Punked

Balloon boy, all a big hoax, it seems…

The Original Couchable Media

A new study is out, from the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence, and it dispels some of what we think we know about new media:

…younger baby boomers (age 45-54) consume the most video media while confirming that traditional “live” television remains the proverbial “800-pound gorilla” in the video media arena.

In addition to the revelation that consumers in the 45-54 age group average the most daily screen time (just over 9 1/2 hours), the VCM study found the average for all other age groups to be “strikingly similar” at roughly 8 1/2 hours — although the composition and duration of devices used by the respective groups throughout the day varied.

The research also found that:

- Contrary to some recent popular media coverage suggesting that more Americans are rediscovering “free TV” via the Internet, computer video tends to be quite small with an average time of just two minutes (a little more than 0.5 percent) a day.

- Despite the proliferation of computers, video-capable mobile phones and similar devices, TV in the home still commands the greatest amount of viewing, even among those ages 18-24. Thus, in the eyes of the researchers, this appears to dispute a common belief that Internet video and mobile phone video exposure among that group (and the next one up, age 25-34) were significant in 2008.

For those of us steeped in the virtual world of the web, it’s easy to forget just how important television is to our culture. But that said, I think studies like this miss an important point about what “television” actually means today.

I’ve been writing a lot about Boxee, and in my last post called it “couchable media,” and this study only makes me like that term even more. It’s true that users/audiences want is media that is easily consumable, that they can enjoy while kicking back on the couch. On one hand, there is an element of escapism; on the other, I think there is a very social element at work. Far from the bowling alone metaphor, television is quite a social thing. It’s true that we view television programming from within our homes, but it’s not always that we’re sitting alone. We often watch together, and we then talk about what we watch with other people.

And increasingly, new media, such as blogs and Twitter, allow us to liveblog and livetweet, making the experience of television even more overtly social. And sites such as YouTube allow us to share what we’re watching on television with others, in smaller, bite-sized chunks. Today, couchable media doesn’t have to mean bowling alone. When I watch BSG with Boxee, my friends there get alerted to the fact that I like that show. And with my iPhone handy, I’m hardly ever watching TV without twittering what I’m watching.

Framing these types of studies, then, in terms of “800-pound gorillas” is really the wrong approach — media is never used in isolation. The world is increasingly participatory, and net-based media such as blogs and twitter don’t replace other media, but simply add to them.

Hulu and Boxee Split

In a previous post, I discussed Boxee, a terrific new home media app. Today, Boxee announced that they would no longer provide access to content from Hulu, per Hulu’s request:

two weeks ago Hulu called and told us their content partners were asking them to remove Hulu from boxee. we tried (many times) to plead the case for keeping Hulu on boxee, but on Friday of this week, in good faith, we will be removing it. you can see their blog post about the issues they are facing.

Hulu has more:

Later this week, Hulu’s content will no longer be available through Boxee. While we never had a formal relationship with Boxee, we are under no illusions about the likely Boxee user response from this move. This has weighed heavily on the Hulu team, and we know it will weigh even more so on Boxee users.

Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes. While we stubbornly believe in this brave new world of media convergence — bumps and all — we are also steadfast in our belief that the best way to achieve our ambitious, never-ending mission of making media easier for users is to work hand in hand with content owners. Without their content, none of what Hulu does would be possible, including providing you content via Hulu.com and our many distribution partner websites.

I don’t see any reason for this, other than Hulu’s content providers — television networks like NBC and Fox — don’t at all get what new media is all about. I think these groups see Boxee as a replacement for “television,” something that allows people to drop their cable companies and grab content off the web.

Of course, Boxee is that. Exactly that.

But that’s an argument for television networks to remove their content from the web, and not from one particular front-end that provides access. Why is a browser OK, but Boxee not OK?

Doesn’t make sense, other than the people making these decisions just don’t get it.

BSG: Compelling, But Conventional

If you’ve never seen Battlestar Gallactica, or LOST, and you someday plan to, well, then you might want to stop reading this now.

Actually, they’re both very good — go watch, and come back.

I’ll wait.

Kidding…

It’s Not ‘Screens,’ But ‘Convergence’

Over at Caught in the Web, Sam has a good rebuttal to the very problematic article in this weekend’s New York Times, “Why Television Still Shines in a World of Screens.”

As Sam points out, Randall Stross not only misses the notion of “immersion,” and its history within the field of media studies, but also views his notion of “screens” through an advertising-filled lens.

I would humbly add one more point to Sam’s post. Stross actually says it, but clearly misses the significance of what’s he’s writing here:

We are so smitten with screens that we often can’t bear to choose one over another: 31 percent of Internet use occurs while we’re in front of a TV set. We are also taking an interest in watching video on our phones: 100 million handsets are video-capable.

What he’s dancing around here is the main thesis in Henry Jenkins’s text, “Convergence Culture.” In it, Jenkins argues media today is never read or even created in isolation, that the various media platforms we see and use every day (Stross calls this our “three screens”) are actually all part of a larger media eco-system. And, significantly, on the production side, media producers are learning not only how to engage audiences in new ways, but also that this kind of engagement is crucial to success.

For me, the best example of “convergence” in the Jenkins sense of the term is the ABC series LOST, which I’ve written about before. The writers actually pay attention to their fans (the killing off of two minor characters a couple seasons ago was done completely for the fans, who really, REALLY did not like them), and things like spoilers, which swirl around the show on the net, aren’t so much about finding out the plot points, but are ways to think through and search for answers. “Spoiling” is more about empowerment and agency, and this kind of audience activity would not be possible with television alone; rather, it’s the convergence of television, and wikis, and blogs, and other forums that create the kind of “immersive” experience that television holds.

