Featured | Robert Ouimet

Canada’s Big Media Doing Great

I know with the long weekend at hand, you’ve been wondering about the state of media in Canada.

Rest easy and enjoy that extra day off.

Big Media in Canada is doing just fine.

Again.

Still.
The CRTC today released its Communications Monitoring Report. In the past the Commission published one report on the state of broadcasting, and one on the telecommunications industry, and this is the first of their ‘converged’ reports – presumably to reflect the state of the industry. The report makes it clear that the Canadian broadcast sector is doing just fine, despite dire warnings of its impending demise thanks to the internet. The report also shows just how big a role the internet plays in our every day lives and consumption of entertainment. Here are some facts pulled from the CRTC report.

Money…

Revenues for private commercial radio stations increased by 6.2%, from $1.4 billion in 2006 to $1.5 billion in 2007.
Commercial television revenues increased 4.3%, or $218 million, from $5 billion in 2006 to $5.3 billion in 2007. This was largely due to increased subscriber revenues of $152 million.
Revenues for specialty, pay and pay-per-view television and video-on-demand services increased by 9%, rising from $2.5 billion in 2006 to $2.7 billion in 2007.
Revenues for private conventional television broadcasters went from $2.1 billion in 2006 to $2.2 billion in 2007, an increase of 1.3%. During this period, revenues for English-language stations grew by 2% to $1.8 billion, while those for French-language stations fell by 2% to $381 million
Online advertising continued to experience growth, with spending rising from $900 million in 2006 to $1.2 billion in 2007.

English Canadian use of…

RADIO: 18.3 hours of per week
TV: 26.8 hours of per week
INTERNET: 13.4 hours per wee

Habits…

The number of Canadians who have watched a video online has more than doubled over the past three years, with user-generated content being more popular than professionally produced programs.
Among the more popular online activities in 2007, 36% of Canadians watched a video, 16% listened to a streaming radio station and 17% downloaded music.
11% of Canadians reported downloading and listening to a podcast on either their computer or an MP3 player, an activity that is seen as a complement to conventional broadcasting.

It may just be a case of bad timing, but just a couple of weeks ago, a CBC submission to the CRTC more-or-less argued Canadians aren’t using the Internet for entertainment. (you can read the CBC’s full position here)

Today’s CRTC report shows that we are in fact using the internet for entertainment. One of the most popular online activites happens to be…watching videos.

At the end of the day, regardless of the facts, the CBC’s argument in it’s submission seems to be that since it hasn’t figured out how to make money online, online shouldn’t be considered a business opportunity for Canadian broadcasters.

Given that traditional broadcast is still showing yearly increases in revenue, I’m not sure they’re in any hurry to try figure out how to make money online, despite the fact that Canadians are consuming a huge amount of content online.

To my mind, that bodes well for smart nimble companies that can jump into this obviously ripe market while the ‘big boys’ sit back and wait for it to be a more predictable business opportunity. (cross posted here)

WordPress Up to the Challenge

Dr. Tony Bates posed an interested challenge. The former University of British Columbia professor is a world authority on distance education and e-learning, and over many years in the field he’s accumulated a huge bibliography.

His desire to share the information he has, and how he’s categorized that information, was the key driver for his new website.

As you might expect from someone involved in e-learning, Dr. Bates has had a web site for a long time. As he watched technology evolve, he realized his site of flat files and PDF downloads was woefully out of date.

He knew he wanted it updated for look and feel, but primarily he wanted to be able to take advantage of modern web technology to be able to manage his constantly growing list of bibliographical entries – nearing 2,000 at last count. And because his focus is on sharing the information he has, he had a strong desire to include other people’s thoughts on the bibliographical collection, make suggestions of their own, and if so inclined, help keep it up to date.

And then there was the budget.

No large institution or big commercial brand behind this project. Dr. Bates was paying out of his pocket.

Although he never got into details, I know that a number of web development companies he approached in Vancouver never even responded to his request for quotes. Those that did were scared off by the sheer volume of content, and the limited budget.

Dr. Bates was referred to me by Loc Dao of RandomLink Interactive. Loc’s company is primarily a Drupal developer and they were knee deep in a number of large projects, and he wondered if I wanted to take it on.

