b.TWEEN06
May 26, 2006
Posted by Clare in: Events | Add a commentB.tween interactive media forum started with a keynote by Lord Puttnam, underlining the importance of investing in the skill base to ensure the UK doesn’t lose its competitive edge.
He was followed by John Sandborn, Creative Director of Ebay discussing the creative strategy he used for Ebay Express.
There will be MP3 streams of all the sessions on the B.tween website soon, in the meantime I have written up my notes.
The best bit of the Festival was Someth;ng's Timelines project. When you registered, delegates were given a sort of keyring with an RFID tag which tracked your position in the festival spaces and allowed you to capture stuff of interest by pressing a yellow button. By Tuesday I should be able to log into my details on the Timelines website and scroll through the audio straight to the bits I tagged.
Fiddian of Soda gave the most interesting case study session of the day, explaining Soda's freemium business model, which uses a style similar to Ryan Carson's Drop Send: build it fast, get it out free to lots of people, improve it then monetise it.
The main message of the day - content is a commodity. Re-use. Re-format. Re-present (!)
Will the real commissioners please stand up?
May 26, 2006
Posted by Clare in: Events | Add a commentThe panel seemed to have some trouble coming to terms with the title of this b.tween session as they don't think they come under the commissioner label, although seeing as they have money to spend on independent productions, they seem to qualify.
Jem Stone, an interactive executive at BBC New Media kicked off. To work with BBC you have to be on the preferred suppliers list, which you do by filling in a form. BBC content is increasingly user generated (a term generally disliked by speakers throughout the day) but his work with indies also includes Back Stage – a project which identifies new talent by supplying the development community with BBC data to create mash-ups, and also the BBC innovation labs. BBC very rarely commissions end to end ideas (new projects which stretch from concept to live services) but fund developments which integrate with in-house platforms.
The main things keeping the people of Channel 4 awake at night, according to Adam Gee, is distribution rather than content, video on demand and the promotion of the C4 website and as a destination site. At C4 the use of user generated content relates closely to talent development. Adam’s favourite C4 projects he commissioned:
What commissioners want:
Deliverables: be clear on what you are going to deliver, by when, for how much and what support do you need?
Compelling proposition with a good business case
cross platform ideas
read blogs, go to conferences and listen to what commissioners are asking for
Keeping mobile
May 26, 2006
Posted by Clare in: Events | Technology | Mobile | Add a commentJake Redfod, commercial projects manager at Orange, see himself as a shop keeper. Phone operators retail, distribute, or act as billing agents for content and operator portals are just like Tesco: don't care about exclusivity, want to sell at volume and interested in brand. As a content producer he sees your best bet as striking a deal with an aggregator.
Richard Hennah of KPMG has himself recently dabbled in the content market, securing finance for Brick-it. A soap opera produced for mobile phone. Whilst not exactly my cup of tea, the scale of the production was impressive. Contradicting Jake, he advised people to go straight to the operators, but to be persistent, and to get a spread of investment. His came under the friends, family and fools category.
Top tips:
Selling mobile content is a volume business – many small transactions are needed to make money.
The mobile market is not mature and content producers need to be in for the long game.
Develop unique IP that no-one can copy (crazy frog)
Develop content with interactivity
Sell cross platform.
Skin in the game
May 26, 2006
Posted by Clare in: Events | Add a commentA delightful phrase that was completely new to me. It means that a company must have a significant stake in their own business i.e. must stand to lose a lot, before a VC is likely to invest. Investors are not seeking to fund projects but businesses and the importance of a good team came up time and again. Hugh Pembridge outlined the cycle that most business go through, from start-up to lifestyle business to the more mature, more established business they would be more likely to invest in.
Tips when looking for investment
Know your investor – are they hands on or hands of? Speak the same language as them – what is their priorities?
Get a concrete business model – VCs are not philanthropists and do not care about creative integrity. They are looking for a return on their investments in the next 3 – 5 years
Look at Small firms loan guarantee if you are just starting up
Like a marriage you need to get on as you will be working together for the next 3 plus years
Your business plan must be clear and show how investment will be used must have been thought through
