Justin.tv Cleans Up Its Act, Makes it to Adoption Phase

by Brad Schwarzenbach

A free API and recent redesign have demonstrated a clearer focus on quality channel growth. Justin.tv has “leveled up” to the Adoption Phase of its Life Cycle. The Adoption phase is marked by a small upswing in a core group of early adopters coming to understand the value of the medium and providing relevant, frequent, high-quality content to a wider audience. It’s also usually when ‘internet celebrities’ for the platform or channel are discovered.

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Get on Get Satisfaction Now

by Brad Schwarzenbach

Normally my Life Cycle Updates include some fancy graphs and some basic statistical analysis. However, I’d like to get a bit more personal this week. A brief digression. I just had an unbelievably bad restaurant experience. Inattentive service, attitude, incorrectly … Continued

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Livestream’s Focus on Technology Enables Quality Growth

by Brad Schwarzenbach

Livestream’s move into the Gestation Phase was driven largely by a core group of niche users empowered by Livestream’s intuitive editing tools to create cheaply produced yet valuable content. The overall quality of content in the channel is improving as they make video production and integration with other media channels easier.

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Vimeo Preparing for Monetization

by Brad Schwarzenbach

Vimeo is the best site out there to find high-quality, creative video content. A couple months ago, we reported Vimeo was in the Escalation Phase of its New Media Life Cycle. The channel continues to evolve, and while it’s too … Continued

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Newspaper Vending Machines 2.0

by Brad Schwarzenbach

Micropayments could be the next big thing in web content monetization. While paying one small price for media has worked for iTunes, are people ready to part with a dollar to read a news article they can’t get anywhere else?
Contenture and TipJoy are two new sites experimenting with micropayment functionality.

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GizaPage — Experiments in Organization

by Drew Davis

GizaPage is in its experimentation phase, as characterized by a small number of enthusiastic new users who frequently update content of varying levels of quality. To expand their adoption, GizaPage should promote their channel as a good tool for social media monitoring.

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Docstoc enters the Adoption Phase of its New Media Life Cycle

by Drew Davis

Professional document-sharing site Docstoc has a very robust functionality that has driven it past Experimentation and into the Adoption Phase of its New Media Life Cycle. However, ridding the channel of spam and illegal content, in addition to attracting more valuable content, will be hurdles it needs to overcome to get to Gestation and beyond.

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Tumblr Meets its Match in Posterous

by Drew Davis

Blog site Posterous is drawing attention and traffic by offering a dead simple email and publish interface. No signup, no login. Any email will do. But can they build a quality channel?

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MySpace Struggles in Monetization

by Drew Davis

While its days as the #1 destination of young people may never return, MySpace can still prove to be an outstanding and valuable web channel. This may entail a refocus of efforts away from the personal branding elements that they pioneered and on to the higher-quality content areas of their site.

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Has Twitter Missed Their Monetization Boat?

by Drew Davis

While Twitter and Time Magazine hail Twitter as the next big thing in social media, I think that not only is this premature, it might be just plain wrong. There are already signs that attrition is on the rise at Twitter as users struggle to find value in the content.

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YouTube, Hulu, and a War the TV Networks Could Lose

by Drew Davis

To assume that Hulu has won as the channel of choice for online video distribution is very premature. Despite predictions of YouTube’s demise due to poor channel content growth and weak revenues, I am here to tell you that this is a long war that YouTube can win.

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Flickr.com in Maintain Phase of Life Cycle

by Drew Davis

Flickr’s traffic has been essentially flat for the past six months, with traffic hovering just under 30 million uniques daily. Just because Flickr has reached the “end” of our life cycle model doesn’t mean it’s done innovating. Any site needs to continually grow with the needs of its already enthusiastic userbase. Here again, Flickr is making excellent moves.

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Vimeo.com: Honda Insight The Medium is the Message

by Drew Davis

“Vimeo is a thriving community of people who love to make and share video.” Now reaching more than 4 million unique views a month, Vimeo continues to focus more on quality than on quantity. Vimeo also has a robust community channel, where users can create “projects” and users from anywhere can collaborate on production.

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If you’re not on Scribd, seriously, what are you waiting for?

by Drew Davis

Back in March, I reported that Scribd.com had just entered the monetization phase of its New Media Life Cycle. As the name indicates, this phase is marked by mainstream users looking to monetize their content. Well, it was heavily reported today that Scribd is now a Scribd Store with a very attractive monetization program for users.

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Perfect Time To Sell Skype: In the Gestation Phase

by Drew Davis

Today’s Oprah show will travel around the world using Skype’s video telecommunications technology. It’s a perfect opportunity to talk about why this is the best time to sell Skype. It’s no secret that eBay wants to sell Skype and their partnership with Oprah provides all the fuel for the right kind of sales strategy for a startup like Skype.

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Lifecasting: Can Ford Help Elevate Lifecasting?

by Drew Davis

Ford’s Fiesta Movement campaign demonstrates an excellent application of a comprehensive social media strategy involving multiple channels to market a product, but it’s the lifecasts that are really the standout in the campaign.

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Finding Value at Omegle.com?

by Drew Davis

Omegle’s premise is simple: Click “Start a chat” and you’re immediately connected with a completely random person. No logins. No terms & conditions. No warnings. Just sink or swim. The living embodiment of Mama Gump’s take on life: It’s a box of chocolates and you don’t know what you’re gonna get.

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Twitter and the ‘What Now Factor’

by Drew Davis

As Twitter nears the peak of escalation, I thought we should look to the past for an example of how a channel, like Twitter, starts losing its luster; its most powerful users and its mass appeal.

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Twitter is Done. Tumblr is Next.

by Drew Davis

In the past couple of weeks I’ve started to see evidence that Twitter might be entering its Trough of Disillusionment. The evidence you ask? A quick search on Google Trends for the phrase “Twitter Sucks” shows a HUGE spike starting … Continued

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The 12omercial: 12seconds Formalizes An Ad Platform

by Drew Davis

Anyone who’s met me in the last six months has heard about 12seconds.tv. I’ve also been writing about it recently, here and here. I was intrigued on Friday when I heard that 12seconds debuted a new functionality designed to push video ads to Twitter and elsewhere. After checking out the functionality and watching some of the ads, I’m slightly disappointed.

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If You’re Not on Scribd, You Should Be

by Drew Davis

Scribd.com made waves this week when they announced more formal relationships with traditional publishers – like Random House, Simon & Schuster, Workman Publishing Co., Berrett-Koehler, Thomas Nelson, and Manning Publications – to legally offer some of their content to Scribd’s … Continued

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12Seconds.tv In Gestation Phase

by Drew Davis

While 12seconds.tv is really intriguing and exciting for potential content marketers, it’s going to take some time to figure out exactly how to use it.

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