After meeting with Dr. Bates I was hooked on the challenge. Here was a guy who’d prepared all his material in advance (his 110 page Word doc of content was sitting in my in-box) . He was clear about what he wanted to accomplish, yet was willing to listen to ideas and consider options.

The Challenge

At its heart, the challenge was one of finding a way to help Dr. Bates manage his lists of bibliographical information by topic.

While all the bibliographical entries fell within the broad e-learning or distant education categories, Dr. Bates has developed a system of categorizing the bibliographies and cross indexed them to help others looking for specific topics or types of information. His Word doc outlined over 40 different topic categories, each with it’s own bibliography. Many of the bibliographical references were found in multiple categories. In the past, he’d simply managed the lists by hand, and generated a PDF for download. As you can imagine, managing those lists was becoming a nightmare.

The rest of the site was primarily informational pages that he wanted to be able to edit, and Dr. Bates also wanted to have a blog. The site map was very straightforward – I use OmniGraffle for both site maps and wire frames, and it didn’t take us long to settle on a plan.

One minor problem

I still wasn’t sure just how I was going to sort the bibliographical entries, and at our meetings, Dr. Bates was rightly concerned about this. I asked him to trust me, that I was working on it, and that I wanted to move ahead with the visual design while I continued to sort out just how it was going to work. To his credit, he did trust me, and designer Sara Bailey with At Large Media moved ahead with the design phase.

Themes, CSS and CMS’s for non-programmers

I’ve licensed Brian Gardner’s “Revolution Pro Business” theme and have been working with it for a while, both for my own blog and for other sites like VanGoGreen.com, Glave.com, FinancialPeaceofMind.ca and Eco-Shed.ca. Ironically, but perhaps proving the point, FinancialPeaceofMind.ca doesn’t even have a blog, it’s a web site running nicely with WordPress as its CMS.

I’m not a programmer, so the huge amount of functionality Brian has built into the template is very attractive. I can pick and choose what to keep and what to remove, and customizing pages to fit the project. It’s a credit to Brian that the ‘bones’ of his theme are so strong. Sara did a wonderful design, and I set about adjusting the CSS and the page templates to fit.

Like the other recent WordPress customizations I’ve done, this site uses WordPress primarily as a CMS, with blogging being almost secondary. It’s an interesting shift in focus, and getting easier with each subsequent release of WordPress. I’ve also been using OpenAds in conjunction with WordPress quite a bit, and really happy with the results. Ditto with Slide Show Pro – a CMS for flash. By mixing and matching these tools, I can give clients the ability to update a lot of different aspects of their site, and harness database driven dynamic content.

I like keeping the dynamic menu system, so I customize section page templates for each section, then use child pages for any pages within that section. Be settling on a set number of ‘parent’ pages, I can plan the main nav and instruct my clients to only create child pages within those sections. In Dr. Bates’ case, each and every page on the site is editable in the standard WordPress input screen. Limiting the number of parent pages means the nav won’t get broken since new pages are child pages, and they cascade out of the main menu.

Time to Decide

Dr. Bates wanted to be able to add entries to any of his lists of topics, as well as add new topics in the future. He also wanted to be able to cross index entries to more than one list. Because of the limited budget, I originally thought I’d just re-create his lists and he could update them using the WordPress WYSIWYG input screen.

But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to find a solution that harnessed both WordPress’s ease of content input, the power of the database, and the WordPress engine. It was going to be mean more work (for me) getting things set up, but in the end, the right solution for my client

I knew that I was either going to use WordPress tags or categories to generate a list, and once I started adding real content, it become apparent right away that the most convenient way to do this was via categories.

On the WordPress manage categories page I was able to create all 43 categories, which would now show up as a nested list when creating a new post.

I also decided that each bibliographical entry would be it’s own post, thereby allowing me to assign it to one or more categories. Data input is quick and easy; each bibliography entry is a post, and once it’s created, the only thing left to do is click on the correct category and add some tags. Yes, adding the initial bibliographical entries was a huge amount of data input, but once in, adding anything new would be quick and simple.

