The Future of Media (aka Please Take My RSS Feed)

I have seen the future of media and it looks like this:

Mashed Up Blog Posts at tech.memeorandum

Mashed Up Funny Videos at delicious

Mashed Up Playlists at webjay

Here is the future of media:

1 - Microchunk it - Reduce the content to its simplest form. Thanks Umair.
2 - Free it - Put it out there without walls around it or strings on it. Thanks Stewart.
3 - Syndicate it - Let anyone take it and run with it.  Thanks Dave.
4 - Monetize it - Put the monetization and tracking systems into the microchunk. Thanks Feedburner.

Leaving aside the rights issues, which I know are large, if I were a television executive right now, I'd take my content, microchunk it, put a couple calls to a video ad server in the middle of it, and let it go whereever it wants to go, safe in the knowledge that whenever the show is viewed, I'll get to run a couple 15 second spots in the middle of it (which I could change whenever I wanted to and which I could measure).

This is where media is going and its not going to be stopped.

I know that Jason Calacanis hates the really simple stealing that goes on with Engadget or Autoblog posts.  But you know what?  He's not going to stop it.  What he should do is monetize each and every post with an ad of some sort and a tracking mechanism of some sort and let the content flow.

RSS is a new medium.  It's not like the web any more than the web was like print.  Remember back in the late 90s when the media execs tried to use the web to sell more papers?  It doesn't work.  Content wants to be consumed in the media its delivered in. 

So RSS content is not going to be used to send people to the web.  It's going to be consumed in the RSS medium, whatever that turns out to be.

The data is pretty clear about this. The publishers that put only an excerpt of their posts/stories in their feeds get pretty low click thru on those excerpts. Those that put the full post in get a lot more readership.

So the trick is to figure out how to monetize RSS right in the medium, not as a way to send traffic back to the web where it can be monetized with the traditional web techniques.

Why did I decide to write this post today?  Because in the last week I have gotten between five and ten requests to use my RSS feed in some sort of syndicated and mashed up RSS or web service.  I've told all of them to go for it.

Here is the deal with my RSS feed. Anyone is free to use my RSS feed to produce whatever content they want to produce with the following exceptions.  I do not want and will not allow my content to be used in pornographic or hate related properties.  And the posts must be shown in their entirety with any advertising and tracking tools that I decide to use in them.  And I must be given attribution for my work.

Other than that, go for it.  Take it.  And build something great with it.

Comments

[Toby]

I think forcing the inclusion of ads breaks rule number 1 and possibly number 2. That's like saying Apple should sell the newest episodes of Lost with the advertisements included on the iTunes Music Store. Content and ads are two separate "chunks".

[Zachcoelius]

Fred,
The problem with all of this, and every one is just assuming that it will be solved, is that we still do not have a good solution on the market that brings relevent, effective advertising to all these little tiny content nuggets. We need a whole new system for matching advertisers with content that has low enough transaction costs to enable thousands or tens of thousands of media sources. Looking at the systems in place right now we have a long way to go. Adsense tries but still fails miserably.

[fred]

Toby,

I am not saying that you need to monetize the microchunks. I am saying that you need to free them and syndicate them. Someone is going to monetize them and if you want it to be you, then you ought to build the monetization into the microchunks.

[Greg Tallent]

Hi Fred

I've just emailed you too. We're in beta with a 'personalised news' website. You're featured, but not in full text. I know it's against what you've said above. I'd still like to feature you, though. Your thoughts on the biz is clear, accurate and very useful to a lot of people. www.bearstorm.com

Greg

[Daniel Nerezov]

a) We sure do have along way to go. Everything's headed for a point in time when all applications are web based, and computers work off an interlinked grid. Grid computing is nowhere near mainstream, which gives me an indication of just how far we have to go with this whole Internet thing.

b) Yep. Media rules have changed. I don't use any websites that don't have RSS. Too much hassle. I want the content to find me (not the other way around), I want to consume it in what ever form I choose and it's going to be a stretch for me to do anything differently.

c) Google has a beautiful vision of matching the right content with the right audience, at the right time with minimal friction. It's a wonderful thing because it's going to clear the world of informational clutter (i.e. advertising plastered Tokyo or NY Square). We don't need to be exposed to content we didn't ask for, and it's a stupid publisher who insists exposing us to it.

