THE GUARDIAN MEDIA PAGES, 1999-2001
SAMPLES OF MEDIA FEATURES, THE GUARDIAN, 1999-2001
GUARDIAN - 06/11/2000,
Amy Vickers Media: New Media:
Bowling along: Fancy talking to the stars? You can if you sign up to Lis Howell's website. She tells Amy Vickers about a Pounds 500,000 gamble on the over-35s market
Ask Lis Howell, a woman who has devoted her life to television, why she made the leap into the uncharted waters of the internet at the age of almost 50, and you'll get a decisive answer that could warm the cockles of many a disenchanted old TV exec's heart. "It's good for the soul," she says.
She's not sure her family would agree, however. She has worked flat out, spending weekends in the office, to get the website, bowlofcherries.com, up and running on time. The website, a community-focused magazine site for over-35s with something of a celebrity edge, made its debut, as planned, last Tuesday.The five partners in the company - Ola Steinsrud, David Hurst, Jane McCormick, Alyson Pearce and Howell herself - each stumped up cash to get the venture off the ground, and a private investor, a friend Howell declines to name, managed to ramp up the total launch fund to Pounds 500,000.
Howell is chief executive; Hurst, previously publishing director of Financial Times Business, is managing director. McCormick, who has worked as a journalist for the Sun, the Sunday Mirror, the Sunday Express, GMTV and Reuters, is editor-in-chief. Pearce, who has experience in showbusiness, the media and the hospitality industry, is events director. Steinsrud, the founder of TVNorge, Norway's first commercial TV station, will be new media consultant.
Given the option of being backed by Howell's former company Flextech, where she was senior vice-president of Flextech Channels, the five partners didn't think what was on the table was worthwhile, even though it would have had PR value and involved support marketing. They also decided to avoid the complex venture capital route. Instead, with gritty determination, they opted to go it alone.
Will it work? Not even Howell seems 100% certain. She says that the project is safe until Christmas, by which time it needs to have established a good revenue model.
Howell may have a strong record in TV but, as everyone has learned from the past year, the internet is a whole different ball game, and top teams don't necessarily equal auto matic success. However, if energy and enthusiasm could guarantee success in the cut-throat world of the internet, bowlofcherries would be an instant success story.
But who's to say it won't be a success? With a strong, experienced management team behind it, a good well-researched niche market to target and no malevolent venture capitalist on its back, it perhaps stands a better chance than many. It has already got off to a springing start, with, according to Howell, almost 100 pre-launch subscriptions taken out. At Pounds 100 a pop for a year's members' benefits, that's a nice Pounds 10,000 in the bank after its first week.
"The site has hit a nerve already and we're starting off with no debt because we've covered all the start-up costs with our own money. We've done our research and we know there is a market out there for us," says Howell, reeling off some research bowlofcherries commissioned from BMRB in the summer. More than 10.5m people over 35 now use the internet for pleasure; 7% said they would pay a subscription if they thought it gave them something; they constitute the fastest growing sector of the internet; and they know what they want - mainly relevant information and good conversation. To this end, bowlofcherries aims to provide users with information about everything from decorating and gardening to cooking and travel, top-and-tailed with a bit of celebrity opinion.
The company is entering a market that has yet to be tapped. While the number of websites for people over 45 or under 25 has spiralled, no one has yet developed a website targeted at both sexes over 35.
Other revenues from advertising and e-commerce will kick in later, but the subscription-based model should give bowlofcherries a good foundation on which to build. Additionally, the site has signed e- commerce and content deals with Tesco, the RAC and Crabtree & Evelyn, the upmarket gift shop.
For their Pounds 100, bowlofcherries club members will get a free gift from Crabtree & Evelyn and an organised social calendar, including wine tastings, tennis tournaments and weekly cocktail parties where club members can meet the 50 personalities who write for the site. Members also have access to experts (such as a personal celebrity shopper) and get discounts on some goods.
Club members will even be encouraged to strike up personal email conversations with the stars - a list that includes Toyah Wilcox, Michael Cole, Fern Britton, Edwina Currie and Jilly Johnson - who will be writing for the website.
The rest of the website and all the content are free, but Howell says that the celebrity involvement and the weekly parties are its unique selling point. "It's not about glamour, it's about conversations," she says.
Howell says she's having the time of her life and now sees the TV industry as stale and unwilling to change with the times. She's glad she made the move and likes the new-found sense of control over the whole project - a far cry from the enveloping bureaucracy at her former employers, Flextech, GMTV and BSkyB.
More than anything, and not just because she and her partners have money riding on the success of bowlofcherries.com, she is determined that this new venture is one of the few dot.com start-ups that survive. Could she be trying to prove a point to her former colleagues?
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GUARDIAN - 28/08/2000,
Amy Vickers Media Guardian: New Media:
Celebrity shares: In theory it's simple. The big name endorses your internet business in return for a stake - and everyone makes loads of money. In practice, it's a bit trickier, says Amy Vickers
Times are certainly changing. Was it really only a few years back that the internet was primarily the domain of low-end tech-savvy users and the only celebrity endorsements we were privy to were the likes of Nanette Newman touting Fairy liquid? Nowadays, it seems that wherever you look on the web you can't avoid stumbling across famous names endorsing a new website or throwing their weight behind their own new internet venture.
The reasons are obvious: most celebrities hanker after any kind of media promotion and if getting involved in an internet venture also manages to give them additional kudos, then that has to be a good thing. The glut of coverage at the start of this year about the fame and fortune that the internet brings only served to encourage the feelings of dot.com envy, and even though this has been replaced recently by feelings of dot.com disenchantment, the internet is still seen as a future-proof investment strategy.The latest entrant into this territory is Clive James, antipodean journalist-cum-TV presenter. James is not ready to shy away from what, in his words, represents his next big challenge. At a press lunch in London two weeks ago, James touted the wares of Welcome Stranger, an internet start-up aimed at people who travel.
Having managed to pull off a fine performance selling his involvement in Welcomestranger.com at the lunch, James then set about telling us that the company needed Pounds 500,000 to move the business on to the next stage. Nothing like pulling a fast one by looking for coverage before the funding is settled, he admitted, upsetting some of the more cynical journalists present.
James's involvement with Welcome Stranger, a planned network of sites for travellers in different cities and countries, may be as little more than a figurehead non-exec chairman. But it is a canny move on behalf of the company's founder, Simon Larcey, who is banking on James' name to generate both media and investor interest. In return, James gets a share in the company and the chance to promote his books and himself through the network of sites. Larcey's plan seems to be working. Immediately after announcing James's appointment, several investors got in touch and he is currently pursuing talks with them.
"It's great working with someone like Clive," he says, "because it automatically gives Welcome Stranger a profile. However, we still have to prove that we have an attractive business model to potential investors to raise the funding and that's my job."
For the past year, Larcey has painstakingly been building the infrastructure for his websites, convincing IT and advertising friends to work for him in exchange for equity stakes. He projects that the business will be in the black within three years via a combination of advertising revenue (beer, job and airline advertisers are proving particularly enthusiastic) and e-commerce revenues.
In convincing James to get involved, Larcey has inadvertedly catapulted him into an area increasingly over-populated with famous names: Joanna Lumley (ClickMango. com), Hugh Scully (QXL), Boris Becker (Sportgate), Bob Geldof (Deckchair.com and WapWorld), Jonathan Ross (toyzone.co.uk) and Alex Ferguson (Toptable.co.uk) have also taken stakes in ventures in return for providing publicity.
Narda Shirley, managing director of Gnash, a new media PR and marketing consultancy that handles PR work for ClickMango, says: "Celebrity endorsement can be the best or the worst thing to happen to a website depending on your personal perspective. How many 30-plus cyber-savvy new mums can relate to Melinda Messenger? But there's no doubt that the right celebrity involvement conveys credibility to consumers and helps a company stand out from its competition. What's interesting is how some companies have gone beyond pure personal appearances and endorsements to make the celebrity an integral part of the user experience."
For a reputed 2% share of the company, Lumley was not just its figurehead but also worked tirelessly on "road-testing" new health and beauty products. Her efforts were then converted into a weekly newsletter called "Joanna tries out . . ."
Unfortunately for Joanna, being a figurehead for a start-up meant that once cracks began to show, she had to take some of the blame. Most media outlets had a field day, waxing lyrically about how Lumley was dropping out of the net, and how even someone as high-profile and well-liked as her could not sell products. At the time of announcing its impending closure, ClickMango had a reported turnover of just Pounds 2,000 a week.
Perhaps the overriding image of Lumley as a chain-smoking, alcohol- and drug-abusing wreck in Absolutely Fabulous was too much for people to bear. Or perhaps it was just down to market conditions.
But while the company is still holding out for a last-minute reprieve, it is reassuring to know that Lumley is not deserting the sinking ship. She is said to be doing wonders for staff morale over at ClickMango, but not even someone as famous as Lumley can convince investors to stand by an ailing start-up.
Hugh Scully's involvement in QXL is as a little more than a figurehead: he runs the World of Antiques section of the site, which plugs into 22 antiques experts. The site (www.antiques.qxl.com), launched at the start of April, offers QXL members the chance to get their valuables valued at Pounds 12 a time.
Scully was paid Pounds 3m in shares when he signed the deal in October last year, although the bulk could be sold only once the site was launched - and by then QXL's share price had plummeted to less than half its October value. The idea behind Scully's involvement was twofold: to give QXL more credibility in the auctions world and to attract a different, older audience to the website. Whether this will work remains to be seen.
James's involvement in Welcome Stranger is slightly less promotional and more at board level, getting involved in quests for funding, attending strategy meetings and piggy-backing its traffic to promote his books.
The company, which has already launched aussieinlondon.com, is looking to expand its operations to include kiwiinlondon.com and bokinlondon.com, similar sites for New Zealanders and South Africans - and to offer generic features such as job and accommodation ads and advice on travel and visas.
Admitting to taking a stake of less than 10%, James says one of the main attractions was the way in which the web allows him to reach the public directly "without having to fight with the TV networks".
Part of the reason dot.com start-ups have been quick to sign up celebrities is that they want to stand out from the crowd. The more crowded the sector you operate in, the more important a well-defined brand becomes, and although Welcome Stranger has an unusual business model, the publicity a famous name gives a new venture is not to be sniffed at.
But choosing a celebrity is always a gamble - in the worst-case scenario, your figurehead could do irreparable damage to the brand. "Celebrities can beef up your brand appeal enormously but the challenge is to find one whose public persona and attributes are really firmly entrenched," warns Narda Shirley. With more and more famous names using new media as a promotional vehicle, it's surely just a matter of time before a celebrity's antics kill a dot.com business.
James accepts that getting involved in a new media venture is a bit of a gamble, especially in the current climate and having seen Lumley become the scapegoat for the problems over at ClickMango. But, having learnt from his experience in the cutthroat world of TV production, he reckons this one will work: "Celebrities are staking their prestige on these internet ventures. It's too late to play dumb. I wouldn't be in this if I didn't think it would work."
On your head be it then, Mr James.
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GUARDIAN - 07/05/2001,
Amy Vickers New media:
Pulling the porn: Dot.coms may be collapsing but there's still one sure-fire winner on the internet - sex. So why are companies opting out of 'adult products'? Amy Vickers reports
It is not easy to make money from the internet. It's even more difficult for an internet business to make a profit - unless, that is, you are in the porn business. The news last week that unseated dot.com employees were falling over themselves to get jobs in the porn industry was more than just a sign of the times. Disillusioned dot.commers, hacked off with constantly being bounced around from one failed outfit to the next, reasoned that the only fail-safe solution was pornography.
It wasn't such a big surprise. Porn is one of the few profitable industries on the internet, and "sex" has long been the most popular online search term, closely followed by "porn", "nude", "XXX", "Playboy" and "erotic stories".While the rest of the net is reeling from crumbling ad revenues, the sex industry has not even taken a hit because its main revenue stream is subscriptions, not advertising. It's that old adage again: Sex always sells. No amount of economic downturn will affect this phenomenally successful industry that is becoming increasingly acceptable, especially among young professionals.
Yet companies such as Yahoo! are opting out of the porn industry. Given the demand, the big business and the job security,this seems like a mad decision. Why?
It all boils down to a public outcry, and a feeling that one of the biggest and arguably one of the most influential internet companies in the world shouldn't be dealing in the business of porn.
Despite the fact that Yahoo! has sold X-rated products for more than two years, when the Los Angeles Times ran a piece suggesting it was expanding its collection a month ago, a huge debate ensued. A few days later, Yahoo! backed down and said it would cease selling adult products, stop accepting banner ads from porn sites, cut out classifieds and auction adult-type items, and pledged it would clamp down on sex-related message boards and clubs. The misconception, however, is that it will outlaw porn on its site, which it insists is not the case. A search still throws up 671 sites for "porn" and if Yahoo! users want to buy porn videos, they are redirected to an external site.
To make the changes Yahoo! is currently introducing what has been described as "pretty extensive filtering software" but teething problems are expected. The reduction of porn on Yahoo.com won't spell the death of Yahoo!, but it could derail its profit projections.
Despite the new porn exclusion software, though, the company is still making its mind up. Last week, faced with a barrage of criticism from web users, it came back and said no decisions had been taken on whether the changes to its adult porn section would be permanent. "It's the internet, so lots of things are possible," said Yahoo! spokesman Jackson Holtz, insisting it was just a re-evaluation of adult content across the network.
Clearly, Yahoo! is playing it by ear. It doesn't want to alienate users or conservative forces, nor does it want to rule out forever a guaranteed moneyspinner. Yahoo! has been put in a glaringly uncomfortable spotlight. It has now publicly back-peddled on a plan to expand its adult materials and caused a flap among other big internet portals, concerned about public approval.
Terra Lycos, which operates a number of Lycos portals around the world, has now chipped in and announced it is re-evaluating its own porn policy, while MSN has reaffirmed that it has a strict policy on porn.
Of all the bigger players in the portal market, AltaVista is one of the few that seems to offer no-holds-barred access to pornographic material. A quick search using the term "porn" brings up an array of hardcore images, video clips and links to sites that are advertised using very explicit language.
MSN has already gone the whole hog and removed any evidence of adult-related merchandise. It moderates chatrooms and has a tough policy on links to porn. In fact, after entering the term "porn" in the search engine, the user is immediately warned: "You have entered a search term that is likely to return adult content." There are no adult videos to be found on the site, but if users want that kind of material, they are sent out of MSN confines into the unrestrained web where technically they are no longer the responsibility of MSN.
Therein lies the great irony. A significant proportion of web users want access to porn and to this end will locate porn and buy it, with or without the help of Yahoo!. Censorship of this kind doesn't work. If Yahoo!, the second biggest website in the world, doesn't take a piece of this action, it will lose out. Pundits and users alike believe Yahoo! has got itself into unnecessarily uncomfortable territory because of its willingness to purge itself of adult materials, instead of forcing families to install filter software on their computers.
Yahoo! members spoke out last week, saying they felt betrayed and were planning to petition the portal after it quietly reconfigured its adult-themed clubs, message boards and chatrooms. Yahoo! has now made these areas much more difficult to find and even disabled some search links so that in order to find a club, users have to know the correct internet address and type it in directly. List members argue angrily that this tactic will ultimately lead to them disappearing altogether.
Ken Bradman, a 23-year-old web developer in Phoenix, has spoken out on the issue and is organising a protest club. "If they completely eliminate adult material from the site, they're going to lose a lot of members who are interested in that. I can guarantee you it's going to be a huge chunk of Yahoo!'s user base," he proclaimed last week.
Already some club members have reposted links to their clubs in different sections of the site to show they won't be silenced.
Yahoo! refuses to comment further on the porn issue, but the UK office is happy to point out its tight policy. "We have a different position to the US. We've already taken steps to reduce adult content on the site [last year] and we've tightened up chatroom controls," says a spokesman.
The UK office of MSN says much the same: "MSN.co.uk has a zero tolerance policy toward retailers on the shopping channel distributing pornographic material from its site. Since 'top shelf pornography' is not illegal for consenting adults over the age of 18 material of this nature is categorised in communities as 'adult' on the MSN site. Users searching under adult terms on MSN Search will be asked to confirm that they are wanting to access adult material and if they answer positively will be diverted on to a separate site - Nightsurf."
The issue has become much more than the removal of pornographic videos, the blocking of under 18s, and links to child porn sites; it has opened up a whole can of worms about freedom of speech on the internet. For a harassed Yahoo! though, it is damned whatever it does. This one could run and run.
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GUARDIAN - 18/06/2001,
Amy Vickers Media: New Media:
Chips with everything: Internet users want entertainment and websites want to make money. Big online casinos are the perfect solution. As Aspinalls launches its own version today, Amy Vickers considers how the sector is finally becoming reputable
In a world full of uncertainties, there are just two sure things left on the internet these days - sex and gambling. Sex has been done to death with recent stories of out of work dot.commers turning to porn websites to bring home the bacon, and Yahoo's big porn dilemma. But gambling, in particular the entertainment side of gambling - casinos - is just starting to emerge as a mainstream internet pastime. It has been held back, however, by the struggle for respectability.
Casino behemoth Aspinalls, which launches Aspinalls.com today, has put all its chips on its family name making it stand head and shoulders above the thousands of cowboy casino websites out there.Its emphasis is on trust, says Russell Foreman, chief executive of Aspinalls Online. "It's all about making people feel comfortable. There's no way we'd do anything to jeopardise our reputation," he explains. The fact that Aspinalls.com is also the first publicly traded online gambling organisation in the UK, and thus has City shareholders to answer to, means that it is not going to do anything that might turn the public against it.
Foreman expects rapid growth for the business and says it's the perfect time to launch a big online casino, because internet consumers want entertainment, and websites want to start making money. With the web evolving to become an entertainment medium, the challenging gaming factor of casinos is guaranteed to pull in punters - even if they haven't got the nerve to play for money.
The games on offer are carbon copies of those found in ordinary casinos, such as blackjack, poker, roulette and craps. Croupiers are replaced by clever software that generates the numbers randomly. The more accountable online casinos make a big effort to ensure that these systems are subject to stringent control systems. Aspinalls.com, for instance, is to be audited regularly by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
Many casinos ask players to download software onto their computers for faster and better play and set up accounts with credit cards, although most allow punters to play for free first to get the hang of the games.
But with so many casinos on the web, it's difficult to determine which ones are honest and which are out to rip off consumers. Gaming bodies suggest punters stick with well-known names, such as Ladbrokes (ladbrokescasino.com) and Victor Chandler (thespinroom.com), rather than the lesser known ones that don't offer guarantees of audits.
Now that more and more transparent casinos are launching online, it is forecast that this market segment will represent a major area of growth, particularly when the inevitable happens and they are granted UK licences.
New research bears this out. Peter Tyson, an analyst at Datamonitor, expects online casinos to grow at a much faster pace than any other subset of the online gambling market. "We're projecting a 40% growth rate for online casinos over the next five years, compared to just 20% for online sports betting," says Tyson.
Datamonitor says the UK online casino market accounts for around 40%, or almost Pounds 300m, of the online gambling market. By 2004, this is expected to have grown to 50% of the market, or Pounds 760m.
So it is no wonder that suddenly a whole batch of online casinos is cropping up. No sooner had Aspinalls starting publicising Aspinalls.com than MSN sent out a press release about its very own casino, provided by Harrods. The combination of Bill Gates and Mohamed Al Fayed cosying up together may be too much for most people to stomach, but nonetheless it's another key deal that will do wonders for the widespread acceptance of online casinos.