To generate a list, we call up a category, and presto – a complete list of all bibliographical entries in that category is generated. WordPress lists these in reverse chronological order in which in they were created – and over time this will actually be a benefit, showing the ‘newest’ entries at the top of the list.

a href=”/category/general/”><strong>General publications</strong></a>
<ul>
<li><a href=”/category/general/e-learning-and-distant-education/”>e-learning and distance education</a></li>
<li><a href=”/category/general/e-learning/”>e-learning</a></li>
<li><a href=”/category/general/distant-education/”>Distance education</a></li>

For the bibliographical entries, we’re assigning author name(s), and year of publication as key tags, then any others we think are relevant. This rolls up in a tag cloud widget in the sidebar. We’re using the tags to generate a list of publications by author last name as well.

Authors:
<ul>
<li><a href=”/tag/a”>A</a></li>
<li><a href=”/tag/b”>B</a></li>
<li><a href=”/tag/c”>C</a></li>
<li><a href=”/tag/d”>D</a></li>
<li><a href=”/tag/e”>E</a></li>
<li><a href=”/tag/f”>F</a></li>

One of the key factors in the success of this collection is that users can find the information they’re looking at in a variety of ways. WordPress search is robust and is delivering excellent returns, or users can find lists based on Dr. Bates’ topic categorizations, or the tag cloud.

To roll up featured stories in the side bar, we created a separate category so that Dr Bates can easily assign an entry to show up. Over time, as the different sections of the site flesh out, we’ll probably roll-up entries relevant to that section in the side bar.

I was able to delivered Dr. Bates his site on time and on budget – with a lot more functionality than originally planned

Tips?

Well, here are a few:

Set up a development environment and try loads of different plugs ins. Push things around and see what happens. WordPress is easy to reinstall or fix if you mess something up.
Use a dev subdomain so that you can show your client work in progress. I’d never do this with a flat file site, but showing the client how the backend functions early in the process makes a huge difference. And if they’re inputting any content themselves, they can do that even while you’re continuing to tweak design.
Moving from dev to your live site (changing domains) involves a few hoops – there are good directions here. Follow them and you’ll be fine. Here’s a tip – if you move the site rather than use the import/export function in WordPress, all your site setting move with. Nice.
The more you work with a theme, you more you’ll be able to customize it.
If you are getting confused about which php page is used to generate the page, add the name of the php file right into the template as plain text – then you’ll see it each time the page is called. In the early days of customizing templates, I found this helped clear a lot of confusion as I moved further into customizing pages.
Play play play. If you think it should be able to do something it probably can.
WordPress as a CMS provides all the functionality you’ll need for most sites.
Look for apps that work nicely with WordPress – Open Ads for ad serving is a fantastic tool, Easy PHP Calendar has a plug-in that brings the data input right in the the WordPress CMS.
The WordPress forums are huge resource. I’ve run into loads of apparent impasses only to find an answer in the forum, many without having to even post a question. If you think it should work, and it doesn’t, check the forum. If you are going to post a question though, make sure you’ve at least TRIED to find a solution first.

Measure It

A web site is a fluid publishing environment. Unlike producing a TV commercial or creating a newspaper advertisement, a web site is designed to be changed and updated starting the minute it is launched.

For a lot of companies, this is one of the most perplexing and challenging aspects of operating a web site. How often do things need to be updated? What parts of the web site should be changed? Is the site accomplishing its goals? Are people using the site in the way it was intended?

Finding answers to these questions is critical to a successful online project, and analysis of web metrics is one of the key tools to assist in finding answers. Peter Drucker‘s phrase sums it up nicely “What gets measured gets managed”.

My career in broadcasting introduced me to metrics early on. Radio and TV stations sell ads based on audience size. They use independent measures exclusively as a means of setting their rates, and they spend a significant amount of money to acquire and analyze those numbers.

My first job was at a tiny radio station in Dauphin, Manitoba. They couldn’t afford to buy into the radio ratings system but the station manager, the late Hugh Dunlop, had his own way of measuring. When reporting on a traffic accident (a big story in a small prairie town), he’d always end his report saying the cars involved in the crash had been towed to so-and-so’s service station. Then Hugh would drive over to see how many people showed up to gawk at the wrecks.

