Apps, the mobile web and the battle between platform and content

I was sitting in a meeting last week when someone said that "apps" were over. Done. Like as in so 2010. It's all about the mobile web, they said.

This really shook me. I mean, I still have a "feature phone," which means a relic, totally useless for data and not even with a nice pad for texting. I also do not own a tablet. So I haven't even started with apps yet (though I was all excited to someday go to an app store and have my mind just totally blown, man).

And now they're over?!?

Well, yes. According to VentureBeat and The Telegraph in the UK, apps are really over. From the Real Story Group:

But more importantly, mobile devices are a very volatile market. Even if you'd have the money to waste on building four different apps for the most important platforms, you may be hopelessly behind in a year's time. If the new Windows Phone 7 or MeeGo make a surge, what will you do? Ask for the budget to create even more apps? And if existing platforms start coming out in new form factors, will you update each one to make use of tablet resolutions? Do you really want to tie your mobile presence to something this fickle?

And it makes sense too. Why develop an "app" for eight different smartphone or tablet operating systems when you can just have a good mobile website for all?

Yeah, I always thought apps were stupid. Really. I have been thrilled to have that feature phone so I didn't have to deal with them.

But, really, what this highlighted to me was how muddled and shifting the balance between content, form and technology truly is right now.

I wrote a story late last year, in which Lucy Kueng, a media management expert, said that content dominates. The technology follows:

Very few people buy technology per se; they buy it because of what the technology can do for them. And they buy technology they don't particularly like if it allows them to access certain content. Thus the most compelling content is becoming ever more strategic and expensive ...

But - and here I get fuzzy and am just throwing ideas out here - isn't the platform driving the content at least to some degree? Paul Carr at TechChrunch argues that the web is nothing but an effective advertising platform, and that content on it is destined - shaped by the platform - to be driven to the lowest common denominator.

The truth is that the grand idea of the web as a content platform has failed. To make money on a web it’s all about grabbing more and more eyeballs to compensate for plummeting CPMs. On that web there’s no place for quality, and in five years time we’ll see the medium for what it really is: a brilliant advertising platform, and very little else.

And then - and I had to go here, yes - we come to Charlie Sheen and the train wreck of his recent life and media appearances.

Well, Charlie got himself on the Ustream video streaming platform the other night for his own talk show - Sheen's Korner. The host of the American version of Survivor tweeted that "the future of television is happening now," according to PaidContent. And perhaps hosted streaming is the future, where celebrities and entertainers can communicate more directly with their audiences, cutting out the middlemen of networks and studios.

But it didn't go so well for Charlie. The numbers were disappointing, he was rambling and incoherent and finally walked off the "set" on his second "show."

But what if he had been good? Would you go to a new streaming service to watch Charlie Sheen live? Is the content that important? Or will his old show, Two and a Half Men, chug on without him because it is on the right platform at the right time, regardless of quality?




Nathan Hegedus


Andra bloggar om: kommunikation, företagskommunikation

A particularly relevant conversation

It's not a new film but a mate put it up on Facebook the other day and I thought it was worth mentioning. Johnnie Walker whisky made a six minute advertisement all based on one person telling the history of the Scotch whisky.

Now, honestly. Johnnie Walker doesn't cross my mind when I think of the finest Scotch whisky's but the ad has made them relevant and interesting because they tell a story and they tell it well and they're not blurting out a message. It's not your standard ad.

It's six minutes in duration for a start; a ludicrous length of time. It also features just one person telling a story while he walks. One talking head for six minutes is generally a recipe for video disaster but the story is so well written and so well delivered (by actor Robert Carlyle) that this is not just a way of getting people to talk about this whisky, it's a way of getting video production nerds to talk about how they managed to shoot it all in one take.



Now, here's another award-winning video for a flat-screen TV. This is also extremely well put together but doesn't create that conversation at all in the same way. It created a conversation amongst the post-production guys at our place alright because it's unique and extremely interesting from a video perspective; from a 'how did they get that to work?' perspective. But it doesn't make me remember the brand and I'm showing it here more to illustrate how an excellent ad might be just an excellent ad but not something that sparks a conversation amongst the potential target audience. In my view, the whisky company succeeded, the flat-screen tv maker has not, despite its clever production.