MSN, the world's most popular portal, is hoping to ease some of its revenue problems by offering a link to the Harrods Casino. It will pick up 10% of all gambling revenues referred to Harrods by MSN links and marketing. Sources within the online casino industry also suggest that Freeserve has for some time been looking at putting together a similar deal with a reputable casino operator.
In little more than six months, Harrods has established itself as one of the best-known online casino businesses, and the strategic two-year marketing deal with MSN, which kicks in later this month, can only serve to bring in more punters.
The Harrods Casino, a joint venture between the department store and Gaming Internet, is already proving to be Gaming Internet's principal revenue generator, according to a spokesman. Figures should be out soon, but early end-of-year analyst projections suggest that the casino should have generated Pounds 7.5m by this September.
Gaming Internet is one of a handful of technology companies that supply ready-made online casino systems to famous brands. Other big suppliers include Microgaming, Cryptologic and Boss Media, which are starting to make headway in the UK now that more and more traditional brands want to get involved. Gaming Internet already runs an online casino for FHM.com and is developing a casino for the Paris Ritz Hotel called ParisRitzCasino.com.
Given the ease with which companies can launch an online casino, it's no wonder that there is a glut of casino websites. But as more and more reputable companies get involved and take the lion's share of punters, the number of fraudulent websites should, in theory, dwindle.
"People are very concerned by how easy it is for companies they have never heard of to set up an online casino, and then rip them off," says Mark Brechin, author of a soon-to-be-released Mintel report on online gambling. "That's why the brand is absolutely vital and why reputable brands have to operate transparent and audited casino websites.
"Aspinalls' launch should do well thanks to the respect its brand has established over the past 40 years. However, there are still loads of shady sites out there ready to relieve the unwitting punters of their folding money," adds Brechin.
The reason "brand" is so important is that there is no real protection for consumers. The legalities of online casinos are sketchy, with most companies locating their servers and businesses overseas to circumvent antiquated gambling laws. Laws are gradually changing, however. The casino operators want the UK gam ing laws to be extended to protect consumers, and the government is thought likely to publish recommendations that should regulate online casinos and make them legal. Pundits are expecting the government, which loosened up the online gambling tax laws in the March 2001 budget, to clarify the antiquated online casino rules that are so prohibitive.
The most radical reform should be a single regulatory body set up to oversee the whole industry, effectively pooling the powers of the Gaming Board, the national lottery commission, the Jockey Club, the British Horseracing Board and the financial services authority.
The Gaming Board, the current regulatory body responsible for online casinos, is calling for a change in the regulations permitting online casinos in the UK. The reason companies go to the Caribbean, Central America and Gibraltar is that the governments of these territories are only too happy to grant licences in exchange for Pounds 100,000 for the licence and then tax on the turnover of the company.
Another key reform is expected to be the change in licensing laws, so that operators can be granted licences by a UK authority and don't have to purchase an offshore licence, or locate their servers abroad.
It's not difficult to work out how online casinos make money. Once people are hooked on the games, and they realise how easy it is to play, they become regular players. Loyalty systems are a big feature of online gambling and the theory is that regular gamblers can be easily be persuaded to use their accounts to have a punt on sporting events.
The next step, casino games on interactive television and on mobile phones tied into betting, is the final piece of the jigsaw for big casino players such as Aspinalls, turning us all into armchair roulette wheel addicts.
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GUARDIAN - 09/04/2001,
Amy Vickers New Media:
Keeping up with the Jones: Text messaging will enable fans to become friends with Bridget - tap into her sex life, diet, how much she drinks and smokes. Has her author created a monster?
If sex, men, smoking, drinking, diets, self-help books and text messaging are your bag, then you may well find yourself as inextricably drawn to the next piece of the Bridget Jones jigsaw - Bridget text messaging. It starts this Friday and, like the book, is guaranteed to reel people in - hook, line and sinker.
If you've seen the film, and bought into the Bridget ethos, then the logical next step is to become friends with Bridget - to allow the relationship with her (yes a fictional character) to become more personal.It is unsurprising, then, that a text messaging marketing campaign has been developed to sit tidily next to the grand launch of the film. An apt marketing gimmick, given that text messaging is fast becoming a neurotic obsession and the ultimate flirtation tool.
The linchpin of the campaign is a daily text message from Bridget which gives details of her weight, how many alcohol units she's consumed, how many cigarettes she's had and any other facts that might draw you into her life, and encouraging you to text her back.
An example of the type of messages is: "Valentine's day should be banned by law. Reply Y/N."
The story of Bridget Jones has been well documented. Within minutes of the book hitting the bookstands in 1996, a phenomenon was created. It was an overnight success, selling more than 6m copies. Women holding down semi-successful jobs and playing the field found a curious empathy with the obsessive Bridget, who became an alter ego for a post-feminist generation of single women in their thirties living in the disenchanted 1990s.
Now, with an all-new version of the Bridget Jones diary coming to mobile phones, Fielding could be on the verge of creating a monster.
Remember Online Caroline, last year's contentious attempt at web drama? After a few weeks, the constant cries for help and advice from Caroline had her former "friends" ditching her in droves and screaming "stalker". Not a pretty sight.
At first it seemed harmless, cute, a bit different. Caroline was friendly (some would say too friendly), and her chatty emails were amusing - she invited people into her life, shared secrets with them and asked their advice. Then she became over-sensitive if her new "friends" hadn't called in to see her and began a barrage of daily emails that bordered on harassment.
The Bridget text campaign taps into the same kind of immersive principles, albeit via just one medium rather than the three (phone, email and web) used by Online Caroline.
In the same way that Caroline pulled people into her life, Bridget will become your friend, if you allow her to, and suck you into her life. Before you realise, you may find yourself asking a fictional character for advice on men, sex, diet, drugs or alcohol, even if you know the answer you'll get will be a typical Bridget Jones one.
You may even find yourself taking the Bridget quiz, or the personality tests to find out how "Bridget" you really are, or even start using Bridgetisms such as "smug marrieds" or "mentionitis".
Who knows what effect this will have on susceptible women. Is it right to put a gibbering obsessive on a pedestal and then tie the whole thing up with one of today's most addictive pastimes? It has the potential to make Bridgettes even more obsessive and knock us back 30 years in the feminist stakes. Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding says that's pretty much the aim of the SMS campaign. "Texting allows one to be more obsessive even than email. You can be in communication with others any time, anywhere (or not, which can be heartbreaking and obviously requires major analysis and discussion through further texting)," she says.
Fielding has gone back to the drawing board to create typical Bridget messages tailored for mobile phones, even though text messaging wasn't around when the Bridget phenomenon took off. "I have no doubt that after pioneering email flirtation, Bridget has by now become an SMS junkie," says Fielding.
The whole experience has been cleverly crafted from start to finish. After you've opted into the daily Bridget messages, you're only one step away from the accessories. And no self-respecting Bridget fan will be complete without her logos and icons, and of course, the ubiquitous ringing tones based on songs from the film.
Jan Wellmann, chief executive of Riot-E, the company providing the software and the know-how to Universal Pictures which made the film version of Bridget Jones, says Bridget is the first of many big screen characters that will be brought to life by mobile phones. No doubt another extension of the Bridget phenomenon will be a computer game, a TV show, a diet plan, a fashion line - who knows where it will stop.
Wellmann thinks there is just one essential ingredient to enable a character from a book or film to make the jump to a mobile phone, and that's a ready-made community of fans. It's not difficult to imagine the likes of The Blair Witch Project, Star Wars or even The Matrix being perfect fodder for SMS games. Already Riot-e has proved it can successfully take a game from the big screen to the ubiquitous fashion accessory that is the mobile phone.
In Italy last year, Riot-e had more than 16,000 people playing an X-Men text message game, which resulted in about a million messages being sent. Tellingly, the Wap version of the game wasn't nearly as popular and only managed to pull in around 8,000 players.
A long-term licensing deal with X-Men rights holders Marvel Enterprises means that Riot-e now has the mobile rights to more than 4,700 Marvel characters. And now that the company is ready to expand into new markets outside its native Finland, it's only a matter of time before British menfolk will get their very own SMS game, given that the Bridget one is really just for girls. Another SMS game Riot-e is bringing to the UK is an esoteric Finish fishing game, where users can catch fish by sending text messages.
Riot-e, which has so far raised $19m in funding from the likes of Nokia, Softbank and the Carlyle Group, is signing long-term rights deals with movie studios, sports clubs, games companies and TV companies. Imagine if the BBC had the foresight to develop a "who shot Phil" SMS game - it could have had the nation frantically text messaging and put funds back into the corporation piggy bank.
Licence owners typically receive a cut of 12-20% of the revenues made from messages (normally around 12p apiece) with the rest of the money split between the mobile operator and Riot-e. The revenues soon add up, and the trick is to get as many people as possible sending messages. With enhanced messaging (EMS) that will allow users to text each other attachments like minute-long movie clips just around the corner, text messaging could end up dwarfing the internet as a revenue generator.
The task in hand at the moment, however, is to fashion Bridget Jones communities worldwide.
Will it become a global success? Hard to say. After the endless hype, even the most ardent of Bridget fans may find their patience becoming tested. But this campaign, the first of its kind in the UK for a famous fictional character such as Bridget, has the potential to be a fun testbed for a new adjunct to the traditional forms of promotion.
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GUARDIAN - 23/04/2001,
Amy Vickers New media: 'I'm the last man standing': While other internet bosses have fallen by the wayside, he remains in charge after overseeing his company's flotation and sale. Amy Vickers meets John Pluthero, the modest head of Freeserve to ask: where does he go from here?
For most people, John Pluthero, the chief executive of Freeserve, has become something of a conundrum. He has tried his deftest to avoid the limelight, keeping as much out of the public eye as possible. He kept quiet all the way through the "Freeserve up for sale" speculation last year, sealed the deal and then subtly avoided the publicity frenzy that such events usually bring about.
His mugshot may have been in all the papers and his name bandied about in internet power-generation lists, but he has carefully kept his distance from the often rumbustious internet scene. Staff talk of his calm, temperate manner and his approachability. Asking around to find a few skeletons in the closet, all I managed to discover was that Pluthero was once a self-confessed MC Hammer fan. Someone had to be.What is he like? "He's a good bloke, intense but thoughtful," responded one employee. "He has a youthful approach and is big on team bonding," said another. Freeserve workers seem respectful of him, but say it is sometimes quite difficult to pin him down as he only spends a few days a week in the London office. The rest of the time he is either at offices in Hertfordshire or Leeds, or jetting over to Paris to be with Wanadoo, who bought Freeserve for Pounds 1.6bn in November 2000.
Some staff have discovered the art of catching Pluthero: if in doubt look outside the building, as he can often be found pacing up and down at the front entrance, smoking a Silk Cut. For a journalist, however, it is not easy to pin him down. It took six months to get this interview off the ground and even now, after our chat, it is difficult to say just what exactly it is that presses his buttons.
Pluthero is very adept at keeping his professional and personal lives separate. He doesn't like to talk about himself, and admits that he is embarrassed about all the attention he gets. It has been two full years since Pluthero was made chief executive of Freeserve in time for its flotation, and he spent the two years before that building up the precocious internet business. In that time he has become something of a figurehead for the UK internet industry, but he laughs off his "minor celebrity" status.
"I've always tried to play it straight down the line. I'm perfectly comfortable with running the business side of things, but you have to accept that some of the [media] attention comes with the territory," he says. While he would now like to take a step back from the public eye, he acknowledges that it is part and parcel of the business. "When we did the deal with Wanadoo they told me that I could still be the figurehead in the UK, but I was actually looking forward to moving away from that, and moving out of the limelight for a while."
This last year has been the pinnacle of Pluthero's business career. After turning a year-old internet company into a stock-market success story, he then had to dilute Dixons' 80% shareholding in Freeserve by managing a sale before internet companies lost all their value. Last year, at just 37, he became one of the youngest ever FTSE100 chief executives.
Now 38, does he have anything left to prove? He reckons he does: "We're not Johnny-come-lately, get-rich-quick people. Freeserve was born out of Dixons as a subscription business, and personal pride means that I'm keen to see it through." To this end, he sees himself sticking around at Freeserve and hopes there are plenty more achievements up his sleeve. After all the departures of other big internet companies' bosses, "I'm kind of like the last man standing - and I rather like that," he grins.
"I said to Michel Bon [France Telecom's chairman] and Nicholas Dufourcq [Wanadoo's chief executive] when we were doing the deal that I loved my job and this company and it was up to them whether I stayed or not - and they kept me."
When the deal went through with Wanadoo last December, the press had a field day joking about the "love-in" with Pluthero and Dufourcq. Four months on and Pluthero says things are just getting better and better. "It's almost treacly how well we get on and how easy it is. It's wonderful, it really is wonderful. We went through a time where we were being unbelievably nice to each other. I was thinking cracks would appear but they haven't to any material extent."
He insists it has been a very smooth transition period and, on a day-to-day working basis, not too much has changed. "We have very similar strategies and approaches to things. The important factor is that they not only know their markets, but they are very calm, authoritative grown-up businesspeople. It also helps that the executive board of France Telecom is very tight and that they all sing the same tune."
The party at the Natural History Museum to celebrate the deal has been given legendary status at Freeserve Towers. Pluthero says staff still talk about it and that it was the best party he has ever been to - not surprising given that it came at the end of a stressful year.
But what about Dixons? Pluthero says the relationship with Dixons has got much better. "It's more straightforward. We haven't got this other thing going on at the same time. We've taken a complex variable out of the equation. They've got a clear schedule on what they can do with their shareholding." He is convinced that Dixons, which holds a 12.5% stake in Wanadoo, will always maintain something of a shareholding in the French internet service provider, despite it recently cashing in Pounds 141m of its Wanadoo stake.
The reasons for this are twofold, explains Pluthero: firstly, it's an important part of Dixons' strategy to move away from a dependence on hardware profit margins and develop ongoing revenues as an important but smaller part of an internet company; secondly, Dixons needs a European strategy and a partner such as France Telecom gives it a strong ally in several European countries.
Pluthero comes across as a modest, unassuming man. He has a boyish grin and an infectious, mischievous laugh. He seems approachable, fun and, most of all, young at heart. He was born and raised in Colchester, where his father ran a pub, and came to London to study economics.
His contemporaries and bankers tend to admire him; most make an effort to get to know him, not simply because he has floated a nascent internet company and then sold it for Pounds 1.6bn, but because he has done it with such remarkable grace. He persevered with a deal after a buyout by T-Online collapsed, and maintained a cool "no comment" exterior when others would have used the press for back-stabbing and turning deals to their own advantage.
He admits it was a difficult period, and laughs when I suggest that he is glad a deal didn't happen with T-Online, which has since been rocked by boardroom upheavals. "Possibly," he says. "It was a tough time. But business is not measured by adversity, it's measured by achievement. You can't give up at the first hurdle. We had to get on with it, and it's self-evident we're at the right place now."
Pluthero once played rugby to county standard and says he used to be a huge sportsman. But not any more. He has a lower-back problem and doesn't have the time to maintain a golf handicap. Besides, he has an eight-year-old daughter to spend time with.
During the week, Pluthero still finds himself working late most nights, but insists he doesn't subscribe to 14-hour day working practices. "I've never liked the workaholic macho stuff. I've always thought that was really bad. My late nights are because I'm having [working] dinners and not in the office doing stuff."
His latest extracurricular activity is learning French, a group-wide initiative to save the faces of Freeserve staff when dealing with colleagues on the other side of the channel. It will also facilitate two-way staff traffic between the UK and Paris. Pluthero says he spends four hours a week learning French and plans to spend a month in France this summer to improve his conversational skills. He learns French while being driven by his chauffeur between Freeserve's three offices and says he is coming on in leaps and bounds. He certainly has the time when travelling - last year he did 33,000 business miles, and this year he finds himself jetting back and forth to Paris.
What is next on the agenda for Pluthero? One question people are now starting to ask is: will the Wanadoo brand eventually replace the Freeserve brand? Pluthero says it is something they are looking at this year, mainly because the combined companies have so many brands (including Viola, iCircle etc). "We've not taken any decisions on a rebrand yet, but we discussed the option of Freeserve becoming the no-ties subscription brand across Europe or possibly bringing Wanadoo as a brand to the UK. But we're not going to change brands lightly."
So it's full steam ahead for Freeserve and Pluthero. With French lessons, UK supremacy, cash in the bank and Europe on his mind, world domination is surely not far off.
John Pluthero is live on mediaguardian.co.uk on Wednesday at 2pm. Post questions now at www.mediaguardian.co.uk
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GUARDIAN - 26/03/2001,
Amy Vickers Media: New Media:
ic trouble ahead: Sixty staff at Trinity Mirror's IC network were told to take a spot of gardening leave 11 days ago, while another 240 wait until April 15 for news of their fate. Amy Vickers finds out why Pounds 43m wasn't enough to make it work
Thursday March 15 was one of those cold and rainy mornings, not unlike every other miserable day in March. But for Trinity Mirror Digital staff it took an unexpected turn for the worse. As they trickled in to work, unaware of the fate that lay in store, they started to realise something more severe than the sale of the internet service provider ic24 was on the cards.
Suspicions were first aroused when Graham Mead, the recently appointed managing director of the IC Network, started calling senior staff in four at a time at 15-minute intervals between 8.30am and 9.30am. The look on their faces after their little chats with Mead said it all, according to the gathered onlookers, and it wasn't long until the awful truth came out.A staff meeting was called for 9.30am where they were told that the rumours about the sale of the ISP side of the business were true. But the news that caused most ripples was that the members of the board had let their nerves about internet revenues get the better of them. They had decided to close the brand spanking new, and very expensive, websites icShowbiz and icSport post-haste, and redundancies would be inevitable. About 60 of them were immediately told to go off and garden (vacate the premises and await their fate) and security suddenly appeared from nowhere, in case anyone forgot the location of the door.
The remaining 240 were asked to stay for the time being and keep the flagship sites, ic24.net, Mirror.co.uk, DailyRecord.co.uk and the regional ic portals, icScotland and icBirmingham, to name a few, afloat. All 300 TMD staff were told that they will find out their fate on April 15.
The first definite casualty of the retrenchment was David Clarke, the affable managing director who joined Trinity Mirror just before the merger to launch the ISP and build up the new media division. Once his two years of work had been dismantled by the Trinity board last week and there was no longer an ISP to run, it was just a matter of time before Clarke left the company. He did on Thursday.
Clarke joined in April 1999 to launch the internet service provider ic24 and expand the new media department. He built what became Trinity Mirror Digital after the merger with Trinity. This is the 300-strong operation now being cut back dramatically with up to a third of staff poised for redundancy as Trinity Mirror tries to sell the ISP. Since Clarke's departure, Trinity stalwart Graham Mead, has taken control of what's left of the embattled new media division. Mead was keen last week to point out that Clarke's resignation was a mutual decision.
The actual number of redundancies and who should go is still being decided but Mead is insistent that the numbers are not likely to pass 100. "We've started a legal consultation with staff and we're taking a look at every single role. We can't be certain how many people this will affect but we will look after them properly," he says.
All staff know at this stage is that the regional websites will survive. This could mean the brand ic remains, or it could mean it gets phased out in the coming months for something more relevant to Trinity's core business. The problem lies in the fact that the ISP and the portal carry the same name and if a buyer emerges for ic24 it could be inappropriate for Trinity to continue to use the same brand for its flagship website.
