I love Techdirt. Their cynical writing style is fun to read. Their in-depth knowledge is amazing. But they are missing the point in their post about entertainment industry:

Gatekeepers don't make much sense.

Actually they do. In a world where media distribution was complex and expensive, gatekeepers enabled the whole industry to exist. But now, the internet is changing the game, as Mike says clearly in his post:

But the amazing thing about the internet is that it knocks down fences and walls with ease.

In a world without fences there are still gatekeepers - they are just different ones. Facebook and Google are the new gatekeepers. We need them. We need them to help us find what we want and communicate with our friends. By providing this value they become the new gatekeepers.

I fully agree with Mike's statement, that the entertainment industry doing as much as possible to cripple innovation. These guys are not ready yet to change their business model. It is probably because there isn't any viable alternative that will provide the same revenues and profits. But there is no free love - when one gatekeeper collapse, another one is taking its place.

Image by Pink Sherbet

I've recently published an article about click thorough rates (CTR) of Twitter users when receiving media content. We saw amazing CTR of 10% and more, 70 times more than regular display banners.
Today I've recived additional data from another resource, showing the opportunity in Twitter and micro-blogging for media companies. In short, it solidifies the notion that Twitter is the most engaging platform today.
TubeMogul, my favorite video distribution and analytics comapny, released data showing that Twitter users watch a video 36% longer than any other originating social platform:

Despite Twitter's erstwhile reputation as a soapbox for ephemeral thoughts (i.e. "long line at Starbucks...argh!"), the data tells another story: as a platform, Twitter refers among the most engaged video viewers out there.

Couple this with the CTR numbers mentioned above, and you have a winning platform for media engagement.

The challenge is still to combine platforms and channels in order  to utilize their strengths while mitigate its weaknesses.

Wall Street Journal published a great article about online meaning of friendship. Keren Dagan, from webnomena fame, one of the most brilliant bloggers around, who brings a unique insight to the echo chamber, is quoted there. And yes, he is my brother-in-law :)

Congrads Keren!

Related articles:

• Great, Now We're Going to Have to Use Facebook [The Internet]

Image by via CrunchBase

Israel Hyman, from IzzyVideo fame, and myself, found ourselves answering and asking a lot of Final Cut Pro questions on Twitter recently. I am also asking a lot of questions and feedback from followers, and found Twitter a very good tool for interaction around common interest. However there is a hidden potential in Twitter that is not being utilized - the need for Twitter Groups.

Online Forums

Online forums are a huge source of information for professional information. In the Final Cut Pro area, there are several great forums such as Creative Cow and Apple's official forums. However they all suffer from the same issues:

1. Fragmentation - there are several forums on the same topic, and one needs to post his/her question in multiple forums.

2. Some forums are not active on a daily basis.

The Twitter Advantage

Twitter has several advantages on forums for issues that require quick resolution:

1. It is almost immediate (well when Twitter is not down)...

2. Answers are short and to the point

3. One can follow experts and develop relationship with them over time.

A Possible Business Model

Such groups could provide new channels for businesses and experts. While it is not worthwhile for anyone to have a phone based helpdesk for creative applications, Twitter can be a great tool to develop strong customer relationships, by answering questions and helping the community in a less time consuming manner. It could also be an extension of forums and other online or offline activities. Think event based Twitter Groups. Think product based groups. Think political groups. Cool, isn't it?

What We Have Now is Not Enough

Today, the only option that is open to every user is to use # tag in tweets. By doing so, the adjunct word becomes a search phrase in Twitter search. Though it could create an ad-hock interaction, it doesn't create an ongoing interaction between group members, therefore doesn't help create a community. Also, the UI is not that simple to use. At SXSW, Twitter opened a channel for all related Tweets. This is what needed feature wise, but it is not possible, to my knowledge, to create such channels without support from Twitter HQ.

Friendfeed rooms are a great solution - but Friendfeed is not as used as Twitter, and we don't want group members to use another application.

What Is needed?

A possible solution could be the following:

1. A single entity that we can tweet for questions

2. The tweets sent to that entity are distributed to all the followers.

3. Answers to the tweets can be sent either by moderator or by group members

4. Every group member can tweet the entity, or the person who asked the question directly, but the answer should be sent to all group members.

5. All tweets should be archived for future reference

What's Next

Well, if you know about a possible solution - please leave a comment, email me or contact me via Twitter. And if Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey or any of their employees are reading this (could you try harder to get into their Google Alerts than that?), we would love to learn more about your plans in this area...