New York Times released a slick new new version of its  Adobe Air application called Times Reader. The innovative application allows readers to read and subscribe to NYT rich content, including articles, images and videos.

New York Times are fairly advanced in the US journalism field. I use their iPhone Application regularly, and enjoy their well produced videos.

But their new application won't change a thing.

Unlike Serege Jespers, who in his post announced that this application is the future of journalism, it is still based on the idea that people will subscribe to NYT content, and pay for it. And this is yet to be seen. Ok, I am way too kind - IT DOESN'T WORK.

Why should I pay for their content if so much of it is free? And does the NYT really believe that a well developed application change the fundamental flaw in their industry?

I hope, for them, that this isn't the case.

Did you ever read someone's Facebook status messages and learned about his personal stories through it? Did you ever read personal blogs and vlogs and felt that you are witnessing a real life story?

Last semester I lectured in a course in IDC about online storytelling, together with Noa Morag and Roni Abolafia. I wrote about it here, here and here. However I was asked several times to provide a wider overview on the topic. So here it is - an overview of immersive storytelling:

What is immersive storytelling?

Immersive storytelling is the use of social web and online video to tell a linear fictional story, through the social activities of the characters.

In cinematic storytelling, viewers experience stories by looking through a non existent wall (usually referred to as the 4th wall). The camera is accepted as given, a kind of an agreement between viewer and the actors that says: yep, we both know there is a camera here, but we accept it and actually ignore it. The emotional attachment to the characters on screen is achieved by suspension of disbelief - viewers leave their sense of reality at the entrance to the movie theater, and accept that robots, time machines[8.3/10 rating][8.3/10 rating] and radioactive naked people actually exist. In some cases, directors choose to break this rule - and change the viewers' perspective on on-screen activities.

Ian Richardson as F. Urqhuhart in House of Cards broke the 4th wall in several episodes

But what about the stories that happen to people around us? People in real life? Did you ever read someone's Facebook status messages and learned about his personal stories through it? Did you ever read personal blogs and vlogs and felt that you are witnessing a real life story?

This is the basic concept of immersive storytelling - the movie theater is replaced by Facebook and Twitter profiles, blogs, and personal vblogs.

The roles of the viewers

Unlike Alternate Reality Games, viewers do not affect the story-line. The story itself is linear, with the usual story arc. Immersive storytelling is focused on the delivery and presentation of the story, and its innovation lies in the way that the viewers experience it.

Some examples

One of the groups in our course, wrote a story about an adopted kid who, at the age of 18, decided to find his biological mother. After receiving her phone number, he called her, and found out she wasn't interested in any relationship with him. He decided to follow her, and realized she went to AA meetings. He joined her group under a nickname, and became her friend. At the end of the story, he decided not to reveal his true identity, in exchange for her friendship.

Another story was about a single fashion designer who lost her dog. A guy found it, and contacted her. They fall in love.

The first story was told through a personal blog and vlog of the kid, and his Facebook profile. Readers got updates on his search for his mother, the emotional turmoil he went through, and his resolution not to contact her.

The second story was more complex - it was told in two separate blogs on two separate social networks, in order to make the characters more reliable (it didn't make sense to have one of them on Facebook). Viewers had to follow both blogs in order to get the full scope of the story.

The students created the online entities couple of weeks prior to the beginning of the story, and then ran the story for a week.

Results

What amazed me most in this project is the emotional responses from viewers. The fact that one had to actually connect to a Facebook profile in order to be a part of the experience increased the involvement of the viewers. Also, as the students created full characters, with friends, hobbies, pictures that are not related to the story itself and day to day life, the experience was fundamentally different then most online experiences. It seems that the viewers, though some realized it a scripted drama, actually identified with the characters - the most challenging part of storytelling.

The most emotional story, with the adopted kid, got a lot of reactions and emails.

Some of the viewers were ahead of the curve. In the love story, couple of days after the woman lost her dog, one of the viewers emailed the characters, and wrote that he thought that the other character found a dog that fits the description. What is really amazing in this example is that the two characters were on completely separate social networks, with no common friends.

Challenges

As a relatively young art form, there are several challenges in any such project:

1. How to create a reliable, full and deep character? I wrote about this issue here.

2. What is ethically permitted in this art form? As the stories are told through regular social profiles, many believed that these are real people. We had to create methods to deal with it, in order not to mislead the audience.

3. How to drive viewers to the right profiles and blogs? We employed several tactics - but still there is a work to be done here.

4. How to adequately produce content, without harming its reliability? I wrote about it here.

Summary

Immersive storytelling as an art form is in its infancy. There are stories around us who are waiting to be told, and social web and online video provide powerful tools not only to distribute these stories - but also create emotional attachment that is so coveted by so many creators today.

Michael Rosenblum is the godfather of video journalism. He was a one man band video crew back at the 80's and since then he trained and taught generations of video journalists this craft.