The message put out by Trinity was that it had had a change of heart about its strategy to branch out into areas that weren't directly related to its core business. Instead, it will now reconfigure its aims to harness key assets: content from its papers and its technology platform.
Analysts are already starting to question whether a buyer will emerge for ic24, especially in this current climate where ISPs have plummeted in value and there is a marked decline in the number of companies focusing on the provision of internet access.
Lorna Tilbian, media analyst at WestLB Panmure, doesn't hold out much hope for Trinity finding an easy sale. "LineOne has been on the block for a long time. It's definitely not a good time to be selling ISP assets. If they can't sell it they're going to have to just close it down and write off the investment," she says.
Even though the ISP claims 250,000 users, it is highly unlikely that Trinity will recoup the Pounds 20m it has already invested in ic24. Estimates of its value vary, but should a buyer emerge, analysts expect it to fetch just over Pounds 10m.
Launched in April 1999, ic24 was seen as a sound investment at a time when every man and his dog wanted a piece of the ISP action. Geoff Stimson, the then boss of Mirror Media, the new media division of the Mirror Group before the Trinity merger, had spotted the direction in which the market was going very early on. He developed a strategy for the Mirror Group to be at the forefront of the free ISP revolution before Freeserve soared away with an unassailable market share.
Arguably, the ISP did well and won critical acclaim in its fledgling days for reliability but then unavoidably became embroiled in the free internet calls fiasco of 2000 - a strategy that ate away at the new media investment fund.
The spanner in the works came from News International which caught wind of the Mirror's plan to move into the internet access game and decided to upset the applecart by launching its own ISP.
It became a battle of wills. The entrenched cut-throat rivalry of the two of Britain's biggest red-tops had now entered cyberspace, and News International was pulling out all the stops to launch the Sun's ISP CurrantBun.com before ic24.
In the end CurrantBun.com pipped ic24 to the post by about a month, but Mirror Media saved face by telling press at the time that it would not be panicked by a service it thought was inferior.
Instead TMD focused its energies on expanding the ic network, which included a dozen regional websites and icShowbiz, icSport and icChoice. However, the launch of these websites was delayed by a number of "technical issues" when TMD initially picked the wrong content platform, Zip2, and had to go back to the drawing board when this technology didn't work as hoped.
Having invested Pounds 42.3m in 2000 in new media and only recouped revenues of Pounds 2.5m, Trinity has now capped spending at Pounds 25m this year, and Pounds 15m in 2002. Overall, it pledged to reduce the target for gross costs of digital operations between 2000-2002 from Pounds 150m to Pounds 90m.
Tilbian says this cost-cutting news was well-received in the City. "It came as a great relief and the stock has rallied. It's no surprise that they're cutting costs because the environment is so rough. It's not patience any more, it's money and the new back-to-basics strategy makes a lot of sense."
Once the bloodbath next month is over, Trinity Mirror will have a tough job ahead of it convincing the City that this strategy is right for the group.
One in the eye . . . a big ad spend didn't help ic very much
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GUARDIAN - 19/03/2001,
Amy Vickers Media: New media:
Drop everything: Could it be that the porn industry and Big Brother hold the key to making the web pay? Amy Vickers explains why drop-dialling is getting everyone excited
There's a new buzzword in town and surprise surprise, it's one of those techie ones that only a handful of people will understand. It's drop-dialling and if you've never heard of it, don't worry, for until now the term was only really commonplace in porn circles.
Given its background, it was only a matter of time before the less churlish broadcasters cottoned on to it, especially now that they're all falling over each other to make the web financially robust - and that's the impetus behind drop-dialling. Broadcasters need the web to start to work for them, but there are problems in making web programming pay. Basically, consumers are loath to tediously input credit card details in return for nothing more than a five-minute clip.But, as the porn industry has found, consumers are quite happy to cover the "broadcast charges" with a premium rate dial-up call if it means they get the clip without having to do anything. The theory is simple: the user clicks on the drop-dialler, it automatically disconnects the user's internet connection and then dials up to the new number, the clip is streamed, ends and the users are connected back to their own internet service. The user is happy; the broadcaster is happy; everyone is happy, especially the telephone company which takes a healthy chunk of the call cost. The benefits are there for all to see. All that broadcasters have to do is get together with one of the growing number of phone operators offering drop-dialling.
Granada Broadband, the digital development division of Granada Media, has declared its interest in drop-dialling, along with the BBC and Channel 5, which have both conducted drop-dialling voting experiments.
The BBC introduced drop-dialling to its Comic Relief Big Brother website (Comicrelief.com/bigbrother) last week, although the BBC would be the first to admit that, in its current form, drop-dialling leaves something to be desired.
The drop-dialler used by Comic Relief to collect revenues from internet voters could not be used by Apple Mac users, nor could it be used by anyone not dialling up to the internet using a modem, given that it has to disconnect the line. Therein lies the flaw in the model. It cannot work with office-leased line connections and it cannot work with broadband. Instead it is limited to the estimated 7.8m home internet users who have narrowband connections.
Even then, it remains debatable whether users will click on the button that says: "When you vote online, your computer will simply stop the modem connection to your usual internet service provider and then reconnect you to the internet via a premium-rate line to register your vote." While it is a relatively painless process, and consumers have gradually accepted the concept of premium-rate phone lines (Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and Big Brother to take two phenomenally profitable examples), it is still easier to pick up a phone than log on to a website and sit and wait for the system to clock your vote. And that's even if you are already online and you are aware of the fixed price of the call - 25p in the case of Celebrity Big Brother.
Audiocall, the BBC Worldwide- owned telephone operator behind the Celebrity Big Brother internet vote, counts Channel 4, Channel 5, BBC Broadcast, BBC Worldwide, ITV, digital and satellite channels and advertising agencies among its clients, but has so far only used drop-dialler voting for Comic Relief and Channel 5's 70s Weekend.
For the 70s Weekend, viewers were given the option to vote for their favourite song from that decade via the broadcaster's website. Because it was the first time a British broadcaster had ever used Audiocall's drop-dialler, the response rates were understandably low and Audiocall is guarded about specific numbers. Likewise, the response rates to the Comic Relief drop-dialler have not yet been revealed.
Justin Judd, controller of content and production for Granada Broadband, is optimistic about the potential of drop-dialling, though: "It may not be the quickest and easiest way to vote in response to a TV programme prompt, but as an internet revenue model that doesn't involve security complications, it has possibilities."
Judd is looking at different opportunities for using drop-diallers to serve broadcast content as a route into internet pay-per-view. "What content we might end up using is still being tested, but it will have to have some scarcity value, not be any old stuff," he says.
Just as broadcasters are assessing the potential of drop-dialling, so is the music industry. With MSN putting time and money into developing a website to stream concerts, it would not be surprising if MSNMusic.com introduced drop-diallers as an alternative to credit card subscriptions.
One possibility for Granada, says Judd, is to stream exclusive clips from its shows such as Cold Feet and Coronation Street, with the cost perhaps set at 25p a minute for a 10-minute clip. At Pounds 2.50 a pop per user, split between the operator and the broadcaster, it starts to look like an alternative way of making money from the internet if a few thousand people can be persuaded to download it. This is made even more attractive when the context of the crestfallen internet advertising market is taken into account. No website, it seems, is pulling in satisfactory ad revenues.
"We're all worried about making money from the internet, and making our core business - content - pay online," adds Judd. "The adult industry has demonstrated it does work but it all depends on whether the user wants the content."
Riccardo Donato, general manager of Audiocall, agrees: "The original model was for content and was used for law reports and adult stuff, but now everyone is looking at broadcast quality pay-per-view on the internet, it becomes an easy way for broadcasters to get viewers to pay for quality content."
But Donato thinks the most popular application for drop-dialling will be voting, as consumers are increasingly inclined to accept the cost of a phone call if they feel they can have their say. For an indicator of this, one only has to look at the number of people who called in to vote for the Big Brother evictions last year. Some 20m phone calls were made in all, bringing in revenues of around Pounds 2m.
No doubt Big Brother 2 will be looking at incorporating a drop-dialler into its website for voting and maybe even for eagerly sought-after clips if the contestants can be coaxed into more outrageous behaviour.
In the meantime, expect to see many more websites using drop-diallers over the next 12 months. Perhaps they could go some way to solving the unsettling revenue crisis the web is currently in, or perhaps they will just be an interim measure until the sensational world of broadband comes along. Whatever it may be, at least it's an alternative revenue model, and that has to be a good thing in the current climate.
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GUARDIAN - 19/02/2001,
Amy Vickers Media: New Media:
'I'm a crap DJ now': He's not interested in getting back on the airwaves and the fame game leaves him cold. Amy Vickers on an ex-Radio 1 golden boy who nowadays gets his kicks from digital radio
Remember Bruno Brookes: the former Radio 1 DJ who, for much of the 80s, was as widely recognised as many of the popstars of the time? But one minute he was Radio 1's hottest property, the next he was off the airwaves and disappearing in to obscurity.
Ten years on from his Radio 1 heyday, most people will only be familiar with him because his name has been raked through the mud by his ex-girlfriend, the publicity-paramour Anthea Turner, who decided to tell the world that their relationship was no bed of roses.Brookes is understandably bitter, but shrugs off the chance to get even (in this interview at least). "The public made their own mind up about that one. It's best to leave it in the past," he says, unable to resist adding: "And I haven't seen her in the media since." Perhaps he is smiling inwardly when he says this, but his expression never changes from dead-pan business Bruno; the serious Bruno who now runs a digital broadcast company which employs 40 people.
We meet at his London office in swanky New Bond Street, where the walls are plastered with platinum records and the latest in technology sits around begging to be played with. I recognise him straight away. He's the same diminutive, button nosed, clean shaven man that I grew up with. The only difference is a well-fed waistline and a receding hairline, framed by a halo of inch-long hair where once sat his trademark bouffant.
First things first, he says, I have to smoke a rollup. He seems to like the fact that previous profiles of him have always kicked off with reference to his Golden Virginia habit. We then get down to the business of the interview. He tells me about his internet radio station, StormLive, and his growing business empire, Storm Digital Music, that he hopes to float on the stock market later this year.
Bruno (real name Trevor) comes from the Smashy and Nicey days of Radio 1; the old-school fraternity which counts Tony Blackburn, Peter Powell, Gary Davies, Dave Lee Travis and Simon Bates among its paid-up members. They were the glory days of Radio 1, days that have never been seen since.
It must have been something of a comedown.
Brookes laughs off this suggestion - he doesn't care if people don't recognise him. "Being in the limelight can be a pain in the arse," he says. "It's not what turns me on anymore. What turns me on now is getting results in a different way."
When he left London for Berkshire after his unceremonious departure from Radio 1, Brookes began his show Bruno at the Mill House and kitted out the whole house with microphones - even in the toilet and bedroom - so he could move around while presenting it. Each week, he broadcast 14 shows on Emap's regional radio stations.
Eventually, the business outgrew the house so he moved into studios at Newbury, and expanded into broadcast training and design. He'd already come across the internet a few years before, and it had got him thinking of ways to take the business online.
Like most entrepreneurial tales, Storm came from an idea on a napkin in a restaurant. It was early 1999 and, with three music industry friends, he mapped out his future: radio across all emerging platforms.
Brookes is now the managing director of Storm Digital Broadcasting, a role that seems to satisfy him. "I get a serious buzz out of taking this forward but there's never enough hours in every day at the moment," he says. He also presents a weekly fishing show on Sky Sports.
The core of Storm's current strategy is to partner with other companies, such as portals, to bring a ready-made audience to the StormLive station. It is distributed on, among others, Freeserve, Sky Digital, MyKindaplace.com and Newsoftheworld.com.
The next step is to expand into new territories. He's firming up plans to roll out Storm Sweden and move into India and South Africa. Plans are also in place to start selling licensed music by digital download.
Another direction is to develop Reality Radio, Brookes' take on Reality TV. Installing moviecams into StormLive's studios was the first step, he says, but he's not very forthcoming with further details.
"That would be giving the game away," he says, "If I talk about it I'll give ideas away and the shareholders will rip me apart. It's premature to say what they are, all I can say is it's 'where marketing meets media'."
Brookes is also unwilling to talk about the number of listeners his new station has attracted. Three times I ask for the figures, only for my question to be neatly evaded: "We will let you know at the end of the month when we get our audit through. At the moment I don't know myself." Unlikely, but then he's being guarded, playing the shrewd businessman, and all will be revealed when it suits the company.
Brookes plays the role well. He speaks in the latest techno-jargon and comes across as a man who actually understands what he's talking about. He's excited about 3G and what it can mean for digital radio; he's watching Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo, and he follows market developments on ADSL and unmetered access.
Very early on in his career, even when he was still at Radio 1, Brookes recognised that he wasn't going to be a DJ forever and began thinking of other ways of taking his life forward. "To not start educating myself would have been a mistake. No disrespect, but I knew all along I was not going to end up like Tony Blackburn or Fluff. They didn't have anything else to fall back on."
"Thank God we've moved forward," says Brookes. He's also glad that radio is no longer just about FM and AM frequencies. "Radio, to me, has become a little bit format-oriented. But new technologies open it all up." It's at this point he throws in Storm's tagline: "Different not Dangerous. The future has no frequency." I hastily change the subject.
What does he think of radio in the UK? "There's some great radio in this country, but there's also some bloody bad radio." What's his relationship like with that other Radio 1 DJ turned media entrepreneur, Peter Powell? "We're both busy blokes. It's mostly media bullshit between me and Peter. One thing's for certain, though, Worldpop [Powell's music website] should carry Stormlive. Peter, call me . . ."
The impression I leave Storm with is that Bruno Brookes is incredibly driven to achieve his ambition: to build a big broadcasting company. The only thing he won't do for his company, however, is go back into the studio - despite being asked many times by Storm's programme director to do a show. "I won't go anywhere near that studio," he says, adding quite resolutely, "I'm a crap DJ now."
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GUARDIAN - 12/03/2001,
Amy Vickers New Media:
TV's new face: Can Wellbeing, a new website and digital channel, change daytime viewing? Amy Vickers examines its health
Just when you thought it was safe to take a day off sick, draw the curtains and wrap yourself in a duvet in front of the telly, along comes a TV channel that could either be welcome medicine or the biggest annoyance ever for a malingering wreck.
This Wednesday sees the launch of Wellbeing, a new Granada digital TV channel that will transform the soft-centred, cosy world of daytime TV as defined by Richard and Judy. The format will be similar to This Morning in that it will be studio based and smattered with video inserts and outside broadcasts - but the content will be focused entirely on health, beauty and the somewhat nebulous and holistic concept of "wellbeing".Primarily aimed at housewives, and perhaps workers prone to sickies, Wellbeing will be screened between 9am and 9pm each day and may eventually be promoted to a 24-hour channel. The full list of presenters is still being kept under wraps, but expect a number of high-profile women such as Toyah Wilcox, athlete Diane Modahl and Coleen Nolan.
To launch its efforts into the world of health and beauty, Granada has teamed up with Boots the Chemist in a 40:60 deal which, on the surface, seems to be a retail broadcast match made in heaven. But it is not the first of its kind. Last year Carlton and Sainsbury's got together to work on Taste, a similar retail broadcast hybrid that will come to life as a TV channel and website on May 1.
Of course, Wellbeing, like all new channels these days, is not just a TV channel. It's one of those "multi-platform propositions" that has all the right buzzwords: an integrated website, interactive TV within a year, ADSL, PDA and Wap, and so on.
In the first instance, though, it is a website, Wellbeing.com, and a TV channel on Sky Digital and ONdigital. Eventually the plan is to feed content from the website onto an interactive version of the channel, but Paula Carter, former Granada health director and now joint managing director of Wellbeing with former Boots internet boss Richard Holmes, is cautious about doing too much with the business before working out what their audience wants.
"We've done a lot of research and we know there is a potential audience out there, but we're going to hold off making [Wellbeing] 24 hours until we find out what's working. Likewise, we are going to do interactive TV, but not necessarily sell products through it until we're sure how the audience is using interactive TV," says Carter.
With operating costs for Wellbeing's first year - to the end of this month - already said to be close to Pounds 18m, and a Pounds 10m marketing campaign in the pipeline, it may take some time to move into the black. Revenues are expected to come from the sale of products and advertising, although it is questionable whether Wellbeing will be able to generate wads of cash given the current depressed advertising climate and its reluctance to sell products through the TV.
Experts warn of a shortage of advertisers looking to target a small niche audience of women, particularly when the advertisers may not take too kindly to the involvement of Boots in the channel. Keith Rattray, director of interactive TV at Carat, says: "If extremely specialist interest services such as health channels are vying for a share of total TV revenue spent on traditional 'spot' advertising, then they're going to struggle. Reason being that they can not offer advertisers sufficient volume of impacts to make any difference to their coverage-building schedules." Rattray suggests that traditional advertising spots will be relatively scarce on Wellbeing, with advertorials, sponsorships and interactive workshops becoming more lucrative money-spinners for the channel instead.
Simon Shaps, managing director at Granada Broadband, is expecting revenues to come from sponsors and advertising, bolstered by transactional revenues from products sold on the website. But will these be enough to sustain the business in the medium term, bearing in mind that Boots has recently lost its sparkle in the City?
Competitors are naturally questioning the economics of launching a TV channel that may take time to make consumers aware of its existence, and a website trying to make a business for itself in a tumultuous sector that has already killed off ClickMango.
Carol Dukes, chief executive at internet health and beauty retailer ThinkNatural, says: "More specialist sites find that a lot of their appeal lies in the fact that people can find, research and order online those types of things that are a bit harder to find or which would require a special shopping trip. That motivation won't exist for Boots' products online, because everyone can easily pop into a Boots - they're on every high street and in every shopping mall."
But Wellbeing remains bullish. It expects to take a bite out of the Pounds 11bn UK health and beauty retail market and then expand into the bigger Pounds 90bn area of healthcare provision. For Boots, the launch is part of its efforts to evolve from a health and beauty retailer into a generic brand for health, beauty and wellbeing. Such is the retailer's confidence that Boots.co.uk has been absorbed into the Wellbeing website, which will exist as the cornerstone of Boots' digital strategy.
Whether viewers will sit down and lap up 12 hours a day of this type of programming has yet to be established. Granada's research indicates widespread support for a health and beauty channel and associated website. Shaps thinks Granada is onto a mass-market opportunity. "The combination of an encyclopaedic website and an information-based TV channel will have wide appeal. This is a large scale venture that will have universal interest because everybody has a profound interest in their own wellbeing."
Dukes thinks Wellbeing may have its work cut out trying to create demand for such category-specific programming. "It's very brave of Granada and Boots to launch into the expensive territory of television when general non-drama health programming is such an untested area for popular viewing."
Potential pitfalls aside, Granada is making a brave move. Over the next 12 months, more and more broadcasters and retailers will also experiment with "brandcasting" - the term for advertisers becoming broadcasters - driven by the advent of new technology that allows for cross-media commercial avenues to be explored. This is central to the broadband vision of the future, and a development that pundits expect to change the face of broadcasting as we know it.
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GUARDIAN - 12/02/2001,
Amy Vickers Media: New Media: Sore thumbs? I know what you've been doing My name is Amy and I'm a text message junkie. I've known about this addiction for quite some time, but it's only now that I'm aware of it dominating my life - if I don't notch up my quota of 20 a day then I'm in the cold turkey zone.
