Are you ready for Social Media Convergence?


Posted on: March 14, 2013 by Paul Moore Olmstead

Ready or not, it’s already here!

About a year and a half ago in the Atos Scientific Community we started focusing on the importance that social media would have on other traditional forms of media, especially broadcasting. One of the main outcomes of this was our “Social Second Screen” where we analysed (and prepared an end user app) the relationship and, in real time, between Twitter activity and live broadcast events (and the possibilities this gives for personalization and interactivity). See my previous blog post: Instant Zeitgeist – Social Second Screen

 

Atos - Traditional Social Media Convergence

 

It seems every week there is a new piece of news that reinforces this idea. Perhaps the biggest news of the year so far in the broadcast industry might turn out to be the acquisition of Bluefin Labs, a social TV analytics firm, by social media giant Twitter for a reported $100M (http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-bluefin-labs-2013-2). The definitive push for the second screen? The end of the reign of Neilsen (the TV rating agency)? Twitter may be the new kid in town in theTV space, but they have already stated that their business model will be the second screen (http://gigaom.com/2012/10/12/dick-costolo-says-being-the-second-screen-is-the-future-of-twitter/). And while Facebook so far has been less active in this, we shouldn’t forget about their alliances with Spotify or Netflix. SN + traditional media is not new to them even though so far it has been relatively superficial.

And this week it was announced that the NY Times is using Twitter trending topics to place (and presumably price) ads in their online edition. (http://paidcontent.org/2013/02/19/the-nyt-is-doing-something-smart-by-using-twitter-trends-to-target-ads/. What’s interesting here isn’t the technical side (fairly trivial) but the monetization side. Whenever we talk about social TV somebody is bound to ask “What about monetization?” and sometimes the answer isn’t entirely clear. In this case, it is glaringly obvious.

Social TV, big data, personalization and targeting, the convergence of social and traditional media, second screen, connected TV, …

We’ve been saying all this for some time. But are you ready for it?

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About Paul Moore Olmstead
View all posts by Paul Moore Olmstead
Director of Strategic Business Development for Global Media, Atos and member of the Scientific Community
Paul Moore Olmstead has been working in the area of innovation in the media market for over 15 years. He is based in London, UK and has dual Canadian/Spanish citizenship and degrees in Economics from the University of Toronto and Computer Business Systems at Ryerson University. Previously he spent many years on the BBC Account for Atos where he was responsible for Innovation and Sustainability and before that was the head of Media in Atos Research & Innovation. With over 25 years experience in IT, Paul has worked in wide variety of areas, including public procurement, accounting, mobility, Smart Cities, analytics and media. Paul has worked in such areas as video streaming, 3D, digital preservation, social media, video analytics and recommender systems. He has been collaborating as an external expert for the European Commission for over 10 years and has been a member of the Atos Scientific Community since 2011 where he leads research in the Media area. As well, Paul is responsible for the Media Industry in the Atos Expert Community.

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