Custom YouTube logo and youtube.com/MapMySummer gadget

Google also put up a custom doodle for today, which indirectly drives through to the YouTube channel too:

Google doodle for Australia Day 2011

Is it weird that I get a buzz from having input into the creation of these programs that re-craft some of the most recognised brands in the world? Must be my inner marketing geek showing through…

This excitement is being driven internally by a surprisingly large and distributed number of Australians based all around the world. I was at the launch event at the Opera House on Wednesday morning, and every Google employee who spoke was Australian! It was quite an inspiring moment for an Australian in IT like myself looking to make an impact globally. Working on the project has already been an amazing experience, and things have only just begun.

I guess Symphony is already achieving its goal to be a globally inspiring program.

1. You are most vulnerable when you are most profitable
2. You need to create the start-up that undermines your most profitable products before someone else does
3. New markets need simple, cheap products which hit a critical new requirement

This book is great inspiration for those seeking to become entrepreneurs, it shows practical examples of where start-ups have seized on opportunities and completely blind-sided the highly profitable incumbent. That’s the dream right? It also serves as a great warning to those in big business who feel chasing the margins instead of innovation is the path to success. It certainly puts forward a compelling argument, one that even NASA seems to think has merit.

Perhaps margins should be the guide for businesses, but they should work on a goal of an average margin across all their products instead. That way they can maintain a balance of high profitability mature businesses with low profitability emerging businesses. Of course this would need to be combined with some “profit margins must never decrease on a product” rule. Doing this without cannibalising your own offerings (by differentiating based on high end vs low end customers) however is a very fine line to tread.

The other practical reflection I had reading this book was on the Engineering vs Sales argument. Which side is better equipped to run a successful business? I am still yet to work anywhere that balances these two sides perfectly, it always seems to fall one way or the other. My thoughts after reading this book were that an emerging organisation needs to be run by the engineers (focus on product success, not profits or impossible projections) and mature businesses by sales people (focus on profits, finding upmarket customers).

What did you get out of this book?

http://googlegrants.blogspot.com/2010/08/get-your-non-profit-started-with.html

I really hope that it helps more non-profits get onto YouTube. It really is a great platform that will deliver a level of transparency and engagement with your supporters, and in turn it offers you call to action overlays to convert those supporters into contributors.

Cadbury Australia RollPack

Mimicry involves producing a custom gadget within a brand channel (home page is no longer allowed) on YouTube that mimics the YouTube interface and functionality. This requires a really close working relationship with the YouTube policy team and your Tech Producer. Here are the best examples of mimicry on YouTube that I wanted to highlight:

• Wario Shake It Land 2008
• OceanKing97
• Cadbury Australia Roll Pack
• Inception
• The Expendables

The most successful mimicry examples use an initial deception to draw the user in, but then they reveal that deception in a captivating way before the user starts to feel betrayed that they cannot interact with the standard YouTube controls (at least within the first 10 seconds).

Google Adwords Qualified – Display Advertising

Proves that Google dogfoods its own qualifications.

I am posting my presentation here so that any other charities who didn’t attend can view it at any time. I am also posting a 1-sheeter handout that I gave to all attendees which summarises the simple steps to getting their non-profit onto YouTube. I hope they help!

• 1- Sheet summary of getting started with YouTube Non-Profits
• Full YouTube Non-Profits presentation deck

The Whole Product concept instantly resonated with me. The only thing worse than an engineer that thinks “I built it, now I just have to wait for them to come” is a sales person who thinks “we need a custom version for every customer who promises millions”. The central theme to the book is that getting a product to be successful is like organising a battle; from amassing a strong force to landing on the beach and finally taking the flag. At each stage there is a huge pit of despair that you can easily fall into. The key to it is where you spend your effort. Don’t focus too much on satisfying every product need, but just enough to appeal to a mass market. Don’t focus too much on a sophisticated marketing message, customers will get confused by and forget anything that is longer than two sentences.