Thankfully, I'm not alone. Around 30m others in the UK send text messages, but the phenomenon has really hit home with young people, especially teenagers.Forget microscooters, cowboy hats, and even PDAs, text messaging is the new craze sweeping the nation at breakneck speed. It's reached fantastical proportions: more than 1m messages an hour were sent during December and we're close to hitting 1bn messages a month (in the UK alone). It seems there is no stopping this one.
If you're not already sick and tired of reading about text messaging, then be warned, you will be. Just like the media hype that surrounded the internet boom last year and the attention given to Wap when it first emerged, text messaging; the text generation; thumb culture, call it what you will, is the new cool thing to write about.
Marketers are falling over themselves to do deals with mobile operators to cut revenue share deals for SMS (the official term, meaning short message service). But not surprisingly, mobile operators are being difficult because they rather greedily want to keep all the millions they make from SMS for themselves. Operators in Asia are more flexible and pressure from overseas should see the landscape change for SMS revenue cuts over here.
The word going round marketing circles at the moment is that if you're not yet thinking of running a campaign that uses SMS, then you should be - and soon. Broadcasters, newspapers and radio stations have been quick to catch on, with many dabbling with SMS for feedback or competitions based around shows and events. The results have blown them away. The Sun, for example, recently ran an SMS competition called Ringo Bingo, which prompted more than 80,000 responses via text message.
Of course there are a few services that haven't quite had the desired effect. The jury is still out on SMS chat, and services such as Talkcast's Texer.com have been lambasted for seemingly spamming users, and then charging them 12p for the privilege of each received message.
Start-ups that a year ago were basing their business models around exponential Wap growth are now primarily focused on SMS strategies. Some have even ditched their Wap services altogether and relaunched themselves as SMS pure-players. Once the mobile operators agree to fully fledged revenue share deals - where marketers can take up to 50% of the money generated by SMS - this area of marketing is going to go ballistic.
Another side of SMS set to be massive is shopping. Anyone who hasn't yet come across Scan, an SMS-only shopping service for CDs, DVDs, books and games, should try it out. To the uninitiated, shopping by SMS must seem like an odd activity, especially now that there are so many different ways in which consumers can shop. I have to admit I'm hooked. It seems I'm not the only one.
Like the growth of SMS itself, the service has spread like wildfire. Scan's own research shows that more than 70% of customers go on to recommend the service to friends, proving that word of mouth rather than multimillion- pound advertising campaigns can be the best driver of new customers. Scan now has more than half a million customers' mobile numbers on its database and, tellingly, it hasn't done any mainstream marketing.
So where does SMS go from here? The cost of sending messages is likely to come down. Last week One 2 One announced plans to launch Talk & Text, a plan that includes 50 text messages and 500 minutes of off-peak calls for Pounds 15 a month. Other operators are certain to follow suit.
More and more cross-media promotions will use SMS as the primary feedback function; and inevitably it will move away from just being a young persons' pastime to something that the older generations use.
And, of course, there will be thousands of relationships conducted and broken via text message. With Valentine's Day just two days away, operators are already bracing themselves for more than 30m messages winging back and forth. If anything, text messaging should do for uptight Brits what the pill did for the sexual revolution in the 1960s. We seldom say what we think, but the beauty of text messaging is that it's private, instant and encourages flirtation. What did we ever do without it? More importantly, pity the poor Americans who, for once, are so far behind the UK that they don't even have the facilities for text messaging. Shucks. But that will change, and soon we'll be text messaging friends in the US for 10p a pop.
I'm managing my addiction well - I've only sent and received five messages while writing this piece. I realise it's not such a bad addiction after all, but it is playing havoc with my increasingly RSI-ridden thumbs.
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GUARDIAN - 30/10/2000,
Amy Vickers Media: New Media:
Showing at a screen near you: The success of the webcast of Blair Witch 2 is encouraging those who predict a big future for online entertainment. But, asks Amy Vickers , when will the public learn to love watching movies on their computers?
Big Brother was not only compulsive television viewing - it also stimulated unprecedented interest in webcasting, showing the public demand for watching uncut live events and making people realise that internet broadcasting, even on narrowband connections, was feasible.
The figures speak for themselves: bigbrother.terra.com had 1m unique visitors the day Nasty Nick was ousted, even if not everyone could see the action. Throughout the 10-week series, the site served more than 26m live video streams, with users spending an average of 14.5 minutes on the site.More recently, news has filtered through that the new Blair Witch film, Blair Witch 2, received record viewing requests in the first few hours of its availablity. The 64-hour event, blairwitchwebfest.com, that began last Wednesday morning, managed to pull in an impressive 100,000 users in the first six hours.
Paul Zwillenberg, managing director of KPE Europe, which works with TV production companies on interactive programming, agrees that Big Brother opened people's eyes. "The effects are just beginning to be felt. Next year, broadband will revolutionise media and entertainment. At the moment, the TV business has only had about 1% of what it's going to see over the next five to 10 years."
Since the summer, the more traditional broadcasters have been falling over themselves to get in on the act. Channel 4 is looking to build on its successful summer foray into webcasting when it launches e4.com, the website supporting the new entertainment channel, at the start of next year.
"With e4.com we are creating an interactive version of that unique feeling you get when you watch entertainment on Channel 4," says Stevan Keane, head of interactive commissioning at the channel. "This doesn't mean banging out telly for the web. What it means is making new platforms to tell the Channel 4 story on their own terms. At the end of a year of fantasies about internet billions, the TV production sector understands this, and more forward-thinking producers are ready, with us, to use e4 TV to introduce new ideas across all media."
Elsewhere, the BBC is bound by the restrictions of the licence fee, which means that it's been unable to allocate enough funding to support interactive and webcasting initiatives. However, it has started looking at ways in which it can painlessly resell TV programming to new overseas viewers, perhaps on a pay-per-view basis via the internet, and has hired a number of commissioners to develop more interactive initiatives.
Over at ITV, Granada appears to be the only shareholder putting a lot of energy behind broadband initiatives, having pulled in experienced TV producers Simon Shaps and Justin Judd to run the new Granada Broadband division. Industry sources suggest that Granada is also planning a number of initiatives similar to those at Channel 4.
BSkyB has not yet clarified its position, although its moves towards partnership with Kingston and potentially BT to develop broadband programming, in addition to its controlling stake in Open, indicate that it is about to do something significant in this area.
Traditional broadcasters are joining a fledging industry that has not had much success. The illustrious Pop.com - which should have been the harbinger of Hollywood online - never made it off the ground. And not long after it shut up shop, pioneer American internet broadcaster Pseudo.com followed suit. These failures show that both sites suffered from over-ambition at a time when there was no demand for webcasting.
While things have not changed much since September, the UK is a little further along the broadband route than the US (even if BT is dragging its heels) and, fingers crossed, we should be revelling in broadband heaven in six months' time. At least, that's what all the people currently working on web broadcasting strategies are hoping for.
Other moves are afoot, spearheaded mainly by former TV producers and interactive TV developers. Prominent in this area are the likes of IchooseTV.com, hahabonk, MadcowTV.com, thejunkies.com. Narrowband limitations aside, the services that have got off the ground - thejunkies.com, itsyourmovie.com - have been instant successes with web audiences merely by word of mouth. Even though it's still very early days, the signs so far have been very encouraging.
Last week, fan-based movie website MyMovies.net set out its stall when it signed a far-reaching deal with NTL to distribute its content across NTL's various platforms. At the same time, it tied up with the Short Film Bureau to develop a new short films channel, which adds impetus to its plans to launch a broadband video-on-demand service for feature films at the start of next year. Film festival site FilmFestivals.com is also adding momentum to the short film industry and, after opening a London office last week and plans to stream movies via the internet, is evolving towards providing internet video-on-demand.
At the launch last week of the MyMovies.net/SFB alliance, film actress Joely Richardson and short film director Gaby Dellal were paraded as supporters of the move to seek wider internet distribution for the growing short-film industry.
Richardson, who says she's so far "slipped through the net", thinks it's an exciting development. "There's such a big audience for short films, but, more often than not, it's difficult to see them because of distribution problems. The internet's phenome nal reach will change everything and mean more people all over the world have access to these films whenever they want," she says, adding that the move will invariably encourage more actors to start doing short films.
While Dellal agrees that it's an exciting development, she sees a much darker side based on the mass-market perception of the internet as a place where sex cases lurk and porn is rife. "I worry about its anonymity, and the feeling that there is something secret and covert about watching films on the internet. I can't get away from this thought that it's dirty, maybe because I'm old-fashioned."
While latent demand is clearly being stirred up, the UK is still a good few months away from streaming full-length motion pictures via the web. However, this is something that companies such as MyMovies.net and FilmGroup are working on, and expect to have up and running by the start of next year.
Not to be outdone, Blockbuster is also planning to move into this area, and could quite easily be followed by Film Four, and pay-per-view types such as Homechoice, u>direct and Diva. Of course, the added benefit of broadcasting footage via websites is that it gives the webcaster access to new markets and cuts down on traditional distribution costs.
Sceptics argue that users will not sit for hours in front of a PC screen to watch a film when there is a much more comfortable alternative in the living room. Clearly, there has to be a new incentive for punters to sit in front of a computer, pay for a movie and watch it all. Plans range from exclusive-rights deals that offer films before they are available on video, to directors' cuts and web-only interactive movies. Whether punters will welcome this remains to be seen, but the pay-per-view chaps are heartened by the thriving online porn video industry - where people pay the going rate for movies they aren't normally able to access. The theory is that if the traditional movie industry moves onto the web and offers exciting features, then the punters will eventually get their heads around it and pay hard-earned cash for the pleasure.
The big money is on the independent short film industry finding a huge new market on the web, and judging by the way in which independent producers are grabbing web opportunities right now, this is likely to take off at a much faster rate than feature-length movies.
"The world in five years - when high-speed connections have reached critical mass - is going to look completely different from the world today," says Zwillenberg. "It's going to happen very quickly, but until then, it will be a slow journey."
Meanwhile, hype invariably gets in the way and the webcasting industry is no exception to this. At the Streaming Media conference the week before last, the future, if you allowed yourself to be sucked into the hype, was very bright for everyone involved in web broadcasting.
Ultimately, it boils down to creative thinking, and good talent stretching the boundaries of TV and technology. Now that the games industry is increasingly getting involved in interactive games-oriented movies, and the whole convergence of movies and games is being explored, things are going to change dramatically. At least that's what everyone is hoping.
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GUARDIAN - 21/08/2000,
Amy Vickers New Media:
A step in the right direction: For too long, TV websites have been dull pages of screen grabs and cast lists. Only now, says Amy Vickers , are broadcasters finally waking up to the need for quality online product
Ask anyone to name a decent TV show website - one that actually adds value to the related programme - and you'd be hard pressed to get anything other than a furrowed brow.
The dearth of decent TV show websites is not entirely down to lack of imagination. It has a lot to do with the constraints of narrowband connections and a reluctance to invest in sites that don't get sufficient traffic. With moves towards the internet-on-TV model and the imminent arrival of broadband access, things are starting to change.At present, however, the consensus is that websites dedicated to TV programmes are little more than brochureware, put together by a production team that has no direct contact with the programme-makers and finds it difficult to see beyond the ubiquitous chatrooms and character profiles.
Granada Broadband, the recently established interactive arm of Granada, is hoping to change all this on August 28, the date on which it launches its Cold Feet website. Cold Feet Online (ColdFeetOnline.com) should set new standards for the way in which websites for TV shows are developed.
Website producer Simon Bucknall says the danger in developing a higher standard of product is that future products will be judged by new benchmarks. "We've set the standard and we don't want to go back and put out lesser products. But by starting with Cold Feet, the benchmark has been set particularly high because it gave us so much to work with: fun, interesting characters and a young, net-savvy demographic. And we were able to work very closely with the TV production crew and the actors."
While most other TV crews tend not to extend a warm welcome to new-media people hanging around the set, Bucknall hopes this might change once they have seen the Cold Feet website.
Changes are taking place in the TV industry. Programme-makers have realised that a website can add a great deal to the programme, bringing in new users and encouraging people to get involved in the show. The Big Brother site (channel4.com/ bigbrother) is flawed, but manages at least to satisfy the viewers' desire for more footage and information. Channel 5's soon-to-launch Jailbreak will also make the website an integral part of the show. The plan is to provide daily news updates and 24-hour access to the inmates' movements via webcams, and to take the interaction further by encouraging users to register as escape committee members and mail escape tips to inmates.
The Cold Feet site makes good use of many of the features of the show and is divided into five self-explanatory sections (The Show, Short Cuts, Catch Up, Fun and Games and The Cast). Character profiles and storyboards will be updated as each series airs. Other basic features include online chats, message boards, an archive of the first three series, competitions and cast interviews. Where the site differs from the typical TV site is in the depth of exclusive content developed for it.
One of the innovative ideas built into the Cold Feet website is the behind-the-scenes footage filmed by the Granada Broadband website team. The clips, between three and four minutes in length, show the actors relaxing between takes and include interviews with cast and crew, outtakes and fly-on-the-wall footage of the making of the show. Two clips will be added to the site each week, building up a database of footage, which can then be sold as a finished product.
One plan under consideration is to package the footage as a DVD and sell it to another channel, such as ITV2. Another way of making money from the site is to introduce advertisers and e-commerce part ners, such as eBay. A compelling aspect of the new site is the character-oriented email service that will be tied in to the storylines and sent out every day. The email feature will give the impression that messages are written by the characters, emailing each other about plot developments and their feelings for other characters. Having drafted in the services of the show's scriptwriter, Mike Bullen, Granada is hoping to shift the focus away from the weekly show, and develop an ongoing narrative and affiliations between the characters and the fans.
"The stuff we've been developing is ground-breaking, particularly the synergies we're introducing between the TV show and the interactive services," says Bucknall. "By having the characters send emails to each other, we're making them appear more rounded and adding to their appeal."
Little on other TV show websites can compare to this service, although the concept is not new- cK-One ran a similar email campaign based on characters from its advertising. However, other websites are similarly focusing on getting viewers involved daily with a weekly show. Hat Trick Productions' Have I Got News for You, for example, has been building up a loyal daily following with its recently launched site, Haveigotnewsforyou.com. Paul Zwillenberg, managing director of Europe, a consultancy/incubator hybrid which has set up a venture with Hat Trick Productions to develop web programming (HKI), says the HIGNFY site is just a starting point.
"It gave us a way to understand how viewers can interact on a daily basis with a weekly programme," says Zwillenberg. Despite receiving no on-air promotion on the show (because the site was developed independently of the BBC), he says the feedback has been very positive, and that more than 10% of new visitors who register go on immediately to play the games featured on the site.
The move towards a more intimate relationship with viewers - Cold Feet has 8.5m - is Granada Broadband's longer-term strategy, a strategy that sees the phasing out of the g-wizz brand. Justin Judd, controller of content and production at Granada Broadband, says it's all about turning viewers into customers through additional services. "There is limited appetite for extra soap-related material, given that the programmes are aired so frequently, so what we have to do is find new ways of attracting people to the sites," says Judd.
Having worked as a TV producer at Granada since 1994, Judd was seconded to Granada Broadband five months ago to work on closer integration between Granada's programming and its interactive services. His appointment has already paved the way for exclusive footage on the Cold Feet website, and now he's taking steps to change the brochureware sites and correct mistakes by building in more interactive content, such as Rovers Return and Woolpack pub quizzes.
The new Granada Broadband strategy appears to be in line with the views of industry experts. Zwillenberg says: "Broadcasters are making the same mistakes that newspapers did when they went online. It's not appropriate just to repurpose content. It's encouraging to see major media companies starting to experiment with broadband - if they don't, they'll find themselves very far back. Entertainment is to broadband what sport was to BSkyB."
While things are moving in the right direction, the long-term vision - all users accessing the website via TV while watching the programme - is still some time off. Conscious of the upcoming change, Granada is gearing up to launch PowerChannel, its TV-based analogue internet set-top box, in October. The TV internet product - free, provided users participate in monthly questionnaires - will be supported by a new entertainment portal that will promote Granada Broadband's websites. By 2001, Granada PowerChannel expects to have more than 1m subscribers.
As its name suggests, Granada Broadband is conscious that the future for broadcast entertainment on the net is heavily dependent on the uptake of broadband. So it must be reassuring to Granada chiefs to hear that their interim strategy is getting the thumbs-up from erudite consultants.
"Granada is taking important steps to understand how users interact and the value of cross promotion," says Zwillenberg. "Broadband is going to create the same sort of fundamental change that narrowband caused in book retailing and financial services. The internet has not yet hit the entertainment business. We're talking about a sea change in the way users get entertainment - but it's just the beginning."
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INDEPENDENT - 08/05/2000,
Amy Vickers Network - New Media:
Disillusioned in dot.com land
WE ALL knew it was coming, but that didn't stop the raised eyebrows and wry smiles when the first cracks started to show. It's almost as if the doomsayers take some perverse pleasure in hitting the mark and being able to squeal "I told you so" to anyone within earshot.
There was an overabundance of this trite glee last week when things started going belly-up for the likes of boo.com, TheStreet.co.uk and JustPeople.com. Not one to rub salt in the wounds, I'll be brief. Investors are bailing out by the truckload after the sudden reawakening that all that is new media is not gold. The much-anticipated crash couldn't have come a moment too soon and, by the look of things, is going to put a stop to all the silliness that has dominated UK new media for the past eight months.
The news that boo.com has stuck up the "for sale" sign is typical of many of the sentiments that are around at the moment: greed, overambition, and stupidity. Boo.com always was a good but fanciful idea that would never work in the current climate. Perhaps if it had launched in a few years, who knows? What's done is done, and boo.com will go down in history as the definitive example of a false start. It can only hope that someone comes in to rescue it.
What will now happen is that more investors get twitchy, realise a return on investment is highly unlikely, abandon the initial public offering and push to sell the businesses before the situation deteriorates. It's the first law of sensible investing. This twitchiness has also permeated startup management teams, people such as Martin Baker (TheStreet.co.uk) and Darrin Moy (JustPeople.com), who realise they're facing an uphill struggle and dot.com envy turns to dot.com disenchantment.
Many venture capitalists are slamming the door on startups, with investors in particular blanking those waving around b2c (business-to-consumer) business plans. The money is now being directed at the latest fad, b2b (business-to-business), and the bookies are already taking bets on how long this one is going to last.
The knock-on effect is that many recent startups will have to tighten their belts (no huge advertising campaigns), and learn to stand on their own two feet. The second or third round of funding that was etched into the business plan is going take some fighting for, and unless they are making money they're going to have to find a way of dealing with debt.
Many will, like CDNow, become acquisition targets, ready to be snapped up by the fat-walleted media groups that want to diversify. It's a shame that it has come to this - the fun being knocked out by greed - but it's all just jigsaw pieces in a slowly forming picture. For some it means a stronger focus and penny-pinching, while for others it means wishful thinking. Compare new media with other industries - the motor car one, for instance - and I think you'll agree that there's still some hope.
As for the faint-hearted defectors, it's worth bearing in mind that new media was never about instant riches; this message just got a little blurred during those heady Initial Public Offering-obsessed days.
Blonde ambition
So Liz Murdoch is dropping hints that she is angling after a bit of the dot.com action. Liz, 31, is leaving the "family business" to set up what is being officially described as a new media, TV and film production company.