Though poorly shot, here is a great presentation he did to UK journalists where he describes the history and reality of video journalists :

Michael Rosenblum @ Society of Editors 08 from Paul Bradshaw on Vimeo.

Michael Rosenblum @ Society of Editors 08 pt2 from Paul Bradshaw on Vimeo.
Michael Rosenblum @ Society of Editors pt.3 from Paul Bradshaw on Vimeo.

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Video is more efficient in creating emotional attachment than text - if done right. I saw this effect in a course in IDC Media School about online storytelling, which I (along with two amazingly talented lecturers, Noa Morag and Roni Abolafya) delivered last semester.

In the course, the students wrote dramatic stories, that were told via social media tools such as fictitious blogs, Facebook profiles, vlogs, and Twitter.

For example, one story portrayed a quest of an adopted son to find his biological mother. This emotional and strong story was told through his blog, vlog and Facebook profile.

Another story was more of a David Lynch style plot, about a guy who is being stalked, videotaped and harrassed by an unknown person, only to reveal that it was a girl he knows:

Though not intended as a main goal, the course provided an insight to effective emotion trigger in the online world.

One of the most interesting cases was the reactions that vlog post received. In the first story, the students produced personal short vlog where the kid told his side of the story. The video segments in some cases received more responses and views than text posts in the blog. Considering that text is easier to consume, this fact shows that at least in emotional setting, video is stronger than text.

We also learned that if video is done right it increases viewers involvement. But done right doesn't necessarily mean high production value. Our kid's vlog was done with a webcam and still generated a lot of reaction. It seems that a strong correlation between the story line and the production level is more important than the video quality per se. I believe that if some of the videos where better produced it would have harmed the authenticity of the stories - leading directly to a lower emotional attachment.

Martin Lindstorm, the marketing guru, talks a lot about brands value over time. In his book, Brand Sense, he describes how additional senses affect the emotional reactions to brands. Video, with its moving images and sound is by far more effective than text in creating this attachment.

However, as online video search and interactivity are legging behind text based technologies (such as Google and hyperlinks), smart marketers and storytellers should integrate video in a wider multimedia and multi platform strategy.

This post is dedicated to Yaniv Golan. See here why...

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Have a great day!

One of my favorite podcasts is Meet The Experts by Pixel Heads Networks. The reason is simple - the value to noise ratio here is huge. Almost every episode taught me about a product or workflow I should know about, and at least once affected my buying decision. So, I took the opportunity to interview Marcelo Lewin, the guy behind this and other shows for digital media creators.

What's Pixel Heads Network? Which shows are a part of the network and who is their target audience?

Pixel Heads Network is a Internet Media Network dedicated web shows for digital media creators. We create shows that entertain, educate and inform digital media creators. Currently we have 5 shows:

Meet The Experts, is a show were we interview experts in new media and we go indepth on topics that affect new media and digital media creators.

EXPOzed covers all the expo shows, including NAB, Macworld, CES, HD Expo, DV Expo, plus many others. We interview all the vendors with in-depth questions on their products.

Digital Media Quick Tips is focused on the "how-to" for digital media creators. We show you how use a variety of different applications and get in-depth on the topics. We usually start with a problem (e.g. How do you capture AVCHD on Final Cut Pro) and end with a solution.

Tame The Tube concentrates on YouTube and how video producers can harness its power for media distribution and marketing.

And Mac-411 which is dedicated to Mac users showing them how to use the thousands of applications that are available for the Mac.

Wow, pretty impressive. Many podcasters can't make a living out of this hobby - is this your full time job, or just a part time thing?

PHN was a part time thing (along with my full time job) until December, when it was acquired by a company called ProMAX Systems, which provides digital media solutions to digital media creators (e.g. Full systems for video editing, web development, audio engineering, etc.). Our match was made in heaven. We both complement each other and have the same customer. Now that we are part of ProMAX, we will continue to provide quality shows (and remain fully editorially independent from what ProMAX sells) to both our viewers and the ProMAX customer base. And our viewers now will have access to purchasing the best digital media solutions anywhere.

How do you gain access to all those great people in your podcasts?

It's funny because many people always ask me this. But I have one rule in life. Ask. Just ask. What's the worst that can happen when you ask? You get denied and you move on. What's the best that can happen when you ask? They say yes! Besides that, another great thing I learned is to make friends and treat PR people real well. Why? Usually, you have to go through a PR representative to get to a CEO or COO or high profile person. If you do a good job with them and then you do a terrific job with the interview, the person you interview usually tells their PR person it was great. Then the PR person usually will get back to you and offer you other people they represent. It's all about building relationships with people, treating people fairly and right.

How do you work with advertisers and sponsors? What are their main concerns? How do you address them?

