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 Current Gets Convergence [17:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (45)

Current TV has been a significant talking point at Fluid Media since the network launched back in late 2005. We would use the Current business model to demonstrate to clients and in lectures, the convergence of web and television with an added topping of user generated content (UGC).  We would constantly tell clients to find the network on their cable systems, watch the programming and check out the web site.  Then figure out how it should be incorporated into their web strategies.

Today in the Overflow podcast we revisit these aspects of the business model plus the exciting addition of “twitterfied” content produced during the recent election cycle and planned for the future.

The basis of the programming is user produced “pods” that are submitted via the web site and voted on by the registered users of the site, with top vote getters making it to broadcast. Pod content can consist of everything from News, Politics, Music, Comedy etc.. plus the network producers will constantly develop assignments for a specific topic that they would like to run on TV.

Concurrently, advertisers provide users with the bare minimum of material to work with such as a logo bug, tag line, headline, video or billboard and allow them to produce their own commercials called VCAMs.  It costs very little to the advertiser since they don’t have production costs .. but if the ad is successful for them, they can choose to pay the producer and run it on other media outlets.  So they’ve witnessed the production cost savings & have had their own mini focus group to see how effective the ads are prior using the creative on other channels.

Here is an example produced by 21 year old Andrew David Watson (no relation) of Philadelphia.

During the election coverage this fall, Current rolled out the integration of a live Twitter feed on the screen as the debates were taking place called Hack the Debate. So as you were viewing what the candidates were saying, you could also see what the great community of the electorate was saying simultaneously.  It has to have been a double check for the statements and claims of each of the candidates, in the long run it will continue to ensure the the campaigns of the future remain more factual.

Information that has been disseminated recently indicates that Current TV is going to continue this type of integrated content with Twitter in the future, and plans to launch another programming channel focusing on movie content.

Let us know …. Do you watch Current TV?  What do you think about the quality of the content, the format of the programming and especially the VCAM user produced advertising?

I was sitting in the rocking chair during the Labor Day holiday contemplating the future for my young daughters … no, not the rocking chair in the grandpa kind of way, but the rocking chair as the only thing that is helping soothe little Lily at the moment!

Reviewing the conversation during the past week with Sam Harrelson and others regarding the significance of Identi.ca and other microblogging formats, I couldn’t help but wonder about the very long term.  I can see how federated communication platforms will be applied in the near term but I started wondering about the scenario when my daughters are teenagers and will not want good ole’ Dad subscribing to their posts.

There are numerous accounts in the media demonstrating that among the current 100 million users of Facebook, friending between parents and children takes place, for good or bad depending on your point of view.  Compartmentalizing through the Privacy Controls is probably the best approach to keeping some things away from helicopter parents on Facebook.

But, that’s not really the point that I was pondering.  I’m more interested in the whole closed universe versus open platforms.  If Twitter survives as the dominant micro-blogging platform and it remains THE place to be .. how are fathers schooled in Social Media practices and daughters Twittering their friends about the best parties supposed to exist on the same platform?



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On August 17, 2008 Liliana (Lily) Jade Magennis was born at 3:20 pm. Mom was super awesome in her preparation and execution! At 12:30 we thought it would be a dinnertime delivery but the nurse checked in and declared “you are at 10, we’re going to have a baby soon!

“

This event relates to befluid.com in a personal way obviously, but by sharing the experience through the use of social networks it relates to the business side as well.

The best way to present the topic is to simply link to a “dotcompadre” named Scott Jangro who went through the experience literally days earlier. Follow the post’s comment thread to see my input.

This past Saturday night I watched the future of “television” .. at least in the form that I personally believe to be the direction that the format is headed. It all started with a twitter post, and ended up with me staying up late at night watching a live stream of Wilco playing at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago.

After a day full of the usual weekend responsiblities, I was kicking back ready to watch a baseball game and reading through current tweets.  The following message from someone with the handle ATTBlueroom (I’m sure it is someone who serves in a Community Manager role) caught my attention, “Broken Social Scene and Wilco are up next on tonight’s Lolla webcast.” I am a huge fan of the band Wilco, so I got very excited to log on and check it out.

What I experienced made me realize that the famed “convergence” of television and internet that has been spoken about since the early dotcom days is upon us.  The stream was flawless on my dsl connection and all I wish was that I had a better sound system on the computer so that the full music quality could have been experienced.