Two other points to make. One, this idea of “screens” conflates the qualitative differences found in experiencing media on different platforms. In a previous post, I wrote about just how less “immersive” LOST was watching on ABC’s web site, versus watching it on my TV (and flipping through the commercials), and those experiences are less “immersive” than watching LOST on DVD, without commercials at all. (I keep putting “immersive” in quotes based on Sam’s pointing out the misuse of that term.) I question the merits of conflating the media experience of watching television on a 42″ HD wide-screen from your living room and the media experience of watching Hulu on your office computer into a general thesis about “screens.” (That said, Boxee, and applications like it that will be developed, are helping to merge those platforms into a single, user-friendly experience.)

The second point, which I’ve perhaps already stated indirectly, is that not only is “text” not going away (a point Stross makes), but “text,” in the form of blogs and Internet forums, is actually both on the rise, and *critical* to the success television is having today. Technorari’s State of the Blogosphere 2008 has the numbers:

Blogging is…

* A truly global phenomenon: Technorati tracked blogs in 81 languages in June 2008, and bloggers responded to our survey from 66 countries across six continents.

* Here to stay: Bloggers have been at it an average of three years and are collectively creating close to one million posts every day. Blogs have representation in top-10 web site lists across all key categories, and have become integral to the media ecosystem.

According to Technorati, 900,000 blog posts are written every day. Now, obviously some of them contain video, but the point is, that the blogosphere is vibrant, and it’s not only (and simply) video sites like YouTube that are engaging people online.

To state this all directly: To minimize the complexities of the various forms of media and audience/user engagement today in terms of “screens” and “video” and “text,” and looking at audience numbers for each of these, is missing out on the larger, more important dynamics of participatory media, and completely missing the agency granted to the reception side of the communication model.

Stross, quite frankly, reveals himself to be an old media — and an old media thinking — kind of guy, even if he is talking about new things like YouTube and the web.

LOST

Discuss.

(Spoilers inside, of course.)

Viewsing LOST

A couple of weeks ago, on a Thursday night, I came home and put on the DVR, expecting to watch LOST. To my dismay, the recorder, for whatever reason (damn computers…), decided not to record it that night. So I thought I would try watching the free, streaming version off ABC’s web site the following night.

Not fun.

Before my complaining, though, it’s worth discussing a bit about how we use media. Television is one-way — we sit back on the couch, and we soak it in. The Internet is interactive — we proactively click on things to make other things happen. Dan Harries, in an essay titled “Watching the Internet” from his 2002 The New Media Book, summarizes these two somewhat opposing media practices, and calls for something new:

…one of the central modes encouraged by the internet is that of ‘viewing’, literally the online viewing of movies in a manner that loosely emulates the viewing of films in the cinema…A second mode is that of ‘using’ new media with users following more ‘computer oriented’ activities, such as exploring hyperlinked Web pages or playing online games…Yet what happens when both of these modes are integrated in a manner where the using affects the viewing, and vice versa?…I call this third emerging mode of spectatorship ‘viewsing’ — the experiencing of media in a manner that effectively integrates the activities of both viewing and using…

Viewsing is something like what MIT’s Henry Jenkins calls “convergence.” It’s the new form of participatory media we see emerging all over.

Now, getting back to LOST. The series certainly has strong viewsing elements to it — the fans are completely engaged, and the producers are not only aware of this, but use their fans’ feedback, incorporating it into the narrative. (Season Three’s “Expose” episode, for example, where Nikki and Paolo were killed off, was largely a gift to the fans, who never warmed up to those characters.)

But the experience of watching LOST online was terrible, because it incorporated the worst elements of “using” and “viewing” the web. The HD-quality stream looks great, and, connected to the home theater system, provides a terrific “viewing” experience. We dimmed the lights, sat back on the couch, and soaked it in. Until…

The commercials. Which are fine; we’re all used to that (although watching LOST on a DVR allows you to roll past them). But you’re not just required to watch the commercials — you physically have to click on the “continue” link on the web page to see the rest of the show. And this happens several (five or six?) times throughout the episode.

So much for sitting back on the couch and watching in HD.

Obviously, the producers assume most people watching are doing so at a desk, or on a laptop. But with Apple TV, and other web/video delivery mechanisms that continue to push media onto our 36″+ HD screens, watching the Internet becomes an increasingly passive experience — more “viewing” than “using.”

Until media producers figure that out, I’m hoping my DVR doesn’t forget to record LOST anymore…

My Second, Second Life

Last night on The Office, Second Life made an appearance:

Jim: You playing that game again?

Dwight: Second Life is not a game. It is a multi-user, virtual environment. It doesn’t have points, or scores. It doesn’t have winners or losers.

Jim: Oh, it has losers.

Good stuff. Dwight goes on to explain why he started using SL:

Dwight (direct to camera): I signed up for Second Life about a year ago. Back then, my life was so great, that I literally wanted a second one. In my second life, I was also a paper salesman, and I was also named Dwight. Absolutely everything was the same. Except I could fly.

For those keeping score, this is the second time Second Life has been prominently featured in a television show, in about as many weeks.

Does this mean Second Life has jumped the shark?

The Best Six Seconds On TV

Brilliant:

For much of the last two weeks, on television-related Web sites, blogs and message boards, fans of “30 Rock,” the critically acclaimed but ratings-challenged NBC comedy, have been replaying and kvelling over “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah.” That six-second sketch imagines a 1980s novelty song and music video recorded by Tracy Jordan, the resident nut job on the show within a show on “30 Rock.”

C’mon — werewolf bar mitzvahs? That’s gold. Comedy gold.

30 Rock continues to be, hands down, the smartest writing on television today.