Colm O'Callaghan manages JG Communication’s band of merry producers, directors, editors and cameramen.
So, who’s JG Communication? We’re Sweden’s largest and, we think, ‘leading’ communications agency in Sweden. We help our clients have conversations with the people that matter most to them using the tools that matter most to us, words, sound and vision.


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Storytelling on video - a winning way

If you haven’t seen this ad for Nike, it’s well worth watching from a storytelling point of view and to get you excited about the World Cup of course.

Actually, it’s well worth watching from several points of view. The piece is extremely well produced, edited, post-produced. It's extravagant. They've used dozens of locations, they've super-imposed backgrounds so well that you'll have a hard time figuring out which ones are real and which ones were added in the studio afterwards.

But the story is really what grips you; picturing what goes through the minds of the footballers and how they see the consequences of their actions on the field playing out in their lives. It's well worth watching.

I follow a blog by a Danish chap called Thomas Baekdal. He writes good stuff so I’m giving him a bit of a plug here. He wrote about this ad and got a bit of a hammering for it since he described it as simple to produce, which it clearly isn't. But many of the critics missed his main point, which was that the storytelling approach was a winning approach.

Tell a story and people want to listen. Advertise in the traditional way and everyone will filter it away from the start.

As Thomas Baekdal got hammered by the video production gurus on his blog, he posted another link to another story well told and much simpler in production terms. And this really brings home the point that if you tell a story and tell it well, then people will talk about it and spread the word about it.

Here it is - a short 12-minute love story almost without dialogue but very well told. It's also a particularly good example of how much of a story you can tell on video without actually saying a word.

Colm

Colm O'Callaghan is JG Communication’s Head of Operations so when he’s not blogging he’s looking after the day to day business at this wonderful communicaitons agency.
So, who’s JG Communication? We’re Sweden’s largest and, we think, ‘leading’ communications agency in Sweden. We help our clients have conversations with the people that matter most to them using the tools that matter most to us, words, sound and vision.

Andra bloggar om: kommunikation, företagskommunikation

When film works

We talk alot about information overflow and how to spread it and how to communicate with your target audience. It's about the conversation. But to create a conversation you need something worth talking about and traditional media can be useful channels for that.

The basic rules remain the same as they always have. You've got to have something to say and you've got to say it well.

My own background is within television journalism so I tend to have a bias towards the video medium in general. The example I've often used is that of September 11, 2001. Nobody remembers a headline they read the following day. They certainly don't remember the details of an article in any newspaper.

But everyone remembers the horrific and spectacular footage in New York that morning.

When sound and vision work together, they can create an incredible impact. The medium can, more than any other, portray a feeling. It can strike an emotional chord with us quickly and effectively.

The footage on September 11th was particularly tough to watch when audio was picked up. The sound of the crashing towers and particularly the sound prior to their collapse of people jumping from some of the top floors of those towers, were harrowing. Several news organisations in the US chose to mute the sound of their footage because it was too hard to watch otherwise. This may be a macabre example but audio and video mixed together had an overwhelming impact.

A much more enjoyable emotion is stirred from a video released recently on Youtube about the upcoming World Cup in football. The Somalian rapper and poet K'naan has come up with a song that, in itself, stirs positive emotions about how sport can unify races and nations. The song inspires hope and joy. Added to it are a series of well-edited images celebrating the sport of football and the World Cup competition and the mix of the two leaves the viewer with nothing but great expectations for the upcoming tournament in South Africa this Summer. If you're not interested in football, the video is still worth watching.

When video and audio are married together and work in harmony, the effect is always immense. I'm always looking for good examples of good use of video, so any other examples are much appreciated.


Andra bloggar om: kommunikation, företagskommunikation



Colm O'Callaghan is JG Communication’s Head of Operations so when he’s not blogging he’s looking after the day to day business at this wonderful communicaitons agency.
So, who’s JG Communication? We’re Sweden’s largest and, we think, ‘leading’ communications agency in Sweden. We help our clients have conversations with the people that matter most to them using the tools that matter most to us, words, sound and vision.