Video streaming research

Many publishers, societies and institutions are in the process of exploring ways to incorporate video into their websites and publishing platforms, whether as new product lines, for teaching, or to offer more value to existing products and services. Some may be unsure about how to go about developing a video strategy whilst others have a clear idea of what they need and are in the process of implementing video content. 

This is an area which Simon Inger Consulting are increasingly asked about and thought it would be useful to survey the current state and thinking about streaming video.  With the support of GVPi (a digital publishing solutions company) they would like to find out from publishers, scholarly societies, professional associations and higher education institutions where they are in their video development plans, what they see as the main challenges and barriers to delivering video content online, and what opportunities they think streaming video offers.  

They would like to invite you to take a very short survey (less than 5 minutes). The results of the research will be shared with the community.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/K8XHNK8

Take control of your digital future (part 2)

In the final of a two part guest post (read part 1 here), Jan Zuchowski, a Digital Performance Specialist who has worked with commercial and not-for-profit organizations to improve and develop their strategy, provides practical steps for taking control of your digital future.

"Digital innovation is simply the process of pulling together the ideas and tools to create something new. For many publishers this can be a challenging prospect because their organisational culture (that has often been built up over many years) inhibits thinking that challenges conventional beliefs.

Image: Roman Okopny

Yet innovation cannot happen without stepping out of the well-worn grooves that have served the industry well in the past. It takes courage; it takes vision; and it takes a passion for what might be, for the unexplored, for what yet isn't but could be.

The biggest barrier is, of course, the fear of getting it wrong and making expensive mistakes. Happily, the real threat is not nearly as big as is often imagined because other sectors are facing the same challenges as publishers, and are tackling them in different ways, and so there are opportunities to learn. We can see what works in other contexts and then can explore how to push the boundaries and develop new technical insights in our own field.

Senior executives at Google, Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg define technical insight as “a new way of applying technology or design that either drives down the cost or increases the functions and usability of the product by a significant factor. The result is something that is better than the competition in a fundamental way. The improvement is obvious; it doesn't take a lot of marketing for customers to figure out that this product is different from everything else.” (How Google Works, John Murray, 2014).

Here, then, are four questions you may like to discuss within your organisation to set the ball rolling.

1. What more do we need to understand about how the market place is evolving in order to take our concepts of product to the next level?
2. What are the ‘adjacent’ needs of our market - related needs that are not met by our current activities?
3. How could we start making connections between our consumers’ adjacent needs, the new ways of thinking in other sectors, and our current resources?
4. Who could we pull in to help us with our innovative thinking?

Image: Ags Andrew

And after you have taken time to explore these ideas, take action! Ask yourselves - What is the single highest impact next step we could take to accelerate our progress in digital innovation?

We live in incredibly exciting times. Engaging ideas are appearing, sometimes from the most unexpected quarters. New companies are springing up with disruptive ideas and making rapid and significant inroads into the market place.  Unexpected models for partnerships and collaborations are evolving to develop innovative product experiences for the customer. As singer, Bono says, “This is our moment. This is our time.” It’s time to capitalise on the new possibilities open to us!"

Jan is the facilitator for the Digital Strategy Think Tank, an ALPSP workshop produced in collaboration with Librios to be held in London on Tuesday 2 December 2014. Book your place now.

ALPSP Conference Day 2: Apportunity Knocks - advice from Semantico's Rob Virkar-Yates

Rob Virkar-Yates shares Semantico wisdom

Rob Virkar-Yates provided advice on mobile digital strategy from an industry supplier perspective for delegates at last week's ALPSP conference.

He questioned whether apps are the VHS or Betamax to the academic world and asked whether apps represent an opportunity for the scholarly market and can you make any money out of them? He presented Semantico statistics to illustrate some of the issues to consider:

• 68% of 15-24 year olds (UK) use the internet on mobile phones
• 11% of UK households have a tablet
• Younger audience are heavy users of mobile
• Only 5% of sessions served in 12 month period for some big publishers has been from mobile site
• 50% of people have downloaded an application and actually used it.

The type of apps that tend to be most successful are those that deliver micro-experiences. These are experiences that do not overwhelm or perplex the customer, are relevant, small and beautifully formed. He cited good micro-experiences as: Tools of Change app, his bank's fast balance app and Spotify (amongst others) as they are focused, they do one thing, but they do it well. With the arrival of the iPad comes the macro-experience: that adds significant value and richness and provides experiences that go beyond the text. Good macro-experiences included: The Wasteland app.

He went on to define the recipe for a good micro-experience as:

1. take on sharpened proposition - do one thing really well, fight one battle
2. reduce content aggressivly - content should be be ‘glanceable’
3. think small - architect from the ground up
4. push back - resist pressure to add more
5. be agile - not software, move fast, iterate.

Consider content that is location specific or for quick reference. Think about discovery and bookmarking, cost and value. Understand your options and don't forget the cost of reach through an app or via a mobile website. If you already have a mobile site what can you do? Make an ‘app’ with a responsive design solution: a web app! This can serve a single source of content and be laid out so as to be easy to read and navigate with a minimum of resizing, panning and scrolling, on any device. When you get it right, you get a really nice, simple app site which is like a micro-experience app. While this can be seen as a defensive move, the pros are that it is low risk and high reach, has comprehensive browser support, is future proof and has a single code base. The cons: it's not a specific content set, it front loads process, is network dependent and isn't an ‘app’!

Is there an opportunity? Probably. But micro- or macro-experiences will depend on the nature of your content. Can you make money? The low cost and potential reach of web apps might be the best option for the majority.