The digital future of the BBC

June 9th, 2010
BBC Coat of arms

This is a rather bold headline but I’m feeling very cheerful about the digital future of the beeb this morning after an informative evening last night spent at the second There Will Be Blood event at Common in Manchester. (That’s the BBC coat of arms in case you’re wondering.)

The second speaker, Hugh Garry, although at pains to make clear he was expressing his own opinions and not those of his employer, outlined an interesting creative vision for the potential of the future of the BBC’s audio content. I probably won’t be able to recap as well as him so here’s Hugh’s blog with links to a few of the projects he mentioned.

I, of course, threw in my two pence worth with the idea that I was happy for user generated content to pop up on radio stations, websites and the BBC’s social profiles but I was less keen on the idea of the user generated Middle East Correspondent or host of Question Time; and thankfully Hugh agreed.

Alongside being a classic early adopter and evangelist for new social technologies he also issued a note of caution citing ITV’s snapping up of Friend’s Reunited before it had had a chance to prove itself, and the subsequent substantial loss.

Although the next big thing can be tempting it’s always worth sitting back and watching it grow with its audience, as he pointed out it’s unlikely to be Foursquare or Gowalla that make their millions from location based technology but another company that right now is watching, waiting and thinking.

A selection of film clips from the night will be uploaded later in the week – so do check back.

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Manchester Confidential: “The paywall hasn’t worked”

April 14th, 2010
Coins

Last night I spent an enjoyable and informative evening at Common in Manchester’s Northern Quarter for the very first ‘There Will be Blood’ – a better name than the apparently previously considered ‘Digital content club’.

Cryptic names aside the night was expertly compered by Manchester legend John Robb (invented the word britpop, and managed cornershop amongst other achievements) who introduced first the lovely Martin Bryant of Visit Manchester and The Next Web, and then the provocative Gordo of Manchester Confidential.

Much of the talk was, given the presence of Gordo, about how it’s possible to make money from content. A neat conclusion wasn’t reached, but Gordo’s honesty was refreshing: in the case of Manchester Confidential the controversial paywall hasn’t worked. He admitted that the company was facing the wall back in September and they introduced everything they could think of to try and turn a profit.

What has ended up making them money though is more traditional revenue streams: restaurant bookings, spa days, priority reservations and advertising. The eyes of the UK’s online and offline media have been on Manchester Confidential for the course of this experiment and the conclusion that seems to have been reached is that a straight paywall won’t work.

Users, who are used to free content, are not willing to start paying, we will however pay for something that adds value and advertisers will pay to reach a targetted audience, which bodes well for twitter’s new promoted tweets strategy.

Whatever the reason  we’re inevitably coming to the point where the internet is going to have to start making the producers of its content some money. The way Gordo sees it we’re all living in a free trial, when the internet ‘began’ it’s content creators didn’t know how to make money from it so they just put content up while they worked it out.

Now though they are working it out and the free trial is coming to an end, as Gordo pointed out “it’s not all Kerry Katona; someone’s got to pay for the Baghdad Bureau”.

Bring on #twbb2

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