Media As A Service

I like this opener in Mika Salmi's piece on the Future of Media in Paid Content:

Sorry, but the future is destined to remain unclear. Media, and most importantly the distribution of media, has gone digital. That means change will be ongoing, and media will be subject to the same non-stop innovation present in the broader technology sector. The core content - videos, music, games, print, etc. – will in many ways look/sound/play/read like today but everything about the way it is consumed and delivered will continue to change.

Quite right - its at the beginning of a major tech driven change, and there will be a lot of experimentation before the new models emerge. This happens every time a radically more effective technology hits a sector. (And its not new - see this post on steel and steam in ships, for example).

The thing is, in my view its not enough just to batten down hatches for the disruptive period of the storm - one needs to try and work out what the post-disruption world will look like. To use another nautical analogy, when things change you have change tack, reset the sails etc to alter course. Fine and good, but also you need to think about where to alter course to. Running before the wind is the least best strategy. (One of the issues, of course is when on an even keel, many enterprises then get rid of the people who can navigate and execute course changes).

Mike's view is that we are moving to "Media As A Service" (MaaS).

If we don’t know where this all ends up and the business landscape is in constant flux, how can a media business be positioned and structured for the future?

One answer lies in the software industry. Software as a Service (SaaS) has taken that industry by storm. Shipping or downloading a static physical or digital product is a dying business. Pioneers like Salesforce.com, and now Google with their office apps, are showing how a “product” is not a discrete thing. Rather, it’s an ongoing relationship – with continuous updates and two-way communication – with customers and even between customers.

How would this work?:

What if a TV company took the next step and thought of their content as a service? How would they approach their business differently?

Perhaps a TV “show” could become a continuum of short episodes distributed via Facebook, Twitter, or other social and real time means. The “show” could be free on a Facebook page, with standard ad units providing the first level of revenue. The show might contain social elements (pulled from the Facebook page) built into the content, which would connect the content, the user, and their friends more deeply. Additional “fees,” in the form of demographically tailored offers, micropayments, or subscriptions could come from users who want to see a show first, buy products from the show, create avatars, host a viewing party, and on and on.

Once a company, producer or content creator embraces its content/media as a service, the possibilities and ideas on how to approach it multiply. And since the business will be constantly changing, new revenue models and content ideas will emerge. This is not just about computers or mobile phones. The living room television may become the most exciting area for these media services.

It’s no longer just about playing media. It’s about playing with media. Hulu, Blinkbox, BBC, Warner Bros? Who will embrace TV as a Service?

I think there is quite a bit to chew on there - it is also echoed in an article earlier this week that showed WebTV CPM's are waaaay above text and picture CPM's (much to Jeff Jarvis's chagrin )

Of course, its well known that the incumbent industry is always the last to accept the radical shifts (even from its internal reformers). Funny story for you - a few years back, I was asked to write an article for a well known Broadcasting periodical on the "Video Website" - I think what they had in mind was a view of how TV will use the Web. What I wrote instead was an article about how TV will be (over time, and in part) consumed by the Web. It went down like a lead balloon and was never published, and most of it has since come to pass or is in sight.