CPM is a term that ought to be outlawed.

d) Yep...I'd say there is plenty of room for solutions like AdSense, Fruitcast, Revver and anything else that monetizes user generated content (including this comment).

[Toby]

I agree that this works when you think about people reading your posts via RSS, but I suspect a lot of the benefit of microchunking comes from non-human interaction with your feed. By keeping the granularity of your output limited to just your content, you open a lot of doors for how it can be used.

Since I read your blog all the time, I could imagine wanting to put your rss feed on my MS Live page (assuming I would want one). If there are ads in the feed, that would ruin the aesthetic of my repurposing (repositioning ?) of your content.

Even though RSS is read by a lot of people directly, I think it's best to think of it as an API. If I had an object in java and I asked for it's description() I wouldn't expect to get an advertisement returned in the result. That would be a mixing of data that would render that method programatically useless.

[David Mercer]

We talked about free, radio quality mp3 tracks embedded in a player that anonymously phones home with each play back in 2000, but never got funded. :-(

[xman]

You put ads in your content, I will filter them out before they reach my eyes or ears, or if I can't, I'll stop reading. I do not want to see ads EVER. If this means that you can't continue with the feed then so be it - ads are an egregious intrusion.

[Kevin Burton]

Great post. I agree with most of it in spirit while I have my Entrepreneur hat on but as soon as I put my Engineer hat on there are a few problems.

1. Video can't be tracked once it's in the wild. There are no monitoring packages to detect when an .mpg is being viewed. It might be possible to build something into ANT or some of the standard viewers but only if the user knows that this is being sent back to the server. There would yield a huge privacy outcry otherwise.

2. If you want advertising in a feed reader that's certainly fine with me. I don't care. What about the CTR though? Most experiments I've heard of (and they are few because there aren't many people doing this) have shown that CTR within feeds it horrible.

3. What about sites like google news, tailrank, or memorandum that summarize content to be presented to the user. Your ads won't be shown.

4. What about pageranking and other types of gaming in your ads. Ads in RSS as content can really distort full-text search and the like. This applies to #3 to. I don't want your ad summarized and presented as your content. I don't think you want that either actually.

5. What about mobile devices? I don't necessarily mind your ads in on my laptop but they're a problem on my Treo.

Food for thought...

Maybe most of these issues could be solved if your ads were driven with a javascript include. Either that or the ad can be within a div that's marked as advertising. Then you can just use a license that requires the ad in all but certain situations.

Kevin

[Bren]

I've got no technical chops, but I just ran into this SuprGlu thingy last night, then read your post this morning. Interesting convergence.

here's SuprGlu and here's my version

[Oskar Austegard]

The monetizing concept needs more work...

I read your blog in Outlook using RSSPopper. When I tried clicking on one of your google imageads, I got an error-page (http://imageads3.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/9C4hv9MueQU8s6JFLDPrzuL1G8U_?pos=0&r=1)
with the sage advise:

"One reason you may not be able to access this advertiser's website is because your web browser or email application is not configured to accept cookies.
...
If you're using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, you'll also need to select Internet Explorer as your default web browser."

Any ad-scheme that depends on the user changing behavior in order for the ad to be seen seems doomed to fail...

[Rick]

RSS as an API for connecting sites is definitely a big step.

However, there's an inherant problem with sites, like SuperGlu, that sting together RSS feeds.

When you 'grab' a feed it's hitting that site as well as the site displaying the feed. It's causing twice as much effort.

Most Feedreaders grab RSS feeds on a scheduled basis. And Feedburner checks feeds every 30 minutes. This keeps the traffic down at the source.

But if Superglu and similar sites aren't using some sort of 'ping' service then they are causing more traffic than is actually needed.

One suggestion, however, before you add a feed to a personalized site built from feeds... put it in Feedburner first and then you can reduce the traffic and track your stats.

[abetterworld]

Advertising is everywhere, billboards, subways, sides of buildings, magazines, newspapers, television, etc. I will never support RSS if I am forced to look at ads. A social revolution is taking place on the web and I will oppose any and all attempts from you or anyone else who wants to hijack it for profit. Power to the people!

