by David Weiner
A few years ago I was in a focus group/think tank where we had a roundtable discussion on innovation and technology. This was before the term ‘Social Media’ was ubiquitous, before Facebook was open outside of colleges and when advertisers and marketers were still looking at Second Life as a viable medium. Blogs were growing at an astonishing pace and conversations were still taking place on localized platforms, yet to be scattered around the web thanks to microblogs and dynamic commenting engines.
Backing up a bit, I’ve always had a bit of an attraction towards marketing, advertising and news and how technology and culture impact the consumption of content. In the focus group, I said plainly, “Not only do I not want to pay for cable, I want to be paid to watch TV.” This set off a few laughs.
That was six years ago. Fast forward to 2011 and though we’re not quite there yet, I don’t think we’re far away. Fingers crossed.
With technologies like Miso (a PepsiCo10 Company!), GetGlue, IntoNow and with the recent news of ShopKick partnering with the CW Television Network, we’re starting to see how emerging technologies can drive viewership and reward an audience. And just yesterday, HBO launched its HBO Connect product to augment shows with a social and rewarding experience.
These technologies have shown how revenue streams are going to become reliant on engagement as a metric instead of impressions. And these impressions, while not going away, are increasingly irrelevant in mediums built for interactivity.
Though these applications have yet to break through to the mainstream, rewards will be the easiest way for these technologies to truly emerge. Once we see a cable operator (or Google or Apple) enter into this market, we’ll see a significantly faster adoption rate.
What happens when group-buying scales even further? What happens when deals are delivered via major networks? Do deals become more exclusive or less? There is certainly a ton of potential here. The winners will be consumers, marketers and possibly even cable operators! Until then, stay tuned!
