Comments on: Copy & Paste vs Customization of Content – Old Rules vs New Rules For Media, Part 3 http://www.stevepratt.com/index.php/2009/05/13/copy-paste-customization-content-rules-rules-media-part-3/ The future of media, music, and creativity Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:16:26 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Steve Pratt http://www.stevepratt.com/index.php/2009/05/13/copy-paste-customization-content-rules-rules-media-part-3/comment-page-1/#comment-291 Steve Pratt Fri, 15 May 2009 04:07:36 +0000 http://www.stevepratt.com/?p=296#comment-291 Hey MS, I don't know if there's a hard & fast rule you can apply to decisions about how many formats of a video to support - I think it depends on what your metrics for success are, what your resources are, how much additional effort goes into encoding each format, and how many people adopt each format. For example, with OGG Vorbis, there aren't a lot of people that use it, but those who do are very passionate about it and they are also very vocal about sharing good OGG Vorbis-formatted podcasts with others. It doesn't take much time at all to encode it and otherwise costs nothing to offer. If it was expensive, time consuming, and there was a small but PASSIVE audience, I don't think many people would bother offering it. On the other end of the scale, I know that Major League Baseball encodes a RIDICULOUS number of video formats for their content and that for anyone other than a huge property like MLB with lots of money, lots of resources, and a huge audience that loves their content on a broad variety of digital platforms, the cost / benefit analysis probably wouldn't make sense. My overall philosophy is to do the best that you can with what you've got to serve audiences with content in the ways they would like to consume it. And if you ask a few friends or potential customers, you probably will quikcly find that a one-size fits all solution for the creation and distribution of digital content isn't sufficient and can possibly hamper your success and growth. And if it's easy to offer choice and customization, you can be pretty sure that if you don't do it, your competitors will. Hope this helps! (let me know if it doesn't :-) ) Steve Hey MS,
I don’t know if there’s a hard & fast rule you can apply to decisions about how many formats of a video to support – I think it depends on what your metrics for success are, what your resources are, how much additional effort goes into encoding each format, and how many people adopt each format.
For example, with OGG Vorbis, there aren’t a lot of people that use it, but those who do are very passionate about it and they are also very vocal about sharing good OGG Vorbis-formatted podcasts with others. It doesn’t take much time at all to encode it and otherwise costs nothing to offer. If it was expensive, time consuming, and there was a small but PASSIVE audience, I don’t think many people would bother offering it.
On the other end of the scale, I know that Major League Baseball encodes a RIDICULOUS number of video formats for their content and that for anyone other than a huge property like MLB with lots of money, lots of resources, and a huge audience that loves their content on a broad variety of digital platforms, the cost / benefit analysis probably wouldn’t make sense.
My overall philosophy is to do the best that you can with what you’ve got to serve audiences with content in the ways they would like to consume it. And if you ask a few friends or potential customers, you probably will quikcly find that a one-size fits all solution for the creation and distribution of digital content isn’t sufficient and can possibly hamper your success and growth. And if it’s easy to offer choice and customization, you can be pretty sure that if you don’t do it, your competitors will.
Hope this helps! (let me know if it doesn’t :-) )

Steve

]]> By: Monique Savin http://www.stevepratt.com/index.php/2009/05/13/copy-paste-customization-content-rules-rules-media-part-3/comment-page-1/#comment-290 Monique Savin Thu, 14 May 2009 18:57:52 +0000 http://www.stevepratt.com/?p=296#comment-290 Afternoon Steve, Do you think that part of the reason why sites do not offer content to consumers in a wider variety of formats is business related? What I mean is, part of my job as a web editor is to engage consumers with unique content and move them around the site (through the use of slideshows, podcasts, blogs, etc.,) to see advertising. I have found that quality videos, say fitness instruction clips, can be too costly compared with the time-online metrics to make them worthwhile to produce. Would you recommend that an argument I can make to future bosses for offering content in a wide variety of formats is that it is simply the cost of doing business on the web? I’m trying to get my head around being attentive and responsive to the way consumers use our content while managing production costs and achieving pageviews and engagement goals. Thank you so much. MS Afternoon Steve,

Do you think that part of the reason why sites do not offer content to consumers in a wider variety of formats is business related? What I mean is, part of my job as a web editor is to engage consumers with unique content and move them around the site (through the use of slideshows, podcasts, blogs, etc.,) to see advertising. I have found that quality videos, say fitness instruction clips, can be too costly compared with the time-online metrics to make them worthwhile to produce.

Would you recommend that an argument I can make to future bosses for offering content in a wide variety of formats is that it is simply the cost of doing business on the web?

I’m trying to get my head around being attentive and responsive to the way consumers use our content while managing production costs and achieving pageviews and engagement goals.

Thank you so much.
MS

]]>