Episode 34: Transmedia
In this show Terence and Philip tackle Transmedia, the successor to “multi-media”. Transmedia is the extension of a program to more ways for the audience to interact with the program, story and characters. Is Transmedia the future of television?
Thanks to Alpha Dogs intern Sean Yap for editing the show and making us sound intelligent.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:15 — 12.5MB)
Interesting show guys but on a old topic in many ways.
The evolution to transmedia has already been attempted and failed in spectacular fashion.
Please bring your mind back to interactive TV. In the US it didn;t really get any traction. In UK, it did ok.. well it looked like it would take of there if anywhere. (but didn;t)
These days you don;t really hear much about it, however, the Transmeta problem, all be it slightly different, was attempted.
Basically if failed and pulled down a large number of hopeful STB companies. Taking down billions in investment with no return.
Its what MHEG was borne from. And other attempted standards to try and bring all this sh*t together and make it cohesive..
It was really the embryo of the TV/tablet, multi screen future we have grown to have a better understanding of.
The problem is that, you are very right in that it has been next to impossible to derive a profitable business from this ecosystem.
It changes to fast, is toooooooo fragmented and the advertising spends are going down not up, so adopting a ever changing target like this for marketing or promotion (Advertising) just does not work.
It is only the use of stable and long form standards can long term business models sustain. Remember, at the end of the day, boring accountant decide our future.
This idea of media linking to media and building platforms for this cross media Pandora’s box is..
currently not viable. Unless some type of magic is discovered.
I am not a big believer in this transmedia idea. It is like betting the bank on viral marketing. It is far to “hit and miss”.
We will be stuck with TV or embedded ads for a long time to come. Probably linking to some on-line campaign.
the best answer is the answer closes to an accurate result on the other side. I model that is predetermined with the best accuracy.
(I put an ad on TV, I know X people will see it and it cost me Y dollars. Thats what advertisers want. Something measurable)
Its the only way media organisations can price what they do.
James