Digital Magic is A World Leader In Online Content - What?
Posted on September 29, 2006
Filed Under Companies, Commercial Trends, Advertising/Marketing |
Digital Magics is an Italian company that has projects other new media ventures only dream of.
First they have a platform for mixing live TV with user content in real time. In other words what they do is driven by user interest and user contributions and they’ve worked out how best to do it, cheaply, while viewers are watching, engaged and contributing.
Nothing new there? How about 8 hour a day of it, 7 days a week. This is industrialised user generated content but, from what I’ve seen, of a very engaging quality.
An example. A teacher wants to show people how to play unusual instruments. He comes online with his webcam or mobile video. Five viewers join him from their cameras. They all make music. It can be fun.
A consumer show wants to review the price of vegetables around Italy. Five viewers go into the local market or supermarket and report from their mobile phones. Hey, in Palermo apples cost 3 Euro a kilo; here in Milan it’s only 2.50. Naples? 3.25.
You can easily anticipate the impact of this kind of content. It ain’t hard to do and viewers love it. Yes, they have moved into political programme making too.
Not only evolving in the genres it addresses, Digital Magic is now branching out of its domestic market and developing user-involved programming in Holland and Spain.
I’ve heard here at Cross Media week that new forms of content production is not what is driving change in the industry - advertising is.
But let’s face it when you get content this cheap you can offer some great deals to advertisers.
In English speaking countries it seems to me we’re too quick to conclude advertisers can, should and will dictate more what the busines model will be for broadcasters - ie getting their way on product placement, and integrating brand messages into narratives, scenes and character.
Brand Magic is showing the option is to further engage people, create compelling low cost content that advertisers will still be drawn to and can engage with at a reasonable cost to them (the brands) - rather than to programme integrity.
Comments
Leave a Reply