The added feature of communicating with others via Twitter while simultaneously watching the show only added to the excitement.  Actually attending the event in person would be the only better shared experience.

Some observations:

• Apple TV and other web connected television appliances are going to explode on the scene shortly as the next big consumer appliance
• Using Twitter as a way to announce programming is a must for any broadcast channel
• ATTBlueroom actually needs to do a better job of monitoring the conversation to interact with viewers.  I had two people directly state that they were having trouble with the feed and it would have been a perfect opportunity for some direct company involvement (Contact me if you want to talk about my ideas!)
• I suspect that the issues were due to only having the option of Windows Media Player as the format for the stream, and possibly it would serve to have a variety of options based upon the users preferences.
• Television plus Twitter (or another communication platform - gaming consoles allow for actual conversation) for live events is going to be an integrated part of the viewing experience.  It will be important to allow the viewer to directly compartmentalize the communication being received however.  Non-relevant tweets during the broadcast would detract in some cases, which leads to more sorting of conversations into silos along with a search (track) functionality.  This is making me reevaluate the silo interface of TweetDeck, which just needs to become more stable at this point.
• Sporting Events, Concerts, Award Shows, Political Debates … any event that is being broadcast where interaction with others in real time adds to the experience will benefit from this convergence.
• It’s still unclear how the entire monetization strategy will work in these live events.  They could have interjected lower third promotional messages or sponsorship logos without harming the quality, but I believe that branding messages will need to be more subtle to be acceptable.

Wilco demonstrated why I believe they are the best band in the land right now.  The AT&T Blue Room broadcast was very well done in terms of production, while needing some assistance in the community interaction area.

I was extremely glad to have been part of the event, and wanted a big encore from the band as they left the stage.  I know we’ll see more of them and more of these types of events down the road though.

This morning I was working away, as usual multitasking a variety of items including researching a tool to update PDF documents on a site, so that they are properly indexed by the search engines.  This will prevent the client from having to backtrack and re-compile the documents. (Note: think I’ve found something but looking around to be sure it’s the best option).

I was also monitoring twitter (profiled today in USA Today) via an application I am testing called TweetDeck.  This elegant desktop application is written in Adobe Air which allows for cross platform functionality … but more importantly TweetDeck has built the user interface in silos where you can categorize incoming tweets, helping you to monitor a diverse range of conversations.  The key reason that I am most intrigued by it, is the ability to set up silos to sort “searched” terms in the background.  This is similar to the disabled “Track” functionality originally incorporated in Twitter IM clients, and to me the killer app for brands on the web.

One of the terms that I have set up for TweetDeck to scan for is “Social Media”.  Right in the middle of the page I get to see every tweet that is happening with the term social media in it .. this keeps me right on top of the conversation, allowing me to reply, follow, check out a URL, or simply absorb what is being said regarding social media on twitter.

This morning I came across the following tweet from mdurwin that said; “to link 2 each other on LinkedIn, should we put Twitted as an employer? until LI recognizes social media connections…”  You know what? He’s exactly right.

First of all, notice that I saw this tweet because he had included the term social media in the statement.  When I read his statement it caught my attention because I have been struggling with growing my personal network on LinkedIn because of this exact reason, I just hadn’t been able to put my finger on it to state it out loud.

The LinkedIn network is a powerful web service geared specifically for business users.  The more famous social network sites like Facebook & MySpace are overrun with a much younger demographic and a quality resume would get lost in the crowd.  LinkedIn can help professionals looking for business relationships plus it can act as a defacto employment placement tool.

When attempting to connect to others in LinkedIn, you are asked how you know the person, ie. Colleague, Friend, Classmate etc.  These categories don’t exactly work for the growing connections being made via the social web.  Mdurwin is not a colleague of mine, we never worked at the same company, we did not go to school together … and the ambiguous term “friend” does not apply since I have only known of his presence since this morning.  However, we both believe that there are benefits to linking our networks together in a mutually beneficial way.

LinkedIn needs to update the application to include another classification of connections called “Social Networker”.

(Update 7/22: I was directed to this web site where the discussion of newly minted terms was being defined including the term “Dotcomrades”.  There you go LinkedIn .. your new classification!”)