The Reach - Podcasting and other Portable Media Strategies

Ignore my sarcastic view of the PR sweet-spot words in this otherwise notable press release from Adobe.  Flash has made a big comeback with it’s popularity driven by applications in YouTube and other media aggregation sites.

Some of you may say - “Comeback - have you been under a rock or something?  Hasn’t Adobe’s Flash been a critical element of web design, rich media ads, etc for years?”  and to some degree, rightly so.  Here’s the reason for my choice of words “Comeback”:  Flash grew popular in the late 90’s and early 00’s for visually stunning mulitimedia websites.  Then came search engine optimization and search engine marketing best practices, which looked down upon the use of Flash in websites, as search engine spiders could not “read” a Flash file.  So, it’s been out of vogue if you wanted your website to be search engine friendly.

With the advent of YouTube and other media aggregation sites, Flash has become the new poster child for media distribution capabilities.  Now that it has an even newer lease on life on cellphone platforms, it may be here to stay.

So, strategic question - will the use of Flash media files take the place of MP3, MP4, due to the ubiquity of the Flash Player?  Of course, you technology strategy geniuses out there are saying “Ed - I had that figured out 2 years ago - what took you so long?”. 

This would have just a LITTLE impact on the current technology that drives music, film, podcasting and iPods, etc.  If cellphone MFRs implement Flash as their media technology of choice, the ramifications are pretty large…..I’ve already said that cellphones replace the iPod and other MPx players in the end game.  Maybe this accelerates the end game.

Over the weekend, there was some splash about a new trend - de-portalization.  One of the best posts was from edgeio with great graphics to demonstrate the definition.  The focus is on distributed content and less demand for portal sites.  The only reason I call it a misnomer is that what this is really saying is that the LARGE portals (Yahoo, etc) are becoming less significant in our overall web experience and that there are other “portals” that have new signifcance. 

For example, one cannot tell me that YouTube is not a portal.  Or that iTunes is not a portal, in the true sense of the word.  Keep in mind content aggregation is still a hot topic, so I’m just jousting on symantics.

Until search is so sophisticated that I can type in a word and get back relevant words, images, sounds, videos, etc, then I think there will be plenty of room for content aggregation. 

The good news is that the lock the big portals has had on us is loosening and many sites that are lower on the value food chain are seeing opportunity for niche plays.  Niches have value now and I think that is a trend that will continue for a long time.

At 6:55P, CST today, 9 out of 17 headlines on TechMeme are not traditional bloggers, but instead are newspaper reporters - mostly for the New York Times.  This has been a trend over recent weeks to the point that I now believe more firmly what I’ve said many times before - if traditional media begins to “get” new media, then there won’t be new media anymore - it will just be media and those thinking they had old media cornered and dead will find they have cornered a rabid dog…..

Well, no great surpise as this from Matt Richtel of the NY Times has been discussed in the blogosphere for several weeks now.  But, what I want to comment on here is that Verizon won’t have the lock on this for long (blinding glimpse of the obvious, BGO for you Barbarians at the Gates fans) and YouTube and other aggregation points will be readily accessed by cell phones soon and without too much muss or fuss.

Look for this to be the norm before long WITHOUT Verizon’s $15 surcharge….

Apparently, in the world of Web 2.0 (or other semi-relevant monikers), the rules are changing.  Surprise, Surprise, Surprise. Back in the 90’s, Mark Cuban was fond of saying “Content is King”.  While I can’t say if this slogan is attributed to him, it was and has been the rule of the web.  Today, that slogan is officially aged and cracking.

This morning, Rafat Ali, of Paid Content scoops Bear Stearns analyst Spencer Wang in his research article on how Aggregation and Context is the highest value in the information chain.  I use the word “scoop” because it showed up on TechMeme first and now the Bear Stears blog is the headliner.  Shows you how I rate and rank my content, eh?

This confirms what I’ve been believing and therefore modifying the MPReach business plan accordingly.  Watch this space for announcement of new audio/video/text networks that we’ll be launching (can’t call the digital media “podcasting or video podcasting, as Apple Computer might decide they own me….)