Hardly scientific, but better than no measurement at all. I call this “Dunloping” it.

Contests and write-in campaigns are other ways of “Dunloping” the numbers – the numbers are highly subjective but they’re better than nothing.

Fortunately, web sites generate a plethora of useful statistics. Yet it’s surprising how often we encounter companies that are making minimal use of their web measures, and are in fact more often “Dunloping” it than using more reliable information available to them. So, one of my first recommendations is that they embrace the mantra: If You Can’t Measure It – Don’t Do It.

In almost all cases, embracing this notion is easy because the data is usually being gathered. A little analysis, even simple analysis, will go a long way to helping you make informed choices, leading to more successful online projects.

What Do the Numbers Mean?

Sometimes a client will say to us “We have x-thousand page views a month. Is that good?” Metrics have to be considered in context. Because web technology provides us with a multitude of different measurement tools, answers to those key questions hardly ever come from one set of measures.

The importance of various measures is directly related to a site’s goals. And a combination of measures provides a more complete picture than relying on just one set of numbers.
For a community site, the amount of time viewers spend on the site will be a key measure, as will the number of user-generated posts. For a site that depends on banner ad sales, page views will be far more important.

The important thing is to start with a few key measures, analyzing them on a regular basis. Measurement analysis can get quite esoteric, and if you have the resources to do so, by all means delve deep. For the vast majority of small to medium businesses, a few key measures will provide important data to help determine the direction of the web site.

If you can’t afford analytic software, get the data, put it into Excel and make a few key charts and graphs. Do it monthly, and use the same format so you can compare results.

I like to group 2 or 3 measures together into what I refer to as ‘key indicators’. Take for example, an e-mail newsletter. Grouping list size, open rate, and click through rate together provides a significant snapshot of the campaign’s strength.

While growing the size of an email list is obviously desirable, a small list that has a high open rate (people actually read the newsletter after it has been sent) and a high click through rate (people who click on links in the newsletter) may actually serve the goals better than a larger list with a low click-through rate. In the example below, key indicators are graphed together to provide a quick view of the health of the list.

A set of key website indicators might include page views, bandwidth, and files served. This provides a snapshot of how much people are actually using the web site.

On the other hand, trying to determine which section of a web site to focus more attention on requires analysis of a different data set.

The goal here is to get away from decisions based on anecdotal or emotional data. You have a myriad choices to make as an online content creator, so use the numbers as a means of guiding those choices.

Trending is another important data point. Not all new projects show instant success, so looking at changes over time is important. Analysis helps you make decisions, assess your successes and fix mistakes.

Just as in TV, radio and print, measuring the success of your online efforts is key to your ongoing strategy. The web gives us an abundant set of detailed data, and the companies who are most successful online are aggressive in their use of that data. They’re also strict with themselves, building on the things that people actually view online, and ditching the things that aren’t generating any good usage stats. To be successful online you have to measure your data, and also be prepared to LEARN from that data. Be rigorous, measure what you’re doing, and you’ll be able to build a meaningful project for your online audience

In Summary

If you have a web site, you have measurable results.
Devise a way of reporting the data and look at it regularly.
If your data isn’t pretty, make simple graphs and charts.
You don’t need a lot of data, but you do need to use what you have.
If you have to, Dunlop It.
Ask ‘why is this happening’. Look for linkages in the data.
Add some qualitative data when you can

Go Wireless Until the Juice Runs out

Take a glimpse into the near future, and you’ll see plenty of options for wireless connectivity between devices.

At the Consumer Electronic Show this year Sony was showing off a system to move large files, say from a video camera, to a computer or TV. Their system, called Transfer Jet only works when the devices are in close proximity to each other, but it’ll be a great feature, and moves data faster then a traditional USB cable.

Bluetooth, the short-range wireless technology that’s used in those Star Trek like cell phone headsets is becoming quite common – and celebrates its 10th year this year.

Connecting to the internet over a wireless hub has become commonplace now, and there are a number of city wide projects that will blanket an entire population inside a wireless mesh, meaning you can crack open your laptop and check mail almost anywhere.