At this stage it's not clear whether she has jumped on the 55 (the new expression for going dot.com - because the number 55 bus goes to dotcodotuk valley EC1/EC2, geddit?). In fact, nothing is really clear. Everyone is speculating. Liz, media darling extraordinaire, looks set to become the next big new media icon - a la Martha Lane Fox - because we know how the media loves to get its teeth into blonde new-media women.
amy@the-bullet.com
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GUARDIAN - 06/11/2000,
Amy Vickers Media: New Media:
Bowling along: Fancy talking to the stars? You can if you sign up to Lis Howell's website. She tells Amy Vickers about a Pounds 500,000 gamble on the over-35s market
Ask Lis Howell, a woman who has devoted her life to television, why she made the leap into the uncharted waters of the internet at the age of almost 50, and you'll get a decisive answer that could warm the cockles of many a disenchanted old TV exec's heart. "It's good for the soul," she says.
She's not sure her family would agree, however. She has worked flat out, spending weekends in the office, to get the website, bowlofcherries.com, up and running on time. The website, a community-focused magazine site for over-35s with something of a celebrity edge, made its debut, as planned, last Tuesday.The five partners in the company - Ola Steinsrud, David Hurst, Jane McCormick, Alyson Pearce and Howell herself - each stumped up cash to get the venture off the ground, and a private investor, a friend Howell declines to name, managed to ramp up the total launch fund to Pounds 500,000.
Howell is chief executive; Hurst, previously publishing director of Financial Times Business, is managing director. McCormick, who has worked as a journalist for the Sun, the Sunday Mirror, the Sunday Express, GMTV and Reuters, is editor-in-chief. Pearce, who has experience in showbusiness, the media and the hospitality industry, is events director. Steinsrud, the founder of TVNorge, Norway's first commercial TV station, will be new media consultant.
Given the option of being backed by Howell's former company Flextech, where she was senior vice-president of Flextech Channels, the five partners didn't think what was on the table was worthwhile, even though it would have had PR value and involved support marketing. They also decided to avoid the complex venture capital route. Instead, with gritty determination, they opted to go it alone.
Will it work? Not even Howell seems 100% certain. She says that the project is safe until Christmas, by which time it needs to have established a good revenue model.
Howell may have a strong record in TV but, as everyone has learned from the past year, the internet is a whole different ball game, and top teams don't necessarily equal auto matic success. However, if energy and enthusiasm could guarantee success in the cut-throat world of the internet, bowlofcherries would be an instant success story.
But who's to say it won't be a success? With a strong, experienced management team behind it, a good well-researched niche market to target and no malevolent venture capitalist on its back, it perhaps stands a better chance than many. It has already got off to a springing start, with, according to Howell, almost 100 pre-launch subscriptions taken out. At Pounds 100 a pop for a year's members' benefits, that's a nice Pounds 10,000 in the bank after its first week.
"The site has hit a nerve already and we're starting off with no debt because we've covered all the start-up costs with our own money. We've done our research and we know there is a market out there for us," says Howell, reeling off some research bowlofcherries commissioned from BMRB in the summer. More than 10.5m people over 35 now use the internet for pleasure; 7% said they would pay a subscription if they thought it gave them something; they constitute the fastest growing sector of the internet; and they know what they want - mainly relevant information and good conversation. To this end, bowlofcherries aims to provide users with information about everything from decorating and gardening to cooking and travel, top-and-tailed with a bit of celebrity opinion.
The company is entering a market that has yet to be tapped. While the number of websites for people over 45 or under 25 has spiralled, no one has yet developed a website targeted at both sexes over 35.
Other revenues from advertising and e-commerce will kick in later, but the subscription-based model should give bowlofcherries a good foundation on which to build. Additionally, the site has signed e- commerce and content deals with Tesco, the RAC and Crabtree & Evelyn, the upmarket gift shop.
For their Pounds 100, bowlofcherries club members will get a free gift from Crabtree & Evelyn and an organised social calendar, including wine tastings, tennis tournaments and weekly cocktail parties where club members can meet the 50 personalities who write for the site. Members also have access to experts (such as a personal celebrity shopper) and get discounts on some goods.
Club members will even be encouraged to strike up personal email conversations with the stars - a list that includes Toyah Wilcox, Michael Cole, Fern Britton, Edwina Currie and Jilly Johnson - who will be writing for the website.
The rest of the website and all the content are free, but Howell says that the celebrity involvement and the weekly parties are its unique selling point. "It's not about glamour, it's about conversations," she says.
Howell says she's having the time of her life and now sees the TV industry as stale and unwilling to change with the times. She's glad she made the move and likes the new-found sense of control over the whole project - a far cry from the enveloping bureaucracy at her former employers, Flextech, GMTV and BSkyB.
More than anything, and not just because she and her partners have money riding on the success of bowlofcherries.com, she is determined that this new venture is one of the few dot.com start-ups that survive. Could she be trying to prove a point to her former colleagues?
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GUARDIAN - 28/08/2000,
Amy Vickers Media Guardian: New Media:
Celebrity shares: In theory it's simple. The big name endorses your internet business in return for a stake - and everyone makes loads of money. In practice, it's a bit trickier, says Amy Vickers
Times are certainly changing. Was it really only a few years back that the internet was primarily the domain of low-end tech-savvy users and the only celebrity endorsements we were privy to were the likes of Nanette Newman touting Fairy liquid? Nowadays, it seems that wherever you look on the web you can't avoid stumbling across famous names endorsing a new website or throwing their weight behind their own new internet venture.
The reasons are obvious: most celebrities hanker after any kind of media promotion and if getting involved in an internet venture also manages to give them additional kudos, then that has to be a good thing. The glut of coverage at the start of this year about the fame and fortune that the internet brings only served to encourage the feelings of dot.com envy, and even though this has been replaced recently by feelings of dot.com disenchantment, the internet is still seen as a future-proof investment strategy.The latest entrant into this territory is Clive James, antipodean journalist-cum-TV presenter. James is not ready to shy away from what, in his words, represents his next big challenge. At a press lunch in London two weeks ago, James touted the wares of Welcome Stranger, an internet start-up aimed at people who travel.
Having managed to pull off a fine performance selling his involvement in Welcomestranger.com at the lunch, James then set about telling us that the company needed Pounds 500,000 to move the business on to the next stage. Nothing like pulling a fast one by looking for coverage before the funding is settled, he admitted, upsetting some of the more cynical journalists present.
James's involvement with Welcome Stranger, a planned network of sites for travellers in different cities and countries, may be as little more than a figurehead non-exec chairman. But it is a canny move on behalf of the company's founder, Simon Larcey, who is banking on James' name to generate both media and investor interest. In return, James gets a share in the company and the chance to promote his books and himself through the network of sites. Larcey's plan seems to be working. Immediately after announcing James's appointment, several investors got in touch and he is currently pursuing talks with them.
"It's great working with someone like Clive," he says, "because it automatically gives Welcome Stranger a profile. However, we still have to prove that we have an attractive business model to potential investors to raise the funding and that's my job."
For the past year, Larcey has painstakingly been building the infrastructure for his websites, convincing IT and advertising friends to work for him in exchange for equity stakes. He projects that the business will be in the black within three years via a combination of advertising revenue (beer, job and airline advertisers are proving particularly enthusiastic) and e-commerce revenues.
In convincing James to get involved, Larcey has inadvertedly catapulted him into an area increasingly over-populated with famous names: Joanna Lumley (ClickMango. com), Hugh Scully (QXL), Boris Becker (Sportgate), Bob Geldof (Deckchair.com and WapWorld), Jonathan Ross (toyzone.co.uk) and Alex Ferguson (Toptable.co.uk) have also taken stakes in ventures in return for providing publicity.
Narda Shirley, managing director of Gnash, a new media PR and marketing consultancy that handles PR work for ClickMango, says: "Celebrity endorsement can be the best or the worst thing to happen to a website depending on your personal perspective. How many 30-plus cyber-savvy new mums can relate to Melinda Messenger? But there's no doubt that the right celebrity involvement conveys credibility to consumers and helps a company stand out from its competition. What's interesting is how some companies have gone beyond pure personal appearances and endorsements to make the celebrity an integral part of the user experience."
For a reputed 2% share of the company, Lumley was not just its figurehead but also worked tirelessly on "road-testing" new health and beauty products. Her efforts were then converted into a weekly newsletter called "Joanna tries out . . ."
Unfortunately for Joanna, being a figurehead for a start-up meant that once cracks began to show, she had to take some of the blame. Most media outlets had a field day, waxing lyrically about how Lumley was dropping out of the net, and how even someone as high-profile and well-liked as her could not sell products. At the time of announcing its impending closure, ClickMango had a reported turnover of just Pounds 2,000 a week.
Perhaps the overriding image of Lumley as a chain-smoking, alcohol- and drug-abusing wreck in Absolutely Fabulous was too much for people to bear. Or perhaps it was just down to market conditions.
But while the company is still holding out for a last-minute reprieve, it is reassuring to know that Lumley is not deserting the sinking ship. She is said to be doing wonders for staff morale over at ClickMango, but not even someone as famous as Lumley can convince investors to stand by an ailing start-up.
Hugh Scully's involvement in QXL is as a little more than a figurehead: he runs the World of Antiques section of the site, which plugs into 22 antiques experts. The site (www.antiques.qxl.com), launched at the start of April, offers QXL members the chance to get their valuables valued at Pounds 12 a time.
Scully was paid Pounds 3m in shares when he signed the deal in October last year, although the bulk could be sold only once the site was launched - and by then QXL's share price had plummeted to less than half its October value. The idea behind Scully's involvement was twofold: to give QXL more credibility in the auctions world and to attract a different, older audience to the website. Whether this will work remains to be seen.
James's involvement in Welcome Stranger is slightly less promotional and more at board level, getting involved in quests for funding, attending strategy meetings and piggy-backing its traffic to promote his books.
The company, which has already launched aussieinlondon.com, is looking to expand its operations to include kiwiinlondon.com and bokinlondon.com, similar sites for New Zealanders and South Africans - and to offer generic features such as job and accommodation ads and advice on travel and visas.
Admitting to taking a stake of less than 10%, James says one of the main attractions was the way in which the web allows him to reach the public directly "without having to fight with the TV networks".
Part of the reason dot.com start-ups have been quick to sign up celebrities is that they want to stand out from the crowd. The more crowded the sector you operate in, the more important a well-defined brand becomes, and although Welcome Stranger has an unusual business model, the publicity a famous name gives a new venture is not to be sniffed at.
But choosing a celebrity is always a gamble - in the worst-case scenario, your figurehead could do irreparable damage to the brand. "Celebrities can beef up your brand appeal enormously but the challenge is to find one whose public persona and attributes are really firmly entrenched," warns Narda Shirley. With more and more famous names using new media as a promotional vehicle, it's surely just a matter of time before a celebrity's antics kill a dot.com business.
James accepts that getting involved in a new media venture is a bit of a gamble, especially in the current climate and having seen Lumley become the scapegoat for the problems over at ClickMango. But, having learnt from his experience in the cutthroat world of TV production, he reckons this one will work: "Celebrities are staking their prestige on these internet ventures. It's too late to play dumb. I wouldn't be in this if I didn't think it would work."
On your head be it then, Mr James.
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GUARDIAN - 07/05/2001,
Amy Vickers New media:
Pulling the porn: Dot.coms may be collapsing but there's still one sure-fire winner on the internet - sex. So why are companies opting out of 'adult products'? Amy Vickers reports
It is not easy to make money from the internet. It's even more difficult for an internet business to make a profit - unless, that is, you are in the porn business. The news last week that unseated dot.com employees were falling over themselves to get jobs in the porn industry was more than just a sign of the times. Disillusioned dot.commers, hacked off with constantly being bounced around from one failed outfit to the next, reasoned that the only fail-safe solution was pornography.
It wasn't such a big surprise. Porn is one of the few profitable industries on the internet, and "sex" has long been the most popular online search term, closely followed by "porn", "nude", "XXX", "Playboy" and "erotic stories".While the rest of the net is reeling from crumbling ad revenues, the sex industry has not even taken a hit because its main revenue stream is subscriptions, not advertising. It's that old adage again: Sex always sells. No amount of economic downturn will affect this phenomenally successful industry that is becoming increasingly acceptable, especially among young professionals.
Yet companies such as Yahoo! are opting out of the porn industry. Given the demand, the big business and the job security,this seems like a mad decision. Why?
It all boils down to a public outcry, and a feeling that one of the biggest and arguably one of the most influential internet companies in the world shouldn't be dealing in the business of porn.
Despite the fact that Yahoo! has sold X-rated products for more than two years, when the Los Angeles Times ran a piece suggesting it was expanding its collection a month ago, a huge debate ensued. A few days later, Yahoo! backed down and said it would cease selling adult products, stop accepting banner ads from porn sites, cut out classifieds and auction adult-type items, and pledged it would clamp down on sex-related message boards and clubs. The misconception, however, is that it will outlaw porn on its site, which it insists is not the case. A search still throws up 671 sites for "porn" and if Yahoo! users want to buy porn videos, they are redirected to an external site.
To make the changes Yahoo! is currently introducing what has been described as "pretty extensive filtering software" but teething problems are expected. The reduction of porn on Yahoo.com won't spell the death of Yahoo!, but it could derail its profit projections.
Despite the new porn exclusion software, though, the company is still making its mind up. Last week, faced with a barrage of criticism from web users, it came back and said no decisions had been taken on whether the changes to its adult porn section would be permanent. "It's the internet, so lots of things are possible," said Yahoo! spokesman Jackson Holtz, insisting it was just a re-evaluation of adult content across the network.
Clearly, Yahoo! is playing it by ear. It doesn't want to alienate users or conservative forces, nor does it want to rule out forever a guaranteed moneyspinner. Yahoo! has been put in a glaringly uncomfortable spotlight. It has now publicly back-peddled on a plan to expand its adult materials and caused a flap among other big internet portals, concerned about public approval.
Terra Lycos, which operates a number of Lycos portals around the world, has now chipped in and announced it is re-evaluating its own porn policy, while MSN has reaffirmed that it has a strict policy on porn.
Of all the bigger players in the portal market, AltaVista is one of the few that seems to offer no-holds-barred access to pornographic material. A quick search using the term "porn" brings up an array of hardcore images, video clips and links to sites that are advertised using very explicit language.
MSN has already gone the whole hog and removed any evidence of adult-related merchandise. It moderates chatrooms and has a tough policy on links to porn. In fact, after entering the term "porn" in the search engine, the user is immediately warned: "You have entered a search term that is likely to return adult content." There are no adult videos to be found on the site, but if users want that kind of material, they are sent out of MSN confines into the unrestrained web where technically they are no longer the responsibility of MSN.
Therein lies the great irony. A significant proportion of web users want access to porn and to this end will locate porn and buy it, with or without the help of Yahoo!. Censorship of this kind doesn't work. If Yahoo!, the second biggest website in the world, doesn't take a piece of this action, it will lose out. Pundits and users alike believe Yahoo! has got itself into unnecessarily uncomfortable territory because of its willingness to purge itself of adult materials, instead of forcing families to install filter software on their computers.
Yahoo! members spoke out last week, saying they felt betrayed and were planning to petition the portal after it quietly reconfigured its adult-themed clubs, message boards and chatrooms. Yahoo! has now made these areas much more difficult to find and even disabled some search links so that in order to find a club, users have to know the correct internet address and type it in directly. List members argue angrily that this tactic will ultimately lead to them disappearing altogether.
Ken Bradman, a 23-year-old web developer in Phoenix, has spoken out on the issue and is organising a protest club. "If they completely eliminate adult material from the site, they're going to lose a lot of members who are interested in that. I can guarantee you it's going to be a huge chunk of Yahoo!'s user base," he proclaimed last week.
Already some club members have reposted links to their clubs in different sections of the site to show they won't be silenced.
Yahoo! refuses to comment further on the porn issue, but the UK office is happy to point out its tight policy. "We have a different position to the US. We've already taken steps to reduce adult content on the site [last year] and we've tightened up chatroom controls," says a spokesman.
The UK office of MSN says much the same: "MSN.co.uk has a zero tolerance policy toward retailers on the shopping channel distributing pornographic material from its site. Since 'top shelf pornography' is not illegal for consenting adults over the age of 18 material of this nature is categorised in communities as 'adult' on the MSN site. Users searching under adult terms on MSN Search will be asked to confirm that they are wanting to access adult material and if they answer positively will be diverted on to a separate site - Nightsurf."
The issue has become much more than the removal of pornographic videos, the blocking of under 18s, and links to child porn sites; it has opened up a whole can of worms about freedom of speech on the internet. For a harassed Yahoo! though, it is damned whatever it does. This one could run and run.
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GUARDIAN - 18/06/2001,
Amy Vickers Media: New Media:
Chips with everything: Internet users want entertainment and websites want to make money. Big online casinos are the perfect solution. As Aspinalls launches its own version today, Amy Vickers considers how the sector is finally becoming reputable
In a world full of uncertainties, there are just two sure things left on the internet these days - sex and gambling. Sex has been done to death with recent stories of out of work dot.commers turning to porn websites to bring home the bacon, and Yahoo's big porn dilemma. But gambling, in particular the entertainment side of gambling - casinos - is just starting to emerge as a mainstream internet pastime. It has been held back, however, by the struggle for respectability.
Casino behemoth Aspinalls, which launches Aspinalls.com today, has put all its chips on its family name making it stand head and shoulders above the thousands of cowboy casino websites out there.Its emphasis is on trust, says Russell Foreman, chief executive of Aspinalls Online. "It's all about making people feel comfortable. There's no way we'd do anything to jeopardise our reputation," he explains. The fact that Aspinalls.com is also the first publicly traded online gambling organisation in the UK, and thus has City shareholders to answer to, means that it is not going to do anything that might turn the public against it.
Foreman expects rapid growth for the business and says it's the perfect time to launch a big online casino, because internet consumers want entertainment, and websites want to start making money. With the web evolving to become an entertainment medium, the challenging gaming factor of casinos is guaranteed to pull in punters - even if they haven't got the nerve to play for money.
The games on offer are carbon copies of those found in ordinary casinos, such as blackjack, poker, roulette and craps. Croupiers are replaced by clever software that generates the numbers randomly. The more accountable online casinos make a big effort to ensure that these systems are subject to stringent control systems. Aspinalls.com, for instance, is to be audited regularly by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
Many casinos ask players to download software onto their computers for faster and better play and set up accounts with credit cards, although most allow punters to play for free first to get the hang of the games.
But with so many casinos on the web, it's difficult to determine which ones are honest and which are out to rip off consumers. Gaming bodies suggest punters stick with well-known names, such as Ladbrokes (ladbrokescasino.com) and Victor Chandler (thespinroom.com), rather than the lesser known ones that don't offer guarantees of audits.
Now that more and more transparent casinos are launching online, it is forecast that this market segment will represent a major area of growth, particularly when the inevitable happens and they are granted UK licences.
New research bears this out. Peter Tyson, an analyst at Datamonitor, expects online casinos to grow at a much faster pace than any other subset of the online gambling market. "We're projecting a 40% growth rate for online casinos over the next five years, compared to just 20% for online sports betting," says Tyson.
Datamonitor says the UK online casino market accounts for around 40%, or almost Pounds 300m, of the online gambling market. By 2004, this is expected to have grown to 50% of the market, or Pounds 760m.
So it is no wonder that suddenly a whole batch of online casinos is cropping up. No sooner had Aspinalls starting publicising Aspinalls.com than MSN sent out a press release about its very own casino, provided by Harrods. The combination of Bill Gates and Mohamed Al Fayed cosying up together may be too much for most people to stomach, but nonetheless it's another key deal that will do wonders for the widespread acceptance of online casinos.