Advertisers are moving away from traditional media and moving many of their dollars into new media. The target market we go after, digital media creators, are usually well educated, affluent people, so it doesn't take that much to convince a vendor that provides digital media creation tools to sponsor our shows. Our viewers are their potential (or even current) customers. It is very important, though, that you know who your audience is, and be able to define it properly and, have enough statistics to show a potential sponsor who your audience is, what they are watching, the # of views per video, etc. Also, if you can get a high profile sponsor (even if you charge them very little or even nothing), it will help you in the future get other sponsors. No one ever wants to be the first one...but if they see others are in on it, they'll jump right in.

Now that you guy(s) were bought how would your network operate?

Now that we are part of ProMAX, my title changed from CEO of Pixel Heads Network to General Manager of Pixel Heads Network and also Director of Interactive Media for ProMAX. My responsibilities will continue to be the same for PHN, but I will take on additional responsibilities managing all the aspects of interactive media for ProMAX including all eMarketing efforts. It's definitely an exciting time and I look forward to continue to bring quality content to digital media creators while at the same time, working in an environment (ProMAX) which highly values digital media creators!

Since I've started to use Feedly, my twitter stream and delicious are much more valuable to followers. The ease of sharing and twitting links made it a morning and noon habit of mine. So, feel free to follow me, but if you don't - here are some of my favorite links:

Steve Rubel needs help in understanding what's so great in TweetDeck.

Boxee is adding more content to its box - and going Windows

WordPress Founder is just 25 yo!

Cisco has a solid vlogging operation

And my favorite band is leaking HD footage of its gigs for audience mixing

Talking about things we thought we could never have...

Video comments are a tricky thing - they allows users to leave comments in video instead of text, and meant to enrich the conversation in blog's comments. However they are not that straight forward as text comments.

I've been using Seesmic as my Video Commenting system, but didn't really promote it till now. Other sites such as Techcrunch are using the same product.

What's your opinion?

If you support video comments - please leave one! Also - I'd love to see the faces of my readers for a change :)

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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...

Please note that this post was updated on the 26th of November. Updates are marked in Italic bold font.

BlogTV, the live streaming pioneer, is facing both opportunities and challenges.

BlogTV's CEO, Guy Eliav, defined and executed a brilliant strategy to increase traffic. In a targeted marketing activity, he managed to convince some of the brightest stars in YouTube to start live broadcasting in his network.

This activity and others enabled the company to grow its audience considerably, as the graph above clearly shows. It seems that under Guy's leadership, the efforts bear fruits. They also claim to get in some cases $10-$12 CPM for ads in some of their star broadcasters.

Financial Challenges Ahead

BlogTV is a subsidiary of Tapuz, a publicly traded Israeli portal. The company went through several changes recently. Guy Eliav, who served as Tapuz's CEO, became full time CEO of BlogTV. Dan Chen, who was responsible for Tapuz money making cellular activities, was appointed as Tapuz CEO, and additional key positions were filled with new people, such as Ilan Zinman as VP of Marketing and Itay Nagler who was promoted from Flix (Tapuz's UGC video site) to the chief content editor of the site.

Tapuz is financing BlogTV's operation since its first day. As a public company, we have unique opportunity to see the operating costs of BlogTV.

In their latest report (Hebrew) the company claim that BlogTV lost more than 5M NIS, which is about $1.4M, in the first nine months of 2008.

BlogTV significantly changes Tapuz's operation results, as it brings it to a loss of approx. $153K in the first quarter of 2008, last 3 months, instead of operational profit of $252K. However, in later quarters Tapuz managed to reduce the effect of BlogTV expenses. In recent interviews and discussions with the company, Dan Chen explicitly said that Tapuz will stop supporting BlogTV as it is a financial burden. Tapuz stock lost 68% of its value since January 2008.

As a part of this move, Tapuz appointed Shai Schiller as BlogTV chairman. Shai was Emblaze's CEO, and a chairman of Parrot Media and Axis Mobile. He was recruited to BlogTV in order to help the company raise the required funds to continue operation after Tapuz will stop supporting the company. According to Tapuz's financial reports, Shai's incentive program is based on a successful financial round. Prominent VC also confirmed that the company is in a financial round.

Dan Chen later on calrified that they will not be able to support BlogTV as they do today, but not have intentions of closing the company. He also stated that he believe in the product and company, and certain that Shai Schiller will continue supporting it in the future.

And the business model?

However, it is not only nickels and dimes that are a challenge for Guy and his team. BlogTV focuses its efforts in live streaming of user generated content. Unlike ustream.tv and Mogulus, which invested in superior platforms and stronger content focus, BlogTV is aiming at being the YouTube of live broadcasting, a questionable model in my opinion. As stated in previous post, YouTube failed to monetize their UGC content, and now using it as a way to attract viewers to professionally produced content. BlogTV doesn't have any pro content what so ever. BlogTV's focus on UGC still pose a major challenge to the monetization of their content.

BlogTV CEO believes that their content has better monetization ratio than others, as it is legal, thus raising its monetization factor. This claim still does not mitigate advertisers' reluctancy to affiliate their content with poorly produced video.

It is yet to be seen what will be the future of BlogTV. In any case, live streaming is still an interesting niche to follow.