But there’s a catch, and a big one.

Power. Lots and lots of power. At most blogging conferences now, the biggest tech issue is how many places can people plug-in to recharge their laptops, cell phones, iPods and digital cameras.

Network operation centres, those big data hubs where network servers sit on high speed fibre optic connections to the internet face huge power challenges. Recent outages among major players in San Francisco recently were due to power problems, nothing to do with network connectivity. A peak under your own desk will show you why – with each specialized device comes a power requirement of some kind – either a battery charger or an AC adapter to power the unit. I actually have far fewer cables connecting my computer equipment now, but more AC power cables.

Are things going to get better any time soon. Probably not. There are some promising technologies out there that might lengthen the battery life in your cell phone or laptop, but almost all of them lead to a power plug for charging.

So, while the idea of a wireless mesh covering the city, maybe even the globe is exciting, a bigger breakthrough be solving boring old AC electricity needs.

When Copies Are Free

Publishers and distributors are facing the ultimate challenge to re-invent themselves as consumers continue to adopt new technologies at a rapid pace.

We’ve watched record labels struggle, and fail, in attempts at finding ways of stopping wide scale copying and distribution of music. For years they’ve tried everything from copy protection to lawsuits, as a means of keeping people from making digital copies.

Nothing they’ve done has worked.

Yet, in a relatively short period of time, Apple created an enormously successful online music distribution model. Think about it. Where every single record label failed, Apple succeeded.

One of reasons they did was because they understand the digital economy.

In a recent article, writer Kevin Kelly identifies one of the key challenges of the digital economy.

When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied. – Kevin Kelly

Kelly then goes on to suggest eight categories of value that you buy when you are paying for something that could be free…

“Eight uncopyable values. I call them “generatives.” A generative value is a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated, nurtured. A generative thing can not be copied, cloned, faked, replicated, counterfeited, or reproduced. It is generated uniquely, in place, over time. In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold.”

His article should be a must-read for every executive at every ‘traditional’ media organization in the world. Whether you agree on Kelly’s eight categories or not, you can’t argue with him when he says,

“once anything that can be copied is brought into contact with internet, it will be copied, and those copies never leave. Even a dog knows you can’t erase something once it’s flowed on the internet.”

This week, we see two examples of traditional publishers struggling to find their route through the challenges of the digital economy.

Random House has decided to try to sell something that can be copied. They’ve announced that they will be experimenting with selling books chapter by chapter online.

Meanwhile, Harper Collins is taking a different approach. They’ll be posting books free on the web…

“The idea is to give readers the opportunity to sample the books online in the same way that prospective buyers can flip through books in a bookstore. “It’s like taking the shrink wrap off a book,” said Jane Friedman, chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide. “The best way to sell books is to have the consumer be able to read some of that content.”

Of the two approached, the Harper Collins strategy makes more sense. In their case, the ‘generatives’ at play include patronage, accessibility, authenticity and findability.

This last generative may be one of the most important for book and magazine publishers.

Take the case of writer Charles Sheehan-Miles.

He’s giving away electronic versions of his book Republic. In fact, he’s encouraging you to make a copy, send it to your friends, do anything you want with it, except sell it. Sure, but who’s Charles Sheehan-Miles anyway ? Which is his point exactly…

The biggest challenge most authors face isn’t online piracy. It’s not people out there diabolically copying their works and distributing them for free. In fact most authors (including yours truly) suffer from a different problem entirely — no one has ever heard of them. After all, literally hundreds of thousands of new titles come out every year, and only a few hundred writers in the entire United States (if that many) actually live off their books full time. So, by giving away the book, I hope more people actually read it.

The book, the one you can buy, is currently #2 on the Amazon.com Sci-Fi/Alt-History list.

And yet, for content distributors, the most frightening thing in the world is to adopt new channels, even as they watch the old ones erode. Many of the alternatives are unproven. Worse, some haven’t yet been invented.

Those who live and breath the digital economy know that success lies in pushing through the uncertainty. After all, the risks of the unknown are overwhelmed by the certainty “when copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied”.