MSN, the world's most popular portal, is hoping to ease some of its revenue problems by offering a link to the Harrods Casino. It will pick up 10% of all gambling revenues referred to Harrods by MSN links and marketing. Sources within the online casino industry also suggest that Freeserve has for some time been looking at putting together a similar deal with a reputable casino operator.
In little more than six months, Harrods has established itself as one of the best-known online casino businesses, and the strategic two-year marketing deal with MSN, which kicks in later this month, can only serve to bring in more punters.
The Harrods Casino, a joint venture between the department store and Gaming Internet, is already proving to be Gaming Internet's principal revenue generator, according to a spokesman. Figures should be out soon, but early end-of-year analyst projections suggest that the casino should have generated Pounds 7.5m by this September.
Gaming Internet is one of a handful of technology companies that supply ready-made online casino systems to famous brands. Other big suppliers include Microgaming, Cryptologic and Boss Media, which are starting to make headway in the UK now that more and more traditional brands want to get involved. Gaming Internet already runs an online casino for FHM.com and is developing a casino for the Paris Ritz Hotel called ParisRitzCasino.com.
Given the ease with which companies can launch an online casino, it's no wonder that there is a glut of casino websites. But as more and more reputable companies get involved and take the lion's share of punters, the number of fraudulent websites should, in theory, dwindle.
"People are very concerned by how easy it is for companies they have never heard of to set up an online casino, and then rip them off," says Mark Brechin, author of a soon-to-be-released Mintel report on online gambling. "That's why the brand is absolutely vital and why reputable brands have to operate transparent and audited casino websites.
"Aspinalls' launch should do well thanks to the respect its brand has established over the past 40 years. However, there are still loads of shady sites out there ready to relieve the unwitting punters of their folding money," adds Brechin.
The reason "brand" is so important is that there is no real protection for consumers. The legalities of online casinos are sketchy, with most companies locating their servers and businesses overseas to circumvent antiquated gambling laws. Laws are gradually changing, however. The casino operators want the UK gam ing laws to be extended to protect consumers, and the government is thought likely to publish recommendations that should regulate online casinos and make them legal. Pundits are expecting the government, which loosened up the online gambling tax laws in the March 2001 budget, to clarify the antiquated online casino rules that are so prohibitive.
The most radical reform should be a single regulatory body set up to oversee the whole industry, effectively pooling the powers of the Gaming Board, the national lottery commission, the Jockey Club, the British Horseracing Board and the financial services authority.
The Gaming Board, the current regulatory body responsible for online casinos, is calling for a change in the regulations permitting online casinos in the UK. The reason companies go to the Caribbean, Central America and Gibraltar is that the governments of these territories are only too happy to grant licences in exchange for Pounds 100,000 for the licence and then tax on the turnover of the company.
Another key reform is expected to be the change in licensing laws, so that operators can be granted licences by a UK authority and don't have to purchase an offshore licence, or locate their servers abroad.
It's not difficult to work out how online casinos make money. Once people are hooked on the games, and they realise how easy it is to play, they become regular players. Loyalty systems are a big feature of online gambling and the theory is that regular gamblers can be easily be persuaded to use their accounts to have a punt on sporting events.
The next step, casino games on interactive television and on mobile phones tied into betting, is the final piece of the jigsaw for big casino players such as Aspinalls, turning us all into armchair roulette wheel addicts.
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GUARDIAN - 09/04/2001,
Amy Vickers New Media:
Keeping up with the Jones: Text messaging will enable fans to become friends with Bridget - tap into her sex life, diet, how much she drinks and smokes. Has her author created a monster?
If sex, men, smoking, drinking, diets, self-help books and text messaging are your bag, then you may well find yourself as inextricably drawn to the next piece of the Bridget Jones jigsaw - Bridget text messaging. It starts this Friday and, like the book, is guaranteed to reel people in - hook, line and sinker.
If you've seen the film, and bought into the Bridget ethos, then the logical next step is to become friends with Bridget - to allow the relationship with her (yes a fictional character) to become more personal.It is unsurprising, then, that a text messaging marketing campaign has been developed to sit tidily next to the grand launch of the film. An apt marketing gimmick, given that text messaging is fast becoming a neurotic obsession and the ultimate flirtation tool.
The linchpin of the campaign is a daily text message from Bridget which gives details of her weight, how many alcohol units she's consumed, how many cigarettes she's had and any other facts that might draw you into her life, and encouraging you to text her back.
An example of the type of messages is: "Valentine's day should be banned by law. Reply Y/N."
The story of Bridget Jones has been well documented. Within minutes of the book hitting the bookstands in 1996, a phenomenon was created. It was an overnight success, selling more than 6m copies. Women holding down semi-successful jobs and playing the field found a curious empathy with the obsessive Bridget, who became an alter ego for a post-feminist generation of single women in their thirties living in the disenchanted 1990s.
Now, with an all-new version of the Bridget Jones diary coming to mobile phones, Fielding could be on the verge of creating a monster.
Remember Online Caroline, last year's contentious attempt at web drama? After a few weeks, the constant cries for help and advice from Caroline had her former "friends" ditching her in droves and screaming "stalker". Not a pretty sight.
At first it seemed harmless, cute, a bit different. Caroline was friendly (some would say too friendly), and her chatty emails were amusing - she invited people into her life, shared secrets with them and asked their advice. Then she became over-sensitive if her new "friends" hadn't called in to see her and began a barrage of daily emails that bordered on harassment.
The Bridget text campaign taps into the same kind of immersive principles, albeit via just one medium rather than the three (phone, email and web) used by Online Caroline.
In the same way that Caroline pulled people into her life, Bridget will become your friend, if you allow her to, and suck you into her life. Before you realise, you may find yourself asking a fictional character for advice on men, sex, diet, drugs or alcohol, even if you know the answer you'll get will be a typical Bridget Jones one.
You may even find yourself taking the Bridget quiz, or the personality tests to find out how "Bridget" you really are, or even start using Bridgetisms such as "smug marrieds" or "mentionitis".
Who knows what effect this will have on susceptible women. Is it right to put a gibbering obsessive on a pedestal and then tie the whole thing up with one of today's most addictive pastimes? It has the potential to make Bridgettes even more obsessive and knock us back 30 years in the feminist stakes. Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding says that's pretty much the aim of the SMS campaign. "Texting allows one to be more obsessive even than email. You can be in communication with others any time, anywhere (or not, which can be heartbreaking and obviously requires major analysis and discussion through further texting)," she says.
Fielding has gone back to the drawing board to create typical Bridget messages tailored for mobile phones, even though text messaging wasn't around when the Bridget phenomenon took off. "I have no doubt that after pioneering email flirtation, Bridget has by now become an SMS junkie," says Fielding.
The whole experience has been cleverly crafted from start to finish. After you've opted into the daily Bridget messages, you're only one step away from the accessories. And no self-respecting Bridget fan will be complete without her logos and icons, and of course, the ubiquitous ringing tones based on songs from the film.
Jan Wellmann, chief executive of Riot-E, the company providing the software and the know-how to Universal Pictures which made the film version of Bridget Jones, says Bridget is the first of many big screen characters that will be brought to life by mobile phones. No doubt another extension of the Bridget phenomenon will be a computer game, a TV show, a diet plan, a fashion line - who knows where it will stop.
Wellmann thinks there is just one essential ingredient to enable a character from a book or film to make the jump to a mobile phone, and that's a ready-made community of fans. It's not difficult to imagine the likes of The Blair Witch Project, Star Wars or even The Matrix being perfect fodder for SMS games. Already Riot-e has proved it can successfully take a game from the big screen to the ubiquitous fashion accessory that is the mobile phone.
In Italy last year, Riot-e had more than 16,000 people playing an X-Men text message game, which resulted in about a million messages being sent. Tellingly, the Wap version of the game wasn't nearly as popular and only managed to pull in around 8,000 players.
A long-term licensing deal with X-Men rights holders Marvel Enterprises means that Riot-e now has the mobile rights to more than 4,700 Marvel characters. And now that the company is ready to expand into new markets outside its native Finland, it's only a matter of time before British menfolk will get their very own SMS game, given that the Bridget one is really just for girls. Another SMS game Riot-e is bringing to the UK is an esoteric Finish fishing game, where users can catch fish by sending text messages.
Riot-e, which has so far raised $19m in funding from the likes of Nokia, Softbank and the Carlyle Group, is signing long-term rights deals with movie studios, sports clubs, games companies and TV companies. Imagine if the BBC had the foresight to develop a "who shot Phil" SMS game - it could have had the nation frantically text messaging and put funds back into the corporation piggy bank.
Licence owners typically receive a cut of 12-20% of the revenues made from messages (normally around 12p apiece) with the rest of the money split between the mobile operator and Riot-e. The revenues soon add up, and the trick is to get as many people as possible sending messages. With enhanced messaging (EMS) that will allow users to text each other attachments like minute-long movie clips just around the corner, text messaging could end up dwarfing the internet as a revenue generator.
The task in hand at the moment, however, is to fashion Bridget Jones communities worldwide.
Will it become a global success? Hard to say. After the endless hype, even the most ardent of Bridget fans may find their patience becoming tested. But this campaign, the first of its kind in the UK for a famous fictional character such as Bridget, has the potential to be a fun testbed for a new adjunct to the traditional forms of promotion.
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GUARDIAN - 23/04/2001,
Amy Vickers New media: 'I'm the last man standing': While other internet bosses have fallen by the wayside, he remains in charge after overseeing his company's flotation and sale. Amy Vickers meets John Pluthero, the modest head of Freeserve to ask: where does he go from here?
For most people, John Pluthero, the chief executive of Freeserve, has become something of a conundrum. He has tried his deftest to avoid the limelight, keeping as much out of the public eye as possible. He kept quiet all the way through the "Freeserve up for sale" speculation last year, sealed the deal and then subtly avoided the publicity frenzy that such events usually bring about.
His mugshot may have been in all the papers and his name bandied about in internet power-generation lists, but he has carefully kept his distance from the often rumbustious internet scene. Staff talk of his calm, temperate manner and his approachability. Asking around to find a few skeletons in the closet, all I managed to discover was that Pluthero was once a self-confessed MC Hammer fan. Someone had to be.What is he like? "He's a good bloke, intense but thoughtful," responded one employee. "He has a youthful approach and is big on team bonding," said another. Freeserve workers seem respectful of him, but say it is sometimes quite difficult to pin him down as he only spends a few days a week in the London office. The rest of the time he is either at offices in Hertfordshire or Leeds, or jetting over to Paris to be with Wanadoo, who bought Freeserve for Pounds 1.6bn in November 2000.
Some staff have discovered the art of catching Pluthero: if in doubt look outside the building, as he can often be found pacing up and down at the front entrance, smoking a Silk Cut. For a journalist, however, it is not easy to pin him down. It took six months to get this interview off the ground and even now, after our chat, it is difficult to say just what exactly it is that presses his buttons.
Pluthero is very adept at keeping his professional and personal lives separate. He doesn't like to talk about himself, and admits that he is embarrassed about all the attention he gets. It has been two full years since Pluthero was made chief executive of Freeserve in time for its flotation, and he spent the two years before that building up the precocious internet business. In that time he has become something of a figurehead for the UK internet industry, but he laughs off his "minor celebrity" status.
"I've always tried to play it straight down the line. I'm perfectly comfortable with running the business side of things, but you have to accept that some of the [media] attention comes with the territory," he says. While he would now like to take a step back from the public eye, he acknowledges that it is part and parcel of the business. "When we did the deal with Wanadoo they told me that I could still be the figurehead in the UK, but I was actually looking forward to moving away from that, and moving out of the limelight for a while."
This last year has been the pinnacle of Pluthero's business career. After turning a year-old internet company into a stock-market success story, he then had to dilute Dixons' 80% shareholding in Freeserve by managing a sale before internet companies lost all their value. Last year, at just 37, he became one of the youngest ever FTSE100 chief executives.
Now 38, does he have anything left to prove? He reckons he does: "We're not Johnny-come-lately, get-rich-quick people. Freeserve was born out of Dixons as a subscription business, and personal pride means that I'm keen to see it through." To this end, he sees himself sticking around at Freeserve and hopes there are plenty more achievements up his sleeve. After all the departures of other big internet companies' bosses, "I'm kind of like the last man standing - and I rather like that," he grins.
"I said to Michel Bon [France Telecom's chairman] and Nicholas Dufourcq [Wanadoo's chief executive] when we were doing the deal that I loved my job and this company and it was up to them whether I stayed or not - and they kept me."
When the deal went through with Wanadoo last December, the press had a field day joking about the "love-in" with Pluthero and Dufourcq. Four months on and Pluthero says things are just getting better and better. "It's almost treacly how well we get on and how easy it is. It's wonderful, it really is wonderful. We went through a time where we were being unbelievably nice to each other. I was thinking cracks would appear but they haven't to any material extent."
He insists it has been a very smooth transition period and, on a day-to-day working basis, not too much has changed. "We have very similar strategies and approaches to things. The important factor is that they not only know their markets, but they are very calm, authoritative grown-up businesspeople. It also helps that the executive board of France Telecom is very tight and that they all sing the same tune."
The party at the Natural History Museum to celebrate the deal has been given legendary status at Freeserve Towers. Pluthero says staff still talk about it and that it was the best party he has ever been to - not surprising given that it came at the end of a stressful year.
But what about Dixons? Pluthero says the relationship with Dixons has got much better. "It's more straightforward. We haven't got this other thing going on at the same time. We've taken a complex variable out of the equation. They've got a clear schedule on what they can do with their shareholding." He is convinced that Dixons, which holds a 12.5% stake in Wanadoo, will always maintain something of a shareholding in the French internet service provider, despite it recently cashing in Pounds 141m of its Wanadoo stake.
The reasons for this are twofold, explains Pluthero: firstly, it's an important part of Dixons' strategy to move away from a dependence on hardware profit margins and develop ongoing revenues as an important but smaller part of an internet company; secondly, Dixons needs a European strategy and a partner such as France Telecom gives it a strong ally in several European countries.
Pluthero comes across as a modest, unassuming man. He has a boyish grin and an infectious, mischievous laugh. He seems approachable, fun and, most of all, young at heart. He was born and raised in Colchester, where his father ran a pub, and came to London to study economics.
His contemporaries and bankers tend to admire him; most make an effort to get to know him, not simply because he has floated a nascent internet company and then sold it for Pounds 1.6bn, but because he has done it with such remarkable grace. He persevered with a deal after a buyout by T-Online collapsed, and maintained a cool "no comment" exterior when others would have used the press for back-stabbing and turning deals to their own advantage.
He admits it was a difficult period, and laughs when I suggest that he is glad a deal didn't happen with T-Online, which has since been rocked by boardroom upheavals. "Possibly," he says. "It was a tough time. But business is not measured by adversity, it's measured by achievement. You can't give up at the first hurdle. We had to get on with it, and it's self-evident we're at the right place now."
Pluthero once played rugby to county standard and says he used to be a huge sportsman. But not any more. He has a lower-back problem and doesn't have the time to maintain a golf handicap. Besides, he has an eight-year-old daughter to spend time with.
During the week, Pluthero still finds himself working late most nights, but insists he doesn't subscribe to 14-hour day working practices. "I've never liked the workaholic macho stuff. I've always thought that was really bad. My late nights are because I'm having [working] dinners and not in the office doing stuff."
His latest extracurricular activity is learning French, a group-wide initiative to save the faces of Freeserve staff when dealing with colleagues on the other side of the channel. It will also facilitate two-way staff traffic between the UK and Paris. Pluthero says he spends four hours a week learning French and plans to spend a month in France this summer to improve his conversational skills. He learns French while being driven by his chauffeur between Freeserve's three offices and says he is coming on in leaps and bounds. He certainly has the time when travelling - last year he did 33,000 business miles, and this year he finds himself jetting back and forth to Paris.
What is next on the agenda for Pluthero? One question people are now starting to ask is: will the Wanadoo brand eventually replace the Freeserve brand? Pluthero says it is something they are looking at this year, mainly because the combined companies have so many brands (including Viola, iCircle etc). "We've not taken any decisions on a rebrand yet, but we discussed the option of Freeserve becoming the no-ties subscription brand across Europe or possibly bringing Wanadoo as a brand to the UK. But we're not going to change brands lightly."
So it's full steam ahead for Freeserve and Pluthero. With French lessons, UK supremacy, cash in the bank and Europe on his mind, world domination is surely not far off.
John Pluthero is live on mediaguardian.co.uk on Wednesday at 2pm. Post questions now at www.mediaguardian.co.uk
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GUARDIAN - 26/03/2001,
Amy Vickers Media: New Media:
ic trouble ahead: Sixty staff at Trinity Mirror's IC network were told to take a spot of gardening leave 11 days ago, while another 240 wait until April 15 for news of their fate. Amy Vickers finds out why Pounds 43m wasn't enough to make it work
Thursday March 15 was one of those cold and rainy mornings, not unlike every other miserable day in March. But for Trinity Mirror Digital staff it took an unexpected turn for the worse. As they trickled in to work, unaware of the fate that lay in store, they started to realise something more severe than the sale of the internet service provider ic24 was on the cards.
Suspicions were first aroused when Graham Mead, the recently appointed managing director of the IC Network, started calling senior staff in four at a time at 15-minute intervals between 8.30am and 9.30am. The look on their faces after their little chats with Mead said it all, according to the gathered onlookers, and it wasn't long until the awful truth came out.A staff meeting was called for 9.30am where they were told that the rumours about the sale of the ISP side of the business were true. But the news that caused most ripples was that the members of the board had let their nerves about internet revenues get the better of them. They had decided to close the brand spanking new, and very expensive, websites icShowbiz and icSport post-haste, and redundancies would be inevitable. About 60 of them were immediately told to go off and garden (vacate the premises and await their fate) and security suddenly appeared from nowhere, in case anyone forgot the location of the door.
The remaining 240 were asked to stay for the time being and keep the flagship sites, ic24.net, Mirror.co.uk, DailyRecord.co.uk and the regional ic portals, icScotland and icBirmingham, to name a few, afloat. All 300 TMD staff were told that they will find out their fate on April 15.
The first definite casualty of the retrenchment was David Clarke, the affable managing director who joined Trinity Mirror just before the merger to launch the ISP and build up the new media division. Once his two years of work had been dismantled by the Trinity board last week and there was no longer an ISP to run, it was just a matter of time before Clarke left the company. He did on Thursday.
Clarke joined in April 1999 to launch the internet service provider ic24 and expand the new media department. He built what became Trinity Mirror Digital after the merger with Trinity. This is the 300-strong operation now being cut back dramatically with up to a third of staff poised for redundancy as Trinity Mirror tries to sell the ISP. Since Clarke's departure, Trinity stalwart Graham Mead, has taken control of what's left of the embattled new media division. Mead was keen last week to point out that Clarke's resignation was a mutual decision.
The actual number of redundancies and who should go is still being decided but Mead is insistent that the numbers are not likely to pass 100. "We've started a legal consultation with staff and we're taking a look at every single role. We can't be certain how many people this will affect but we will look after them properly," he says.
All staff know at this stage is that the regional websites will survive. This could mean the brand ic remains, or it could mean it gets phased out in the coming months for something more relevant to Trinity's core business. The problem lies in the fact that the ISP and the portal carry the same name and if a buyer emerges for ic24 it could be inappropriate for Trinity to continue to use the same brand for its flagship website.
The message put out by Trinity was that it had had a change of heart about its strategy to branch out into areas that weren't directly related to its core business. Instead, it will now reconfigure its aims to harness key assets: content from its papers and its technology platform.