[Bill]

When it comes to copyrighted information, Copyright Clearance Center has been providing solutions for 27 years.
Our Rughtslink product is web tool that can follow the contnet wherever it goes or whatever microchunk the end user assumes.
The unique artilce meta data is captured and the user is presented with a variety of reuse options (permissions, reprints, e-prints, etc.
Publisher provides the terms, conditions and costs and viola! Instant permissions, instant payment= happy publisher, happy content user. Bill

[CubikMusings]

Check out http://www.lifehacker.com/software/podcasting/podcast-advertising-with-fruitcast-135375.php

[Lucas Gonze]

I can't go with you on the copying issue, Fred. It makes much more sense for people who want to put content up to host it themselves, since this gives them the ability to do ongoing maintainance. For example, they can superimpose a credit sequence or ad on a video, take a song down when the promotional requirements have been achieved, add a pay-per-download charge, etc.

[Mark Poirier]

An example of an RSS feed leading back to the website is Science Daily. Because I consider it the most valuable science news source anywhere, I have as an alternative gone to the work of programming with PHP (for personal use only) the conversion of the daily stories on the website into text files synchronized with my PocketPC using AvantGo and into text-to-speech mp3 files transferred to my mp3 player. The content then becomes a valuable part of my walk to and from work each day.

I filter out the ads on the html pages, but would have no problem with a one-sentence, a-la-PBS “Brought to you by…” statement in both text and speech formats. The sponsor could be automatically fitted to the area of scientific specialization covered in the story. I realize that people are not writing the text for free.

Mark

[BillSaysThis]

I dislike ads too but for the commentors here who say 'over my dead laptop' should explain the alternative revenue source to support content creators. For our personal sites, fine who cares, but if we want want professional quality content (news, music, video...) that implies someone with skills getting paid to produce it and (in the case of multimedia) hosting/distribution costs. People get hungry and cold, after all.

In the long run I don't believe advertising will bring enough revenue to the table to support all the myriad original and remix/mashup web services that people are dreaming up. Cable TV and satellite radio show that people will pay, to some extent, to remove ads but these markets also have huge intermediaries to collect the subscription fees; so far the only thing remotely like this on the web is the old AOL walled garden and no one who reads this blog is likely to be a fan of that service.

So micropayments? Still no good generalized solution for it. Abandon the Web (http://abandontheweb.blogspot.com/) has begun to ask this question, though no proposed answers so far.

Anyway, people who drop 'ads suck, put them in and I unsubscribe' comments without offering an alternative can kiss my... middle finger ;)

[Rodolp s]

"3 - Syndicate it - Let anyone take it and run with it."
Right but how you do it. Do you know any tool that make it easy for others to syndicate your content on their site? If the answer is no you'd better check out http://www.stepwebz.com. At Stepwebz we provide an RSS syndication button you can put on your blog. When people click on it they are given the opportunity to display your feed's content on their site using a wide range of content tools such as news box, news tocker, news link... And the button comes with an affiliate program that enables you to earn money when you refer new members to StepWebz. We'd love your feedback and comment so do not hesitate to give it a try.

Regards

Rodolp S

[Chiranjeev Bordoloi]

I agree with the general premise of your "future of media blog" post. However, you should perhaps close the loop with a 5th step that communicates feedback to the content producer, especially consumption patterns of microchunks among microniche consumer groups. This intelligence will prove extremely valuable to the content producer's strategic choices and allow them to produce higher quality content for greater consumption.

[Chiranjeev Bordoloi]

I agree with the general premise of your "future of media blog" post. However, you should perhaps close the loop with a 5th step that communicates feedback to the content producer, especially consumption patterns of microchunks among microniche consumer groups. This intelligence will prove extremely valuable to the content producer's strategic choices and allow them to produce higher quality content for greater consumption.

[canada stockers]

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http://www.CanadaStockExchange.Biz

[USuggest]

USuggest.com allow the bloggers to make some extra money through recommended products directly from within their blogs, and hopefully directing their readers to online retailers. As such, the respective blogger would receive a commission from any sales generated through referrals!

[Rick]

i think http://popurls.com now does the best job of aggregation

[catherine]

just visit this one

www.prasut.com