Tag Archives: pushing content

Digital Digest- 26 July, 2012

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Pushing

  • Should every social media manager be under 25? Yes, argues a young writer for Nextgen Journal with no experience in the role and still struggling to achieve financial independence from her (clearly over 25) parents.
    • Transparency kudos to Nextgen Journal for also posting this well written rebuttal by Mark Story, someone with actual experience in the field.
  • Valve’s Gabe Newell has a pretty negative take on Windows 8 and is hedging appropriately.
  • Similarly, Fortune outlines their take on the future of videogames and videogame hardware.
  • Twitter is targeting big advertisers with a pretty slick pitch deck.
  • A look back at a rough year for Netflix.
    • More bad news: Consumer Reports released a report detailing customer satisfaction for streaming video services and Netflix was rated very poorly.
  • RadioShack is a victim of its own iPhone strategy success.

Content

Everything Old is New- Old Content Outselling New Content

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The Kids are Alright

Album cover for The Who’s “The Kids are Alright” overlayed with the real world photo shoot location. Source: PopSpotsNYC.com

Did you know that, according to the most recent numbers from Nielsen Soundscan, old CDs are outselling new CDs for the first time? While many theories have been floated by various pundits as to why this phenomenon is occurring, I tend to agree with the folks at Death and Taxes magazine that the shift is happening because younger music consumers are simply not buying CDs anymore.

So that makes sense, younger folks have no interest in compact disks.  They may not even have CD players.  This might also help explain why iTunes and Spotify are now the top revenue generators for record labels.  But it doesn’t explain why the most popular concerts thus far in 2012 are older acts.  Consider that the top three touring acts this year are Roger Waters (touring an album first released in 1979), Michael Jackson’s digital ghost and Bruce Springsteen. Can’t help but wonder what brand of cell phone these concert goers are using.

And as long as we’re talking about old content in the new world, go ahead and take a look at PopSpotsNYC.com, the source for our image above, where photographer Bob Egan has painstakingly tracked down the location of iconic images in pop culture and digitally merged them with the original famous image.

In the Digital Age, Products are Also Services

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If a product is fantastic, but the user experience is lacking, customers will eventually stop buying.  A company selling an asset in the digital age also has to provide a medium in which to do so.  In the era of pushing content, the web site, software or app is the new storefront, movie theater or local hangout.  And if that storefront is dingy, outdated or just plain ugly, the customers will stop visiting regardless of the quality of the product on offer.  Whether you’re selling the latest and greatest widgets, or hawking must-have subscriptions, the method through which you bring the product to your customers is a service.

Are you testing the quality of this service as thoroughly as you’re testing the quality of your product?  Similar to real world experiences, customers make judgments on the value of your product based on their interpretation of the experience interacting with your brand.  Clients do not want to do business with an organization that has disorganized offices and no one wants to eat a restaurant that is filthy or lacking in service.  An outdated website, a poorly designed app, a cumbersome sign-up process, a confusing navigation scheme- all of these are just that, ‘dirty restaurants’, quietly informing customers that they should try elsewhere instead.  So much for your widget.

If your shoes are the best but finding my size takes forever, if your movie is awesome but I can’t get it to play on my device, if your social network is the coolest thing but it takes ten forms, a survey and a blood sample to sign up… I simply don’t want it anymore.  There will be someone else, maybe not with as awesome of a product, but one that I can actually use and that doesn’t make my acquiring it so cumbersome.

Long-term, successful companies build engaging consumer experiences and great products, instead of focusing on one or the other.  Getting a great product into the hands of excited customers is a service. And if that service is not fantastic, the quality of your product simply won’t matter… there won’t be anyone to try it.

Daily Links – June 25, 2012

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Each business day we post links to our favorite news items related to the digital distribution trade, as well as a few tidbits about the assets being distributed. We categorize them accordingly. This is… Pushing Content:

Pushing

Content

  • “(If) you’ve got a mobile phone you can make a film, you can enter” says Hugh Jackman of the newly announced NY short film festival that he will be hosting.
  • ESPN released NBA Finals viewership data including the statistic that over 300,000 viewers watched across all digital streaming platforms on average- a year over year increase of over 40%.
  • Digital performers continue to outperform their human counterparts at the box office.
  • Steve Carell makes sense when he says that he has no plans to return to The Office.
  • Professional wrestling’s John Cena becomes most popular Make-a-Wish foundation celebrity as he grants his 300th wish to a child in need.