Analysts are already starting to question whether a buyer will emerge for ic24, especially in this current climate where ISPs have plummeted in value and there is a marked decline in the number of companies focusing on the provision of internet access.
Lorna Tilbian, media analyst at WestLB Panmure, doesn't hold out much hope for Trinity finding an easy sale. "LineOne has been on the block for a long time. It's definitely not a good time to be selling ISP assets. If they can't sell it they're going to have to just close it down and write off the investment," she says.
Even though the ISP claims 250,000 users, it is highly unlikely that Trinity will recoup the Pounds 20m it has already invested in ic24. Estimates of its value vary, but should a buyer emerge, analysts expect it to fetch just over Pounds 10m.
Launched in April 1999, ic24 was seen as a sound investment at a time when every man and his dog wanted a piece of the ISP action. Geoff Stimson, the then boss of Mirror Media, the new media division of the Mirror Group before the Trinity merger, had spotted the direction in which the market was going very early on. He developed a strategy for the Mirror Group to be at the forefront of the free ISP revolution before Freeserve soared away with an unassailable market share.
Arguably, the ISP did well and won critical acclaim in its fledgling days for reliability but then unavoidably became embroiled in the free internet calls fiasco of 2000 - a strategy that ate away at the new media investment fund.
The spanner in the works came from News International which caught wind of the Mirror's plan to move into the internet access game and decided to upset the applecart by launching its own ISP.
It became a battle of wills. The entrenched cut-throat rivalry of the two of Britain's biggest red-tops had now entered cyberspace, and News International was pulling out all the stops to launch the Sun's ISP CurrantBun.com before ic24.
In the end CurrantBun.com pipped ic24 to the post by about a month, but Mirror Media saved face by telling press at the time that it would not be panicked by a service it thought was inferior.
Instead TMD focused its energies on expanding the ic network, which included a dozen regional websites and icShowbiz, icSport and icChoice. However, the launch of these websites was delayed by a number of "technical issues" when TMD initially picked the wrong content platform, Zip2, and had to go back to the drawing board when this technology didn't work as hoped.
Having invested Pounds 42.3m in 2000 in new media and only recouped revenues of Pounds 2.5m, Trinity has now capped spending at Pounds 25m this year, and Pounds 15m in 2002. Overall, it pledged to reduce the target for gross costs of digital operations between 2000-2002 from Pounds 150m to Pounds 90m.
Tilbian says this cost-cutting news was well-received in the City. "It came as a great relief and the stock has rallied. It's no surprise that they're cutting costs because the environment is so rough. It's not patience any more, it's money and the new back-to-basics strategy makes a lot of sense."
Once the bloodbath next month is over, Trinity Mirror will have a tough job ahead of it convincing the City that this strategy is right for the group.
One in the eye . . . a big ad spend didn't help ic very much
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GUARDIAN - 19/03/2001,
Amy Vickers Media: New media:
Drop everything: Could it be that the porn industry and Big Brother hold the key to making the web pay? Amy Vickers explains why drop-dialling is getting everyone excited
There's a new buzzword in town and surprise surprise, it's one of those techie ones that only a handful of people will understand. It's drop-dialling and if you've never heard of it, don't worry, for until now the term was only really commonplace in porn circles.
Given its background, it was only a matter of time before the less churlish broadcasters cottoned on to it, especially now that they're all falling over each other to make the web financially robust - and that's the impetus behind drop-dialling. Broadcasters need the web to start to work for them, but there are problems in making web programming pay. Basically, consumers are loath to tediously input credit card details in return for nothing more than a five-minute clip.But, as the porn industry has found, consumers are quite happy to cover the "broadcast charges" with a premium rate dial-up call if it means they get the clip without having to do anything. The theory is simple: the user clicks on the drop-dialler, it automatically disconnects the user's internet connection and then dials up to the new number, the clip is streamed, ends and the users are connected back to their own internet service. The user is happy; the broadcaster is happy; everyone is happy, especially the telephone company which takes a healthy chunk of the call cost. The benefits are there for all to see. All that broadcasters have to do is get together with one of the growing number of phone operators offering drop-dialling.
Granada Broadband, the digital development division of Granada Media, has declared its interest in drop-dialling, along with the BBC and Channel 5, which have both conducted drop-dialling voting experiments.
The BBC introduced drop-dialling to its Comic Relief Big Brother website (Comicrelief.com/bigbrother) last week, although the BBC would be the first to admit that, in its current form, drop-dialling leaves something to be desired.
The drop-dialler used by Comic Relief to collect revenues from internet voters could not be used by Apple Mac users, nor could it be used by anyone not dialling up to the internet using a modem, given that it has to disconnect the line. Therein lies the flaw in the model. It cannot work with office-leased line connections and it cannot work with broadband. Instead it is limited to the estimated 7.8m home internet users who have narrowband connections.
Even then, it remains debatable whether users will click on the button that says: "When you vote online, your computer will simply stop the modem connection to your usual internet service provider and then reconnect you to the internet via a premium-rate line to register your vote." While it is a relatively painless process, and consumers have gradually accepted the concept of premium-rate phone lines (Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and Big Brother to take two phenomenally profitable examples), it is still easier to pick up a phone than log on to a website and sit and wait for the system to clock your vote. And that's even if you are already online and you are aware of the fixed price of the call - 25p in the case of Celebrity Big Brother.
Audiocall, the BBC Worldwide- owned telephone operator behind the Celebrity Big Brother internet vote, counts Channel 4, Channel 5, BBC Broadcast, BBC Worldwide, ITV, digital and satellite channels and advertising agencies among its clients, but has so far only used drop-dialler voting for Comic Relief and Channel 5's 70s Weekend.
For the 70s Weekend, viewers were given the option to vote for their favourite song from that decade via the broadcaster's website. Because it was the first time a British broadcaster had ever used Audiocall's drop-dialler, the response rates were understandably low and Audiocall is guarded about specific numbers. Likewise, the response rates to the Comic Relief drop-dialler have not yet been revealed.
Justin Judd, controller of content and production for Granada Broadband, is optimistic about the potential of drop-dialling, though: "It may not be the quickest and easiest way to vote in response to a TV programme prompt, but as an internet revenue model that doesn't involve security complications, it has possibilities."
Judd is looking at different opportunities for using drop-diallers to serve broadcast content as a route into internet pay-per-view. "What content we might end up using is still being tested, but it will have to have some scarcity value, not be any old stuff," he says.
Just as broadcasters are assessing the potential of drop-dialling, so is the music industry. With MSN putting time and money into developing a website to stream concerts, it would not be surprising if MSNMusic.com introduced drop-diallers as an alternative to credit card subscriptions.
One possibility for Granada, says Judd, is to stream exclusive clips from its shows such as Cold Feet and Coronation Street, with the cost perhaps set at 25p a minute for a 10-minute clip. At Pounds 2.50 a pop per user, split between the operator and the broadcaster, it starts to look like an alternative way of making money from the internet if a few thousand people can be persuaded to download it. This is made even more attractive when the context of the crestfallen internet advertising market is taken into account. No website, it seems, is pulling in satisfactory ad revenues.
"We're all worried about making money from the internet, and making our core business - content - pay online," adds Judd. "The adult industry has demonstrated it does work but it all depends on whether the user wants the content."
Riccardo Donato, general manager of Audiocall, agrees: "The original model was for content and was used for law reports and adult stuff, but now everyone is looking at broadcast quality pay-per-view on the internet, it becomes an easy way for broadcasters to get viewers to pay for quality content."
But Donato thinks the most popular application for drop-dialling will be voting, as consumers are increasingly inclined to accept the cost of a phone call if they feel they can have their say. For an indicator of this, one only has to look at the number of people who called in to vote for the Big Brother evictions last year. Some 20m phone calls were made in all, bringing in revenues of around Pounds 2m.
No doubt Big Brother 2 will be looking at incorporating a drop-dialler into its website for voting and maybe even for eagerly sought-after clips if the contestants can be coaxed into more outrageous behaviour.
In the meantime, expect to see many more websites using drop-diallers over the next 12 months. Perhaps they could go some way to solving the unsettling revenue crisis the web is currently in, or perhaps they will just be an interim measure until the sensational world of broadband comes along. Whatever it may be, at least it's an alternative revenue model, and that has to be a good thing in the current climate.
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GUARDIAN - 19/02/2001,
Amy Vickers Media: New Media:
'I'm a crap DJ now': He's not interested in getting back on the airwaves and the fame game leaves him cold. Amy Vickers on an ex-Radio 1 golden boy who nowadays gets his kicks from digital radio
Remember Bruno Brookes: the former Radio 1 DJ who, for much of the 80s, was as widely recognised as many of the popstars of the time? But one minute he was Radio 1's hottest property, the next he was off the airwaves and disappearing in to obscurity.
Ten years on from his Radio 1 heyday, most people will only be familiar with him because his name has been raked through the mud by his ex-girlfriend, the publicity-paramour Anthea Turner, who decided to tell the world that their relationship was no bed of roses.Brookes is understandably bitter, but shrugs off the chance to get even (in this interview at least). "The public made their own mind up about that one. It's best to leave it in the past," he says, unable to resist adding: "And I haven't seen her in the media since." Perhaps he is smiling inwardly when he says this, but his expression never changes from dead-pan business Bruno; the serious Bruno who now runs a digital broadcast company which employs 40 people.
We meet at his London office in swanky New Bond Street, where the walls are plastered with platinum records and the latest in technology sits around begging to be played with. I recognise him straight away. He's the same diminutive, button nosed, clean shaven man that I grew up with. The only difference is a well-fed waistline and a receding hairline, framed by a halo of inch-long hair where once sat his trademark bouffant.
First things first, he says, I have to smoke a rollup. He seems to like the fact that previous profiles of him have always kicked off with reference to his Golden Virginia habit. We then get down to the business of the interview. He tells me about his internet radio station, StormLive, and his growing business empire, Storm Digital Music, that he hopes to float on the stock market later this year.
Bruno (real name Trevor) comes from the Smashy and Nicey days of Radio 1; the old-school fraternity which counts Tony Blackburn, Peter Powell, Gary Davies, Dave Lee Travis and Simon Bates among its paid-up members. They were the glory days of Radio 1, days that have never been seen since.
It must have been something of a comedown.
Brookes laughs off this suggestion - he doesn't care if people don't recognise him. "Being in the limelight can be a pain in the arse," he says. "It's not what turns me on anymore. What turns me on now is getting results in a different way."
When he left London for Berkshire after his unceremonious departure from Radio 1, Brookes began his show Bruno at the Mill House and kitted out the whole house with microphones - even in the toilet and bedroom - so he could move around while presenting it. Each week, he broadcast 14 shows on Emap's regional radio stations.
Eventually, the business outgrew the house so he moved into studios at Newbury, and expanded into broadcast training and design. He'd already come across the internet a few years before, and it had got him thinking of ways to take the business online.
Like most entrepreneurial tales, Storm came from an idea on a napkin in a restaurant. It was early 1999 and, with three music industry friends, he mapped out his future: radio across all emerging platforms.
Brookes is now the managing director of Storm Digital Broadcasting, a role that seems to satisfy him. "I get a serious buzz out of taking this forward but there's never enough hours in every day at the moment," he says. He also presents a weekly fishing show on Sky Sports.
The core of Storm's current strategy is to partner with other companies, such as portals, to bring a ready-made audience to the StormLive station. It is distributed on, among others, Freeserve, Sky Digital, MyKindaplace.com and Newsoftheworld.com.
The next step is to expand into new territories. He's firming up plans to roll out Storm Sweden and move into India and South Africa. Plans are also in place to start selling licensed music by digital download.
Another direction is to develop Reality Radio, Brookes' take on Reality TV. Installing moviecams into StormLive's studios was the first step, he says, but he's not very forthcoming with further details.
"That would be giving the game away," he says, "If I talk about it I'll give ideas away and the shareholders will rip me apart. It's premature to say what they are, all I can say is it's 'where marketing meets media'."
Brookes is also unwilling to talk about the number of listeners his new station has attracted. Three times I ask for the figures, only for my question to be neatly evaded: "We will let you know at the end of the month when we get our audit through. At the moment I don't know myself." Unlikely, but then he's being guarded, playing the shrewd businessman, and all will be revealed when it suits the company.
Brookes plays the role well. He speaks in the latest techno-jargon and comes across as a man who actually understands what he's talking about. He's excited about 3G and what it can mean for digital radio; he's watching Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo, and he follows market developments on ADSL and unmetered access.
Very early on in his career, even when he was still at Radio 1, Brookes recognised that he wasn't going to be a DJ forever and began thinking of other ways of taking his life forward. "To not start educating myself would have been a mistake. No disrespect, but I knew all along I was not going to end up like Tony Blackburn or Fluff. They didn't have anything else to fall back on."
"Thank God we've moved forward," says Brookes. He's also glad that radio is no longer just about FM and AM frequencies. "Radio, to me, has become a little bit format-oriented. But new technologies open it all up." It's at this point he throws in Storm's tagline: "Different not Dangerous. The future has no frequency." I hastily change the subject.
What does he think of radio in the UK? "There's some great radio in this country, but there's also some bloody bad radio." What's his relationship like with that other Radio 1 DJ turned media entrepreneur, Peter Powell? "We're both busy blokes. It's mostly media bullshit between me and Peter. One thing's for certain, though, Worldpop [Powell's music website] should carry Stormlive. Peter, call me . . ."
The impression I leave Storm with is that Bruno Brookes is incredibly driven to achieve his ambition: to build a big broadcasting company. The only thing he won't do for his company, however, is go back into the studio - despite being asked many times by Storm's programme director to do a show. "I won't go anywhere near that studio," he says, adding quite resolutely, "I'm a crap DJ now."
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GUARDIAN - 12/03/2001,
Amy Vickers New Media:
TV's new face: Can Wellbeing, a new website and digital channel, change daytime viewing? Amy Vickers examines its health
Just when you thought it was safe to take a day off sick, draw the curtains and wrap yourself in a duvet in front of the telly, along comes a TV channel that could either be welcome medicine or the biggest annoyance ever for a malingering wreck.
This Wednesday sees the launch of Wellbeing, a new Granada digital TV channel that will transform the soft-centred, cosy world of daytime TV as defined by Richard and Judy. The format will be similar to This Morning in that it will be studio based and smattered with video inserts and outside broadcasts - but the content will be focused entirely on health, beauty and the somewhat nebulous and holistic concept of "wellbeing".Primarily aimed at housewives, and perhaps workers prone to sickies, Wellbeing will be screened between 9am and 9pm each day and may eventually be promoted to a 24-hour channel. The full list of presenters is still being kept under wraps, but expect a number of high-profile women such as Toyah Wilcox, athlete Diane Modahl and Coleen Nolan.
To launch its efforts into the world of health and beauty, Granada has teamed up with Boots the Chemist in a 40:60 deal which, on the surface, seems to be a retail broadcast match made in heaven. But it is not the first of its kind. Last year Carlton and Sainsbury's got together to work on Taste, a similar retail broadcast hybrid that will come to life as a TV channel and website on May 1.
Of course, Wellbeing, like all new channels these days, is not just a TV channel. It's one of those "multi-platform propositions" that has all the right buzzwords: an integrated website, interactive TV within a year, ADSL, PDA and Wap, and so on.
In the first instance, though, it is a website, Wellbeing.com, and a TV channel on Sky Digital and ONdigital. Eventually the plan is to feed content from the website onto an interactive version of the channel, but Paula Carter, former Granada health director and now joint managing director of Wellbeing with former Boots internet boss Richard Holmes, is cautious about doing too much with the business before working out what their audience wants.
"We've done a lot of research and we know there is a potential audience out there, but we're going to hold off making [Wellbeing] 24 hours until we find out what's working. Likewise, we are going to do interactive TV, but not necessarily sell products through it until we're sure how the audience is using interactive TV," says Carter.
With operating costs for Wellbeing's first year - to the end of this month - already said to be close to Pounds 18m, and a Pounds 10m marketing campaign in the pipeline, it may take some time to move into the black. Revenues are expected to come from the sale of products and advertising, although it is questionable whether Wellbeing will be able to generate wads of cash given the current depressed advertising climate and its reluctance to sell products through the TV.
Experts warn of a shortage of advertisers looking to target a small niche audience of women, particularly when the advertisers may not take too kindly to the involvement of Boots in the channel. Keith Rattray, director of interactive TV at Carat, says: "If extremely specialist interest services such as health channels are vying for a share of total TV revenue spent on traditional 'spot' advertising, then they're going to struggle. Reason being that they can not offer advertisers sufficient volume of impacts to make any difference to their coverage-building schedules." Rattray suggests that traditional advertising spots will be relatively scarce on Wellbeing, with advertorials, sponsorships and interactive workshops becoming more lucrative money-spinners for the channel instead.
Simon Shaps, managing director at Granada Broadband, is expecting revenues to come from sponsors and advertising, bolstered by transactional revenues from products sold on the website. But will these be enough to sustain the business in the medium term, bearing in mind that Boots has recently lost its sparkle in the City?
Competitors are naturally questioning the economics of launching a TV channel that may take time to make consumers aware of its existence, and a website trying to make a business for itself in a tumultuous sector that has already killed off ClickMango.
Carol Dukes, chief executive at internet health and beauty retailer ThinkNatural, says: "More specialist sites find that a lot of their appeal lies in the fact that people can find, research and order online those types of things that are a bit harder to find or which would require a special shopping trip. That motivation won't exist for Boots' products online, because everyone can easily pop into a Boots - they're on every high street and in every shopping mall."
But Wellbeing remains bullish. It expects to take a bite out of the Pounds 11bn UK health and beauty retail market and then expand into the bigger Pounds 90bn area of healthcare provision. For Boots, the launch is part of its efforts to evolve from a health and beauty retailer into a generic brand for health, beauty and wellbeing. Such is the retailer's confidence that Boots.co.uk has been absorbed into the Wellbeing website, which will exist as the cornerstone of Boots' digital strategy.
Whether viewers will sit down and lap up 12 hours a day of this type of programming has yet to be established. Granada's research indicates widespread support for a health and beauty channel and associated website. Shaps thinks Granada is onto a mass-market opportunity. "The combination of an encyclopaedic website and an information-based TV channel will have wide appeal. This is a large scale venture that will have universal interest because everybody has a profound interest in their own wellbeing."
Dukes thinks Wellbeing may have its work cut out trying to create demand for such category-specific programming. "It's very brave of Granada and Boots to launch into the expensive territory of television when general non-drama health programming is such an untested area for popular viewing."
Potential pitfalls aside, Granada is making a brave move. Over the next 12 months, more and more broadcasters and retailers will also experiment with "brandcasting" - the term for advertisers becoming broadcasters - driven by the advent of new technology that allows for cross-media commercial avenues to be explored. This is central to the broadband vision of the future, and a development that pundits expect to change the face of broadcasting as we know it.
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GUARDIAN - 12/02/2001,
Amy Vickers Media: New Media: Sore thumbs? I know what you've been doing My name is Amy and I'm a text message junkie. I've known about this addiction for quite some time, but it's only now that I'm aware of it dominating my life - if I don't notch up my quota of 20 a day then I'm in the cold turkey zone.
Thankfully, I'm not alone. Around 30m others in the UK send text messages, but the phenomenon has really hit home with young people, especially teenagers.Forget microscooters, cowboy hats, and even PDAs, text messaging is the new craze sweeping the nation at breakneck speed. It's reached fantastical proportions: more than 1m messages an hour were sent during December and we're close to hitting 1bn messages a month (in the UK alone). It seems there is no stopping this one.