One of the key learnings for me was that you shouldn’t pitch your product as a one of a kind, because nothing freaks a pragmatic buyer out more than having nothing to compare you with. How can you make a decision without a reasonable comparison? First you need to establish a market alternative (a familiar problem you are solving in an innovative new way) and secondly you establish a product alternative (a familiar solution that you have uniquely tailored to this application). By drawing a line between these two points of reference, you have created a new niche that customers will understand and appreciate.

The only aspects of this book I didn’t like were some technology references were a little outdated (even the revised edition is now 11 years old). I understand the historical examples where there was a conclusion, but some predictions are a little off (although probably good “what went wrong?” case studies). I also felt the book was a little repetitive in places, with the author jumping ahead and back again.

Overall however it was a great book and really thought provoking. It is a hard topic from my perspective because how do you teach minimalism, balance and keeping things simple? It is easy to go off on a tangent and over-invest in the area that has your short attention span as an entrepreneur. I guess not seeing the forest for the trees is a simple analogy? Anyway, I will no doubt use this book as a source of re-focusing when I do eventually realise my entrepreneurial dreams.

IPL brand channel on YouTube - youtube.com/IPL

I have been working on the IPL Live Streaming event that is currently running on YouTube. This has been a huge event for us, with 60 live matches being streamed over only 44 days. This alone is a huge project, however we are also uploading all replays (4+ hrs each) and numerous highlight clips every single day (wickets, fours, sixes, interviews, summary etc.).

The Twitter integration is going really well too, it is great to follow the commentary on the #youtube_IPL hashtag. Unfortunately Trendistic doesn’t support underscores in hashtags, but the general #IPL tag shows huge spikes and that is translating into the YouTube IPL channel becoming the most subscribed and viewed channel in India of all time (after only being live for a week). That’s pretty impressive.

 

From MarketingCharts.com

Online media is growing up. All the big media players (News, Fairfax etc.) are currently fighting it out with the new kids on the block, online pure plays (Google, Microsoft, Realestate.com.au etc.). The prize is the rapidly growing pool of online advertising revenue, predicted to pass the US$50 billion mark next year. Historically the provider with the most content has attracted the most consumers, in turn attracting the most customers. Eventually this network effect lead to breakaway market leaders establishing dominance and gradually raising the market barriers of entry. Holding all the content was a licence to print money.

Slowly general search tools like Google and Bing, as well as vertical specific search sites like Zillow, started gaining momentum. They established themselves as “middle men”, generating advertising while helping people more efficiently find the content they were looking for. They were not interested in hosting or contributing content, but rather focused on the delivery of that content. They realised that the front-end distribution is where the money is at, not at the back-end creating content. Google in particular understands this, and the publishers do not. The publishers hate that Google News provides a beautiful user interface to access their content easily and for free, yet despite their threats they do not block Google’s bots because they need a strong online delivery channel and half their traffic comes from search engines.

This style of reluctant symbiotic relationship also appears outside news content, it is extending further into real estate and videos to name just a few. Microsoft are attempting to flip the relationship by making Bing Video index Google’s YouTube content and Google Maps is indexing real estate content.

The big media content creators have recognised one thing at least, for the partnership to work each participant has to have a stake in it’s success (or failure). Licencing deals, share stakes and other structures are occurring left, right and centre as the various players align themselves. This “sorting out” period has amusing side effects, like media companies being on both sides of the legal fence. Eventually the flurry of deals will subside and the media companies will realise that YouTube is no different to their old printing press and delivery operation, it is a necessary distribution channel that takes a commission. If your printing press operator decided to make your boring black and white rag and turn it into a glossy high end publication that successfully retailed at twice the price (despite having the same content) then good luck to them, in the end you benefit from a more valuable distribution channel.

For now we are faced with more sabre rattling by the media companies, constant partnership renegotiation’s and declining print revenues. As with any market forces, the digital media market will eventually reach an unsteady equilibrium. Some sort of duopoly with Google/Microsoft as the distribution channels, and the old media companies aligned behind them as the content creators. It is unlikely that the print rivers of gold will be seen in one place again, but sharing these rivers over a wider and more competitive landscape will benefit consumers. Sooner or later content producers will realise that revenue is a balance between consumption price and volume, withholding content only encourages piracy and other forces that undermine their progress to a fair and efficient new distribution channel.