sites. And MTV fading into irrelevancy.
- Jesse
I tried a trackback -not sure it has worked yet.
Liked your viewpoint. Found a Redstone interview that also proved illuminating.
Have added my blog in the URL space above
URL was incorrect - apologies
http://www.dialogcrm.com/blog/2007/03/14/out-of-control-or-just-catching-up/