If you're not already sick and tired of reading about text messaging, then be warned, you will be. Just like the media hype that surrounded the internet boom last year and the attention given to Wap when it first emerged, text messaging; the text generation; thumb culture, call it what you will, is the new cool thing to write about.
Marketers are falling over themselves to do deals with mobile operators to cut revenue share deals for SMS (the official term, meaning short message service). But not surprisingly, mobile operators are being difficult because they rather greedily want to keep all the millions they make from SMS for themselves. Operators in Asia are more flexible and pressure from overseas should see the landscape change for SMS revenue cuts over here.
The word going round marketing circles at the moment is that if you're not yet thinking of running a campaign that uses SMS, then you should be - and soon. Broadcasters, newspapers and radio stations have been quick to catch on, with many dabbling with SMS for feedback or competitions based around shows and events. The results have blown them away. The Sun, for example, recently ran an SMS competition called Ringo Bingo, which prompted more than 80,000 responses via text message.
Of course there are a few services that haven't quite had the desired effect. The jury is still out on SMS chat, and services such as Talkcast's Texer.com have been lambasted for seemingly spamming users, and then charging them 12p for the privilege of each received message.
Start-ups that a year ago were basing their business models around exponential Wap growth are now primarily focused on SMS strategies. Some have even ditched their Wap services altogether and relaunched themselves as SMS pure-players. Once the mobile operators agree to fully fledged revenue share deals - where marketers can take up to 50% of the money generated by SMS - this area of marketing is going to go ballistic.
Another side of SMS set to be massive is shopping. Anyone who hasn't yet come across Scan, an SMS-only shopping service for CDs, DVDs, books and games, should try it out. To the uninitiated, shopping by SMS must seem like an odd activity, especially now that there are so many different ways in which consumers can shop. I have to admit I'm hooked. It seems I'm not the only one.
Like the growth of SMS itself, the service has spread like wildfire. Scan's own research shows that more than 70% of customers go on to recommend the service to friends, proving that word of mouth rather than multimillion- pound advertising campaigns can be the best driver of new customers. Scan now has more than half a million customers' mobile numbers on its database and, tellingly, it hasn't done any mainstream marketing.
So where does SMS go from here? The cost of sending messages is likely to come down. Last week One 2 One announced plans to launch Talk & Text, a plan that includes 50 text messages and 500 minutes of off-peak calls for Pounds 15 a month. Other operators are certain to follow suit.
More and more cross-media promotions will use SMS as the primary feedback function; and inevitably it will move away from just being a young persons' pastime to something that the older generations use.
And, of course, there will be thousands of relationships conducted and broken via text message. With Valentine's Day just two days away, operators are already bracing themselves for more than 30m messages winging back and forth. If anything, text messaging should do for uptight Brits what the pill did for the sexual revolution in the 1960s. We seldom say what we think, but the beauty of text messaging is that it's private, instant and encourages flirtation. What did we ever do without it? More importantly, pity the poor Americans who, for once, are so far behind the UK that they don't even have the facilities for text messaging. Shucks. But that will change, and soon we'll be text messaging friends in the US for 10p a pop.
I'm managing my addiction well - I've only sent and received five messages while writing this piece. I realise it's not such a bad addiction after all, but it is playing havoc with my increasingly RSI-ridden thumbs.
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GUARDIAN - 30/10/2000,
Amy Vickers Media: New Media:
Showing at a screen near you: The success of the webcast of Blair Witch 2 is encouraging those who predict a big future for online entertainment. But, asks Amy Vickers , when will the public learn to love watching movies on their computers?
Big Brother was not only compulsive television viewing - it also stimulated unprecedented interest in webcasting, showing the public demand for watching uncut live events and making people realise that internet broadcasting, even on narrowband connections, was feasible.
The figures speak for themselves: bigbrother.terra.com had 1m unique visitors the day Nasty Nick was ousted, even if not everyone could see the action. Throughout the 10-week series, the site served more than 26m live video streams, with users spending an average of 14.5 minutes on the site.More recently, news has filtered through that the new Blair Witch film, Blair Witch 2, received record viewing requests in the first few hours of its availablity. The 64-hour event, blairwitchwebfest.com, that began last Wednesday morning, managed to pull in an impressive 100,000 users in the first six hours.
Paul Zwillenberg, managing director of KPE Europe, which works with TV production companies on interactive programming, agrees that Big Brother opened people's eyes. "The effects are just beginning to be felt. Next year, broadband will revolutionise media and entertainment. At the moment, the TV business has only had about 1% of what it's going to see over the next five to 10 years."
Since the summer, the more traditional broadcasters have been falling over themselves to get in on the act. Channel 4 is looking to build on its successful summer foray into webcasting when it launches e4.com, the website supporting the new entertainment channel, at the start of next year.
"With e4.com we are creating an interactive version of that unique feeling you get when you watch entertainment on Channel 4," says Stevan Keane, head of interactive commissioning at the channel. "This doesn't mean banging out telly for the web. What it means is making new platforms to tell the Channel 4 story on their own terms. At the end of a year of fantasies about internet billions, the TV production sector understands this, and more forward-thinking producers are ready, with us, to use e4 TV to introduce new ideas across all media."
Elsewhere, the BBC is bound by the restrictions of the licence fee, which means that it's been unable to allocate enough funding to support interactive and webcasting initiatives. However, it has started looking at ways in which it can painlessly resell TV programming to new overseas viewers, perhaps on a pay-per-view basis via the internet, and has hired a number of commissioners to develop more interactive initiatives.
Over at ITV, Granada appears to be the only shareholder putting a lot of energy behind broadband initiatives, having pulled in experienced TV producers Simon Shaps and Justin Judd to run the new Granada Broadband division. Industry sources suggest that Granada is also planning a number of initiatives similar to those at Channel 4.
BSkyB has not yet clarified its position, although its moves towards partnership with Kingston and potentially BT to develop broadband programming, in addition to its controlling stake in Open, indicate that it is about to do something significant in this area.
Traditional broadcasters are joining a fledging industry that has not had much success. The illustrious Pop.com - which should have been the harbinger of Hollywood online - never made it off the ground. And not long after it shut up shop, pioneer American internet broadcaster Pseudo.com followed suit. These failures show that both sites suffered from over-ambition at a time when there was no demand for webcasting.
While things have not changed much since September, the UK is a little further along the broadband route than the US (even if BT is dragging its heels) and, fingers crossed, we should be revelling in broadband heaven in six months' time. At least, that's what all the people currently working on web broadcasting strategies are hoping for.
Other moves are afoot, spearheaded mainly by former TV producers and interactive TV developers. Prominent in this area are the likes of IchooseTV.com, hahabonk, MadcowTV.com, thejunkies.com. Narrowband limitations aside, the services that have got off the ground - thejunkies.com, itsyourmovie.com - have been instant successes with web audiences merely by word of mouth. Even though it's still very early days, the signs so far have been very encouraging.
Last week, fan-based movie website MyMovies.net set out its stall when it signed a far-reaching deal with NTL to distribute its content across NTL's various platforms. At the same time, it tied up with the Short Film Bureau to develop a new short films channel, which adds impetus to its plans to launch a broadband video-on-demand service for feature films at the start of next year. Film festival site FilmFestivals.com is also adding momentum to the short film industry and, after opening a London office last week and plans to stream movies via the internet, is evolving towards providing internet video-on-demand.
At the launch last week of the MyMovies.net/SFB alliance, film actress Joely Richardson and short film director Gaby Dellal were paraded as supporters of the move to seek wider internet distribution for the growing short-film industry.
Richardson, who says she's so far "slipped through the net", thinks it's an exciting development. "There's such a big audience for short films, but, more often than not, it's difficult to see them because of distribution problems. The internet's phenome nal reach will change everything and mean more people all over the world have access to these films whenever they want," she says, adding that the move will invariably encourage more actors to start doing short films.
While Dellal agrees that it's an exciting development, she sees a much darker side based on the mass-market perception of the internet as a place where sex cases lurk and porn is rife. "I worry about its anonymity, and the feeling that there is something secret and covert about watching films on the internet. I can't get away from this thought that it's dirty, maybe because I'm old-fashioned."
While latent demand is clearly being stirred up, the UK is still a good few months away from streaming full-length motion pictures via the web. However, this is something that companies such as MyMovies.net and FilmGroup are working on, and expect to have up and running by the start of next year.
Not to be outdone, Blockbuster is also planning to move into this area, and could quite easily be followed by Film Four, and pay-per-view types such as Homechoice, u>direct and Diva. Of course, the added benefit of broadcasting footage via websites is that it gives the webcaster access to new markets and cuts down on traditional distribution costs.
Sceptics argue that users will not sit for hours in front of a PC screen to watch a film when there is a much more comfortable alternative in the living room. Clearly, there has to be a new incentive for punters to sit in front of a computer, pay for a movie and watch it all. Plans range from exclusive-rights deals that offer films before they are available on video, to directors' cuts and web-only interactive movies. Whether punters will welcome this remains to be seen, but the pay-per-view chaps are heartened by the thriving online porn video industry - where people pay the going rate for movies they aren't normally able to access. The theory is that if the traditional movie industry moves onto the web and offers exciting features, then the punters will eventually get their heads around it and pay hard-earned cash for the pleasure.
The big money is on the independent short film industry finding a huge new market on the web, and judging by the way in which independent producers are grabbing web opportunities right now, this is likely to take off at a much faster rate than feature-length movies.
"The world in five years - when high-speed connections have reached critical mass - is going to look completely different from the world today," says Zwillenberg. "It's going to happen very quickly, but until then, it will be a slow journey."
Meanwhile, hype invariably gets in the way and the webcasting industry is no exception to this. At the Streaming Media conference the week before last, the future, if you allowed yourself to be sucked into the hype, was very bright for everyone involved in web broadcasting.
Ultimately, it boils down to creative thinking, and good talent stretching the boundaries of TV and technology. Now that the games industry is increasingly getting involved in interactive games-oriented movies, and the whole convergence of movies and games is being explored, things are going to change dramatically. At least that's what everyone is hoping.
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GUARDIAN - 21/08/2000,
Amy Vickers New Media:
A step in the right direction: For too long, TV websites have been dull pages of screen grabs and cast lists. Only now, says Amy Vickers , are broadcasters finally waking up to the need for quality online product
Ask anyone to name a decent TV show website - one that actually adds value to the related programme - and you'd be hard pressed to get anything other than a furrowed brow.
The dearth of decent TV show websites is not entirely down to lack of imagination. It has a lot to do with the constraints of narrowband connections and a reluctance to invest in sites that don't get sufficient traffic. With moves towards the internet-on-TV model and the imminent arrival of broadband access, things are starting to change.At present, however, the consensus is that websites dedicated to TV programmes are little more than brochureware, put together by a production team that has no direct contact with the programme-makers and finds it difficult to see beyond the ubiquitous chatrooms and character profiles.
Granada Broadband, the recently established interactive arm of Granada, is hoping to change all this on August 28, the date on which it launches its Cold Feet website. Cold Feet Online (ColdFeetOnline.com) should set new standards for the way in which websites for TV shows are developed.
Website producer Simon Bucknall says the danger in developing a higher standard of product is that future products will be judged by new benchmarks. "We've set the standard and we don't want to go back and put out lesser products. But by starting with Cold Feet, the benchmark has been set particularly high because it gave us so much to work with: fun, interesting characters and a young, net-savvy demographic. And we were able to work very closely with the TV production crew and the actors."
While most other TV crews tend not to extend a warm welcome to new-media people hanging around the set, Bucknall hopes this might change once they have seen the Cold Feet website.
Changes are taking place in the TV industry. Programme-makers have realised that a website can add a great deal to the programme, bringing in new users and encouraging people to get involved in the show. The Big Brother site (channel4.com/ bigbrother) is flawed, but manages at least to satisfy the viewers' desire for more footage and information. Channel 5's soon-to-launch Jailbreak will also make the website an integral part of the show. The plan is to provide daily news updates and 24-hour access to the inmates' movements via webcams, and to take the interaction further by encouraging users to register as escape committee members and mail escape tips to inmates.
The Cold Feet site makes good use of many of the features of the show and is divided into five self-explanatory sections (The Show, Short Cuts, Catch Up, Fun and Games and The Cast). Character profiles and storyboards will be updated as each series airs. Other basic features include online chats, message boards, an archive of the first three series, competitions and cast interviews. Where the site differs from the typical TV site is in the depth of exclusive content developed for it.
One of the innovative ideas built into the Cold Feet website is the behind-the-scenes footage filmed by the Granada Broadband website team. The clips, between three and four minutes in length, show the actors relaxing between takes and include interviews with cast and crew, outtakes and fly-on-the-wall footage of the making of the show. Two clips will be added to the site each week, building up a database of footage, which can then be sold as a finished product.
One plan under consideration is to package the footage as a DVD and sell it to another channel, such as ITV2. Another way of making money from the site is to introduce advertisers and e-commerce part ners, such as eBay. A compelling aspect of the new site is the character-oriented email service that will be tied in to the storylines and sent out every day. The email feature will give the impression that messages are written by the characters, emailing each other about plot developments and their feelings for other characters. Having drafted in the services of the show's scriptwriter, Mike Bullen, Granada is hoping to shift the focus away from the weekly show, and develop an ongoing narrative and affiliations between the characters and the fans.
"The stuff we've been developing is ground-breaking, particularly the synergies we're introducing between the TV show and the interactive services," says Bucknall. "By having the characters send emails to each other, we're making them appear more rounded and adding to their appeal."
Little on other TV show websites can compare to this service, although the concept is not new- cK-One ran a similar email campaign based on characters from its advertising. However, other websites are similarly focusing on getting viewers involved daily with a weekly show. Hat Trick Productions' Have I Got News for You, for example, has been building up a loyal daily following with its recently launched site, Haveigotnewsforyou.com. Paul Zwillenberg, managing director of Europe, a consultancy/incubator hybrid which has set up a venture with Hat Trick Productions to develop web programming (HKI), says the HIGNFY site is just a starting point.
"It gave us a way to understand how viewers can interact on a daily basis with a weekly programme," says Zwillenberg. Despite receiving no on-air promotion on the show (because the site was developed independently of the BBC), he says the feedback has been very positive, and that more than 10% of new visitors who register go on immediately to play the games featured on the site.
The move towards a more intimate relationship with viewers - Cold Feet has 8.5m - is Granada Broadband's longer-term strategy, a strategy that sees the phasing out of the g-wizz brand. Justin Judd, controller of content and production at Granada Broadband, says it's all about turning viewers into customers through additional services. "There is limited appetite for extra soap-related material, given that the programmes are aired so frequently, so what we have to do is find new ways of attracting people to the sites," says Judd.
Having worked as a TV producer at Granada since 1994, Judd was seconded to Granada Broadband five months ago to work on closer integration between Granada's programming and its interactive services. His appointment has already paved the way for exclusive footage on the Cold Feet website, and now he's taking steps to change the brochureware sites and correct mistakes by building in more interactive content, such as Rovers Return and Woolpack pub quizzes.
The new Granada Broadband strategy appears to be in line with the views of industry experts. Zwillenberg says: "Broadcasters are making the same mistakes that newspapers did when they went online. It's not appropriate just to repurpose content. It's encouraging to see major media companies starting to experiment with broadband - if they don't, they'll find themselves very far back. Entertainment is to broadband what sport was to BSkyB."
While things are moving in the right direction, the long-term vision - all users accessing the website via TV while watching the programme - is still some time off. Conscious of the upcoming change, Granada is gearing up to launch PowerChannel, its TV-based analogue internet set-top box, in October. The TV internet product - free, provided users participate in monthly questionnaires - will be supported by a new entertainment portal that will promote Granada Broadband's websites. By 2001, Granada PowerChannel expects to have more than 1m subscribers.
As its name suggests, Granada Broadband is conscious that the future for broadcast entertainment on the net is heavily dependent on the uptake of broadband. So it must be reassuring to Granada chiefs to hear that their interim strategy is getting the thumbs-up from erudite consultants.
"Granada is taking important steps to understand how users interact and the value of cross promotion," says Zwillenberg. "Broadband is going to create the same sort of fundamental change that narrowband caused in book retailing and financial services. The internet has not yet hit the entertainment business. We're talking about a sea change in the way users get entertainment - but it's just the beginning."
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INDEPENDENT - 08/05/2000,
Amy Vickers Network - New Media:
Disillusioned in dot.com land
WE ALL knew it was coming, but that didn't stop the raised eyebrows and wry smiles when the first cracks started to show. It's almost as if the doomsayers take some perverse pleasure in hitting the mark and being able to squeal "I told you so" to anyone within earshot.
There was an overabundance of this trite glee last week when things started going belly-up for the likes of boo.com, TheStreet.co.uk and JustPeople.com. Not one to rub salt in the wounds, I'll be brief. Investors are bailing out by the truckload after the sudden reawakening that all that is new media is not gold. The much-anticipated crash couldn't have come a moment too soon and, by the look of things, is going to put a stop to all the silliness that has dominated UK new media for the past eight months.
The news that boo.com has stuck up the "for sale" sign is typical of many of the sentiments that are around at the moment: greed, overambition, and stupidity. Boo.com always was a good but fanciful idea that would never work in the current climate. Perhaps if it had launched in a few years, who knows? What's done is done, and boo.com will go down in history as the definitive example of a false start. It can only hope that someone comes in to rescue it.
What will now happen is that more investors get twitchy, realise a return on investment is highly unlikely, abandon the initial public offering and push to sell the businesses before the situation deteriorates. It's the first law of sensible investing. This twitchiness has also permeated startup management teams, people such as Martin Baker (TheStreet.co.uk) and Darrin Moy (JustPeople.com), who realise they're facing an uphill struggle and dot.com envy turns to dot.com disenchantment.
Many venture capitalists are slamming the door on startups, with investors in particular blanking those waving around b2c (business-to-consumer) business plans. The money is now being directed at the latest fad, b2b (business-to-business), and the bookies are already taking bets on how long this one is going to last.
The knock-on effect is that many recent startups will have to tighten their belts (no huge advertising campaigns), and learn to stand on their own two feet. The second or third round of funding that was etched into the business plan is going take some fighting for, and unless they are making money they're going to have to find a way of dealing with debt.
Many will, like CDNow, become acquisition targets, ready to be snapped up by the fat-walleted media groups that want to diversify. It's a shame that it has come to this - the fun being knocked out by greed - but it's all just jigsaw pieces in a slowly forming picture. For some it means a stronger focus and penny-pinching, while for others it means wishful thinking. Compare new media with other industries - the motor car one, for instance - and I think you'll agree that there's still some hope.
As for the faint-hearted defectors, it's worth bearing in mind that new media was never about instant riches; this message just got a little blurred during those heady Initial Public Offering-obsessed days.
Blonde ambition
So Liz Murdoch is dropping hints that she is angling after a bit of the dot.com action. Liz, 31, is leaving the "family business" to set up what is being officially described as a new media, TV and film production company.
At this stage it's not clear whether she has jumped on the 55 (the new expression for going dot.com - because the number 55 bus goes to dotcodotuk valley EC1/EC2, geddit?). In fact, nothing is really clear. Everyone is speculating. Liz, media darling extraordinaire, looks set to become the next big new media icon - a la Martha Lane Fox - because we know how the media loves to get its teeth into blonde new-media women.
amy@the-bullet.com
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